Be prepared for a large surprise on the Thames River at Nine Elms this September.   What surprise exactly?  Well Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman is preparing his first UK commission.  This will be semi-immersed in the Thames, and will rise and fall with the tide.   Almost certainly it will be large.  Very large.  It is closely under wraps until 2 September, when it will be transported along the Thames, and is likely to be a talking point in the up and coming Vaxhall area.  Hofman is famous for large scaled up sculptures of everyday objects.  Not surprisingly his 26-metre high inflatable “Rubber Duck” has been the focus of much attention in a variety of cities, including Auckland, Sao Paolo and Osaka.

London is a series of villages and we Londoners are all villagers at heart, fiercely proud of our own corner of the city. I live in urban Islington but was born in leafy Wimbledon on the other side of London. Wimbledon Common was a frequent destination in my youth - for childhood rambles, winter snowballing, and teenage high-jinx. So, on the 150th anniversary of the Wimbledon Common’s 1871 creation, I re-visited this much-loved green space finding it much as I’d always remembered.