Oops. That was a long time between updates. Too long, perhaps. Well, have some photos from the Thames Festival. I must admit it didn't seem as full of fun and interesting things as previous years, with smaller stages and less of them (although I only managed to get from Jubilee Gardens to Southwark Bridge, and half of my route was along back streets rather than the river path). Jubilee Gardens seemed particularly empty, with no events on the grass, and a much smaller music stage than usual shoved into a tiny corner and surrounded by high fences rather than the usual open plan of previous years. As a result it was smaller and more cramped with none of the smiling casual openness of people having picnics by the stage, and kids running around. From what I've heard, the other stages felt like that, too.

I suppose it's down to budget cuts — there have been a lot fewer celebratory events since Boris Johnson became mayor, especially compared to the Ken Livingstone era when there seemed to be at least one festival going on in some part of London every weekend from April to October, which was nice. People like festivals. We need more celebrations. It was already sad that the Thames Festival had been switched to a different weekend from The Great River Race and the annual closure of the Thames Barrier, as both these events played a great part in the early days of the festival. With the Thames Barrier closed, it meant there were guaranteed low tides, and lots of lovely activity on the Thames foreshore (champagne picnics! mudlarking! sandcastle art! dancing! you get the picture); and waiting around for the Great River Race to come past can get a bit dull, but was always enlivened by nearby festival activities. It's shame that we've lost both these things as part of the festival, I think. (Although you can still watch the Great River Race this Saturday, if you want to.)

There was a cute and very tiny children's fair at Jubilee Gardens (which included this dramatic sign above, for some reason), but my favourite thing was Les Célestes by Mastoc Production. Dresses filled with light, and suits covered in twinkles, hanging in the trees and draped around bushes. Delightful.

There was the usual scrum around the market stalls selling stuff you'd never give a second glance to usually, and Gabriel's Wharf was filled with marquees promoting Korean tourism, which felt depressingly corporate, instead of the interesting and magical installations that are usually there during the festival. It was pretty disappointing, although I did manage to catch a bit of a Taekwondo display, which I saw from the top floor of the nearby Bargehouse Gallery. It's not every day you get to see a man leap onto another man's head, to kick-break a wooden block being held by a third man standing on a fourth man's shoulders, so that was quite good. (The exhibition at the Bargehouse is a bit hit-and-miss, but I do love it as a venue, because I love scrappy old buildings with uneven floors and paint spatters.)

After stopping to admire a rainbow from Blackfriars Bridge, I went straight to Southwark Bridge for the Feast on the Bridge which is usually one of my favourite parts of the festival. I felt a bit sad being there on my own, though, because it's a place where people celebrate food together (although this hasn't stopped me enjoying myself before) and there was a distinct lack of any live music when I was there, which also felt a little bit sad. But everyone else was having a good time (and I was probably feeling a bit sad due to earlier events in the day when I was supposed to see some friends who were emigrating, and I got there a bit late and they'd left early, and we all missed each other — but not as much as I'm going to miss them now they've left the country for good. But I digress.)

There was also no hay fight, which I'd come to expect as being a Feast on the Bridge tradition, but that may just have been because it had been raining and they'd decided against wet hay being strewn everywhere. The people-watching was still quite fun and there were some nice crafty elements to spot. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get many photos of the crazy homemade hats people were wearing, but some of them were brilliant. The salad/herb hats were pretty nifty, with emphasis on pretty, because they were.

I was debating to myself about whether to get dinner, as the menu at the Forgotten Fish Restaurant looked good, but I didn't have enough cash on me, and then I bumped into a friend, so had a chat with him and ended up deciding to go home for dinner instead. There was another rainbow to greet me as I wandered off the bridge, and some some wonderful skies to stare at as I walked to my bus stop. The skies have been really great to look at lately. Maybe we should have a Cloud Festival. Festivals are good.

More photos, including from previous years, here.

And so many people had brought wine, I ended up polishing off a bottle of rosé on my own.

I didn't feel drunk until I walked home. I ended up dawdling because the sky was just so pretty. At least, that's my excuse, although I think you'd have to agree with me, looking at this evidence.

I took a short detour via the lake, to watch the sun setting over the mosque, under dramatic Turneresque skies and then walked up to Primrose Hill, watching it changing candy colours as I went further up and over Primrose Hill, starting off pale blue with scudding pink clouds, turning delicate purples as I crested the summit, where I discovered the skies were bright orange on the other side. Gorgeous. I'll just let these speak for themselves.

This is Saturday's sunset from my bedroom. Not pictured are the many balloons someone released over the neighbourhood, because sadly they only showed up as tiny black specks on camera. Although it did make me think it would be a good thing to set up to take photos of, if one could guarantee as sunset sky as photogenic as Saturday's was….

The frustrating thing is that I had the same problem yesterday, when I had a whole day with no plans, a big pile of old magazine pages and various bits of paper ephemera, a nice sharp scalpel, a big creative desire and absolutely no bloody inspiration. You ever get days like those?

Finally, after an unsatisfying evening of unfulfilled creative urges, I decided to clear up, and in the process of clearing up, I made this:

I rather like it. I rather like this song by the Rosebuds, which gave this post its title, too.

(sorry the picture quality isn't great)

They also had a couple of pieces of original artwork. I don't know who did this one:

Elsewhere, I spotted this fantastic bit of packaging. I love the hand-drawn lettering. So fun!

More Margate photos here.

Last bank holiday Monday some friends and I went to "the original seaside", as Margate is now billing itself, to see the new Turner Contemporary. It looks a bit shed-like when you exit the station, but because it's the same height as the other buildings around it, it doesn't seem intrusive (it actually looks lower than it does in my photo, which is zoomed and cropped).

It's a rather nice space inside, not very big, but light and cool. Charles Holland has written a good review of it here, which saves me having to say much else.

The day we were there the seafront was heaving with bikers there for the Margate Meltdown, with lots of stalls, and pub rock bands, and gawkers. It was the most crowded I'd seen the place (but then again I've never been there in the height of the season before).

There were lots of bikes parked outside the gallery, framed here by Daniel Buren's already iconic stripes. (The huge windows overlooking the sea are fantastic.)

After visiting the Turner, I dragged my friends off to the Shell Grotto (no visit to Margate is complete without it), where I was temporarily adopted by the very friendly Grotto Cat.

And then a stroll around town, where we discovered that Limbo is situated between a Burton shop and a KFC.

And there was plenty of bunting. Bunting is definitely the "in" thing this year. I'd like to blame That Wedding, but it was popping up all over the place long before that. The high street was full of bright fluttering flags, which couldn't hide the fact that so many of the shops have closed down (but on the plus side, there were some new, independent ones which had opened up since I was there last year). I liked the two-tone chequered bunting outside the mod shop, and the orange-and-black bunting along the route of the bikefest, as well.

A day at the seaside requires ice cream, so we headed off to get some at Carter's Steam Fair, which was set up in the Dreamland car park. Unfortunately, it started raining as soon as we walked in through the gates, so we didn't stay long, and the rain only got harder when we left. With a bit of time before the next train back to London, we took shelter in a cafe in Buenos Ayres.

(It wasn't as nice as the cafe we had lunch in, a proper classic caff with red leatherette booths called Kalli's, where a cup of tea, scrambled egg, proper crispy bacon and mushrooms on toast came to the princely sum of three quid. Brilliant.)

Then back to the train station, with barely enough time to admire the lovely station ceiling, and on to the fast train home to London in the rain.

It wouldn't have been a proper Whitsun bank holiday without some rain, I suppose. And speaking of bank holidays, I was amused and interesting to read this piece on Margate and bank holidays a couple of days later.

More photos from the day (with more to come) here. All my Margate photos are here. You can read about previous visits to Margate here and here.

I was at Conway Hall for about the last 15 minutes of the (International) Alternative Press Fair on Sunday, and after browsing tables in the very cramped aisles, I found myself taking photos of the lovely interior (I do rather love this building!)

I didn't have enough time to buy much, but I highly recommend Onion Soup by Dan Berry (buy it here), and The End of The Line by Woodrow Phoenix (not sure where you can buy that one from).

And on Monday I saw lots of things in Margate but I haven't been through all of my photos yet (I actually used my camera for some of those, rather than just my phone)

Here's something that looks a bit like a cooling tower, taken for the Cooling Tower Appreciation Society.

And here are some pylons.

I am fully aware that most people go to MCMExpo to take photos of the cosplayers. I don't care. Pylons are beautiful. And they were on my mind that day, due to several articles being posted and discussed: pylon design competition; design appreciation; these elegant ones; these ugly ones; this; also this. OK, I'll shut up now.

And here's Warwick Johnson Cadwell framed by some marvellous clouds (the skies have been fabulous lately).

And, um, that's it from MCMExpo this time. (here's last year's reports from MCMEXPO: part 1, part 2)

Friday night at The Miller.

Yesterday was a bank holiday, and blessed with blue skies, so I wandered up to the funfair at Hampstead Heath to take some photos. I still need to go through most of them, but I uploaded a few via Instagram. I know lots of people don't like the fake-vintageness of apps like this one, but as funfairs always seem to be stuck in a kind of over-saturated and shabby timewarp, I find some of processing can capture that ambience better than a straight-foward snap from my phone can. (Annoyingly there's no way to link directly to an Instagram account, but on the plus side I can simultaneously upload to Flickr — and in less time than it takes with any other app. If you want to find me on Instagram, my username is mondoagogo, natch.)

Anyway, here are some photos from a sunny day at the funfair.

More photos (not taken on my phone) will be posted here when I've got around to uploading them!