London's sculpture trails

Back in 2010, a parade of elephants came to London to raise awareness of the need for elephant conservation.  The children and Graham and I had such a fun summer going elephant spotting around town - ticking the elephants we found off the checklist, taking photos and deciding which ones were our favourites.

A 10-year old Cam and a 7-year old Livvy with an elephant in Green Park

Livvy crossing elephants off the map in 2010

I thought at the time, what a wonderful idea it was.  The project really captured the public's imagination; everyone in London seemed to be talking about it.  It got us all out as a family, exploring London and sharing with each other the places we knew best (Graham knows the Royal Parks extremely well from cycling through them on his way to work for years, but I rarely go there) and the elephants were just very lovely works of art in their own right - sometimes beautiful and sometimes amusing.

So I was delighted to find that there are two really good new sculpture trails in London this autumn.  

There is a trail of fifty Paddington Bears scattered around London to mark the release of the Paddington film and to raise money for the NSPCC.  The bears have all been designed by different people, and are mostly clustered in a few parts of London so that you could easily see a whole bunch in an hour or two (although I am perversely tempted to trek all the way out to Heathrow to see the Chief Scout Bear designed by Bear Grylls).  The Paddingtons will be in London until the end of the year, so you still have a couple of months to see them all.

The second trail is to mark the 2014 Year of the Bus (I know - who knew?).  This one I stumbled across completely by accident as I was walking in the Olympic Park last week.  I found a beautiful, floral bus sculpture, read the label on it, and knew immediately that I had to come back soon with my smallest nephew - bus-and-train-mad, four-year-old Leo - to see how many of the rest of them we could find.  

At the weekend, my brother-in-law and Leo joined Livvy and me for a stroll around the park to find the buses.  Well, Leo scooted at high speed while the rest of us strolled.  Instead of the paper map that Livvy checked off the elephants with in 2010, this time we had an app with a QR reader so that we could 'zap' the buses as we found them and mark them off the map on my phone.  We had so much fun, and Leo adored looking out for the different buses.  The trail around the Olympic Park is one of three bus trails - the others are in Westminster and around St Paul's and the Tate Modern. 

Livvy and Leo find a bus in front of the stadium

Self portrait in the mirrored bus

David and Leo with the number bus

Found another one!

This paralympic themed bus was mine and David's favourite

The floral bus from the other side - in front of the Broadcast Centre

I've got a whole, happy autumn of bus and bear hunting around London ahead of me trying to spot as many of them as I can - sometimes on my own or with a friend on a weekday day off, and sometimes with the family at the weekend.  That makes me very content.  
    

10 things

The nice thing about getting an exciting new job in ITU, is that nothing really changes:

• I made a new top.  It was meant to be a dress, but I failed to adjust for the fact that I am much taller than most Japanese women.

• I love it though, and have bought more fabric so I can make myself a dress version.

• I discovered that the best place to take a full legth photo of myself without balancing on the arm of a sofa or having to tidy an entire room first, is the changing room at work. 

• Basil is back in the kitchen - I run my hands through it when I stand at the sink.

• I like these tiles at Aldgate station.

• Graham is listening to James Brown and treating us all to funk.

• I have been running - but not enough.  I miss it.

• I baked brioche rolls, and Graham made a tarte au citron. 

• The washing machine couldn't read the label that said the pillow was washable.

• When it's sunny, and I am not at work, I cycle over to the Olympic park with a quilt and sunbathe.    

Local Leyton parks

Walking through two of Leyton's parks this morning on my way to the library, it still felt more summery than autumnal.  The temperature hit 21 degrees again at lunchtime and only the colour of the leaves on the ground told me that we really, truly are in the middle of autumn.

Sidmouth Park, Leyton

Coronation Gardens, Leyton

October rosebuds in Coronation Gardens, Leyton

Autumn leaves in Leyton

I put my sandals away a week or two ago, but I was too hot in these trainers today.  Time to reapply the nail varnish I think.

Weekday walk #14

I didn't have my usual walking companion with me today, but instead I had C and O who have had a bonus day off school because of the teachers' strikes.  It is also my birthday today, and as a special birthday treat they agreed to come on a weekday walk with me, be cheerful and not moan once!

I wanted to do a walk from this excellent book which I received as a present this morning.  I really love this series of Ordnance Survey Pathfinder books and have loads for other parts of the country I've visited.  The walks are accurately described, interesting and varied.  There are excerpts of Ordnance Survey maps within each walk so that you don't need to carry a separate map too.

We started at Parliament Square, where the police had closed most of the roads and were setting up security barriers ready for the protest march.  This is a part of London I don't know well at all, and I loved having a good nose around while the roads were all closed to traffic.

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

Police horsebox in front of the Cabinet War Rooms

We headed away from Parliament Square and our walk took us on a meandering route through all the Royal Parks to Kensington.  We saw deckchairs in St James's Park and Hyde Park, and Guardsmen outside St James's Palace - trying to keep a straight face while all the tourists stood next to them and posed for photos.  Each time someone took a picture they would quickly switch their bayoneted machine gun from one shoulder to the other and make everyone jump!

We larked about under the big trees in Hyde Park and enjoyed the wide open spaces by the Serpentine as we headed for Kensington Palace.

It has been such a treat to walk with the children today.  I've got plenty more walks planned with them during the school summer holidays.  Just a few more weeks to go - I can't wait.

Spurred on

Sometimes I find that my mojo's floated off to somewhere with a warmer climate and I'm left feeling a rather flat and indecisive.

The past few weeks have felt a little like that. Maybe I left my mojo behind in Fabrics Galore?  But yesterday I had a day that left me feeling quite restored, and that has spurred me on to put some plans into action.

I met up with Dragonfly at Kew Gardens, on a gloriously cold and sunny morning, and we wandered around for hours, chatting about goodness-knows-what and pausing every now and then to stop and take photos.

Now is the time of year to go and admire the berries at Kew Gardens.  We saw big ones, small ones, red ones, yellow ones, even bright purple ones.  Juicy ones, curranty ones, exotic ones and home-grown ones.

Walking around Kew Gardens I was reminded again of how much I love to walk, and of how little I actually do, unless I am on holiday.  Walking clears my head, sets me thinking, and fills me with endorphins.  I have the time, and I love to do it, so goodness me - why aren't I doing more of it? 

So I have resolved to try and do one long, solitary walk each week for the next few months.  And on the way back home, as the train skirted the Olympic Park and I looked up from my book, I saw this:

The main Olympic stadium - finished outside and now being fitted out with its seats.  And then this:

The Aquatic Centre, where I want to get tickets to see some of the swimming and diving in 2012. 

What better place to do my first walk than around the Olympic Park?  I'm thinking I'll try and walk as much of the local section of The Greenway as I can manage in the school day, and call in at The View Tube on the way for a coffee and to take some more Olympic photos.

I will wear my walking boots next week though - this time of year is muddier than I had realised.

And so I returned home from a really lovely day out with my lungs full of fresh air, plans for a new walk, and also a little paper bag containing this Japanese sewing book.  Because as well as a day out at Kew Gardens, Tracy also introduced me to the delights of Kew's very own fabric shop, Tikki Quilt and Patchwork.  I know.  A newly discovered fabric shop, AND one that sells Japanese craft books. 

Someone who introduces you to a place like that is a friend indeed.  Thank you, Tracy!

Obligatory autumn visit to Kew Gardens

  

It wouldn't be the school holidays without a trip to Kew Gardens.  The children and I spent the day there yesterday with my parents.

We saw (and smelled) this extraordinarily phallic titan arum in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.  This plant rarely flowers, but when it does it releases a most revolting smell - like vomit and something rotting all mixed together.  It smelled so bad that the children actually ran outside in horror rather than exclaiming 'cool!', which I thought they  might.

You can read more about this threatened species, and see an amazing time-lapse of it flowering on the titan arum page of the Kew website here.

After all that excitement we headed outside for some sweet-smelling air and autumn colour.  I took some obligatory photos of my new winter boots amongst the fallen leaves.

Someone else has been taking the same shot - except she has gorgeous green boots, and more leaves have fallen since she was there!

We wandered around all day, chatting, eating flapjacks, admiring the trees and taking dozens of photos.  Perfect.

Our weekend of sport

Well, there is no doubt this is a very big sporting weekend for us.  No, not the Canadian Grand Prix.  Not the tennis championship, at Queen's Club, either.  Not even one of those football matches happening in South Africa at the moment (Graham claimed it was totally necessary that he watch the tantalising match that was France v Uruguay last night, and then fell asleep on the sofa after 10 minutes.  I felt horribly righteous.).

No; for us, this big sporting weekend is all about running and triathlons. 

A while ago Graham and I found out about the parkrun organisation, and last month Graham went along to their inaugural run at Hackney Marshes, on the edge of the Olympic site, just a mile or so from where we live.  Parkrun is a wonderful organisation that arranges and hosts free, timed 5km runs every Saturday morning around the country (you can find your closest one here).  The races are truly open to everybody of all ages and abilities, from complete beginners to Olympians, and everyone in between.

This morning Cam ran his first ever 5km race at the third Hackney Marshes parkrun.  He is not a fan of PE at school, and hates football with a passion, but has been hankering after doing something sporty out of school for a while.  He asked if he could have a go at this after hearing G and I talking about it. 

So Graham bought him some proper running shoes.

And he had a little practise in the sitting room, wearing his pyjamas.

I printed off his race barcode and laminated it.  The barcode is effectively your entry ticket and it enables you to get an official time for your race.

And that was all the preparation we needed to do. 

This morning we all headed over to Hackney Marshes. Graham to help out with the marshalling, me, Livvy and Uncle David to be cheerleaders, and Cam to race.  Cam borrowed Graham's sat nav watch, so that he cold see how far he'd gone at any point and how fast he was running.  It looked so big on his skinny little ten-year old wrist!

There was a quick briefing from the race organiser, and off they all went.  Uncle David and I looked at each other with a little trepidation and wondered how Cam would get on.  How far can 10 year olds run? we wondered, not entirely sure.  Hopefully at least 5km.

Pre-race briefing; Cam at the back wearing a red top, blue shorts & looking very small.

And of course, as is always the case when children decide for themselves that they are ready to do something, it all turned out very well indeed.  Cam ran the race in just under 35 minutes, much faster than he expected to.  He had a great time, he didn't get lost, he didn't get a stitch, and he finished ahead of several of the adults.  He didn't even mind me squealing with excitement as he came up to the finish line.

You'd think after all that early morning activity we'd all head back home and have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.  But instead our race excitement then switched to Graham who left from the parkrun to drive to Snowdonia, where he is competing in a half ironman triathlon tomorrow morning.  In all the understandable excitement about Cam's first race, we've all completely taken for granted Graham's entry into only his second ever half-ironman race (you can see photos of his first one here).

And we really shouldn't be taking such a ridiculously long, involved race for granted.  Apart from anything else, just look at all the clobber he has to take with him.

Here are just some of the things he packed:

• running shoes
• wetsuit
• trisuit
• bike shoes
• bike
• spare inner tubes (lightweight - makes all the difference)
• bike pump
• a great deal of carb and protein laden food
• posh sunglasses
• a woolly hat
• at least three water bottles
• a blanket to keep the bike snug while it is in the back of the car

He will start off with a 2km swim in Bala lake, then a 90km bike ride through the foothills of Snowdonia, and then finish with a half-marathon run (21km) back to Bala.  He is aiming to do the whole race in around five and a half hours.  I won't be there to squeal with excitement when he finishes, as I did for Cam's race, but I've promised Graham that as a gesture of solidarity I'll be up tomorrow morning by the time he starts on the bike section of the race.  Abut 10am.  And I'm planning on baking him some coffee and walnut buns for when he gets back on Monday.

I think both of them have earned a few slices of cake this weekend.

After Cam finished his race. Very proud Dad, very tired son.