A glimmer of hope on a street corner: Tritton Vale Pocket Garden
How a once-derelict patch of ground, is helping to galvanise a community in one corner of South London.
A dark square with potential: Brooke’s Market, EC1
Squashed gothic churches, beheaded saints, mysterious alleyways and a preponderance of dustbins.
Saving Pages: A selection of vintage bookmarks
As a child of second-hand booksellers I had ready access to books and their offshoot – bookmarks. I recently rediscovered a box filled with some that once upon a time I had hoarded.
A futile list of sounds (with an explanation of sorts)
It doesn’t take much to make a familiar place unfamiliar. A change in the weather – rain, bright sunshine, or more dramatically, snowfall or fog can all do it. Smells too – who hasn’t found themselves aware of sniffing more consciously than normal when drains are blocked, or there’s a whiff of barbecue, bonfire or worse in the air?
And then of course there are a place’s distinctive sounds.
Balham enters the Anthropocene
At the inaugural Balham Literary Festival, a gathering of Nature Writers, Landscape Writers and Writer writers came together to discuss the state of the natural world. Here’s my report on what I saw and heard.
A child’s map of Crystal Palace Park, or panic fear in the unwild.
Is it acceptable to call replica Sphinxes ‘The Guys?’ Who is The Headless Lady with no arms? What happens when you stop paying attention near the maze?
To find out, join our child-led expedition into Crystal Palace Park.
All back to Asselega’s place
Is it possible to be haunted by a place? I think that I may be. In this case it is Ashley Vale in Bristol – an exceptional urban oasis caught between the tracks, containing allotments, woods, hilltops and a pub next door to a farm.
