My garden in April

It’s been quite a while since I shared a garden post here, and I’m really not sure why. I’ve been taking photos most months - as you’d expect December and January were a bit sparse - but somehow they’ve not made it onto here. So I’m restarting these online memory scrapbook of my garden with snaps taken during April, and over the next few weeks I’ll catch myself up, so don’t be surprised to see a spot of snow in the not too distant future.

But first blossom.

Both of our cherry trees are full of blossom, which can when blown have a snow effect. We don’t have the pink cherry blossom that everyone craves, and goes wild for, like Greenwich Park but white blossom is good by me. Our laurel tree has also flowered this month, and between this and the cherries the pigeons are having a blast.

The laurel needs a cut though, as I’ve noticed that when it rains only part of the stone circle which is close-but-not-that-close-by gets wet. In fact a few of our trees need a cut so we’ll need to call our tree cutters, it’s been a while.

Throughout the garden there’s pops of lime green euphorbias, it’s a colour that really lifts the space especially on the grey-er days. It seems hard to believe that last April we were already making use of the barbecue, not so much - or at all - this year.

Our reddy-pink camellia has finally flowered, it’s much later than our neighbours, as usual but even so, it’s been slow. Now that it’s here, it’s very welcome and very beautiful but I wish it wasn’t quite so reticent. In more exciting news at the far end of the garden, our newest camellia has flowered. I say new, it arrived in 2015 and has flowered before, but this year it seems to have really got the hang of it.

And like many camellias even when it’s fading, it’s still as beautiful. Our ornamental quince, with its orange flowers, is doing well with more flowers than I remember from previous years. Last year we really cut back the euonymus and I suspect that has really helped.

Some bulbs have other plants have self seeded in the grass, and we have our usual carpet of wild violets, which also seem to have found themselves a new home between the paving and slate outside the greenhouse. Both the leaves and the flowers are exquisite, though MOH is less welcoming to the ones in the grass.

We’re still waiting for the march of the forget-me-nots, they are rampant in our garden and while the blue ‘fluff’ is welcome to start with, it doesn’t last. Our challenge is always to pull them up before they set seed, so it becomes a bit of a race. We know that’s to come, but in the meantime let’s just admire the blossom while it lasts.

Irony and priorities

The irony of the timing and my choice of word aren’t lost on me, but as there’s no time like now to refocus and create new habits I’m going with it. I’ve posted here before about choosing a word for the year. It’s something I meant to do this year but never had the time to contemplate in ways I had previously - usually I post this in January, heck one year I even managed December, but here we are scraping in just before the end of April.

Irony isn’t my word for 2021, it is in fact priorities

And yes, I know if I was living my word then this post would have already been posted, but that’s exactly why it is the right word for me, and why I’m posting it now. With some time to think and structure those thoughts (a little) it seemed an obvious word to choose.

Like many people my pandemic-filled year has been pretty full on and busy with my day job, which I was fortunate to be able to continue to do from home. It’s usually a busy role and with Covid it stepped up several gears. Even after recruiting a team of two to work with me it’s still busy, and while I know I’ll never reach the end of my to do list (I’m at peace with that - I’ve realised over many years that there will always be more to do) it doesn’t really look as if it will be dialling down any time soon. So throughout the various lockdowns and whatnots I’ve been mildly annoyed with media suggesting that lockdowns have meant more free time, learning new skills and full of banana bread making and sourdough baking - even though I’ve made plenty of those during the past year, and will more than likely continue to.

I’ve realised that when I’m at work (even at home) I’m fully immersed, and when I’m not working and spending time at home I’m fully immersed there too. Something had to give and as you may know it’s been this space, and that’s not how I want it to be. I’ve been powered in both environments by “just one more thing” - so maybe I’m not totally at peace with not getting everything done, at work and at home, but not here.

But I’ve also realised that I can choose.

Choice - not a contender for my word, but could have been now I think about it - is in my gift, and so are sticking to my priorities, which I know may flex and adapt as life changes and flexes. I’m still working through what it means for me, and how I put that into practice but as Gretchen Ruben says in Better than Before:

Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.

Reading is one of the things I’m doing more of too, and yoga. If I’m honest, I’m better at reading than yoga but I’m sure like most things, with practice, I’ll improve and be slightly less wobbly. That works for my word too, doesn’t it?

So here’s to feeling less torn in so many directions, or at least I hope that’s what it means - and to prioritising the things that are important to me, which realistically could be getting a piece of work out the (virtual) door, or even closing my laptop so that life outside work can take its time as my priority.

I’d say wish me luck, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to need more than luck to make the changes I want.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Lines and sculptures in the City

Last week I shared some of the City green spaces we wandered through on our most recent visit. We know the City has changed since the time we commuted there everyday, for me that’s seven years ago now - I’m not sure how, but it is, and as well as having a new space to walk we were keen to see how things had changed. It was one of those walks where my phone wasn’t out of my hand for long, as there was something to see - and snap - almost around every corner. Only later when I was scrolling through my photos did I realise that themes were apparent - green spaces, and today’s post - lines and sculptures.

The building above is at the corner of Cannon Street and Walbrook so my phone was out almost as soon as we left the station. It’s the first time I’ve seen it properly in daylight. I’ve walked past it on evening trips to meet friends (not recently obviously) and so it was good to take a slower, closer look. As you’ll see, not all of the lines are straight - some are curved.

This post is another which could fit in the “if you look, it’s amazing what you can see” category - but it’s so true. At a quick glance you see a huge building, office space but looking closer at the detail, there’s much more to it. But that’s not new, as the railings outside St Paul’s Cathedral show.

There’s plenty of colour too, it’s not all drab grey and beige office buildings - though there are a lot of those too. At 88 Wood Street there’s an injection of primary colour at the entrance for people and the exit for air, in a way that reminded me of parts of the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

I have some favourite spots in the City and was able to sneak in a good few into our route. The Barbican is one of those places that I think each time I go I see something new, or enter/leave via a different way - and it’s great. On this visit we found ourselves recalling memories from the long-gone Pizza Express on the walkway and found ourselves pausing and admiring this view. To the left is the green space which is the penultimate image in my earlier post, but I couldn’t exclude this photo from a post about lines. Look carefully under the stairs at the ornate iron gates, and it could also be a contender for my next post in this series - where old meets new.

I mentioned colour before and I’m going to mention it again. This sculpture, called Chromorama and is by David Batchelor proves my point. It is made of 35 illuminated light boxes using the entire colour spectrum which face all directions and is just outside Broadgate. I’m not sure how long it’s been there, but it’s the far side of Broadgate and not the entrance I’d usually use, so if it’s been there a while that explains why I’d not seen it before.

Now I need to go back one evening to see it illuminated. And as if to prove my point about lines, as I turned round the office buildings behind me shouted lines, and so did the zebra crossing.

As we headed over behind Liverpool Street the skyline was dominated by these diagonals, which I’m sure have more purpose than design.

We also bumped into more sculptures than you’d think you would. I liked these neon signs outside an office block in St Mary Axe - You’ve gone touching leaves in the moonlight. The work is by lumiere artist Elisa Artesero is called Garden of the Floating Words, and has previously been on display in Canary Wharf.

I also liked how it reflected in the lights in the office building it was outside, whose reception lights gave a kind of bokeh effect.

On our way towards Fenchurch Street we passed more ‘funnels’ these ones covered in a bright geometric design. Once there we found ourselves looking up, and up again and being slightly bamboozled by all of the lines.

Our last stop in this post is in Old Broad Street with this City Wing Sculpture, which I had seen before and when it was installed a year or so before I stopped working in the City. It’s by Christopher Le Brun and is way larger than it looks - I think you’d easily be level with its tip on the third floor. I’ve one more post to come in the themed posts from our City Walk, so look out for that in the next week or so.