Going to see a wonderful National Trust garden, at Crook's Hall, won out over the final conference sessions this morning. I walked there - down the banks of the River Wear, which provided an appallingly strong demonstration of the polluted quality of British waterways today - so much worse, as surveys keep showing, than 20 years ago.
The gardens are some of the most compelling traditional, old English gardens I've ever been to - I could have spent hours there.
Becoming a National Trust volunteer and spending one's time with seedlings in a greenhouse seemed like an attractive idea.
Just behind here was a fairly new garden, full of herbs, and intended for contemplation - so I sat there and drew the view of the distant cathedral ... and after twenty minutes or so a NT volunteer approached and asked if she could take my photo for potential publicity for the garden because, she said, this was exactly the kind of slow attentive activity they'd hoped this new site would be used for.
Then, rather mysteriously, there was a fabric clad sheep sculpture.
And topiary.
And vistas.
And statuary.
Then from Durham to Liverpool on one of my favorite English railway lines, the TransPennine Express - though it was very grey and drizzly -
to Liverpool - where this bar pavement told me precisely where I was not, although yes, there's a certain Gaudí-esque spirit to it.
And then it cleared - and here, from my room, is an unbelievably beautiful Liverpool vista, with the twin-towered Liver Building, where my mother worked during the war monitoring radar that was tracking what was happening in the Atlantic. I'm here to see one particular installation - of which, I hope, more tomorrow.
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