jesmond dene

Went for a 2 hour hike through Jesmond Dene - a long narrow forested valley along the Ouseburn which is one of the many glacial streams that were formed after the Ice Age - of course at the time it was likely to have been a raging torrent and this is what formed the valley as it made it way towards the River Tyne. In the 1850s Lord Armstrong, an industrialist and one of north-east England's most influential men (he manufactured armaments and warships), acquired the land of this valley and planted exotic trees and shrubs, laid paths and built bridges. It was his own private parkland until the 1880s, when he donated the parkland to city.

walking along the Ouseburn

The city seemed far away once I descended into the valley and the smell of the forest - of trees, plants, moss, lichen, growth, decay and god only knows what else - filled the air. The forest smell was strangely intoxicating and I wondered a bit whether there was any way to capture that on camera. So some of these photos were taken with that in mind, though as I look at them now even I can't smell the forest anymore! For that will have to just go back to the dene for more walks.

bridge / moss

raindrops

nourishment

a clearing in the forest

and everywhere, leaves glistening with the moisture

leaf decay/illness

in the water of the Ouseburn

saints of northumbria

Saint Cuthbert (634-687) was a bishop in Northumbria and is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria (for a bit more on Cuthbert, see one of my posts from last year on the breathtaking Durham Cathedral). And Saint Oswald (604-642) was King of Northumbria and later came to be venerated as a Christian saint. The two saints came to be posthumously associated - they had not been associated in life. Here we see them together in St. Nicholas's Cathedral in Newcastle which dates from the 14th-15th century.

I visited St. Nicholas for the first time last weekend when Susanne was visiting. Same weekend, we spent some 2 hours in the Durham Cathedral, listening to the Evensong and Commemoration of the Battle of Britain - the latter was an interesting "cultural experience"; it was the choir that I really liked. Since St. Nicholas is barely 5-10 minutes away from home, I'm thinking I'll stroll down there and attend Evensong once in a while. Here is a very short piece in The Guardian on the Choral Evensong as one of England's richest traditions.

Susanne's visit (and The Sage)

Euonymus Fortunei 'Blondy' / Variegated Fortune's Spindle

Hebe (Veronica)

I think the lavender is pretty much dead. I really hope the hebe and blondy survive my care.

Lithops / Pebble plant / Living stone

The first plant to enter my house is this strange looking thing which came to me all the way from London, from Romi's windowsill (Romi's my housemate - she's sorta part-time housemate which is why you haven't yet seen her in my apartment or cooking experiment photos, but at some point I think she'll turn up - anyway I digress...so coming back to this plant...). It is called Lithops and according to wikipedia it is a genus of succulent plants native to southern Africa. "Lithos" means "stone" and "-ops" means "face" in ancient Greek, so Lithops means "stone-like." They are also known as "pebble plants" or "living stones" and the deal with their sexy looks is that they can blend in with surrounding rocks and thus not get eaten. Romi should be happy to see that I haven't killed her plant yet and it has in fact grown taller!

my drooping Spanish Lavender

I've had my lavender plant for less than two weeks and I think I might be already killing it. Most of the stalks are drooping and the flowers are also looking really sorry - maybe its just the end of the flowering season, who knows - I tried to figure out from the internet but everywhere it said lavenders flower in the Spring, the card that came with my plant says it flowers from July to September (and this is summer here), so I'm just confused. Anyway, I thought I would try and photograph its droopiness. Took quite a few photos, circling around the plant a lot, placing it in the sun, placing it in shade, etc, to figure out how to photograph it so that I can capture its droopiness but at the same time the plant doesn't look like it should already be in the garbage bin. I do hope it livens up a little after all this attention I'm giving it!