Eccentric Amblings and Ramblings From Gnat Bottomed Towers

Blessings to all those who celebrate the old ways. Hallows Eve by Show of Hands. Arilx

What amazing weather we've enjoyed this October. I'd hoped that it might last out to the end of the month so there would be a fighting chance that the Autumn leaves at Winkworth Arboretum would still be hanging on. I am happy to report that they were amazing. However, it was the original seating arrangements that really caught my eye. Some had bodies sitting on them [not unreasonably], but I took a few snaps of those that were personless. It's fab when something so mundane and everyday is transformed so imaginatively. Arilx

Joining in again with this month's scavenger hunt organised by Hawthorn Spellweaver from  http://livelovecraftme.blogspot.co.uk/   Every month she kindly puts up a list of words for us to interpret with our own photos. If you link back to her blog you can see the other entries. 1. 'A' is for aardvark. A shop sign in Chester which appealed to me greatly. The colours remind me of Elmer the Elephant. 2. Lunch. This is the lid of my son's old lunch bag from when he was a really small person. I keep bird food in it now, but seeing my elephant sketch reminded me that this was drawn as a reminder that if he kept only eating his crisps and not his fruit the elephant would tell me and there would be no crisps the next day. He only tried it on once and then decided he'd eat his fruit thereafter! 3. 11 o'clock. As Remembrance approaches this time of day always put me in mind of the two minute silence. 4. Black and white. I love corvids. Many I

OK I'll admit it...Mr GBT and I are technological dinosaurs but, just occasionally,  and after deliberation, we spend some of our hard earned groats on a modern thing which will make our lives a little easier. For years we navigated in the car using a good old atlas [we always keep one spare as a backup], but with the purchase of two cheap smart phones we decided to trial a freebie navigation app which you could stand on your dashboard and use much like a sat nav. For several months this worked a treat and Bossy Bertha and we shared a good rapport. She sounded rather like Penelope Keith and had a tendency to get rather huffy if we went wrong...we were crisply put back in our boxes with a sharp and slightly accusingly "recalculating the route". Over time though she has frankly become a bit of a Slack Alice [I suspect she's acquired a rather alarming Bombay Sapphire habit] and on a few occasions she has sulkily refused to co-operate. We finally decided to sack her wh

Newsflash! The potty woman has bought a potty woman pot. Well I did have some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket. She is by a local ceramicist called Jean Holder who I featured in an earlier blog post here  http://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/oopsadaisy.html She is now cheering up my kitchen window sill. Arilx

Sam over at her blog Newframereference  http://newframereference.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/stretching-to-november.html#comment-form  asked what readers had got up to this weekend. Beyond the usual grunt work, I didn't think I had anything particularly thrilling lined up. On the back of this I decided to take my press and point and just take a few random snaps of anything that caught my eye. This is the result. I finally finished the net bags out of my Mum's old curtains a couple of weeks ago. Despite my initial shyness at the possible reaction of the cashier in the supermarket, I plucked up the courage to use them last week. Needless to say nobody took any notice! The idea is to try and reduce my use of plastic a little bit further, whilst incorporating a bit of upcycling. In the background you can see the yellowstickered chicken I bought and froze during the week [this became the basis of our slow cooker supper tonight] and a bowl of apples I cooked up. They were from a box of

Mr GBT snapped this in London for me last week because he "thought you might like it". He knows me too well. A people powered bus upon which you can enjoy a pint because you're not  the one "driving". Looks great fun. Arilx

Our son took the decision last year that he wanted to take a year out of education to give him the chance to spend some time in the real world working and hopefully volunteering abroad for a given period. With our full backing, he is currently working his little socks off and saving as much as possible [with a beer allowance built in your understand...after all he is 18]. With the extra time he's got we're making sure he knows how to cook [he's already up to speed on other domestic stuff.....I made sure he can do the same things that I would have expected any daughter of mine to do. His ironing is streets ahead of mine] So far so good...he's produced some inexpensive and tasty meals. It's been a good experience for me too as I've been trying out some new recipes along side him. This week I've made the Monday Pie recipe out of one of his student cook books. It's along similar lines to this one  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10310/monday-pie   exce

Or basically anyone who has over imbibed on their poison of their choice! As I am sure you are aware, the media are having a field day at the moment with their doom mongering. This is in response to their "if it bleeds it leads" approach to the news. In order to regularly deliver a spot of light relief, I do solemnly swear to keep the flag of silliness hoisted from the turrets of Gnat Bottomed Towers! Arilx

Bracket fungus [possibly Turkey Tail] which is growing on a tree stump in the garden of a place we pass by on one of our regular stroll routes. It will be past its best within a few days, so I am grateful that we have been able to capture its fleeting beauty. Arilx

It is guaranteed that I am always to be found in the most heavenly of moods when preparing supper [not] and one evening, last week, I grumpily thought to myself "how many bleedin' onions must these hands have chopped over the years?" I looked down at my hands and then began to ponder just how difficult it would be for me to chop an onion if I wasn't fortunate to have a fully functioning pair of paws. It was with some wonder that I realised just how many tasks a day they allow me to achieve and I don't even notice. They don't just allow me to go about my daily business at work and running the home, but they allow me to operate machinery, to drive between places, to create and repair, bake, sew and move. I can think of times when they have held new life [my son, a newborn guinea pig] and touched death. They have been used to caress, scold, comfort and express both joy, anger, fear and confusion. I've held ancient objects and those newly made, explored

Shamelessly pinching Little Richard's lyrics there, I have just encountered my first Molly Morris side at last weekend's day of dance in Lewes. Originally it started out as an outlet for the ploughboys to make a bit of much needed money during the fallow season. All males, one would dress up as a woman [the molly] and in order to disguise themselves, they would black up their faces with coal [yes the "controversial" blacking up which has been in the press for all the wrong reasons recently] Basically, if you didn't pay 'em they might plough up areas of your land you didn't want 'em to. Over time the tradition died out, but was revived in 1977. Seven Champions are the creme de la creme of this particular tradition. They dance without any of the normal Morris paraphernalia....just hobnail boots. This is their dance "Invisible Bert", which they performed on Saturday. It's good to see this type of dance not only surviving, but thriv

Holy Trinity Church in Guildford. Sheer genius. Double clicking will enlarge the image. Arilx

Mr John Fuller [1757-1834] or Honest John as he liked to be known. A Sussex man of means, an erstwhile MP and a philanthropic soul who stumped up for the first life boat in Eastbourne, provided work for the local community and was a patron of the Arts and Sciences [he sponsored Michael Faraday]. All that makes the Squire of Brightling sound like Captain Sensible.....erm except he often wasn't and he is most well known in this county for his mad cap folly building, examples of which are dotted around his stomping ground. This one is quite tame for starters.....the Brightling Needle. Built for no good reason save he could so he did. The sugarloaf. This was built as a result of a drunken wager [Mr Fuller was very fond of the grog] as he bet that he could see the spire of St Giles in Dallington from his house. The legend goes that when he awoke in the morning he found this to not be true so had this spire put up quickly so he didn't lose. The door halfway up relates to whe

Sometimes I am party to the gossip from the local Bridge scene. Being neither a card player nor a competitive soul this pithy little quote is not a million miles away from what I am told...all I can say is that the fine and noble art of  back stabbing is alive and well in certain quarters!! "Bridge is so like relationships. All hearts and diamonds to start. Then you look for a club and a spade." Arilx

When one's dancing chum [he of the Uffington White Horse adventure fame] mentions to me that he's visited a church that day that he thinks will be right up my alley my little ears prick up..... For there's one of these......propped up by a multitude of telegraph poles [why do we call them that...wasn't it telegrams everyone used to send?] Along with masses of these........ But he overlooked this one....an unrestored doom screen with Jesus sitting on a rainbow and looking extremely worried. This is St Denys in Rotherfield, East Sussex. It's off the beaten track and I may not have got there had I not already had other plans in place for my birthday outing. However, it's a funny old world and I took its proximity to our final destination as a sign that I was meant to drop by. Delighted I did now! Arilx