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| Some funny headlines in UK |
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| Fancy |
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| Chelsea Physic Garden |
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| Chelsea Physic Garden |
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| Joseph Banks at Chelsea Physic Garden |
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| A little bit of autumn colour |
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| Chelsea Physic Garden |
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| Cupcake shop on the tourist trail |
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| Wicked |
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| Wicked |
The day starts with a man from Bavaria wanting to know how to get to the V & A. Now that's a question I can answer. I find out that he is English, however, has lived in Germany for the last 30 years, so now with Brexit he has to get a new passport. Not a happy chappy. Everyone still has a different opinion on Brexit.
I am back in Chelsea, home of fancy shops and pensioners. Quick pit stop at Satchii Gallery, boring but score one for a very nice inside-outside postcard. Now a ramble through the streets and I arrive at my chosen destination.
This is Chelsea Physic Garden, started 350 years ago to train apothecaries in the identification and use of medicinal plants. It's amazing that the garden is still here, a 4-acre oasis set amongst some of the most expensive real estate in London. The bit I am most interested in is the plants Joseph Banks brought back from Australia. But I find there are lots of other interesting bits like including:
- lots of poisonous plants including mandrake that has long been used in witchcraft and for hallucinogenic purposes (even used in Harry Potter stories)
- volcanic rocks that form the edge of the pond that where ballast in Joseph Banks’s expedition to Iceland
- Hans Sloane who trained as an apothecary here then went on to make his fortune by discovering the chocolate plant (once rich he became a collector and after his death, his collection formed the basis of the British Museum)
Lunch and for the afternoon I am back in Victoria to see the show Wicked, a musical that has been running for 14 years. The first 5 minutes are a blur of colour, dancing and music, not sure what is happening. Then the plot starts, good witch v’s bad witch. My verdict, brilliant.
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