A trip to London, amongst other things.

 

The cousins!

Where the heck did May and June go? It doesn’t seem five minutes since I last wrote a blog, but it’s six weeks ago!

The Birthday Boy!

On May 14^th my brother was holding a party to celebrate his 60^th - this led to a bit of confusion as he was actually 62 on 15^th, but his original party plans had been scuppered by the Covid lockdowns. The party was to be held in a hall round the corner from where he and his family live in London, so I booked myself into the Woolwich Premier Inn and bought a coach ticket. Initially, Jeni was coming up with me, but she wasn’t at all well so, in the end it was just me travelling alone. The coach is a superfast service which starts in Taunton and picks up at various points along the way, one of them being Shepton Mallet. The downside to this is that it leaves Shepton at 7.45am, so I had to drive over from Glastonbury, drop my car off at Jeni’s and walk round to the coach stop, necessitating leaving home at 7.00am! The coach takes almost exactly 3 hours and is very comfortable and I had the bonus of having an extra seat booked that I could use to put my bag, etc on. Instead of going into Victoria Coach Station it terminates at Hammersmith Bus Depot and I then navigated myself across London on the Underground – I don’t know why I’ve always stressed about doing this in the past, as it is quite simple if you know which lines you need and which direction you’re heading.

St James's Park

Because I couldn’t book into the hotel until 3pm, I decided to poke my nose above ground, like a myopic mole, at Green Park Station as the name seemed to suggest greenery and a park! I soon found Green Park, which was indeed green and a park, and strolled along in the warm sunshine until I suddenly found myself on The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace! (As you can tell, my geographical knowledge of London is sketchy, to say the least!). The Mall was closed to traffic as they were tarting it all up in preparation for the Jubilee celebrations, so I crossed over and went into St James’ Park where, incidentally, my Dad proposed to my Mum many moons ago, and had a wander round there, too, stopping to eat a baguette and drink a cup of tea whilst sitting on a low wall people watching.

The view from my room towards the Thames

I got to Woolwich, booked into the hotel and had a bit of a snooze before meeting up with my brother and going to a local hostelry for a family dinner. The next morning, I ate an enormous all-you-can-eat breakfast, so that I wouldn’t need lunch and then my bro and I walked along the Thames Path which, as its name suggests, follows the River Thames. My initial idea had been to walk to the Cutty Sark ship at Greenwich, but it was further than I thought, and it was an incredibly hot day. As I’d packed light, I only had limited clothing with me, so was totally overdressed for the weather – most people were in shorts and flip flops, I was in jeans and hiking boots! We made it as far as The Cutty Sark pub where we stopped for refreshment and then caught the bus back to Woolwich, in time to meet my sister and brother-in-law who had come down from Sheffield by train. Later on my son arrived by car and Underground from Northampton and my cousins, Chris (from Dublin) and Caroline (from Oxfordshire) and we were all booked into the Premier Inn, so quite a party of us.

A beautiful Thames barge

Canada goose and goslings by the Thames Path

The party itself, was great fun as Richard’s friend used to be a professional Drum ‘n’ Bass DJ and was in his element, and the caterers produced the most mouth-watering Caribbean cuisine, plus I got to chat to my cousins, neither of whom I had seen for four years. We had to catch the Night Bus back to Woolwich and I got quite excited remembering the Night Bus from Harry Potter, but it was just an ordinary bus that ran throughout the night 😞! (Londoners have no idea how lucky they are to have such good transport facilities – a shopping trip by bus from Draycott to Cheddar, which is just a couple of miles away, pretty much takes up an entire morning or afternoon!)

The next morning there was a family brunch at another local pub, where we spent nearly 3 hours, chatting and eating, before I made my way back across Town, in company with Dave until Green Park, and then caught the Berry’s Bus back to Shepton and home.

Since that bit of rare excitement, it has been pretty much wall-to-wall gardening for clients and myself, although my energy levels post-Covid have taken a battering and I have found myself nodding off after lunch quite frequently, much to my annoyance. However, I did give myself a day off towards the end of May to go and catch up with my mate Mick, who now works as Head Kitchen Gardener at a place called Sculpture by the Lakes near Dorchester. They were hosting the Dorset Garden Festival there and also a sculpture exhibition, plus an outdoor cooking event, so it was worth the journey, plus it was another beautiful day. There are permanent sculptures set around two large lakes, easily accessible by meandering pathways and overhung by mature trees, giving welcome shade and cover for the myriad birds that sang beautifully as I passed by.

Sculpture in the Lake

A very lifelike cheetah

I met up with Mick shortly after I got there and we had a long-overdue catch up, then I looked around the Garden Festival, had a spot of lunch and then went back to the Kitchen Garden to listen to Mick’s talk on no-dig gardening, which was very informative and interesting, before I came away, but not empty-handed, as Mick had given me a couple of plants and I had treated myself to a forged dragonfly on a spike to decorate my new herbaceous border.

Another amazing sculpture

Swan and cygnets

Mum had been wanting to come and see my new home for the last year, but I had put her off as I was concerned about her safety on the landing, as there is no handrail so that, if she staggered on coming out of the bedroom, she could easily fall down the stairs. I had tried to get someone to come and give me a quote to put something in place, to no avail, and so she was unable to come, until my Eureka! moment at about 5.00am (I always have my best thoughts then!) one morning, when I realised that if Mum slept in my room and I slept in the spare room, she could steady herself with a wall until she could reach the banister rail. So, on the Jubilee Weekend, Mum finally got to come and stay, and we had a lovely time as I drove her all around the countryside around Glastonbury, which she had not visited before. I even drove her up Glastonbury High Street to show her some of the ‘sights’ but most of them must have gone home early! 😄

My haul of shrubs

This week I have finally treated myself to some shrubs for my border and have been planting it up in the early hours of the last few mornings, before the sun gets too high in the sky. I had accumulated a fair collection of herbaceous perennials, some rescued from my gardening clients, some bought from roadside stalls and some reduced plants from the sick bay at B & M (most of which revived after a good soaking) and really needed to get them in the ground but needed the shrubs in first to form the skeleton of the border. They all look a bit ‘plonked’ at the moment, but I am confident that they will eventually grow and spread and cover every inch of soil!

6.00am planting!

and from the other direction

Well, I think I’ve ‘gone on’ rather this month, so I’ll stop now and let you go off and make a cup of tea!