Gamlingay

Further on down the road we came to Gamlingay, a familiar sounding place, its pretty name once heard and hard to forget. We got lunch at the Cock Inn while villagers hung out flags for St George. And I remembered that the church of St Mary is renowned for its medieval graffiti. Continue reading “Gamlingay”

Frames of reference

Hayley Wood

I’d sent out a request via Twitter saying we were planning a weekend in Cambridge and could anyone recommend a woodland walk nearby. I received an intriguing reply from Steve PocockOh, check out Hayley Wood to west of Cambridge. That was one of Oliver Rackham’s stomping grounds where he did a lot of his work on medieval woodlands. Features in his books. Continue reading “Hayley Wood”

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Bonifacio

This drawing of Bonifacio by John Minton is one of his many illustrations from Time Was Away: A Journey Through Corsica by Alan Ross, and it was pretty much the same view that greeted us when finally we inched our way into town. The queue of traffic snaked down the hill to the harbour, known variously as the Port de Commerce, Port de Pêche and Port de Plaisance. We crawled our way along the narrow street, passing parking complet signs at every turn, climbing steeply beneath the walls of the Haute Ville and up to the ancient citadel, past the multi-storey tenements and beyond the empty barracks to the last car park at the end of the peninsula, a windy harbour high on the Bosco. Continue reading “Bonifacio”

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Remaking Landscape

We just received a wonderful gift in the post. A message from beyond the grave. Before his death in January last year, John Hubbard had been putting together what he liked to call his self-curated retrospective; a collection of images with commentaries from his diary gathered together in a book celebrating his lifelong devotion to painting. Remaking Landscape is a thing of beauty. Continue reading “Remaking Landscape”

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An Interview With Jonny Hannah

A short film about Jonny Hannah, with thanks to the Heart Agency for allowing us to share it.

Jonny Hannah / The Rowley Gallery

If you enjoyed this you might like to see a few more of Jonny’s blogposts:

Ouvrez Les Fenêtres De Votre Coeur / The Darktown Turbo Taxi / Main Street / Jonny Hannah At Kensington Place / Jonny’s Jackets / La Mer / A Wee Book Of British Folklore / Mingus Says…

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Ouvrez Les Fenêtres De Votre Coeur

The Rowley Gallery has a new, hand-painted February window. It’s a vibrant cornucopia of visual delights. The notice reads Ouvrez Les Fenêtres De Votre Coeur: A Darktown Valentine’s Window by Jonny Hannah, and wherever you look you’ll find lovehearts on parade. Along the front lower edge of the window there’s a collection of found records, their sleeves lovingly repainted and still containing a vinyl disc, though not necessarily the one illustrated on the cover. Continue reading “Ouvrez Les Fenêtres De Votre Coeur”

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Charleston Farmhouse 1981

This is a beautiful little book of photographs taken by Kim Marsland at Charleston Farmhouse in 1981. The Bloomsbury Group had left and the Charleston Trust were yet to take over; it was a house in flux, a time capsule captured in these evocative pictures. Kim Marsland was then a student at Maidstone College of Art, which was where I’d studied until six years earlier. I’d painted the front door of our little house in red and green chevrons and furnished it with cheap second-hand furniture decorated with painted designs, and covered the walls with hand-printed wallpaper. But I’d not heard of Charleston. I think few of us had in those days. Kim Marsland’s photographs recall an intimate time before Charleston’s domestic decorations became an internationally recognised style. Continue reading “Charleston Farmhouse 1981”

Frames of reference

Another Walk In The Woods

Shepherd’s Cottage was a surprisingly elusive place for a rendezvous. I thought I knew where it was, just off the road by Staverton Thicks, the rambling old woods we’d visited a couple of times before. I knew it as Thicks Cottage, but I thought that was just another name for the same place. So when we arrived on the doorstep a bemused woodsman put us right. “The Shepherd’s Cottage is back up where you’ve just come, then left along the track. Careful though, it can be a bit sandy down at the bottom.” Continue reading “Another Walk In The Woods”

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Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey From City To Sea

An imaginary journey swimming from city to sea, inspired by Roger Deakin’s wonderful wild swimming book, Waterlog. If you haven’t read it, I would urge you to buy a copy here. The text to the film is all quoted from Waterlog:

“A swimming journey would give me access to that part of our world which, like darkness, mist, woods or high mountains, still retains most mystery. It would afford me a different perspective on the rest of landlocked humanity.”

This was filmed, on one glorious, hot June day, at six different locations heading south from London down to the sea, which lies just an hour from the city on the train.

Alastair Humphreys, August 2017

Please also see the earlier blogpost – For Roger Deakin.

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Mio Pomodori (3)

Cortona is a charming, peaceful town and one of the most delightful places to visit in all Tuscany.
It stands on a steep hillside overlooking the wide fertile plain of the Val di Chiana. Continue reading “Mio Pomodori (3)”

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