Greenwich and Docklands International Festival (GDIF)

I had a great time at GDIF on Sunday afternoon. The grounds of the Old Naval College in Greenwich were packed with people enjoying the sunshine (or seeking out a spot to rest in the shade) and making the most of all the fabulous free entertainment. There were also performances in St Alfege Park - a great new find for me. I hadn't realised there was such a peaceful spot so close to Greenwich town centre. Some of the activities spilt out on to the streets of Greenwich too like these glamorous stilt walking Princesses with outsize feet.

The Princesses in Greenwich High Street

The 'not so dainty' feet of one of the Princesses

With so many different things going on it was hard to know what to pick from the programme but as is often the best way with these types of event, we decided to just wander around and stop for a while when something took our fancy. We saw a performance called Heartland which was apparently inspired by the Minotaur and Icarus legends. To be honest, I didn't pay too much attention to the plot but I was impressed by the aerial acrobatics.

Aerial acrobatics in Heartland

The Iron Man in St Alfege Park proved a more absorbing plot and was clearly captivating the dozens of children sitting in the blazing sun to watch as the eponymous hero saved the planet from a murderous dragon.

A captivated audience watches The Iron Man

St Alfege Park

An interactive sculpture park  provided entertainment for those looking for something other than theatre. Various artists had re-imagined famous sculptures as machines or games that could be moved or played with, providing an opportunity for visitors to engage with these works of art in a new way.

A sculpture park with a difference

The Bollywood dancing I'd had hoped to watch was cancelled for some reason but there were lots of other weird and wonderful things to see from 6ft tall meerkats to a phoenix rolling by dispensing gifts as she went.

6ft tall Meerkats introduce themselves

The Phoenix

 The festival continues next week-end with dancing at Canary Wharf and a finale at Woolwich Town Centre on Saturday night and there's further entertainment in St Alfege Park the following Saturday (9 July) when the friends of the park are organising what sounds like a great festival.

Museum of 1951, Southbank

As part of the Festival of Britain celebrations, the Southbank Centre has converted part of the ground floor of the Royal Festival Hall into the Museum of 1951 which brings together various memorabilia and aretefacts associated with the original 1951 Festival. What I hadn't realised before I visited this was just how much the Festival of Britain really was a national celebration as opposed to something that took part in a small part of London. As well as nine other major events in London there were 'a constellation of events' around the country from book fairs to music concerts and the guides and leaflets from many of these local festivals are on display as are a number of photos of the various different celebrations.

One of the first exhibits you see is the 'Patchwork of the Century' which contains 100 squares depicting an historic event for each of the 100 years up to 1950. This impressive patchwork was made by 80 women with no previous experience of needlework in only two months. As well as major events such as the 1926 general strike and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 it also illustrates the engineering triumphs and social progress of the period so for example the opening of the Forth Road Bridge in 1890 is followed by the introduction of free education in 1891.

The other objects on display include a Meccano model of the Festival Ferris wheel and a selection of some of the many souvenirs made for the festival such as headscarves, ties, playing cards and jigsaw puzzles all bearing the distinctive festival emblem. There is also a brief explanation of the design of that emblem, some information about the architecture and design of the buildings on the Southbank Festival site and a replica of a 1950s living room.

Further insights into what the Festival was like for those attending are available in the film show. I only watched one of the three films on offer - Brief City - which was made by the Observer newspaper and gives a good impression of what the Southbank site was like during the festival with vast numbers of visitors enjoying themselves there. I particularly liked the images of crowds of people dancing elegantly at night on the concrete platforms outside the Royal Festival Hall. It was clearly a typical British summer as most have kept their coats on!

It's not a huge exhibition but it's definitely worth spending half an hour or so there if you're visiting the Southbank for any of the other Festival of Britain activities as it gives some historical context for the current celebrations. It is open until 4 September.

Taryn Simon Exhibition at the Tate Modern

The Tate Modern

I read a review of this exhibition at the Tate Modern by the award winning American artist Taryn Simon and thought it sounded interesting. Entitled 'A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters', the exhibition is indeed divided into 18 'chapters'. Each of these focuses on a particular bloodline and tells their story using pictures of individuals and related information.

The subjects covered include wild rabbits in Australia (and the attempts to control them), albinos in Tanzania (who are often killed and maimed as their skin is believed to have healing properties) and victims of genocide in Bosnia. The living man declared dead of the title is an Indian man who has been officially recorded as dead so others can take ownership of his land even though he is still living. His chapter tells the story of his attempts to regain his land.

Each chapter includes a series of portraits of related individuals (so, yes there really are dozens of very similar looking pictures of wild rabbits!), an explanation of the story behind the pictures, and a number of 'footnote images' which provide additional photographic evidence of the story being told. The footnotes were often the most interesting part of each chapter and the portraits would mean very little without the explanations so I did struggle somewhat with the idea of this as an exhibition of art.

The chapters tell important, and often disturbing stories and I learnt alot about harrowing circumstances around the world that I wasn't previously aware of but it was the writing rather than the pictures that moved me. Perhaps that means something like this should be in a book or a magazine rather than on the walls of a gallery. On the other hand, the exhibition was busy on a week-day afternoon and, like me, many of the other visitors, may never have heard those stories if they weren't given exposure at the Tate Modern so perhaps that justifies their inclusion. There have been various debates elsewhere as to whether or not this is art. Even having seen the exhibition I'm still undecided.

Open Garden Squares Week-end

Water lily at Devonshire Road Nature Reserve

This week-end there's a great opportunity to visit many of the garden squares around London which are normally closed to the public. Open Garden Squares Week-end is the one time each year when many of these private gardens can be seen and it allows access to some fascinating places. It's not free but for £10 (or £7.50 if you booked in advance) you can spend the whole of Saturday and Sunday visiting dozens of squares and gardens, many of which are also laying on special activities such as live music and wine tasting. The gardens involved come in all shapes and sizes ranging from large Georgian Squares to small community and roof gardens and also include a few wildlife gardens and nature reserves (including the one at Devonshire Road where I took this photo). There are even opportunities to visit the gardens tended by inmates at Holloway and Wormwood Scrubs prisons although you need to book guided tours in advance for those.

There are 213 gardens participating this year and you couldn't possibly visit them all. Here's my suggestions for getting the most out of Open Gardens Squares Week-end, based on my experience in previous years:

• Focus on one or two areas where there are lots of gardens - Bloomsbury is a good bet as there are 19 gardens within close proximity. The website lists all the gardens participating and you can sort them by sector, borough, postcode etc.
• About half the gardens (e.g. Gordon Square) are open to the public at other times anyway so to get the best value from your ticket it is best to concentrate on those which are not normally open. There are large numbers of these in Marylebone, South Kensington and Notting Hill.
• The best way to get around quickly between the squares is by bike. The London Cycling Campaign is organising two rides visiting gardens in Westminster and Camden on Saturday and gardens in South London on Sunday. The Open Gardens Squares Week-end website also has details of two self-guided cycle routes taking in some of the open squares in East London.
• Take advantage of some of the special activities on offer such as exhibitions, guided tours, activities for children and live music. Full details of what's on where are on the website which also provides details of free guided walks around some of the squares (you have to book for some of these).
• Not all gardens are open at all times over both days so it's worth spending a little time in advance planning what to visit when. There is a host of information on the website including details of public transport and how close other nearby gardens are.
• Finally, have fun and enjoy the experience! If you don't get to see everything you want to this year, there will almost certainly be another opportunity this time next year.

Composting workshop

Compost bins at Devonshire Road Nature Reserve

According to this website, composting at home for just one year can save global warming gases equivalent to all the CO2 your kettle produces annually, or your washing machine produces in three months. However, it wasn't really the environmental reasons that persuaded me to start composting but the thought that if we produced our own compost for the garden it would save both the cost of buying it and the effort involved in lugging it home which can be abit of a pain when you don't have a car.

So a couple of months ago I took advantage of Lewisham Council's offer of a free compost bin but have never been 100% sure exactly what I should be composting and what I needed to do to it. That's why  I went along last week to one of the free composting workshops that the Council organises from time to time. I found it really useful even if the first thing I learnt was that I probably haven't put my compost bin in the best location. It is best to put it somewhere sunny as the heat speeds up the composting process but ours is tucked away in a fairly shady corner as we didn't want it anywhere too prominent in our small garden. I've decided not to go through the hassle of moving it though as our garden is something of a suntrap so it should hopefully get pretty hot anyway.

There was lots of discussion about what you should and shouldn't put in your compost. There's a useful summary of this information here. Whilst I knew most of this already, it did make me realise the need for a good mix of 'greens' (tea bags, vegetable peelings, old flowers etc) and 'browns' (cardboard, egg boxes, paper etc) to provide both nitrogen and carbon for the mix. We also learnt that urine is good for speeding up the composting process. If peeing in the compost bin doesn't appeal, nettle and dandelion leaves (but not the roots and stems) are another good accelerator or you could collect seaweed the next time you go to the beach (you need to wash the salt off first).

There are no dates advertised for further compost workshops in Lewisham but if you're interested it is worth contacting Kristina who ran the course to find out if more are planned. Kristina also runs Love Food Hate Waste workshops in the autumn which explain how to make the most of the food you buy and avoid throwing it away.

I'm not sure how many other boroughs organise similar workshops but they seem like a great idea at a time when landfill tax is increasing annually so anything that helps reduce the amount of waste going to landfill will ultimately save local authorities money.

Iain Sinclair Talk at Foyles Bookshop

Earlier this week I went along to Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road to listen to Iain Sinclair in conversation with Patrick Wright. I'm not familiar with Patrick Wright's work (he's a writer, broadcaster and academic) but I've read some of Iain Sinclair's books, including London Orbital, which chronicles a journey he made around the M25 and the stories behind the places he passes through. He packs alot of information in to his writing and tends to jump from topic to topic (although always in a very knowledgeable way) so it can be hard to follow his chain of thought sometimes. Having recently read and really enjoyed an interesting article he wrote about cycling for the London Review of Books I have decided that his writing is probably best appreciated in small doses.

Iain read extracts from his new book, Ghost Milk, which will be published in July. This is based around the impact of the 2012 Olympics although judging from the write-up about it on his website, it draws in a wide range of other issues too. He and Patrick also discussed a number of other London and Olympic-related topics including the way Hackney has changed over the years (not positively in their view: 'Now everything that was interesting about [Dalston Lane] has been destroyed or is under threat.') and the relationship between China and the West. I'm not sure that I agree with everything that was said but Ghost Milk looks like it should be another interesting book for anyone interested in the past, present and future of London.

The talk was part of the Listen*Read*See London programme of events that Foyles are running this week. That particular programme finishes tomorrow but Foyles hold regular free events at their Charing Cross Road branch and a few events at some of their other branches too. As well as talks from novelists and other writers, they have jazz in the cafe there a few times a week. You need to reserve a place in advance for the talks but I like the fact that this means you don't need to worry about turning up ages in advance to secure a place which can sometimes be the case with free events. I've already booked a place to hear Evan Davis talk about his perspective on the British economy in a couple of weeks time.