Pretty Flamingo

So Valentine's Day has come and gone, and hopefully I got away with it again.

SWMBO and I visited Babylon, a  Sir Richard Branson owned restaurant in the Roof Gardens in Kensington. I have not visited the Roof Gardens for many years, the last time being a work Christmas party hosted by our marketing organisation. I went with Steve McMillan, an old mucker of mine from our time together at IBM. Steve now lives over the pond, and co-incidentally its his birthday today, so have a good one matey!

The roof gardens were built on top of  the Derry and Toms department store which  was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect  They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.

The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba until 1975, they have been listed as a Grade II site by the English Heritage since  1978.
The Roof Gardens have been rented from their owners by Sir Richard Branson since 1981 and as well as the restaurant, there is a nightclub on the garden level which is  divided into three themed area's.

• a Spanish garden, in a Moorish style based upon the Alhambra in Spain, with fountains, vine-covered walkways and Chusan palms;
• a  Tudor style garden, characterised by its archways, secret corners and hanging  wisteria. Roses, lilies and lavender contribute the rich summer scent to the garden;
• an English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a  garden pond that is the home to pintail ducks and four  flamingos called Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks. There are over 30 different species of trees in the woodland garden, including trees from the original planting over sixty years ago, despite having only a metre of soil in which to grow. Although they are on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orders in 1976.

Unfortunately the Flamingos were tucked up in bed for the night when we went, and only the terrace shown in the photo was open. London was being battered by high winds and I think a flying lady was the last thing Virgin and Sir Richard wanted that night.

Still its a wonderful hidden gem, which cannot be seen from the road, and it is available to the public to visit whenever there is no private function booked. I commend it to you all if you are in the area.

Yeah man

I am back from a few weeks of sun in the West Indies, getting a tan and grooving my swing for the upcoming golf challenges I face. The hotel had one communal tele and that was it, no internet feeds, no newspapers and no children. Deep joy.

The ash cloud did its best to prevent us getting there, but all credit to the Virgin Airways flight crew who worked to within 30 minutes of their legal hours to get us there, albeit 7 hours late. We returned on schedule, and what a changed place we arrived back to.

A hung parliament when we left meant we had no idea who was ruling Brittania, so it was interesting to see 'our' Dave had jumped into bed with young Clegg to form a Lib/Dem/Con government. Grumpy Gordon has fallen on his sword I hear so it will be interesting to have a new leader of the opposition. I am still catching up on the other political ramifications.

Money markets continue to drop on the back of the uncertainty in the Euro zone and I see an indiscreet IBM executive has forecast that the IBM worldwide work force could reduce by 299,000 employees in the next 5 years. Wow. Our leader is denying this and describes the comments as ludicrous. Time will tell.

I see Chelsea did the league and FA Cup double this year. Gone are the days when this was a rare feat for any team to achieve. it is now becoming much more the norm. One piece of sports news I did catch up with was England winning the 20/20 World Cup. As it was in the West Indies while we were there we did manage to take in a couple of group games and the England semi-final. All a good craic.

The sun has blasted the UK while we were away but has now done the usual and disappeared behind the clouds up here in Scouse, no doubt it will rain on the Bank Holiday weekend!!

So welcome back to Blighty I say. I will search out my first pint of Pride later today.