Month: Sep 2023

184: the countdown begins

Apparently it is only 29 days until Thing 2’s birthday. She is the most organised child when present-giving occasions are looming, providing all about her with wishlists ranked out of ten. These are regularly updated via Google Docs, when she remembers that she really, really wanted some black flared leggings or some obscure Japanese snackfood. One year she put a cake mix on her list to make sure she got the right cake. I think she feels slightly cheated that she has an autumn birthday so all her present opportunities are squashed up at the end of the year, bless her. Welcome to my October, everyone: a daily countdown to B-Day. At least it keeps her mind off Christmas.

Speaking of October…

Autumn is definitely peeking its head over the horizon, with some spectacular thunderstorms rumbling around the place and cooler mornings. I took myself out for a walk this morning and while the trees are still green the rosehips are glowing and the blackberries are almost over. Seedpods are replacing flowers and the fields are being ploughed in, resulting in clay platforms on your trainers where the footpaths have disappeared. I was an inch taller by the time I got to the flood meadow.

I also took the opportunity for a sneaky peek into one of our local pillboxes, which sits aloof in the middle of a field near the airfield. It’s in pretty good nick and the local farmer seems to be furnishing it with a carpet of old tyres for some reason. Thanks to the airfield, which began as a Royal Flying Corps base in 1917 and then played a crucial part of the Battle of Britain, we have a good collection of military bits and bobs around the village but this is the only pillbox not badly overgrown. There was a mushroom pillbox on my walk too and at the top of the hill behind the house the old Victorian Redoubt boasts a couple of Allen-Williams turrets, also from WW2, which protected the radio station there.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Launching the schools campaign for National Illustration Day
  • Banana and Malteser cake – my signature dish, according to the kids
  • The weather being cool enough for crocheting the Hydrangea blanket I’ve been working on for two years
  • Crocodile stitch trees on the tube

Same time next week?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Racing the Light – Robert Crais

Soul Music – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

The Fine Art of Invisible Detection – Robert Goddard

183: oh no, mum’s doing history again

Yesterday I got to spend the day doing one of my very favourite things: talking to random people about history, and London’s history in particular. Even more particularly, New River Head which will be transformed into Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration over the next couple of years.

The occasion was Open House Festival 2023 – a two week celebration organised by Open City when buildings, homes and spaces usually kept behind closed doors are open to the public.

New River Head has been out of use for 70 years, after the New River’s terminus became the reservoirs at Stoke Newington instead of the Islington site and the engines were removed. There’s a lot of interest in our half acre of patchy concrete, cobbles and industrial buildings tucked away behind bits of Thames Water infrastructure, from local residents, illustrators, architects and engineers, historians both amateur and professional, and ex-Thames Water employees. It’s a derelict site in the middle of a conservation area, mostly built by the New River Company itself, and several attempts to redevelop the space have been resisted.

My job today was mostly floating about the place, delivering the odd tour and ad-hoc potted histories of the site which changed depending where I was standing. Having fallen down the Google rabbit hole when reading about the site, and from reading Nick Higham’s excellent The Mercenary River, there’s a lot of trivia bouncing about in this head of mine. There’s an IPA called Five-Inch Drop, made by the New River Brewery and named after the gentle gradient bringing the New River from Hertfordshire to London along the 100-foot contour. The river still provides 10% of London’s drinking water via the Ring Main. Water from the New River was used to fill the tank at Sadlers Wells for the re-enactment of sea battles (and the punters would jump in at the end). A cheeky fox likes to lie in the sun under the buddleia.

The area around the site has its moments too: Myddelton Passage, named after founder of the New River Company Hugh Myddelton, is known for a whole range of anti-social behaviour across time. These days it’s a quiet corner for local youths to conduct some illicit activities, to the horror of the residents, but even way-back-when muggers would lurk in this quiet alley. This meant Victorian policemen on the beat also had to lurk in the area, and a number of them indulged in some ASB of their own in the form of graffiti. A section of the wall is carved with the initials of policemen of Finsbury’s G Division: you can read more about this here. Talk about setting a bad example!

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Thing 1 starting her new college course
  • Rewatching the brilliant Sex Education in preparation for the new series
  • Hiding out from the pouring rain under a gazebo with lots of interesting people
  • Still crocheting mandalas
  • Cinnamon buns made by Thing 2
  • Discovering that our daft pigeons have built a Nerf bullet into their nest
  • Looking down instead of up when walking in London

This week will be focused on National Illustration Day – watch this space!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Story Collector – Evie Gaughan

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

The Lost Notebook – Louise Douglas

French Braid/Celestial Navigation – Anne Tyler

The Wanted – Robert Crais

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain– John O’Farrell

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

182: hot in the City

After a summer of reasonable temperatures, it’s typical that as soon as the new school starts we have a heatwave with the thermometers hitting high twenties by the end of the week. Central London has felt like a sauna, especially when stepping out of the airconditioned offices and training room* where I have been lurking.

Over the last couple of years I’ve seen a few news articles talking about the impact of green spaces on city temperatures, most recently this one based on research published by Friends of the Earth. Apparently green spaces like the parks, with all their trees and grass and things, have a cooling effect of up to four degrees on their local areas with the posh bits (around Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath etc) benefitting most while areas like Islington (with the lowest amount of green space per head of population), Tower Hamlets and the City of London are the hottest. This year is the first time I have worked in the City itself and the difference is noticeable – there was very little difference this week between surface temperature and the Central Line, for example, which is usually my reference point as in heat waves the Central Line is its own little circle of hell. Even in Bethnal Green – where the museum was close to Victoria Park, Museum Gardens, and Barmy Park (officially Bethnal Green Gardens, but the memory of the old asylum lives on) – the air was noticeably cooler. Leaving London by road, even in the cooler months, shows a two degree drop as you hit Woodford and the real start of Epping Forest.

From Arup: The results show temperatures of London’s survey area were 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings. https://www.arup.com/news-and-events/london-most-extreme-urban-heat-island-hot-spot-compared-to-five-other-global-cities-in-new-survey

18% of London is green space – more than the area of the roads and railways combined – and London was officially declared the world’s first National Park City in 2019. The ambition is to make more than 50% of Greater London green through green roofs, more trees, greening buildings and so on. However – with my cynical head on – I wonder how many of these projects will result in genuine greenery at ground level where people can go and sit under trees in green spaces, especially given the premium placed on land in London. (For what our contribution to Islington’s greenery will be, see here.)

For more excellently nerdy maps, visit Mapping London – here’s one from a 2018 heatwave to start you off, and a Cool Spaces map too.

*What was I doing in a training room? Qualifying as a Mental Health First Aider (I hope – there was an exam and everything!). I did this St John Ambulance course which was quite intense, but really interesting and gave the cohort a chance to discuss lived experience. I still hate role plays though.

Things making me happy this week:

And now I am off for a swim! See you next week.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

Red and Dead/The High Gate/Lark Rising – Violet Fenn

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

Pyramids/Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

181: alpacas and donkeys and goats, oh my

You find me at the end of a week off, in which I have achieved many things, not least some excellent siestas and a lot of reading. I even managed to leave the house a few times, accompanied by various permutations of children.

On Sunday we insisted that all three of them accompany us to the Copped Hall Open Day – I confess to bribing them with the promise of ice cream. Copped Hall, a Georgian mansion on the site of an Elizabethan mansion on the site of a 12th century hunting lodge etc etc (history and lots of it – not too far from the Iron Age hill fort at Ambresbury Banks, so there’s even prehistory), is being restored by the Copped Hall Trust so the open days are fundraising events as well as an opportunity to recruit volunteers for the garden and so on. My Beloved loves the walled garden and we always come away with many plants. I come away with hollyhock envy as they have loads and I do not. There was indeed ice cream, luckily, and a jester with an impressive codpiece which horrified the teenagers – always a plus.

Monday saw us at Ashlyn’s Farm just outside the village with Things 2 & 3, both Timeshare Teenagers and their little boys, TT2’s partner and a friend, and my Beloved’s brother and his two boys. The Things are now – blessedly – too old for soft play so we joined them for the farm park bit. Grandthing 2, at four months, is a bit too little for the animals but Grandthing 1 (five next month and starting school) was extremely impressed. He was also very taken with the giant air cushion trampoline things. We were pleased to see the animals in situ, as the farm has a history of escapees, leading to some very odd posts on local social media – the porcupine on the A414, the capybara on the golf course which made the Daily Mail, raccoons coming in through catflaps and most recently a civet cat in a back garden.

Tuesday took us to Harlow in search of school shoes: not to Clarks as I still have childhood trauma to work through, but Sports Direct where we had to buy size 10 shoes for Thing 3. Size 10. He’s 12. I had to have a siesta to get over it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

It’s been a while since I’ve made any of the Big 4 pattern company’s pieces but my Beloved came home with some fabric samples that were about to be discarded and sent off to landfill. One of them was a 2m length of cotton twill in navy, and being a short-legged person this was enough to make a pair of trousers. I’d had McCalls 7907 in the pile for a while as I keep meaning to make a pair of cargo pants, so I chose the slightly cropped balloon leg option as it needed less fabric. I still had to shorten the legs by 3″!

There may come a day when the prospect of constructing a fly front fills me with joy, but this was not that day. There are SO many steps to it, and so much potential for disaster – I’m still not sure I got it completely right but they’re my trousers and I don’t care. They fit really well, they’ll be great for work and I’ll have a crack at the cargo pocket version next.

Other things on the table this week have included a kimono and a Thai blouse, both from Folkwear patterns. I haven’t posed in those yet!

Other things making me happy this week

  • Apple cakes and blackberry cake – the garden is fruitful!
  • Tea and catching up with crafty friend yesterday
  • Finishing the top half of the Visit Tokorozawa cross stitch
  • Other people’s cats

Back to work on Monday, kids back to school on Wednesday – this week I am doing my level 3 Mental Health First Aid training, which will be interesting. See you on the other side!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater: Essays on Crafting – Alanna Okun (I wish I’d written this)

Miss Percy’s Travel Guide (to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons) – Quenby Olson

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

The Lost Girls – Sarah Painter

The Lost Bookshop – Evie Woods

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Idiots in Charge – John O’Farrell