Eccentric Amblings and Ramblings From Gnat Bottomed Towers

Just love it when businesses use humour to entice you in. On a grey Saturday this amused me outside one of our local cafes! Have a good weekend! Arilx

Two stained glass windows in different churches by different artists, but both celebrating the Millennium. Both deserve closer inspection because when I got home and looked at my photos carefully I discovered both had unexpected details I missed when I was there. It seems the art of the church window is more deserving of my attention. "The River of Life" by R J Lloyd is in All Hallows, Tillington. I am very taken with the restricted colours he's used by omitting the reds etc and particularly love all those little hidden extras which pay homage to the surrounding South Downs. The seedheads stole my heart. "St Laurence" by P M Martin is in the church of the same name in Lurgashall. This one is set up really high and I couldn't make out much with the naked eye. I took a photo in the hopes that it might come out. Imagine my delight later on when I found that the left hand panel has a squirrel, rabbit, a rather oversized duck, ch

Yesterday I completely changed my mind about what I was going to do on my day off and decided to go down to visit Nurse L.  She's been having a bit a time of it lately and I thought perhaps a trip out to a place of her choosing might at least give her a break from everything that's been going on. With the promise of beautiful weather Nurse L opted for a bracing walk along the beach at Climping. Left to my own devices I would naturally always head inland as I'm a bit of a landlubber at heart, but there's something absolutely magical about having the beach to ourselves all bar the local dogwalkers. We stopped and chatted to various canines and their owners, but my favourite by a country mile was a huge 22 month old Irish wolfhound called Conor. The lady said that it's her 9th one and his name means "lover of hounds". He was absolutely gorgeous, but thought he was Pekingese size which is a bit of problem when he comes bounding over to make friends. Apparen

Tillington is a small village off the A272 which is a route I take regularly. Every time I see the Scots Crown spire [it's the most southerly example apparently] of the parish church as I whizz past I think to myself that one day I will make a detour and look to see what's there. Friend E and I have now rectified the situation and added to our Sussex explorations a few days ago. I'm so glad we did as it was well worth the pitstop. It's full of charming buildings and little quirky bits and bobs. An excellent upcycle of a wheelbarrow and Singer Sewing machine treadle table all nicely rounded off with deer skull  Now I've heard of zebra, pelican and puffin crossings, but one for cats is a new one on me. Let's hope the drivers heed the warning and that the moggies get across the road safely. This poor chap to one side of the church door has lost his snout. This could be down to wear and tear, but I have heard tales of noses being

This time of year it's traditionally the quiet time in the world of Morris....a time to review all aspects of what we do. Whilst others in Mythago are updating the dances and music I and others have got together to replace the element kits in our Greenman story. The originals have done very well, but they are 20+ years old and unlikely to last another season. Last Sunday four of us came together to share ideas and discuss how we could move our project forward. The bottom line was that the four kits needed to work together as a whole, but there should be room left within that for individual artistic expression. As the organiser of the meeting I was a little apprehensive, but incredibly we all had similar ideas and we made fabulous progress. Emerging with a clear plan everyone has got busy this week tracking down suitable fabrics and trimmings [I'd already bought the masks and caps to start us off]. This is us coming together this Sunday with a whole heap of oohing and aahi

You might have watched the recent remake of Worzel Gummidge [I loved the original and this version equally] and enjoyed the soundtrack. I now know it to be the Unthanks band who are new to me. This is their haunting rendition of "Magpie". Hope you have a relaxing weekend. Arilx

One in a very occasional series. Anyone want to hazard a guess? Answer tomorrow! Arilx PS It's an egg whisk and icecream freezer from 1927.

This rather oversized stone sits quietly in the porch of St Laurence's Lurgashall [the one on top is part of an old font]. You might think it was just a bit of leftover masonry or part of a gravestone. It has a somewhat darker history though. For a fee you could hire this stone to be placed upon the freshly dug grave of your loved ones. It would prevent the resurrectionists from snatching the corpse and selling it for dissection. There's a lot to be learnt about social history as well as religion within our churches. Arilx

That's how my friend E described the ancient and magnificent trees we came across at Benbow Pond in West Sussex when we were out on our latest adventure. This is what we saw....... One of two very venerable old sessile oaks. As a child I would have loved to have been able to go right through the middle of this one. This one however, is its more famous sibling and was recognised as one of the fifty "Great British Trees" by the Tree Council as part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Celebration. It's called the Elizabeth I oak because legend has it that her Majesty stood next to it, bow and arrow at the ready to shoot a stag as it was driven towards her. She missed! It's estimated that it's between 800 and 1000 years old and the third oldest sessile oak in the country. Here's one of Arthur Rackham's tree illustrations [one of the few copyright free ones I could find online] for comparison. Interestingly Rack

The words "I'm going to make burgers" is enough to send Mr GBT running for the hills. Judging by my past explosions when undertaking such ventures he probably never wanted to hear the combination of "burgers" and my name in the same sentence again, but I saw this one through. No tantrums and they tasted rather good.  As you can see I made 6 burgers and added extra flour to make the mix easier to handle. They definitely didn't need any extra water. This is one of Jack Monroe's recipes. I bought one of her books from the charity shop for £1.49 several months ago, but hadn't used it. Thought I should at least attempt something before I passed it on and am now converted. As ever I am late to the party and her blog wasn't on the radar, but here's the recipe  https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2019/11/06/carrot-coriander-falafels-recipe/ Arilx

In 2019 Mr GBT and I undertook another "Dry January". Our motivation was to support TYM who was doing it alongside the other members of his uni running club. We soldiered on and made it through only to discover a few days ago our son had fallen off the wagon within three days. No staying power!! Anyway there's none of that nonsense going on this year. This is my new type of "Dry January" 😀 This rather dry humoured take on the whole affair is currently to be seen on the outside of one of the town centre pubs! Arilx

So were you aware that today is "Appreciate a dragon day" today? No me neither until very recently.  There are various suggestions to how you can celebrate our fire breathing friend.....reading appropriate books, drawing them, watching films. I thought I might have to go back through the archives to find a suitable image, but thankfully the powers that be were looking kindly upon me and introduced me to this new fellow only last weekend. There's no great age to him, but I was tickled pink to find him [so nearly missed him!] in the small Sussex village of Lurgashall.  Occasionally I get wind of these rather odd themed days or even weeks. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to them, but should you have a burning desire to see which special day it is on any given date you can now check for yourself here  https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/2020/01/14/  It could be a godsend on a slow blogging day! Arilx

...But the light of the lamp delightful...yes we may not have a roaring fire here at GBT, but we do have this new light that my parents bought us for Christmas which casts the most beautiful sunset coloured glow in our dark, north facing room. There is little doubt that the weather was veering towards the hideous yesterday, but it was my day off and I needed to get the barnet neatened up. Having checked the forecast, I set off dressed for the expected conditions and despite having caught the rain managed to miss the wind that blew in later.  For my own wellbeing I am doing my best not to write off days just because it's grim outside, so I carried out a little test to see if I could still come home feeling upbeat if I donned my home tourist head. This Millennium mosaic is in one of the underpasses [done by Jane Sybilla Fordham and Lisa Finch] and hand on heart all I ever do is walk past it. Today I thought perhaps I should actually take a sec and look at it...one or two peop