To London

Summer seems to be conference season. Last weekend I was down in London attending Food in Public Space, a conference by Birkbeck College University of London; there's a symposium in Edinburgh this week and another conference here at the end of the month, all about landscape and urbanism. Its going to be a busy but interesting few weeks, and quite well timed as all relate to my summer research.

I had time to do some sight seeing in London, I made choice to walk around the city rather than take the tube to start to get to know the layout of the city. I was surprised at how easy it was, and how compact the central area is. Some pictures from my wanderings:

A church near the Borough Market

Thunder eggs embedded in the finish on the church walls

Big Ben

These windows almost started a series of all the funky windows in London.....

Westminster Abbey behind some of the buildings attached to the parliament

WestminsterAbbey

The Borough Market was a bit of a style market rather than a food market, it did have some token veg stalls but most stalls were quite specialised artisan products - very yummy and very generous with tasters, but not somewhere the weekly shop could happen. I did have 5 different kinds of cake for lunch though.

Piccadilly circus

The Thames

The eye

The Victoria and Albert Museum is one of my favourite museums, it was started to allow everyone to enjoy art through a vast collection of copies and is now a massive craft and design museum.

Sculpture hall in the V and A

Inside courtyard of the V and A - it was a really warm, sunny day and the lawn was full of people enjoying the sunshine

The William Morris room where I had afternoon tea.

Netsuke (kinda like a Japanese toggle). These little objects are so intricately carved and so beautiful, functional too!

Staircase in the V and A

A spiral book case made from tensioned steel by Ron Arad

Funky couch

 In other news, the book from the 2010/11 MSc. The City and MSc. Architecture and Urban Design is being launched tomorrow, its called Gamma/Jaamaa Urban Fragments: Casablanca/Edinburgh and should be available through Amazon really soon.



 

Hill Walking

Earlier in the week Lise, Eddie and I went on a great day trip to see waterfalls and to go hill walking near Loch Lomond.  It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day!

Rumbling Bridge Falls

The gorge just after the falls

Buttercups on the steep bank

Rumbling Bridge. The bridge is perched on the rocks on each side of the gorge, amazingly crafted. Apparently when the water gets high it makes a rumbling sound as it passes under the bridge, hence the name.

Loch Lomond

A hairy coo

And his friends

Lambs were everywhere

Lise and Eddie. Note the tshirts! It was warm. We headed up the valley west of Loch Lomond and hiked up the hill side - allowable because of very relaxed Scottish right of passage laws meaning you can walk just about anywhere you like.

The only clouds in the sky

These hill continue up the length of Scotland.

First glimpse of Loch Lomond from the top of the ridge

Standing on the second highest point of Ben Reoch

Looking at Ben Lomond across Loch Lomond

A stone sheep pen

It was quite a steep climb, and a steep decent, some of which was done sliding down the grassy slopes on our bums

The tiny spots in the middle of the photo are red deer

Blurry picture of the deer running up the hillside

The stream in the valley

More water falls! The stream had a little birch grove growing around it

Late afternoon light

Lichen on lichen on lichen

This week I've started my summer dissertation, and am researching potentials for urban agriculture in Edinburgh. There are a couple of symposiums happening here and in London in the next month about green spaces in cities and about urban agriculture, so the timing is working out quite nicely. I'm looking forward to a summer filled with more hill walking, lots of research and reading, a lot of food and hopefully some farm visits.