Vivian Swift: Author, Blogger and All Around Cool Person

Books, gardens, art, blogs, London, Morocco, witty people, friends...

How everything is wonderfully combined inVivian Swift's new book coming out on March 1st. 

Mine arrived in the mail last week because I'm mentioned in the acknowledgements (so is Buster!).

Lucky me! 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/vivian-swift/gardens-of-awe-and-folly/

Kirkus review thinks the book is wonderful - as I do. I've known about the book for a while as Vivian has been working on it for ages. She is so very funny - and so very knowledgeable. So the book is a compendium of delights.

The two gardens mentioned in the book that I know very well and have blogged about are The Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh with its splendid blue walls and the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

How I miss living in Morocco.  That aside

Vivian is obsessed with the same door I was years ago

Look how they have tweaked the colors.

http://thehouseinmarrakesh.blogspot.com/2010/04/light-at-jardin-majorelle.html

Fish in the pond there.

Then the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

How different the light is!

Vivian is very funny about the updated lunch room - and how it has changed. I exactly agree. It was wonderful years ago - but then so many things were. I'm getting ancient.

What an enviable gig - traveling and looking at gardens and writing about them too!  Not to mention the hard work of painting them then editing text and so forth.

I think this book would be a lovely present for anyone who likes any of the things mentioned in my first sentence.

Maybe spring will eventually get to New York - meanwhile I'm reading!

Wandering Round London

The weather very dreary for May, so an umbrella a useful item to tote about.

 Instead of a brolly, I carry my camera to observe: people walking to work

on Morocco Street near London Bridge......

 ....three business types round the back of St. Martin-in-the-Fields passing

 a woman who looks as if she is camped there for the day.....

....four people in rain jackets emerging out of the Underground at Paddington Station....

(The roof of the station still gives me a sort of sinking feeling

 that reminds me of going back to school from here several million years ago.)

.....Five workmen (one partially obscured) doing important things to the refurbishment

 of the splendid public baths in Kentish Town......  

Such absurdly ornate architecture!

Yesterday evening we followed a woman and her two little dogs as walked to supper. 

And, yes, I did gawp, tourist-like, at Tower Bridge before we ate.

And it was very splendid.

And it was still splendid after I had eaten yummy steak and kidney pie.

Lots and lots more pictures (of course).......

Trip

I'm off to London this evening. These photos are from a previous trip.

Obviously, lots and lots to do. Family to see and museums and restaurants and hotels 

and all the sights and buses and bookshops.............

The sepia tone is meant to indicate nostalgia.......but really London

 is  much better nowadays than when I was growing up when it was

 grimy and a bit grim before it got to be fun in the 'swinging 60's'

London Details

We ate a lot of salad in London, since we had been too nervous to eat it in India.

The vegetables there were wonderful, but we only ate them cooked.

In London, a brisk wind batted the clouds through a blue sky.

(Tottenhan Court Road opposite M&S.)

A white on white window near Great Ormond Street.

I was walking to the Persephone Bookshop on Lamb's Conduit Street

where I bought four books, even though I'm rather fierce about carrying heavy luggage.

I particularly recommend Tea with Mr.Rochester by Frances Towers.

If you don't know Persephone Books, go there now.

What a door! Window frame, railings, fanlight, side alley.

The very apotheosis of door-ness.

This doorway with primroses and black plastic bin-bag looks as if someone lives there.

Transitions/London

After India , London was cool and subdued. 

Here the Gerhardt Richter show at The national Portrait Gallery.

Much tea was needed to counteract jet-lag.

And steak and kidney pie in a pub.

They had done too-clever-by-half things with the window

 through which you can see Nelson wavering on top of his column

and an old fashioned phone box.

Because it is spring people are determined to drink outside pubs

even though it's pretty chilly.

Pale daffodils (99 pence) from Marks and Spencer's.

London Details/Kentishtown and Bermondsey Street

London moggie.

Tasteful window.

Shop where they printed our bus passes.

Books about London.

A throwback shop which hasn't altered since the 1950's.

Victorian tile work outside a pub.

The Hope Chapel lit up for the Sabbath....

...across the road from the Drinkers Paradise and the betting shop.

The Garrison gastro-pub where I ate bangers and mash.

And the walk back to London Bridge Station under the arches of the railway.

More London/Saturday

Some London Shadows here and there.For other Shadowshots please go to Heyharriet!

Mario's Cafe in Kentishtown, an institution for Camden musicians and artists.

Which color house to choose on Kelly Street?

Kelly green.

Seriously bad photo of traffic lights at Trafalgar Square from the #88 bus.

Blueberry and carrot cupcake from a market stall in Clapham. Yum.

Buckets of spring flowers in Clapham.

If I had a garden I would have to buy all the primulas immediately.

Boots on King's Road in Chelsea.

King's Road again. How odd and thrilling to be able to sit outside in London in February.

Late afternoon light on the Thames above Battersea Bridge. From the 319 Bus.