Rabbit Pie.

No need of smelling salts here....I promise no fluffy bunnies were harmed in the making of this pie. Mr GBT and I are off out to a BBQ today. The weather forecast looks dreadful, but thankfully the hosts have a series of outhouses so we'll be in the dry. This year we've been asked to provide a pud and after racking my brain, I remembered just how much I used to love it when we had jam tart and custard for our school dinners. Mr GBT, being a pastry whizz, has kindly turned my idea into a reality [I do cook honest guv but I am the household cake baker. Pastry refuses to work for me]. He's been rummaging in my biscuit cutter box to use up the spare pastry...hence the cottontail decoration!!

The raspberry jam is not home made this time but I am glad to say that the Autumn Bliss are now coming through thick and fast. I love going out there and picking them everyday. At the moment I'm open freezing them and then when the season is over we shall make them into jam. The canes are so prolific that we dug a load up earlier in the year and gave them to my allotment owing/dancing chum L and I am glad to say they've taken.

Arilx

A Small Surprise.

Wednesday evening is Mythago practice night. Our melodian player wandered over to me whilst I was rummaging around in my bag [probably looking for a pen as usual...I swear there's a black hole in there where everything useful disappears only to all reappear at the most inopportune moment...usually when I've dropped my open bag and then the darned things scatter everywhere!]. We often exchange a quick word by way of greeting and catch up before we get down to the serious business of dancing. "You like churches don't you" she said and then handed me this book. "I saw it in the shop and thought of you." What a lovely surprise gift. I have only been to two of them so I feel more Sussex based sorties coming about over the darker months of the year.

Arilx

August.

"Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun."
Kent Nerburn

OK own up who stole the summer....I read on a forum this week that with all this recent precipitation we've been having in parts of the country it's been wet as an otter's pocket!!

Arilx

Too True.

Arilx

The Return Journey.

With it being holiday time and several clients either working in schools or having school age children I've had the odd session off here and there recently. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to have a jolly I've been able to catch up with various friends. Last Tuesday I ventured forth with E and her delightful eight month old Sprocker Toby. We took him for a bounce which incorporated a couple of local churches en route. Just time for a fleeting nose I returned with Mr GBT at the weekend. E had pointed out various points of interest to me and we were able to add in a few more on Sunday given the extra time.

St Andrew's Nuthurst is a very well maintained church. The overall impression when you cross the threshold is pleasant but not particularly remarkable until you cast your eyes right.....

Restored by the Victorians it has a striking ceiling and the organ is split between the two sides. The whole area is ablaze with colour and very ambitious for a small village church. Look there's dear old St Cuthman of Steyning still pushing his Ma in the handcart. Am not too sure about those eyes...could have sworn that they followed us around....slightly creepy!

Second on our hit list was St George's in West Grinstead. It's a huge parish with very few houses so although a few dedicated souls do their best to maintain it they're facing an uphill struggle. It is not that prepossessing from the outside but does have a rather attractive stretch of Saxon herringbone work.

Unusually the pews have the farm names on from 1820 and as ever, I was delighted to find another couple of greenmen on the Victorian lectern. I have let the Company of the Greenman know for their Gazetteer. The starburst is the detailing on the underside of the canopy on the pulpit.

For me though the most moving part of our trip was the personal touch of the tributes paid by loved ones to those departed. The bench with the running medals on and the gravestone of the spitfire pilot. Those details add a human aspect and tell you a little of the lives of those being commemorated.

Arilx

"You'll only feel a little prick dear!"

After a 15 year break [I have a bit of chequered history let's just say] and spurred on by my 17 year old's decision to become a blood donor I had one last attempt at giving blood yesterday. Sadly it wasn't to be but at least I understand why now I've had such difficulties in the past. I am pleased to say that the teen fared much better.

Back in the 18th century wealthy women were facing a far larger ordeal than a couple of pin pricks from needles. Over a two year period from 1788 there were more than fifty women attacked by the so called London Monster. Shouting obscenities at them he then stabbed them often in the buttocks and ran away. Some victims suffered nasty injuries whilst others thankfully only had slashes to their clothes. Such was the mayhem caused by the assailant some men formed the No Monster Club and wore lapels exonerating them. Fashionable ladies wore copper pans over their petticoats for protection. He was never apprehended. Interestingly once it had been noted that he only attacked pretty women others began to self harm and claim that they too had suffered. The whole episode really is quite bizarre. For anyone wanting further info there's a book available http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-London-Monster-Sanguinary-Tale/dp/0306811588

Please thank W for highlighting this particular morsel.

Arilx

Twinkle Twinkle.

An utterance from the lips of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. I wrote of it being the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book earlier this year http://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/alice-in-wonderland.html and after spending an evening with Witchy Woo earlier this week she spoke of a new exhibition at our local museum. As these are always free, good quality and I was in town anyway running errands I decided on a whim to make a detour. I only had my phone with me not my trusty little point and press so quality is a tad dodgy I'm afraid.

The town has a fairly tenuous link to the original Alice Liddell who honeymooned just outside Horsham at the home of her husband's sister at Sedgwick Park in 1880. However, one of the town's current residents, Victor Wiffen, is an avid collector of all things Wonderland related and he has kindly loaned some of his items for others to view and enjoy. He started out with just books in 1977 but with the lifting of the copyright in 1907 he has found the range of related merchandise to be extensive so the cabinets were filled with all sorts. A small selection to give you a taster-

There is even a copy of the very rare chapter "The Wasp in the Wig" which was not rediscovered until 1974.

For me it's fascinating how this seminal work has influenced so many different spheres beyond it's original children's fiction remit. The use of wordplay, copycat works, advertising, parodies and how it has entered the political arena or been used in the context of real life events. Then there is the dark side....the allusion to drugs and the suggestion [unproven] that perhaps the fixation Charles Dodgson had for both Alice and other little girls was bordering on the unhealthy. That's not for me to speculate or debate though.

Certainly, a well thought out display which I enjoyed immensely.

Arilx