Tag: plants

2022 calen­dar

My 2022 calen­dar is now ready – you can order calen­dars and prints of the artwork here.

Cambridge Botan­ic­al Gardens

I was sort­ing out old folders on the hard drive and have found a lot of photos from the past couple of years that I never got round to sort­ing out. Here are some from the Botan­ic­al Gardens in Cambridge two years ago. I was work­ing teach­ing on a summer course there, which was stress­ful mainly because they hadn’t actu­ally hired enough staff to cover all the hours, so we were doing some extreme over­time. So a stroll around the gardens while the students completed their activ­it­ies was a nice respite.

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Categorised as Nature

Schwartz­see

A short train ride or couple of miles walk outside Kitzbühel is the Schwartz­see (“black lake”). It’s full of miner­als washed down from the moun­tains that give it the glassy black effect…

New print- Sheep Skull

So here’s a new illus­tra­tion I did. It’s actu­ally based on a draw­ing I did when I was 17 that I found while sort­ing out some paper­work recently. You can buy mono­chrome and colour prints for £3-£30 over on the shop.

Kyoto II

Here’s some more photos of Kyoto. I have split the pictures up into sever­al entries. You can see more photos from Kyoto and other cities in the Japan category, and also read about the trip in the zine I wrote. Kyoto is famous for its cherry blos­som, but sadly we were there a couple of weeks earli­er than it comes out in full bloom. You did see the odd bud here and there though.

Char­ity shop finds

I haven’t found as many good char­ity shop items lately as over the summer, but there’s been the odd few things. I got this vase for £2, which I’ve planted an aloe vera in, for my own plant version of Sideshow Bob.

Trif­fids in search of a new home

I’ve got a large number of cacti and succu­lents, some of which I’ve had for years (and have their own offshoot chil­dren grow­ing in separ­ate pots now). By the end of the summer, some of them were look­ing a bit sad, and were in seri­ous need of repot­ting. I collec­ted a load of Hornsea ware and other vintage pottery for £1-3 a time over the summer, and then had a big repot­ting session outside, just before the weath­er star­ted turn­ing cold.

Gener­al wander­ing round Copen­ha­gen

About 6 weeks ago I went on a short break to Denmark and Sweden. It shows how busy I’ve been lately that it’s taken me so long to post these. I unex­pec­tedly had some extra holi­day days I had to use up quickly before the end of my work contract, and none of my friends were free to travel on the specif­ic week­end I had to use them, so I went by myself. I saw cheap flights to Copen­ha­gen, and booked them on a whim, on the grounds that I’d never been to Denmark before, and it was also easy to visit Sweden from Copen­ha­gen. I also have a danish friend Sanne I used to work with in London, so I arranged to meet up with her while I was there and drink some Mikkeller beer at normal prices (rather than the exor­bit­ant prices they charge in the UK). (Good luck with the PhD viva Sanne!). I liked Denmark a lot, although I’m not sure if I’d want to live there. They seem very set in their ways. In fact it reminded me a lot of Austria, but with sea rather than moun­tains.

Enfold­ing sunny spots of green­ery

I haven’t posted here for a while because life has over­taken me a little, and I’ve been dash­ing from place to place. I’m in Palma de Mallorca right now visit­ing Marcos’ family, with a perman­ent move to London on the cards for the end of the month (it can’t come too soon). I’ve got a back­log of photos to work through.