The Eden Project

This morning Rach & Speedy and Keith & I headed to St. Austell to visit the Eden Project. It's about an hour's drive from here. I've been wanting to go since we arrived, so we finally made the time to go. Speedy has been before, but the rest of us haven't been.

The Eden Project is:

"Eden is all about man's relationship with and dependence upon plants. Much of our food, our clothes, our shelter and our medicines come from the plant world. Without plants there would be no oxygen for us to breathe, no life on earth.

The Eden Project is a showcase for all the questions and many of the answers. But Eden is not a worthy, over-serious, guilt-ridden place; nor does it preach. It is about education and communication of the major environmental issues of the day, always presented in an engaging, involving, even humorous way.

More than 1,000,000 plants representing 5,000 species from many of the climatic zones of the world. Many of these can grow in the mild conditions of Cornwall, others need greenhouses and that is where Eden's two gigantic Biomes - the biggest conservatories in the world - come in."

We only made it through one of the biomes - the Rain Forest. We didn't have to spend that much time, but we did. Checking out every detail and taking so many pictures. We saw banana, pineapple and papaya trees, various palm trees, bamboo trees, a variety of pants I've never seen, and many other plants. It was fantastic. This is a fabulous charity and definitely worth to money to go. After we visited the biome we stopped for a quick bite to eat. We were going to go to the second biome, the Mediterranean but we decided to check out the Discovery Centre they have on sight. We also quickly visited the indoor skating rink they open during the fall and winter months - it's quite the rink! Not huge, but very nice with skate rentals, music playing, etc. We'll definitely have to visit again to see the rest of the place.

On the way home we stopped at a little fish market in a small village called Grampound. That was Keith's highlight of the trip. Rach and Speedy travelled separate from us as they had to get back earlier. At 7pm Keith and I went to Praa Sands where there was a fireworks display. We went to the Sand Bar restaurant which sits right on the beach. We watched some fireworks and had supper. It wasn't as great as I expected, but it was still something different to do.

The reason for the fireworks is, Monday November 5th is Guy Fawkes day, also known as Bon Fire night. "November 5th marks the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to blow up the English Parliament and King James I in 1605, the day set for the king to open Parliament. The anniversary was named after Guy Fawkes, the most famous of the conspirators. Guy Fawkes Day, is still celebrated in England with fireworks and bonfires, on which effigies of the conspirator are burned."

Because the day falls on a Monday, it seems many people and businesses have decided to celebrate it over the weekend. We have already seen a few fireworks displays last night and a few more tonight. Every so often you can hear them crackling. Even in the married patch here, several families have set them off.

When Keith and I got home we watched 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. Another not so fantastic movie. But very British! After that I couldn't keep my eyes opened and crashed for the night.