On The Seventh Night Of Hanukkah...

.... my true love gave to meeeeee. Well not my true love actually. My cousin and his wife took us, Mum, DD and me, to see the Christmas lights at Kew Gardens. Hanukkah is also called the festival of lights and I'd say we did the Seventh Night proud with the magnitude and wonder of Christmas at Kew.

Can you believe I'd never been to Kew Gardens before? I suddenly realized that I'd missed out on Kew a few years ago and I put it on my list of things to do when in London. And then of course I never got round to it. So this time we went. We went in the dark so obviously I'll have to go again, but now I've seen how easy it is to get there I surely will go again.

Back to this visit. It was magical. I don't know why all those Winter Wonderland attempts are such rubbish? Kew Gardens managed it in spectacular style.

There was a walk into Narnia, carol singing trees, Santa Claus and his grotto in pantomime, a fairground, roasted chestnuts, roast your own marshmellows on an open fire, mulled wine and hot cider, a magical bridge over the lake with swans floating in the lamplight, bubbles, tunnels, fairy tale forests, woodland creatures, and lots of Christmas trees.

The tropical pavilion provided a spectacular backdrop to musical fountains in the lake with holograms dancing around them.

You get to see everything as you follow the trail, stopping as much as you like. We took a short break at the fairground to ride on the carousel. All in all we were there for just over two hours but you can do the trail in an hour and a half. And of course you can go around again if you want to. We didn't but I'd definitely do it all again another year.

These pictures are a mixture of mine (the rubbish ones) and my cousin's wife's which are much better than mine. I don't understand why - we both pointed our phones in the same direction and mine is not  rubbish phone.

Thank you Doreen and Jeffrey, we loved it!