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Diary – 2021 July
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All my diary pages going back to 2009
DRAWING & PAINTING:
1 July
Today we are at Chiswick House. This cascade that fills the lake is very fierce and noisy. Brown Teddy says last time we came, a dog was having a bath in one of these side pools.
Wildflower beds, and formal beds, this year with greenery and grasses.
This plant is Dierama, Angel's Fishing Rods, waving gently about.
This lion is rather thin looking, he should go to the ice cream van just behind the hedge! The baby coot was very noisy, and ready to eat nonstop.
This empty frame is just right for Teddy selfies!
We saw this old cattle drinking trough on the way back to the station. I am glad they are still around, and always filled with plants nowadays.
5 July
We went to Hill Garden And Pergola in north London.
In the gardens below are lots of enormous pots of trees and big shrubs. Brown Teddy and I just love winding paths, we have to see where they go.
This lavender was very cool looking on this hot day.
This is the spiral staircase up to the pergola. All the rain we have had has filled it out with plants, much more than previous years' visits.
The view down from the pergola walk. We continued along and later on we will come back to this exit into the woodland.
I am glad to say that this long lily pond is now a proper shade of green, and not blue like last year! But no wildlife to be seen.
It was a cool walk through the woodland.
We came out of the woodland directly into Golder's Hill Park. Last time the deer enclosure had an emu resident, but no sign of him today, maybe he is not there now. There is a zoo with animals from around the world. This is a wallaby.
The donkeys have a big field to themselves, and a shelter if they need it.
One of the enclosure has this very useful scratching point, made like broom heads. The Laughing Kookaburra came out to his perch, as he didn't want to miss having his handsome portrait taken!
We had our sandwiches in the shade in the ornamental garden.
6 July
This chaffinch has been hopping about everyone's windows and fluttering up at the glass. He even sat outside my kitchen window, looking in. Later on I found found he was attacking his reflection. I think he will get tired of that after the nesting season has passed.
7 July
At last we have taken out a lot of the paving stones, which were very big and heavy, with loads of hardcore underneath. There are a lot of bags of rubble to get rid of!
We made two trips to the waste depot and had to go on the weighbridge, and pay for our load of rubble. The place was full of lots of crows and starlings, all looking for and finding scraps to eat, especially when a fresh load is dumped in one of the bays.
1 July
Today we went to Abney Cemetery Wildlife Park, an old Victorian cemetery that is now full of trees and natural growth. There was rain on and off, so we had to step carefully on the muddy paths.
This lion is the smartest memorial here, not green, leaning or toppled like many of the others. There are lots of cross-crossing paths, but they all lead round in a circle eventually. I like this picture on some of the stones, joined hands with the caption "Till we meet again".
We went to Canary Wharf. The station is enormous, like the buildings. It is entirely a business area.
10 July
Time to plant up the places where the paving stones came out. It will soon all grow out and make curvy mounds of green again.
12 July
This is the ferry on the River Thames at Woolwich. We might have gone over on the ferry but there was a strike on.
This is a shallow flowing water feature between the apartment high rises, very refreshing and clean looking, unlike the cloudy muddy Thames water.
This is the outlet for the water feature, with extra stones to sit and play on. Lots of old piers on the river are left in place, where the gulls like to rest in safety, as there is no access from the riverside.
This is the entrance to the Woolwich foot tunnel. The spiral staircase is made of iron. It is a fair way down but we didn't count the steps.
The tunnel is cool and damp, and everything is very echoey. The river is only 10 feet above the ceiling!
16 July
Today we went to Alexandra Palace in north London - Ally Pally. We walked from the shops in Muswell Hill through this wooded park.
This is the west facing end. We could not walk on the terrace, as it was closed off, so we walked all round outside at the lower level.
I like all the ornate ironwork. This is a peek through the window in one of the side doors, with the old concert organ at the end.
This is the view over central London. The photo makes it look quite near but in reality it is a long distance and very misty on the horizon. The pointed one towards the right is The Shard which is next to London Bridge Station.
At the back of Ally Pally is a park with a boating lake. Some new pedalo boats have appeared, very colourful unicorns. These ducklings were constantly diving down underwater and bobbing back up again. It must be hard work staying down when you only have tiny legs, and I wonder whether they did manage to reach the weed on the bottom each time.
We sat here for our sandwiches, at the far side of the lake. This is the view of Ally Pally and the television mast from the lake area.
After that we walked past the Go Ape establishment, where kids can go between the trees on zip wires, hanging wobbly bridges, and other climbing features. They are tethered all the time, but it still look like quite an adventure getting about. The lily pond in the small rose garden was scattered with rose petals, from a distance it looked like lots of goldfish. We did see some very tiny black tiddlers in there though.
17 July
What a surprise, some potatoes had fallen off the wire drawer in the veggie cupboard and have been growing unseen for quite a while!
19 July
Mr Robin waiting for something interesting to happen in the way of bird pellets or the sight of a worm wriggling in the grass.
20 July
We have had thunderstorms and torrential rain, followed by a very heavy and noisy shower of hailstones. Here they are bouncing about on the fish pond netting, jumping up and down and collecting in the dips.
22 July
The chaffinch is now a regular visitor and here he is hopping about the greenhouse looking for spiders in the cracks. He is also welcome to any bugs he can find in my apple trees.
22 July
We went to Sydenham Hill Wood. Here is the view from the station bridge. The tunnel is one mile 381 yards long and takes about two minutes on the train. When you are on the train, you know when the station is near because the sound of the train gets slower before there is any light to see the end.
This is the map of the woods. It is next to Dulwich wood so they are really one big woodland with two separate owners. We decided to use a "map my walk" app to see how far we went and all our zigzagging.
We had our sandwiches by this pond. I think of it as the dinosaur pond where they might come to drink. After we had finished our sandwiches, this crow came along and all I had was my banana, but he was happy to eat bits of it. I think he was older, as he was slower and more confident than some of the less experienced ones.
Cox's Walk footbridge is out of order and unsafe, and there is a campaign to save the oaks beside it, which are threatened with removal to make space to get the machinery in when they repair the bridge. Brown Teddy and I are very glad the tree removal is on hold for the time being.
https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/news/works-coxs-walk-footbridge
This walkway goes over a steep part of the woodland, and the notice says it is to protect the roots of this very old Cedar of Lebanon. It would be a mudslide in winter without the walkway.
Someone dropped their sunglasses halfway up the steps near the old tunnel, and a kind person put them on this post, which just happened to have a little mouth hole in it!
25 July
Lots of lovely apples coming along, but too many on each branch, so we removed all the little and lumpy ones. I will put them down the garden. They will go mushy and get eaten by the birds (and probably some snails and squirrels as well).
Sitting in the greenhouse, we just happened to notice this chaffinch feeding one of its young on the ground behind the bench.
Sometimes a wood pigeon lands on the greenhouse roof and then gets a fright when we move or wave at him from underneath.
26 July
This is Kelsey Park in Beckenham.
This goose watched us for a good 20 minutes, watching every bite we took of our sandwiches. These Canada geese all waddled past, following someone with a bag of food.
These pigeons were attempting a bit of a bath clinging to the sticks, not the best place to get soaked feathers. This young bird was sunbathing happily on the warm stones until someone with a noisy dog came past.
28 July
Today we went to Ilford in north east London. This mural is in the shopping centre and refers to the prehistoric mammoth bones and other fossils found here.
These dragons are placed all around the boundaries of the City of London. This one is at the south end of London Bridge. In the past it was a warning to everyone that the king was going to be just as fierce when necessary.
29 July
We did shopping in several areas and ended up on Erith Pier for our snack. Everything here is industrial and the river is very wide as it becomes an estuary.
We were going to London Bridge but the train goes the opposite direction and then makes a sharp curve to change direction.
There are lots of open spaces here, as the area is marshy.
You can use the space on your 404 page to help find missing people by embedding info from notfound.org See Yellow Teddy's 404 page
Where to report a lost or found teddy or toy https://whiteboomerang.com
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