Kensington Gardens

Yesterday was a glorious summer day in London and I'm sure most everyone was out enjoying the open spaces. That was certainly true for Kensington Gardens where I took a walk early in the morning, another one at lunch time and a last one in the evening. Picnic groups in abundance, people chatting, strolling, jogging, cycling, playing ball, walking dogs, it was all happiness, and happening in the park.

This morning the sides of the trails, the lovely green meadows, and even the mowed lawns were littered with debris despite there being an abundance of bins. It  makes me wonder what the park would be like with a "No Bins" policy as they have at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens in Cape Town. Visitors are expected to leave with their refuse. No dogs are allowed in Kirstenbosch whereas Kensington Gardens is a very popular dog park, but perhaps dog poo bins should be the only ones provided.

At least it supplies plenty of men with work, picking up debris, replacing bin liners. And if they didn't look too happy with their job this morning, the ravens and crows were delighted to help them!

The past three months have been full. We spent a week away from Cape Town at the end of April, Tim visiting the Stanford Centre in Santiago, Chile, on either side of a weekend spent in Zapallar, a tiny coastal village where we walked a lot, ate local dishes and drank plenty of pisco sours

.
 May is the month for the Stanford field trip and this year we went to Durban again. Instead of two nights there we spent the second night at a resort in the magnificent Drakensberg mountains.

Morning Light on the Drakensberg from Dragon's Peak Inn

Tim went to Hong Kong in the first week of June, I had another weekend in Joburg when he returned. And in between travels, I continued with my research up at the University of Cape Town's library, taking notes from the John Garlick papers stored there, leaving plenty more for me to do next year. I discovered all sorts of fascinating letters and documents that I hope to put into bigger context at home over the following months.