Today London is a huge metropolis, but it wasn’t always so, of course. It started as a small Roman settlement on the north bank of the River Thames, Londinium. In 200 AD a wall was built, surrounding and protecting the city. Over the centuries it grew and grew, but that Roman town remained at its heart, the original City of London.
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I confess I’m not a fan of winter, it’s my least favourite season. Yes, I love Christmas: enjoying festive celebrations with family and friends, decorating the house, seeing the lights in London. And I can get pleasure from crisp sunny days, perfect for a walk whether in London or on a Northumberland beach. But I don’t like grey skies, and I especially don’t like the shorter days and longer nights.
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Where the River Brent flows into the Thames west of London lies the suburb of Brentford. Its name is a clue to the origins of what was once a small settlement pre-dating the Roman occupation of the country. Today, like many London suburbs, it has interesting pockets of history squeezed between more recent and not always attractive developments.
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While many of England’s grand houses were (and in some cases still are) home to the aristocracy, others were built by those hoping to emulate or even join that exclusive set. The so-called ‘landed gentry’ indeed had land but no titles, although they aspired to climb the social ladder. Among them was Sir George Bowes, a coal baron from north east England.
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The Coquet River rises in the Cheviot Hills on the border between England and Scotland, and follows a winding course through the beautiful Northumberland countryside before flowing into the North Sea at Amble. Just before it reaches the sea it loops around the charming village of Warkworth.
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What makes an English country garden? Is it the choice of plants? The generously filled herbaceous borders? Perhaps a wall, a gravel or brick path, and a statue or two?
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Even when the sun was absent during our recent visit to Broadstairs, we found enough colour around the town to brighten even the dullest day. The traditional seaside beach huts are the source of much of this colour.
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Let’s have a few days by the sea this summer, we said. Let’s enjoy walks on the beach and cliffs, ice creams in the sunshine, maybe even paddle in the sea! But of course the British weather had other ideas. So while we did enjoy our few days away this week, and did indeed go for walks and eat ice cream, sunshine was in very short supply.
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I can remember a time when wildflowers were always just that, wild. They grew randomly in places where they had self-seeded, in hedgerows or on verges. In towns they were too often seen as weeds, not part of the gardener’s plans. If we were lucky they might pop up in odd corners of our urban concrete jungles, softening them and giving us a lift whenever we spotted them.
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A bonus I didn’t expect when joining a local photography group was that one of the members would own a patch of woodland. A wood that at the moment is full not of picnicking bears but of bluebells and other early spring flowers.
