The Eden Project Cornwall , part one.

My Daughter and I decided to have a week in Cornwall, so I left the Itinerary and general planning to the good looking one, as she enjoys the process and usually does a good job, with a few provisios on my part eg birding sites.
    And so it came to pass that by 9am on Saturday the 13th of May we gave the old Vauxall Astra estate a good kick and set off for the M6 South. First stop a service station somewhere on the M5, they all look the same after a while, both motorways and service stations. Second stop and our first over night B&B Exeter, although strictly speaking the B&B was a few miles outside Exeter, anyway after checking in we then back-tracked into Exeter for some site seeing, this my Daughters choice, mainly to see the Cathedral and bits of ancient crumbling city wall, (at this point I referred to my smart phone as to the definition of ancient, the voice said "belonging to the very distant past and no longer in existence" , if only. However a brave smile was pasted on my face , and I didn't complain too much about all the hill climbs, and the weather was with us, lovely warm sun, what could go wrong. The first disaster struck when I couldn't understand why the shutter button on my beloved Nikon wouldn't depress, various checks were made only to eventually find out that the battery was still in the charger back in the B&B, laugh, tears rolled down my cheeks, right. Don't worry says the good looking one you can use mine, and I did on occasion, the results of which are still in her camera !!.
    Sunday the 14th and we are on our way to our next B&B in Helston. on the way it was decided we should call at Tesco for some tin foil for our home made pack lunch, this to save money, by not buying lunches, mini disaster as we had forgot to pack the 40 meter long roll we had in the Kitchen at home. I sat in the car while the Daughter went to buy said item, at this point I have to say the weather is still on our side, still sunny bordering on the very warm, !! My Daughter arrived back jubilantly waving roll of tin foil over her head, Her jubilation soon withered when big disaster number two hit, she turned the ignition key and the car didn't start. After trying a couple more times we decided to give the old car a good rest and time to cool down, and so fifteen minutes later YAY , and we are off again.
    On arrival in Helston we decided to fill up the car with diesel to save time in the morning, boy did that Idea go down the tubes, after paying for the fuel, and my Daughter jumping back in the car , yes you guessed it , big big disaster struck, no starty engine. Its that time of night now when everywhere is shut, so we emptied the car and rang for a taxi to get us to the B&B , and booked him for the following morning to get us back to the car, in the hope it would still be there. It was , and unbelievably it started, but we now decided it wasn't worth the risk of continuing before consulting a car doctor, and with a nice little repair Garage across the road , we did just that. very kind and understanding people put the car stethoscope to the engine , and two hours and £140 later we where on the road again, and arrived at the Eden Project in time to beat the crowds.
  The least said about Helston the better , and the B&B was under par, I'm sure the people that live there love their little town, won't bother me if I never see it again, and I probably won't.
      The Eden Project for those not familiar with it, is a series of biomes built on the site of an old clay pit, the largest of which houses a huge tropical rain Forrest, and another houses plants from the Mediterranean, others have shops and exhibitions, there is also a large area of outdoor gardens, and sculptures.


 

All the biomes, but only a fraction of the gardens

  

 
So they are the biomes, but before we go inside, some outdoor shots.

Huge tire, don't ask I didn't.

Beautiful Iris with lovely markings.

A begging Woodpigeon, (Columba palumbus)

Quite an unusual sculpture

A section of above, mostly made of metal.

Hibiscus , not metal.

Close up of above.

Common Green Shieldbug (Palomena prasina) this one landed on my shoulder

You wouln't want to be stung by this monster.

And that concludes part one. If the above had landed on my shoulder there wouldn't be a part two, (think it but don't say it)