I woke to sun and thus it was the perfect morning to go to Kew Gardens to do the October post of my A Year in Kew Gardens series. Due to the influx of rugby fans for the Rugby World Cup at Twickenham, I decided it wasn’t sensible to move my car from its place outside my house as I knew that later it would be madness on the roads. So I took a bus into Richmond and changed to a 65 that dropped me right outside Victoria Gate. Easy! I arrived slightly before opening time at 10.00 a.m. and there was already a large crowd of people waiting to get in. And with half term this week, there were activities for kids on offer – involving spices and pirates!

Kew Gardens is very good at organising these ‘extras’ – there’s always more on offer than simply going round the botanical gardens. It’s slightly different for me, a local with a season ticket, who can just pop in for a walk anytime. If you’re paying the full entry fee (£15 adult ticket; £34 family ticket for 2 adults with 2 children), then you’ll want to spend more than an hour having a walk; you’ll want to make a day of it. While some people take a picnic, there are also a number of restaurants and cafés to eat in and a great shop with a small plant nursery as you head out of Victoria Gate at the end.

I was, of course, expecting stunning autumn colours today as we approach the end of October and are about to enter the wintery month of November. There were beautiful reds, oranges, yellows and bronze colours to be found but it’s not the most spectacular autumn for colours I’ve known. We’ve simply not had a good enough, sunny summer to bring the riot of gorgeous colours that we enjoyed a couple of years ago. Still, I had a lovely walk and the Gardens looked beautiful as ever. They were surprisingly busy for first thing on a Sunday – I think the busiest I’ve noticed on my regular walks at this time over the year.

Anyway, that’s enough ‘talk’ – here are some photos of what I saw and enjoyed on my walk today:

What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning. I just love spending time walking in the Gardens. And because I’d unusually come without my car, I didn’t have to walk back to Victoria Gate but exited via Lion Gate, closer to Richmond, so just walked back there.