The Museum of Walking

Great name for an organisation, no? And doing interesting things with walking and words - the art is taking part - as its byline goes. As more than a bit of a flaneuse myself, I was pleased to take part in a Wednesday morning haiku writing workshop with Andrew Stuck recently.

A dozen folk of wide ranging ages, we strolled very slowly in the heat from Holland Park tube station through the park, with the Kyoto garden as our destination. At various points en route, we stopped to hear about things as various as a potted history of haiku (naturally), this part of London as nineteenth century artists' colony (many of the pre-Raphaelites lived here), and the silver lime's ability to resist climate change by turning its leaves against the sun. Fascinating.

Writing haiku in rapid fire was a good challenge and I surprised myself as to how quickly I can do this. Interesting, as it's not my usual form. The results are available for downloading and folding into a little booklet - very Japanese - here.

The Kyoto garden's looking a little sick this summer - as in so many lovely gardens, even the trees (acers) are dying. Rain, please. And soon.