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

Millenium Bridge: a modern fairytale

Crossing London's Millenium Bridge one evening last week, our destination was the Tate Modern on the far side - the utilitarian, industrial-looking landmark on the south bank ... 

a former power station that was reimagined into a fantastic space for modern art, and currently, a Lichtenstein retrospective.

Unexpectedly, popping up from the underground into the freezing dusk, the light happened to be quite magical, and I was suddenly happy that I had my camera on hand.

Looking east down the Thames, there was the familiar sight of Tower Bridge in the distance. But the Shard, the newest addition to the London skyline, took my breath away with its delicate glass beauty ...

Designed by Renzo Piano, who together with Brit architect Richard Rogers was responsible for Paris' Beaubourg (I posted about it here), the Shard is the EU's tallest building

Shakespeare's Globe theatre, with river boats gliding by, was lighting up for the evening's performance ...

I was so entranced by the views across the river that I almost forgot to look back the way we'd come ...

... at St Paul's ... and marvel again at how the designers of the Millenium Bridge had it constructed so that the sleek, modern bridge would have the cathedral perfectly positioned at its apex ...

Going under ... going, going ...

The Lichtenstein exhibition was fun, his images still fresh and entertaining.

The pic below, taken at the Tate, is not mine (though I confess to taking a quick, furtive phone-snap of younger daughter in front of one of his iconic images) ...

Image source

Walking back across the bridge much later, after a bite at the Tate's glass-walled top-floor restaurant with fantastic views across the city, blue lines lit the way towards a glowing St Paul's ...

Tower Bridge now a fairy-tale image in technicolour ...

and there was time for one last blurry shot of the ghostly dome snapped with frozen fingers before hurrying gratefully into the warmth of the underground.

(London has just had its coldest Easter in recorded history)

Moroccan style

At Café Arabe in the Medina of Marrakech, Moroccan style cocoons you in vivid carpeted, cushioned interiors ...

and cool blue terraces and courtyards painted in intense Majorelle blue ...

Marrakech's exoticism and mystery, its sense of being a 'place out of time' as Yves St Laurent called it, make it a place where Western fantasies have played out for decades.

It was the Rolling Stones favourite destination in the 60s, from the first time they rolled down there in Keith's blue Bentley ...

Image source 1, 2, 3

Keith Richards (left), in Moroccan sheepskin and jewellery, chilling with cigarette and cannabis pipe on a roof terrace in Tangier; Brian Jones with Anita Pallenberg (centre), photographed in Morocco by Cecil Beaton, shortly before Keith claimed Anita for himself; Talitha Getty and husband Paul, photographed (right) on their roof terrace for Vogue by Patrick Lichfield, were recalled by Yves St Laurent as "lying under a roof of stars in Marrakech, beautiful and damned". 

YSL had his own love affair with Maroc ...

Reclining in djellaba and one of his many Morocco-inspired drawings. Source: Une Passion Marocaine, Pierre Bergé

Lanterns and carved wood front door at Café Arabe

Café Arabe, 184 Rue Mouassine, Marrakech, is one for the address book ...
Thank you Elizabeth Wix for this and so many other great recommendations!

Maroccan style ranges from intense colour to cool silver and carved ebony ...

... water and orange trees are the inevitable backdrop.

There's style in spades at La Mamounia - Marrakech's legendary hotel, a place of dreams ...

Entrance to La Mamounia

Winston Churchill, who had a twenty five year love affair with Morocco (he declared it 'the loveliest spot in the world' and Marrakech 'the Paris of the Sahara'), was a regular at La Mamounia, where he wrote and painted watercolours of the landscapes from its balconies. 

Churchill's granddaughter, Celia Sandys, recollects that after a wartime conference in 1943 with President Roosevelt in Casablanca, Churchill insisted to Roosevelt "You cannot come all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakech". 

A few days later the two were gazing at the sunset over the purple Atlas Mountains. 
Roosevelt, having been carried from his wheelchair up to the rooftop, reclining on a divan, was so moved by the scene that he turned to Churchill saying "I feel like a sultan: you may kiss my hand, my dear."

Photos above all taken in the gardens of La Mamounia
Visit their website here for completely spectacular views of the hotel and its gardens

Tiles are at the heart of Moroccan style. Zillij date back to the old Moorish tradition of ceramic tile-making using geometrical mosaics (introduced to Portugal and Spain by the Moors ... the word azulejo from the Arabic zellige meaning polished stone) ...

Collage of tiles photographed at Musée de Marrakech, La Mamounia hotel, Riyad el Cadi, Bahia Palace, Medersa Ben Youssef

Marrakech is known as the City of Ochre or Red City.

If you love Moroccan style, take a look at this fabulous Dutch online source of products inspired by the Red City and the Sahara - El Ramla Hamla (meaning the red sand), which I'm mad about. And then look at their blog here about living between Amsterdam and Marrakech, with stunning photography and design.