1001 Posts

So much to see - as ever

Up on 5th Avenue a taxi zooms past people in costume. Who can they be?

Part of a dance performance - cell phone in hand.

Looking fierce -with a cigarette...

Sailors looking friendly with Pat, my favorite crossing guard.

The sign of the pig in Greenwich Village.

I get all my life advice from abandoned buildings....

So I thought  -  and decided that 1001 posts on a blog is quite enough. I sort of tried abandoning this one a couple of years ago but now think that this one's time is really up.

Blogging is such fun and you encounter the most lovely people - most of whom I plan on keeping up with.

I'm loving the simplicity of Instagram where my handle is biffwix.

Please follow me and let me know if you are on Instagram...

Some very occasional thoughts on life and books and photography etc will appear 

in elizabethwix.co

Urban Gardening

The gardening season is upon us.

Time to revamp the tree pits. They are necessarily filled with annuals - tweaked during the various seasons. The tulips have been removed, the pansies struggle on - the ones that didn't get aphids. Blue and white salvias have been added - and, lo and behold, a sunflower seems to have appeared. Volunteers welcomed.

This is the tansy that ate Cleveland. I fear it is rather a horrid plant. Do check the link. I bought a little one at a green market last summer because I had heard the name but never grown one. It survived over the winter on the roof - I moved it to a friend's terrace where it took over a rather large planter. I decided to put it out on the street. It grows about three inches a day...

Gosh, a real iris on the terrace I'm looking after.

The lavender is blooming on the common roof terrace. I'm not thrilled with potato vines but another of the garden committee members is. That's the trouble with a committee - you have to be democratic and humor other people.

First roof gleanings - yesterday evening.

Viola flowers - much larger than life.

This picture is not in the city. Teaching the little ones to make flower arrangements!

And now at Union Square  -peonies!

This is the most glorious gardening time of year.

Shopping in London

To be honest, I'm not a very good shopper. I like looking at things rather than buying them.

When I go to London, I always visit Liberty's to look at all the things I can't afford and admire the architecture.  I worked in their bookshop in the summer of 1972!

Such a splendid staircase

and such wonderful flowers!

I did buy four books at the Persephone bookshop which is exactly where I would like to work now - if I lived in London. Actually, I want to buy all the books - first for the content  and second for their looks. I recommend The Village by Margarita Laski  - a very clear-eyed look at a small village post World War Two.

This is a bookshop in Lewes which was fortunately closed - thus saving me the trouble of carting assorted  tempting retro books across the Atlantic.

This is the gift shop at Charleston farmhouse where one can stock up on Bloomsbury related reading matter  -  of which there is a great deal. I bought a very small coaster as a present for a friend.

This alarming shop in Berwick Street, Soho, was barred to prevent the clothes escaping to threaten us with the 1960's and the horrid odor of patchouli. 

Ah, Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street. Yes, I went in and had a croissant and a lovely hot chocolate.

How I admire the Queen for her resolve and endurance. Here she is on a biscuit tin. Lots of Queen's 90th birthday memorabilia.

Claudia and I made the awful mistake of going to Harrods where I hadn't been in many many years. (I worked in their bookshop in the summer of 1970). The lovely tiles were still there in the food halls. The rest of the shop was much altered. Bought some Charbonel & Walker chocolates as a present for a friend from a very sweet girl who gave us free samples of other choices. 

Total haul of London shopping: children's clothing and four books....