a documentary

Loud Fast and Ugly from Robert Gill on Vimeo.

One of my best friends made this. Please watch.

notting hill carnival

Last weekend was the Notting Hill Carnival.

Lots of people, lots of music, lots of police, did I mention lots of people?

Portobello Rd.

Cookies!

The masses approach...

And buy...

And eat...

The chef taking it easy

Big crowd in the background

Mounted police

Police getting bussed in

Overall, it went a lot more smoothly than the previous years.

Only one reported knifing and 200 or so arrests.

Notting Hill is pretty much back to it's nice, residential self again.

tiles 2

shop tiles

back room

tiles

In the years since leaving UD and migrating across the pond, I have developed something of a new hobby. This mainly came about because of new friends, who introduced me to old english tiles, and that was that.

My favorite tiles are the ones created by both carving into the tile and creating relief protrusions on the tile. This creates the 3D effect you can see in a lot of the tiles above.

My favorite tile makers are Sherwin & Cotton and Pilkington. You can tell the maker and the date the tile was made by looking at the back of a tile. Each manufacturer had their own 'backs', and changed their back every couple of years, which now makes identifying them a lot easier, though still tricky as you have to look for tiny clues to their origin.

For example, the bird tile was made by Sherwin & Cotton between 1890 and 1902.

Large double-tiles, like the one on the far left, are much more difficult to come by and usually have a price to equal it's rarity. I have seen a few in antique shops on Portobello that run between £800- £1200 EACH. This one is a Minton tile of 'Fountain Abbey'.

Sadly, by the 1930s, the old English tile makers found that the process was both too expensive and posed health problems, and ultimately, with the Japanese beginning to make tiles in the 1920s, they found themselves in stiff competition.

So now we are left with what poses for 'tiles' today.

last weekend...

Last weekend we went to the Chelsea Physic Garden.

It was an oasis in an otherwise posh and bustling part of the city.

My favorite parts were:

The "listed" rock pool built with volcanic basalt and massive shells brought back as ballast by explorers from Iceland, as well as bits of masonry from the Tower of London.

The seemingly unexciting slime at the bottom of that mini stream above, which is actually "nature's stickiest glue". It captures insects with make-believe bubbles that look like fresh liquid and then trap and consume the insects themselves!

The "living stones", plants that look like the stones surrounding them- talk about good camouflage.

And the fern house- full of luscious ferns from all over, including some rare and delicate ones from Ireland.

The garden was founded in 1673 by a group of apothecaries who wanted to grow plants for use in their medicines as well as teach their apprentices to care for the plants they needed. In the course of history the site was acquired by Dr Hans Sloane (after whom nearby Sloane Square is named) and the rent for the site was fixed forever at £5 (which is still paid).

The long history means that many important plants were introduced to Britain first in the Chelsea Physic Garden. The garden went through lots of ups and downs and in 1983 was threatened with closure. This forced them to set up a charity to run it and open the gardens to the public!

new

This, hopefully, will be a blog more about me and my gettings-on than anything else.

I hope that any friends, family, or others who read this will find interest in my (somewhat) ordinary, if different, life.

Love always, Ash

*photo from pie cutting July '09