Hive

Finally! I got to see The Hive, a 17m high metal sculpture that was moved to Kew Gardens from the Milan Expo almost three years ago. 

As you get closer to the meadow surrounding it, the buzzing gets louder - in the key of C. I had no idea that bees buzzed in a key, let alone the basic key in western music. How wonderful! Did we build our music around the sound of bees?

Children climb onto the glass floor part way up the structure and seem, from below, to be insects themselves, especially with undone shoelaces. The Hive is connected to actual beehives at Kew and 1,000 LED lights come on and off based on the activity of the real bees.

My mum and I spent six hours wandering in Kew Gardens, looking for and at the Dale Chihuly glass sculptures dotted around in an exhibition that lasts till October. Two in extras. We were very lucky to be there on a day when the sun spilled through the glass.

And to the National Theatre's production of Andrea Levy's Small Island. I loved it. (A bonus for having traded in the spare ticket when I was  abandoned at this one.)

Black and white in colour 189