Eden Project

After all these years, I got here!

I was surprised and delighted that I challenged myself to climb up a wobbly staircase to the very top of the biome - where it was 42⁰C in 75% humidity - to look down on the canopy (extra 2), and that I did it! I used to be scared of heights and have very gradually over the years been overcoming my fear. Extra 1 is another view of the platform from below.

I was also delighted and very surprised to find that the tropical rainforest biome had much more on Cameroon (where I lived 1986-87) than the size of the country would lead you to expect.

I was entranced by a bird in that biome that looks like an avocado with a dead leaf for a wing (extra 4). I've since discovered it's a crested partridge, or roul-roul.

The Mediterranean biome is smaller and feels much more familiar. I made notes of plants that might survive in my garden, assuming the temperature in the UK continues to rise.

In the Core building was a bizarre ceramic 'machine' whose smoke rings so completely engaged me that I forgot to read anything about what it represented. Extra 5.

I took some photos of people on the long, super-fast zipwire, but that felt like a dare too far for me. Until, at the bus-stop waiting to go back to St Austell, I met two women not a huge amount younger than me who said it was brilliant. I looked at them again and realised they were the two I'd photographed! Pictures are on their way to them and I now want to go back!