Extra! Extra!

What to do with our extra day.

Notice it!

Reach out for it!

Go out into it!

Walk all day

in Kew Gardens!

Magnolias!

Crocuses!

Vistas!

River!

Minka!

Bamboos!

New Birch leaves!

Catkins!

Palm house!

Magnolias!

Gravel gardens!

Pines!

Narcissi!

Geese!

Ducks!

Once in four years I allow myself a superabundance of exclamation marks.

Literary leaping.

Waking too early

Waking at 5.30 Frances took her camera to the deck to photograph

 daybreak on a tiny Canadian West Coast island.

I stayed in bed, listened to 

Something Understood's A Walk in the Woods,

and caught this hauntingly beautiful piece

as I drifted back to sleep.

Revisiting other dawns:

 If you wake early, what do you do?

Beauty underfoot

I was so accustomed to the sight of black and white splodges on London's pavements

that if I thought about it at all, I presumed it was  part of the stone,

perhaps a mouldy stain, lichen or a natural imperfection.

I was genuinely shocked to discover it was all flattened chewing gum.

 Discarded gum costs £1.50 per piece, to remove -

a staggering £60 million per year.

Here is one solution spotted on the Millennium Bridge in London yesterday.

The Chewing Gum Man has been painting miniature artworks directly 

onto the gum for twelve years,

'transforming it into something beautiful that people would like to look at'.

At the other end of the bridge is the Tate Modern where

I met old friends to see the Alexander Calder exhibition.

More playfulness and beauty,

but not free.

Without concessions - £18

or 12 pieces of removed chewing gum.