online: 31 july 2007
modified: 29, 30, 31 july 2007

26 july 2007 care for small things


a ...stone fountain... 'Erected in 1929 in memory of Henry Edmund Goodison... Honorary Treasurer of the Kenwood (committee) ... presented by his wife and sons'... the drinking pool (for birds?) is no longer working but the spring and pool at ground level is flowing... the whole fountain looks as if it was recently cleaned and restored... a small sign, i think, of a worldwide change from neglect of, to caring for, things past...

...'please walk on the new path' (across a meadow)... an explanatory note states that the new path was seeded from this meadow... this kind of care, though perhaps trivial in itself, seems again a sign of changed awareness, of nature as well as of history... of small things as well as large...

...Parliament Hill... today most of central London is clearly visible beneath a sky of fast-moving rainy clouds... and there is a fragment of a rainbow (about 20 degrees of the full semi-circle) from the part of the sun that is not hidden behind grey clouds... and, as always, the view of the city from this hilltop seems unlike those i've seen on any previous occasion, as if this is a totally new piece of the continually changing atmosphere - which i suppose it IS!

...there is a heron standing on the raft in pond two... and two cygnets with their parents... one cygnet has disappeared...

...the 8 cygnets in pond one are still alive and have grown enormously... already they are perhaps half the length (and a quarter of the volume) of their parents...

...as i leave the heath i see an area of worn ground which is fenced off for re-grassing... and to avoid it i step sideways... but what looked to me like firm ground turned out to be very soft mud... as soon as i stepped on it my shoes sank in about 5 cm... and now i've been cleaning them of hardened mud... these things may be physically small and intensely local, but their significance is unlimited...





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