London · · 2 min read

Lethargy and London

Lethargy and London
Roses from my garden, partly inspired by Nick Knight who developed a series of the same name. These were shot in daylight and in-camera using exposure control versus an iPhone with nominal post-production.

The last week has been faintly intolerable in the UK as temperatures climbed to 37.5 degrees and every social media feed transformed into a weather channel.

I was due to be in London for an event on Tuesday which I had to cancel due to a research interview clash but I made it to UCL's Risk and Disaster Annual Conference themed 'Cities of the future: risks, resilience and reimagination'. A heatwave outside, a conference inside asking what cities must become to survive the next one. I wrote up a summary if you're interested.

Some creative relief from writing, terminal screens, and PhD funding databases came from the garden — currently a losing battle — and the kitchen.

Work in progress: hedge cutting. This Lonicera hedge was grown from 9cm pots and has taken 3 years to get to this.
I'll post the recipe for this chocolate cake but it is twice baked to achieve two textural consistencies. In perfecting it, it has descended into a chemistry experiment using alkaline (Dutch) cocoa powder and Callebaut dark chocolate at 70% and milk chocolate at 54.5% solids. Served with creme fraiche.
The view from the kitchen window has been a continuous wall of green so little to report but the limelight hydrangeas are starting to flower.

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