If your list of chapels to visit next summer includes the Chagall chapel near Tonbridge you might want to add the Watts Mortuary Chapel near Guildford. Very different in style but no less extraordinary. The chapel is the brainchild, and indeed the work, of Mary Seton Watts (1849-1938), painter, sculptor, potter and wife, in his …
Leaves, funghi and willows
A very quick post just to celebrate the glorious golden leaf carpet in the Old Orchard Garden last week. Those large crunkly leaves – lined golden hands with their fingers spread – are from the Oriental Plane – or so my ‘Picture This’ app told me. They looked amazing and I am glad I snapped …
Slogging through the mud…..
Saturday afternoon saw one of Hampstead Heath’s periodic cross country events – 5, 7 and 10k runs for children, woman and men respectively – although, in the event, the children’s run was cancelled because of the mud. (Not a popular decision amongst the onlookers that I spoke to! ‘Lot of health and safety nonsense – …
In praise of Bradleys
For Christmas 2020 my son gave me a razor sharp Japanese pair of secateurs, with holster….. …and – a pair of Bradleys’ leather gardening gauntlets…. Aren’t they just beautiful. That soft white leather for the hands, warmly and cosily lined, yet fitting closely enough to do quite delicate gardening jobs. Those heavy duty long arms, …
Spider season
Autumn – Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness – and spiders! Sadly, by the time I got back from the Heath Hands Spider walk this web in my garden had already been abandoned but it looks as though it might have had good use. And for those you who, if you are like me, always …
Scything the wild flowers on the Boating Pond island
After the major countrywide floods of the early and mid Noughties the Corporation of London and the surrounding boroughs got very worried that the streams that run down through the Hampstead ponds might get out of hand and flood the good people of Gospel Oak and Kentish Town. So massive flood protection works were put …
Scything the wild flowers on the Boating Pond islandRead More