A miscellaneous week

What are they? Nothing else was growing in front of the house; the entire "garden" was crazy paving -

Bloomsbury seen through, or in, a Claude glass - it makes you look at a reflection of what's behind you -

 Part of a "reflective" walk around Bloomsbury led by artist Sheila Ghelani, part of the Wellcome's events programme to go with their "Museum of Modern Nature" exhibition (till 8 October) -

 Changing trains at Highbury & Islington - gloomy and spooky, isn't it? -

 Walking to Stoke Newington, via the Woodberry Down wetlands -

 The back streets of Covent Garden

 Some "old work" - this is discharge printed silk organza, in a workshop with Bob Adams in 2007 -

 Young rose and old rose, Hyde Park Gardens -

 ... and further along in the park, birds take their leisure beside the Serpentine -

 near the coffee truck -

 This lovely mosaic doorstep is somewhere in W1 -

I discovered how lovely Kew Gardens is in the rain - so so green, and few people. The lanterns led the way to the Japanese event near the Minka House -

 ... and the rain came down ....

 ... but the activities carried on ...

Elsewhere, the Water Lily House was open as usual -

 Lovely tiles in the side streets of Kew -

 on the way to the National Archives ... first visit for me -

 This fellow looks resigned to the rain -

 Very pleasant inside, and an interesting talk on 14th-century shenanigans, with viewing of relevant court records. (Podcasts of previous talks can be accessed here.)

Later in the shop - it was hard to resist the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles -

 and there are several bays of books about researching your family history; titles like "Tracing your Tradesmen [or servant, or artistocratic, or textile, or railway, or police, or ...] Ancestors" -

Fascinating; new to me, but not much use as my family isn't British.

This was the week of The Carpet Cleaning - "Lazlo" needed only two hours, and his machine needed many changes of water, to remove all the stains and spots. Magic! - no, more than mere magic, practically a miracle -

 I've also been looking for a waterproof walking-jacket -

The search goes on.

"Red sky at night" - here's hoping for some summery weather! -

In my notebook, reminders of talks - "Measuring what matters", insights on epidemiology (some of these events are available as a podcast), and "In search of the right words", insights on dementia (at the Wellcome Collection);  week 2 of the "geology of the British landscape" course (fascinating, and slightly overwhelming);  and two visits to the Hokusai exhibition (ends 13 August).