This big one isn't the top of a shovel. And this little one isn't a bracelet.
They're both forms of early African currency.The top one is hoe currency, probably dating from 1800 and the bottom is a Manilla from around 1650. I like them because they are good looking but I'm also interested in money: in a theoretical way and in a greedy way. Differing ideas of worth is something I come up against all the time being out on the market. How one customer can say "Twenty pounds for that!? I'd give you two" (these customers are usually old men of the 'codger' variety) and then another customer strolls up and says "lovely, I'll take it". Money and exchange and worth are things in such constant flux it can twist my brain around.
The manilla is made of some kind of copper alloy and I think the hoe currency is iron. At their time of use their value would be the same as the materials they're made of; meaning they might have been melted down and used. For this reason they're known as commodity money, they have an intrinsic worth, whereas my purse is crammed full of representative money (coppers mostly). Commodity money interests me, it seems quite instinctive and seems to spring up in times of need - like Prisoners of War using cigarettes as cash, I wonder whether we'll ever see any commodity currencies popping up round here (I bloody hope it's plant pots if we do).
The Manilla is also an amazing thing because it might not have been produced in Africa but exported there from here (Europe that is), it may also have played it's part in the slave trade, which feels a bit odd. I have them on my desk, something about their strong forms and history pleases me almost too much.
Top notch toot.
A Very heroic looking design on this frame . . .
A good hat, made of bamboo that is split at one end then reed added around and around until it splays out - clever.
Jars with nice simple fixings.
Handsome hooks.
That picture in a frame is a Chrisitian quote all carefully sewn onto what looks like tiny peg-board.
And a very fine woven blanket.
Off to market tomorrow, off to bed stupidly early tonight.
Only thing is: whilst the front cover is in tantalising multicolor . . .
Everything inside is in black and white. Oh well.
Went to the RA summer show (our clever friend 
Jack and I got all arty in the courtyard.
Then we went home and ate a lot of food (I snapped the soup being prepared, I really like that picture) and watched a lot of telly while lying on the sofa with sleeping bags. All this because we knew Saturday night would be entirely devoid of sleep.
Jack and I cycled through the night, on a tour called Velonet - it was part of Architecture Week. Not anything like the 
Huddled under the A12 near Hackney Wick, we listened to an architects view of the Olympic buildings, about the amount of semi-permanent structures at the site and their thoughts on legacy. And as the night wore on we got a little tired and absolutely soaked with rain but I loved it. It's so nice to cycle in a group, I won't pretend we did much socialising but it was nice to share radios and smirk at each other as we stood listening, there was a sense of sleepy camaraderie. We ended up at Canary Wharf and at five in the morning a small orchestra played for us - it was surreal and incredible. Twenty minutes before we'd been huddled by our radios in an empty market in Poplar, then we were invited into an enormous glass concert hall with the most incredible marble floor (and a small man with a big fluffy mop wiping at all the puddles left by dripping cyclists). You can imagine how soporific the music was, the orchestra finished with Summertime by Gershwin and a few people just about managed a standing ovation before sitting down again.
. . . Then we had to cycle all the way home! It was amazing to see central London deserted . . . and it was amazing to make it home after nearly twenty four hours of awake time and fall into bed.
That's all. Hope your weekends were equally happy.
Nice hat Mr Richard.
I bloody love Kew, it's pretty close to perfect. 
This peacock refused to face the camera, his backside is also quite fetching though.
Brian was a much more cooperative model.
The baby coots reminded me of 
The waterlily house was one of my favourite bits, it was built especially for the giant waterlily (named after Queen Victoria). The lily itself is grown from new each year so it doesn't get too big for it's pond. The leaves have really pronounced veins underneath that trap air, making it float real good - enough to 
And Richard took us for a peep around the greenhouses, where things are being nurtured and propagated to go out into the gardens.
This tree got in the way of a nice view so they moved it.
Everything's done on such an enormous scale, pallets and pallets of pots for planting up.
They also use a lot of terracotta pots which I found encouraging. They lose moisture quicker than plastic pots which makes them ideal for succulents and alpines. (I don't know whether I told you but I've bought about four thousand Victorian terracotta plant pots - not a bad purchase eh?)
Richard showed us plants that he'd bought back from the Falklands.
I have grilled the two of them about their Falklands visit - so that's a whole other post for another day.
Whilst snooping the greenhouses I also learnt of the devastating effect of BADGER DAMAGE. Can you imagine how rubbish BADGER DAMAGE could be? You've travelled half way around the world, carefully collected tiny seeds - probably using tweezers whilst hanging over a cliff - packaged them meticulously and sent them to a team of gardeners who grow a tiny plant, carefully mimicking the conditions of it's native environment. Then a badger comes and has a roll around on it.
Then to the Herbarium. As you go in there's an impressive collection of wax flowers that were commissioned as teaching aids.
The Herbarium is an incredible building, crammed full of specimens - some dating back centuries - collected from all over the world, some collected by Darwin, some collected by Richard. It's obviously very well organised but also quite chaotic looking, once you get in the cupboards it's all stacks of crinkly paper with notes sticking out of them.
The specimens are stored according to country. When you take one off the shelf you have to carefully slide a piece of cardboard under it to minimise the risk of dropping it. 
The plants inside are beautiful.
The way they are laid out means you can see the shape of the leaves and the buds, wall-worthy.
Small plants are stored in folded envelopes.
I was surprised to learn that specimens get sandwiched in newspaper - because it does the job very well and is readily available all over the world.
We went to Richard's office, where they're not allowed to have plants on their desks, because of the insects they might attract.
So all the foliage in the room is of the flat and crispy variety. 
It was a splendid day, I'm so lucky: I almost overdosed on interesting information and beautiful things and went home feeling awfully jammy thanks to those lovely chaps.
Some lattice-ish shelves.
A nice spotty scarf in very fine soft wool.
Some plant pot holders.
Some fifties drinking straws, nice packaging and inside they're all the stripy paper straws. I wouldn't drink through them: but I might make something a little 
Talking of retro - here's a special case for making a jam roly-poly. 
The end.