Watch for the birds

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For a few weeks the birds in evidence in town have been jackdaws and other crows, gulls, including one that could not find its way out of St Thomas’ church, and members of the pigeon family. They do things their own way: last week I saw a half eggshell of a wood pigeon, but a town pigeon landed just in front of my bike to retrieve a lost stick needed for nest building on the old post office.

Precious little sight or sound of the song birds until this week. We were sitting under the trees at the Glebe when two robins began to sing quietly to each other just above our heads. Surely a couple. Then a happy surprise when our 4 year old blackbird reappeared. You may just distinguish his identifying white spots.

Happy Autumn!

On looking out of the window.

By © Francis C. Franklin /Attribution: © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0

We were taking a break from work at the Glebe garden, indoors because the weather was unseasonably cold. My friend looked out to see two blue tits on the bird feeder. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity between the feeder and the nearby elder, now in full leaf and bloom. There was a family of blue tits! Were they from the nesting box in our garden, or maybe from Peter’s box on the balcony across the river?

No chance of any sort of a photo from that distance, but here is a glorious image from Francis C. Franklin, via Wikipedia. Let’s hope the fledglings soon learn about the predatory cat that has begun to frequent the garden. Maybe the cold morning kept it indoors, or the noise of power tools and hammers from next door.

Thanks to my sharp-eyed friend for a special moment!

On a cold and frosty morning

The two old guys were sitting in the sun. Where the rays had not come through the grass was still frosted, there was paper thin ice on the waterbutts.

• I’ve not seen the squirrel for a bit. Where do you think he is?
• Maybe in a hole in a tree or a nest high up. He’ll come out when the sun gets to him.

A minute later, enter the squirrel, with a whole digestive biscuit in his mouth. He’s got at least one human well trained.

• I don’t think you should bury it, Mr Squirrel!

But he did.

Image from wikipedia, Eastern gray squirrel.

Pleasure in the plot

A book I return to is Come into the Garden, Cook, by Constance Spry who had connections with the village of Barefrestone, where L’Arche Kent began. I missed New Year’s Day, when I’d meant to post this, so here it is now, rather than waiting 360 days. Spry was writing in wartime to encourage creativity in cooking. She was also an artist in floristry, which shows through in this post. Enjoy your garden, and happy new year!

On this first day of January (1942) I will tell you what, in even an indifferent vegetable plot, gives pleasure. There is a splash of bright green like a rug thrown onto the brown earth lying next to rows of grey flags, just common or garden parsley and leeks. There’s a breadth of what might be grey-green tropical fern, but is, in fact, chou de Russie. (Russian kale) There’s grandeur and colour in rows of red cabbage and the purple decorative kale.

From Constance Spry, Come into the Garden, Cook, London, Dent, 1942, p11.

Photograph by Marc Ryckaert

The Art of the City

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As part of the Canterbury Festival, much pruned down this year, L’Arche Kent and others have produced an art trail or pilgrimage across the city. I’ve captured a few of the pictures, but the some of the photos are beset with reflections; if I’d used the flash it would have bounced off the windows, hiding the pictures, so here the windows are, mostly taken on a wet day.

Are we inside looking out, or outside looking in? The reflection makes a different picture to what the artists intended!

More from L’Arche Kent’s Rainbow artists, and in the next picture.

Support for the National Health Service staff with the rainbows here.

A window with a message, linked to the next, which showcases some recycled clothes. I saw the artist assembling this exhibit; he seemed to be enjoying herself and doubtless enjoyed the making of the party outfits. The arch is a ghost image from across the street.

People’s experience of being locked down. Have a good read!

Catching Lives is a local organisation for people who are homeless.

Finally the front window of L’Arche Kent itself at the Saint Radigund’s Street Office! A show of talent.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little autumn pilgrimage across Canterbury. Do keep L’Arche, Catching Lives and all struggling artists in your prayers.

Harvest

Today Saint Thomas’s and Saint Dunstan’s churches celebrated Harvest. Here’s a display we did for the Glebe, L’Arche’s garden project, a couple of weeks ago. The tomatoes have been especially tasty this year.

Going viral XVII: come on in.

This was the sight that greeted me when I got to work at the Glebe this morning. My corona virus sanctioned exercise for the day: three hours of gardening, in sunshine or those cool shadows. And the first radishes awaiting attention.

The red flowers are campion, sown from a pack of wild flowers a few years ago. They will need sorting out at some stage, as they have become a haven for aphids. Let’s hope some aphid-eating bugs occupy the wooden bug house this year!

Going Viral XI: An Easter Garden

The ladies of Saint Mildred’s Church in Canterbury are mostly stuck at home and the Church is closed in any case, all of us praying at home. Today, however, I had to water the L’Arche Garden at St Mildred’s Glebe, so took the opportunity to thank the parish for their support over the years by making them an Easter garden. Note the cross, the cave, the cloths that were wrapped around His body; Rosemary for remembrance, a baptismal pool of water and pilgrimage cockle shells. Thank you Saint Mildred’s for taking us under your wing for all these years. And Happy Easter to all our readers. Let your joy be unconfined, wherever you find yourselves.

Going viral VI: Listen to the neighbours

Three years, give or take a week, I have been working at L’Arche Kent’s Glebe garden. The River Stour flows alongside; not a wide stream, so we can hear, and in winter and early spring, see across to the flats (apartments) opposite. We often hear snatches of conversation as people walk by, but today, for the first time, I became aware that people were talking from one balcony to another. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I was alone on our side, so perhaps I was hearing something that was often going on in the background, even in this age of secure outer front doors and entry phones. But I do think this neighbourliness was indeed something new. It was certainly heartening.

Mediæval Monsters

Once Henry VIII let the forces of destruction loose on the churches of England all manner of beauties were lost to hammer blows. Think of Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury, but also spare a thought for the many little splendours that were smashed by self-righteous iconoclasts.

These fellows are no manner of beauty at all, but they avoided the storm, perhaps because they are out of the way. Even the tympanum – the semi-circular composition over the door – survived, though a similar one at nearby Patrixbourne did not escape. The figures around the edge provided designs for mosaics when L’Arche was based here in Barfrestone: my favourite was the gardener at the top, but the mermaid, just below Christ’s knee, was also popular. But we gave Archbishop Coggan a mosaic in green and mustardy gold, based on the happy, lower right-hand monster above.