Another Entry in the JH-JN Leisure Visit Programme

Yesterday we went up the Lea Valley to see Myddelton House Gardens, the creation of plantsman E A Bowles, "one of the great gardeners of the twentieth century". To some extent, our visit was mis-timed: apart from it having been a very dry summer, which has had an adverse impact on all plants, we were a few weeks too late to see the Gardens' collection of award-winning irises in full flower. And the tea house and shop were being renovated, so we couldn't even have some wib and ebun....although the admission price to the Gardens had been temporarily halved for the duration of the work.

While there, we picked up a leaflet inviting us to "discover Enfield's hidden beauty", from which we realised that Forty Hall, another on our list of places to visit, was only a few minutes' walk away. So we went there too. The Hall, a Grade I listed building the earliest parts of which date from 1629, has much of its original plaster and stucco work intact, and is now run as a local museum and exhibition space by the local authority (much like our own Bruce Castle). Entry to it was free....which meant that, having been able to use the pay-as-you-go cash balances on our Oyster Cards to travel to Enfield, we had a really cheap day out.

Here are some photographs -- two views of Myddelton House Gardens, each with the Wugster; and one of Forty Hall from across the lake, plus two views of its interior.

A Sociable Weekend

This weekend just past was (1) the annual summer picnic for Tottenham and Wood Green Friends of the Earth on the Saturday, followed on the Sunday by (2) the local version of The Big Lunch, in which neighbours get together in a convenient bit of street and sit around sharing food and drink. We had good weather on both occasions, despite which turn-out for the picnic was down on the previous year (itself down on the year before that) which suggests that the idea might be getting tired, and in need of a rethink. Turn-out for The Big Lunch, however, was up on the previous year, perhaps because it's only the second year on which the event has been held; this year, we had barbecues as well as salads and rice dishes. All v enjoyable, and here are some pictures -- one of the FoE picnic, with Judith, and three of The Big Lunch, with Judith in Aussie hat.

Big Wildlife Garden

Yo, all! No wedding pix and comments yet? Meanwhile: work set up a 'Big Wildlife Garden' web-site -- I've been keeping my diary notes in a Notepad file on desktop, and suddenly realised this makes them easy to share these little 'today in garden' snapshots with you guys...


Sat 18 Jul
Seed harvesting -- columbines, nigella, foxgloves -- and lavender heads. This year, a lot of the self-sower seeds will go onto our Maysie memorial garden. And I need to chase up the venue for February seed-swap day -- have already set the date as Sunday 6 Feb.


Fri 17 Jul
Maysie memorial garden: I have local'Make a Difference' funding from the Council to plant up a patch of greenspace at the top of our street into a community garden. It is currently bare grass, one plane tree, used for dog-emptying, street drinking, sometimes prostitution, with the car park alongside used by kids as kick-about space. £1100 doesn't go far once you measure up and start pricing! Basic plan is to buy in enough lavender and rose bushes to make an attractive, fairly drought-resistant and self-defending border around a big bed -- to be filled up with plants donated by neighbours -- and a smaller bed with a magnolia tree in memory of Maysie. Spring and a few summer bulbs, of course. I've set up a project web-site at http://maysie-garden.wikispaces.com/

Maysie was one of the founders of our residents association, lived all her life in the house her grandparents were in at the 1891 census, so had lots of memories of how life and this locality have changed over the years -- through the Depression, WW2, and onwards -- very tender-hearted and looked after local cats, dogs, birds and wildlife, and her neighbours. We feel her loss as the end of an era here.

Jul 16
Baby robin on the fence as I was giving a webinar this morning: first baby robin of the year. We don't normally seerobins or blackbirds here during the summer: I presume its a combination of plenty of natural food around elsewhere, and the dense foliage making it harder to see birds than when its bare in winter.

Jul 15
Evening primrose luminous in the twilight: its grown enormous, looming over the path just beyond the greenhouse against our back wall. I hope the moths are enjoying it -- have seen magpie moths here and at the allotment this past week or so.


Sat 3 Jul
Picking strawberries down the allotment -- and a bit of strawberry bed jumps up and into the pond. Frog sheltering from the searing sun beneath the leaves...





Fri 2 July
Apple tree is thick with fluffy baby sparrows. On counting, this turns into 5 spuggies and a couple of invisible rustlings. (It's a very small apple tree -- bought as a minarette but not kept strictly pruned.)

End of the reporting quarter for BTO's Garden Birdwatch logging sheet -- BTO is British Trust for Ornithology. The Garden Birdwatch is simple, quite fun and undemanding -- each week, you log the max number of different bird species seen in your garden onto their machine readable paper sheet (or enter it directly onto BTO web-site), at the end of the quarter their 'Bird Table' newsletter arrives reminding you that you should be at the end of the quarterly paper form. I log the weekly spottings in pencil, then at the end of the quarter ink in the sightings and rub out any lower-total bars, then send it off. Logging the sighting helps you recall the pattern of changes through the year -- we get robin, blackbird, wren over winter but seldom see them during summer. And it helps you note changes from year to year.




Thu 3/6: More swifts: the warm weather, with its winds from the south, should bring more swifts here from Africa, said Springwatch on TV. Sure enough I'm now seeing threes and fours, even half a dozen, at a time.

Fri 4/6: Ripping out spent forget-me-nots around back garden, and cutting back the jungle of sweet cicely along the shady fence. First crab spider of the season: fat white body, fell out among the compost. And first little black ladybird 'alligator' larvae. Am seeing small yellow ladybirds with many little black dots. And now first harlequin ladybirds appearing.

Sat5/6: Wild Day Out, Alexandra Palace

Bioblitz first spot: great spotted woodpecker seen from bus on way in to Natural England Stall, where we had 'make a kingfisher' bag-charm as a very popular activity for kids and parents. Taking a break, met a group of lichenologists examining one of the stone staircases, and was given a fascinating rundown on what they'd found by the NHM expert: seventeen different types, including black cyanobacteria botches and a white lichen with orange-red fruiting bodies that was a sign of warming climate. I asked about the whitish lichen patches I'd seen along local streets; 'like chewing gum patches, as the man said. Something muralis. They used to grow on house roofs, but an orange leafier species is apparently taking over there as urban pollution levels reduce. HOwever, it can't cope with being trampled on, as the muralis can.

The kingfisher bag-charms are made from turquoise and orange felt shapes, with a dark blue felt beak.


Sun 6/6: Planting out clary, agustache and alyssum seedlings in FG2. It was a jungle of creepers gone wild: white jasmine, silvery crimson virginia creeper (henryana). This spring, I got a local lad to help me rip them all out and hack them back, and am turning the space back into a flower garden. Just in time to rescue a ceanothus that seemed to be going under -- had put out very few leaves. I put in two rose bushes: a David Austin 'William Shakespeare' deep crimson which is supposed to have a fabulous oold-fashioned fragrance, and a crimson-and-white striped Rosa Mundi (rose of the world). According to that useful source, 'something I read', car exhaust fumes actively destroy flower scents, by binding to their molecules. We'll see whether Wm Shakespeare prevails -- my old-fashioned pinks, and even the jasmine, seem to get drowned out. Its only the soapwort, Bouncing Bet, whose delicately spicy fragrance really seems to come out on top in the urban air.


Tues 15/6: to allotment at the end of the day, to clear a patch where the climbing bean seedlings now in the greenhouse can get their feet down while we go off on hols. This means I have to rip out flourishing poppy plants just about to come into flower -- hairy, shaggy-leaved field poppies and smooth silvery-leaved 'breadseed' (or opium) poppies. I leave a good specimen of each, growing at the edge of the bed, so we will have some flowers there. Also weeded out: groundcover of speedwell and scarlet pimpernel, and a robust ragweed which was also just setting buds. If there'd been any sign of the yellow-and-black striped 'football sock' caterpillars that turn into crimson and black cinnabar moths, then I'd have left the ragweed.

"You Look Amazing!"

Judith and I were at the Cartoon Museum yesterday evening, at the launch event for the new exhibition on Children's Animation (we are paid up supporters of the Museum, so receive invitations to these events as a matter of routine). Inevitably, it was too crowded for us to view the exhibition properly, at least until the media types who'd come along to swig free wine and be seen by their fellow media types began to thin out; then we had an enjoyable time re-acquainting ourselves with Noggin The Nog and The Clangers (the exhibition has a complete diorama, with all the puppets and models), and confronting for the first time Bob The Builder and Peppa Pig (which by comparison with Noggin look very pale and uninteresting, but perhaps that's just childhood nostalgia talking). Anyway, as we were gathering ourselves to leave we -- or at least I -- was suddenly accosted by two women, one very sharp and attractive in black and the other more nondescript. "You look amazing!" said the sharp and attractive one. "What hair dye do you use? Where did you get your shoes?"

Then she unleashed the kicker: she was looking for a second husband.

I hastily introduced Judith -- "Your friend?" "My wife" -- and the conversation reverted to my hair colouring and my shoes. I could satisfy them as to the identity of the former (L'Oreal intense dark red), but as the shoes (white cork-soled sandals with flower detail on the cross-strap) were bought in a charity shop I could only say that I didn't know the name of their manufacturer. (For the record, I was also wearing a pleated grey denim mini-skirt and a pair of big dangly ear-rings: half-moons with chain loops. In other words, pretty much what I usually wear, to work or anywhere else.)

They took my picture. Then we left. I think that's the first time I have ever been quite so brazenly propositioned....

The Garden, in the July Sunshine

The heatwave which has characterised the past two weeks seems to be coming to an end as fresher weather (and more cloud) moves in from the west); but in the meantime here are some pictures of our garden in the sunshine -- the tomatoes in the greenhouse (which had only recently been planted out when we went to Purbeck; now look at the size of them); the tomatoes in the garden (how much smaller they are by comparison); the pond and its associated collection of pots of different sizes; the blackcurrant bush, with berries just about ready to be picked; and a display of flowers by the greenhouse.