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Another delivery of the reserved sunshine today. Most welcome! After heading to bed some time after the funniest episode of Family Guy I have seen last night, I was expecting to rise later than I'd ideally have wanted. However, sometimes one surprises oneself. I was up making bread for lunch shortly after 8am and haven't stopped since. Well, I have obviously stopped making bread, otherwise the place would be full... you know what I mean.
Got out in the morning sun to:
plant up the summer bedding;
plant out the cuttings of my Buddleja davidii "Black Knight";
plant out the cuttings of my white sedum;
pot up my capsicum and chilli seedlings;sow an additional crop of beans (black and white kidney, borlotti, dwarf yellow and dwarf purple);sow some more temperamental radishes (a purple German variety and white Asian variety with pink flesh);mow the lawn, again;I harvested a couple of lettuces for lunch and to keep us going for a few days. Nothing better than lettuce straight from the garden to the plate (via several slug and aphid rinses of course).
Home made bread with home grown lettuce and a cheeky nibble of my first home grown mange tout for lunch, embellished with some home bought cheese and ham.
What more could one ask for?
Whole load of woodwork done in the afternoon too...
Managed to find some time to stop down at a mate's place to pick up some silver birch logs he has recently felled. I now have 10 logs, each between three and four feet in length and up to nine inches diameter awaiting a purpose. First cuts made tomorrow morning...
London in the May sunshine is indeed a wonderful place. Today was forecast to be a particularly spectacular example and indeed it lived up to its promise. We had a table at the Bluebird Restaurant on Chelsea's King's Road booked for 1pm so thought we'd get there early and explore some of the sights before and after lunch. Lots of walking involved. Walked from Clapham Junction station through Battersea Park, over Albert Bridge, along Cheyne Walk, past the Chelsea Physic Garden, past the Royal Hospital Chelsea, up to the King's Road, through the back streets of Chelsea to Pimlico, across Lambeth Bridge, through the unexpectedly open gardens of Lambeth Palace (intended to go to the Museum of Garden History) and back home via Waterloo. Ended up being a 10 mile walk with a delightful, nearly free lunch in the middle. I didn't take my camera. Mrs P did. But I'm too exhausted to copy photos from her camera to my laptop. Instead, here are a few photos google found for me:
Albert Bridge (courtesy of tourblaze.com)
Royal Hospital Chelsea in 18th Century (courtesy of tourblaze.com)
Hornbeam Alee in the garden at Lambeth Palace (courtesy of travelstripe.com)Wonderful day, albeit a little exhausting...
...but I quite like playing the drums. Just spent some quality time with a couple of old, much missed friends who have recently acquired Rockband for the PlayStation-3. I was on drums all afternoon and it was great fun. I'm confident that I have no future as a musician but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Probably don't have the space for the equipment Chez Plutus though.
The best bit about it? I was actually exhausted from playing. Computer games have come a long way in the last couple of years, with the arrival of the Wii as something of a catalyst. No longer are people sitting motionless, staring blankly at a screen with a joystick in hand. Oh no! Now we are swinging our virtual tennis racquet, bowling our virtual balls, firing our virtual arrows and beating our virtual drums. (That isn't supposed to sound as full of innuendo as it does, BTW.) A game is never a substitute for the real thing, of course, but if the nation is going to be obsessed with silicon-emulated entertainment, I'm glad that it now involves more than a little exercise!
Right, I'm procrastinating, I have a pile of work to do...
I managed to find some time this morning to drive north on highway 280 to Filoli House and Garden. Filoli, which stands for Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life, is a large country house built approximately 100 years ago with a traditional Lutyens/Jekyll influenced garden. Throughout the formal and traditionally planted 16 acres there are many columnar yew trees, brightly flowering camellias and rhododendrons, box-bordered roses, hidden archways, lots of red brick and magnificent trees including several Camperdown Elms.
May is a particularly good time to view the garden as many of their blooms are at their best this time of year. There are several well manicured areas, most notably the sunken garden of which the focal point is a rectangular pond. The borders are planted with delightful swathes of colour, including blocks of Aquilegia and Digitalis. Both these plants are known as being rather poisonous but the flowers of the former are apparently edible and were often consumed by native Americans.
I think the garden will look amazing in the autumn as the coppers and bronzes of the foliage appear but I am glad my first experience of the place was in the spring sunshine.Hope to return some time...
I am in the middle of a particularly stressful time at work. I am in California with a huge quantity of deliverables in a rather short space of time. At times, this can get on top of me and today was one of those times. However, a couple of events made me think. I have to have a demonstration working in a few days and the facilities with which I have been furnished to build this demo are limited to say the least. In an uncomfortable situation, with the possibility of failing to deliver for the first time in my life, I was starting to panic a little. That was, however, until a friend queried why I was struggling down a futile path when there was a perfectly viable alternative that I already had in hand. When stressed, it is not uncommon for people to suffer from a little tunnel vision – thinking the path they are treading is the only possible path. Being given a simple element of perspective by an uninvolved party is immensely powerful and has potentially allowed me to reclaim at least some of my weekend. This event and a frank conversation with an old friend, colleague and mentor have encouraged me to look at things a little differently. Instead of getting hung up on the things I find tough, stressful or uninteresting, I need to massage them into things that play to my strengths. Easy to realise when not in the “heat of battle” but I shall endeavour henceforth to keep a level head and always try to employ an element of perspective.Sounds like a bit of a counselling session doesn’t it? Well, I am currently in the self-help capital of the world!
Happy weekend…
We went to have brunch with my bro and sis-in-law yesterday morning. Lovely to see them and Anya. She's looking more adorable every day. I took along a little gift I'd made. It is my first baby rattle that I consider good enough to give away. In short: I had a log of ash, split it, shaped it, shaved it, halved it, carved it, filled it, glued it, finished it.
As it is designed to be used by a little person, my motivation was to keep everything as inert as possible. All steps of the project were done by hand. I picked up the freshly felled log from a woodland in Surrey and did all the shaping and carving using only manual hand tools. Getting the rattle to sound right was a fun task. In my prototype, I used a combination of dry wild rice and dry red lentils. Sounded OK but needed a deeper tone. After several shake tests, I settled on a combination of dry soya bean and dry pearl barley, giving a great combination of high and low tones. The finish was a couple of coats of Chestnut Products Finishing Oil which is safe for use on toys per British Standard EN 71. I like it. It is attractive, tactile and functional:
Hopefully have time to perfect the design soon...
Nor, indeed, all gloom. Firstly, the new copy of Living Woods magazine arrived this morning. I must admit, it doesn't seem right without my name in it, but that merely serves as motivation for me to get working on some creative projects. I also received some great presents for my birthday on Monday. Ray Tabor's Encyclopaedia of Green Woodworking, Lost Crafts by Una McGovern, Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong, the Slumdog soundtrack, the new Kings of Leon album, Hampton Court Flower Show tickets, a wind up lantern, a cool shed hanger, an old wooden block plane and more.A little over thirty if you must know...
Having been hideously over worked in the last few months, I am wondering what is the definition of motivation. Times have been quite tough of late and it makes one question one's beliefs, fabric and ethics. I strive to do everything with which I am tasked and with which I task myself to the best of my ability, within reason, of course, but am currently questioning why. Why bother pushing myself when there is no reward forthcoming? Why do any more than my hours? There are no long term career prospects in my office. Recent events have clearly illustrated that I'm not secure in my job regardless of how well I perform. There will be no raise this year and only sufficient bonus to purchase a Mars Bar for the outstanding performers. I am far from a socialist but am curious about the benefit of working to rule. It would likely only last a day as it rather contradicts my ethics but maybe I'll try. Once my current project is complete , of course!At the very least, I need to redress the work-life balance. 14 hour working days are not good for anyone...
1st May 2009, fifteen years since Ayrton Senna was killed in the San Marino GP. An unmatched talent illustrated by this video of his lap around the streets of Monaco in 1991:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUkv6P-2SAwFeel honoured to be able to remember watching him race!
