Painting the Modern Garden

The blushing pink on petals close to white
of climbing roses entwined among the trees
the play of light and shade and form
I think I sense the faint smell of decay
from leaves heaped up and rotting on the soil
I lift my head and swear I taste the breeze
and hear the distant notes of a piano

Such is the power of paintings
of gardens full of vast flowerbeds
rioting colour and subtle change of tone
the shapes of leaves and petals
the fruits of long physical labour
with spade and soil or brush and pigment

canvas fixed on walls like windows
where we spy the artists’ friends, lovers,
children and dogs among the plants
or sometimes absent, as the place speaks
its own language, draws us in a while
to a world which feels more real than ours

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/painting-modern-garden-monet-matisse

A taste of London in summer

Near the spot where we had a picnic lunch in crowded London! (Hyde Park)

Friday evening's Prom was excellent. The BBC Philharmonic was conducted by Nicholas Collon. The first piece they played was the ballet music from Idomeneo. The conductor gave a good impression of Mozart as portrayed in the film Amadeus. 
Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major, with the pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, is very jazzy, with definite echoes of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, among others. 
The highlights of the second half for me were Messaien's Un oiseau des arbres de Vie (Oiseau tui) inspired by the tuneful Tui from New Zealand, and Ravel's La Valse.  

Albert Hall and our view from the "choir" seats - and no we didn't have to sing.

We had time for an evening wander to the Serpentine Bridge and back afterwards.

We had a leisurely start to Saturday, as we made our way to the Serpentine, and its Sackler Gallery, past the Albert memorial shining in the sun, and the cafe in an installation, by Fortnum and Mason

Not a Duane Hanson figure!

In the gallery were sculptures by Duane Hanson, mostly of people we would ignore in real life, so spookily realistic that I watched carefully to see if they were breathing. I should have taken a photograph or two there.

We strolled through Hyde Park, with its birdlife. This huge park acts as lungs and refreshment for the humans too.

I think he needs a sunshade today

Next stop the RA Summer exhibition, fortified by coffee and a cookie. 

Joshua Reynolds conducts The Dappled Light of the Sun.

The art is a mixture of the ordinary and the very good. But out of my price range, though the investors are certainly buying up the Tracy Emin prints. This year you can view the exhibits online as well.

First, negotiate the stairs - not quite as vertigo inducing as it looks.

After a couple of hours we're all exhibitioned out, and hungry. On our way to St james Park we have another taste of old-time-rural London. 

Then it's time to hit the little cafe. Lovely and shaded, though the chair probably printed itself on my backside. I amused myself, half-listening to some kinda astrological guru chatting his companion up with his phone-fuelled guidance from the outer limits.

View from a bridge - Buck House is the other way

We make our way along the Embankment to the Festival Hall, where there's an urban dance festival in full swing. All very loud and vibrant  but at least we can sit down and have a cup of tea - all important on hot London days when you've done a lot of walking around.

We stop at the food stalls nearby for a samosa chaat and follow it up with a gelato (lime and mint sorbet) before wending our way back to St Pancras for the 9pm train.

Green man or similar on Kings College building

Fleet Street with Ye Olde Cock Tavern

By the village pump?

Hanging out in Kings Cross Square

London aquarium visit - Nov 2011

Posted now because I found it hidden away as a draft from 2011!

This drinking lark is a serious business!

I love the patterns on the rays.

London Snow - Robert Bridges

London Snow by Robert Bridges

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marvelled - marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!'

'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken. A poem which came to the mind of one of my walking companions today as we trudged through old snow towards Rockingham.  From poems about woods, to snowy woods, and on to snow in London . . .

London aquarium visit - 2

London aquarium visit

j

This drinking lark is a serious business!

I love the patterns on the rays.

A pigeon paddled in Berkeley Square.

Thursday 16 June