Beans are everywhere at the moment. I even have them on the grow wall on the outside of my flat. The flowers are particularly attractive and it is fascinating to watch the vines searching for something new to cling to and to see new beans appear and grow to maturity through the window.
Amy’s Place
Outside Amy’s house in the last week of July 2011.
Country House(boat)
On Saturday I took a walk along the Thames Creek in Essex with a photography group. Leaving Benfleet we walked along the creek and then up to Hadleigh Castle and down to Leigh on Sea.
Canalside Colour
Another shot along Regent’s Canal, this time in Primrose Hill. At the moment around these parts the canal is a ribbon of colour winding its way through north London. It is particularly vibrant now as a covering of duck weed stretches for quite some distance. But it is the houseboats and canoes that provide much of the colour.
Rearranging the Deck Chairs
Deck Chairs at the side of The Guardian building in King’s Cross, London, rearranged perhaps as a symbolic reference to another media group whose flagship paper went down today. Well done to The Guardian for their tenacity in revealing the “goings on” at the House of Murdoch.
Love is da Drug
Pride London, a parade down Regent Street on Saturday. Amnesty International making their presence felt as one of the “pressure groups”, but many floats were about corporations vying for brand space in the bland new world.
Gelatissimo!
Yesterday I went to the Soho Food Feast in St Anne’s Church Gardens in Wardour Street with some friends. It was the first one and I hope it won’t be the last. Clearly a lot of thought and organisation went into it. The purpose was to raise funds for the Soho Parish School. From my primary school days these sorts of events were to raise money for “nice to have” equipment. Yesterday’s event was to raise funds to pay for school lunches and after school clubs. The school is facing further staffing cuts including one-third of its teaching assistant hours this year and has lost 80% of its maintenance budget. Education in the post-modern world! Goes to show what a long way we’ve come from my day at primary school when the staffing and maintenance was certainly covered by the state and fund raising fetes bought some extra books for the library! Stalls at the Soho Food Feast were provided by a lot of famous central London eateries including The Ivy, Brindisa, Arbutus, Polpo, Terroirs, The Wright Brothers who very generously supported such a good cause. Two of my favourite dishes sampled at the feast: Moroccan Lamb Stew from The Groucho and Ricotta and Sour Cherry gelato from Gelupo. Hits with my friends included oysters from The Wright Brothers and noodles from Kopapa.
And Behind the Red Door
Wandering the streets in and around Fitzrovia looking for a likely candidate as an image to enter into The Fitzrovia Photography Prize when the sun appeared briefly while I was looking around St Pancras Church on Euston Road. This building provides a welcome relief to the anonymous streetscape on Euston Road around Euston Station.
Amazon, Regent’s Park
The lush vegetation on the edge of Regent’s Canal is reflected in the canal giving it a tropical feel as this moorhen passes by during a gap in canal boat traffic.
One Tree Hill
This week I took another long walk through the spectacular Kent countryside. The walk started at Lullingstone and went up a hill, one tree hill by my reckoning, through the wheat fields smothered in poppies, across a fairway on a golf course, dodging golf balls and getting lost, along the ridge high above Shoreham and back along the Darent River to Eynsford. All on a most spectacular summery day.