Battersea Park

... on the last Sunday of April was the sort of day when at long last you could sit on the grass and read the paper 

watching the more energetic jog by

Blossoms were making an appearance and it was the sort of hopeful day you might swing your child in the air

or free your tot from the confines of his pram and set him down to poke his fingers in the soil ...

Why walk when you could choose from any variety of wheels? ...

Even the dogs were getting the chance to socialise. There was a pups' play-date going on here ...

In the Old English Garden behind brick walls, it was all muted colours and unstructured, rambling, green abundance ...

These bold, orange tulips in ordered rows would definitely not have been allowed in the Old English garden ...

Was it winter still or spring? Many of the trees looked confused on this point ...

Bicycles everywhere ...

... and these houses bordering the river reminded me of Holland, but not the Tai Chi so much ...

Reassuringly, there was a very English game of cricket going on ...

For Toby

There have been tears on two continents these last few days, for the ending of this beautiful boy's life.

Traveller, survivor.
Fearless, vocal, demanding of attention from his adoring human lesser-beings ...

champion moler and hunter-gatherer, ruler of the roost, most affectionate and loving of creatures ...

sweetest boy
in our hearts always.

A country weekend

My little blog has been sadly neglected for a long while, like an orphan child. Actual life intervened and took over for a bit, and then coming back turned out to be hard when I felt I had absolutely nothing of interest to say ...

But looking back through my photos it seems there have been days I felt worth capturing, so here with few words are pictures instead ...

Easter Sunday, back at the start of April, was spent on our friends' farm, perched on a hilltop precisely on the border of two counties, with views of rolling Dorset countryside all the way down to the south coast of England.

Trees were brown and bare, despite the fact that it was technically spring, and it was very, very cold still.

After lunch there was a walk in the woods ...

... featuring walkers well-wrapped against the cold and welly-shod, English-style, for the mud ...

... two happy dogs - one a scruffy little biscuit-coloured terrier and the other a noble russet hound ...

and woods filled with acres of wild garlic, growing rampantly ...

their white flowers (reeking and also edible) just days from bursting open and turning the woods white