Eccentric Amblings and Ramblings From Gnat Bottomed Towers

 It's been a great joy for me to see the moths starting to fly again this month. There aren't many about, but I was so pleased to find, in amongst the ones that have come, three new-to-me species- Oak Beauty, Double Striped Pug and Shoulder Stripe. Arilx

 With a massive pile of ironing to do I decided to go out and enjoy the sunshine instead...it turned out to be a bit of minion themed walk this time. As I've often said you never know what's out there waiting for you😍 Froths of blackthorn blossom. I expect to start seeing the Hawthorn out too in the next few weeks. These poppies I pass on a near daily basis when I'm driving to work. They're attached to the local school's fence and I'd thought that they'd made them from plastic bottles. Close up they're actually wire and are really effective. With the crocuses coming to an end I wanted to capture some photos of the daffs before they too go over. I took the chance to sit for a minute and enjoy them when I heard a strange quacking noise coming from a roof of a nearby house. It rather foxed me because all I could see was a trio of crows and all I've heard them do is caw in that not very attractive cronky way they do. One of the adults had a piece of bre

You know sometimes you have bits and bobs to impart, but none of it is going to knit together properly. Usually I can order things, but this particular bundle of snippets has had me defeated so here it instead in all of its jumbly tangle. Firstly a little update to the post here  https://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.com/2022/02/falling-back-on-familiar.html . I'd found this gorgeous door in our parish church tucked away in a corner near the altar. Judging by all the wonky metalwork I had reached the conclusion that it must have some considerable age to it. A lady has now confirmed that it's the oldest door in the church and that once it led to the Lollard's Tower where Lollards or protestants as we would now call them were imprisoned whilst the church investigated where they had got their illegal Bibles from. This ceased under the reign of Henry VIII and the break with Rome. Apparently the key to it is pretty hefty and could do some serious damage. Nowadays the space is used

We hopped over to Surrey earlier this month for another walk/explore of an area that's within half an hour of home, but not very familiar to us. This time we were starting from Brockham [near to Dorking]. The village is known for its massive November bonfire and we've danced there on occasion on the following day when it's traditional for all the sides to throw their broken wooden sticks onto the smouldering embers and more importantly imbibe a celebratory ale. Obviously there was none of that type of shenanigans going on this time....one needs to behave properly when one is in Surrey unlike its unruly Sussex neighbour😀 I didn't commit any nuisance on the bridge whilst I was there!! Brockham is very picturesque [and busy with visitors in the warmer months] It's all set round the large green with the village pump at the centre. This was built in memory of a local landowner and worthy called Henry Thomas Hope [more of him later] and is kept well maintained by the Bro

 Good old Covid still has a nasty habit of sneaking up on you and scotching your plans. That's exactly the situation Mr GBT and I found ourselves in last week...his friend and my client had both succumbed which left us with an unexpectedly free afternoon. No doubt we could have found dull jobs to be getting on with, but the temptation of the sunshine and the justification that we could run a few needed errands in Horsham whilst on our way to our favoured destination was all it took for us to make our minds up. We are most fortunate here to have a former farm and its land within an half an hour walk of home. It's owned by the council and maintained by a brilliant group of volunteers. Nowadays Chesworth Farm is a wildlife haven popular with local families and dog walkers not far out from the town centre. It's not very big, but a lovely little oasis to step away from the spinning plates of our everyday lives for a gentle hour or so. I just captured a handful of shots to give a

It's such a lovely feeling to have made it to the official first day of Spring and it's reflected in the glorious weather we're enjoying here in Sussex. Although I've spent the whole weekend holed up working [successful show though] we were treated to a beautiful sunrise on Saturday morning as we made our way up the motorway...there has to be some positives to leaving the house at 5am🌞  Being naturally quite a busy bee I'm not used to sitting down for extended periods. However, this time I spent several hours doing the handsewing on the the latest Mythago kit I'm working on so it felt like I'd used the time well. Over the last couple of weeks I've cooked up and painted a design on the new Earth Mother mask [another dancer had already kindly put the base colours on , but she'd run out of time]. Normally I avoid this type of thing like the plague as my brain freezes. This time though I gave myself a good pep talk and just took my time. The face is now

 We have a new temporary [I suspect] charity shop that has opened up in a huge empty retail outlet. The rumour on the street is that Aldi will be going in there soon, so I think they're filling it to the gunwhales with anything they might be able to sell in a limited time frame. Round here all the chazzas are heavily curated by the volunteers with only the best quality goods making it to the shop floors. It's absolutely necessary I understand, but I did rather enjoy the rummagey jumble sale feel to this one. Occasionally things I spot just make me titter...so for a quick spot of silliness these were the finds which amused me. In my younger days I was always brilliant at wearing high heels....that was so long as I could stay on the spot and not move an inch... it was the walking in them that was always the problem. As I looked at these particular pair of shoes I thought to myself that I'd look more like a pantomime dame if I was to don anything of this ilk nowadays. They are

I'd heard lots of hype about the upcoming Stonehenge exhibition during the latter part of last year, but decided to hang fire before booking as I wanted to find out if it was worth the trip first [you know that good old delay and pay thrifty technique to check that we really want to do/own something]. Once it had opened it began to receive rave reviews and a friend who'd been came back with a glowing report too. Knowing how serendipity works, Lovely Grey popped up with it as a suggestion for our upcoming meet-up....once I'd got wind of some of the big hitters on display [things I've always wanted to see] I didn't need to be asked twice. Now my lovely pal has been far more organised than me [for personal reasons I'm doing things at a pace that suits my current situation] and has written a fabulous post about it already  https://lovelygreyday.com/british-museum-the-world-of-stonehenge/ Here's my offering....better late than never eh! I've tried to include