Kettle's Yard revisited

Cornelia Parker drew on the windows with chalk.

Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, one of my favourite places,

has reopened after two years with new galleries, shop and café.

The experience once inside is much the same (and it's still free)

but instead of being able to just turn up and ring at the door

you have to pre-arrange a slot and wait to be collected 

and taken through to the house at ten minute intervals 

which somehow spoils the informality of the original arrangement.

Antony Gormley was hanging around.

He looked a little dejected in one corner of the gallery.
Perhaps he missed the old Kettle's Yard too.

Here's my homage.

The missing weekend

Following Sue's excellent instructions,

I used Pic Monkey to make a collage

of the last few days when summer took a curtain call.

Featured are:

the air raid shelter wall at the bottom of our garden

which has such beautiful brick shades, I think it deserved a picture to itself,

Grantchester meadows and the River Cam in Cambridge

whence we returned our son for yet more Japanese studying,

(we had tea at The Orchard),

a few grasses from a nursery in Sussex to rectify the rather disastrous

meadow grass experiment,

(first year great, second year thistles, moon daisies and narrow-leaved plantain

 overwhelmed the thirty six other weedier weeds)

and finally my Cornus kousa chinensis,

displaying its fine autumn colour.

The Backs

Looking back at this lovely view from O's room for the last time.

Walking back from the Senate House

after the degree ceremony.

Lying back on the grass in Nevile's Court.

(Strictly forbidden at any other time.)

The Backs seen from the Wren Library.

And he'll be back next year!

The Secret Garden

By train to Cambridge.

And a chance to visit the Fellows' gardens at Trinity College.

Does anybody know what this is?
The branches are like thorny antlers.
. 

I knew I'd seen it somewhere before.
And then it came to me.

Sun and air

The highest temperatures for seven years.

What a day to go into labour.

It is to be hoped that the Lindo Wing was air-conditioned.

Dressing gowns

I was not cut out for a life in academe.

My pathetic clutch of 'O' and 'A' levels saw to that.

And neither was I suited to a career in haute couture,

as my present wardrobe will testify,

but in the programme for the degree awards' ceremony

I found a perfect collision of the two worlds:

a description of the academical gowns

for each of the degrees.

So should I wish to,

I could imagine a  collection of jackets
and dresses

fashioned from some of these
delightful combinations.

Scarlet cloth lined with dove-coloured silk,

that is silk of a turquoise-blue shot with rose pink.

Doctor of Divinity

Scarlet cloth lined with light cherry silk.

Doctor of Law

Scarlet cloth lined with pink silk shot with light blue.

Doctor of Science

Cream damask, lined with dark cherry satin.

Doctor of Music

Black corded silk lined with bronze silk,

the hood part-lined with scarlet cloth.

Doctor of Engineering

Black cloth lined with scarlet silk.

Master of Letters

Black cloth lined with slate blue silk.

Master of Mathematics

Black cloth lined with dark plum silk.

Master of Research

Black corded silk lined with yellow silk.

Master of Studies

Black cloth lined with blue silk.

Master of Philosophy

Black cloth lined with dark green silk.

Black cloth lined with light green silk.

Master of Finance

Watery light

It has come to something when even this 
pale shadow
stirred a little feeling of cheer.

I wish there was a way to store the happy optimism

and can-do energy

that sustained sunshine promotes.

The bright chard in the sink worked

momentarily, but really. . .

it is almost impossible to believe in spring,
let alone summer.

One happy event was our trip to
see our son collect his MA this weekend.
Nothing could cast a pall over that.

Te etiam admitto ad eundum gradum.