Walks in “our” Wood always fill me with joy. Last Sunday I managed two in one day, with two different friends that I’d not caught up with for several weeks (the morning one) and several months (the afternoon one). Not only are they both good company, but the colours in the Woods are stunning at the moment.
It was a bit foggy and damp in the morning, but the greyness just made the yellows, golds and oranges glow and pop.
The leaves had made carpets under some of the trees. Unfortunately, they were much too damp to scrunch through.
However, we did manage quite a long walk and saw lots of colours. Although it wasn’t actually raining, the grass was very wet and I realised my left boot was letting in the wet. Shame, as they are really comfy boots, I’ll just have to save them for dry days.
My favourite beech trees are so beautiful at the moment. I’m never sure whether these or the spring colours are the best.
In the afternoon we went first into the Woods on the other side of the village, and did a big loop. We nearly had blue sky for a while.
A different pair of boots kept my feet dry, but not so comfortable. I will have to break them in a little and I’m sure they will soften and become good friends.
The Beck was running well at last, after all the very dry weather we had over the summer. And in a few places the leaves had dried enough to have a good scrunch through. They will be around for a while, so hopefully lots of chances to scrunch through them.
This week at the Allsorts group Gill, one of our members, shared a little of her calligraphy knowledge with us. She had prepared us all a piece of fabric with the word “Joy” written out to stitch over, and the “Y” was drawn like a little sprig of mistletoe. Gill gave us the suggestion of using reverse chain stitch, easier to get even than ordinary chain stitch I always find. I decided to use bigger chain stitches, getting smaller and smaller to fill in the top of the “Y”. Then I added a tiny pearly bead in the centre where the leaves meet, and little groups of beads on the “J” and the”O”: very simple, but effective.
Gill had also brought lots of beautiful examples of cards that she had done and received over the years. It made me want to have another go at calligraphy, which was the first night class I went to after having Miles thirty years ago. I made coasters for Christmas for everyone except myself, but kept the one I did for Nanna (Colin’s Mum – Doreen) when we emptied her house. The “ebbie” is superimposed on it in PhotoShop for a project I did as part of my degree. It now sits on my bedside cabinet with a glass of water on it every night.
I’m well out of practice, so took up Gill’s offer to write “Merry Xmas” on my piece of fabric. I’ve started stitching it in stem stitch. Another work in progress.
This week I have been flitting about from one thing to another rather a lot. The usual thing for me, trying to fit too many things in too little time. However, I have managed to have a couple of walks with our Ukrainian friends, the first to Twigmoor Woods where the rhodendrons are starting to flower; it’s become a regular haunt over the years.
We are very lucky to live a ten-minute drive away, close enough to go several times over the six to eight weeks that the rhodendrons are flowering, depending on the weather. They are late this year looking back at my old photos, no colour at all showing yet on the common purple one above, taken in early May 2003. In the one below, on 2 May 2007, the leaves on the trees are further out than this year too.
The light has not been good on either occasion we have been this year, in the early evening after dinner before Miles and Lera and their two “sunflowers” headed back to York. That’s why the photos are all from previous years.
I have said over the years that we need to go once a week to catch the huge variety of colours at their best, not something we have ever managed to do. But it could happen this year, and hopefully the light will be better too.
On another evening, Katya and I also had a walk in Broughton Woods, and we had the rare treat of seeing a deer, which stood and posed for us for several minutes, before crossing the path in front of us and disappearing into the trees.
And much to Katya’s delight we saw a hare in a field a bit further on in our walk. No surprise that it was too fast for a photo!
However, I did get this good shot of a well camouflaged moth on a hazel branch.
It’s good to get back in the woods for more regular walks than I’ve managed for a while. Observing the changes in nature taking place so quickly is good for the soul, particulary at this time of year, as well as giving me inspiration for my art and textile work. I just love the fresh spring greens, especially the new beech leaves.
I’ve had a very exciting trip to London this week, a long weekend with Miles and Lera. It’s a very long time since I last stayed in London overnight, and only rarely had day trips. On the Monday morning Lera needed to get a visa to travel for work, so they decided to make a weekend of it and asked if I wanted to go with them. Yes, please. Now we are fully vaccinated and taking all the necessary precautions I felt it would be safe to go.
The train was very well socially distanced, on the way home from Doncaster to Scunthorpe I even had a whole carriage to myself. We didn’t use the tube at all, all preferring to walk so we would see more. We did use an Uber, but only once each day when we had time constraints on timed visits, and to take our luggage to Kings Cross left luggage on Monday morning, before Lera’s meeting and Miles working in the London office for the day.
Comfortable shoes were essential, as we walked 70,000 steps / 54 kilometres over the three days. Colin was pleased he’d stayed at home! We were staying in an Air B&B on the other side of Battersea Park, so a long walk along the river and through the parks to get to and from the places we visited.
We crammed a lot in, but somehow it all felt leisurely. Some of the things were planned, others things we found by happy accident. Miles and Lera’s train from York arrived about 10 minutes before mine from Doncaster, so it was lovely to be met with hugs. Then I had my photo taken at Harry Potter’s Platform 9 3/4, and even here there were only a couple of people queueing. The first photo of many, because Lera takes photos of people. I’m usually behind the camera not in front of it!
Into another world
We had several hours before going to the theatre to see “J’ouvert”, a bright, lively performance about Notting Hill Carnival. We tried to get into the British Library, but it was fully booked. Another time, and so close to Kings Cross that in normal times it’s a good place to visit while waiting for the train. We spotted an interesting church, St Pancreas and the gardens, with a huge London Plane Tree, and the old gravestones that had been collected up from the cemetery to make space for the station with a tree growing through them.
London Plane The Hardy TreeTree growing through the old grave stones
Lera wanted us to go to a Georgian restaurant that she had found, so we headed towards it and found Coal Drop Yard by chance “en route”, a relatively new development with interesting walkways near the canal basin, little shops, cafes and restaurants. This led into Agar Grove with outside exhibitions.
Agar Grove
We got to the restaurant just before it opened, and explained we had limited time because of theatre tickets. We asked what would the lady recommend: the casseroles dishes would be the quickest, so we had a lamb, a chicken and a beef one and shared them with a big basket of their own bread. Very good. An Uber to the theatre and a quick walk through China Town. This was the busiest place we were in, but we walked briskly with our masks on, somewhere to linger in other times.
China Town
We walked along the river and through Green Park where we saw a herd of elephants, there’s a bigger herd in another park (72). I can’t remember where the lady said, I was already on overload! So much visual stimulation everywhere.
Lera with the elephants.
We walked past Victoria Station and the bus station where I recalled catching the bus/coach back to Birmingham about 40 years ago, carrying a huge plastic bag of polystyrene beads to make a bean bag, which Miles thought was crazy, until I explained that you couldn’t buy them easily then.
We were all relieved to arrive at the Air B&B; aching feet and aching shoulders, in spite of travelling light and Miles insisting on carrying my roll-along / rucksack for much of the way and me only carry a cloth bag of stuff needed during the day. The place was modern, clean and well-appointed.
My single room was in a different block of flats / maisonettes from theirs. On the map it looked to be around a few corners, in reality when I came out of my front door to meet them, I could hear Miles calling me. I couldn’t see him until he waved out of the window two floors up directly opposite across a quadrangle. Both had well fitted kitchens, so we found a supermarket to get a few supplies. Miles cooked and there was outside space with a picnic table at mine, where we ate. On Sunday night it was too cold to do this, so we ate in their room which had two chairs and a table at the end of the bed, so Miles sat on the end of the bed.
On Sunday we walked a different route, then along the river to the Tate Modern where we had timed tickets. We spent a couple of hours on one floor and one more gallery. I came out with lots of ideas and things I want to try.
Artist that I was suggested to look at when I was doing my degree.Beautiful fabric covered books
We had tickets booked for late afternoon at the Science Museum, where we saw a superb exhibition called Medicine. We were all fascinated by this, and spent a long time looking at an interactive body showing X-rays, MRI scans, etc. of different areas of the body. We had barely finished looking at that before announcements started giving us time warnings of closure, so we separated and looked at the rest of it individually, wizzing round and looking at the bits that caught each of us. The part about Thalidomine made me think / realise how lucky we were that mum didn’t suffer with morning sickness as both my sister and I were born in this time period. One of mum’s friend’s oldest daughters, only a couple of months older than me, was one of the victims. We could all have spent a whole day just on that exhibition.
Monday was rainy for most of the day. I had a quieter day at the Barbican, with its fabulous library. Unfortunately the art section was closed because it didn’t work with the one-way system, but one of the Librarians brought out a selection of embroidery books for me, three or four that I already have. There were a couple of interesting exhibitions, one about Matrix, an architecture company that specialised in building for women in the 1980s. One bit had black and white footage of the centre of Birmingham in the late 1980s, including the Rotunda (long ago demolished) where my nanna used to work.
I met Lera in the cafe for lunch, where she worked for a couple of hours after her meeting at the Embassy. I left her working, and met up with her later to visit the Conservatory, where she found a new hat.
New hat!
Lots of photos taken in there, close-ups of flowers and leaves, giving me ideas for future work. All in all, a great few days, that have recharged my batteries. I’ve had a productive few days in the garden and three more long walks, good to get my walking boots and thick socks on to cushion my feet the first day back! And I was certainly pleased that the weather was cool and mainly dry over the weekend, if a little grey at times.
debbidipity 