On Reflection. One single sentence brought me up with a jolt yesterday. I was settling down for a quiet hour with the leftovers of the weekends newspapers. The sun was streaming in through the windows and I had just returned from a satisfying walk on the common. I had gathered cushions and was feeling pretty comfortable.
” This makes me feel like the Queen”
A sentence that is no longer relatable. Unless of course I was cosied up in a lead box. Just like the rest of the world, feeling rather special should, now, correctly be ” Feeling like a Queen”
A friends mum, who married in the same year as the Queen, died last week at the age of 96 having been pre deceased by a beloved husband. Achieving a rather unusual imitation of a life imitating a life.
I have been lucky enough to rehome some of my friends parents collection of coloured glass. Such a practical way to reflect and remember lovely people, as we use these glasses nearly every day.
Bright sunshine illuminating a water bottle on the morning dog walk. Fascinating round shapes are the common theme of this blog. Walking the dogs on Wimbledon Common in October is such a pleasure on these sunny days. I am keeping them on their leads as it is acorn season and the squirrels are very busy packing away their winter stores. Lola is the tracker dog of our family and really cannot be trusted when there is a lot of squirrel activity. Apart from squirrels Wimbledon Common has some famous creatures, that have featured in books, films and TV series. They even had a chart hit once. It also has some creatures I have no desire to meet.
As yet we have not tracked down a Womble, but we found the home of someone who is probably best left to the imagination.
The bright red sawdust made me notice this hole in a tree but closer inspection revealed an interior design that made me not want to meet the designer.
There are many different ways of marking time with a new baby. The traditional ones of time, meals or sleep, slip their responsibilities and shape-shift into tiny fragments of moments or infinitely extended versions of themselves. From the generosity of others there are new markers like flower arranging or cake eating and tea making. Gifts to be unpacked and WhatsApp groups to be kept informed, photographs to be taken and shared. The familiar world takes on a temporary and unusual shape. Bewilderingly everything looks the same and yet feels very different.
We do still have one unchanged routine; dog walking, which was done yesterday in Canizzaro Park where this sculpture is the centrepiece of a fountain, commissioned to mark the millennium. I’m not aware of the brief for the sculptor when this was commissioned, but in our break-out from the baby bubble, it seemed like a great metaphor for our days. The soft shape and multi handled, multi spouted form really resonates with our current daily routine. Punctuated as they are by the need to rehydrate, welcome, comfort or recover with a cup of tea (other drinks are available )
As luck would have it a fresh cup of coffee is just being served to me, and I am in no position to do anything useful.
I can research the sculptors motivation and vision for his Millennial Fountain. For me though it is about these, current, shape shifting sensations of newborn baby days. Welcoming, homely and slightly surreal.
There will be a PS later in the day…
Here is the somewhat disappointing PS. It seems impossible to find the original brief for the Richard Hope sculpture in Canizzaro Park. Costing £50,000 pounds in 2001 it attracted mixed reviews, of course it did!
What it had failed to do on Google is attract any half decent photos of it with the water turned on that isn’t copyrighted. I will go back on a sunny day and do one myself. Below is one from the Guardian and some links for further reading.
Sharing the care of a newborn gives plenty of time for pondering, not so much out and about, but lovely Facebook Timehop provides substance to ponder over. 5 years ago on the 8th October I was at Devils Point, taking the picture above. Nothing in my life at that time would suggest that in five years time I would be a Stonehouse local, living 5 minutes away from the tidal pool.
Art is always busy in October. 8 years ago I was exhibiting an abstract inspired by Cornish tin mines at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
I love that painting, it lives in North London now. At this time living by the sea could not have been further from my thoughts. Living and arting in Dulwich Village was brilliant fun.
But 5 years ago I was a little closer and living on the shores of the Tamar Valley, watching a steam train cross into Cornwall.
October is also a time for visiting Art Galleries, a couple of years ago I chanced upon this brilliant piece of art/prose. Right up my street.
Since then life has taken more than a few twists and turns. For us, but also for the world. We have washed up on the shores of the Atlantic at Stonehouse. Currently I am looking at Stonehouse from a distance and loving the Stonehouse Sunrise from a distance, courtesy of a fellow sea swimmer, who long ago was a work colleague.
However wonderful Wimbledon is I miss my nearly daily dips. A trip to the Ladies Pond on Hampstead Heath it will have to be, or failing that the nudist beach at Brighton because even the most organised Nana does not pack a swimming costume for a birth.
I may be biased but a crisp London autumn is hard to beat. The combination of early morning dew makes some wonderful jewels on the fallen leaves.
Days like this are a fizzy boost, and long walks on Wimbledon common are a real wellbeing tonic. My next picture is a vivid natural emerald twinkling on the pavement.
The picture I can’t share with you is the epitome of urban cafe culture, which I witnessed last night. An urban fox returning with a large intact slice of cake.
This may be a meandering blog. I know what I want to express but the path may meander a bit. This calm picture was my start point. There is a strength from a three generation female line. I’m sure four or even five generations would be even better but that is a luxury denied to our little family. Following our morning cuddles I did the most enjoyable autumnal walk which seemed also to be full of glorious natural strength. Oak trees gave me the most lovely example of the circle of life. Three colours of Oak leaves on one twig.
Then serendipity gave me the circle of life illustration. Three English Oak Memorial Benches were being delivered to their new locations on Wimbledon Common.
So familial strength and the circle of life all wrapped up in Oak on an autumn morning.
Currently we are working with a fine ratio of grown ups to new baby. 3:1. Even with that ratio things get a little blurry. Gentle pink roses are a fabulous illustration to a dark tale of gender neutral toilets in a maternity unit.
Gender neutral toilets in a maternity unit reception certainly save space but the reality of sharing such a facility with men who are faced with imminent fatherhood is hardly a fragrant pleasure. The dark miasma of many male anxiety poos is as good a reason as any for some locations having gender specific facilities.
Above is the evening calm before our particular little storm. This evening walk came before a brief sleep and then a through-the -night drive to meet a new grandchild in London. She held off long enough for me to arrive and support her mum and dad through her arrival. This morning there is calm again.
It’s not every day that I go for a walk in a completely unknown part of the city and find myself face to face with something very familiar. This Street Art depicts an old pub, previously called The Long Room. The actual yellow building is on my daily dog walk. I had gone to get my flu and Covid boosters and had completely misjudged the parking situation about 2 miles from home. Searching for a space in labyrinth of small streets and cut through footpaths I abandoned the car and hastily found a way to my appointment.
Jabs done I had to find the car again. The route was a curious mix of elegant Victorian town houses and modernist social housing. A sure sign, in Plymouth, that I was in an area that was heavily bombed in World War II.
Something tells me I am going to have to find this mural again and try to make some sense of it, it is certainly not geographically accurate. I wonder if there are a series of them in the area. Finding it again might be tricky but street art is nearly always worth the effort of further investigation.
October the first has blown in on the coattails of Hurricane Ian. We have had our first winter style swim. A really rough swim in rainy conditions. The sea was warmer than the outside temperature and it was wonderful. After the swim we felt so full of good vibes, a healthy dose of free radicals and positive ions set us up for a busy day of doing things. We powered through a list of jobs and then at around 5pm the energy left us, almost as swiftly as we had gathered it. There was nothing left in the tank.
Winter swims are just the best thing, even in the autumn!
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