Search Results for: Tim elkington

Through a hornbeam

Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I drove down to Little Rissington today to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the family’s move to Hill House in 1959, on our return from Cyprus.  Seventeen of us, with all the children and grandchildren present.  A wonderful day in time, particularly when Tim unveiled the Hill House photograph album he had compiled – with inputs of images from all of us – for Pat.

Family group 1 Family group 2 Family group 3 Family group 4 Lydia Pat Pat, album and Tim Pat and Gray Caroline and photographer Reflections Gray and John Christina and Elaine We do the Beatles back catalogue

Our front garden Bluedgrass Magnolia Magnolia 2 Magnolia 3 Hole Phoenix Pagoda Tree Will and Elaine Dr Shirley Paintbox Will For Caroline 1 For Caroline 2 For Caroline 3 Rivulet Shadows   We drove across to Kew for lunch with Will (Rosenzweig), then took a long saunter around the Gardens in glorious sun.  One magnolia tree was a revelation.  Spent a fair time on the Princess of Wales Greenhouse, taking photographs for Caroline to paint, possibly.  A long time ago, when SustainAbility’s logo was a trigram (representing the triple bottom line) and a spiral (representing life, evolution and creativity), I took pictures of spirals everywhere I went.  Today there was only one.  But there was a phoenix, too, in the Japanese pavilion.  Then back to work on a slide presentation on the Phoenix Economy – which I plan to use at SustainAbility on Monday and then at the Skoll World Forum later in the week.

The Phoenix 50 image   A very busy week at 2 Bloomsbury Place, with The Phoenix Economy finally off to the printers.  Am thrilled with how much progress we have made in the last week or two.  Then the week also saw a stream of visitors, a fair few of whom spent some time in the office – among them Carl Ganter of Circle of Blue, Kiva co-founder Jessica Jackley and Will Rosenzweig of Physic Ventures.  We also had a farewell lunch for Smita (Sircar), who has played such a vital role over the past year, particularly recently on the report – and is now moving to South Africa with her husband.  Then a visit to the British Museum with Will and Elaine to see the murals from the tomb of Nebamun and then dinner there.   Will, Sam and magnolia Carl and Jessica Ale and Carl British Museum 1 British Museum 2

Ghost bike, Holborn

Having tried to cycle home this evening, I was turned back by high winds and sluicing rain.  So walked to Holborn Tube – and then saw for the first time  the ghost bike in Southampton Row, where a girl cyclist was killed soon after we moved to Bloomsbury Place.  A couple of our team saw the ghastly aftermath.  The ghostbikes movement strikes me as a wonderfully imaginative, moving response to a largely unseen catastrophe on wheels.

Achilles sprouts horns

The last two days of this week I cycled to and from the office for the first time in quite a while – and mood lifted accordingly.  Weather helped, as did all the bulbs blooming in the garden at 2 Bloomsbury Place.  Then, too, there was the fact that we have more or less finished The Phoenix Economy, which is now with our designer, Rupert Bassett.  Fairly intensive week nonetheless, with my annual lecture at Imperial College and a visit with Charmian to Goldman Sachs, but am feeling more in tune with the universe, particularly after a quiet day in the office with Sam, listening to the likes of Dean Martin on her iPod.  As Sam noted Lou Reed would say, A Perfect Day.

Last night the car failed to start, indeed even the security light had gone off, until I unlocked it and the alarm went off for some 15 minutes.  Because we were on our way to Richmond, we cancelled a call to the RAC and took a cab, driven by a delightful Punjabi nicknamed ‘Lofty’.  He began to tell us about sleeping on the roof of his home as a teenager and doing his homework by moonlight. That conversation started because there was a wonderful Moon last night, with Venus dawdling nearby. Then he proceeded to tell us about Slumdog Millionaire, which was interesting, since Gaia had been exerting every sinew recently to get the child actors to the Oscars – a mission duly accomplished.

Today, a truly wonderful RAC man turned up, protested that after 7-8 years we have only put around 17,000 miles on the Volvo’s clock, and ended up changing the battery, yet again.  Then, inspired by an email this morning from Geoffrey Chandler about his garden, and particularly the scent of witch hazel, we trolled across to the Isabella Plantation, where most things seemed to be in bud, and the witch hazels were in blossom.  Watching a few bumblebees rumbling from blossom to blossom, I began to wish for a life as a cross-pollinator.  But then perhaps that is what I do?

Witch hazel

Catkins 1

Catkins 2

Reflections

Osiers

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