Herban Gardening

I had a lovely birthday on Monday and spent some time at Urbis, an exhibition centre and multi-purpose space in Manchester. Although I wasn't particularly bothered to see it, I went to their Urban Gardening exhibition and found myself surprisingly turned on over the concept of integrating urban life and nature; incorporating nature into urban life. Interestingly, there were two subjects in the exhibition that also happened to be featured in two of my 'friend-ly blogs' (see right hand column). There was a feature on peregrine falcons in Manchester in both the Urban Gardening show and Mancubist blog; in my brother's blog, Cincy to Seattle, he writes about getting more connected to nature and acknowledging what it provides for us (fuel, food), which is also explored in the exhibition. Check it all out for yourself if you're interested (I'm just planting the seed).

Other Places

What a glorious day this past Sunday was, and our plan for the day matched perfectly the weather to the location. We first headed out to Formby, a town and beach near Liverpool. Now, the downside is, because it's a long walk to finally reach the sea from the shore and once you do, it's a long way until you can submerge into the water, so no one really goes to the sea to swim. The upside is there are no crowds, blankets, beach umbrellas, blaring music and the like as you'd find at let's say Jones Beach. Just an amazing unspoiled coastline with craggy dunes, pine forests and folks strolling along the rippled shoreline (see National Trust photo below) or fishing by the start of the sea.

We then headed over to Crosby beach to see the artist Antony Gormley's installation called Another Place : 100 castings of the artist's body made of cast-iron, scattered about and anchored into the shore line. As I stood by one of the statues, I became contemplative, considering the intermix of man, art and nature. Not a bad day at all.