Yves Rossy finally made it across the Channel. Elaine was beside herself – loves people who do this sort of thing. Makes me feel a bit better about Volans. I have been saying recently that I oscillate between moments of sheer elation about lifting off with something new, then moments of total vertigo about launching forth on uncertain winds at the age of 59. But I feel Rossy providing an additional bit of lift under my wings.
Journal
Fall in Kew
Detail of Regine Hagerdorn’s Rosiers
This week was meant to be something of a break, but I have been working pretty much flat out, with Volans doing a major email out to our contacts around the world – which has had me respnding to hundreds of email replies. Have also been working on a column for Director magazine, an article I’m co-authoring with Mark Lee and the WEC project. So this morning Elaine dragged me off to Kew Gardens, to give me a bit of exercise and get some fresh air in my lungs. And what a wonderful treat it was.
High points included (literally) the new aerial walkway and (aesthetically) the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. hadn’t thought I much liked botanical paintings, but there were many would have gladly grabbed off the walls here and run away with. Did buy Shirley Sherwood’s book A Passion for Plants, for its reproductions of many of the more recent paintings in the collection. One of the ones I liked best was by Regne Hagerdorn, Rosiers. It showed a series of different rose stems — and to my eye looked like a botanical score for some form of music that you would need some form of kinesthesia to hear.
Aerial walkway 1
Aerial walkway 2
Chestnut leaf-miner
Leaf-miners 2
Walkway surface
Temperate House
Elaine, aerially
Walkway again
Support
Elaine and metal tree
Walkway embraces
Fall leaves 1
Shirley Sherwood
Fungi
Fall leaves 2
Carved stomata
Sculptural version of a tree root
Autumnal fox
Working away in my study today this morning, I turned around to see a beautiful dog fox fast asleep on our neighbour Bruce McLean’s studio roof, its bottom tucked into a clump of bamboo. Elaine missed it, because she was out at the farmers’ market, but when she went out again to the cheese shop and returned, he obliged by putting in a repeat appearance.
Felt rocks fly at Volans
Sam unpacked a box that arrived from SustainAbility’s US team today – and proved to contain, within some extraordinary concertina packaging, 21 coloured felt pebbles or rocks. This was in celebration of the 21 years I had spent at SustainAbility before launching Volans, in which SustainAbility now has a 10% stake. A dangerous gift. Soon the Volans team were attracting each others’ attention by letting fly with felt missives.
The final image of the trio below surfaced when I told Charmian about my serendipitous encounter with Tom Pakenham of Green Tomato Cars on my way home from the ACME Climate Change Campaign event. She promptly puled out a scrap of paper that she had torn from a copy of the Volans Flyer, to capture a set of contact details at the same event. And the world that had come with the tear was Serendipity.
Far from blue: Sam unwraps rocks
Charmian’s jelly beans have drifted my way
Serendipity, again
ACME Climate Mischief
Quite a day, kicking off with a film crew arriving at Volans to grill me on sustainable cities, then a trip across to Accenture, then a Tube trip back during which I spotted one of the posters for the new ACME Climate Action campaign launched by Provokateur, then several other meetings, then a session at SustainAbility on Brazil, then on with Charmian (Love) to an event at Home House to celebrate the launch of the ACME campaign – and accompanying book published by Fourth Estate. Also profiled at the event was the new TAP campaign for tap water. Nice to catch up with Josh Blackburn, agent provokateur, and a bunch of other mischief makers.
Walked back to Hyde Park Corner, where I made my way down to the Tube platform, at which point Serendipity swung into action once again when I spotted someone with a TAP brochure and said hello. Turned out to be Tom Pakenham, Chief Executive of Green Tomato Cars – someone I had planned to chase down (or is it up?) for a while. When I looked at his card more closely when i got home, I was beside myself to see they’re housed at Serendib House!