Winter Walking on the South Bank

We love a walk along the South Bank in London. It reminds us of happier times, when during the 2012 Olympic Games, London was for a time the capital of the world: inclusive, happy, welcoming, proud. The South Bank was full of festivity, fun, food, friendliness and foreigners – all welcome.

For a bleaker view of the legacy of that time, turn to Stuart Heritage in Boxing Day’s Guardian:‘ … a moment of optimism that destroyed the decade’.

But it’s still Christmas-tide. Let’s stay happy.

We’ll begin our ‘walk’ on the train into town. Now then. Baffled by the window, it’s hard to pick out which are the city-centre monoliths, and which their reflections.

We arrive at London Bridge. Here’s street art under the bridge by Nathan Bowen.

Union Jack Dripping by London Bridge: Nathan Bowen.

Long-established buildings reflected on new facades.

Borough Market. Is it too early for lunch? Sadly, yes. Just looking, then.

And all those buildings, new and old juxtaposed, on the opposite side of the Thames.

Ah! This is fun. This is Zoë’s moment. A Bubble Man, providing unalloyed joy to dozens of children. And to Zoë.

Time for a coffee-stop (no cake, Jo). We dive into a narrow alley, which opens up to this: we’re not so far from Shakespeare’s Globe here.

But just as we’re getting a little tired of walking, the rain starts. The team divides. The younger members head off for a spot of retail therapy at South Bank’s Winter Market. The oldest and the youngest join forces and return to London Bridge on the river bus. For us, our winter walk of sights is at an end.

Not quite. Back at Hither Green, this is what awaited us just outside the station.

For Six Word Saturday, and Jo’s Monday Walk.

Happy Christmas!

… and then, let’s hope for good things in 2020.

Midwinter: Time to Clean the Car

Six Word Saturday.

A winter's day beneath Arundel Castle

Displayed for All to See

This week’s Lens-Artists challenge invites us to look at what’s On Display. At this time of year, there are Christmas lights, tempting displays of food and ideas-for-presents in the shops. But I decided to go down several different paths: the workaday world of the security camera:

Staffing the security cameras at Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility.

Security cameras at a tunnel entrance: Docklands Light Railway, London. I quite like it that this phone image is a little muzzy.

Public service broadcasting in the form of a domestic tv, and a public screening of the Tour de Yorkshire in the village next door, in 2017.

Our French friend Francis watches a documentary about Yorkshire.

Watching the Tour de Yorkshire on a giant screen, West Tanfield, 2017.

And finally – works displayed in an art gallery. Let’s start at the London Mithraeum,

…then pop over to Tate Liverpool.

Yayoi Kusama: The Passing Winter, 2005

Jim Lambie: Zobop, 1999.

Billy Apple: relation of Aesthetic Choice to Life Activity (Function) of the Subject.

Before ending up at Salt’s Mill, Saltaire, to see the David Hockney exhibition, ‘Arrival of Spring‘.

Lens-Artists Challenge #76

A ‘So British’ Christmas in Lavelanet

It’s time for a visit to my French archive once more – any excuse to get out of post-election UK. Come and enjoy a traditional British Christmas, as explained to the residents of the small town next to ours when we lived in France.

December 6th, 2011

A ‘So British’ Christmas in Lavelanet

A good old-fashioned English Christmas has come early to Lavelanet. To the library (oops, mediathèque) to be exact. The librarian there enjoys children’s literature, and is a bit of an Anglophile. So she’s mounting a small festival of English Children’s literature featuring everyone from John Burningham and Quentin Blake to – of course – Charles Dickens and Beatrix Potter.

What a disappointment I am to her. I can’t produce a pretty tea set awash with rosebuds, and she can’t believe I really don’t like tea very much: and that when I do drink it, I decline to add milk.

She’s wheeled in Découverte des Terres Lointaines to help with all the activities for schools, retirement homes, and the general public. And DTL have wheeled me in as Consultant on All Matters English. Together we’ve chosen recipes and we’re baking biscuits and cakes and we’ve planned craft activities round, for instance, our ‘so British’ Christmas cards. But said cards must contain no bible-story references. No stables, cribs, angels or Three Wise Men. French schools are strictly laïque – secular – and our friends were astonished to learn that even the mantelpieces of committed atheists are likely to feature Christmas cards from friends, showing church stained glass windows or the Star of Bethlehem.

From tomorrow, I’ll be reading stories in English, helping pull crackers (an unknown treat), and unpacking – many times – a stocking which dear old Father Christmas has delivered to me early.

A satisfyingly bulging stocking.

My other job is to correct the misapprehensions learnt from French websites and children’s books about England. Who knew that the English enjoy tucking in to a huge plate of oysters at the beginning of Christmas dinner? Or that all British schoolchildren have a free bottle of milk every morning? Margaret Thatcher abolished that back in the early 70’s. And Sylvia misunderstood me, and thought we served stewed cherries, not sherry sauce, with our Christmas pudding (cherries – sherry: easy to confuse when you speak no English). And so on.

But it’s been fun transforming the community room in the library into an impossibly cosy snug, full of Christmas cheer. Let’s see what ‘le tout public’ think, when we open the doors tomorrow.

Mass-produced gingerbread men.

Mass-produced marmalade loaf cake.

Six Word Saturday.

Nostalgia is a Freshly-Baked Loaf

The queue’s gone down outside Vanora’s now. You could pop in for a loaf.

A couple of months ago, a new baker’s opened in Ripon. Goodness, it was welcome. A baker’s shop as a baker’s shop ought to be.

Vanora and Andrew get up in the small hours, when all the world’s abed, to fashion and bake their loaves. The great pails of dough will already by then have been slowly proving and rising over a period of hours. This is sourdough, fermented from the natural yeasts present in the air we breathe, rather than using the commercially-available yeast usual in British breadmaking.

And oh – the bread it produces! A wonderfully chewy crust, and a loaf with a slightly sour, characterful taste. Riponians have taken this extra-special bread to their hearts, and ahead of opening time (only Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at present) an eager queue forms outside the door.

How this reminds me of our years in France. The first job of our day was to queue outside the baker’s for our morning bread, croissants or pains au chocolat. It was an unhurried task. We’d all stand cheerfully in line, catching up with neighbourhood gossip, swapping recipes: generally having a sociable time. And so it is outside Vanora’s. We meet old friends, make new ones, and once inside, are greeted by name by Vanora and Andrew as we take the time to chat to them too. This, we all agree, is shopping as it ought to be. Oh, and on Saturdays, Vanora makes croissants too. Don’t tell anyone in France, but …. these are the best croissants we’ve ever tasted. You could stock up on brownies, focaccia, sausage rolls and pork pies too. These last two aren’t our thing, but I’m told they’re far and way the best in town. (Please note: I am not being paid by V&A for this shameless piece of advertising.)

This isn’t the only reason for my feelings of nostalgia though. Brought up in London as an Anglo-Polish girl, east-European-style sourdough loaves were as much a part of my life as baps, cottage loaves and wholemeal tins. Good memories.

This is an entry for Lens-Artists Challenge #75 – Nostalgic, despite the fact that I was limited to using my non-smart-smartphone to take my snapshots.

An Unexpected Consequence of Election Leafleting …

… is finding this on a doorstep …

… or on guard in the garden …

… or this, outside a Parkhome site …

… or loitering about by its entrance.

Six Word Saturday.

Water in the Abstract

I’ve chosen water as my theme for this week’s Lens-Art Photo Challenge: Abstract.

Water plays with the world above it, dissolving solid shapes and blocks of colour into tantalising blots and sparkling smudges. It reflects onto man-made forms, such as bridges, confusing the eye into seeing … anything but a bridge. It sculpts the ground beneath, making corrugated free-form patterns on a sandy beach. And it blurs and baffles the landscape seen through a rain-spotted window.

And above the apparently endless surface of the sea, the sky’s slashed with a series of savage and expressionistic brushstrokes.

A bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal at Gargrave, North Yorkshire.

The River Skell at Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #74: Abstract.

The Big Red Bus for Remain…

Last Friday night was the first real winter’s night. Temperature of minus four. Saturday morning saw intrepid members of North Yorkshire for Europe climb into every bit of warm clothing they could round up, and head for Harrogate …..

…. and the Big Red Bus for Remain. For one week only – this week – if you live in Yorkshire you’ve a chance of seeing this re-badged Routemaster bus parked up in a town square near you. Parking place secured, members of the Yorkshire Remain Choir, plus assorted brass instrument players (with a tuba, a euphonium, a saxophone to name but a few) and guitar-players clamber off the bus, secure a vantage post, and sing.

Getting all that brass back onto the bus in Richmond.

It’s the Christmas period now, so in addition to all our tried and tested favourites:

What shall we do with this Rotten Brexit? (What shall we do with a drunken sailor)
We’ve had quite enough of Brexit, it’s a con. (She’ll be coming round the mountain)
Glory, glory, what a helluva mess we’re in. (Battle hymn of the Republic)

and about thirty other numbers –

we have adapted seasonal fare:

Away in Westminster, where Johnson resides….
The Twelve days of Brexit.
Hark the Leavers shout and wail…

Goodness, we were cold as we sang in Harrogate. We were freezing in Richmond, 37 miles north. And by the time we reached Ripon at sunset, 26 miles south, we’d lost all sensation. Only singing warmed us a little. That and having raucous sing-songs on the bus between venues.

We were generally well received. Obviously we weren’t always appreciated. But in Ripon, a dyed-in-the-wool Leaver approached us with a huge box of shortbread: ‘I don’t agree with you at all.’ he said. ‘But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t be friends.’

Hardly any photos of course. 1. I was busy singing. 2. Nobody in their right mind would want to take gloves off, just to take a photo. Brrr.

At this late stage, most of us have difficulty in believing we’re making a difference. But it takes our minds off the prospect of being led into an uncertain future by a serial liar with no moral compass, or interest in anything beyond his own ambition.

Read all about Saturday’s visit to Richmond in The Northern Echo, and about today’s visit to Leeds – sadly we weren’t there – in Leeds Live, and in Yorkshire Voice, where you can actually hear a few moments of song

The Secret Diary of a Garden

As promised earlier, I’ve kept a photo diary of a month in the life of the walled garden. Too bad that my recently-repaired camera turned out not to have been repaired satisfactorily, and I’ve had to rely on my not-very-smart-smartphone.

So here we are, Sue: the walled garden, as it puts itself to bed for winter. The Changing Seasons.