Forest Farm Peace Garden

Coming from a country with wide open spaces and fresh air, a need arises from time to time to seek out places where you can breath a little. It's a luxury to have a garden in London, and in my search to reconnect with the soil, I came across a community garden called the Forest Farm Peace Garden in Hainault. I wanted to get my fingers dirty again, plant, weed, learn about plant species and how to forage. I've discovered how to make charcoal sticks, how to drum (at the World Music Day event held today in fact), I've tasted soup made from stinging nettles, a weed delicious and high in minerals. I've seen a cob oven been built from scratch from natural materials, found out that you can eat rhubarb stems but not the leaves, but they can be used as a fertilizer tea. I've discovered that you can stick a willow branch into the ground and it will grow, and you can make seed pots out of newspaper. Every week, on wednesdays and fridays, is a chance to feel like you are in the countryside and away from the city. A chance to unravel, have a chat with like-minded folk, grow food from seed, get away from the laptop, and breath some fresh air again.

Wondering, wandering

London can be quite a daunting place to visit, so many choices, so many places, so many tube stops to choose from. Which one is worth visiting? Do I wander around until I find something or do I have to know where I am going before I set off? Since I am virtually incapable of decision-making, the latter more planned approach seldom ever happens, and what I stumble across usually is just the case. Stumbled upon.

Whether it be amazing street art that pops out of nowhere along Regent's Canal, Dalston or Shoreditch (you can tell since I have been living in the East),all-of-a-sudden sun glares inside the Tate, Harrods' festive lights in June, a boutique JUST for umbrellas, kissing budgies, Barbican dark alleys, old clippings of the Queen in an underground wine bar, wonderfully empty streets in central early in the morning, a spraypainted christmas tree, looking up to see a car wrecked by a sculpture, a confrontational blue pigeon, a coffee shop offering coffee grounds for compost, or a walk on the Thames at low tide. Always exploring, and still so much to see.

Glastonbury - England's Jerusalem

When I say I visited Glastonbury, most people asked why I didn't just visit during the festival, which is a shame as this wonderful little town has so much more to offer. We stayed just outside the main town at Bliss cottage run by Trish, where delicious vegetarian food was served in mismatched bowls, pancakes were topped with Somerset bee pollen and roasted walnuts, and walks were guided by a big and confident shaggy dog. A short walk away in between hedgerows and grazing fields we met Gog and Magog, two revered ancient oak trees steeped in Druidic significance, two ancient giants that gave into old age, or a fire, or a lighting bolt. Who knows, but seeing old beautiful trees is never lost on me and the hearsay added to their mystery.

We climbed up to the Tor, the highest point of Glastonbury, drum beats from Druids echoed across the countryside and called us upward. On a clear day you can see South Wales apparently. You can visit the Chalice Well (wells are said to be gateways to the spirit world), the red of the water is said to represent the rusty iron nails used at the Crucifixion, the water did taste quite iron-oxidey to spur imagination on. If you are lucky enough, you can stumble upon a medieval festival close the the Glastonbury Abbey, drink mead, meet soldiers ready for battle, and get serenaded to by a man with long silvery hair.

The town's ancient treasures are well hidden, without knowing you could drive past the town in a  few minutes without knowing that some of its sites are on "the holiest ground in England." In the husk of the Abbey is the supposed resting place of King Arthur, and where St. Joseph returned to England from the Holy Land as a Christian missionary, and he planted his staff – which burst into leaf and became the sacred Glastonbury thorn tree.

A place of magic and legend, pagan gods, soft souls and and holy thorn trees, secluded spots with streams, and hills haunted by the memories of ancient saints and heroes, an island of the blessed dead, and a gateway to the spirit realm.