In the footsteps - literallly- of Chuck and Al(fred)

Hello Dear Readers,

This week I was fortunate enough to attend a small meeting on early events in Monocot evolution. (Monocots are a group of plants made up largely of lilies, grasses and palms that I work on at Kew). The meeting was held at the Linnean Society in London, the same place (but not the same room) that Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace co-presented their ideas on evolution by means of natural selection.

At the head of the room is the Alligator skin chair (with lovely embroidered cushion) under portraits of three very important scientists. Linneas is in the center (father of the system we use for naming all life on earth), flanked by Hooker (famous botanists, former Keeper at Kew) and someone else who's name had rubbed off. There were also portraits of Darwin, Wallace, Robert Brown (from whom we get Brownian motion) and others.


The Linnean Society (oldest botanical society in the world) is in the same complex of buildings as the Royal Society for Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy and the Arts. This is the Royal Society, the building where Darwin and Wallace actually presented their work. Upstairs from the meeting room was the Linnean library where tons of rare and fantastic books are kept. The basement also houses Linnean's original herbarium specimens from which many of the names of common plants are derived.

How cool is my life!

Hampton Court - and good old William and Mary!

Hello Dear readers,

Last weekend while Mom, Chris, AND Pat were over in Cyprus so I took the opportunity to go with a friend from work to one of the places that I can get into free with my Kew pass.


We chose Hampton Court, the former pleasure palace of Henry VIII, who just happened to be getting 'married' the day we went.

First Hannah and I went out to see the grounds, and enjoyed doing the hedge maze. We managed in under 10 min, not too bad. It reminded me a lot of the William and Mary triathlon except it wasn't dark and we weren't listening out for the police....

I also noticed this interesting crest over one of the windows which looked just like the William and Mary symbol, what a coincidence. Turning the corner I saw this:

It's a little hard to see in this picture, but in the rectangle above the Corinthian columns is William and Mary writ out in Latin, quite large. Apparently they inherited the place from Henry VIII and added a whole suite of apartments!

Heading back towards the palace we saw the man himself headed to his stag party.

Along with our tickets came free audio tours, so we went through the William and Mary apartments, then Henry VIII's area (and saw the newly married Henry and Katherine Parr announced as Man and Wife) and finally finished up with the kitchens.

All in all a very grand day out, and thanks to Hannah for coming up with the idea and hanging out with me!

Oliver!

Hello Dear Readers,

More on my Sister and Mom's trip to London last week. Mom left on Friday for Cyprus with Chris while Cat, Pat and I had a grand day out in the city. In the morning Cat and I went to Leisceister Square to get discount tickets to a West End show (and randomly ran into Chris's cousin, who lives in North London. Who says it's a big impersonal city?). We were hoping for Lion King but they didn't offer cheap tickets. Instead we went with Oliver which was a FANTASTIC show! And I remembered a lot more of the songs than I thought I did. But first, while waiting for our brother to get there we did a highlights tour of the National Gallary (led by me, showing Cat some of my favorites)

Then we went across the street to St. Martin's in the Fields and had lunch in the Crypt. Yes, really in the crypt where they put dead people.

Here we are sitting over grave stones...... and next is the Drury Lane Theatre where we saw the show. The sets were amazing, they changed the background cityscape so you feel like they are really running through the theatre. At one point a train was supposed to be passing overhead onstage and I was confused for about a minute when it didn't go by, I was that absorbed in the show!

After the show we headed to Gordon's Wine bar, the oldest bar in London, but first encountered some Dalaaks...

After Cat figured out how to take pictures by candlelight (we sat and had a drink actually in the old wine celler) we drained the bottle and talked for a solid hour as only Lindon's can. Loudly, with much teasing and bickering. Great times, we should do this more often than once every 3 years.....

Feeling a little tipsy, we traipsed over toward Waterloo Station, where Cat and I went on our "flight" on the Eye. Luckily the long line let us sober up a little before we went up.

Aww, what a fantastic trip. I wish Cat could visit every weekend! Thanks for coming over sissy!

Visit Mania!!

Hello Dear Readers,

Been very quiet lately because I was getting ready to have guests (read: cleaning house top to bottom) and then playing hostess for a week!

My mother and sister came to London to see us all! Mom and Cat spent Tuesday hanging out in Putney and then Wednesday I took them into the City, here we are crossing Waterloo Bridge.

We did a lot of the tourist stuff, Covent Garden (think My Fair Lady)...

...and the British Museum.

Went to my brother's office in Holborn (three buildings down from where we stayed with the band in high school) and had lunch at a fish and chips shop in Soho. Fantastic shoe shopping district there by the way....

Thursday mom and Catherine spent the day at Kew Gardens while I was at work. In the evening we stuck around to participate in Summer Swing at the gardens and saw a production of "Dancing in the Streets."

It was a fantastic evening of pickle sandwiches, Stevie Wonder and co. and dancing of course! Also free samples of Grand Marnier and oranges and a general good time.

Mom and Chris headed to Cyprus on Friday while Cat and I spent the day recovering. Saturday the three of us kids had a day in the city together, but I'll post that later this week, right now my brother and I made seven layer Mexican dip and are about to start watching the World Cup (think Super Bowl, but with worse commercials). Go Spain!