Jubilee
Jubilee
Kensington Palace
Our neighbours down the road at Kensington Palace just had a makeover. They recently reopened their doors to visitors after months of redecorating. The entrance hall is entrancing. It features a luminous lace light sculpture adorned with Swarovski crystals, in homage to the Royal Dress Collection. It’s tree-like structure appears to be related to the new concourse canopy at King’s Cross. Trees and branches also make an appearance in other rooms. Look out for the bottle-tree and the dolls tree-houses. Here below are more photographs from the palace. Continue reading “Kensington Palace”
Call Your Girlfriend
Danny Baker recommended this video. It’s very cute. But it seems I’m behind the times. Apparently it went viral about six months ago. It wears well, it still sounds good to me. It’s a little bit like a playground clapping song. It is performed by three members of Swedish choral group Erato sitting around the kitchen table with empty margarine cartons, handclaps and sweet vocal harmony.
It’s Complicated
Jazmin Velasco is fascinated by all the paraphernalia of printmaking, particularly vintage presses and letterpress printing blocks. Her studio is full of all kinds of mechanical devices for producing multiple images and she loves to mix up the various techniques. Few of her prints are ever straightforward but all are witty and playful. This one’s called It’s Complicated. Continue reading “It’s Complicated”
An Allotment Alphabet
Greg Becker has been documenting the triumphs and trials of a vegetable gardener by keeping a visual record, now collected into one book of educational, meditational and inspirational drawings.
Greg’s book requires Adobe Flash Player. Apologies to iPad & iPhone users, but you can see it here.
Hatfield Forest & Hatfield Broad Oak
This is one of my favourite trees, an ancient Hornbeam pollard at Bush End Plain, an area of wood pasture in Hatfield Forest. This place has been grazed by cattle and sheep for at least 1000 years, and these trees pollarded to keep their green shoots out of reach of grazing livestock. There are also deer here and Oliver Rackham has called this The Last Forest because it is the only surviving example of a Royal Medieval Hunting Forest, meaning forest as a place where the monarch had the right to keep deer and to kill and eat them. This maintained environment has been shaped with rides, chases and woodland by continuous managed development over the past millenium. Continue reading “Hatfield Forest & Hatfield Broad Oak”
Tunnel Of Love
A young couple, framed by trees, walk the line down the tunnel of love, a two mile long section of railway near the town of Klevan in the Ukraine. A train runs down it three times a day. They’d better watch out for the Love Train!
This photograph is another from the Guardian’s Eyewitness series.
To Old Harry
There is something addictive about the Dorset coastline, I just can’t get enough. It always surprises me with its twists and turns and steep promontories. Continue reading “To Old Harry”
Rowley Raffle
Christopher Corr has very kindly donated this portrait of Jolly Jack Tar to Kai at The Rowley Gallery, to be raffled in aid of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Kai spends a lot of time sailing on the Thames at the Westminster Boating Base, which is why she has chosen to support the RNLI. Raffle tickets are £1 each, available from The Rowley Gallery, and the winning ticket will be drawn on Friday 14th September.
Kai is also spending the summer of 2012 running and cycling across London in three major charity fundraising events. Please support her craziness by looking at her JustGiving page here.