Great London Plant Fair

Another RHS London Show, this time it's the Great London Plant Fair with lots of nurseries exhibiting and selling some beautiful plants for the keen gardeners that come to the show. There was also the Daffodil and Hyacinth competitions, with rows of entries being judged by the strict Society judges, as well as the competition of the Alpine Garden Society. On Tuesday evening there was a late opening from 6 - 9pm. It was 50s themed, with cocktails and dancing and some of the RHS staff dressed up in 50s style. There were cocktails from two 'plant friendly' places - the Midnight Apothecary and the Gin Garden.

It was a cold day!

50s Morris Traveller for Gardeners

Midnight Apothcary setting up

The Gin Garden getting ready

The lights go on and the party's starting!

Midnight Apothecary
Gin Garden

New places in NOLA

With the party over, we could relax and do some fun stuff with little C. Our first outing was to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and C had a wonderful time. He loved the fish swimming overhead as we entered the Aquarium; the penguins that swam down to check out this little body who had come to visit them; trying to reach the fish when Grandpa held him over the top of one of the tanks; and popping up in the middle of a tank in the special children's area.

We also went into the aviary where he was fascinated by the budgies landing on Grandpa - all over Grandpa in fact and C tried to touch them, but they were just too fast and flew away! It was massive fun and Mummy and Daddy say they will take him back again when he is a bit older. Grandma and Grandpa had a whale of a time, too.

Not such a new place is Audubon Park where we walked with C and watched the turtles and birds on the lake.
Our last day and D took us across the ferry to Algiers Point.This is one of the oldest places in New Orleans and we had a lovely time wandering around the houses and up on the levee - dodging showers and seeing a great party of people celebrating St Patrick's Day (a bit early). We had some great coffee at the Tout de Suite café before driving back the long way round over the bridge.

Back in NOLA

This trip was mainly for C's first birthday, but it was lovely to visit some old haunts and some new places, too. To start with, we wandered down to Magazine St. and found some recent remnants of Mardi Gras as well as a couple of benches we missed last time.

 After helping with making C's cake and celebrating his birthday with the family, we had a day looking around the French Quarter, again. It's always fascinating with wonderful shop signs and interesting places.

There was a party in the park for all C's little friends and we got to and made loads of dinosaur biscuits to go with a beautiful dino cake Mum & Dad ordered from Whole Foods. There was coffee for the parents and fruit drinks for the littles. The weather was beautiful and lots of families came to join in the celebration. We all sang Happy Birthday and C 'blew' his candle out!