Reflections

 The light was so beautiful around the lake at Trentham yesterday.

It's been a week for reflections as we entered the second week of January.  We started the New Year with a funeral and now there will be another.  Our neighbour who had suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for many years had been bed bound for the last year and in and out of hospital.  She lost her partner of many years to Motor Neurone Disease in February 2020, just before the first lock down.  On Christmas Eve she was taken into hospital with Flu and another infection I think they said Sepsis.  Anyway, she lived through all that until last Thursday evening.  Her brother rang us on Friday morning with the news.  We had been looking after her cat and dog whilst she was in hospital.  Both animals have now found homes, not with us as we didn't want to take on any more animals at our age.  The cat is just a few houses down the road so we will see her around. The little dog has gone to a young couple who already have a pomeranian, I'm sure he will be happy in his new home.

We will have to wait and see what new neighbours will move in when the house is sold.  We have been so lucky to have wonderful neighbours on both sides over the last twenty eight years, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it may continue.

I've also been delving into the 1921 census now it is free on Ancestry.  I've been looking for siblings of my grandparents and found quite a few of them.  I later followed up on a link and found two very sad stories in the Hodgetts family.  My paternal great grandmother was a Hodgetts. I found her brother's  death due to a pit roof collapsing and the marriage of his daughter followed a year later by her death, probably in childbirth and the deaths of the twin boys within days of each other. 

Oh dear this post has got a bit maudlin.  

Here is a photo of a female pheasant taken as we walked around the lake yesterday.  There are three of them and they can usually be spotted in the trees between the lakeside walk and the monkey park.

I have registered to participate in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch again this year.  Goodness knows how many years we have been doing this but it always something to look forward to.  We've had some different bird visitors to the garden during the cold and icy weather including Siskins and Long-Tailed Tits.  There have also been Starlings about again.

All for now.  Take care. 

A Stop on the Way Home

In my last post I hoped that snow or fog wouldn't affect our journey and thankfully we had neither.  Lots of heavy frost though.

 The day of the funeral was cold and dry and the sun came out to shine through the windows of the chapel at the crematorium. Snow had been forecast for later the next day so we decided to go straight home after breakfast.

The golden stag was outside the East Midlands Designer Outlet which was on the opposite side of the road to our hotel.  We had a wander around the shops just as it was getting dark before going back to the hotel for an evening meal.

On Saturday morning we stopped in Cromford for a short walk around the village rather than down by the Mill and canal.  It was so cold.

Above and below Cromford Mill Pond.

We were headed for a favourite book shop. I've written posts about it a few times over the years.  Hard to take in that I'll have been blogging for twenty years in March of this year.  Where has all that time gone?

Inside it felt warm and we were greeted with a friendly welcome.

I treated myself to a book I'd wanted for ages, I found a new copy but the member of staff who greeted us heard our conversation and came to say that she had a second hand copy of the same book which was much reduced and that the previous owner seemed hardly to have looked at it.  She thought it would find a good home with me. How kind and thoughtful.

It is a Persephone publication Long Live Great Bardfield: the Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood.  Tirzah Garwood was a wood engraver and artist and a member of the Great Bardfield group of artists.  She was also the wife of the noted painter, wood engraver and book illustrator Eric Ravilious who is one of my favourite artists.  The other favourites are Gwen John and Dame Laura Knight.

 

The bad weather closed in just a few hours after we got home and we woke up to a white dusting of snow all over the garden.  

We are now at home for a few days and without an oven as, for some reason, it stopped working on New Year's Day.  We have a separate hob and a microwave so that will keep us going until the electrician comes on Wednesday evening. He seems confident that it can be mended.

Belated best wishes to you all for the New Year.

A Misty Walk

Christmas Day was quite bright and dry but Boxing Day and yesterday were damp and dreary the air heavy with fog. I can't remember seeing a fog like yesterday's for a long time and those we did experience were usually a month earlier.  How strange the weather is at times. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be kinder at the end of next week as we have to travel into Nottinghamshire for a funeral.  No fog or snow please!  

Today it didn't seem quite as bad so we ventured up to Westport Lakes for a stroll.  It was good to get out and about for a while after three days at home.

 I took a few photos as we walked around both lakes.

We couldn't see the other side of the larger lake.

Tree down after the storm of a couple of weeks ago.

 There's always a Robin to bring a bit of colour and cheer.

Not sure what the Black Headed Gull is looking at above.  It has spotted something.

Great plops of dew were falling from the trees some making ripples in the water others falling on passers by.  There were a few hardy fishermen at the side of the lake.

The paths away from the lakeside and into the woods were very muddy.

The water birds appreciated these two folks with their bags of bird food.  There weren't many people about today and the roads were very quiet.

Thank you for your comments on my last post.  I will get around to answering them soon.

Take care. 

On Christmas Morning

 

 

 Season's greetings and all my best wishes for a peaceful and joyous Christmas.

Connections

Little things that connect, that send your mind drifting back into the past. Memories weaving here and there some of them as clear as if it were yesterday.

On Wednesday morning we went up to Leek to look around the shops there.  The museum, for some reason was closed but we ventured into the Foxlowe Arts Centre to look at a local art exhibition.  On the same floor was a book case of second hand books for sale, the title of the one below caught my eye and the memories flooded in.

 

It was 1980 and we were staying in Lyme Regis, a place we both love.  Paul had an appointment with the curator of the Philpot Museum to look at and photograph Pterosaur specimens and I was just fascinated with the story of Mary Anning who spent days on the Undercliffe searching for fossils.  We stayed at a small hotel called the Old Monmouth where creaking floor boards and suddenly opening doors led the other people at breakfast to delcare that they were sure that they had heard 'Old Monmouth' during the night.  The owners had a cat called Cleopatra who more often than not visited the bedrooms, luckily we liked cats, as once or twice we found her curled up in the sink in the corner of our room.  I remember the hotel was across the road from the church and the church clock could be heard ringing each hour.

A very fuzzy and discoloured old photo of me outside the Old Monmouth. Below the Philpott museum both taken in 1980.

 

The day of the appointment arrived and we went in to meet the curator who at that time was the eminent writer John Fowles.  He was interested in why we were visiting and what we were interested in and happy for Paul to identify a fossil for him. He referred us to Dorchester Museum to find another fossil there.  A few weeks after we returned home we had a thank you letter from him.  We still have it somewhere, most probably in a file, in a plastic box in the back of the garage.  Perhaps one day we will come across it again.

The book is full of illustrations by an artist called Elaine Franks with a foreward by John Fowles.

John Fowles of course is no longer with us but - here - is an article about Elaine Franks.

Walking with The Snowman at Clumber Park

 At Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire there is a festive Snowman trail.  Each of the twelve snowmen are decorated to  represent the song twelve days of Christmas and are based on the favourite character of artist Raymond Briggs. 

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

 

Seven Swans a Swimming

Eight maids a milking

 

Six geese a laying

Four calling birds

Five Gold Rings

Two turtle doves

 

As you can see we only found seven of them!  We didn't have the time to walk and find all twelve.  Also, of the photos above only one, Five Gold Rings, is mine as something happened to my camera and half my photos were lost.  Paul took the others.  We think it may have been the card rather than the camera. 

 

The other five snowmen were around the lake, it was getting cold and light was fading fast.  Time to move on to our hotel for the evening.  We were staying over as we had to visit a relative in hospital.  She is now being looked after in a special room for end of life care. Her children and sister with her.  The evening before our visit they were allowed to take her favourite cat to spend time with her.  All very sad.  The drive home was horrendous, wind, rain, squall, mist, heavy traffic with bright, distorted lights almost all the way and then less than five minutes from home the road was blocked by blue flashing lights and we had to find another way back to our house in rush hour traffic and pouring rain.  We were so happy to be home.

 

We had a quick walk out this morning and then it was time to batten down the hatches ready for the promised weekend storm.  

 

My camera seems to be working again with a different card.  A view of the big wheel taken this morning across the lake at Trentham.

 

Locally lots of events are cancelled including Trentham's Winter Light Trail and Biddulph Grange's Festive Lights.  I think tomorrow is a day to stay inside and start to write Christmas cards ready for posting next week.  We have a butternut squash that will hopefully make warming, nourishing soup.

Here is a - link - to the National Trust's Clumber Park website.  I see that they too are closed to visitors due to tomorrow's expected storm.

Stay safe and warm everyone.

The Longest Yarn

The Longest Yarn - A Thread through History - is a travelling exhibition which depicts, in 80 panels, the lead up to the D Day landings of 6th June 1944, the Longest Day.  It was completed in time for this year's 80th anniversary.

Above Stoke Minster. The iron railings guard the resting place of potter Josiah Wedgwood.

The Longest Yarn is on display at Stoke Minster until 5th December and on Friday morning we went along to see it.

The inspiration for the 3D project came about as an idea from a lady called Tansy Foster who initially wanted to create a topper for her garden wall but the idea grew.  The 80 panels, each a metre long, represent the 80 years since the events and the 80 days of The Battle of Normandy.

Each panel depicts events happening across Britain and France on that one day and has been constructed by volunteer knitters from across Europe, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Photographs from the time inspired the creators of the panels.  Above President Eisenhower makes the final decision to go.

The detail in each display is amazing.

Parachutes landing and getting caught on buildings and trees.

Above the bombing of Carentan station.

After a while it became impossible to take photos as the Minster became quite crowded but the whole exhibition is quite spectacular and very detailed.

This morning when we passed by the Minster on our way to walk at Westport Lake there were queues waiting to get inside.  I'm so glad we visited yesterday.

There is so much more to see than the items I have photographed, apologies for the fuzziness of some of them. 

Above Stoke Minster in sunshine as we left the exhibition.

The exhibition is moving on to Tewkesbury Abbey from here, then to Enniskillen, Norwich and Peterborough before it leaves these shores to travel to Cape May, New Jersey in the USA in April next year.

A smaller exhibition of Britain at War is being made at the moment comprising of just 6 panels ready to go on tour next September.