Walked around the Chelsea Physic Garden, about fifteen minutes from Sloane Square today. They had a Snowdrop Trail you were supposed to follow, but halfway through I just did it randomly rather than viewing each lot of snowdrops in numbered order like you were supposed to.
It was wonderful, Mum would have loved it. We visited a couple of times but not for any one kind of plant or flower. Today's event specialised in snowdrops, which were really beautiful. Inside the house there was an art exhibition featuring botanical paintings and drawings of snowdrops and other wonderfully coloured flowers.
"Physic" meant "medicine" in the eighteenth century. The garden is all about plants used for medicinal purposes from 1673 until today. They had a "dermatology" garden section, which featured plants such as evening primrose, a major factor in modern skin preparations, and even an "oncology" section showing plants used in the treatment of cancer. There were separate plants for different kinds of cancer including one used for successful treatment of testicular cancer. There was one which features in nearly all the tablets used in the preparation of anti-breast cancer drugs. It was very nearly unbelievable, but true. There they were, all these plants growing and being cultivated for the treatment of and research into, cancer and other diseases which we are so concerned with in modern times.
I bought a couple of snowdrop bulbs which I thought I could plant on Flash's grave. They will flower year by year, so they are definitely in for the long haul.
There was another garden which was called the "Garden of World Medicine" which featured plants used for Ayurvedic medicine (India) Chinese medicine and African medicinal plants.
I saw one section of flower-beds showing very pretty woodland flowers, the very first purple-lavender shaded crocuses (or croci) many different varieties of snowdrops including some with strange lantern-shaped and bell-shaped petals, and lots of others.
I felt very peaceful as I walked around and finished the afternoon sipping from a pot of Darjeeling tea at a table overlooking the lawns.
Right in the middle of the gardens stands the statue of Sir Hans Sloane, a famous doctor who founded the Natural History Museum. He is also credited with introducing milk chocolate to this country in the eighteenth century, having conducted research into the cacao plant. He disliked the taste of it until he mixed the cacao bean with milk and sugar. In the nineteenth century, Messrs Cadbury took up the cause and began manufacturing the modern milk chocolate bar we know today. Now there's a thing!
It's a place which is very therapeutic and well worth a visit when it opens full-time in Spring/Summer.
