Mia writes:
This week has been lovely, we had the choristers over for dinner and they sang some beautiful songs around the piano.
We went to the Eden project and it was so amazing! The Eden project is an educational charity, the exhibits show our dependence on the natural world. They have the biggest Biodome in the world. I loved seeing all the beautiful plants, flowers and the animals to. In the Rain forest Biodome We saw really cool birds that were black with red crests and they were eating off a very strange tree that had dark purple berries growing right off the stock of the tree. I was so hot I had sweat on my brow! The temperature inside the tropical biodome was 38 degree. I was saved from the heat by a beautiful waterfall that sprayed me with mist but that didn’t last as we moved on. I really appreciated the coolness of the Mediterranean dome. In there we saw orange lemon and limes. The smells of the herbs and flowers and cacti were sweet. There were some riddles and beautiful sayings written on stones.
“Man did not weave the web of life he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.”
-Chief Seattle
There were cork trees growing in the Mediterranean biome. When cork trees are 25 to 30 years old they will do their first strip for cork. Around 15 billion wine corks are pulled a year. Trees can produce around 4000 corks per strip. Cork Trees unlike most trees regenerate their bark. This is stripped off at nine to twelve year intervals for up to 200 years. The bark is made up of dead cells and contains a waterproofing wax called Suberin. Cork is one of the world’s most important renewable non-timber products.
It has been a fantastic week.
Mia
Ruben writes:
This has been an amazing last week here in Cornwall.
For me the high light for this week (and maybe even for my whole stay in Cornwall) has been The Eden Project. It was sooo amazing, I absolutely loved it. Let me tell you the story:….While we were driving to the Eden I asked: “so, what is this “”Eeeden Poject”” thingy?” I thought that it was going tobe just another lame museum, but when mom said that it was about “plants” I wanted to go all the less. When we rounded the corner into the parking lot I wanted to stay in the car and just read my book. But I didn’t want to spoil mom and dads fun of torturing me so I tagged along. We got our tickets and looked out side, I could NOT believe my eyes, I was looking down on the winding paths down to two Biomes, the “Core” building, a giant Bee, weird trees and a very large bridge. I sprinted down the windy paths and went strait to the big Bee. It seemed to be made of a weird paper-machey material. Mom said that we had a lot to see so we moved on.
““Eden was built in an old clay pit to demonstrate regeneration, the art of the possible and … hope.””
We went right to the entrance of the bigger Biome, Dad, Mom, Mia and I got blasted off our feet by a heat wave as we entered. We went in sweating from head to toe, my jeans sticking to my legs but I felt sorry fore dad who had a long sleeve collar shirt and Long-Johns on, in the thirty eight degree Biome. We saw such awesome plants, Coffee Bean plants, Rubber Plants and I even had a smoothie made out of Coconut, baobab and it was delicious. The flowers were so unreal it was hard to believe that they were not fake!
The heat was sensational, the camera lens was fogging up and dad even thought that something was leaking in the backpack, but it was just the condensation coming off our water bottle!
Mia was starting to whine and minge about how hot she was getting but I was too distracted by the LIVE birds and lizards to care. I also enjoyed taking micro shots of crazy plants. While mom, dad and I where awing at facts about the rubber tree Mia kept on walking (in her stubborn way of getting what she wants) because she wanted to get out and away from the heat. So when we turned around she had disappeared. Mom went the way that was closest to the exit while me and dad headed off in the “cool dude way”. I took some more micro shots of plants on the way. We saw the weirdest tree of all, it had it’s fruit growing on it’s bark! It turned out that it was a rare tree called J. Mia finally got her way and we Explored our way out of the Rain Forrest Biome.
Once we had jogged our way to the second and smaller Biome we got smacked in the face by the smells of cooking food (but luckily more reasonable temperatures of the Mediterranean). I quickly decided on behalf of the family that we were going to eat here for lunch but OVIUSLY MooOOoooOoOom wanted to “explore” first. We saw Greek statues while sauntering up a path-way up a hill to gaze over the whole contents of the Biome. Some fruiting plants we saw had riddles on signs beside them:
“I am
Christmas
Summer bottom of the stocking
I am ration book memory
Cold comforter
Small sun
On a grey day.
I am
Bridal blossom
Travelled
Painted
Sainted.
I am Spanish lady
America’s baby
I have blood
And navel
Skin
And seed…
Who am I?”
We walked back down and did not realize it when we crossed the border between the Mediterranean and America. We figured it out pretty quickly once we saw the cow skin and cowboy hat. I spotted some little plantations on the ground, and when I looked closer I saw that they were chilly peppers! After reading some signs I realized that the heat of peppers is measured in S.H.U. ,named after the guy who discovered them. I looked closer to a plant and saw that some of the chillies had fallen on the ground and starting to rot, so I picked one that was not to bad and put it in my pocket to eat later.
We did end up having lunch in the Mediterranean biome and I got a delicious, succulent mouth-watering fish stew.
That’s my highlight for this week,
Your Biome lov’in student
Ruben
P.S the answer to the riddle is “Orange”
