Journal

One of the saddest monuments in London is the memorial fountain to Diana, Princess of Wales, which I pass on my cycling journeys to and from SustainAbility. Stripped of the people – particularly the children – who used to paddle in its rivulets, it now seems a desperate waste of space. But today I spotted a crow playing there, which in the dark light of the Ted Hughes plaque I saw at Highgrove a few days back made me think there must be a dark, feathery thread running through all of this somewhere.

Sam and Patrin

After a brown-bag lunch with Diana Verde Nieto of Clownfish today, a group of us continued talking for a while – and then I asked Alexa (Clay) to take a few photographs.  Nice enough of the girls, but it strikes me that I come out looking a bit like Jack Nicholson in one of his less salubrious roles – perhaps The Witches of Eastwick, launched the same year as SustainAbility.  

Diana Verde Nieto and I Let’s get them in, 2 Sam, Diana, me, Patrin

After a day in the office, I made my way across to the Institute of Directors, to celebrate Christopher Ward’s last day as Chairman of WWF UK. Quite humid, but good to see people like Christopher, David Nussbaum, Tessa Tennant, Camilla Toulmin and Bob Worcester. Then, as I walked home by Barnes Pond, I snapped this – which rather caught the slightly Bocklin-like ‘Isle of the Dead atmosphere. Somewhere a woodpecker was calling.

Elaine and I drove across to Tetbury this morning, albeit with difficulty – there was a long tailback before we got on to the M4, because truck had hit a car, or vice versa, the ensemble blocking two lanes out of three.  We ended up having to drive significantly faster than I would have liked to get to the Calcot Manor Hotel in time for me to begin my speech at 11.00 at an event organised by executive coaching firm Praesta.  After an excellent lunch at the hotel, we were all coached across to Highgrove to see what Prince Charles and his gardeners have achieved there.  

It’s a long time since I was there – and progress has been very considerable.  A high wind was blowing as we walked around, with the trees sounding as if they were gravel beaches, with great storm surges coming in and receding.  My favourite corner, by far, was in the old ‘Stumpery,’ where one of two classical mini-temples now contains a stunning black plaque in memory of Ted Hughes, showing him with a Longfellowish head of hair together with a crow and what my eye variously made out to be a salmon or a pike.

After a champagne tea, we were bussed back to the hotel, via Kemble station, and Elaine and I decided to drive up through Cirencester and thence to Little Rissington, to drop in on Hill House.  Turned out very well – with a lovely light slanting across the gardens as we collected vegetables to bring back to London.  I spent some happy moments watching bees making free with the foxgloves.  But all of this buccolia comes at a price: filling up the Volvo’s fuel tank in Tetbury cost £73.  Thanks heavens we rarely have to go anywhere by car.

Bee in foxglove Foxgloves Tim and Elaine netting  Caroline

Yesterday was my fifty-ninth birthday, which Demon chose to celebrate by cutting off my Internet connection, so I had to spend much of the morning calling various points in India.  In the afternoon, Elaine and I went across to the Medici Gallery in Cork Street, where my sister Caroline has exhibited – and where today we bumped into one of my favourite artists, Paul Slater – and his wife Sophie.  They were in the process of helping to hang a new exhibition there, including a number of Paul’s paintings.  Oddly, I had emailed him a couple of days earlier, to see if a painting he had done for the Financial Times colour supplement was available for sale, but it had already gone.  Showed a woman in a diver’s suit, with a giant octopus behind, and she was drinking a glass of champagne, underwater.

Then we went on to the London Review of Books cafe (where we had a pot of the most delightful green tea) and thence to Roka, in Charlotte Street, where we had a perfectly glorious dinner with Gaia and Hania, before going on to see the latest Indiana Jones film.  Abominable plot, but the special effects were extraordinary. 

Then today the SustainAbility team surprised me with a birthday tea, to which Astrid (Sandoval) and Charmian (Love) of Volans also came.  Earlier, Sam (Lakha) had given me a wonderful green tea pot and – a wonderful idea – a blank canvas.  Will leave it blank, I think, and hang it on the walls at 2 Bloomsbury Place, and in a Dorian Grayish way hope that the filling in happens in the real world meanwhile.