A year in Greenwich Park: September

I got thinking the other day, Greenwich Park is now such a big part of my working week that it'll be interesting to watch it close up over the coming months. And so, my thinking led me to think sharing how the park changes with you would be a good thing too. 

I'm hoping to capture how people use the park changes, as well as the more obvious changes in the trees and gardens. You'll remember last month I shared how I took a diversion through the Flower garden and I'm counting that as the start of this series as that coincided with my daily commute to Greenwich.

Each day I've been walking the same route, and it's often as busy as this:

Seriously though, the view above is now one of my favourite in the park. Before I'd really only thought of the park as a whole, and with the exception of the Flower Garden which is gated, not individual parts. I do see people on my way through the park and we'll come onto those in a moment, but first conkers.

Yes, on 1 September I found my first conker. That was quite a shock to the system as the weather was still very much warm, and the warmest two days were still to come. It's been fun to see children with their parents scour for the biggest ones, with only a few of the bigger kids encouraging the conkers out of the trees with sticks.

The park is still quiet in the mornings, but I've noticed that it's now quieter in the afternoons too. Where once there were impromptu picnics and gatherings as I walked home, the park is less busy. There's groups of schoolkids messing about, as you do, after school. But it's in the mornings that I notice people more. 

People walking their dogs. Like the old man with the Jack Russell and the man with the greyhounds, who hang back and then gracefully bound past me. The greyhounds that is, not their owner. It's got to the point where I judge if I'm running ahead or behind schedule on where I meet people along the way. Most often it's behind schedule, but occasionally I see the panic in their faces because they must be doing exactly the same thing!

The light has been great this month, it's that time of year when the sun is low and it's been great to capture how the sun shines through the trees. It's actually been quite captivating. And magical.

THE TREE WHERE I TURN RIGHT

I've watched the sweet chestnuts turn from green to brown, but that photo is technically next month so you'll have to wait for that. The grass in front of the tree where I turn right, is usually a good indicator of how my day will go. I mean the day after the Autumn equinox, it was a lovely day and I risked sandals. Walking over the grass I soon realised this was a foolish decision and I arrived at work with wet feet. Lesson learnt and now it's trainers every day.

Ironically there's less cyclists in the park this September. Perhaps most were taking advantage of the lighter London traffic and can't quite fit a cycle commute into their "back to school" September routine, who knows.  And I say ironically as September was supposed to be the month that I'd start cycling in - or rolling down the hill one way at least.  It hasn't happened partly because I'm still enjoying my walks, even the uphill ones on the way home, and I'm not ready to give those up just yet. Maybe October will be the month, maybe...

There is one tree that I think is pretty special, and that's this one.

If I were to follow a tree here, it'd be this one. It's a fantastic shape and as you can see its leaves are starting to turn. It'll be interesting to see how it changes, along with the rest of the park over the coming year. And if you're wondering I haven't checked in on my first tree for quite a while, maybe I should.

While there's been less cyclists, there's definitely more people using the park to keep fit with runners jogging past every which way. My favourite fitness thing though has to be the girl that jogs backwards. It makes me smile inside every time I see her, it just looks so peculiar. A bit like these greeny-grey pinecones. I've got my eye on these, though they'd better hurry up if they want to be in contention for the bleached treatment.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of October brings for the park and sharing that with you.  Do you have a place - park or otherwise - that you visit regularly and note how it changes?

Propagating some succulents

I do seem to have luck with succulents, in that they seem to grow for me, so I thought I'd see how far I could push that luck. And the short answer is, quite far.  On a trip to the garden centre to buy a couple of succulents I noticed some discarded leaves in the bottom of the trays, so after checking with the staff there I left with my bedding plants, a couple of succulent plants and quite a few of those discarded leaves. 

I wanted to see if I could get them to grow. And basically, get some free plants. 

Unsure quite how to proceed I started by stuffing one leaf into a pot. While it didn't die, it didn't really grow either. But what I noticed was the leaves I'd not done anything with were starting to form roots. 

Checking the internet I learnt that the trick is to make a clean cut - oops, too late there and to leave the leaves to dry out. So once again the conservatory - home of the succulents - was called into action. During the warm weather it was the ideal place for some low effort propagating. 

The idea was for the leaves to dry out, which seemed counter-productive to producing new plants, but after a week or so, look what happened.

My free succulent leaves were starting to sprout new flowers and what I assume are roots. At this stage I put them near some soil. Not in soil. On it. I used a gritty soil as succulents seem to like that. I really wasn't sure what would happen. All I needed to do, apparently, was to keep the soil moist.

And sure enough, they started to grow.

And now, I have a new generation of succulents from a few leaves that had been knocked off the plants.  Including a couple of new-to-me varieties.

It's so easy I couldn't believe it, and so easy I bet you could do it too. In fact the hardest thing was the waiting! 

Let me know how you get on if you give it a try.

Love this #71: A new Impressionist rug from My Rug Store

When My Rug Store got in touch I was intrigued. I'd not bought a rug online before, and if I'm honest I wasn't sure how it would work out. But after spending a couple of evenings on their site I knew I'd be choosing a rug to try at home, the only problem was, which one?!

There was - and is - lots of choice. I contemplated a rug for the landing outside our bedroom to replace the one we have there, but it's an odd size and the more I looked, the more I realised I'm quite attached to our charity shop find. So then I wondered about a rug for our main living space.

I've written before about how we have wooden floors throughout downstairs and I really do think that, as lovely as they are, they need a rug. We've had a variety of rugs by the sofas in an attempt to zone the room. It started with the large rug that MOH had in his flat, a beautiful rug but too big for the space. For a while that lived in the conservatory but found its long-term home when we redecorated our spare room last year.

Then there was a beige patterned rug with a ribbon pattern. A nice rug but it looked better in our top spare bedroom so after a while we moved it there. It also made way for the shaggy red rug which has probably lasted the longest in the space, until now.  The shaggy red rug (you can see it playing a supporting role in this post) is currently lodging in our bedroom, but looking for a longer term home.

It's been displaced you see. By a brand new rug. 

The one that every time I looked at the My Rug Store site, I kept coming back to. And so, that had to be the one, right? It was a little larger than our previous rugs (apart from the huge one that's now under the futon), but at 120cm x 70cm it's actually the perfect size and a size I wish we'd tried much sooner. It fills the space between our right angled sofas - and yes, at the moment they don't match, we got rid of the uncomfortable 3-seater sofa at the start of the summer and are using a garden sofa until we get its permanent replacement.

So let's take a look.

You can see why it's called an Impressionist rug now can't you?

And yes, it's cream. That's partly why I ummed and ahhed because, well because you know, cream. In my main living space with push bikes coming through and our muddy gardeners feet too. Thankfully though it's easy to move - and fits right under our grey sofa when we need it too, giving us a clear pathway through.

The pattern reminded me of the modern abstract picture we have on the wall. It's actually nothing like it, as you can see below, but there was just something about this rug. Perhaps it was the colours - there's every colour we have in our house in this rug. And I like that. I hoped it would help tie everything together.

And I think it has, my sister-in-law commented that it lifts the living space and links the seating area with the dining area. And I think she's right. Having the cream based rug in our main living space really links through to our white table. And I think it helps that I have the yellow end of the rug nearest to the yellow chairs, sometimes it really is the small things isn't it?

Part of the attraction to me is how the colours look like brush strokes that have been painted, with fading edges. And close up it works too, the edging bound with the same cream colour provides a great non-fussy border. No tassels or fringing on this rug, and it's all the better for it.

The rug itself is a sisley and is 100% polypropylene and I wasn't sure what this would be like. I needn't have worried though as the rug feels luxurious and not cheap or "plastic" at all. It's the first time I've ordered a rug online, and it's definitely something I'd do again.

Already I'm loving this rug, if this is your style of rug there are a few other designs in the Impressionist rug range, so do pop over and take a look. And to be honest, there's a huge choice on their site, so even if these aren't your thing I bet there's something that is.

We're still in the new phase of having this rug. And especially as it's cream we've been avoiding walking on it with our shoes on and it's either been moved out of the way when our bikes come through, or MOH carries his lightweight bike over it. So you can just imagine my surprise when I saw this Saturday morning!

Hmnnn...

Although later in the day I didn't have a leg to stand on, as I managed to knock a full cup of tea onto the floor. Luckily only some of it splashed onto the rug and I was able to blot those off with no lasting tea-stained effects. Phew. And for me that's the sign of a good rug - and as a clumsy owner, that's a very good thing!

Disclaimer: I received a rug for the purposes of this review. All words and opinions are my own.