My sis lives in Barnes and it’s beautiful. It’s the sort of place that makes you say ‘Barnes, actually’ when people ask where in London you are staying.  So after NY I popped over to Barnes Actually for an extremely short amount of time before returning home.

During my fleeting visit we managed to squeeze in quite a lot, including a trip to the cold and extremely wet (but still beautiful) Kew Gardens which is right around the corner from where sis lives.

I was extremely excited, despite the driving rain, to have glimpsed these snowdrops and, purportedly heralding spring being just around the corner, (a blatant lie as it’s so cold in the UK right now, it simply can’t be) these crocuses:

The hot house came not in the form of a high achieving London day school but a beautiful Victorian number which was deliciously roasting and the perfect place to dry off after the horizontal rain:

An ornate, narrow spiral staircase took you right up to the roof and provided suitable, if not slightly leathal, entertainment for small people: