King Tibbet: Robin Wiliams R.I.P

Sunday 17 August 2014

Robin Wiliams R.I.P

Sad to hear about Robin Williams dying, depression can be a right cunt sometimes and we all remember him from better days, either from stand up or the numerous film and TV shows he was in. My favourite film of his, has to Jumanji, but Mrs Doubtfire and the voice of the genie in Aladdin also get an an honourable nod as his finest hour. R.I.P dude you'll be missed.

Avery Hill.

As part of the Greenwich University campus Avery Hill is a park right at the edge of Eltham comprising of several open spaces, a garden, the winter gardens and a cafe. Royal Greenwich calls it as such.

This large, open parkland with many splendid trees, is notable for its winter garden (a magnificent hothouse), containing tropical trees and plants from around the world. There is also a rose garden, affording a pleasant place to sit and relax."

I'd been past when they where renovating the winter gardens back in 2012 and hadn't been back since. Its easy enough to get to from my end a 51 bus to Blackfen and a longish walk down toward Eltham which will get you to the park without much fuss.

Its true that there are a lot of nice specimen trees and such in the park and they had a Rowan with berries as well as a nice Eucalyptus with scaly bark. But I'm a cactus man at heart so its off to the winter gardens which were at last open. This is where it went majorly wrong, for some reason the "magnificent hothouse" had morphed into a tired old place with a few disappointing mislabeled species of cacti and succulents and a few other specimens that were not much better. They had a guardhouse separating off the statue of Galatea they have there and another ante room with a selection of wildlife photographs and a few other plants in pots including what appeared to be a 10 foot Espostoa in an 8inch pot.

Other stuff was hilariously mislabeled including what looked to be an Echinopsis that they had down as an Aporocactus. A Cephalocereus Senilis that looked a lot like an Oreocereus Celsianus and an Agave Victoria Reginae that I had to relabel there and then, due to it being several feet away on something else.

On the other they did have a few gems including a nice set of Haworthias including Truncata and a big clump of Gasteria Verrucosa which could be all one plant. They had Jersey Lillies and Pokeweed too, and pigeons flying in and out of a massive palm so it wasn't all bad.
After that I decided to go home through the rose garden (nice) and walk into Eltham (not far) to get the bus home.