306: north and south

I may have mentioned once or twice how much I love London, and part of that is the sheer variety of things to do when you’re in it. Recently, thanks to an excellent organisation called Tickets for Good (I work for a charity) and being part of various arts networks, I have been trying to do a few more of those things – Amanda and I went to see the excellent production of Othello just before Christmas, for example. There’s been two nights out this week!

Wednesday

The first evening out was also with Amanda, to a venue called Lafayette London near Kings Cross – a basement venue styled as a saloon with a lot of wood and extremely expensive drinks. The show was Sabrage, which is when you open a wine bottle with a sabre and this did indeed happen at the begining and end. Everything in between was…unexpected.

The venue was pretty full, and our wobbly table and bentwood chairs were surrounded by a whole variety of people – from a pair of elderly couples in front of us to two lone gentlemen behind us, one of whom left before the interval and the other of whom was having an absolute whale of a time and who recommended a similar event to us. Several people left before the interval, in fact – perhaps the unexpected was a little too unexpected. It’s for over-18s only for a reason.

The show is described as “a decadent world where high-octane spectacle and intoxicating allure meets titillating humour” which pretty much nails it. The comperes, who amp up the energy from the moment they take the stage with comedy and audience participation (which continues throughout) are highly entertaining and have their own spots in the show as well. I haven’t laughed so much in a while, which is much needed.

There are slinky singers in sequins, one of whom sat of the lap of the elderly gentleman in front while singing – prior to this he hadn’t looked as if he was enjoying himself, and his wife was highly amused. There’s cheeky burlesque, perfectly timed and occasionally outrageous physical comedy, amazing aerial work, rollerskates, bubbles, people flying around and climbing walls, and Amanda was still emptying gold foil out of her handbag the following day.

We had dinner at Caravan in Granary Square beforehand – sharing plates including pizza, smashed cucumber, kale and croquettes, and entertainment was provided initially by the adjacent table where an ex-couple were picking over the bones of their relationship. Well, he was – she couldn’t get a word in between him mansplaining her feelings to her. He was drinking heavily and she was trying not to, and after two hours of him we were somewhat concerned for her welfare as he was not taking hints. She had her coat on and was trying to gather her things – at which point her phone mysteriously disappeared and reappeared where he’d been sitting – and he was trying to convince her to go to the bar and keep drinking which she’d agreed to. As they got up we nabbed her and checked she was OK, and she was very much done but too nice to abandon him. We suggested she went to the ladies and snuck out by the back door, and before we left we asked the waitress who’d been covering our tables to keep an eye on her. We do hope she got home OK, and without him in tow. Trying to be active bystanders is a good thing, and both of us have benefited from these in our younger days. I hope if any of my Horde find themselves in similar situations someone would look out for their welfare too.

The evening was somewhat marred by the Central Line being suspended between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone, which meant I had to get a mainline train to Harlow and then a cab back to the village, but there we are. I thought I’d try Uber, as Thing 1 seems to use them a lot successfully, but thanks to the Central Line and their surge pricing policy they wanted £85 for a 7.5 mile journey. Luckily the local taxi firm were more reasonable!

Friday

Friday night’s outing was with Rhiannon and we went to see Gerry and Sewell at the Aldwych Theatre. Based on Jonathan Tulloch’s sadly out of print (and not available on Kindle) novel The Season Ticket, which was also made into the brilliant film Purely Belter, this was a free ticket offer from the Participatory Arts London network. A five o’clock performance is also a very civilised time for those of us who live outside the TfL network.

I loved the film, so was looking forward to the play, and we weren’t disappointed – funny, poignant and at times shocking, with Geordie actors in the main roles and a good supporting cast including some puppetry. AC/DC and a lot of Sam Fender feature in the soundtrack with some dance sequences including the explosive opening moment involving a lot of flags in the audience. The set was bleak, as was a lot of the action – the north east after the closure of the shipyards was not a happy place – but the overarching message of the story is hope which does come through. Highly recommended if the production tours. If not, go and find the film.

Things making me happy this week

The social media algorithm showing me a lot of Pallas’s Cats
Finishing the second Lego bouquet
Meeting nearly 100 people wanting to work at our Centre at one of our information evenings
interviewing several excellent candidates for our Community Gardener role
Breakfast and a mooch round the charity shops with Miriam on Saturday morning
A really interesting meeting in Kentish Town (though the mansplaining that followed my sharing of the picture below was tiresome)
Haggis

And that’s it from me. I don’t know what this week has in store but am fairly confident it won’t involve flying men on rollerskates and audience participation….or if it does I’ll be very surprised!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting – Naomi Kuttner

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe/Life, The Universe and Everything/So Long and Thanks For All The Fish/Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams (Audible)

The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love – India Holton

The Enchanted Greenhouse – Sarah Beth Durst

Direct Descendant – Tanya Huff

An Inheritance of Magic – Benedict Jacka

302: Dracula doesn’t count

What do Just Like Heaven, Last Christmas, The Sixth Sense and Donnie Darko have in common? Only one of them has a giant bunny. All of them have hot male protagonists (yes, Bruce Willis counts. Don’t argue). One of them is set at Christmas. They don’t have actors in common or similar plot lines.

The answer is, of course, that they are all ‘dead guy movies’, which is a debate my bestie and I have been having for a large part of the past week. These are movies where a character has been dead all along, not just died in the early part of the movie (which means Truly Madly Deeply is but Ghost isn’t) or been part of the action despite being dead (Weekend at Bernie’s is not). Muppets’ Christmas Carol is, since it clearly states that ‘the Marleys were dead to begin with’. There are lots of horror genre examples too, I expect, but I’m less likely to watch those.

Where it gets sticky is when the undead (or mostly dead) get brought into the equation. There was a lively debate about Dracula, for example: he’s dead but undead so is still walking around the place, thus very much a grey area. Her family say it counts, mine disagree. Frankenstein is another grey area, as all the various bits of the Monster were dead to begin with but then get reanimated. Zombie movies are mostly not, as often they’re wandering about the place having been brought back to life. It’s more complicated than you’d think….

The difference 34 years makes

That same bestie was also my companion for a Christmas afternoon out on Tuesday, when we went to see Othello at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, starring David Harewood as Othello, Caitlin Fitzgerald as Desdemona and Toby Jones as Iago.

Toby Jones, after his performance in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, his gentle nerdiness in Detectorists and understated excellence in Mr Burton is in grave danger of becoming a national treasure. He was positively malevolent as Iago, manipulating everyone around him and driving Othello to jealous madness, culminating in a great pile of dead bodies at the end. David Harewood made a very angsty Othello, and Caitlin Fitzgerald was sparky and joyful as Desdemona. It’s easy to forget how much humour there is even in the tragedies, and Toby Jones broke the fourth wall quite frequently while confiding his plans to the audience, with his usual comic timing. Costumes were modernish, the set was minimal and elegant, and PJ Harvey’s score was understated. Highly recommended if you get the chance.

Both of us had ‘done’ Othello at A-level and had written essays on the ‘noble savage’ tropes. 34 years later we both felt Mr O needed to do a bit less listening to Iago and a bit more thinking for himself.

We went to the matinee performance after lunch at Rudy’s in Wardour Street. We shared a pizza and a salad – the pizzas are huge and if we’d had a whole one each we’d have slept through the performance. After the show we walked back through a Christmassy London (well, fought our way past the tourists) to Kings Cross St Pancras to catch our trains – we saw the latest probably Banksy, a lot of festive lights and a complete set of Mario Bros in the station for some reason. An excellent day out altogether, and home in time for bed!

Other things making me happy this week

A session at the new David Lloyd in Harlow with Miriam – a mix of yoga, pilates and meditation. Just what I needed but bits of me were most unhappy the following day.
Coffee and stollen with Sue, Jill and Heather on Monday
Christmas cake

Various early morning walks with dogs and people
Christmas Mass at All Saints Epping Upland with Miriam and our Thing 2s. I got to light the advent wreath!

Finally making the Lego bouquet that my Beloved gave me for our anniversary last February. Just under 1000 very small pieces, but a permanent vase (or coffee jar) of flowers in my lair
Finishing these little ‘reel mice’ that I’ve had in my mind for ages. I think they need scarves though.
Saturday at TT1s with many cuddles from the twins, and Christmas Day with TT2 and the mad two year old
Christmas Amazon vouchers to spend. Hurray!

This morning I may go for a walk, and then have every intention of lurking in my lair for a few hours. Same time next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Night Birds on Nantucket/The Stolen Lake – Joan Aiken

A World of Curiosities/The Black Wolf – Louise Penny

The Dead of Winter – Sarah Clegg

Murder at Martingale Manor – Jodi Taylor

Strange Days – Violet Fenn

Nemi, vols I & II – Lise Myhre

300: Marley was dead to begin with…

…possibly one of the most excellent opening lines in literature (kind of spooky and oooh, as Rizzo the Rat says) and one I was very pleased to find on an enamel pin by Laura Crow which I wore to work this week in festive fashion. It is, after all, the season for this sort of thing – currently I am watching The Muppets’ Christmas Carol with GT2, one of my favourite festive films. Coincidentally my second favourite Christmas movie is also an adaptation of the Dickens classic: Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Murray’s ruthless TV exec brought to see the error of his ways by the always bonkers Carol Kane and her toaster (among other spirits) is classic viewing.

This week I’ll be doing my annual listen of Hugh Grant reading the original Dickens version, which was a freebie on Audible a couple of years ago and which is an excellent way to spend a couple of hours. The Muppet version is apparently the version with the most of Dickens’ original text in the script, which is fortunate since the Horde have all had to do the book for GCSE and they’ve been subjected to the film MANY times.

My festive mood has been helped considerably by walking back to Farringdon station via Sekforde Street and Clerkenwell Green. Dickens lived quite close to Clerkenwell – there’s a plaque to him in the gloriously Gothic Waterhouse Square/Prudential Building (Holborn Bars) on High Holborn, and his home on Doughty Street is about ten minutes’ walk away. Clerkenwell, on the edges of the City, still has a lot of Victorian streets and alleyways and at this time of year it’s adorned with wreaths. Even when it’s not Christmas it’s pretty – I love all the doorknockers on Sekforde Street, especially the bear with its cub and the cat with kitten on the old Finsbury Savings Bank (which Dickens actually used, I’ve just this minute discovered).

The denizens of Hatton Garden are a bit less festive, though the cigar-smoking skeleton Santa in the window of one of the offices made me laugh, as did the sign on ScooterTech round the corner.

Continuing this week’s obsession with Mr Dickens’ classic, I took Thing 2 and Thing 2a to see ZooNation’s hiphop version at Sadlers Wells East, Ebony Scrooge. A blend of hiphop, comedy and theatre it was very different to the last show we saw – Quadrophenia – but all of us loved it. It was noisy and joyful and funny, and the audience was encouraged to make noise and enjoy it. There was a short ‘Curtain Raiser’ performance by Boy Blue’s East London Dance School beforehand, called Sinnerman and which made excellent use of Nina Simone. The rapping narrators were great, and the animations were beautifully done and added to the evening. Highly recommended, if you’re after a festive night out with a difference.

Other things making me happy this week

Dinner at Kung Fu Mama with lovely friend Rhiannon on Wednesday, putting the world to some sort of rights while eating excellent noodles. The place is tiny and has a small street food menu, and it was packed – I had the traditional beef noodle soup which was delicious but messy. Pak choi is really hard to eat with chopsticks.
A swim on Saturday morning with Jill – it was c-c-c-c-c-cold in the water as we haven’t been often this autumn. We followed up with hot chocolates at Costa and a mooch round Hobbycraft.

My favourite and best thing this week though has been the completion of my very own lair in the attic – thanks to my Beloved who has been building tables and shelves for me, although I did have to assemble my own chairs. The contents of my frivolous shelves from the Shed have migrated upstairs and I had a happy Saturday afternoon pottering about and singing along to Christmas songs, especially Kate Rusby. I have a whole collection of things to go on the ‘walls’ – postcards and prints – and I’ll be able to work without having to put up my folding table, and leave projects out over a weekend. There’s a wide surface for cutting and sticking, space for my ironing board, and other flat surfaces. They may never see me downstairs again. All three of the Things popped up to see me while I was pottering, which was nice!

And that’s it for me for this week – if anyone needs me I’ll be in the attic finishing off some projects….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Better Man/All The Devils Are Here/The Madness of Crowds- Louise Penny

The Secrets of Pain – Phil Rickman (Audible)

291: embroidery envy

Saturday was the annual pilgrimage to Ally Pally to worship at the altar of fabrics and yarn and crafty gadgets, also known (this year at least) as Knit and Stitch. Heather and I were joined by Tor, one of her colleagues, and we had a most excellent mooch around the exhibitions and graduate shows before heading into the danger zone of trader stands.

I love the graduate shows – this year I was very taken with two who were using stitch to encode messages into their work. One had been inspired by a visit with their (very proud) mum to Bletchley Park when they were nine, and another had created Braille embroidery. I’d definitely visit an exhibition about secret messages in embroidery! I wish I had the vision and talent to do this sort of thing.

There were also many beautiful embroidered birds at The Embroiderers Guild, and some interesting materials in use – upcycled building textiles, plastics which mimicked natural forms and some Korean goblins (‘dokkaebi’) inspired by found objects like lost hats and socks.

We spotted large gatherings of Bees (the sewing kind) including some of this year’s crop, and stroked a lot of fabric as we wandered up and down the aisles. I was very restrained, coming home with some fabric for a new version of the Folkwear Basics Jacket, an embroidery kit which is all French knots and a beautiful embroidered bird brooch. I rarely wear necklaces at work as often have a lanyard, so I usually wear brooches or badges instead. I probably didn’t need another one but I really liked it…

We took our own packed lunches as the food is always disappointing and overpriced at these things – there’s never anywhere to sit and what you end up with is the world’s most expensive meal deal. A well-deserved tea in the afternoon while being charmed by an adorably smily baby was quite reasonable, and then we made it home. The magic laundry fairy hadn’t managed to finish sorting the four clean loads stuffed into the trug on my bed but what can you do?

Things making me happy this week

This beautiful tree on the way to the office in Islington
My cousin sending me pictures of toadstools from her early morning walks
Our third access panel meeting – we’re so lucky to have a generous group of people who are willing to share their experience and thoughts about our new Centre.
A personal best in the Cardiff Half last Sunday – 3 hours and 2 minutes on my Strava, and 3 hours 9 on the chip time. I really wanted to come in under 3 hours but I was very close! I was less impressed with the serious aches on Monday and Tuesday. The weather was great, and the crowd support all round the course was excellent. I was touched to see my lovely friend Jen at 13k, as no one ever comes out to see me! She even gave me a hug, despite the fact that I was a sweaty mess. My cousin Hev leapt out of the Rock Choir at mile 11 with another hug.

Ben and Jerry’s Minter Wonderland is back in the Co-op. It’s my favourite.

Today it’s Apple Day at Copped Hall, so Thing 2 and I will be manning my gazebo. She’s been making earrings with the content of my button tin and she’ll be selling them, while I’ll have my usual collection of crochet decorations and jewellery, including these googly-eyed sprouts.

Next Saturday you can find me in central London at the London Welsh Centre’s Autumn Market, probably also with Thing 2 in tow…

Same time next week, gang!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Lost Paths – Jack Cornish

A Rule Against Murder/A Trick of the Light – Louise Penny

Wine of Angels/Midwinter of the Spirit – Phil Rickman (Audible)

287: this little piggy

…went to market

Actually, it would be more accurate to say the little piggy will be going to market in a few weeks – I have two stalls lined up in October so I am getting myself organised with tiny things for my stall. These pumpkins and Christmas cactuses – both designed by me – will be there. The cacti are in vintage espresso mugs I found in a charity shop – they’re Whittard Christmas ones.

You have no idea how disturbing it is that espresso mugs from 2004 are considered vintage, by the way. I am also vintage, it turns out, being more than 20 but less than 100. (I checked to see if I was mid-century modern but it turns out I am too young for that.)

On 12 October I’ll be at the Copped Hall Family Apple Day, and on 18 October at the London Welsh Centre for their Welsh Autumn Market which is part of the Bloomsbury Festival. This is an excellent place if you haven’t been, and if you have a well-behaved dog (or family) you can bring them too. It doesn’t say whether the family needs to be well-behaved. The free tickets can be booked through the link above. Come along and say hello!

In the spirit of spookiness I have also been capturing ghosts ready for Halloween. My learning from this has been not to use white yarn on the tube as it just goes grey. This pickled ghost is called Clarence, after the would-be angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. I love the way they look as if they’re floating.

…stayed home

At least until Friday when the Tube strike was over, when I finally got to visit our new office. Big windows! Natural light! Level access! In the last few months our amazing office manager has co-ordinated approximately a million job interviews, found a new office nearer our site, packed up and moved our old office (we did help!), overhauled our IT systems and has done all of it with her usual calm and aplomb – and without us ever running out of milk and coffee. I don’t know how she does it. I also don’t know what we’d do without her.

I got a lift in with Jill as far as Walthamstow and bumped into an ex-colleague on Wood St station so had a lovely catch-up on the train followed by some crochet and audio book on the 38 bus from Hackney.

Strikes don’t seem to have as much impact* since we all learned to work at home and since the rise (or curse) of the Lime bikes and so on. I almost got run over by a teenager on a Lime bike yesterday – he was on the pavement and hadn’t paid for it so it was making the loud clicky noise that’s a dead giveaway. A colleague has ranked all rentable e-bike riders from worst to best by brand, and while Lime aren’t the worst they’re certainly the ones you see bearing down on you more often. They’re incredibly heavy so are dangerous to fall off, and they also charge by the minute so riders often run red lights or ignore crossings to avoid paying extra. I’d be willing to bet most of them couldn’t produce their Cycling Proficiency badge, too.

Anyway, the RMT were responsible for this week’s four day strike and it’s not about pay but about working hours and wellbeing. I approve, I think, especially as I’d already decided to hold my first round of interviews on Teams rather than in person which worked out nicely.

*At least once you get into Central London.

Things making me happy this week (not roast beef)

I am very relieved to see our local Co-op’s glow-up has been completed and we have the village shop back, albeit without the fresh bakery section which is disappointing. It does have a self-service till now which is a plus as it should reduce the queues which tend to build up in there.
Popping out for a drink with Miriam and Jill on Thursday evening to put the world to rights.
Being taken out for lunch by Thing 1 – also to the pub, but it was a very nice pizza.
Catching up with this year’s Sewing Bee and finding two new series of Brassic on Netflix. It’s sweary but it’s one of those wonderfully gentle British comedies. Joseph Gilgun is great in it.
The new Slough House thriller appearing on my Kindle – Clown Town, by Mick Herron. Such a good series.

Today I am off for a long walk – only three weeks to go till Cardiff Half. Next week I’ll be back adjacent to the Shire, in the Forest of Dean, with the horde of cousins celebrating another big birthday.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

False Value/Amongst Our Weapons – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

Wild Hares and Hummmingbirds – Stephen Moss

The Snow Angel – Lulu Taylor

Clown Town – Mick Herron

278: girls’ night out

On Tuesday Things 1 and 2 got the train into London and we had a grown-up girls’ night out. It’s the first time we’ve done this, and we had a most excellent evening in Islington.

They chose Nando’s for dinner and afterwards we walked up to New River Head where I smushed history into their brains whether they wanted any or not. I showed them the historic graffiti in Myddelton Passage, and Clerkenwell Green, and nice houses in old streets, and then we went to the ballet.

Sadlers Wells had sent an email out with free tickets for Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia, A Mod Ballet and two colleagues had given it rave reviews after seeing it the previous week. I’ve never been to a ballet before, and neither have the girls, so we weren’t sure what to expect. We were in the stalls, so we had a good view (give or take a few tall people) and the girls were absolutely rapt from the first moment. To be fair, so was I. It was magical.

The set was minimal and whizzed on and off the stage in a surprisingly elegant fashion. The costumes by Paul Smith were sharp and the music – by Townshend’s wife Rachel Fuller – echoed The Who’s originals. The set was enhanced by gorgeous, atmospheric projections – condensation on diner windows, the sea at Brighton, dramatic city scenes. It’s a long time since I’ve seen the film but the story of Jimmy came through strongly. We did the evening properly, with a programme and ice creams in the interval, and I think the girls enjoyed the whole experience.

Thing 2 turned to me at the interval and said, ‘Mum, this is SO GOOD!’ and Thing 1 told me she LOVED it. High praise indeed. The length of the voice messages T2 was leaving for her friends afterwards was a dead giveaway, too, and I think they’d like to go again. I know I do! It was SO GOOD and I LOVED not just the ballet but a night out with my beautiful girls.

It’s been a very educational week all round, really. I’ve had two days in schools testing the new STEM x local history session. Chris, Toni and SJ have done four days – with Chris in Victorian kit as ‘Charles’ and Toni and SJ in hard hat and hi vis as ‘Emma’, our modern day engineer. We’ve been in classrooms and playgrounds, worked with 240 kids and and generally had an excellent time. It’s been so much fun watching the sessions develop – adding in new interactive sections and tweaking others. It’s definitely better in a large area like a playground or hall, especially when the 30 small people are being used to demonstrate the workings of a pump with three umbrellas and a lot of masking tape. I interviewed some of the kids at the end of one session and the message was that they loved the activeness and all the props, wanted the rest of the school to join in, and requested that we brought a person from the future in as well so they could compare that too. I promised I’d see what I could do…

The format we’re using – someone appearing from the past to compare and contrast similar projects with a modern engineer – is one that Chris and I have used successfully in the past at Museum of London Docklands when our modern engineer encountered Isambard Kingdom Brunel. On that occasion we compared the Thames Tunnel and the Thames Tideway project, and used the children to model the Greathead Shield and how to dig into sand safely. One of our more challenging hosts spoke to me afterwards and said ‘well, I get that Brunel was an actor, but how did you get a real engineer to come and do this?’. I took that as a win, and one teacher said that it was the best session they’d ever been to.

This time round we’re including illustrations – and bringing them to life with the pump activity – such as ‘Monster Soup’, No Fishing and No Swimming signs (communication without language), and a portrait of Hugh Myddelton and his excellent beard. There’s also umbrellas, ping pong balls, lengths of piping, beads, buckets, pinwheels and high vis jackets. There’s the story of the king falling into the frozen New River, Charles Dickens complaining that he pays for a large cistern but never has enough water for a bath, and – Chris, we missed one! The complaints from the people in Pall Mall when they found live eels in their pipes! We’re testing with some older children next week – I wonder whether they’ll ask such good questions?

Other things making me happy this week

A crochet project I can’t show you yet as it’s a surprise
A much-needed evening swim with Sue – the water was 26.4 and balmy, the ducks were flipping up and down feeding in the weeds and the little shoals of fish were zooming about in the shallows
Ice lollies.
Cally Fest last Sunday – it rained and it shined, we saw almost 300 people and a lot of cute dogs. This weekend its Whitecross Street Party, and we have a great activity planned. I’ve given strict instructions to the team to slather on the Factor 50 as it’s going to be HOT.
An excellent conversation with the black cab driver today about the New River – he grew up on Amwell Street and now lives in Enfield and runs along the New River Path every day.
Whitecross Street Party!

This week we have the second of our community access panel meetings, and I’m really looking forward to next weekend… and a couple of days off after 12 straights days of work.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Blood Lines/Blood Pact/Blood Debt – Tanya Huff

Amongst Our Weapons/False Value – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

The Wild Life – John Lewis-Stempel

271: same blog, different river

Well, my feet have just about stopped aching after last Sunday’s Goring Gap half-marathon walk along the Thames, although stairs were definitely not my favourite thing until at least Thursday. I came in 119th out of 124 (and last in my age group!) but since I knocked 22 minutes off my predicted time I am quite happy with that. I quite like a half marathon distance as if you start in the morning you can be done by lunchtime and the rest of the day’s your own. Tan finished in two and a quarter hours, and I was in at three hours and eight minutes. There was some unscientific jogging in the first 5k (because I felt like it!) but mostly it was fast walking.

The weather was perfect for a walk – sunny and warm but not too hot, and the route was mostly flat. The worst bit of climb was the railway bridge at Purley at 10k which went up from the Thames to quite far up a steep slope. The last couple of kilometres weren’t a lot of fun either, on a flint path with a long slow climb. Even the field full of alpacas couldn’t improve it. It was a well-organised event with good signage and friendly volunteers at the two feed stations, and I got to see lots of cygnets, goslings, red kites and friendly hounds.

The cheese and ham sandwich and bag of Frazzles produced by Tan when we got back to her flat was the tastiest food ever!

Later in the week I was back over in Ealing with the rest of the team to catch a bus to Brentford for a tour of the London Museum of Water and Steam. We started with a team picnic in Waterman’s Park, watched by a the usual London throng of optimistic pigeons and overlooking the river where a heron stalked the island shallows, geese shared my crisps and a coot bobbled up and down pecking at weed.

We were taken on a tour of the steam engines which were HUGE and which raised questions about how these would have been oriented in our own little engine house in Clerkenwell. These water pumping engines have several storeys of water below ground, and rise up three storeys too. One of the water tanks has a population of goldfish, and another has a wonderful crop of ferns.

We met the museum cat, Piper, who lives in the office during the day and roams the museum at night keeping the mice down. Mice are inevitable in buildings unpopulated at night – I have never worked in a museum without them – so a cat is an excellent idea. We haven’t quite persuaded our Director yet but we’re working on it….

I was extremely excited to see the tailfeathers of one of the standpipe tower’s peregrine falcons peeking over the edge. The ‘Splashzone’ watery play area is immediately below – naturally we tested it! – and apparently the peregrines have a habit of dropping parakeet heads off the tower into the play area which can be a bit disconcerting for young visitors. You can see me below making the archimedes screw move water up – taken by one of my colleagues.

The museum is fascinating, telling the story of steam and clean water in London, and the sheer monumental size of the engines is awe-inspiring. When they were installed they apparently brought the beams in and then engineered them downwards. They have to be perfectly straight otherwise the pistons will catch on the sides and wear down so the level of precision needed for these huge machines is startling. The engines weren’t ‘in steam’ sadly but they do have steam weekends monthly which I bet are great fun. If you visit between now and October you can also see the beautiful interventions by artist-in-residence Dr Jasmine Pradissitto in the ‘Tender Machines‘ displays.

Other things making me happy this week

On Tuesday I joined Such Stories (aka Laura and Jo) for a family workshop, where we saw some of last year’s play project participants and made some new friends.
Discovering Resident Alien on Netflix (an excellent turn by Alan Tudyk) – very funny indeed.
Seasons 4-6 of Northern Exposure all appearing on Amazon Prime
A surprise parcel at work which turned out to be a Quentin Blake original from Kids in Museums – QB had drawn the ‘Museum of his Dreams’, and they thought we might like it.
The new Joanne Harris novel (a new sequel to Chocolat) appearing on my Kindle.
John Lewis-Stempel’s gorgeous nature writing. I love his books about his Herefordshire home.
Finishing Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. A recommendation from a colleague, this has turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read in years. One of those books that – when you finish it – leaves you sitting there thinking about it. The ones that leave you feeling like Holden Caulfield in the Salinger quote below.

At some point this weekend I’ll go for a walk – I spotted a new footpath when we went up to collect Thing 3, which I looked up on my map and worked out a route back through to Ongar. I need to keep up my speed for Cardiff in October. I’d like to break the three hour mark!

Same time next week, gang. I don’t think I’ve got any river-related activities planned but you never know…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Vianne- Joanne Harris

Demon’s Bluff – Kim Harrison

21st Century Yokel – Tom Cox (Audible)

Cahokia Jazz – Francis Spufford

The Running Hare/The Wood – John Lewis-Stempel

270: how does your garden grow?

This week’s adventure was to Myddelton House and Gardens in Enfield, which was the home of – among others – a chap called E A Bowles. It’s now the HQ of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and has been recently restored with the help of those nice people at the National Lottery Heritage Fund. I was shown around by the head gardener and we made some early plans for linking up with other organisations along the route of the New River.

E A Bowles was, apparently, never supposed to have owned the house: in the way of younger brothers at the time, he was destined to have been a vicar but his older brother died early so he ended up inheriting instead. By all accounts he seems to have been one of more useful members of the gentry, setting up night classes for local youngsters and giving them practical skills, hosting village events on the lawns, acting as a lay preacher and forming a local cricket team. Many of the ‘Bowles Boys’ went on to great things.

He was happiest in his garden, however, and it still shows. A crocus expert whose illustrations are held by the Royal Horticultural Society, he filled the garden with plants he loved rather than decorative borders. The ‘Lunatic Asylum’ area contains oddities – he was the first to propagate twisted hazel in the UK – while the walls and trees are draped with glorious swags of purple wisteria.

The New River (that again, sorry) used to flow through the gardens but he wasn’t allowed to plant anything in it, so instead he bordered it with irises which reflected into the waters and dug a large pond where he could plant anything he liked. The river’s course was straightened in the 19th century and a lawn now reflects the old route. The water was so hard Bowles was surprised he couldn’t walk on it: the result of the chalk aquifer and streams that fed it.

A leak from the river fed the Rock Garden, his most loved area. I was told that he used to bury empty bottles upright in the leak (or possibly leat, I don’t know) to capture the water and use it to water the gardens so none was wasted. The route from the main road crosses the New River although the river path is closed for works, but I did get to stand and look into the surprisingly fast flowing waters.

Attached to the main house is a gorgeous conservatory-full of succulents, and there are further glasshouses in the kitchen garden with peaches and more succulents. We’re going back in half term, hopefully, for a longer explore. Scattered about the garden are stone pieces – the old Enfield Market Cross (I also saw the Eleanor Cross in Waltham Cross on the way home), parts of the old London Bridge, and two tall wire ostriches who replaced original stone ones which now live in the little Bowles Museum by the tea room.

With free entry from 10-5 every day (earlier in winter) this is well worth a visit, and you could also take in Forty Hall and farm which is virtually next door. There’s some lovely footpaths and parkland to explore, and a monthly farmers’ market. Gunpowder Mills isn’t too far in between Waltham Cross and Waltham Abbey, but if you’re jonesing for more gardens Capel Manor is also very close.

Other things making me happy this week:

Seeing my sea creatures in the British Library’s new Story Explorers family exhibition. Our director and I were invited, so we explored outer space and the jungle. Running into ex-Young V&A colleagues was a bonus, as was a quick catch-up with storyteller Emily Grazebrook who worked with families to co-design the exhibition. If you have small people, go and visit – it’s free but you will need to book
Forest ramble to loosen up my legs before today’s half marathon in the Goring Gap. Glad the weather has cooled a bit!
New haircut thanks to lovely Jasmine at Salon 35

Thing 2 being very calm about the first week of her GCSEs. There’s been a lot of baking in the afternoons though!
The first tiny alpine strawberries in the garden

Right, if anyone needs me I’ll be tackling my walking nemesis….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Good, the Bad and the Furry/21st Century Yokel – Tom Cox (Audible)

The Running Hare – John Lewis-Stempel

The Darkest Evening – Ann Cleeves

Clete – James Lee Burke

Demon’s Bluff – Kim Harrison

Cahokia Jazz – Francis Spufford (Dad – you’ll enjoy this one!)

269: a trip back in time to 1693

I love secret bits of London and this week the work gang got to see the fabulous Oak Room at New River Head. Not the bit of New River Head that we’re turning into a brand new gallery and gardens, but the bit that’s currently a very grand set of flats on Rosebery Avenue. The header image this week is ‘London from Islington Hill, by Thomas Bowles, c. 1740. New River Head, centre-left, Upper Pond in foreground’. This is from British History Online.

The New River (its compulsory to say at this point that it’s not new and it’s not a river) was finished in 1613 and brought clean water from springs in Hertfordshire to Islington, and from there it was distributed to the City and later to further afield in London via elm pipes. The New River Company was one of the earliest – if not the earliest – joint stock companies, headed by a Welsh goldsmith/engineer/all-round clever chap called Hugh Myddelton. His brother became Lord Mayor of London (the Dick Whittington sort rather than the Sadiq Khan sort) on the very day that the New River was officially opened with lots of pomp and ceremony. There are several excellent books about it, including The Mercenary River by Nick Higham which is well worth a read. Even the King was a shareholder, putting up half the money to build the river in return for half the profits – which also worked to convince the local landowners to let HM dig a river across their lands. The river followed the 100ft contour, so gravity brought it down to London, with a five inch drop over every mile. You can find some pictures of the route here.

The river originally finished at the Round Pond, where the flats are now, and the Water House was where the offices were. The Oak Room was commissioned by the company engineer in 1693, and it was a mark of how important it was that the portrait of King William III that decorates the ceiling was done by the official court painter. The ceiling is covered in plasterwork showing some very fierce dolphins looking like Chinese dragons, swans and other waterbirds, scenes from along the New River, and is incredibly detailed. The dolphins reminded me of this figure we had in the ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’ exhibition at Museum of Childhood.

It’s called the Oak Room, though, because of the oak carvings – probably done by Grinling Gibbons or at least his workshop. There’s an unusual unicorn in the coat of arms with a most excellently pointy horn, for example, and the carvings around the fireplace include a very cute crab, crayfish, fishing nets and other watery equipment, plants and various fish. Oak is apparently very hard to carve, and the intricate work here is quite stunning. We were lucky enough to be shown around by an expert on the history of the river, who also came to our offices to give us a talk a couple of weeks ago. In its original position in the Water House the room gave a view of St Paul’s Cathedral and the City, but has been turned around in its new home where it was installed in 1920. The head of the Metropolitan Water Board used it as a dining room, apparently, and had a special chair made from the boarding of the Round Pond when it was decommissioned. Now you can see our Engine House from it, complete with scaffolding where our construction team are busy bringing it back to life.

The block of flats itself is very grand, and the entrance includes the seals of all the water companies which were folded into the MWB in 1904. The seal of the New River Company has the hand of Providence over London and the motto ‘and I caused it to rain upon one city’, which made a change from everyone else’s gods and greenery. The ground floor has a huge open space where people used to come and pay their water bills – it looks more like a ballroom – and the carved MWB seal is still over the front door. Parts of the pond revetment can still be seen too.

Our next visit is to the London Museum of Water and Steam in a couple of weeks – can you detect a theme? I’m also going to visit Myddelton House and Gardens on the route of the New River. Lots of history incoming, London fans….

Other things making me happy this week

Dropping the first batch of sea creatures off at the British Library, including my very psychedelic crab. Needle felting all the faces was very therapeutic.
A long walk last Sunday rambling along the river Roding, seeing hares again and a whole lot of ducklings
All the Threads about President Barbie of the new country of Mattel. Apparently Crayola are drawing up the trade agreements. See also: Puppet Regime

Today is long walk day with only a week to go till the Goring Gap half marathon….must remember to hydrate and fuel properly to face my nemesis!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Harbour Street/The Moth Catcher/The Seagull – Ann Cleeves

Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Good, The Bad and The Furry – Tom Cox (Audible)

Demon’s Bluff – Kim Harrison

254: if we build it, they will come

In my usual sublime-to-ridiculous way, this week we are hopping from radical inclusion to…. frogs. Yes, frogs. I like frogs.

Also newts, dragonflies, toads and bats (the flying sort, not me).

This handsome chap lives in our garden, and takes no sh*t from anyone.

This aquatic turn of mind was sparked by a last-thing-on-Friday email from our lovely project manager Liz, who is currently thinking about the logistics of getting power onto our new site and – as a pond is featured in the plans – there was a question about how much water would be in it so we’d know how powerful the pump would need to be.

Now, I do not know a great deal about ponds (other than about acclimatising myself to them in the wild) and I know even less about how to calculate the volume of a pond from a flat plan. ‘It looks quite big’, I hazarded. I suspect this was not very helpful.

I don’t know much about frogs either, so I enlisted the assistance of my Beloved who knows about things that happen outside in the garden. He dug a wildlife pond in ours a couple of years ago, which does not as yet have a frog but I live in hope and whenever he finds Tiny* when he’s gardening he puts him in the pond.

*Tiny is my newt…sorry

In my head the pond on the new site is not a sterile, shallow water feature which will inevitably be filled with paddling small people without so much as a pondskater to be seen, but a proper wildlife pond where we can have pond-dipping, spot dragonflies and bees and butterflies, and attract all sorts of exciting wildlife including bats who definitely live in Islington and who could be encouraged to come and live on our site if we had a source of quality bugs for them. The pond in my head is raised so people can sit around the edges and people who use wheelchairs can do the pond-dipping activities too. One end of it is a bog garden and the other end is deeper, making a home for things that like deeper water for the laying of frogspawn. (It will have a chickenwire frame over it, so we can lift it for activities and maintenance but cats and would-be paddlers can’t fall in).

There will be plants like irises and things that oxygenate the water, grasses around it and insect-attracting plants to make this little corner a wildlife haven. My Beloved and I spent the next hour delving into wildlife ponds (starting here) and discovered that you only need a pump if there’s fish – who are apex predators in the pond, and eat all the other things – or if you’re having a fountain. Wildlife ponds don’t need them, but they do like oxygenating plants which also provide cover for tiny wildlife. If we did have a pump it would need a filter to prevent the tadpoles and froglets being sucked up and mangled.

Islington has the lowest amount of green space per person of all the London boroughs, and increasingly where green space is being planted it isn’t publicly accessible. When teachers were consulted waaayyy back in 2023 they wanted to be able to come to the site to explore biodiversity and bringing water back onto the site will be key to attracting wildlife. The site’s history is inextricably linked with the history of water in London, too, so a pond makes sense. Hopefully the pond-in-my-head will become reality, complete with frogs…

Things making me happy this week

Coffee with Brian and Anhar from London Museum on Tuesday morning.
A catch-up with Cath on Wednesday evening in the local pub, where my existence was met with ‘what are YOU doing in here?’ from my daughter
An exciting meeting with Apple at their Battersea offices, which they described as ‘joyful’ and said my creative activity was ‘supercool’ and that they were going to try it with their kids. I’m not sure they’d seen paper and pencils for a while…
…and the trip back to the office was on the Uberboat to Bankside, with a walk back via St Paul’s and St Bartholomew the Great

I made a start on a new spiderweb scarf using the gorgeous yarn I bought last week at the Wool Show, made a pair of dragonscale mittens for my colleague’s birthday as she feels the cold, and started a hexi cardi with yarn from the stash.
Sunday at the Waltham Abbey Wool Show with Heather, where we squished a lot of yarn and I was quite well-behaved. When I got back I got all my skeins out of the stash and turned them into balls so I have no excuse not to use them – thank heavens for the winder and swift gadgets!
Open Day at Waltham Forest College with Thing 2, where she hopes to go in September
Impressing Thing 2 with my excellent French accent when she made me try on a beret. Well, who doesn’t do ‘Allo ‘Allo impressions under those circumstances? I am, apparently, ridiculous.

That seems to have been quite a good week, I think! Let’s see how this one shapes up…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Explosive Eighteen/Notorious Nineteen/Takedown Twenty/Top-secret Twenty-One/Tricky Twenty-Two – Janet Evanovich

Men At Arms – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

American Demon – Kim Harrison