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Diary – 2018 March
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All my diary pages going back to 2009
DRAWING & PAINTING:
1 March
This is my most wintry picture, not only a bare tree but all the ends
cut off as well. Roll on green spring!
3 March
The birds were up before me again. We have moved a potted shrub to under
the hedge, to make some shelter for when it starts snowing again, so the
pellets don't get covered up. I have cleared an area to put the pellets
and bread on.
The robin is a regular every morning. An unusual visit from a Redwing
who was eating the berries from the pyracantha bush, as can be seen from
his bulging crop.
We went to the park. Lots of people feed the birds here. There has been
a lot of walking about going on over the grass!
4 March
The snow has all gone now and blackbird can have a bath without getting
frozen.
5 March
Today we went to Gravesend on the River Thames. This dinosaur suit is a
prop in a shop called The Panic Room. I wonder if the brave customers
know a dino is going to jump out at them? Not for me, thanks! There must
be a history behind this road name, and I shall find out one day.
Here is the old cast-iron bridge, which now houses a restaurant. You can
walk down the glass-covered walkway on the other side and go out onto
the pontoon section. This square is the very end of the pontoon and it
rides up and down the upright steel piece, as the water moves and the
ride rises. We were wobbling about as the waves were coming in from the
passing ships and boats.
We spent some time watching the boats and wind turbines on the north
side.
This huge container ship took ages to come in, we thought it was
drifting upriver on the tide, as it had a tug boat attached by a cable
behind it. This red lightship is docked at the riverside near the pier.
Further along is the chapel and some gardens with anchors. Some people
were feeding the swans and seagulls, not to mention hundreds of pigeons.
It was a cold day, so they were all crowding round just one person with
a bag of bread.
7 March
Another visit to the Natural History Museum. These dinosaurs are right
by the cafe. They seem to be arguing. This old drawing is what people
thought sea monsters might have looked like.
This is the entrance to the upstairs geology section, although the
escalator was out of action, it is normally full of people.
Fossilised wave patterns on sand. this quartz crystal is enormous and I
needed some fingers in the photo to show the size.
Lots of collections of gems. This part is kept quite dark, so that the
spotlights show up the gems.
May favourite is this one with all the colours in order.
Every bead in this display represents a million years, showing how long
it has been since the universe started with the Big Bang 15,000 million
years ago. Four beads represent the time people have been on earth. The
displays were all about rocks, volcanoes and planets.
10 March
This is the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. We will come back to this
sundial later in the year on a sunny day!
The central space was full of rockets and suspended airplanes.
These helmets, tea mugs and tea towels showed all the different jobs
people had to do during the war.
This is a pedal powered air purification machine, with the bike part on
the left, it must have been hard work, if it was ever used. This is a
German enigma machine for making coded messages. The combinations can be
changed by moving the plugs around.
Wartime toys and books describing how to mend clothes, as everything was
in very short supply.
A wartime kitchen and advice posters about food and not wasting
anything.
13 March
In the park the gardeners have opened up the end of an enclosed hedged
garden, so that we can now walk through instead of going right round the back.
This poster reminds of the War Museum posters, but I don't think they are
growing cauliflowers!
There was a notice inviting people to pick up coloured leaves and push
them into the hedge in interesting and artistic patterns. I think we have come a
little late and most of them have fallen back out. With the wet winter, all my
favourite mossy rocks are really bright green.
Someone has lost their big butterfly kite in the tree, but I am sure the
gardeners will get it out. A green tipped feather, this means the Ring Necked
Parakeets are around.
Not all that much happening in the daffodil meadow, so I had to take
close-up pictures instead. Brown Teddy found a tree trunk that looks like a
hippo face.
The big greenhouse is much warmer and full of tropical colour. This is a
Bird of Paradise flower.
These fish in the greenhouse don't know anything about frost or snow,
they are warm and active all the time.
15 March
This is a park in Eltham. I am still waiting for daffodils to come out.
Brown Teddy is pretending this rock in the mossy pool is the back of a whale.
The frost has been destroying this chalk rock, the top of it is falling
to bits. I really like this little path in one the corners, with the stones made
into a flower shape.
You can tell this robin is singing with his throat feathers out.
16 March
We went to Southwark Park. At last, a few more daffodils. Lots of birds
around the lake, white swan, black crow, and everything in between, especially
lots of lazy pigeons sitting around on the warm ground.
This garden is at the end of the lake, it is really colourful in summer.
The sundial says twelve o'clock, lunchtime!
We walked further on to the riverside and had our sandwiches there.
This steel sculpture is meant to look like a cormorant, and today we saw
one sitting on it.
I like this idea, a bike hangar where you pay to have a space and a key. This is
Rotherhithe Station and you can see the next station through the tunnel.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is more snow and ice, so I put the
pots in the greenhouse so they do not get spoiled. The fish are more active but
tomorrow when it snows they will be on the bottom.
17 March
Here is the snow. I put some plant shading material around the pond to help keep
the ice from forming, it does work in the corners.
18 March
The blackbird has come for his bits of food.
I have some bread and some bird pellets ready all the time in this
weather.
21 March
We went to Chiswick House in West London. It has a long lake and a long
greenhouse.
This week they have their camellia show. I really like this idea of the
fallen flowers floating in a dish of water.
This pond has been made safe for visitors, and the little fish can swim
up and down through the squares. They are mostly black and a few orange ones.
The Ring Necked Parakeet in the tree was making a lot of noise. This is
the far end of the lake, standing on the bridge.
Down below a coot is sitting on its nest.
24 March
We always watch the boat race, and I am glad this year no-one did any
sinking! I remember walking across Barnes Bridge and watching the trains last
year on our summer walk along the river.
28 March
This is Southwark Station. You can see fragments of reflections of
people walking in the shiny triangles on the wall. We went on to the Royal
Institution.
In the basement is the Faraday Museum, with all the original pieces of
equipment.
This is the first battery invented, and a Davy lamp used in mines to
prevent gas explosions.
These are Faraday's magnetic coils, and his original laboratory with all
his things as it was when he was here.
Here is Michael Faraday aged about 70. On the ground floor is the
library.
I really like the carpets in the building, all with magnetic iron filing
patterns!
Here is the auditorium where they hold the Christmas Lectures, and a
painting of Faraday giving a lecture in it.
29 March
At last, a big lot of daffodils, all out now that the snow and cold
weather are gone.
A few more out in the daffodil meadow in the park and just two blossom
trees starting to open.
31 March
Today we went to the Greenwich Peninsula. This is a tall wall made of
gabions, rocks inside steel cages. In the car park, they are well prepared for
electric cars, with charging points. I think this is a novelty that will soon
become common.
These are glass panels between two high rise buildings, with leaf
patterns on. It is either to block the view of what is beyond (messy building
sites) but I am guessing more likely to prevent a wind tunnel from forming in
the narrow gap. We walked past Greenwich boat yard.
By the river is a small ecology park with little rivers and marshy bits,
I am looking forward to seeing this when it is all green. Looking down river we
saw the Thames Barrier.
This is a play area, with rocks to sit or climb on, a wobbly bridge, and
this speaking tube, where you can speak in one end and someone can hear at the
other one a few metres away.
These Canada geese were eating the green weed but I don't think it was
providing much for them. These zigzag containers of plants are on a small pier,
another one to come back to and see when they are all growing more in the
summer.
Before going home, we went to Bexleyheath. Everyone was crowding round
the animals.
The animals must be used to people, as they were not frightened at all.
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