John Elkington

Cycled in, starting out in weather that almost demanded gloves and yet warming up significantly by the time I was beetling through Hyde Park.  My first full day at Volans, at the 2 Bloomsbury Place offices, with a fair old turn-out: Alejandro (Litovsky), Ben (Whitlock), Charmian (Love), Sam (Lakha), Smita (Sircar) and I, most of us beavering away to get the new website ready for the ‘soft launch’ on Wednesday.  

The main room was perfumed by the flowers Charmian had bought this morning to welcome Sam into the new order, an arrangement which included eucalyptus, lilies and the most extraordinary Triffid-like purple flowers, that looked as though they had been shaped in a waffle iron.

Find I am enjoying myself rather a lot.  As I was leaving this evening. Sam gave me a card this evening, by one of Gaia’s favourite artists, David Shrigley, which said: ‘NO SPEED LIMIT ANYMORE.’ Then it said: ‘GO AS FAST AS YOU WANT … LIKE IN GERMANY.’  And I do feel as if my life has shifted into quite another gear.

Arrived home lateish this evening, with a lovely Moon over Hyde Park, then sat down to watch Joanna Lumley in ‘The Land of the Northern Lights’, which screened last night.  Todays reviews gave it a bit of a pasting, as fey, but I found her enthusiasm for the world beyond the Arctic Circle affecting rather than affected, and the sequences of the Northern Lights proper were staggering.

A Volans-like artwork inside the school   Geodesic dome

After Hod Hill, we decided to pay a visit to Bryanston, which more than any other institution put its stamp on me – paradoxically enabling me to cultivate a spirit of independence.  Having made ourselves known, we had the run of the place and the grounds, which was rather extraordinary. 

One of the real pleasures was to see the geodesic dome by the Science block.  I was at Bryanston with, among others, Ian Keay, who eventually would be our best man.  He used to build geodesic domes out of matchsticks, and helped spark my interest in Buckminster Fuller, who I would meet a decade or so later in Reykjavik.  Huge changes in the place, but, reassuringly, it still feels pretty much the same.

Front   Back   Elaine   Back 2   Dome 2   Flowering   ‘Forrester’ House – now renamed, but my home from home then   Butterfly artwork – reminding us that this is a terrible year for butterflies

Elaine shoots me as a ghost

The other hill fort that I spent many an afternoon atop during the early 1960s, generally with friends and flagons of cider after cycling across from Bryanston, was Hod Hill.  Up we went again this morning, with rain spitting now and then, and the sun blasting through fitfully, with great dark clouds roiling by. 

The path to Hod   Ramparts again   Elaine 1   Elaine 2   Elaine 3

Sky over Manor Barn   A glimpse of Hambledon Hill

Awoke to find blue skies, but they soon collapsed into turbulence once again.  Still, Hambledon Hill looked splendid as we left for Hod Hill.

George Loveless

Having learned about their courage and ordeals in history at Bryanston, I felt we should stop off at the museum dedicated to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, but we found it closed for repairs, following flooding.  Not sure what to make of the sculpture of George Loveless outside, but it was striking from some angles.