August

August - the time when those of us not involved in education, in any way, stay at home.

Well mostly.

Normally we would be busy on the allotment but this year has not been so great. Plenty of gooseberries and red currants in early summer (although no black currants this year), and the rhubarb keeps on giving, of course.

But much of the vegetables are inside something else. If we depended on the plot for our sustenance, we would now be on a diet of potatoes and dandelion salad.

So where else have we been?

London - for the Natural History Museum (above left), and the Proms (detail of the Albert Memorial, above centre), followed by London by night (above right).

Some garden visiting: micro moth on mint flowers (above left, in Surrey), greenhouse carnivores in Kent (above centre) and, also in Kent, some Sicilian ceramic flower pot heads, with heuchera hair (above right).

Horsham in West Sussex, looking very summery at the top of the this post, with lunch in the Horsham Museum (above centre and left).

Osterley Park: its address is almost as historic as the house and garden - Jersey Road, Isleworth, Middlesex, TW7 4RB, aka West London. The Park is enormous and still in agricultural production, sandwiched between Southall and Brentford.

A town house and two cathedrals: Coventry of course.

And back to London: St James’ Palace (above left) for supper with a friend (in a modest Thai restaurant around the corner) and two glimpses of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, dwarfed by its massive, Tate Modern, neighbour (above centre) and inside the tiny-theatre-with-big-ideas (above right).

But thank goodness August is over - others’ vegetable gardens are cropping well, and we can finally come off the potato diet.

See you soon.