Lisa and Elizabeth's Excellent Adventure/Long Island

In the early 1950's the artist  James Lewicki decided to build a house on the north shore of Long Island. I've written about him before. Anyway, his daughter Lisa and I have the house in Centerport in common...not to mention the woods.

Yesterday Lisa said that there was a new trail in the woods surveyed (sort of) by the Boy Scouts.

We set off behind the Suydam House all neatly painted and tended....

into the woods

where we discovered tree-strangling vines

ferns, dead leaves

vines as thick as a python strangling you

moss

a lovely bed of lily of the valley (was there a cottage here once?)

and signs of a bulldozer.

Then we came upon a gorge with mud and sticks and all the sorts of things you would expect

and branches fallen, and no way to get across.

The stream led from Greenlawn to the twin ponds but in all our combined years living there we'd never forded it.

How deep was the mud? How steep the banks? No boots of course but cameras and bags.

We decide to clamber over it anyway

and eventually come to the pond.

to be continued

Surrey Vegetation

The beech trees' delicate leaves...

above a narrow path. We go on a healthy walk in Guildford.

Clematis in a suburban garden.....

and very fancy bark at Wisley...  

...where camellia blossoms form a sort of exotic confetti.

Essex

In England, a sentimental journey to the village where I grew up in Essex. Sadly, Essex has a reputation a bit like New Jersey in the US, when in fact it is rather wonderful.
We lived in a gamekeeper's cottage on a huge estate and used to play in the woods constantly.
This park is the setting for a children's story, Jane in Winter, that I've just finished.
This is a scary blasted oak........



......and a magical tree stump.



When I was a child, Thorndon Hall was derelict and the fountain did not play. Once the center part of the hall went up in flames at night. Very dramatic.



Flowers in St.Nicholas Churchyard in Ingrave............



.........and more of the churchyard where I spent many happy hours reading the gravestones.......



The pond in Herongate where we used to feed the ducks. The Friary in the background.



And Mrs.Dickerson's cottage next to the Boar's Head. We used to call Mrs. Dickerson "The Old Lady with no stockings" - but, obviously, never to her face. It used to be rather organic looking . Now it has been 'improved'.



The requisite number of ducks which now seem to have a diet of potato crisps - and continue to thrive.



In the distance, across the flat Essex countryside, Heron Hall, built long ago by the Tyrell family, where my friend Caroline lived.
The house is partially surrounded by a moat where who knows what lurked......