SoundPlace&Time

And now for some music. I'll be discussing Friar Park a little later on. For now here is Ravi Shankar performing 'Friar Park'. The Holy Grail of British gardens. Friar Park - Ravi Shankar

Given that I reside in London if there is one thing most Londoners can agree on and that is space for housing, both exterior and interior, is limited. You have to make the most of what is already there. This may sound stifling to some reading this, but the opposite can apply here. Having a small garden space as your creative framework allows you to be not only creative but also economical and methodical in your conceptional thinking. It's about using the essentials and removing the clutter, because when you incorporate the essentials within a small garden you are capturing the essence of what is already there.   Defining a small or large garden is subjective. However, most gardens, certainly in British metropolitan areas, are usually the same width as the house i.e. 5 metres to 8 metres wide and sometimes a little bit longer in their length. What I tend to consider first is how aesthetics compliment the garden's function and purpose and vice versa. Within the framew...

  Being a Garden Designer would be a very nice way to earn a living. And if I can do it where I work from home even better. An old wooden desk. Swivel chair. T-shirt and jeans. Bare feet. A small stereo unit with a collection of music recordings to stir my creativity, and a nice hot mug of tea. What a conducive way to work, right?   However for the time being I am learning the trade and acquiring the knowledge as it were by embarking on a diploma in Garden Design. Before enrolling I looked at a few design schools in London that specialised in garden design and was very impressed with KLC School of Design, in particular their 'off campus' Design Diploma course. And that's the one I chose. It is a fabulous campus situated at Imperial Wharf in London. On paper it looks and sounds fantastic. And you know what? It is. Except for that one major obstacle: procrastination. But it is myself who creates these obstacles. And I know I'm not the only one but you have to be very d...

  Before I discuss gardening and landscape design, firstly, a bit of background to put this all in perspective . . .  I was in between jobs in London. I wasn't working at the time and waiting for a new job to come through. On this particular day I was sipping a nice pint of ale at the White Cross pub in Richmond on the patio overlooking the Thames river. Such a beautiful part of London. Normally on a day like this I'd be stuck in an office with poor air conditioning doing mundane HR work, always as a temp, and doing work no one else in the office wants to do. A 'hired mercenary' as it were. But regardless of how dedicated and reliable I was to the job it always had to come to an end. Such is the way of today's London job market. Organisations are always 'restructuring', and that requires extra staff to help sort the confusion out.    After six years of working in this manner and this way of life, an 'existential crisis' was looming on the horizo...