Sunday, 11 November 2012
Click your heels to go Heem?
Today I have been mostly thinking about urban bio-diversity. Strange you might think, and a thought pattern that has been stimulated by an unexpected source. I have been reading Waterlog by Roger Deacon which, if you haven't read it, is a gentle and cleansing read around swimming in natural surroundings and the heritage of this. I'm avoiding the use of the phrase wild swimming as it seems superfluous and a media attempt to make swimming in the sea an extreme sport. It's a lovely book which rightly challenges our lack of connection with the natural landscape and the fear that has developed around doing things like swim in a river. It also talks about a lot of local history and it was here that I first experienced prickings of discomfort.
As a history graduate and lover of vintage, I regularly look back at other eras and look at some of the beauty and culture that we have lost along the way, however I never lose sight of the fact that I would not have wanted to be born in the 1920s because I would not have had any of the opportunities I have now. The change in our world which I would hesitate to call progress does mean we lose things along the way but does also mean wins that few would argue aren't a boon. I'll give you an example, we can look back at village life through rose tinted spectacles but in reality many of those people would not have had access to the education, length of life and basic standards of living that they have now. I see so many examples of people going back to a 1940s existence of living in the country and being self-sufficient but this is not achievable for all of us and there must be another way.
Linked with my interest in gardens and garden design, this has prompted a personal desire to research and educate myself on how we can make cities more ecological and bio-diverse with appropriate strategies for urban life rather than a River Cottage style retreat. I decided to start with the Heem parks which came to my attention while reading about the gardens created for the Olympic village.
So, Heem means habitat or home and these urban spaces started to be developed in the 1920s for wildflowers that were disappearing. They were meant to be places of education and still are, however over time the emphasis has changed to being places to appreciate. Several Heem parks are situated in a suburb of Amsterdam called Amstelveen and the most famous is the Jac P Theisse park designed by the landscape architect CP Broerse. Theisse or Thysee was a great Dutch conservationist and ecologist and his ideas were the inspiration behind the park's design and ethos. The park is 24 hectares and initially was to provide a green corridor along the edge of Amstelveen. In comparison to the traditional manicured and ornamental appearance of British parks, the Heem parks use the distinctive native flora of area in its natural surroundings. I looked for a photograph to show you what they look like but the design is so natural as to look like a wild park. They have however been strongly engineered to look this way. As you walk through the park you walk through different 'rooms' of habitats and species, however in comparison with British botanical gardens the effect is strikingly natural.
The concept of a green or blue corridor is vital with urban biodiversity, linking green areas of the city to allow free movement of flora and fauna and simply to give it space in the cluttered urban tapestry. Green corridors are usually woodland or wetland and can also have an important part to play for drainage, particularly as so much of our urban space is now sealed. An area as seemingly unimportant as the embankment of the cycle path and the railway line at the end of my street can have far-reaching implications for the city's health and ecological wealth.
As a history graduate and lover of vintage, I regularly look back at other eras and look at some of the beauty and culture that we have lost along the way, however I never lose sight of the fact that I would not have wanted to be born in the 1920s because I would not have had any of the opportunities I have now. The change in our world which I would hesitate to call progress does mean we lose things along the way but does also mean wins that few would argue aren't a boon. I'll give you an example, we can look back at village life through rose tinted spectacles but in reality many of those people would not have had access to the education, length of life and basic standards of living that they have now. I see so many examples of people going back to a 1940s existence of living in the country and being self-sufficient but this is not achievable for all of us and there must be another way.
Linked with my interest in gardens and garden design, this has prompted a personal desire to research and educate myself on how we can make cities more ecological and bio-diverse with appropriate strategies for urban life rather than a River Cottage style retreat. I decided to start with the Heem parks which came to my attention while reading about the gardens created for the Olympic village.
So, Heem means habitat or home and these urban spaces started to be developed in the 1920s for wildflowers that were disappearing. They were meant to be places of education and still are, however over time the emphasis has changed to being places to appreciate. Several Heem parks are situated in a suburb of Amsterdam called Amstelveen and the most famous is the Jac P Theisse park designed by the landscape architect CP Broerse. Theisse or Thysee was a great Dutch conservationist and ecologist and his ideas were the inspiration behind the park's design and ethos. The park is 24 hectares and initially was to provide a green corridor along the edge of Amstelveen. In comparison to the traditional manicured and ornamental appearance of British parks, the Heem parks use the distinctive native flora of area in its natural surroundings. I looked for a photograph to show you what they look like but the design is so natural as to look like a wild park. They have however been strongly engineered to look this way. As you walk through the park you walk through different 'rooms' of habitats and species, however in comparison with British botanical gardens the effect is strikingly natural.
The concept of a green or blue corridor is vital with urban biodiversity, linking green areas of the city to allow free movement of flora and fauna and simply to give it space in the cluttered urban tapestry. Green corridors are usually woodland or wetland and can also have an important part to play for drainage, particularly as so much of our urban space is now sealed. An area as seemingly unimportant as the embankment of the cycle path and the railway line at the end of my street can have far-reaching implications for the city's health and ecological wealth.
Saturday, 10 November 2012
When am I cleaning windows?
Like most people, I don't look forward to house-work. My list of least favourite jobs includes emptying bins, cleaning loos, mopping floors, dusting.... and cleaning windows. As a result I am sitting in my front room in a haze of blazing sunshine but cannot see anything outside in the street. The effect is rather like frosted glass, which is of course what I was going for.
This weekend Jamie and I were supposed to be doing DIY, however the Friday holidays we had taken to do it had to be cancelled due to work. There are many upsides to this, the chief of which is not having to actually do the DIY, however it does also mean that we have to live with the gaps in the skirting and dirty hall for a bit longer.
Instead I will be doing the usual things on my weekend - friends and food. I've already fitted in dinner with Laura last night and will be off to brunch later today. I've also got new glasses which I'm getting used to - Jamie said I look like a secretary, which to a vintage-lover is a great complement. And maybe some garden action too.
This weekend Jamie and I were supposed to be doing DIY, however the Friday holidays we had taken to do it had to be cancelled due to work. There are many upsides to this, the chief of which is not having to actually do the DIY, however it does also mean that we have to live with the gaps in the skirting and dirty hall for a bit longer.
Instead I will be doing the usual things on my weekend - friends and food. I've already fitted in dinner with Laura last night and will be off to brunch later today. I've also got new glasses which I'm getting used to - Jamie said I look like a secretary, which to a vintage-lover is a great complement. And maybe some garden action too.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Edinburgh changes her colours
We then walked down the undulating path that crosses the Links and then crossed back over the Meadows before finishing the home stretch along the canal. The trees were very beautiful today in the thin light.
Woken by the Light
This morning at half eight I was woken by the sunshine seeping through the curtains, and feeling this is going to become an unusual occurrence, I manoeuvred myself out from under the snoring cat and put my wellies on.
The lavender continues unabated and even in the cold air I could smell its wonderful scent. Today the antiseptic notes are pre-dominating, perhaps as an effect of the cold air or my only shortly-awakened nostrils.
This clematis has been a confusing member of my garden menagerie up to now. In the first year it flowered in the spring with pale lilac flowers and last year it flowered in the late summers with maroon flowers. This is particularly trying as the pruning instructions for clematis vary considerably whether they are early or late flowering. As it has flowered late again this year, I have decided it must be a Viticella and I will be pruning it this year. Once the flowers have stopped of course.
One plant that is relishing the season is the jasmine, who has decided to transform herself into a morass of twining stems punctuated in places by pink buds and little white flowers. Nice to see a plant patently enjoying herself and glorying in the season!
A picture of my not very attractive fence (must paint that next year as that brown is heinous). The reason for this shot is the light streaming through the trellis fence and the yellowing foliage of the Asiatic lily. You can see how low the light is.
There's that fence again. And my Eucalyptus in front of the neighbours tree which is really just a frame for Clematis (you're not actually seeing any leaves that belong to that tree).
The lavender continues unabated and even in the cold air I could smell its wonderful scent. Today the antiseptic notes are pre-dominating, perhaps as an effect of the cold air or my only shortly-awakened nostrils.
A picture of my not very attractive fence (must paint that next year as that brown is heinous). The reason for this shot is the light streaming through the trellis fence and the yellowing foliage of the Asiatic lily. You can see how low the light is.
There's that fence again. And my Eucalyptus in front of the neighbours tree which is really just a frame for Clematis (you're not actually seeing any leaves that belong to that tree).
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