Daffodils in Victoria Park

First nice day of the holiday so off on my bike along the Lea Navigation and then the Hertford Union to Victoria Park (both East and West side).

The tow path seemed a less busy than it would have been on a Sunday at that time. I met Denise from work walking her dog back to her house boat.

It was blue sky and mild.

I can remember once cycling to my friend in Highbury one Christmas Day when it was blue sky, but cold. The cold air hurt my nose, and I had a runny nose for about 5 days afterwards.

There were some daffodils in flower in Victoria Park. I've read about Cornish daffodils  being in flower but I was still surprised!

Bumble bees in December - again

This morning there was a bumble bee outside my bedroom window.

When I went to write about this in my perpetual diary I found that on 13 December 2006 a colleague had seen a bumble bee in his winter clematis.

As the years pass, a perpetual diary gets more and more interesting.

I also saw a kingfisher this morning when paddling up the Old River Lea between Tottenham and Waltham Forest. And there were 2 Egyptian geese grazing between the riding stable and Lea Bridge Road as I cycled home. I often see a pair of these on the side of the Lea Navigation, but their location today was a surprise.

A mild Halloween is not that unusual!

It is being reported that this is a record-beating mild Halloween.

But a mild Halloween is not that unusual.

Last year it was mild into November - I noted it particularly as I was on a white water kayaking course where I couldn't wear gloves as I was afraid of losing them when I came out in a stopper. And I was capsizing and "swimming" several times a session.

In my perpetual calendar I've noted in 2013 and 2010 a Halloween paddle (this would have been after it had got dark) where I wasn't wearing gloves or a hat. These are the only 2 Halloween paddles I've been on, so there could easily have been other mild Halloweens I hadn't particularly noted.

Paddling does make me very aware of the weather. There are often weekends where I would have thought it had rained all weekend if I hadn't been paddling in the dry, and sometimes even the sunshine, whatever the weather the rest of the time!

A little pot of honey for tea

On Thursday there was a little pot of honey each for everyone at work - made by the bees on the hives on the roof.

I plan to keep mine until I make some bread.

At the moment the warm weather means  am not using the wood burning stove, and I raise my bread in front of that. If the weather forecast is right it might be December until I get a chance to eat my honey!

No need for all spice berries - no sweet chestnuts!

I still haven't found all spice berries for the pickled sweet chestnut recipe. I was going to make the pickle without them.

There are sweet chestnuts on the green by  the church at Wanstead. There were a lot there last year when I hadn't anything to do with them. This year there were a lot of the shells on the ground but only flat chestnuts falling out of them.

I usually go to Wanstead by tube, which is outside my season ticket zones. Once Ros Bedlow led me back from the church into New Wanstead and then to the Leytonstone High Road. I can get to New Wanstead - it is where the vet hospital is. A look at the A-Z and the route from there seemed simple so I tried it and it worked (what looks simple on the A-Z is not necessarily so when one is walking!).

There was a vintage and craft fair at the church hall. Nearly an hour to go but some stall-holders were already packing up. I found a lovely unmarked silver moth broach for £12. I had also got a knitted tunic and a cereal bowl at the charity shop on my way to the supermarket this morning.

It was beginning to rain so I took the tube back and then a mile walk from Leytonstone.

Seeing the bees on the roof at work

We have two hives on the roof at work and recently staff have been able to accompany the person looking after them, 6 at a time, to see them and learn a bit more about them.

The last trip was today. It's getting cold so the bees are slowing down. I was cold up there on the roof in the bright yellow bee-keeping suit, so surprised to see even the few bees there were coming back to the hive.

The bees in one hive are still eating the liquid feed, the other hive was given something that looked like marzipan. (We were told it didn't taste nice!)

We are just south of Regents Park which is their main source of food. We are also hoping to have lots of good bee food plants in the garden to the east of our building when finally the work to put the electrical sub station and the accessible paths is completed.

I wish I could find something suitable for insects at this time of year that did well in my garden. Michaelmas daisies do - but they have strong roots and are difficult to pull up if they seed in the wrong place.

Wood burning problems? The wrong kind of weather!

I had my chimney swept and the annual maintenance for my wood-burning stove today.

I had problems burning wood last year, both to get the logs to start burning properly and keep burning properly.  Mark* couldn't see any reason why there should be a problem with my stove (and there is not much to go wrong with a woodburner).

He said it was likely to be the weather. Last winter there were several long periods of low pressure. So fingers crossed for this year.

*Mark Killick 07914 041813 if you want a chimney swept and/or a woodburner maintained in Walthamstow/Woodford area (but this is his busy period, he's booking for December now!)

For the want of a car a wheel was lost...

For the want of a car a wheel was lost. For the want of a wheel the computer table was lost. For the want of the computer table some money for the charity shop was lost.

A week or so ago I had brought home a small table someone had left on the pavement to be taken away. So I was able to get rid of the computer table, used as a side table.

I checked with the charity shop yesterday that, in these days of lap-tops and tablets, they could sell a computer table, and they could. So today I wheeled it there, but it lost two of its wheels and the screws that held in the keyboard flap. So not in sellable condition!

I wheeled it home again, leaving it outside in the hope that the East European totters would take the metal and I could then fit the "wooden" bits in the wheelie bin. If I had passed a skip on the way home I would have heaved it in there, but the only skips were right opposite my house and outside the house two doors up.

This evening when I went to feed my neighbour's cats, the whole computer table had gone.

Most of the time I don't need a car, but every now and then like today it would be really useful!

Blackberries: What a difference the city makes

Round my way the blackberries are over. From previous years' experience I would expect them to taste horrible (the devil spits on them at the end of September, according to folklore) if they weren't.

My boss and his wife, who live out in the middle of Essex, near Saffron Walden, were picking blackberries yesterday - large and juicy.

Here I expect the best of the crop of blackberries end of July to beginning of September.

A clothes dryer would be nice right now!

When my father was an art student he visited a friend from the army who had recently become a father. This would be early 1950s. There were nappies strung up to dry across the kitchen. My father could remember driving back to College on his motorcycle thinking "Another good man down". In a few years he was in the same situation with my nappies needing to be got dry.

This time of year it is not warm enough for clothes to dry quickly. But it is not cold enough for me to put my central heating on, so drying clothes, sheets, towels, kayak gear, etc, is a problem. My kayak trousers which I will be wearing tomorrow are still slightly damp from last week.

We have had some lovely sunny days recently, and today was forecast to be dry with some sun. So I put my washing out on the rotary dryer. It was misty - the two items I had handwashed, rinsing in warm water, steamed as I hung them out!

The mist did not clear for ages. No blue sky until the afternoon. Very little sun. Sheets, towels and clothes still damp and had to be put on clothes horses indoors to finish off.

Luckily I live alone. If part of a couple, or even worse a family, I would find space for a clothes dryer, however ungreen that might be!

Competition for off-cuts

This afternoon on my way to the shops, just round the corner from the end of my road, I saw several lengths of clean wood, 50/60 cms long with screws sticking out of them. A short time with a screwdriver and then sawn* in half they would be perfect for my wood-burning stove.

On the way home they were still there. I took my neighbour's shopping into her house, put it all away, sorted out the cheque to pay for it. Went and put my shopping away and then walked up the road to find all the wood gone!

Is there another person with a wood-burning stove, or perhaps an open fire, locally? If so we will now be in competition with each other!

With 2 lots of shopping and one shopping trolley I already propping 3 canvas bags of shopping on the top of the trolley so couldn't have collected the wood on the way home.

* The spell-check didn't like this, but I've just checked my dictionary and it's in there!

New energy saving light bulb brightens the sitting room

Wow, I've been in this house a long time! The energy-saving light bulb which I put in the sitting room overhead light a few years after I moved here has blown. So I popped a new one in and it brightens up more quickly - and seems brighter overall (but I expect that's my imagination).

Should I be picking sloes in the Forest?

I was hoping this year to pick my sloes in a thicket alongside the path near the Middlesex Filter beds which I pass if  am taking my cycle ride southwards along the Lea Navigation. However someone picked those in August.

Down in the south it is not a good idea to leave sloes until the first frost as is advised (it saves pricking them with a needle to get the juices to flow). By the time that happens here the sloes have either fallen off or shrivelled up. August seems a bit early though - I pick mine in September.

So on my day off today I went to Chingford Plain on the edge of Epping Forest. The first clump of sloes bushes I came to had plenty of sloes to fill my soya dessert tub with, and plenty left over for someone else.

Picking fungi in Epping Forest is forbidden, mainly because people doing it commercially were taking too many. I am a little worried about whether I should be picking sloes. I don't think I will be making any difference to wildlife. Presumably something eats them - would the stones passing through the digestive tract of an animal be how the plants are distributed? But I think the vast majority of sloes not picked go to waste.

I would quite happily pick blackberries in the Forest, so have decided - for now - that I can do it.

I will be pricking the sloes this evening as I catch up on iplayer.

Need to record mother's wisdom

My bathroom basin has one of those plugs that rests on a bar which is risen and lowered by a plunger at the back of the taps. When not in use I keep the plug on the shelf below the window as the cats pat the plug out, and I am worried about this damaging the basin. I am more worried about the plug being patted under something and never seen again for months (I found it on the hall floor one evening before I stopped keeping it in the basin).

Last week I dropped the soap down the plug hole and, when the water softened it, it must have squidged and it was making the water back up.

My mother told me to pour a kettle full of boiling water down the plug hole to melt the soap and flush it away. It worked a treat.

I am asking my mother to start writing down all the tips she has, adding any family stories that can be associated with them.

Sparrows the bosses of the drinking bowl!

I have a casserole dish which I fill with water and put in the garden in the summer for the foxes and the cats. This year I've seen birds using it too.

This morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see a sparrow drinking while a female blackbird waited her turn (though there would have been room for both to drink). When the blackbird was drinking another sparrow flew down for a drink and the blackbird gave up her turn for him.

Eventually she got a proper turn and after a drink she also had a bath.

On my cycle ride home yesterday after blackberrying I saw a lesser spotted woodpecker in the cleared shrubby area that they've put a path through alongside Orient Way (the Ruckholt Relief Road that was).

A fellow kayaker has had all the corn off his corn on the cobs on his allotment eaten - he thinks parakeets.

Successful gathering/scrounging

I have been picking a few blackberries from my neighbour's overgrown garden to eat with my breakfast cereal for nearly a week. Today on my bike ride I went up between Leyton Marshes and the riding stable to pick a soya desert tub full of blackberries. Saw several other people also picking. I made blackberry crumble - yum!

There was also some horse droppings, so I passed them, picked the blackberries and came back to scoop up the horse droppings for my compost heap.

I then turned and cycled off towards the cattle creep at the end of Coppermill Lane, passing some Prudential riders coming the other way*. Then under the cattle creep, around to the Navigation and back home.

On the way back from shopping got several bits of offcuts from a skip - when sawn up there will be about 2 hours burning.

*My friend in Plumstead is having problems as they have shut the river bridges to traffic because of the Prudential cycling event. She has had to hurriedly get her bike fixed so she can cycle all the way from Plumstead to Clapton for kayaking tomorrow (she now works for the club and is in charge so needs to be there). This is not going to encourage support for cyclists from motorists!

Starting a picnic habbit

My family used to picnic a lot when I was a child, locally in the fields or along the river, or out in the woods, moors and beaches of Cornwall.

As an adult I have often sat on a bench or on some grass with friends each eating our packed lunch, but I can remember only 2 picnics. Once was when a group of us who had done a storytelling course met up for a picnic on Hampstead Heath and the other was when a friend and I went to a National Trust house in her car and had a picnic in the grounds.

Every year my local History Society is given a talk by a local archeologist about the archeology he has been involved with the year before. Last year he had been involved with a dig at Berkhamsted Castle "a nice castle, right by the station, a short train journey from Euston". So I put a visit to Berkhamsted Castle on my list of things to do this year.

At ruined castles there is usually a lot of short grass, so I thought I would use my picnic basket (used only once before), and some of the enamel crockery I've collected and have a picnic. As there would be only me, only a simple picnic and no tablecloth.

I enjoyed my picnic sitting on top of the mote.

Being without a car and on my own limits what I can take, but I do plan to have more picnics. My recent visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery on a nice day was a missed opportunity, as the gallery has some nice lawns in front, but I will be more alert in future.

Water for foxes and cats being used by birds

In the summer I put out a little dish of water for foxes and cats. I do have a pond but it is covered by duck weed, though I've seen a fox drink out of it recently.

This year I've seen the little dish of water used several times by a sparrow and a blackbird and once by a robin. Especially pleasing as they wouldn't be able to use a pond.

In recent years the number of birds in my garden has greatly increased even though I don't encourage them because of the number of cats. There are still magpies around and, for the last couple of years, squirrels (which I think eat eggs) so I don't know what has happened to cause this but nice to see.

Preparing for winter by adding to my clutter!

Day off today and I went to the Eric Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

In the shop I brought "The Wild City Book" by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks.

In the book are lots of fun things for children to do and some appeal to the child in me. In particular are things to make when it snows including snowball mobiles, snow buildings, mini igloos, ice bunting and snowtem poles. Some of these need containers and moulds so I will need to start collecting these.

So a box of added clutter when I am trying to get rid of it! And London might not even get any snow this year!

Foxes "harvesting" my potatoes

I have 4 potato plants in a pot each along the path.

This morning I found the young foxes worm hunting had been more extreme than usual and a pot was overturned with the potatoes scattered along the path.

I got a paper bag to put the potatoes in but, because they were ever so slightly damp, they dropped through the bottom of the damp bag! I had to get a container to put them in and collect them all up again.

I have a recipe for vegetarian fritatta and hope to use them for that.

Cycle routes on tube strike days

I cycled to work on Thursday because of the tube strike.

After coming off the towpath I took the route I took the last strike, but must have followed the wrong group of cyclists at one junction as I come out a block lower than last time so wasn't able to check the wiggly bit in the middle for my cycle home.

I accept the offer of Gary, a colleague, to follow him home as he lives just north of me. His route is a wiggly one of mainly side streets through Barnsbury (lovely houses!) and Dalston. Gary has taught 2 colleagues this route but, as it would take me ages to learn and I would only be using it on strike days, I won't be making the effort.

Near perfect weather for cycling - warm but not too hot!

A green and country in the city day

I feel I've had a very green and country in the city day today.

The thunderstorm last night meant I didn't have to water this morning, except the tumbling tomato which, despite being out in the open, looked as if it hadn't had a drop!

I picked loganberries and black currants to have with my breakfast cereal.

I then walked up to the monthly car boot in the car park at Whipps Cross Hospital. One of the stall holders was someone I used to work with 10 years ago, so we had a long chat. The other was a neighbour, so I had a chat with her too.

Didn't get anything - which is good. Most of my stuff is second hand but I am still a consumer even if I am relying on other people's cast-offs. I am getting so much better at resisting stuff. Last week in a charity shop was an earthernware mug and I was able to ask myself, "if I saw this in a shop with other earthernware mugs, would I buy it?" The answer was "no" so I left it.

On the way to Tescos I met Bill and Maureen  as we walked down the underpass at Leytonstone station, and I chatted with Bill while Maureen rushed off to do something. Then I had a chat with Steve and Mark who were on the Green Party stall the other side of the underpass, and a quick chat with Chris who turned up just before I carried on. I also met a neighbour of Bill and Maureen's, who I meet at their parties, in the charity shop where we were both getting cutlery, me for a picnic, she because cutlery keeps disappearing in her house.

Usually when I go into my neighbours on a Saturday with her shopping, she asks if I've seen anyone I know. I can't remember ever seeing anyone I know in Tescos, but this morning I've seen 7 people I know.

I had a two hour read and nap in my hammock (and the greenest thing you can do is nothing!).

I sawed up some of the offcuts I rescued from a skip last weekend to use in my wood burning stove next winter.

I picked courgettes to have for supper.

I've drunk several glasses of drink made with homemade elderflower cordial (and fizzy water - not green!).

Tonight I will be topping and tailing my gooseberries while listening to "In our Time" on catch-up. My mother has sent me a recipe and I hope to make jam tomorrow.

Glorious gooseberries!

I've been allowed to pick the gooseberries from my neighbour's only surviving gooseberry bush, half hidden by weeds, particularly alkanet at the end of her garden right by my compost bin. Was hoping for, but not expecting to get, enough for a crumble. I have got 2 1/2 pounds of gooseberries (over a kilo) most of them very large.

Shall I make a crumble and a fool? Or shall I make jam?

At the moment I am hot and don't feel like making anything! I'll go out and spend the rest of my day off in my hammock before going into central London to my yoga class this evening.

Feeling the lack of a car

In John Bird's column in the Big Issue this week he writes about the art of Richard Dadd. There is a new exhibition of this artist's work (paintings of fairies including "The Fairy Fellers Master-stroke") at Watts Gallery in Compton near Guildford. It seems that Compton doesn't have a railway station and the Watts Gallery website is not helpful to someone who would like to get there without a car.

There is a lot to see in London available by reasonable public transport, but there is an awful lot of interesting places that can only be seen if you have a car - or if you have a friend interested in visiting the same place as you who has a car.

I am very careful not to impose on my few car-owning friends - for friendship's sake as much as for using as little oil as possible. So will have to try to find a website with a few pictures of Dadd's to send a  link to my friend Hilda, who lives in Streatham, to see if she likes that type of art and would be interested in a visit.

Foxes hunting in my potting soil

Yesterday I had a day off and one of the (few) tasks completed was getting some potting soil for the strawberry planter ready for the time when my wild strawberry seedlings are finally ready to be transplanted from the seed tray.

I propped the bag of potting soil against the outside wall by the conservatory door.

This morning when I opened the curtains there were two young foxes playing over the pots near the house.

When I went out to pick soft fruit for my breakfast and to water the pots and the vegetables, I found the potting soil bag on the floor, ripped with a hole dug into it. Presumably the foxes smelt damp soil and thought there might be worms there, so worth a look.

Gathered elderflowers just in time for elderflower syrup

When kayaking on Sunday there seemed to be plenty of elderflowers still. I was on the old River Lea, so perhaps those trees were more shaded and the blooms were later than those on higher ground.

This morning on a day off I cycled out after breakfast to the Hackney Marshes. Lots of the bushes had blooms that were already turning to berries. Others had also been after the blooms (there were paths trampled round the bottom of lots of the bushes) so on some bushes the sprays within reach had already been taken.

I had to cycle further than I thought I would, but I got a few blooms here, a few blooms there, and so got the 15 I needed.

The elderflower champagne I made a few weeks ago are showing no sign of "working" so might not be getting the fizz. I hope it is just being slow to get going.

Lots of rain not necessarily good for little fish!

We had a long, heavy shower yesterday late afternoon. I had just got home, so was able to enjoy thinking of my garden getting the benefit. It rained hard enough to come through the canopy of my neighbours' overhanging ash tree. As we had missed the thunderstorms of the previous weekend it was especially good to get this rain.

At Leaside - my kayak club - this morning I found two little fish on the side. I hadn't seen any small fry yet this year, and these dead little fish, presumably swept along by the high water due to the rain and then left stranded when the water levels fell, were the first.

It was nice to see when paddling later this morning some tiny live fish - less than 2 cm long - in the old river below the weir south of Leabridge Road.  Further down the river by the exit to the storm drain two fellow paddlers saw a carp "this big". As they weren't fishermen perhaps I can believe it was two foot long!

First strawberry, red currants and courgette

I picked my first strawberry for this year on Wednesday, 17 June. This is later than usual as I expect to have had some by 13 June when traditionally my family ate them at my grandmother's birthday tea.

Today I cut my first courgette (early for me).

And also I had red currants on my breakfast cereal. One of my red currant bushes is full of ripe fruit, the other only a few feet away has small green berries.

Learning to crochet foiled again!

I could do very basic crochet when I was a teenager but didn't carry on. A few years ago I did a very good City Lit class but didn't practise soon enough after I finished the class.

Then a booklet from Waltham Forest Council popped through my door last week and one of the events inside was a two hour crochet class, as part of Adult Learners Week, at North Chingford library today - which was my day off. So I booked.

I left the house at 8.30 this morning to leave plenty of time for the 97 bus to get me to Chingford. The class was at 10.00. When I arrived I found there is no lavatory for public use at the library. The public lavatory next door to the library is permanently closed. I was told there was a community lavatory at the Pie and Mash shop past Tescos so off I went - to find the shop was not yet open.

I didn't stay for the class as I was not going to be able to last that long without a lavatory.

I have emailed to complain, asking that the write-up for other events at this library and other venues with the same problem should be clear there are no lavatory facilities so only locals attend.

Disappointed not to have the class and an almost wasted morning (did get some reading done on the bus!).

Supporting E17 Arts Trail through Stow Tellers

One of my interests is the oral tradition of storytelling. For the last 18 months I have been going to Stow Tellers events in Walthamstow Village, a half hour's walk from home.

This year Stowtellers have been involved in the E17 Arts Trail with several events at the cafe in the Old Station Yard near Wood Street station. I have participated in 2 of the events - the one for adults last Saturday when I told 2 stories and the one tonight on the Arabian Nights when I told one.

On Monday the regular monthly event was featured in the programme and there was a guest storyteller, Seema Anand, who was brilliant with a great energy and some lovely stories. There were a few stories from the floor so I was able to tell one.

As well as hearing and telling stories which I love, because it is local there are people I know in the audience. And then I meet people in the audience at events elsewhere. One of the people running the cafe used to be at the same Egyptian dance class as me - though I only recognised her when she told me where we had met!

Courgettes and cucumbers survived their first night out

Yesterday I put out the 3 courgettes I had brought as small plants and one of the courgette seedlings I had sown. I also put in a pot the outdoor cucumber.

I used green slug collars round them all. I always worry that I have trapped a slug inside so it was a relief this morning when I found them all safe.

I also put the tomatoes out, including one tumbler.

Out of 12 beans sown, only two have grown. Did I soak them too long, or is it the coir plugs I put them in? I've started off another 10 in ordinary compost. I have love in the mist (usually rampant, but hardly any this year) and the only two californian poppy plants in the garden the bean bed. I think I will try gathering them up and tying the to stakes so I can keep the foliage from providing a route for slugs and snails over the slug collars.

a sedum roof where I didn't expect it!

Cycling back along the Lea Navigation this morning and I passed a small barge with the roof and the top of the prow covered in sedums.

I tried to take a picture but my camera's battery needed recharging.

Terrapins in the Lea

Kayaking today and saw a terrapin sitting on some rubbish by the side of the Lea Navigation (for anyone that knows the area just south of the railway bridge just south of Tottenham Lock). Then saw 2 more on a fallen branch the other side just north of the bridge.

I've seen them before in the Regents Canal, but this is the first time, after many years of kayaking up and down it and cycling alongside it, that I've seen them in the Lea Navigation.

Also first time this year I've seen a tiny coot chick (black with red heads) (though I have seen the older chicks with white throats and chests) and a large duckling family (close packed together and difficult to count, but I guess 10) and 2 pairs of Canadian geese with 9 goslings between them.

I've seen that before - two pairs of geese with their combined youngsters - I wonder how common that is? Would the adults be related? Or is it just coincidence?

Newt in the Lea Navigation

When I was young I never learnt about newts at school. Three times over the years I missed that lesson because of illness!

I was in my twenties before I saw my first newt. And I didn't see any again, which is a pity as I think they are amazing things to watch.

So really exciting today at Leaside (my kayaking club) to see a newt in the Lea Navigation right by the slipway.

Permaculture talk at News from Nowhere

News from Nowhere is a club in Leytonstone which has very interesting talks once a month. I haven't been for a while.Half way to the Epicentre I suddenly thought - what if it has moved venue? Luckily it hadn't.

I was going to hear Ros Bedlow give a talk on permaculture.

I first met Ros through the local Green Party. Meet her more usually now through Transition Leytonstone of which is is a founder member and very active participant. Last met her at a performance of "Three Acres and a Cow" at the Asian Centre in Walthamstow Village. (Thoroughly recommend "Three Acres and a Cow". the history of the struggle for land reform through folk song and story.)

The room was full and, although I know quite a bit about permaculture already, I very much enjoyed the talk.

Yet another attempt at getting welsh onion established has failed! The seedlings I grew in the conservatory and put out a few days ago have disappeared. I got them growing first time when I tried on the allotment I had years ago.

Blackbird chicks

I looked out of the window today and saw a female blackbird on the rotary dryer. She flew into my neighbour's clematis where it comes over my fence - possibly a nest there?

Then on the way to the station I found an egg shell. It was pale blue with small, pale brown flecks. My bird book doesn't describe eggs so I had to use the internet. It looks like it's a blackbird's egg. So at least one baby blackbird in the area. At least it is not as cold down here for it as it is up north!

Only 20 words from Essex in Richard MacFarlane's "Landscape"

It was a pity that Robert MacFarlane only put 2000 of the 3500 words he had in the glossaries of landscape words in his book "Landscape". If he had maybe there would have been more than 20 from Essex.

I was surprised also how few there were from Cornwall (where I was brought up) - I would have expected numerous people to have collected words from Cornwall, though there were many more than from Essex. There were many more from Northamptonshire (where my father came from) than from Cornwall even if you counted those from the South West in the latter's total.

I would have traded the essays for more words.

The glossaries were by type of landscape: flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, underlands, northlands, edgelands, earthlands and woodlands.

As well as words making connection to a landscape, I like the idea of words making a connection to an area. This is why I've lifted all the Essex words (as I now live in what, at the time of my birth was still Essex, and plan to try and find examples of them (not necessarily in Essex, that would limit me too much) and record those I do.

I would also like to find more Essex words - presumably there are Essex words for icicle and scarecrow. Problem is living in London rather than out in the Essex towns I don't have people to ask.

Pond snails off to a good home

There was a request on Freegle on Thursday for some pond snails. It was from Ros, someone I first met through the local Green Party, now usually through Transition Leytonstone, and most recently at a performance locally of "Three Acres and a Cow".

I usually have pond snails, but the duck weed hasn't died back due to the mild winter so I had no idea whether I had any at the moment. I forgot to check Thursday evening and Friday morning. If it wasn't for someone I knew I probably would have given up, but I remembered Friday evening and out I went.  Yes, I had pond snails.

Ros has just been to collect some for her garden pond.

Did a I see a buzzard?

I recognised a buzzard when I was 3 years old. I can remember it - standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, seeing one and saying "Oh, look, there's a buzzard". My mother can remember this too.

They were frequent sights at home when I was a child, but I haven't seen one as an adult.

So this morning, did I see a buzzard over my street in north east London?

It was already quite high up when I spotted it, getting higher and higher in slow circles.

One of the films I've found on the internet makes me think it might be. But there were dark tips to the under wings of the bird I saw which I can't see on the video.

Perhaps it was a gull, and just the angle of sight made the wings seem rounded? Do gulls circle upwards like that?

Middle of April and water butt already empty

I am watering the pots, some transplanted foxgloves and primulas, and fertilising daffodils that have finished flowering. Most days only 3 cans, weekends 4 cans. But this morning the water butt ran dry.

I had a day off today so breakfast and meditation in the garden, and a nap in my hammock after lunch!

bath towels to hand towels, hand towels to flannels

I am in made-do-and-mend mode at the moment. I am cutting up some holey bath towels, hemming the raw edges, and making hand towels out of them.

I have some holey hand towels too. They will be cut up and made into flannels.

Yellow brimstone in the garden today.

Prickle-free mahonia ticks most of the boxes

When choosing plants for my garden I like colour, insect friendly, food producing plants. I like to get at 2 out of 3 as much as possible.

Living in what used to be Essex (driest county in England with a rain-fall equivalent to Palestine) something that doesn't need moist soil is good too.

Also with a north facing garden, and ash trees at the bottom of my neighbours garden meaning no evening sun, a shade-tolerant plant is a good thing too.

And I don't like weeding round prickly plants.

I have just got from Thompson & Morgan a mahonia - yellow flowers, insect friendly. berries (I have a recipe from the book "The Rurubanite" by Alex Mitchell - hope they taste nice!) and can take partial shade. The variety "soft caress" doesn't have the usual prickles. (The plant sent doesn't look like a mahnoia at all - I hope they haven't made a mistake!)

It does like moisture so it's in a pot and I'll put a drip tray underneath before the summer to keep it as damp as possible.

Ready for spring - stocked up on potting compost

As I am needing more than usual potting compost this spring I have stocked up.

Two bags on my day off last week and two bags today. This is all I can manage in my shopping trolley.

I have to go to B&Q as my local Homebase only has the huge bags. Even at B&Q I get what is available in 20 litre bags. There was a grow bag with peat-free compost, which I would prefer, but 30 litres - I couldn't even lift it!

Saw a frog in my pond this morning!

nasturtium pickle not worth the time and effort

I tried the nasturtium pickle I made last summer today. It was very disappointing. I'll leave it a few more months in case it improves but I suspect nasturtium pickle is for people who don't like anything to go to waste and will pickle anything even if the results aren't up to much. However I feel I've wasted the vinegar, tarragon, etc.

Yellow wagtail (?) near Euston

I have difficulty telling the yellow wagtail and the grey wagtail apart. I thought I had it clear with one book , but now not so sure.

The yellow wagtail is found near slow-moving water - lakes and marshy pastures so I wonder if that was what I saw looking out the window this afternoon while photocopying. There was a bird with a very long bobbing tail with its back to me as it preened. I wondered if it was a parakeet with wagtail-like movements, but when it finally finished preening I saw it was either the grey or yellow wagtail.

I think it is the yellow wagtail as the nearest water (besides the fountain in the courtyard) would be the regents canal which is slow moving water. But my Collins Bird Guide says: "compared with other wagtails, Grey Wagtails has longest tail....Constantly pumps its long tail, and so strongly that whole rear end rocks with it". That describes the bird I was seeing. So perhaps "at times also on lakeshores and slower rivers" is the clue here.

If I can't tell the difference from locaton, I am going to have problems - they don't get near enough and stay still for me to check them out properly, even if I did have my bird book handy.

Oliver Rackham - one of my heroes - has died

Sad to read today that Oliver Rackham, the ethno-botanist, has died.

Many years I go I went on a course he led for the Field Studies Centre at Flatford Mill on "History & Ecology of Trees and Woodland" which I thoroughly enjoyed and found really interesting. I have several of his books and have been planning to get his recent on on the ash tree.

We were out visiting woods during the day, then talks in the evening. Oliver was full of energy and enthusiasm, it was we the students who got tired despite our interest. "Please, Oliver, can we go to bed now?"

He was a great believer in going back to original sources and working out how things really operated back then, not just copying what historians had written since. In medieval times dogs in Forests (an area reserved for hunting, not necessarily wooded) were not maimed as stated in the Forest law. You paid a fee at the manor court not to  have to maim your dog - an early form of dog licence.

This might not seem very relevant to a blog on green and country living in the city, but trees are important in the city, and give me great pleasure. Also I have the ancient Epping Forest a bus/tube ride away, and Wick Wood, a new wood, a cycle ride down the Lea Navigation tow path.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11417959/Professor-Oliver-Rackham-historical-ecologist-obituary.html

marmelade gin - could have done a double bottle

Marmalade gin was a success last year so have started a batch off today.

It is one bottle gin, one jar marmalade, 4oz (100g+) sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla essence (and also some juniper seeds which I didn't use). The recipe (from Pretty Nostalgic) says decant after 4-6 weeks and then it is ready.

No! Like most flavoured spirits you then need to leave it another 9 months or so. Last year the gin after 3 months wasn't particularly interesting. Another six months it was lovely!

I might get another bottle of gin and another jar of marmalade next week and add them to the jar - there's room!

Sorry, can't get picture to upload!

I have trouble spelling marmalade - I want to spell it marmelade, as my father called it "chicken jam" - "Ma me laid". My father and all my friend's fathers had jokes of similar standard. Do men with that type of humour become fathers, or is it something that happens after men have children!?

wetlands to wetlands greenway

I have just voted on www.london.gov.uk/biggreenpoll in the hope of getting money from the Mayor of London's Big Green Fund to create a safe, green, 3km corridor passing through parks and quiet roads between the new nature reserves planned for Walthamstow and Hackney - "wetland to wetland greenway". Voting closes 2 March.

I was really looking forward to visiting the new wetlands site (due to open next year) in Walthamsow. But the chance to then cycle to another wetland reserve in Hackney is a real bonus!