As Green as the Grass
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As Green as the Grass

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What a fascinating theme for this week’s photo challenge, the colour green is.

I chose the featured image, showing the flag of the United Kingdom, which I took in Willersey during the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations, as a mark of respect for those who died or were seriously injured as a result of a supposed terrorist attack in Westminster on Wednesday.  My heart goes out to all of them but especially the policeman who was murdered doing his job of controlling access to the Houses of Parliament.  My nephew is a member of the Metropolitan police and knowing what a wonderful person he is, I expect that PC Keith Palmer was equally dedicated to his duty of keeping the public and our members of Parliament safe.  He did not deserve to die like that and his memory will be treasured by everyone who cares about the values of democracy; peace, freedom, human rights, the rule of law.

I’m not really a green person fashionably speaking as I don’t think I suit the colour. I do try to be green ecologically in that I recycle or reuse whatever I can and I try not to waste anything.  I guess I am green emotionally as I am a pushover for a charitable cause if it is anything to do with children, or people in distress through poverty, illness or homelessness.  Physically, I have to admit that most fish dishes can turn me green as can anything with peppers in as I am allergic to them.  This is quite a problem when eating out these days as most salads, and a lot of cooked dishes, seem to have peppers in them cunningly disguised in some cases as tomatoes or cucumber.

But thankfully all the WPC requested this week was a single photo or a gallery of photos reflecting the colour green. This is a joy to me as I live in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and I love taking photos.  I love the green rolling hills of the Cotswolds, the fresh green fields of the sheep folds and cattle farms, the wild greenery of the hedgerows and roadsides, the manicured lawns of the stately homes, and the lush planting in much loved cottage gardens.  They all make wonderful backdrops to any photo. But most of all I love trees.  There really is no manufactured or digitally created frame that can improve on a picture framed by trees in my opinion.

I have included photos that I have taken on various days out or holidays too so they are not all of the Cotswolds, or even the UK!

So here below is a gallery of green for you to enjoy…

Greenery framing lovely buildings…

Green enhancing the view…

Green as a backdrop for animals…

Time to play
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Time to play

 

Toffee aged nearly 7 months

Each week I spend lots of time with my pre-school grandchildren and I love every minute of it.  I have so much fun joining in their fantasy worlds where dinosaurs roar, toy trains hurtle through tunnels, sparkly unicorns upstage colourful ponies, and teddy bear families have picnics under blanket-covered playpens.

There is not a bit of my tiny house that hasn’t been given over to play, and that includes the garage, shed and garden.

I realised this week that although I may be getting close to my second childhood, I am actually reliving the one I missed and wished I had enjoyed.

I was born just after the  second world war in a northern city which had been in dire straits with poverty and unemployment even before the shipyards, mines, factories and chemical works were bombed.  The after effects of the war meant more joblessness, more shortages, and rationing of even  essentials like food.  Toys were a luxury that very few children in my area had, unless they were home made.   Thankfully I had a clever mum who knitted dolls and soft toys, and a wonderful dad who wittled away at wood to make tops and whips and covered them with shiny paper for decoration.

Add to the mix the fact that in the 1940s children tended to be tolerated in the family rather than central to it as they are now.  And, as well as all that, or maybe because it, I was a very sickly child who spent a lot of time in hospital, or a horrendous children’s convalescent home where the idea of play therapy was light-years away.

The result as I remember it, was a rather unhappy childhood, thankfully worlds away from the one that my grandchildren are enjoying.

However, the advantage of my early experience is that I developed a vivid imagination and have a buried need for creative play, which is at last being given free rein.

The trigger for this line of thought is in the photo.  No, not my puppy, but the mouse!  I have been collecting the characters from The Gruffalo story for the grandchildren and the mouse is rather special.  It was created by a local woodcarver from a bit of fallen tree in the Forest of Dean.  There is a marvellous museum there called the Dean Heritage Museum celebrating the mining and forest crafts that used to go on in the area.  One of the attractions is a magnificent Gruffalo trail where each of the characters is carved from wood.   I just had to have the mouse for my garden.  I thought it would enjoy living among my daffodils  for a while.   As I stood atop them I wondered if I could find a home in my garden for a 6 foot Gruffalo?  The grandchildren would love it!

The Gruffalo Trail
The mouse meets the snake
the mouse meets the Gruffalo
Thea checking that he really is asleep
Having fun atop the Gruffalo
Stanley and Thea atop the Gruffalo

Grandma’s house is very small
Just 2 bedrooms off the hall
A tiny kitchen, shiny-floored
A larder where my treats are stored
A shower with a seat inside
Wardrobes where doggy and I can hide
An archway leads into the lounge
Where furniture gets moved around
To make a station for my trains
Or an airport for ‘copters and planes
Sometimes it’s a racetrack for my cars
Or a farmyard with tractors, paddocks and barns
Grandma puts blankets over the table
To make a den, a forest or a stable
In the garden there’s gravel that scrunches when I walk
And a patio where I can draw pictures with chalk
In granddad’s shed there are drawers full of tools,
Boxes of nails, tubes of glue, jars of screws
A little mouse is nesting inside the wood store
While outside live birds, bees, hedgehogs and more
Grandma says her shed is a magical place
It’s furnished and carpeted and curtained with lace
Lavender hangs drying from the painted ceiling
While pine shelves are covered in things that have meaning
Like Icons from Finland, and medals from Lourdes
Calabash from Africa made out of gourds
Matrushkas from Moscow, maracas from Spain
I can’t wait for summer to play there again
Grandma loves it when I come to play
She makes indoor picnics we eat off a tray
She has lots of photos all over her wall
The best one is my mummy when she was small.

 

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snowdrop time

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One of the best things about this time of year in the UK is the abundance of spring flowers that battle their way through the cold wet earth. In my garden the hellebores have been flowering since Christmas, the snowdrops all through February, and the daffodils popped out as March poured in.  This is something of a miracle as I was sure my little puppy had destroyed them all with her frantic digging.  But thankfully they survived her and Storm Doris.

In the park opposite my little bungalow there are banks of snowdrops growing beside a stream, clumps of crocuses among the trees, and a touching display of daffodils that appeared in 2010 spelling out, “Will You Marry Me?”  I walk my dog there every day.

But for a really impressive display I have to go a little further into the Cotswold countryside and take a walk around the Rococo Gardens at Painswick  or Colesbourne Park.

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This year the road taken had to be meticulously planned and carefully executed as my husband came with me to both places. He has been using a wheelchair for the last 18 months due to his medical conditions and the debilitating effects of his treatment.  But over the last two months he has made great progress and started walking indoors with some mobility aids.  He has done so well that I was determined to take him to see the snowdrops.  This would be his first walk in the great outdoors.  It was a bit difficult in some places due to uneven ground or slopes, but together we did it.  Fortunately there were lots of places to rest on the road taken.  It was a lovely afternoon out for us both.

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Leaving my husband to rest on a seat in the Rococo Gardens, I wandered down a gravel path and came across a most unusual sight.  A fairy castle inspired by Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria was carved on top of a fallen birch tree.  According to the label it was created by chainsaw sculptor, Denius Parson.  It really was impressive.

I was joined on my walk, as I often am, by a friendly robin.  I enjoyed the sights as he hopped about bending his head to watch me.  There were banks of snowdrops in every direction, with little clumps of cyclamen and hellebore dotted about, and daffodils just beginning to show.

Enjoy my spring photos from the Rococo Garden.  It was dull and drizzly and the sun was setting by the time we left but the photos show the abundance of snowdrops …

stone sheep

 

 

 

A Good Match
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A Good Match

I was looking through my photos for this week’s photo challenge on the theme of a ‘good match’ when I came across some that I took last summer in Gloucester. I was there to enjoy the spectacular celebrations to commemorate the 800th Anniversary of the coronation of the 9-year-old King Henry 111.

In the Cathedral, there is a stained-glass window depicting the original event, which took place in St Peter’s Abbey on 28th October 1216.  It must have been overwhelming for the young Henry to go through this ceremony just 10 days after his father, King John, had died.

The celebrations started with a splendid procession through the streets led by Knights on horseback. This was followed by a spectacular performance of the anointing, enthronement and crowning of the boy King in what is now the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was decorated beautifully with pungent herbs, grasses and flowers which would have grown locally in medieval times. Walking on the herb-strewn stone floor created a heady aroma from the crushed rosemary and lavender.

A local schoolboy, Fraser Martin, played the part of the boy king. He was very majestic in the role and yet vulnerable looking.  In fact, everyone was dressed so beautifully and took the occasion so seriously, that the atmosphere was literally awe-inspiring and very moving.

There was entertainment in the cloisters after the ceremony and a medieval tournament in the grounds. The very authentic looking ‘Barons’ and ‘Knights’ put on a wonderful show of fighting with medieval weapons.  They really were a good match.

Henry 111 went on to rule for 56 years and 29 days until 1272.

 

 

Toffee the Terror
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Toffee the Terror

Toffee is Trained

Toffee with her rosette for passing her obedience training

If you read my last post you will know that I have a new puppy. She was named Toffee by my grandchildren as her ears are rather toffee coloured on the underside.  Toffee is nearing 6 months old and is still as uncontrolled and crazy as only a puppy can be.

She is supposedly a Pembroke Corgi crossed with a Dachsund but I am convinced there is a bit of Beagle in her.  She will hunt anything and seems to live with her nose permanently pressed to the ground.  She digs up borders,  gravel and pots as if her life depends on it and I can certainly say goodbye to any hope of a daffodil display this spring.

Indoors she seems to have taken a dislike to my soft furnishing style.  She has bitten holes in my towels, pulled threads in my throws, chewed the corners of the cushions, and my rugs are ragged.  My slippers are shredded and my socks all have holes in them.  But somehow she manages to still be appealing.

On the plus side she is clean, preferring to do her toileting under my much loved maple tree.

I have been taking her to ‘obedience’ training classes for the last 6 weeks and against all the odds she passed!

She has a certificate and a rosette to prove it!

I am still amazed that she managed to fool the trainer but I am oddly proud of her.

Toffee passed
What brought me to Adlestrop?
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What brought me to Adlestrop?

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I recently started my second free course with the Open University at futurelearn.com

The first course was “Start Writing Fiction“, which was a hands-on course focused on the central skill of creating characters.   My current course is “Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing.”  The course aims to explore how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with deep emotional strain.

Readers who were used to following my blog weekly will have noticed that I have written nothing since I lost my little Dachsund, Dayna, who was the subject of my last post.  Maybe other pet owners, especially dog owners, will understand the depths of my despair at losing Dayna.

I am blessed to have a husband, adult children (albeit three of them live abroad), supportive friends and adorable grandchildren.  But, although I love them all dearly, after losing Dayna I was inconsolable.   I gradually slipped into a downward spiral of despair and lost interest in going out, seeing friends,  talking to people, cooking or even eating.  All I wanted to do was stay at home and curl up under a blanket wallowing in my misery and solitude.  I felt bereft and ridiculously lonely.  Hence my interest in finding ways to cope with ‘deep emotional strain’.

All of my children are dog lovers and my eldest daughter volunteers at a rescue centre in California.  They recommended that I get another dog – not as a replacement because my precious Dayna is irreplaceable, but as a companion.  So I started to search.   How I found my new dog is a long story which I will save for another day but suffice it to say she is NOT Dayna

My new puppy was 10 weeks old when I got her, and supposedly a Corgi crossed with a Dachsund.  However everyone including the local vet is convinced she is a Beagle cross.  I personally think there is a bit of shark in her too.  She is very cute and slightly crazy most of the time but totally adorable of course.  My grandson, Stanley, christened her Toffee and instantly fell in love with her.  Well who wouldn’t?

Anyway, I started the course and I am finding it very  stimulating.  It is brilliantly put together with input from poets, authors, doctors, psychiatrists and research scientists, as well as the wonderful actor Sir Ian McKellen, and the amazing Stephen Fry who defies categorisation!

There are countless opportunities for online discussion with other course participants and it was a discussion about the poet Edward Thomas that led me to drive to Adlestrop today.

Edward Thomas was primarily a nature poet and he wrote his famous poem Adlestrop when the train he was travelling on stopped there unexpectedly on 24 June 1914, just before the outbreak of WW!.  Instead of getting irritated, he used all of his senses to take in his surroundings and wallow in the details.

Edward Thomas joined the Artist’s Rifles in 1915 and sadly was killed in action in France in 1917.  Interestingly, his widow, Helen Thomas wrote two books after his death reportedly to help her recover from her deep depression.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas 1878 – 1917
Of course Adlestrop Station is no more although the railway line still passes through nearby fields.  Today the fields and the railway line were underwater, flooded after the week of heavy rain we have had in Gloucestershire.  But there is a wonderful bus shelter at the entrance to the village where the old station bench and sign is preserved and a brass copy of the poem displayed.
I went there today as I live just 20 miles away.  It was a cold, cloudy day, and the rain was drizzling down.  But the journey was worth it.  There were swathes of snowdrops by the roadside and in the churchyard.  There is a Yew tree shaped like a cross by the gate to the church.  The writer, Jane Austen was known to worship here when she visited her uncle, the Reverend Thomas Leigh.   There is a beautiful Cotswold stone manor house and a thatched village shop housing the ‘new’ post office. There were young riders in red jackets exercising the racehorses from the beautiful Adlestrop stables.
Here are the photos from Adlestrop
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Dayna

 

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I’m posting a photo of my much-loved dog Dayna today sitting in our porch.  This is where I like to sit and write, colour or do puzzles in my very rare free moments.  I am proud to say that until Sunday 16th October, wherever I was you would find Dayna very close by.  In the porch, her favourite spot was the windowsill.  She would sit there guarding me from the world and watching the people go by.  Being south facing our porch is warm and cosy and a great suntrap.  Dayna’s beautiful silver dapple coat of fur would shine in the sunlight as she sat, so proud of herself in her little domain.

Just four momentous years ago I wrote about the little Dachsund, Dayna, that I rehomed.  She settled in quite well after a few minor hiccups!  As soon as I picked her up from her previous home, I popped into the Pets at Home Store.  There I rashly bought 3 very large bags of a good quality dog food, one chicken, one beef and one vegetable variety, which she flatly refused to eat.  I also bought a canvas cage for her to sleep in ~ which she absolutely refused to get into.  I bought a lovely red extending lead to match her very sparkly red collar, which she chewed through during her first walk.

Feeling desperate I appealed to my wonderful dog-loving daughter in Vermont who sent me 3 books packed full of guidance on training your dog:

How to Raise the Perfect Dog by Cesar Millan

How to be your dogs Best Friend by The Monks of New Skete

Dog Stories ~ Everyman Pocket Classics.

I found these books insightful and very helpful, but obviously Dayna has previously read one called How to Get your Owner to Do Whatever You Want, so she wins hands down.  One week and three leads later we got the measure of each other and Dayna had got me trained.

Dayna would eat fresh meat or fish, any kind of cheese, pouches of lamb and rice with vegetables, or tins of expensive dog food.  On no account would she eat dry food however expensive ~ 3 large bags of which were donated to the local animal rescue centre.

Dayna would walk for miles very happily with a short chain metal lead.  She had no interest in being on a long extension, preferring to be within a couple of inches of my feet, preferably between them so I am in danger of tripping.

Dayna had no intention of ever sleeping in a cage, however softly padded or comfortably den-like whatever the Monks of New Skete say!  She prefers to sleep within licking distance of my foot in a soft bed with a fluffy cushion.

We had some great days out. In Pershore for the Plum Festival we sat outside a cafe in the sun where every passer-by fell in love with her.  At the seaside she gloried in the freedom of the beach.  In Wick at the Confetti Fields, she climbed on a trailer and surveyed the scene.  She had such a big personality for such a small dog.

When my two adorable grandchildren came on the scene she was gentleness personified.  As babies they soon realised she was a real-live fluffy toy who loved to play with them.  As Thea grew into a toddler she would dress Dayna up in hats and cover her in jewellery.  Stanley would include her in all his games too. For him she was a dinosaur or an obstacle in the way of his bike or on his train track.

How could something so small have so much control?  I don’t know but she was everything I could want from a dog:

Loyalty, trust, companionship, healthy walks, fun, and bucket-loads of love.  She was worth her weight in gold.

Then on Sunday, the anniversary of my mum’s death, Dayna was tragically killed on a busy road near our home.  She was being taken for a walk on a new lead which somehow came loose as she excitedly pulled to cross the road in a hurry to get back to where she was happiest ~ in our little bungalow, with her little pack ~ her domain, her world.

My heart is broken by her loss.  She is irreplaceable.  But her memory will shine on in our hearts forever.

 

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Burford Wildlife Park

 

We are truly spoilt for choice in our local area for interesting places to go.  I am so lucky to have grandchildren who I can use as an excuse for going to all the farm parks, forests, steam railways and adventure playgrounds.

There certainly wasn’t anything like that where I grew up in the North of England.  My playground was the shipyards on the River Tyne, abandoned coal mines, or the sand dunes and castle ruins on the North Sea Coast.

The child in me can never get enough of our local Wildlife Park at Burford.  It is so well run and the animals are the first priority.  It is such a joy to see the beautifully maintained grounds and healthy happy animals living as naturally as it is possible and safe for them to be.  I have a season ticket there and go as often as I can with the grandchildren.

 

 

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Cotswold Water Features

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Autumn is one of my favourite times to go out and about in the Cotswolds.  When the children are back at school and most of the tourists have gone home, the villages and parks are reasonably quiet.  It is a pleasure then to stroll around them and enjoy the peace and quiet and natural beauty.

I live in a Spa town which was founded on the health giving properties of the natural spring water so water is a common feature around here.  Indeed just off the old Roman Road to Cirencester is an area called Seven Springs.

One of the most unusual Springs is  where the water gushes out of a stone crocodile head. I love the fact that a respected cotswold stone builder from the nearby village of Hazleton built this feature in the 19th Century.  Presumably some local landowner paid for it.  The spring water has been gushing out of the crocodile’s mouth ever since.  Some days, like yesterday, after lots of heavy rain, it is a truly spectacular sight.

Many Cotswold villages have delightful streams or rivers running through them and none is more beautiful than Bourton on the Water.  This delightful town is a favourite of mine when the sun is setting and the only activity is the ducks settling down for the night.

 

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Happy Times Past

Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time. — Goethe

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The prompt in the Weekly Photo Challenge this week is the word ‘Nostalgia’ and my friends and I are certainly feeling nostalgic today.  We had some truly upsetting news about our old school. The huge tile frieze that we created in 1999 to mark the new millennium, was destroyed in a fire.

It is hard to imagine today just what a big deal it was being on the threshold of a new millennium.  There were all sorts of apocalyptic warnings about power failures, planes falling out of the sky, computer systems not being able to cope etc. No-one really knew what would happen at midnight on 31st December 1999 or what the new millennium would mean for civilisation.  So, as St Thomas More School was such a huge part of my life, I wanted to mark the occasion with something very special and permanent.

In the early 1970’s I watched the new school building rise in the middle of an open field that had once been farmland and an orchard. There was an ancient hedgerow all around the site and just one magnificent old oak tree in what would be the playing field. When it was opened in 1975, I was having my third child so was not available for teaching. But, as I drove past the school every day, I vowed that one day I would work there.

I got my wish in 1984 when my youngest child was ready to start school. I was offered a job and jumped at the chance. The next decade was a time of great blessing as I worked in virtually every class, teaching all age groups, then became deputy Head.

In 1994 the original Headteacher was due to retire and, to my surprise, I was offered his job. He had been such an inspirational Head that the school was a joy to work in. Taking on his role, I tried to emulate him while making my own mark and bringing my own vision for the school into being.

Due mainly to the quality of the staff and their outstanding teamwork, the school became a strong and successful community, ‘an oasis of excellence’, appreciated by staff, pupils and parents alike.

In 1999, as the new millennium approached, the staff wanted to mark the year 2000 with a special feature. We wanted the whole school community to be involved in creating something totally unique and meaningful. We came up with the idea of making a large tile frieze. Each year group was asked to brainstorm their favourite lessons, subjects, or topics, and represent their ideas on paper.

Reception class, the youngest children were just 4 or 5 years old and had only just started school. They had their photographs taken in their shiny new uniforms, so that was their contribution.

The Year 1 class had helped to build a pond and were raising ducklings which they had hatched from eggs in an incubator, so they drew pictures of that. I have a wonderful memory of the day the ducklings hatched out ~ the local policeman had called up to the school on a social visit and he watched as the first duckling struggled to crack open the shell. When it finally succeeded and out popped this beautiful and perfect little bundle of yellow feathers, he was overwhelmed by emotion and had tears in his eyes.

In Year 2 the 7 year olds made their first Holy Communion as it was a Catholic school so they drew a chalice and host. Being the most significant event in the year ~ yes honestly, not SATs! That was their contribution.

Year 3 was the first year of juniors and the children enjoyed learning about Vikings and the Human Body, so they drew lovely longboats and skeletons.

In Year 4 things got much more subject focused so Maths was represented by a calculator and mathematical symbols.

In Year 5, Creative Arts such as Music, Dance, Drama and painting were the main features, so a pot of paint and a brush was drawn. Science too was represented by the planets.

By Year 6 the children were getting ready to move on to secondary school. In order to give them a taste of independence and adventure, it was our tradition to take the class away to Shropshire for a week to stay in a Youth Hostel. Here, in the Ironbridge Gorge, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, we had a wonderful time. We visited the Iron Museum, The Jackfield Tile Museum, Blist’s Hill Reconstructed Village, River Severn Museum and of course the first Iron Bridge ever built. We also had amazing night hikes, midnight feasts and parties. Altogether it was an incredible opportunity for fun and learning. So naturally the Ironbridge at Coalbrookdale was the emblem of Year 6.  Yes, again it wasn’t SATs that featured large in their lives.  How times changed!

For our frieze the staff gathered all these pictures and images together and chose the ones that would be painted on to the tiles. The Year 5 teacher, Anne Bate Williams, a wonderfully creative artist and teacher, took on the challenge of putting all the ideas together and creating a design on tracing paper which could be transferred onto numbered ‘green’ tiles. It was agreed that we would go to Jackfield Tile Museum to create the finished work.

A representative group of staff, parents and children spent a weekend at the Youth Hostel and were each given a small area of the tile frieze to paint. Anne had done a magnificent job scaling all the children’s artwork up or down so that the frieze would truly reflect the life of our school.

It was agreed that the year 2000 would go at the top, as well as the 4 trees, oak, ash, poplar and beech, which were the school emblem.  In the top corners would be tiles depicting the Ironbridge itself.  The children’s artwork would go around the edge, and at the centre would be the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove surrounded by flames.

We painted the tiles in coloured glaze.  I will never forget the atmosphere in that studio at Jackfield as we worked on the frieze.  There was a stillness and peace in the room which was truly sacramental.  While we worked, the Spirit moved in that place and heaven happened.

When we finished, the tiles were left at the Jackfield tile Museum to be fired.  A couple of weeks later they were collected and set into a frame made by Tony O’Shea, the reception class teacher’s husband.

Bishop Mervyn Alexander of Clifton RIP came in the year 2000 to celebrate the school’s 25th anniversary and he blessed the tile frieze.

Although most of the staff who worked at the school have retired or moved on now, the frieze stayed proudly in the school hall for the last 16 years and with it, a little piece of all of us who made it.  And now it is no more.

Nostalgia  in my dictionary is defined as ‘a feeling of sadness mixed with pleasure and affection when you think of happy times in the past.’  I think this sums up our feelings today perfectly.

So here I go down Memory Lane…

1984 I think, my class with great environmentalist David Bellamy
Some colleagues at a recent reunion
whole school photo from 1996
Bishop Mervyn, RIP, blessing our frieze
Year 5 December 1987
Working on the tile frieze
Anne Bate Williams getting us organised
Keith Ross adding some touches to the tile frieze
Year 6 by the River Severn at Wainlodes 1996
Year 1 by the duck pond with recently hatched ducklings
Partners
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Partners

I just have to post photos of my grandchildren to illustrate this week’s photo challenge.  The theme is Partners and these two are definitely partners when it comes to getting up to mischief.  But they adore each other!

Following on from the surprising result of our referendum on membership of the European Union this week, I feel sad that our partnership with the other European countries is coming to an end.  So many people gave so much to bring peace and partnership to Europe during the wars, not least the combined services of army, airforce and navy.  In their honour I am posting some photos I took on Remembrance Day at Westminster Abbey in London.

Airforce Wreath
Navy Wreath
Armed Forces WReath
Wall painting on side of Gloucesters’ Museum in Gloucester

I can’t resist putting in some of my favourite photos.  Of course my little Dachsund, Dayna, is a wonderful companion for me, but her hero is my husband.  When he is at the hospital for dialysis she often sits beside (or on) his slippers waiting for his return. The pair of ponies share a field near me so I guess they qualify as partners.  And of course the garden birds are my constant delight and we have a partnership.  I feed them regularly and they reward me by coming into my garden and sometimes even into the house like this little one!

Dayna the Dachsund
Missing her hero
A partnership of ponies
Rescue

And last but not least, partners for life ….literally!

My mum and Dad lived in parallel streets as children and went to the same school.  They were friends from the age of 8 and eventually married in 1945.  They were inseparable until my father died in 1993 and she followed him some years later.

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My mum and Dad on their wedding day in 1945

 

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Curve

This week I am just posting some photos that I love for WPC on the theme of curve

The first batch are from Stratford on Avon taken this April at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage and along the curve of the River Avon looking towardfs Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and Anne are buried.

Next are some exquisite photos of Calla Lilies taken by a friend, Anne Bate-Wiliams, in her garden.  The curves are delicate and totally unmatched in the manufactured world for beauty I feel.

 

Lastly, some beautiful curves both natural and man-made that I spotted in Dorset.  The Ammonite-like decorative lampposts are in Lyme Regis and reflect the fact that many fossils are found on the Jurassic Coast.

The other photos are from Abbotsbury and Bennets Water garden

http://abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/gardens/http://www.bennettswatergardens.com/

 

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As Pure as Driven Snow

Shakespeare used snow as a symbol of purity many times in his plays.  Hamlet says to Ophelia,

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow

my summerhouse

This week I have chosen a photo I took some years ago in my garden.  There is nothing so pure as a fresh fall of snow, and when it surrounds my sanctuary it is perfect.  This is a place where I found pure peace, in which to rest, reflect and recuperate.  You can find the story behind it, and more photos here… http://wp.me/p2gGsd-eV

Musicians,  poets and artists have often taken inspiration from snow.  To commemorate the centenary of WW1 there was an original play titled Will Harvey’s War performed at our local theatre.  I was lucky enough to play a singing farm-worker in that play.  We sang some beautiful songs reminiscent of the times. One of them was “Oh Snow”, with music by Edward Elgar and words by his wife, Alice Elgar.  It was exquisite to sing.   The music is absolutely beautiful and, with complex harmonies (I sang the Alto part) arranged by Caroline Edwards, our rendition was very moving.  The purity of the music perfectly captures a fall of fresh snow drifting and whirling in the wind.

O snow, which sinks so light,

Brown earth is hid from sight,

O soul, be thou as white

Be thou as white as snow

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Then as the snow all pure,

O heart be, but endure

Through all the years full sure

Not as the snow, not as the snow.

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Royal Numbers

P1000988

On 11th June 2016 our Queen will celebrate her official 90th Birthday and her husband, Prince Philip will be 95!  These are wonderful ages to reach and definitely worth celebrating.

London is already awash with flags and the celebrations start tomorrow.  Nobody covers royal events as well as the Daily Mail so do click to see the fabulous images of London bedecked.

I’m sure there are street parties planned for cities, towns and villages throughout the UK and beyond.  On my travels through the Cotswolds I have seen lots of bunting in the streets and flags flying from shops churches, public buildings of every sort, as well as private homes and gardens.

I went to Willersey yesterday which is a gorgeous little village.  It is quintessentially Cotswolds with its duck pond, village pubs, honey coloured stone houses, and beautiful cottage gardens.  It also has a village shop which has got to have the most helpful owner in the world.  My sister in law was desperate to buy some bread to take back to her caravan for tea so she popped into the only shop in the village.  Sadly, they had sold out of bread but the owner said,

 “wait a minute I’ve just used 2 slices out of my loaf, you can have the rest of that”

He then ran upstairs to his flat above the shop and returned with the remainder of his lovely crusty seed-topped brown bread!  Can you imagine getting that level of care and service in a city or town supermarket?

Willersey was like a model village perfectly dressed for a royal themed party.  There was bunting all over the pubs, and flags flying high in the summer breeze.  Several owners had really gone overboard with the decorations in their gardens as you can see from my photos below.  One in particular had a garden table and benches covered in union flags with more flags and bunting in the trees as well as a huge flag on a flagpole.  It looked beautiful against the poppies and colourful flowers in the border.

Willersey is holding a really royal party all afternoon and evening on Saturday 11th.  I do hope the weather stays fine for them.  There will be royal themed fancy dress and hats, races to the next village, themed picnics, and lots of musical entertainment.  There will also be a royal pageant and a whole village photo for the archives.  The day’s events will be rounded off by a Toast to the Queen and everyone writing a message in a giant card for Her Majesty.

It should be lots of fun.

The Queen and her grandchildren
Stepping out
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Stepping out

The Cotswold countryside, parks and gardens are a almost swamped by luscious green foliage this year.  The early spring and wet May seem to have benefited the trees and lawns.  It is a joy to walk amongst them.

There are lambs, foals, baby rabbits and ducklings to be seen all around and my garden birds are working overtime to feed their young.  They beaver away all day long in choreographed movements almost like a dance.

I went to a local park with my little granddaughter at the weekend and she was delighted to see six cygnets that have hatched out recently.  The swans nest on an island in the lake but they come over to the grass to feed and walk their little ones.  It is amazing and heart-warming to see how many adults and children turn up in their spare time to see and photograph the new arrivals.

Swans are very protective parents so it is best not to get too close!  As Shakespeare says…

So doth the swan her downy cygnet save,

Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.

Eggs laid at Abbotsbury Swannery
Mother protecting her eggs
Swans mate for life and are very protective parents
Eloquent Barcelona
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Eloquent Barcelona

Anna in Barcelona

I’m feeling very jubilant today as my middle daughter, Anna, has started her own business in the wonderful arty quarter of Gracia in Barcelona, Eloquent Barcelona  Anna has lived and worked in Barcelona for many years, having travelled the world as a dancer and fallen in love with the Mediterranean climate.

Spain, like everywhere in the world these days, is a hard place to build a successful business.  It would give Anna so much encouragement if all my blog’s followers logged onto her website and sent her good wishes and positive vibes.  And, if you are on Facebook, could you like and share her Eloquent page please.  This would give her just the boost she needs.

I know I am her mother, BUT, she really is a multi – lingual, very talented, highly skilled and experienced, hard-working and beautiful young lady.  Not only does she provide English language lessons and tutoring for adults & teenagers (age 16-19) in Spain, but she also offers bespoke language services for businesses, including translations, editing and copywriting. She is also able to provide language & logistical support for International businesses setting up or working in Barcelona.

Anna local in Gracia Eloquent Barcelona

 Thank you

 

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A Tribute

W L Langsbury Printers front

It is quite normal these days to see small shops close down in High Streets up and down the land.  And, after a few weeks or maybe months, the passing shoppers don’t even notice they have gone or forget what was there before.  But just occasionally, a shop is so well loved by its regular customers that its closure is a genuine shock.

This was the case for me recently when I popped to W L Langsbury, the local printers in Suffolk Road.

I arrived to find a simple notice on the door saying, ‘closed due to bereavement’.  My heart missed a beat on reading this.  I hoped that it was not the lovely old printer who was known to me, and all of his regular customers, as Bill Langsbury and to his family as Lionel.

I used to pop in to Bill if I wanted anything special printed for school in my teaching days, before we had computers and photocopiers in the school office.  Then after retirement, when I became the secretary of our WI.  Many of our older members did not have email but they all needed monthly minutes and agendas as well as occasional newsletters.  I produced a master copy on my computer and then Bill printed out enough for everyone.  He did the job to perfection ~ quickly, efficiently and cheaply.  He took great delight in telling me that there is no VAT on newsletters.

It was always a joy to step inside the door of his shop.  The smell of metal, ink, wood and paper is a heady mixture, like a steam train in a timber yard.  It was for all the world like the living museums at Blist’s Hill or Beamish and yet the jobs got done if not immediately, always by the end of the day!  The machinery looked ancient, in fact one of the printing presses was a 1938 Heidelberg and it still worked perfectly.  On the walls there were pictures of Cheltenham in days gone by and posters from the 1940’s warning that ‘careless talk costs lives’! Almost every inch of wall and floor space in the front shop was used to store boxes of paper of all sizes and colours.  There was also a wonderful selection of notepads which Bill made himself from the paper offcuts.  These he sold for pennies and they were great for shopping lists or jotters.  Some were so old they still had the price in pre-decimal currency.

In the back room of the shop where the serious work was done there was a treasure trove of vintage wooden shelves and drawers full of cast metal numbers and lettering of different sizes and fonts.

High up on the walls was the ‘filing system’, which I am sure only Bill or his brother and workmate Ken could understand.  Beyond, there was a narrow hallway with a staircase leading to where Bill lived, above the shop.

I suppose I find all this a delight because my grandad had a general store in the 1950s after he left the army.  He and my grandma lived above the shop and I loved staying there.

But of course the shop would be nothing without the character of the printer himself.  I was full of admiration for him and the life he had lived over 83 years.  It is the living history that fascinates me.

Bill was born in Shepherd’s Bush, London, in December 1932 when King George V was on the throne. He moved to Ealing with his parents where his brother Ken was born in 1938.  There they lived through the short reign of King Edward V111 who abdicated in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcee.    He was a young lad of 7 when the bombs started dropping on London during the Blitz of WW2 in the reign of King George V1.  When a neighbouring house was destroyed by the bombs his parents, Harry and Queenie Langsbury moved the family to Cheltenham for safety.

After a brief stay with in-laws they lived in a cottage behind the King’s Head Pub in the Lower High Street where Queenie worked.  The boys went to church 3 times on a Sundays and went to local schools.  Bill was a keen student and talented artist enjoying cartoon drawing.  So he went on to the art college which is where he learned his printing skills.  By this time our Queen Elizabeth 11 was on the throne.

Leaving college he got a printing job in a pharmaceutical company but he had an entrepreneurial streak.  He managed to save his money, and, with the help of his brother’s paper round money, he bought his own second hand printing press by the time he was 16 and set up business in the family home.

Bill did his National Service in the catering corps with the RAF in the early 1950’s and returned to Cheltenham where his mum had bought the terraced house in what was Andover Road and is now Suffolk Road.

At first Bill, aged just 24, was printing in the front room while the family lived in the rest.  However, Bill got so many orders that he took over the back room too and the family were relegated to upstairs.

Bill’s brother Ken married and moved on to have his own family.  Bill, staying single, lived with his mum until she died aged 93.

Eventually Bill had so much work that his brother Ken came to work with him.  It is wonderful to think that these two brothers got on so well that they worked together for over 40 years.  But you couldn’t not get on with Bill.  He was an eccentric, sweet, kind gentleman.  He loved his work, his shop and his machinery.  He lived a simple life with few mod cons and no visible luxuries, but he was always cheerful.  Printing was his passion.

In 2016 W L Langsbury Printer’s celebrates 60 years in business.  To commemorate this Bill produced a special edition of his letterpress Gloucester bold calendar, containing a selection of proverbs from a collection first published in 1640.

Bill worked a normal day in his printer’s shop on 14th January 2016.  He had a problem with his leg but didn’t bother anyone about it.  This was typical, as according to his brother, Bill had not visited a doctor between 1948 and 2015 and he only went in 1948 because the National Health Service had just started and his father took the boys for a free health check!  He ran a bath and sitting on the edge his kind heart finally and peacefully took its rest.  His brother found him there next morning.

The shop is now closed and the fittings will no doubt go to letterpress collectors or to auction.  I feel sad that this delightful, Dickensian shop with its vintage machinery, which is a feast for the senses, will be open no more.

But mostly I feel sad that Cheltenham has lost a truly irreplaceable character.  I, and many other customers I’m sure will miss him greatly.

1938 Heidelberg Printing Press
Printing Press
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Once More Unto the Breach

Still in full Shakespeare mode after joining in the weekend’s events at Stratford on Avon commemorating the 400th anniversary of his death, I went to watch a brilliant version of Henry V last night.  This was performed by a young theatre group called Anticdispositions

England’s idealistic army marches to war, certain of a swift and glorious victory. France proudly rallies to defend her borders from invasion. But as nations clash, it is the common soldiers who pay the ultimate price in the bloody mud of the battlefield.

Marking both the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and the ongoing centenary of the First World War, Antic Disposition’s critically acclaimed production of Henry V returns for a season of special performances in nine stunning locations around the country.

We are still marking the First World War in Europe and this production managed to weave the horrors of that battle and the momentous events of the Battle of Agincourt together seamlessly.  It was very powerful and moving.  I honestly don’t know how they managed to pull it off with so few actors and in such a small space, but they excelled themselves.

The cast and dialogue was a mixture of French and English which was unusual but very effective.  The audience had to concentrate but the acting and pace was so good that no-one seemed to breathe or move for the whole performance.  The rendition of the famous battle speech was breathtaking.  You can watch and listen to a famous film clip of Henry’s great battle speech here :

The setting for the performance helped too.  It was performed in the Quire of the magnificent Gloucester Cathedral.  The audience was seated in the choir stalls, which were not very comfortable and it was as cold as only a vast and empty cathedral can be.  But the backdrop of the huge stained glass East Window was enough to take my mind off the discomfort.  One of the clergy who attended reminded us that the Cathedral had been in existence for almost 300 years before the Henry V came to the throne.  It was founded in 1022 as a Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St Peter.  The Abbey was dissolved in 1540 by Henry V111 and became Gloucester Cathedral the following year.  She also reminded us that the East Window had actually been in place for over 60 years before the Battle of Agincourt occurred in 1415.  A sobering thought.

By the end of the play I was again in awe of Shakespeare’s genius and overwhelmed by the architecture and history around me.  I was moved and saddened by the futility and almost inevitability of war, and the horrors it inflicts on ordinary people. I was reminded of what a difference great leadership can make to any undertaking, and uplifted by the admirable courage shown by ordinary people in desperate situations.

At Agincourt Henry V had around 6,000 English and Welshmen of whom over 5,000 were archers. They were sick with dysentery, soaked, muddy and exhausted from marching in torrential rain.  The French meanwhile vastly outnumbered them with at least 30,000, many of whom were knights and princes.  They were fresh, rested and well fed.  It is unimaginable odds.  Yet by the evening on that St Crispin’s Day, the small English army were victorious and had entered legend.

You can click to read a good article in The Telegraph newspaper about the Battle of Agincourt and why we should remember it.

We weren’t allowed to take photos during the performance so I have copied the publicity photos from the AnticDispositions website.  Hope this is ok!