Errands in The City

On Monday I needed to run some errands in The City. It turned out my timing was impeccable as the sun was out and the temperatures milder than they’ve been all year. So it was rude not to make the most of, what is now an all too rare trip into town. I’d already made sure to catch a glimpse of my favourite City view, looking through to St Stephen Walbrook from St Swithin’s Lane.

The City is one of those places that really does look glorious in the sun, and I couldn’t help but stop and look back towards Bank junction as I crossed over and headed for the ‘wibbly wobbly’ or more properly named Jubilee bridge. My plan was to head over to the Tate Modern, somewhere I’d not been for quite a few years, and to look at the exhibition in the large turbine hall and perhaps a look around some of the other spaces.

I’m very much of a dip in and out type of person when it comes to museums, not someone who has to see everything on every visit. My approach works well when you visit regularly - and we haven’t - but I’m hoping it’s something that we’ll get back to doing more often, and so it’s great to be able to do this for free.

Cecilia Vicuña’s Brain Forest Quipu

The exhibition in the large Turbine Hall is made up of sculpture, sound, music and video. Quipu isn’t something I’d heard of before, but it’s an ancient South American recording and communication system made from knotted threads. Here the artist has worked alongside artists, activists and members of the community on this project with some of the items used in the sculptures collected from the banks of the Thames by women from local Latin American communities.

At the centre of Brain Forest Quipu are two sculptures that hang 27 metres from the ceiling. They are woven together using a range of organic materials, including found objects, unspun wool, plant fibres, rope and cardboard to evoke the look of bleached-out trees and ghostly forms.

It is these two sculptures that capture people’s attention. You can walk among the hanging threads but are asked not to touch them. Along with the audio playing in the hall, as you wander amongst them or sit and let your eye explore the full height of the sculptures, they really do become mesmerising and even mindful.

I was also intrigued by the ‘web’ holding each of the strands, which in some ways was acting as a giant rotary washing line. It was only as I went up to the upper walkways and floors that I got a closer look.

If you’ve not been to the Tate Modern it’s hard to get a sense of scale of these pieces, or of the Turbine Hall which is huge. It’s 155m long, 23m wide and 35m tall - the roof light has 524 glass panels.

And somehow that means the 27m sculptures don’t look that big from a distance - see how small the people on the viewing platform look in the photo below.

So a great day: errands completed, feeling the warmth of the sun and some cultural inspiration too.

A rip too far...

Finding a good pair of jeans is a tricky business, I’m sure you know what I mean. But when you find a style that you like, and the fit is comfortable and also flattering it’s like gold dust. I found such a style relatively recently (Marks & Spencer, Harper Cigarette if you were wondering) and I bought a couple of pairs, liking them so much I went to buy some more and there were none to be seen. Panic. They have since come back on the site - at a new price (of course) - and I’ve purchased another pair which I’m equally happy with.

One of the original pairs I bought came complete with wear and tear, turn ups and a ripped knee. Over time the rip on the knee grew, not helped by my foot looking for shortcuts when putting them on. It grew too much for me, and so I decided to tackle it, and after a quick repair, I think it’s worked well - and I think I prefer the rip this way.

This is where I started from:

I bought a pack of iron-on denim patches - there’s patches for denim of every shade imaginable, and because I wanted to patch from the inside I chose the grey denim patch, as that’s the colour I’m least likely to own jeans in! I pinned that on the inside, remembering not to have the sticky side up, as sticking the patch to my iron wouldn’t be good at all.

I realised that with the sticky side up and a hole on the other (right) side, that my newly patched jeans would quickly become a dust and fluff magnet. Also not a good look.

So I hunted through my stash for a small piece of fabric to insert into the hole and make use of the stick from the iron-on patch.

And while this fixed the fluff and dust magnet problem, it didn’t really solve everything. With the patch and material in place the hole wasn’t attached at its edges. And that’s when I had the idea to get out my box of random embroidery threads

I soon realised that the scrap of material I’d chosen must be very me, as the colours in the first section of the embroidery threads matched it pretty well. I contemplated doing something with the peach, green and brown threads but also didn’t want to restrict what I could wear my jeans with. In my head adding colours to the jeans would do this, but luckily in the next section over was a selection of blue threads. These were left over from some cross stitch pictures which I made many years ago, and which I wish I still had. Sadly I think I must have thrown those out a while back, as even with all the sorting out I’ve been doing I haven’t found them yet.

But as you can tell I have strong memories of those four pictures - they were a labour of self love - and so I quickly knew that I would use the variegated blue thread to secure the loose denim.

I decided on a few rows of simple running stitch to secure the fabric decoratively, and I’m really pleased how it turned out. It’s a pretty way of extending the life of these jeans, which apart from a larger than intended rip are perfectly fine.

Next time, I may even be braver!

My top 10 posts of 2022

I’m back with one of my start of year traditions, which appeals to the nerd in me. Each year I like to look at the posts from the past year which have been the most popular and those that have been around a while longer that continue to bring in the views. I’m not sure there’s any scientific reasons as to why some of the posts swap around on that second list, but it’s always good to know that people are reading some of the stuff I put out there!

So let’s start with my most popular posts from 2022:

1 A new, bigger rug - eventually

Remember our year started off with a new rug, and a disagreement? Thankfully the newer, bigger rug solved that and we're still really happy with our new, bigger rug!

2 How tall is a Liver Bird?

Well seeing as though I asked, it would be rude not to tell you - it’s 18 foot - with a wingspan of 24 foot. To put that into perspective a double decker bus is 14 ft 4” - so quite big, is a good answer. This post shares views and facts from our visit to the top of the building in Liverpool, getting much closer to Bella and Bertie.

3 In the Orangery at Belton House

This year there’s an influx of posts from our trips to Lincolnshire and surrounding areas, which is not surprising really as it’s where we’ve been looking at houses. So it made sense to check out the area while we were there, and this Orangery at Belton House is likely to become an easy and early favourite of ours, hopefully when it’s much closer.

4 Interiors inspiration at Margo & Plum

The Engine Yard at Belvoir Castle was already a favourite place to stop and mooch around, and the interiors shop there is full of inspiration. So much so that MOH bought me the aqua bird decorated vase for my birthday on a whim. When I say a whim, it wasn’t quite so - it took him ages to remember the name of the shop, and then search out the vase. And I thought he’d bought it because he was an avid reader here…

5 Vibrant interiors at Belton House

Another one from Belton House, this time inside which was full of colour and peculiarly hidden (or not so hidden) greyhounds - there was even one on the weather vane.

6 Heat, feet and my happy place

In this post I’m musing about the way above average temperatures we experienced here this summer, and the trouble that had started with one of my toes - which is still not right, but not infected and not really giving the medics any clues, so we watch and wait. Thankfully though this post is accompanied by photos from the flower garden in Greenwich Park, definitely a happy place of mine.

7 A mindful afternoon twiddling

With more time on my hands this year I’ve been trying out some new crafts. Quilling, which isn’t as easy as it looks, was incredibly mindful, and for an afternoon twiddling paper this is what I had to show for it! It’s something I want to do again, but so far it’s not happened, but when I have a bit more space and my craft supplies are more ordered I hope to spend more time twiddling, and to have something more to show for my efforts.

8 The kitchens at Belvoir Castle

Belvoir (pronounced Beaver) Castle is another fascinating place in Leicestershire, and there’s a lot to see. Less so on the garden front, as you’d expect from its position on top of a hill, but there were some which I’m not sure I’ve shared here yet. While the formal rooms full of finery and treasures are fantastic, somehow the behind the scenes rooms that hold as much interest for me - and these old tins in the Housekeeper’s room where a real treat, pop over and take a look at the kitchens too.

9 Leaving flowers and a crocheted throw

So this year has been a transitional year for me, and at times it’s very much felt that. Back in May I stopped working full time after almost 40 years working at only three companies all that time. I left feeling fantastically spoiled by my colleagues, and with arms full of flowers and gifts. I was struck though by this vase of flowers and how similar the colours were to my most recent crocheted throw.

10 Where do you find peace?

This was the thought provoking question that greeted us as we started a walk around the Lake at Stourhead. Our visit was full of autumn colours too and even on a wet day, I’m sure that the surroundings help many people answer the question posed.

Again, a great choice made by many of you - and the posts here really do seem to have summed up my year, which is another reason for doing this, there’s clearly something in it!

So onto the second list

This list is posts created at any time but viewed in 2022, the year in brackets is the year it was originally posted - and it’s often very similar to the previous year. For whatever reason these posts continue to attract views, and it’s good to see some of the old favourites remaining on the list.

1. Filling our gabion baskets (2017)

2. My IKEA hack: HOL storage table to laundry basket (2015)

3. Let's talk Edwardian house decoration (2017)

4. Post Comment Love (2016)

5. About Me (2014)

6. Sean Murray's Great Chelsea Garden Challenge (2017)

7. Softening our gabion seating area with plants (2017)

8. 52 Cookbooks #36: Beef in easy tomato sauce (2014)

9. Three of the six show gardens at the Ideal Home Show (2016)

10. Fabulous outdoor planters (and more) from Cox & Cox (2016)

So, tradition completed for another year!