a personal statement
If you want to know how the Romans survived away from Rome in 4th Century Britain, go to the Chedworth Roman Villa in The Cotswolds.
Intricate mosaic floors, running water, underfloor heating, winter and summer dining halls—they had it all. Plus wonderful views.
Now, underfloor heating and heated baths weren’t easy on the servants who had to stoke the fires for the hot air that was forced under floors raised on small columns.
The Model Village in Bourton-on-the-Water was devised in the 1930s as a tourist draw. It still is, judging by the number of people in the (larger) village on the cloudy, cool day we visited.
All these pictures are of the 1/9th scale miniatures, even though the plantings make them look amazingly real. It is a model of Bourton-on-the-Water itself, so even the current storefronts and signage is kept up to date.
One small note: in the model village, placed where the model village itself is situated, there is a model village; and in the model, model village there is a model, model, model village, and so on…
My art lungs can breathe again
In our next step out of lockdown movies, indoor dining and museums opened up again. I’ve been waiting to go to a museum and the nearest is the Tate Modern. There were several exhibits I wanted to see so I quickly a spot in the first week. It was a 15 minute walk from my office in the City with river vistas on the trip across the London Millennium Footbridge.
At the base of the footbridge there is a stand of birch trees that separate the river from the Tate Modern. I took some interesting pictures after a brief snow shower of the same trees during the winter.
The show I saw was a retrospective of photographer-activist Zanele Muholi. The guide describes the artist: “Muholi describes themself as a visual activist. From the early 2000s, they have documented and celebrated the lives of South Africa’s Black lesbian, gay, trans, queer and intersex communities.”
I enjoyed all their work but the most striking for me were the series of self-portraits with various household items found in different cities they visited; each had undertones and significance for Muholi’s activism. In many photos the items were creatively arranged as accessories for a high-fashion photo shoot.
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I had to walk quickly to make it back to work in time for a meeting but I got one more picture before heading across the footbridge.
I actually didn’t make it upstairs to the office but had to take the entire meeting from the Austin Friars courtyard outside. It was actually a nice place to be for the meeting, until the bells of the Dutch Church rang for 2 PM while I was off mute, making quite a stir on the call.
The Shard in the background and the temperature a bit warmer it was a lovely day for a lunch walk today. We walked from the Old Kent Road entrance all the way to the Camberwell section, taking in the tranquil nature trails.
We also saw the former Surrey Canal bridge that reminds us that part of the park was formed when the canal was retired and filled in.
We looked out the front door today and one of the bins was not standing in a row with the other two. It was lined up after collection two days before but now it was facing ninety degrees from the others.
We thought of reasons why someone might have moved it—they had swapped ours with one mistakenly left with a neighbour, or someone from the street had reached over to put something in it. But it was empty.
Remembering that we had a camera set to capture movement at our entrance we looked through any previous footage to find the culprit. To our surprise no one had moved it. Instead it made it rolled all by itself to a different view.
Maybe it was the wind. Maybe because it was a brown bin, for garden waste, it wanted to see if any of the neighbours had better gardens?