Thank goodness for the Botanics. And some sanity in the world.

 We went to the Botanics again yesterday - it's half-way between Daughter 1's house and ours, and so it's a convenient place for us all to meet up outdoors (as we're told to do). This time we read the information board about the golden monkey (not a chimp - as Daughter 1 pointed out, chimps don't have tails). It's an art work by Lisa Roet, and the board says:

"The sculpture shows a golden snub-nosed monkey. There are five species of snub-nosed monkey. All are at risk of extinction and their future existence is in serious doubt. The five species live separately in temperate and tropical forest areas, with a different diet of leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, barks, lichens and moss. The golden snub-nosed monkey withstands cold better than any other primate (except humans with thermals). This hand-painted, inflatable sculpture is one of a series created to highlight the plight of these increasingly endangered primates."

So now we know. It's previously been on the Melbourne Town Hall in Australia, seemingly. It's certainly striking and makes a good point (or at least it does to those who read the information board). Is it art? Well, maybe. 

And the children played in the dry leaves

and jumped off a tree stump. 

And we admired them doing so, and the colours of the trees. 

From time to time, all the way round, the children suggested that we should go to the cafe and we said, yes, yes, we will once we've done the circuit of the gardens. And we got the timing completely wrong because we forgot that the gardens close at 4 at this time of year - just as we got to the cafe. The kids were astonishingly good about it. Granny fail, however. 

Good news about Joe Biden winning the American election. It must be good news, mustn't it? I wouldn't like his job, though. I'd much rather do patchwork, plant things, go for walks. Which is just as well, since that's about all that's available at the moment.