I’ve recently moved to a new attic bedroom in South London, just around the corner from a scraggly patch of green space known as a common in London, but probably described as a park in the rest of the UK. I spent most of my childhood on various commons in South London - playing frisbee, learning to ride my bike, and finally chasing neat vodka with Fanta since no pubs would ever believe my baby 17-year-old-face was anywhere near 18 (ten+ years on and they still don’t).
After the endless skyscrapers and silver light of Tokyo, I’m grateful that London is a fairly green city. And walking the dog through the common, even bordered as it is with traffic jams in both directions, I can at least watch the seasons change (as my lungs turn grey). Last week was the end of the blossom, and I spotted children thrust handfuls of pink and white petals into the air like wedding confetti. This week I stared downwards, desperately trying to avoid the influx of ladybirds on every path, and this morning I saw a frankly terrified baby squirrel just manage to outrun a crow’s kamikaze attack.
All these minute moments of a low-budget David Attenborough documentary playing out on my local common are goldmines for illustration inspiration, and I’m here to take what I can get. So, this week I’ve made a conscious effort to notice and record nature as the season fades out from spring and bursts into summer.
