Open Squares

A couple of Sundays ago Ruth and I headed for the Open Garden Squares weekend, which we last went to in 2016. Profiting by experiences at previous such events of spending most of the day travelling between venues, we were determined to pick a collection of places to visit within a reasonably confined area. I decided I wanted to visit some actual garden squares this time, and picked a selection from the 'Kensington, Brompton and Chelsea' section of the guide.

Ruth in Thurloe Square

First up, after brunch at the Carluccio's opposite South Kensington tube, was Thurloe Square, which Ruth later decided she liked the best of all the squares we saw - unlike all the others, it was divided up into different zones rather than having a central lawn surrounded by paths.

We then visited the nearby Ismaili Centre - a building I've noticed before but never gone into - as its roof garden was open as part of the weekend. This one had a 'no photography' rule, so no pictures - but here's a photo of it in the guide, sans the crowds that were there when we visited. We were escorted in the lift up several floors and then joined a small group for a mini-tour. The garden was apparently designed as a traditional four-part garden or 'chahar bagh'. It's very lovely.

After this we visited the Brompton Food Market for a cup of tea, then headed westwards along Cromwell Road to visit Courtfield Gardens (East) and (West). The 'East' garden is mainly occupied by a church, though apparently it now houses a theological college.

In Courtfield Gardens (East)

The 'West' garden is a more standard lawned area surrounded by paths. We failed to locate the handkerchief tree mentioned in the guidebook. On the way in we were handed a guide to the plants in the garden, but with only their Latin names given, which wasn't too helpful - though quite a few Latin plant names give the impression of being crudely made up from English words with Latin-type endings (admittedly we couldn't spot 'handkerchiefium' on the list, though we did look for it).

Courtfield Gardens (West)

On a couple of streets away to Bramham Gardens, with a different feel of house (variously red-brick Victorian and Dutch-Gothic style, apparently).

Victorian houses backing onto Bramham Gardens

Then on to Collingham Gardens - these are really lovely, bordered by interesting terraces of houses - including these - that back directly onto the gardens. The lucky residents must really get a peaceful green oasis feeling in the middle of London.

Collingham Gardens

The last garden we visited was Gledhow Gardens. For whatever reason - possibly garden saturation by this point - I didn't take any pictures of this one, but was very charmed to see the actual two cats that grace the photo of these gardens in the guidebook (below), together with their elderly owner and two cat baskets. Does she bring the cats into the garden every day? One of them looked like a British Blue, lovely- if slightly cross-looking cats that you don't see often. Both were lying around in the sun when we arrived at the garden; after a while both headed back into their cat baskets when the owner got up. Intriguing - clearly they know the form and don't wander off.

We headed back to Paddington across Hyde Park, feeling extremely constructive at having visited seven venues in the space of only a couple of hours or so. Park was full of people sunning themselves. Lovely sunny day and thankfully I didn't get too much hay fever, given the awfulness of the pollen levels currently.

Ruth in Hyde Park

Circuit of Derwentwater, 10.35 miles

10 April 2018

Ray eager for the off

Did this walk with Ray on one of the days of our family holiday in the Lake District back in early April. Although the route says to start from Keswick, we thought the car park by the Keswick Launch might be a bit crowded so drove south down the eastern shore of the lake and parked at the car park just off the B5289 on the road that leads to Ashness Bridge.

The first part of the walk followed a path through woodland towards Lodore Falls, which we paused to have a look at, though I’ve visited it a good many times before. Due to lots of building work going on, the footbridge and path round the back of the hotel were closed so we had to partially retrace our steps back down to the road.

Me in front of Lodore Falls

Further along the road, turned off onto the path leading down to the River Derwent, across the foot of the lake. Ray had a bit of a distance vision fail just here: from the road, he had exclaimed at apparently seeing a person in the middle of the marshy area, but I pointed out that it was a sheep just in time to avoid him gallantly plunging to their aid. My distance vision is thus far still good, though I now have trouble making out detail that’s a foot from my face.

Crossed over the footbridge and followed the board walk to the far side of the lake.

Passed the Teddy in the Window.

Walked through the woods at Brandelhow, stopping for a snack at a convenient picnic table. Passed lots of people heading up onto Cat Bells.

Passed Lingholm. Stopped at the café at Nichol End Marine – unpretentious but pleasant, and featuring some record-breakingly enormous cakes. Walked on via Portinscale into Keswick, and then out the other side past the Keswick Launch landing stages.

Called in at Friar's Crag, which is evidently a famous viewpoint. Walked through an odd little woodland apparently known as The Ings, then around Calfclose Bay and back down the road to the car park.

View from Friar's Crag

The Ings

Passed a couple of sculptures en route: 'Entrust', near Low Brandelhow on the western shore, and the Hundred Year Stone, so called as it was put in place to mark 100 years of the National Trust.

'Entrust'

The Hundred Year Stone

Lovely walk and Derwentwater is a beautiful lake, though we weren’t particularly lucky with the weather – it was an overcast day and drizzled intermittently most of our way round. Our weather apps cheerfully indicated a 99% chance of rain for much of the route.

Our route shown in red on the map:

That London

Have only had a couple of days in London so far this year so it’s time for more (indeed, it's the Open Garden Squares weekend next weekend, which we're aiming to go to).

On the last Saturday in January Ruth and I made the journey over to Canary Wharf to see where she was working (and is still working, as at time of writing) for KPMG. Obviously dead impressed, what with their being a high-profile company and all, though my only direct experience of them has been as external auditors on behalf of HEFCW in 2011, not long after I started at the OU, and having to run around sorting out various levels of access for them.

It was a generally wet day but in addition to Ruth pointing out her building, we visited the fascinating Museum of London Docklands.

Wet Canary Wharf

The Museum of London Docklands

Ruth was stymied in her plan for us to walk to The Grapes at Limehouse (Ian McKellen’s pub) for lunch, due to rain, inconveniently-sited road works and my increasing irritability (Ruth isn’t the first person to point out that I become irritable when hungry). In the end we ate at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen and viewed this large inflatable bunny before heading home.

Inflatable bunny

Second trip was on a Saturday in mid-March. Ruth wanted to see a play, ‘Mary Stuart’, starring Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams as alternately Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I – apparently a coin was tossed before the performance to decide who was going to be Mary and who Elizabeth that particular performance. Incredible how the actors can work like that. I had declined to see it as the tickets were reasonably expensive and I thought it might be a bit heavy-going for me. However Ruth enjoyed it, which was good. Turns out Stevenson was Queen Elizabeth for that particular performance.

While Ruth was being cultural, I went for a walk out of Volume 1 of London’s Hidden Walks, a darling little three-volume set Ruth had bought me for Christmas. Chose the Fitzrovia & Bloomsbury Walk, starting from Warren Street tube station. The area known as Fitzrovia apparently used to be owned by the Fitzroy family (the Dukes of Grafton), hence the name ‘Fitzrovia’ and the cluster of streets named after the family (Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square). Interestingly, ‘Euston’ (as in the road and station close by Fitzrovia) is also connected with the Fitzroy family, as 'Earl of Euston' is one of the Duke of Grafton’s subsidiary titles. Euston is (apparently) a village in Suffolk, close to Euston Hall which is the Duke’s seat.

Fitzroy Square

Noted Pollock’s Toy Museum, though didn’t attempt to go in. Nipped down Chenies Street to view the funny little round buildings labelled the ‘Eisenhower Centre’ - I've noted these before but didn’t know the history behind them. Apparently the buildings are one of the surface entrances to a deep-level shelter built during WWII. Fascinating stuff … the reference to Eisenhower is because the tunnels were apparently equipped to be his London headquarters during the war (though I'm not sure whether he actually ever spent time there).

Houses in Bedford Square

The walk passed through Bedford Square and along Bloomsbury Way to the junction with Kingsway and Southampton Row, where I stopped to peer through the gates leading down to the Kingsway Tramway Subway. Another interesting find – I’d never heard of this. There’s some footage here of a tram actually going down into them (the trams stopped in the early 1950s). Would have taken a photo but felt a bit self-conscious standing essentially in the middle of the road.

Stopped briefly at a Caffè Nero and then headed north via Doughty Street, observing the Georgian town houses pointed out in the book. Walked through St George’s Gardens, an old graveyard with a ‘hidden away’ air, though there were quite a few people sitting or walking in it.

St George's Gardens

Skipped the rest of the route in the interests of returning to the theatre to meet Ruth. We had been going to have dinner in London but weren’t hungry enough so returned to Reading and had dinner at the Valpy Street Bar & Bistro, the current incarnation of the former 'Chronicles', where we went for my 40th birthday dinner, and subsequently for drinks for Ruth's 40th in 2013, when it was called 'Valentino's'. On the current occasion it was busy and we only just got a table, in rather a crappy position next to a loud party. Can’t actually remember what we ate. Think I had some sort of veggie gnocchi.