Impromptu shoots

Fiona is here. We're watching Bake Off: Creme de la Creme on iPlayer, or at least we would be if the Internet connection in our house weren't so utterly dreadful. Naughty Talk Talk. Quick. Everyone ignore them...

We've just been for an evening walk on the Heath. The weather was beautiful. The sky was a vivid blue, but clouds of all sorts of different colours and shapes were merrily drifting across the sun. Fiona very kindly modelled some of Nathan's knitwear for us, and we did an impromptu photo shoot down by Kenwood House. The gardens around the house were a riot of colours. There was blossom everywhere, the bluebells are coming out in the woods and the daffodils haven't yet gone over.

We walked up to the magic ponds in the triangular sliver of the Heath between Spaniards Lane and the road to Golders Green. I found out today that the area is officially known as Sandy Heath. It was quarried extensively for sand in the 19th Century. Two oak trees stand proudly on a hill. They apparently date back a magnificent 300 years - Samuel Pepys himself could have seen them as saplings. These days they are considered to be so precious that they've been fenced off and a protection order has been placed on them. The trees around them are all pollarded so that enough light can reach them.

I don't know why I feel so drawn to that particular spot. I find it incredibly calming. The ponds are pitch black, so reflect everything around them like a ghostly mirror. The area has a sort of soft light about it and it's pretty much silent, but for the whispering of the trees. Perfect.

We had tea in the Bull Pub which is where Nathan attends a knit night on Tuesday evenings. Sadly, none of the other knitters turned up, so, had we not been there, Nathan would have sat at their reserved table like a Sad Sack. I understand the very same thing happened last week whilst I was in Sevenoaks. Heartbreaking. If you happen to be a knitter, and you live in the Highgate area, I'd say it was fairly imperative that you got yourself down to the Bull on a Tuesday night so that Nathan no longer has to be the Madam Butterfly of yarn!