Theme thursday...

...wings


Trafalgar Square used to be full of pigeons. And hence full of wings and feathers and little scraggy pigeon feet.

The square was also full of people feeding pigeons. And people taking photos of people feeding pigeons. And people covered with pigeons. And people selling food for feeding pigeons. And therefore full of pigeon shit.

Our previous Mayor of London put a stop to all that featheryshitty nonsense and the Square is now cleaner and altogether more enjoyable.

However London is still full of pigeons, they hang out anywhere they can, and they are quick to clean up any edible messes left behind, as here at a cafe in St. James' Park




St. James' Park is also awash with gulls


ducks and geese


swans



and pelicans





(and of course with people feeding pigeons (and gulls and ducks and swans and pelicans). And people taking photos of people feeding pigeons (and gulls and ducks and swans and pelicans). And people covered with pigeons (and sometimes with gulls. Not with ducks, swans or pelicans. At least not that i've seen) (but sometimes with squirrels). And people selling food for feeding pigeons (and gulls and ducks and swans and pelicans). And therefore full of pigeon shit (& etc. etc.)


But its altogether different in a green and leafy park.

hair (theme thursday)

Traditional




and
less traditional




(LG has not, in the past, done the allergy test. She now needs no persuasion from me to do so.)

highs and lows and clean towels

(no pics. but lots of links to other peoples' ....)


The high point of my summer -

my stay in Nyack with Ched:

days in New York city and in Brooklyn,
wanderings in beautiful New York state
and a weekend in the Catskills - all with Ched, and at times also Steve

Our Catskills weekend included a visit to a giant kaleidoscope, and Hippiefest 2008 in Bethel
(pics and vids here and here and here)


Ched's blog has more posts about some of our wanderings, (posts between July 26 and August 8th) and I will post some of my own pictures when I get back to London in 10 days or so.

When I get a chance to start sorting through them.


I did manage not to leave my camera on the plane this time.
This is good.
During my 12 day visit I took over 1,700 photos.
This is not so good.
I think my photography habit is getting dangerously out of hand.


There were other bloggers I'd love to have seen, but sadly couldn't. But I made firm friends with Dennis (after a few days) and with Chedwick himself (after a few more days) and fell firmly in love with Eddie in no time at all.


Lows of the summer have been health-related - trivial in relative terms, but quite miserable at (intermittent) times.

I'd had an allergic reaction to my hair-colour way back in June I think and was left with nasty allergic dermatitis on my ears which at some points have been inflamed and swollen to about twice their usual dimensions, with a range of other symptoms far too unpleasant to be detailed to such nice people as yourselves. I have felt quite freakishly elephant-mannish at times.

Twice I was at the point of full recovery and then suffered a relapse - the second relapse just after my return from the States, which I think was due to hair-dye left on towels in our bathroom after LG's own summer hair-dye experiments. Me being in the US at the time, the towels were left to fester rather than being washed. No comment. LG had learned from my experience and did a proper allergy test, so she was fine thank goodness (and her hair looks great) but I was less careful than i should have been about checking towel cleanliness.....

its clearly not enough to know where your towel is
you also need to know that it is clean.

The old elephant ears were mainly in recovery while i was in the US, I took to wearing little ear cosies cunningly fashioned out of medical gauze and was otherwise pretty much fine and healthy, and no one openly laughed at me. In fact, maybe I have added an indefinable something to the reputation of Brits in New York?

Anyway, post-return from US and post-2nd relapse, the ear cosies evolved into substantial dressings and my system seemed to crumble a bit with various lurgies and infections attacking face neck and eyes.


Its felt rather like a (trivial) greek tragedy with a not-very-hidden moral about vanity and clean towels.



I'm currently blogging from Jersey, Channel Islands where I am lolling about in invalidesque mode and hence finding myself unexpectedly without any inclination or energy to go out (not even to go and take photos on the beach), but with computer time.

We are visiting M's family, and staying with Dizzy, who is a dear friend, too busy to blog these days, and an Ayurvedic practitioner.

How handy - she is providing me with a full ayurvedic care package which seems to be working very well, and which includes a sticky drippy paste on my ears made up of neem oil, honey and turmeric.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I think I may be leaving Dizzy's towels less than clean.....

soon...... later

Going away soon

back later




towards the end of August

when i expect to return to blogging



till then, be good to yourselves

stripping

All the satisfaction of picking a scab, without the bleeding





good music for stripping to:

Talking Heads - Stop making sense
Thin Lizzy

the Thames

photos taken along, by, on, over - but not in - the Thames


















































This is one of my routes between home and work.

pause

i've been in a funny old mood lately.
or, more accurately, a funny old series of funny old moods.

and I've been feeling rather ambivalent about blogging.

I did wonder if maybe I would stop blogging - whether it was a phase i've gone through and will leave behind me. But i think thats unlikely. I don't think I want to stop blogging.
and, reading through all your comments again, how could I?

But I foresee a bit of a blogging break.
or maybe a change in blog-habits.

for a while....



Apart from the ambivalence and funny old-ness, there are a myriad other things I should be getting on with in the three weeks I have (oops! 3 weeks when i wrote this draft, less than now...) before my holiday starts

(starts with a return trip to the US followed by another family visit to family in Jersey, Channel Islands).

A myriad other things like:
*continuing re-organisation of my study (well underway already) (you should see how tidy my desk is!) (and i can get things in and out of my filing cabinet. And Everything!)

*preparation for teaching of existing/revised and new courses from September

*wallpaper-stripping in dining room

*some sewing/textile projects needing to be finished

*balancing bank accounts (yeah right! balance would be SUCH a good thing)


oh, and really need to mow the lawn...

and clip the guinea-pig's claws...


So I am herewith serving notice that there may not be quite the usual service here for a while - I think I will just post photos for a while, without any/much verbiage - and I may not appear much or at all in your comments boxes, though I will try to pop in from time to time just to keep in touch a bit.



For a while .....

and nonsense

Its struck me recently how frequently I use the word "stuff".

what a handy little word - it can mean almost anything, and the sibilance of the 't' and the 'ff' are so satisfying.
Maybe they subconsciously provide a kind of finality - like a full stop - reassuring that theres no need to bother thinking of a better, more specific word.


Its funny though, that I enjoy such a lazy and cover-all short-hand sort of word, when I'm also quite appreciative of "proper" vocabulary. Words with specific, complex, nuanced meanings.

Suggestive words - evocative, ambiguous, interesting. Alliterative. Onomatopoeic.
(yes, i admit it. just checked the dictionary for spelling of onomatopoeic. Had got it nearly but not quite right)

Synonyms, antonyms and ... other kinds of words ending in 'nym'.



One of my best friends particularly shares my love of words and we have been known, in the past, to find entertainment reading aloud from the thesaurus.

In fact, last time I saw this particular friend we were reduced to tears of hysteria over some silliness about possible names for a cattery.

Catastrophe cataclysm catatonia caterwaul catalogue cathartic catalan catacomb caterpillar cataleptic....

We didn't get out the thesaurus, but i do admit we finally consulted the dictionary. Which provided a couple of final sniggers.


so.

there are some words for you.
about words.



Wasn't that a lot of stuff and nonsense?

more silliness

We're seeing the benefits of all the rain we've had this Spring in sumptious bowls of raspberries.

yum yum yum



and not only wonderfully raspberryish and soft and juicy sweet-sharp delicious (especially with nearly-lashings but not quite too much cream)

but also with that edge of potential silliness in the word "raspberry" with its great comedic potential...

...exploited most sublimely this classic of British TV comedy:

silliness

I had a wonderful weekend away, a week ago, in Suffolk which is in the middle of the big bulgy nose-like bit on the East coast of England.

Lucy and I took long walks with ziggy the dog - mostly country walks, with lots of stops for photographs (Luce was very patient with me), and pauses to watch the skylarks and listen to the birdsong



and pauses for other dog-silliness.





On the Sunday we took a long long walk - through and around Ipswich itself, through modern and old, derelict and developed, around the marina and along the docks; we found a vast and lovely park and walked through a rather beautiful cemetary just as the shadows were at their longest.

We walked for about four and a half hours. We were ready for a large G & T.
We thought the dog might be just a little tired...





sorry this vid is a bit dark, but i hope you get the idea...

Thursday theme - amusement

Lines and squares



whenever i walk in a london street
i'm ever so careful to watch my feet
and i keep in the squares
and the masses of bears
who wait at the corners just ready to eat
the sillies who walk on the lines of the squares
go back to their lairs, and i say to them "bears!
Just look how i'm walking in all the squares!"

and the little bears growl to each other "he's mine,
as soon as he's silly and treads on a line."
and some of the bigger bears try to pretend
that they came round the corner to look for a friend
and they try to pretend that nobody cares
whether you walk on the lines or the squares
but only the sillies believe their talk
its ever so 'portant how you walk
its ever so jolly to call out "Bears!
Just look how i'm walking in all the squares!"





a.a.milne
1882-1956

when we were very young
EP Dutton & Co. 1924
Illustrations by EH Shepard

theme thursday

Bridges



This is a road under a Victorian railway bridge - they often have these little doorways between one arch and the next and i don't know why...


often the little doorways are bricked up...

and i don't know why...




Under the arches - especially in London - you will often see workshops, storage spaces, lock-ups.

Such as these:








and see all the orange? do I get extra points for echoing last Thursday's theme?


These pictures were all taken in Deptford, South East London - far more run down, urban and altogether skanky than its historic and rather lovely neighbour Greenwich and therefore just as appealing photographically.

Deptford also has the Laban Dance centre, seen here again under the railway bridge:




Under the arches of London Bridge is Borough Market - a wholesalers fruit and veg. market during the week and retail foodie heaven on Fridays and at the weekend.









Right on the south bank of the Thames, not far from the Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern, this is somewhere I would take any bloggers who might happen to visit me in London ..... one day ..... maybe ....



Oh, and P.S. sorry i'm not visiting blogs v. much at the mo, lots of (nasty) work busy-ness - and i'm away for a few days tomorrow (lovely) friend visiting...

garden therapy

my garden has been one important area of my life needing some attention lately

and why I didn't get out there earlier in this particular "down" cycle I don't know, given that i know how much better the process always makes me feel

it is so therapeutic

not just the mud and effort and sweat and dirty fingernails
not just the colours and greens and textures and smells and buzzings and birdsongs and petals and leafy shoots

it soothes my spirit
and speaks to me in unexpected ways.



Part of the therapy is unthinking absorption in the green and the growing and the dirt

- like being in another world.
or just being out of the world for a while.
or maybe out of myself, in The world... hmmm...



Part of the therapy is a sort of earth wisdom which oozes its way gently in through some kind of osmosis.



- think about these aspects of my recent gardening as metaphors for living:


* my garden has been awash with forget-me-nots.
They are finished now, needed to be cleared and if not cleared they tend get mildew. It is almost impossible (if thats what one wanted, which i don't) to remove them without their seed scattering, ready for next year's tidal wave of little blue loveliness. While other plants grow, flower and fruit during the summer, they'll be there dormant waiting for autumn and next spring.


* Taking out the forget-me-nots always creates so much space for other plants, and in the process I always discover some I had forgotten, and some I'd thought might not survive the winter. If I was a more regular and thorough gardener, I might sacrifice some of these unexpected (re-)discoveries.
(my salvia uliginosa has survived the winter. I am very happy)


* Some plants are flourishing because I moved them to locations and next to other plants with which they are happier. Some plants hate to be moved and might never recover. On the other hand, some (such as larkspur) are happiest in recently disturbed ground. Go figure.


* I think I have given up on growing helenium in my garden. Much as I love it, it seems that my soil and situation just don't give it what it needs :o( Sometimes nature can't be persuaded.


* the crambe which I was given years ago - and which has been stamped on (repeatedly) (not by me) during fence-repairs, eaten by slugs and snails, neglected and forgotten about - is finally doing well, producing its massive umbrella leaves and might even flower this year. It had the persistence - just needed time to get going :o)


* I have no tadpoles this year. This makes me sad but my source of last year's frogspawn also has none this year. So I can't import any more, I will just have to wait for them to arrive as part of the natural cycle. Where there is water, there will be frogs - I just need to be patient.


* pruning. Some plants really wont flourish without it, they get leggy and ungainly and feeble and may even become bare, woody and dead on the inside, despite their leafy facade. Sometimes ruthlessness is needed.


* the all-engulfing too-vociferous tree ivy which was constantly threatening to engulf the fence at the end of my garden - the fence and my girl-shed and some cherished plants - is finally close to being defeated. This is because new neighbours on the other side of the fence are also trying to control or uproot it. It was a problem which really needed to be addressed on both sides.






Sometimes its just too much bloody wisdom all at once and then I have to come and sit at my computer for a while, surrounded by technology....