After the rain

 The rain just started when we were on the way to the tube after woodblock class, but had stopped when we emerged, so I took a longer route home (to get some of those 10K steps!) and encountered this lovely shrub in rather a decrepit garden on Fonthill Road -

Is it datura, or is that a vine?

After sunset the final few clouds were dispersing, so wispy, so smudged, and that tree in the distance is so sharp, etched into the moist air -

Lovely light

Looking up from below

This week's topic for Drawing Tuesday is "View from Below" and I've been wondering what on earth - or rather, on high - to tackle. Being under a tree is an obvious solution, but ohhhhhhhh those branches, those leaves... my patience runs out just thinking about it.

However the camera is a help and has made a record of the undersides of various trees and other plants.

This tree in my neighbourhood has been adapted for its circumstances -

Turn around, and you see this climber, a proper subject in itself; it's got the right kind of perspective in the buildings and boxes -

Daily exercise

Minutes - or rather, 1000 steps - away from my door is a large park, Finsbury Park, which I've been using more in the past few months than in the 25 years I've lived at that address. At the moment the UK is having some rather good weather and in ordinary times people would be out there all over all the parks. But lockdown means that we are allowed to take daily exercise, but not to linger on benches or - heaven forbid - gather round a picnic blanket. 

A couple of days ago, the leaves just coming out -

I noticed that all the exercise equipment was fenced off, but hadn't noticed this - "Steel Warriors" -

 The New River Canal runs through the park. It has been carrying water to London since 1613 -

Today, with Easter weekend imminent and good weather forecast, the park is under the watchful eye of the police -

 Some parts are almost empty -

 but the main road gets a good footfall -

 

 As well as mounted police they're on foot, in pairs

The mounted ones pose for photos -

but when they clip-clop off again the birds at the lake rise in alarm -

 I'm missing the breakfast treat of bacon sarnies at the cafe -

Will it ever be the same?

Just another Sunday (not)

An early start - up with the lark at 4.55 -

 Lovely quiet morning at the window-table, diddling around with a design for a postcard-sized woodblock print. Celestial phenomena such as moons and eclipses are on my mind ...

 ... and fortuitously, if you look at Instagram or Pinterest long enough, something useful turns up -

New plants and a good cleanup -

Before

After

 Lovely things from the farmers market -

Enormous portobello mushrooms

Suspiciously waxy apples, hmm...

Baby fennel - grate into salad, and make pesto from the fronds - worth a try

Classic sourdough, as usual

And to my delight - a surprise visit from the grandbaby, who had picked up a new noise on her visit to Wiltshire - a high-pitched, intense noise; let's hope it's "just a phase"

 Her first experience of the wonders of Stroud Green Road -

Busy week

What makes a week busy? Going out, doing things ... deadlines ... demands ... confusion ... wanting to do too much ... having too many nice things to choose from!

I had several visits with the delightful grandbaby, who in addition to being able to grab and hold things

(fingers can be fun, and teething rings are especially useful) has also discovered her toes and is starting to suspect they really are part of her own body.

Saturday - to Queen's Crescent, Kentish Town, to find RAUMX gallery and see works on paper by four artists, Anna Mossman, Nelleke Beltjens, Irene Weingartner, Andrea Schoenborn.

Irene Weingartner and Andrea Schoenborn

Nelleke Beltjens

Anna Mossman

A cinema evening - biopic about Pavarotti ("syrupy tribute to the legendary tenor" said the Guardian).

Sunday - farmer's market, picnic,  and eventually some woodblock printing -

Monday - visit with grandbaby, and making a birthday dinner and cake for her daddy -

Tuesday - drawing at Docklands Museum

why did I choose this I wonder...

and then to Camberwell to see the final bookarts MA show - the course is closing....

 and the printmaking MA show

after which, a babysitting gig in London N8 so the parents can do some birthday cavorting at the pub ...

 and on my walk home, the partially eclipsed moon rising over London N4

Wednesday, Veronica came to do some woodblock printing, after which I went to the Wellcome for a lunchtime talk on research on ageing -

(Got there early)

 and then to the very interesting Writing exhibition at the British Library (till 27 Aug), followed by a walk partway home, along streets new to me.

Old building contrasts with des-res on Hemingford Road, N1

Thursday was not only rainy ("good for the gardens") but completely "should-free" - gosh, what to do with the empty hours?? This'n'that, including sitting at the table by the window, watching a magpie mother instruct her (large) offspring in how to find food -

 The rain stopped so I went out, to the V&A and the Dior exhibition

"Mexican dress" 1953, my favourite

I also loved the quarter-size models - red dress

... red coat

And this black-and-grey one...

...appeared fullsize later

 Across the road to Luke Jerram's "Museum of the Moon" at the Natural History Museum - late in the afternoon is a good time to go there -

 On the way home, a short stroll along the Parkland Walk -

Friday - rainy, a spur to sifting through some papers - loved this photo -

 It might end up as a woodblock print one day....

 Heading over the hill in the afternoon -

(OK it's topiary, but, er, what is it?)

... for a quick and delicious

,,, dinner

Then, at home again, watching yet another moonlanding-anniversary programme on catch-up BBC -

screenshot

Next week will be different.