Eleni Drinks Tea in Cornwall! Part One: The Eden Project

You may have been wondering what my fella and I got each other as birthday presents, being that we share our birthday and all.  Well, I think this year we outdid ourselves (although the Lego pirate ship he got me for our one year anniversary set the bar pretty high): we went to see Fleet Foxes play a gig at the Eden Project, then made a weekend of it in Cornwall!  It was a wonderful, wonderful weekend, so I've split it into a game of two halves for you.

Now, I'm sure you've all heard of Fleet Foxes, so you can imagine how perfect an outdoor concert by them on a summer's eve would be, but if you haven't heard of the Eden Project, then you're about to get your mind blown, just a little bit.  It's essentially a conservation project, in which a bunch of botanists took over an abandoned chalk quarry in Cornwall and turned it into an enormous garden, but what it is most famous for are its "biomes".  If you never saw Bio-Dome (starring Pauly Shore, one of the Baldwins, and Kylie...what do you mean you never saw it?!) then imagine Total Recall and you're getting close (minus any triple-boobed aliens, mind).   Here's how they look during the day:

And here's how they looked at night, during the gig:

Magical!  (Thanks to the Royal Wedding, I now can't use that word without thinking of that nutcase from Bucklebury - go on, click it and have a giggle if you don't know who I'm talking about).

The gig was excellent - the members of Fleet Foxes play about a million different instruments each and they all swapped round during the show.  The singing was beautiful and the venue was perfect.  We (The Nerd, the boy and I) may have got somewhat lost driving back to our B&B (dear Cornwall, would a few more roadsigns kill you?!) but that really was the only downside to the whole weekend (well, that and the fact that I couldn't get a cup of tea after about 9pm at the gig, but that was made up for the next day, as you shall see...).

The gig tickets also gave us entry to the Eden Project the following day, so we went back to have a proper look around.  There was plenty to see, like giant bees...

...and flowers the size of my face...

...picture-perfect hibiscus in the Rainforest Dome...

...and giant palms...

...and some totems made from burnt driftwood from a shipyard:

Even the dead things were pretty:

After over-heating slightly in the Rainforest Dome we stopped for (a sensational) lunch in the cafe, before sauntering into the Mediterranean Dome, which was a perfect 20-25 degrees (that's mid-70s, for my US readers).  There were actually a lot more flowers in the Med Dome that in the Rainforest, which I was a little suprised about.  My family's from Cyprus, and (as much as I love it) I never associate Cyprus with being particularly green or particularly flowery, but I guess it's that crucial bit further east than the rest of the Med, so it's a little more Middle Eastern in its climate and plant life.  When the boy reminded me that France, Spain, and Italy are also Mediterranean (I do get possessive about these things) it all made a bit more sense.

We were greeted at the entrance by the offer of a 10 minute massage, which we both eagerly signed up for (we're both cursed with poor posture, tight muscles and crunchy joints, old biddies that we are).  What a dream job!  Massaging people all day long in a Mediterranean biome.  Sigh...Secret Dream Job Number 6.

Once we emerged, refreshed, from the Meditarranean Dome we decided to treat ourselves to a cream tea.  I may have (as usual) gone a little overboard with the cream, but when in Cornwall...right?

We were at the Eden Project until closing time, and I absolutely loved it.  I would really love to go back in the winter to soak up some of that heat and tranquility when I need it most!

As a final bonus, I discovered, whilst sauntering back to the car, that my snazzy little point-and-shoot has a pretty impressive macro setting in my beloved Foliage Mode:

I only discovered last year that dahlias are my second favourite flowers ever (you know what my favourites, are, right?).

We made it back to our B&B at around 7pm, with vague ambitions of walking into St Austell and finding some pub grub, but we were actually so full up from the massive portions at the Eden Project that we decided to stay in and get cosy.  There were tea-making facilities in the room, of course.

Next time I'll tell you what we got up to on the Sunday!