In the Garden

 In the garden we've been pleased to see blossom on the small plum tree.  We planted this one after we had to take down the old plum tree at the top of the garden because it was diseased and was becoming unstable.

The new tree has grown from a plum stone taken from the fruit of the old tree that we had planted in a small pot a few years ago.  

It was planted in the garden before the old tree was taken down.

A couple of blog posts ago I mentioned that a badger or badgers - we have more than one visit - dug up some Tulip bulbs and ate some of them.  We rescued the rest and put them in smaller pots.  They have to be moved into the greenhouse each evening and out again in the morning but it's been worth it as they are now flowering.

The flowers in the smaller pots were originally all in the big black pot you can see at the top of the photo.

Sheepish

There is a colourful display of Shaun the Sheep sculptures at Trentham Gardens ready for the Easter holiday, it's called Find the Flock. Shaun the Sheep is a popular spin off character from the Wallace and Gromit film A Close Shave by Aardman Animations.  The sculptures made in collaboration with Aardman and Wild in Art are 160cm or 5ft 3ins tall. On their plinths they seem taller.  

Each of the flock have a theme and some of the detail on the art work is lovely.  Above are Beauty and The Beasties, Counting Sheep, Sakura, Shaun the Sheep, Baaaart Deco and Shoal the Sheep.

The six more above are A-Green-Culture, The Beekeeper, Trail Grazer, Hitsuji, Can't See the Wool for the Trees and Panda-monium.

Above are closer details of some of the sculptures most of which had a wildlife theme.

Shaun the Sheep stands in front of the tents where over the next few weeks lambing will happen for the flock of rare breed sheep.

All for now.  Have a happy and peaceful weekend.

Into April

We've been busy pottering both in and out of the garden.  We went to the local garden centre yesterday to buy potting compost, grit and bird food.  This was after going into the town centre to Boots to pop empty blister packs from medications into the recycling bin.  I was glad to find out about the recycling project there as I was loath to put the empty packs into the ordinary waste.

On Wednesday we visited Biddulph Grange Gardens for a walk around.  There was lots of work being done to resurface the entrance way and also the cleaning of stone edging in the Dahlia Walk.  

The Woodland Walk is now called the Wellbeing Walk and many grassy areas had been roped off to allow for re-growth and re-seeding.

The Chinese Garden was looking wonderful in the sunshine.

The Stumpery has recently been made larger with funding from the Blue Diamond Garden Centres Group.  

It is supposed to be the oldest Stumpery in the UK and it is now as large as the original one created by James Bateman in the early 1800s.

At home in the garden the Tulips are flowering.  

Well one pot is the other has been foraged by badgers, our fault as we took the protective sticks away too early.

What a mess.  One or two have been saved and I hope they will flower.

The Spirea Bridal Wreath is in flower as is the Amelanchier

In the wilder area at the top of the garden both Wood Anemone and Wild Garlic are doing well.

Right, time to think about lunch.  All for now.

A Saturday Walk

Yesterday we took a local walk through Hem Heath Woods which is looked after by the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. 

Lots of trees have been taken down over the last few months due to Ash die back.

Some parts of the wood were looking quite open and bare especially until the leaves appear on the trees.  There was lots of bird song though.  With the help of Merlin we heard Robins, Nuthatch, Blue tit, Chiffchaff, Song Thrush, Wren and Crow.

We walked as far as the pond where we spotted just one solitary duck before heading back.

There's going to be plenty of Flag Iris later in the year.

The sun was shining but suddenly it disappeared and it became colder, the birds stopped tweeting.  This was about 10.30 am.  Was this change due to the partial eclipse I heard about on the news? 

By the time we reach the end of the wood where the bluebells grow it was sunny again.  There will be lots of bluebells later this year but I hadn't seen any Wood Anemone or Lesser Celandine as we walked.  The Wood Anemones in our garden are flowering at the moment so it is time for them.

It was time for coffee and we'd parked at Wedgwood so we popped into their shopping area for coffee and cake.

We sliced the two pieces of cake in half so we had a piece of each to share.

The flower displays behind the statue of Josiah Wedgwood were pretty.

Lovely colours

and containers.

All for now.  I hope you are all enjoying the weekend.

Whitby Abbey - Early History

 The Abbey ruin we see now is not the first religious building on this site.  In the 7th and 8th centuries the headland it stands on was known as Streaneshalch and was the site of  an Anglian settlement and Minster church established  in the 5th and 6th centuries by the peoples who had settled on this side of Britain - the Angli or Anglians.

The Minster was founded some time after the battle of Winwaed in 655 when the forces of Oswiu of Northumberland beat the pagan forces of Penda of Mercia. Oswiu married King Edwin's daughter Eanflaed.  Oswiu gave his infant daughter Aelfflaed into the care of Hild the Abbess of Hartlepool.   In 657 Hild founded a new Minster for both men and women at Whitby.  It is assumed that the first settlement and minster was destroyed sometime in the 10th century by Viking raiders who burned and sacked many of the Christian establishments along the North East coast.  The name of Streaneshalch all but disappeared from the records and the Danish name of Whitby appeared.

The foundation of the second monastery at Whitby came in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of 1066.  A second Romanesque church was built in the early 12th century and this in turn was replaced by the Gothic buildings, the remains of which we see today.

Although the weather looks sunny and calm it really wasn't.

The wind up on the headland was so strong and was buffeting us about, it must have been quite bleak living up in the settlement in those early days.  Through the arch you can see St Mary's church.  I'll write about this in a later post.

The building below was the home of the Cholmley family who leased the site of the abbey after the suppression or dissolution of Whitby Abbey in 1539.  At this time Henry Davell was the last abbot of the abbey and at the time it was handed over to King Henry VIII's commissioners there were twenty two members of the community and the estates were worth £437 2s 9d.  Whitby was one of the poorest Benedictine Monasteries in England.

It now houses the museum, gift shop and cafe.

All for now, more to come over the next week or two.

Two Wartime Tales

 Carrying on from my last post where I promised more information on some of the photos I'd taken.

The sculpture above by Ray Lonsdale is on Scarborough's North Bay.  It's called Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers.  It was sited on the North Bay for a four week period but a petition was set up by a local resident, Maureen Robinson, to keep the sculpture in place.  With a short time  to go before the removal of the sculpture she purchased it and gifted it to the town.  It is now cared for by the local council.

Freddie Gilroy (1921-2008) was born in County Durham to a mining family.  He went to work at the local mine but also joined the Territorial Army.  In 1939 at the start of war he was called up to be a gun aimer for the Royal Artillery.  Towards the end of the war he became a Regimental Police Officer.  On the 15th April 1945 he was part of the force sent to Hamburg to liberate Bergen Belsen.  The horrors of what he experienced stayed with him for the rest of his life.  He spent his 24th birthday within the camp and when interviewed by a local newspaper in the 1980s he confessed that he had cried on every birthday since then.

That's Scarborough Castle in the background, shrouded in the morning mist.

In the Canadian Memorial hanger at the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington is the Halifax Bomber called Friday 13th.

We watched a small film in the on site cinema about how it came to be named.  Bomber Command 158 Squadron flew Halifax bombers from nearby RAF Lissett each plane having it's own unique call sign.  By 1944 all Halifax Bombers given the F for Freddy designation had been lost so when the new one arrived it was deemed to be unlucky.  On it's first mission in March 1944 bomber LV907 F broke that run of bad luck.  That night 95 aircraft were lost but LV907 returned.  The Canadian crew decided to call it Friday 13th to 'jinx' it even more, they painted many images of bad luck onto the plane and defiantly embraced the F for Freddy superstition.  LV907 Friday 13th went on to return safely from 128 more missions before the end of the war.  This particular Halifax was held in great affection by its crews and of course they all wanted to fly on missions in this aircraft.

Here is a - link - to more about this plane.

Back Home

We've been away for a few days.  We had to go to Paul's uncle's funeral in Scarborough so we decided to turn it into a short break.  We took too many photos, walked lots of steps and saw some wonderful things.  Below are a few images from our four days away.

The Rotunda Museum

Sculpture of Freddie Gilroy by Ray Lonsdale

Bright beach huts on the North Shore 

Seal at the Seal hospital and sanctuary

Whitby Abbey

At the top of the 199 Steps between the town and abbey headland.

By the Swing bridge one of the nine sculptures of local characters by Emma Stothard.

Above and below

Robin Hood's Bay

High tide at Hornsea

The main street in Hornsea 

Halifax bomber Friday 13th in the Canadian Memorial Hangar at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington.

More detail and stories on all the places in later posts.