Eccentric Amblings and Ramblings From Gnat Bottomed Towers

You know how much I love trees. There is, I have discovered, a search engine which promotes the planting of trees. Please do take a look if it's your type of thing.  https://www.ecosia.org/  Thank you. Arilx

Ok confession time....I'm a bit of a Nimby when it comes to certain issues. Nothing of any great national importance I should stress on this occasion [I keep my opinions by and large to myself or express elsewhere on the major stuff], but these...gnomes. For a dame who loves to spend her time actively seeking out all the weird and wonderful grotesques etc this might seem like an odd thing to say. There's just something about them which I find vaguely unsettling. No one was more surprised than moi then when Mr GBT revealed that there is a Gnome Reserve down in Devon and I had an overwhelming urge to visit contrary creature that I am😊 What a laugh....a slightly surreal experience, but with a madcap dose of fun thrown in. To get into the whole thing you have the opportunity to choose and then wear your own gnome hat. Needless to say we did and then Mr GBT took his first ever selfie to prove it. We are not the tallest folks on the planet, but that was one giant gnome looming ov

"Walk" the street art said in Exeter . So always being one to follow an instruction [depending on which way the wind is blowing] walk we did.....across a stretch of Dartmoor. Dartmoor on a sunny day is a joy to behold .....standing stones from Scorhill stone circle. Unrestored there are 23 still upright. I simply enjoy the process of trying to get into our ancestors' minds and trying to fathom why they selected certain ones over others...was it the shape, size or were they simply hauling over what was nearest to hand. Questions with no answers. One of the famous Clapper bridges. Believed by some to be Neolithic, it seems more likely that they were Medieval apparently. The river bed was a palette of colourful plants. Baby swallows. Had the parent bird not swooped in on the wing just as I was there I would have missed this. They had been silent until then but created a massive hullabaloo once they realised food was in the offing. And this whic

Wimborne Minster...bursting at the seams with tales from yesteryear and rare artefacts spanning the centuries of its existence. A roughly hewn Saxon relic box. It must have earnt the church a pretty scillingas. Blimey I'd have paid to see some of Thomas A Becket's blood or the hair shirt of St Francis. They also had a bit of the cross, part of the manger and even apparently hairs from the beard of Jesus himself amongst their treasures. This corbel is a tiny little thing from the early 1100s. It depicts Moses and as for that natty facial hair I think the competitors in the World Beard Championships could do no better than to look to this for inspiration! If it's bursts of colour you're after this building has it in spades. From medieval wall paintings [not shown] through to modern day stained glass, many styles from many different periods are represented. The astronomical clock dates from at least 1409 when it first appears in the written records and the

I like my coffee medium with milk and no sugar. Expresso is not to my taste, but this witty expresso expression is. Seen in a cafe where once again you might have found me feeding my face with cake! I am wading through a backlog of photos still..... Arilx

It's tiring work being a cygnet and winding your parents up all day. This little lot of lovelies were in Wimborne and we'd seen them earlier involved in an altercation with a mallard and her ducklings as to who should pass first on the narrow channel of the river when they met head to head. It will come as no surprise that the swans bullied their way through. Arilx

When you are invited to perform at a folk festival you are given your slots in advance. Etiquette dictates that you turn up on time, share fairly with any other performers [it's a fantastic chance to see others in action] and don't overrun. Above all else you need to be mindful of the others around you. Wimborne Folk Festival and this is Hunter's Moon. They are friends of Mythago and the other side which inspired me to get involved in all of this Morris madness in the first place. I should add that they are fabulous to watch. Part way through one of their dances a very large, very loud marching band decided to strike up at one of the busking spots nearby. Such was their volume that they drowned everything else in the vicinity out. It's imperative that you can hear the beat if you're a dancer. Confuddled we stood there scratching our heads trying to fathom out how we were going to work round this one. It's not for nothing that we are known as The Dark M

Summer Solstice blessings to one and all. Arilx

In order to wring every minute of time out of my precious holiday I have, these past couple of years, incorporated a short visit to somewhere en route to our main destination. It just adds a little something extra to our experience. This year we tagged a week's leave onto a weekend away with Mythago...for reasons I can't explain it was very important for me not to travel too far away from GBT with our son still being in Bangladesh. You would think that as he's 5000 miles away it wouldn't matter would you. Ah the vagaries of parenting! With the pit stops programmed into the sat nav before we left these were my destinations of choice both outward and coming home. Maiden's Castle, Dorset. Now I've explored a few of these Iron Age hill forts in my time as there are a handful of remains on the South Downs. With a leap of imagination you can sort of see how they might have looked when they were in use, but I suspect that they always look better from the air. Noth

Hello all you lovely peeps out there. Am back from my wanderings and reacquainting myself with the washing machine. It's a return to paid employment tomorrow, but needs must eh! This rather lovely little group were convened on a thistle in Dorset. Six Spot Burnet moths I do believe. No words tonight, but hope to catch up with myself on the way back round over the next few days! Until then all the best... Arilx

Really 'twas a weekend of contrasts spent at our local quirky event the "Floral Fringe".  Saturday saw me dressed in a flowery skirt with a floral wreath on my head helping out on our green stand. Knowing how tedious it can be if someone verbally whacks you over the head with a mallet we don't preach at people [I hold my hands up totally as not being anywhere near as eco friendly as I could be], but just gently raise awareness by showing people how items can be upcycled etc. We had a range of chairs from Freecycle which had been upholstered in a patchwork of recycled fabrics together with bags made of old ties and the wreaths themselves had been made from artificial flowers donated by the charity shops [they don't sell well apparently]. Everything was for sale and people enjoyed chatting whilst purchasing. Sunday I was back in black with all my pagan bling on and DM shoes dancing with Mythago. Mind set completely switched to admiring the beautiful silver bird s

A certain black furry purry who rules the roost here at GBT also likes to remind us of this fact regularly as well as making sure we know where we are on the feeding chain😼 Arilx

It's not often you go through a gate in a churchyard and find this the other side...... A castle indeed. It was once the residence of the bishops of Chichester [St Richard was appointed in 1245] For the past few centuries though Amberley castle has been in private hands and latterly run as a restaurant and hotel. I was there forcing myself to partake of yet another cream tea....it's been a tough job spending the past nine months celebrating my 50th birthday, but hey I feel I've risen to meet the challenge admirably😊 If the truth be told I decided to book it when it was our son's birthday earlier this week as I wasn't quite sure how I'd be, it being his first one away from us and all that. In actual fact I was fine and we enjoyed the experience immensely. It's not a place one normally gets to visit unless one is there legitimately so I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures. I seem to have taken a lot of ones with green in...this wasn'