The Grape Harvest Has Come Around Again!

These are from a Bordeaux vineyard I visited last week - no, just joking. We grow grapes in the conservatory of our country house in Suffolk, and this year I'm pleased to say we had enough for a bottle of very sweet grape juice! It's always a very exciting preoccupation picking grapes from the vines hiding (and also giving shade beneath) the glass roof at around this time of year, and it's something to look forward to at the tail end of the summer holiday (apart from the new school year, obviously). This particular bowl is only usually half full on most harvests, so the fact that it's almost overflowing this year is a pleasant surprise. I don't know what it is. Perhaps the grape gods who live on a dark purple cloud high above a French vineyard have decided that more positive attitudes toward grape-growing and more vineyards worldwide are grounds for a better grape harvest this year. Or maybe that's a little far-fetched. Just I don't want to be boring by saying it was just luck.
- DP :)

The Wild Chicken Tribe

I haven't done a story or imaginative post for a while, and this chicken, spotted at my family's rented home in Grassington, Yorkshire, provided an interesting avenue of opportunity. The chicken doesn't have a coop, and he also doesn't appear to live anywhere apart from in the huge grounds of the house. But perhaps he once did. The once thriving, now nearly extinct tribe of wild woodland chickens, living in forest areas in Northern England and Southern Scotland, are taught by experienced chief chickens to fend for themselves in practically any environment they choose. Those skills are eventually put to use when the chickens come of age (they have to learn survival skills quite quickly, as they come of age at two years) and they must venture out and choose an environment which they deem suitable to use as a home for the rest of their life. Another tribe rule is that chickens must visit they former home at least once a year. This chicken, unlike his adventurous siblings, hated the tribe's independent nature, so sought out a house with extensive gardens to get a taste of domestic life which he, of course, loved. However, when reluctantly returning to his family, they were taken by nasty surprise as they realized this rebellious chicken had chosen a somewhat calmer life than his siblings, who chose caves, trees and waterfalls as their dwelling place. The chiefs were horrified and subsequently disowned the chicken, who didn't mind at all, returning to Grassington to roam around the plant pots once again.

- DP :)

My Recent Activities In London #2: Somerset House

 Don't be misled by the title of this post and think that I went to see the usual exhibitions at the titular gallery; in fact, during the Games period, every country has taken over a major venue to showcase their culture and cheer on their athletes (hospitality houses), and my first visit to them has been Brazil's Somerset House base. Here the 2016 Olympic hosts have set up a gallery devoted to Brazilian modern art, a tourism room with guidebook sale and exotic-looking pictures, a Rio 2016 area with information on arena and logo design as well as a souvenir shop (I picked up a souvenir pencil as well as samples of the 2016 font, but there unfortunately weren't enough of each letter to spell Dramatis Persona!) and apparently restaurants and carnivals in the evening. Here are some of my favourite bits of it.

Who came up with this idea?

An interesting pun on the phrase "flying carpet"

Two of many cute sculptures on display - see also the wooden lizard below

Traditional Brazilian fabrics

A room showcasing the Brazilian rainforest

A very confusing Brazilian flag

The Eames wheelchair!

A very difficult game of football!

My Recent Activities In London #1: Waterloo/Southbank

Since I haven't blogged for a while, I'm going to be blogging to inform you followers out there about what I've been doing around London for the first Olympic week. First up is the Southbank. There's been quite a bit of interactive stuff around there, in particular the Waterloo area, my personal favourite being this build-a-Lego-map activity. Each participant is given a square of Lego to build on and a sheet showing which colours to put where, and everyone's square is eventually incorporated into an enormous Lego world map.

Me placing my Congo located square down

The as-of-today incomplete map

The annual Watch This Space dance, music and circus festival at the National Theatre is smaller than normal this year due to the Olympics, but I still managed to see Spanish comedy/acrobatics group Los2Play perform yesterday. Here they are in one of their bigger balances.

Here's the latest sculpture outside the Hayward Gallery, which I think is better than that fox thing last year. A baobab tree made from rolls of fabric, how original does it get?

 A South African mascot parades around near Waterloo Bridge, giving random people hugs as he goes.











That's all for the Southbank, but tomorrow I plan to go check out Brazil's London 2012 base at Somerset House(also home to a lot of Rio 2016 souvenir shops)...