It's been an interesting week for us. On Tuesday, I went to get some groceries on my way home from work, and as I was walking them up to our front door, I saw that someone had left a pile of bags outside. They were filled with food from a store we don't usually go to, and one bag was full of cat food, so we knew it wasn't for us. There was no name or receipt attached, so we couldn't find out where it was meant to have been delivered to. I put a sign up in the lift (which everyone uses to get to the garage), and left the bags outside in case someone came looking for them. They were still there the next day when I came home from work, so we claimed it. The cat food went to one of our friends, along with the two cases of cherry pepsi, but we accepted the (four) loaves of bread, the toilet roll and the packet of biscuits.
On Saturday we called our friend from Mitchell's old lab in Nottingham, and she starts her new postdoc position in Texas very soon! We're very excited to have her so close and go visiting, hopefully in the autumn.
That was it for Saturday, but we did also finish our video game and have a very good takeaway.
On Sunday we drove over to Pasadena to spend the day at the Huntington Library and Gardens. It's a huge garden, with several sections, including the jungle, semi-tropical, desert and two large sections they call their Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden.
 |
| The desert garden |
The Chinese garden had several buildings included as part of it, all in a traditional style and had two cafes. There was a walled section which had a lot of bonsai trees and some interesting rock sculptures. It all surrounded a large pond with very pretty bridges and weird lilypads.
 |
| A small building at the end of the path |
 |
| Tall lily pads |
 |
| Bonsai garden |
 |
| Me in front of a bridge |
 |
| Another small building |
We got to the Japanese garden by walking through some bamboo and arriving at a zen garden, with a small stream and more traditional buildings. There was a single duckling swimming on this stream, and we couldn't see its family; I hope it was ok, it didn't seem too small. It was a lot of slopes and there was shady rest areas which I think might have been covered in blossom if we'd been there at the right time. There was even a building with a traditional tea ceremony set up inside. You couldn't go inside, but the walls were all open and you could see the rooms within.
 |
| The path through the Japanese garden |
 |
| The house on the hill |
 |
| The gate to even more garden |
 |
| The bamboo walk |
 |
| Japanese house |
 |
| House and a fancy bridge we weren't allowed to walk on |
We also saw a lily pad garden, and a rose garden, which was outside one of the art galleries and had a lot of Greek statues surrounding it.
We stopped for lunch in one of the cafes and then for bubble tea in the Chinese tea shop. We still had to find the jungle section as we'd managed to miss it with all the winding paths. It was a small section, but it completely blocked the sun and it was a lot damper inbetween the tall swampy trees. We also briefly found a small herb garden tucked away.
We'd spent several hours wandering around by now, but we'd only seen half the attractions! As well as a huge garden, the site has several art galleries and a library. We only stopped in a couple of galleries, but the library was pretty cool. They had some very old books and manuscripts on display, including some letters from the civil war, notes from Shakespeare, and a medieval copy of Chaucer, complete with illuminated script.
 |
The entrance to one of the galleries
|
 |
| Inside the library |
We were tired after spending a long day in the sun, so we didn't go in most of the other galleries, and decided to call it a day. It was a very pretty place, especially if you love gardens!
Until next week,
Your favourite Emily and Mitchell
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Comments
Post a Comment