home land, home sky

It was nice to be back in the Philippines! From the moment the fields and flats of Negros Island emerged from the storm clouds...

to the moment I murmured a teary goodbye to the lights of Manila...

medieval meditation at The Cloister Garden

If you know wonder | wander | women, you know that we are fascinated with the medieval period of Europe. Whether it's the incorrectly named "Dark Ages" of England that everyone pictures at the word medieval, the golden years of tapestry in France, or the intellectual and diverse Islamic period of Spain, we are willing devotees of the art, architecture and history of the period.

Entrance to the Priory of St. John and its Cloister Garden

So we were thrilled to discover the Museum of the Order of St. John, the 900-year-old charity still existing in London. The Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem originated with the Knights Hospitaller, formed in the 12th century during the Crusades. The mission of the order is "to prevent and relieve sickness and injury, and to act to enhance the health and well-being of people anywhere in the world."

The Memorial Gallery seen from the garden

the merry and magical magpie

There are magpies in the neighbourhood! 

This little scavenger of the corvid family has populated the imagination of humans since we noticed its beautiful black-and-white pattern and its chattering, cheeky nature.

mushrooms and moss

It's been an unusually "normal" English summer, by which we mean cool and rainy. After the blistering heat we had for the past few years, this mild weather was a relief. 

summer blooms at St George's Gardens

St. George's Gardens were originally the first offsite burial grounds for a local church, or rather two local churches: St. George's Bloomsbury and St. George the Martyr in Queen's Square.

Some of the graves have been left standing, although the bones beneath them were respectfully gathered and housed in the church crypts. 

tiny kingdoms

The days are damp and darkening and I've been feeling a little damp and darkening myself lately, so I went out in the garden with a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning. 

the language of flowers

Artists and art lovers are always fascinated by visuals with multiple meanings. Layering symbolism into an image can hold our attention for longer, engage our senses and brain, and leave us feeling more satisfied than an image with shallower appeal. Maybe that's why wonder | wander | women take so many pictures of flowers.

Summer in Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross, London

nature in the city: beloved garden birds

Every day back in our room in the Philippines, wonder | wander | women would look out our first floor window at the bamboo thicket and foxtail palms outside, and there would always be at least one or two birds in the branches. 

The Florentine Versailles: the Boboli Gardens

Visitors to Florence usually go to the galleries and palazzos before anything else. There is so much amazing art to see, we want to study at the feet of the masters. There is astonishing classical architecture, spanning thousands of years. But often we forget that other man made accomplishment: the gardens.

garden walks

The wonder | wander | women are hardly ever in the same time zone, much less in the same place. So we spend as much time as we can in each other's company. Our favourite thing to do together (besides eating!) is take walks around our neighbourhood. (Often after eating!)

Barbican Conservatory: hothouse flowers

Two weeks ago we posted about the overflowing life in the Barbican Conservatory. We touched on the cacti in the desert room, and some of the plants along the tropical paths. But there are so many species in the Conservatory that one post wasn't enough to count all our favourites!

The gumamela, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, from our Conservatory post.

they paved paradise, and put up...

...a paradise.

Brutalist architecture is called so for a reason. Distressed textures, the muddy colour of raw concrete and the stark lines of mid-20th-century* design exemplified this style. Many condemned it (and still do!) as ugly and intrusive.