Which plants to leave out? Can’t bring them all in. The orange tree has retreated inside, ditto a couple of scented leaf geraniums. The eucomis are sitting in a sheltered (I hope) area beside a brick wall.
But the wormery will grind to a halt and there’s nothing I can do about it apart from bringing it inside…
Arrived last night after making it through tube-strike-chatoic London (only just). Here to see the Taipei International Floral Expo http://www.2010taipeiexpo.tw/mp.asp?mp=4
Out here in Taiwan looking at the Floral Expo and stuff has started to kick off with the Baka people in Cameroon. I think I’m on the wrong continent. Damn.
Virgin snow in Regent’s Park and along the Regent’s canal.Freezing wind chilling my cheeks and shaking the last red leaves off the Metasequoia glyptostroboides. A pool of red spread around the tree and across part of the lake beside. Scent of pine wafting across the path.
Puzzled ducks wander about on the ice. So few people are walking to work in this beautiful sunshine. Why? Especially on Monday when, once again, the tube strike hit. I came into Paddington and walked across Hyde Park and St James Park (my fave) to work at the FT on Southwark Bridge.
What a wonderful start to the day.
This evening I walked back across the Millennium Bridge. St Paul’s was floodlit in red. It looked magnificent. Then onto Salt Yard for Tapas with Barbara de Lacey and finally a number 24 bus through the snow back to Camden.
Went to see daughter number one last night. She is one of the UCL (University College London) students occupying the Jeremy Bentham room close to where, many years ago, I used to have tutorials.
Just outside they have made a cardboard coffin. Candles and flowers surround it. A plaque reading, ‘RIP education’ explains the curious shrine.
Inside, a timeline around the wall marks interviews with the various newspapers and the BBC; marches; interventions from the authorities.
The atmosphere is calm and serious.
Tables, each with its own collection of laptops and students are marked, variously, ‘Media’ ‘Process’ ‘Welfare’ and so on.
I am invited to join the supper line: tuna, cous cous, tomatoes.
All the students I meet are polite and thoughtful. I ask who are the leaders. There are none. Yes, I say, but there must be a few key decision makers . No, it’s just consensual.
Impressive.
Daughter number one is 21 tomorrow. We meet for dinner in Soho and walk back through Camden Lock where a cool three legged fox is wandering along Hartland Road where we used to live.
Walk to work talking to Mark Stephens my mate who’s defending Assange. A green woodpecker flies up across the path.
Along the canal a heron pecks at a sandwich surrounded by a flock of seagulls.
The gardeners in Queen Mary’s garden are pruning but will not let me take one of the rose buds which looks like antique silk
FT’s office party. Buses chug us along the Thames, South Bank lights twinkling in the water, to a nightclub overlooking Regent’s Street. Wembley lighting up the sky in one direction, millennium wheel in another. Cranes everywhere. A magnificent Egyptian frieze around the top of the building opposite.
Walk home past bling Christmas lights where Kentish Town Road crosses Regents canal..two man-sized snowmen, flashing multi-coloured lights
May the verdant bagpipes of destiny lead you along 2011’s most rewarding routes
