This breathless month of September

This has been quite some month and I’m still processing my thoughts and experiences. On the first weekend in September I visited Henry Moore Studios & Gardens out in Hertfordshire. It was a beautiful, warm late summer day and the over twenty stunning sculptures set amongst trees and some in surrounding fields together with grazing sheep, were gorgeous and thought-provoking. Yes, we’ve all seen Henry Moore pieces before but to see so many in his own working environment is super special. I learned much about his modest coalmining upbringing and evolution of his artistic techniques as well as his generosity to his Henry Moore Foundation.

Just a few days later came the news of the Queen’s death. Of course, she was getting visibly frailer in recent months but still, like most of the country, I was shocked and shaken by the passing of someone so ‘present’ in my whole life. I was privileged to meet her and Prince Philip back in 1998 when they both visited for a reception at the Tower of London. I was working as Head of Marketing for Historic Royal Palaces at the time and remember dipping a speedy curtsy as she shook my hand and looked me straight in the eye. I didn’t join the queue to view the Queen’s coffin lying in State at Westminster Hall but I did visit Green Park to view the miles of flowers left there in remembrance and I did join a group of friends in Hyde Park on the morning of the funeral to watch the spectacular pageantry of the occasion on the big screen and to listen with thousands of others to the superb music and choral singing.  

To top off the month, just yesterday, I got back home from the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool and whilst buoyed up by such positive speeches, presentations and prospects for the party after so many years in opposition, like the rest of the country I’m now reeling at the fallout from the Tory Party’s not-so-mini and outrageous budget last weekend. What a month this has been – rock on October!