Five on Friday

Joining in this week with  Amy at Love Made my Home and Five on Friday.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to find others who are joining in too.

The world has gone yellow again.  We drove over to Castleton yesterday and the roadsides were yellow with dandelions and so were many fields.  So I thought I'd share five photos of lovely seasonal and yellow plants and flowers that we've seen whilst we've been out and about this week.

1. Tulips and primroses

2.  Meadows and verges full of dandelions

3.  Marsh Marigolds or Kingcups

4. Gorse

5. Cowslips

I have a busy day ahead today so I'll pop by and visit your Five on Friday posts later on.

Have a lovely weekend

Pink

I love these blossom trees

The sheer blowsy magic of them

After the last few dark and uncertain days

They were bright, cheerful and full of hope

I'm sure that underneath they felt warmer too

Beneath their overloaded boughs it felt safe and secure 

I felt detached from the  myriad of unsettling thoughts in my mind

The sun was gently peering through the pink blooms

Making me feel glad to be alive - easing, for just a short while, the helplessness and concern I've felt for what the future might hold.

No matter what happens we will still have beauty in the world to ease our cares and enrich our minds.

Five on Friday

Joining in this week with  Amy at Love Made my Home and Five on Friday.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to find others who are joining in too.

Five more things from our visit to Lincoln, this time from the cathedral.  Just little snippets of interesting things to find there.

This was the view of the Cathedral from the Castle walls - it looked stunning and I love all the 'higgledy piggledy' roof tops in between.  After we'd been to the castle we visited the cathedral. Below are five things in the Cathedral that it is always interesting to look out for - well for me anyway!

1.  The Lincoln Imp - I always enjoy seeking out the Lincoln Imp, I always think I know where he is but it still takes ages to spot him, he is a mischievous creature and takes great delight in avoiding your eyes.  Here is a - link - to the legend of the imp

2.  The Investigator 
In the seaman's chapel is a model of Matthew Flinders's ship The Investigator in which he sailed in the 1790s to circumnavigate Australia.  It stands under a stained glass window which depicts the Australian/Lincolnshire connection.  In this window you can see Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who sailed with Captain Cook and George Bass (after whom the Bass Straites were named) who sailed as ship's surgeon with Matthew Flinders.  Also in the window is Matthew Flinders seen anchoring The Investigator at Port Lincoln.  The Museum I worked at in Spalding had, at the time I worked there, a small gallery on the history of Matthew Flinders and I was able, as part of the research we did, to visit the archives and read some of his letters home from his voyages to his parents and to his fiance Ann Chappelle.  They were wonderful, poignant letters written sometimes as if he thought he wouldn't return for in those days travelling such long distances to unknown lands was a dangerous occupation.  George Bass disappeared on one such voyage and according to legend his mother would sit on the balcony of her home on Lindum Hill in the city of Lincoln looking out for his return.

3.  Carvings of King Edward I and his Queen, Eleanor of Castille.  There is a great tale of romance in the story of Edward and Eleanor.  After Queen Eleanor's death in 1290 near Lincoln Edward had twelve crosses built to mark each resting place of her coffin during the lavish funeral procession as it made its way to London.  Her visceral remains are buried in Lincoln Cathedral, her heart at Blackfriars' Church in London and her body in Westminster Abbey. 

4. The Dean's Eye Window

  It dates from the time of a previous restoration and re-building in the time of Hugh of Avalon 1192 -1235.  Called a rose window but also known as a wheel window because its tracery is reminiscent of the spokes of a wheel.

 

5.  Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster. 
The cathedral is the burial place of Katherine Swynford, who died in Lincoln in 1403, mistress then wife of John O'Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.  I remember reading about her in Anya Seaton's book, simply called Katherine, when I was a teenager and being fascinated with her.  Her children with John of Gaunt were the Beauforts, her great grand daughter Margaret was the mother of Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) and her sister Phillipa was married to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.  Here is a - link - to more about Katherine Swynford.  I've shown a general picture of the interior of the cathedral as the tomb itself was in an area where some school children were having a lesson and I didn't like to take photos nearby.

I will be writing a post about our visit to Lincoln Castle early next week.

An Early Morning Walk

We woke up to sunshine this morning and the breakfast time local weather presenter said that it would be sunny from 'the get go' so we thought we had better get going and set out for a walk.

We didn't go far just into the local woods at Hem Heath.

The sun was teasing us by popping in and out but when it did appear the light on the bright acid green leaves was so pretty.

We walked further into the wood listening to the mellifluous song of blackbirds and robins, to the gentle cooing of pigeons and the hollow 'tip tap' of woodpeckers, high in the trees.

Further and further under the green canopy of trees until we found what we were looking for

A blue haze started to appear amongst the trees - stretching way back, as far as the eye could see

Of course, May is the month of bluebells and they were here already, waiting for us to find them

There are many more to come and these woods are going to look and smell wonderful in another week. I think we were just a few days early in our search.

What a lovely month May is.

Five on Friday

Joining in this week with  Amy at Love Made my Home and Five on Friday.  Click on the link at the bottom of this post to find others who are joining in too.

We recently visited Lincoln to see the Castle and Cathedral but we also visited the Museum of Lincolnshire Life, all places we were familiar with from when we lived in Lincolnshire but we hadn't been to any of them for quite a while and certainly not to the Castle since the updating and refurbishment.  I will write a post later about the main parts of our visit but I thought for Five on Friday I would show you five of the room settings in the Museum.

 1. Bedroom

 2. Kitchen

 3. Parlour

 4. Post Office

 5.Co-op

All these photos were taken with my little camera, which is always in my bag but rarely used, so apologies about the quality.  I'd used up all my battery charge in my big camera at the Castle and Cathedral and left the spares in the car.

 I'll pop along to visit your Five on Friday posts later today. Have a happy weekend everyone,

Photo Scavenger Hunt - April

April seems to have passed by in the blink of an eye and it's time to join in again with the Photo Scavenger Hunt kindly organised by greenthumb at Made with Love  just click on the link for other participants.

Upside Down

Living, as I do now, in Stoke-on-Trent, I've learnt that where ever you are in the world if you see someone, perhaps in a cafe or restaurant, turning crockery upside down then they are probably from Stoke-on-Trent and checking the origins of the plates or cups they are using.  There is even a club you can join which used to be called 'The turn-over club' now known as the 'Backstamp club'. I was looking through the cupboards recently and came across this tea pot which was the first teapot my mum had as a new bride in 1938, I think bought by my father.  It has the name Sudlow's on it made in one of the six towns of the Potteries, the mother town, Burslem.  Although it is now further south in the city, having travelled through Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire over the years, it has sort of come home.  Apparently Sudlow's operated from the Adelaide Pottery Works from 1886 to 1965.

Clouds

Clouds over Rufford Country Park for the Grand Historical and Vintage Bazaar

Chair

Carved in wood outside the church of The Holy Cross at Ilam, Staffordshire

Something Sweet

On the sweet stall at the Rufford Country Park Grand Historical and Vintage Bazaar

Growth

 Twisted unfurling leaves of plants in one of the ponds at Wolesley Nature Reserve, Staffordshire

Glass

Stained glass inside the church of The Holy Cross at Ilam, Staffordshire

Bedroom

Inside one of the garden houses at Trentham Garden Centre there was a little balcony with a bed.

Rain

There hasn't been a lot of rain this month, April seems to have been quite dry and what rain we have had has been through the night or quick downpours when I haven't had a camera handy.  We have been making our own rain though and watering all the plants in the evening.

Egg

A lone painted egg left in a tree at Trentham gardens after the Easter Egg hunt - it was still there last week.

Fresh

From the garden - rhubarb for a crumble and mint to go with new potatoes

Feet

The large feet of a Muscovy Duck

Whatever you want 

A photo given to me by a distant cousin I never knew existed until we met for the first time in Leek last week.  His father was my father's cousin, they were also best friends.  Here they both are in the photo above, my father, Harry Lawrence, centre back and next to him, on his left,  his cousin and friend Tom Edwards.  Taken in the mid 1920s - you may wonder how I come to have a father who was born in 1909 but I was a late child for him born when he was nearly 41 - he died when I was five years old so I have very few memories of him - it was lovely to have this photo of him looking young and healthy.