Autumn at its best

After a Saturday with torrential rain, Sunday's blue sky and gentle breezes diverted my walk home from the farmers market through the park. Still enough foliage on the trees, but lots underfoot in a riot of colours and shapes as well. You want to take home these scenes of gorgeousness, to keep them against the winter, and how better than with far too many photographs...

The lovely little white clouds, and the big old trees

The boating lake and a pleasing array of overwintering boats

To get the reflections you have to hold your phone/camera right down on the ground

Wildlife is mostly of the birdy sort -

A randomness of pigeons...

 

... and a regiment of seagulls ...

... and every park worth its salt has a swan or two

These trees reminded me so much of the walk along the Camino, six months ago -

 At the exit from the park, a fastigiate hornbeam looking splendid -

Later, up hill and down dale to dinner cooked in the rapidly-evolving, but not-finished-quite-yet, new kitchen -

 ... and back home through the leafy streets, taking in the panorama of "downtown" - always a pleasure, from a distance at least! -

New River Walk (London N1)

A shallow stream, shadowed in the heat of a sunny day - it's a hidden green sliver through already-leafy Canonbury. Shade, birds, reflections on the moving water ... "a green thought in a green shade".

Even when you're on the way to somewhere, it invites pausing - and a few photos.

Under the fountain

Drifting

Tucked away

Drifting

 Abstraction -

 Patterns -

"This charming linear park is landscaped along the river. There are several graceful weeping willows dipping into the water and many other trees, both junior and mature. The narrow path winds intriguingly enabling the pretence you're in the actual countryside and it's a delight to linger ... There are ducks, coots and moorhens even in midwinter and birdsong rang out from the treetops. ... The walk is rarely busy although a favourite for locals in the know and there are strategic benches along the way for when it's warm enough to sit and doze." (via)

One such bench was occupied by a young man, stretched out in the sun and supporting a book on his raised knee, lost to the world in it.

Art in Mile End

The end-of-year show of the Essential School of Painting took me to the Art Pavilion in Mile End park - what a wonderful venue, so spacious and with the evening light bouncing off the lake right outside.

The skylights give a hint that the building is partially underground, in the sense of having a grass roof; it's described as "buried in a grass bank".

I went along to see Gill Harding's work, portraiture in various media, of models and family and friends -

A favourite collage -

There's something about it that makes me smile whenever I see it, even in the photo - perhaps it's the "shower of leaves", like thoughts or words ... or perhaps the dark plant acts as the reflection of the viewer in a mirror, so that looking at the picture becomes a conversation with the person portrayed?

A tree or two

The Trees and Bees course at the weekend was brilliant - not only do I know an oak from an ash, but can recognise an Indian chestnut and a pawlonia and tell a few other species apart. We identified 119 types of tree (and quite a few insects) and I have photos of all of them, mostly labelled now, though there is a bit of confusion about some of them, despite extensive note taking. Several tree books are on order...

Some of my Regents Park favourites:

Poplars are called cottonwoods in America because of the white fluff  that appears this time of year

Judas tree

White pawlonia on a grey day

Learning what to look for in a leaf

Course leader Steven Falk conpares metasequoia (left) with swamp cypress.
Those "poles" beside the lake are "breathing tubes" for the swamp cypress.

"It's this one" - a tree bumblbee (they nest in holes in trees - and buildings)

Can't remember what these are, but isn't the greenery lovely, and the wild flowers