Two photos

😆I was down in Worthing on Saturday....dancing what else I hear you cry! We sped from stand to stand and as I whizzed along I passed oh so many things that I would have loved to take a photo of. In the end I only managed a paltry two....neither of which reflect the nature of my time spent there.

I seem to be rather on a roll with cat related street art at the moment. This was on the fire exit near where we performed our final stand before lunch.

This building absolutely intrigued me with its galleon frontage. It opened as the Ship Grill in 1933 and was trading until 1984 before it reopened as a branch of the Bristol and West Building society and now it's a sushi bar incase you hadn't noticed. Originally it was all unpainted wood [it looked more realistic I think] with three stern lamps above which were removed for safety reasons a few years ago. There is more info and photos of it here....https://worthingpubs.com/ship/ship.htm All that said it's still a fabulous place.

Was the dancing any good? Of course what's not to like when you're dancing with 7 other Sussex sides and one which has come up all the way from Cornwall [the chap that set them up now lives here] with brilliant sunshine when there was heavy showers forecast and even a party bag at the end of it all! We didn't make it onto the pier though because it had to be shut due to the high winds. Ah well.

Arilx

Not a bad spot for lunch.

 Normally lunch is a rushed affair sat on the sofa at home before I head out to housesparkle for my next client....not every day is like that though. I didn't think this was a bad spot for lunch a few weeks ago.....

Arthur's Stone in Herefordshire. The bare bones remaining of a chambered tomb which would have once been covered in turf to blend it into its surroundings. It commands a very fine view from the top of Merbach Hill. Rumours abound...is King Arthur buried beneath these great slabs of rock after he broke his back whilst fighting a rival King, perhaps he survived and those hollows in the rock are where he prayed after his victory or are those the indentations left behind by the giant's elbows after Arthur had slain him? One of them's got to be true surely😃

I am unable to resist going inside and touching the stones for myself [apart from in Stonehenge which is an absolute no no]. They are such a draw for me and hold great power. However, I wasn't as brave as a friend of mine who tells me he lay down inside as the great capstone has completely cracked across. It is rumoured that it inspired C S Lewis to create the stone table for the lion Aslan. That maybe the case, but we did encounter a few such claims on our travels and the jury is still out for me with some of them!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend. We are escaping down to the coast for yet more dancing...I'm hoping that we don't get too much rain as it would be a crying shame if my chips got soggy!

Arilx

A Prickly Post

 As we have been spending more time here at GBT than we had been expecting, Mr GBT kindly took the time to capture a photo of this garden visitor the other evening.....heaven only knows what our neighbours would have thought if they'd seen him hanging out of the upstairs window armed with a long camera lens at 11pm 👀😮😏. This is the perfectly innocent explanation and yes that's a natty piece of straw on its nose from where it had been rummaging about in the border looking for tasty hedgehog snacks🦔🦔🦔

This one times its visits so that it has time to eat a decent sized supper before bully boy rocks up and starts hassling it...there are two bowls with exactly the same amount of food, but it goes without saying that he wants the one which this one is already eating from. They might look cute, but Mrs Tiggywinkle they are not....they are noisy, feisty little things who think nothing of charging at another one and bulldozing it out of the way when it rolls up into a ball. It's very much like the game of croquet with the flamingo and hedgehogs which Alice attempts to play in Wonderland sometimes!!

Arilx

Legless

 

Mythago has just done its annual turn at the Tewkesbury Medieval Festival this past weekend. By all accounts it was amazing even if the side did get all sorts of weather thrown at them including a thunderstorm! Every time I've been it's been blazing sunshine and very hot, but we had to drop out last week as dear old Humphrey was poorly and needed an emergency trip to the vets. We weren't sure what the outlook was to be honest, but thankfully he has responded well to his meds and seems much more like his normal cuddly self. We usually finish our final set of dancing early on Sunday afternoon and whilst we're packing up all the knights are starting to muster for the final battle. If it's hot it's a real struggle for these reenactors as they overheat very quickly and the armour takes an age to get off. I've seen the organisers chuck the knights into a large paddling pool they keep to cool them down quickly.  Last year we had a fellow opposite us who'd brought his son along to help him dress and then undress, but his charge was only young and he'd wandered off. He shouted across to us as he was really struggling to get everything off and was starting to panic. We all rushed over and quickly got him him out of it, but he was still quite distressed by his ordeal and one of us offered to go and get him a beer to cool down. He politely refused as he was teetotal, but gladly accepted water instead. I've seen a few legless knights there over the years, but he obviously wasn't one of them. However, I did encounter a real legless knight in Hereford Cathedral

 

This fellow is Sir Richard Pembridge who died in 1375. He was one of the earliest men to be made a Knight of the Garter by Edward III and he fought in the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. That's all very straightforward so far and no doubt there are others who have a similar history. However, his alabaster effigy did not escape the Civil War unscathed and his right leg was smashed and disappeared at some point.

Somebody somewhere tried very hard to rectify his limbless situation by having the wooden replacement below fitted. Unfortunately it transpired that it was wrong because it's been carved incorrectly with the garter on it and this should have only been on the remaining left one as shown.

If you look closely as Sir Richard you can see that once again he is sporting two alabaster legs, but with the right one being quite obviously a newer addition. We have Lord Saye and Sele, the Archdeacon of Hereford, to thank for commissioning it in the 19th century. It's certainly the first time I've encountered a knight who has been both legless and had three right legs on my travels!

Arilx

Improving on what's there.

 This homeowner lives nears one of my clients. They have decided that their hedge should be given some personality....of course I couldn't resist taking a sneaky shot.

It certainly cheered my Friday morning up. Have a great weekend!

Arilx

The Green Garden

 A free afternoon and a gentle catch up with what's been going on in my friend E's life. Somehow five months have flown past since we last saw one another and neither of us are quite sure how so much time has run through our fingers. This time we fancied a wander around a local garden and whilst Nymans would have been the obvious contender, we decided to go to nearby High Beeches. Although it's not NT I've got my BBC Gardens voucher this year which gets us in for a reduced ticket price. It describes itself as a woodland and water garden. I think it meets the brief. There were only a handful of people visiting when we were there and the unhurried pace did much to quieten our harried souls. It's not a garden with eyecatching borders or stunning pieces of art....its beauty lies in the shapes and shades which fall across your path as you wind your way round accompanied by the hum of insects and crickets in the extensive wildflower meadow which covers a large area of the grounds. We were both very taken with it.

Arilx

The Outhouse Flowers

 A quick flit into town to run some long overdue errands was needed on Saturday. Since I last went down a couple of weeks ago this lot has come into bloom along the short cut through by the brook.

Traditionally these flowers were grown alongside outside privies as their scent masked some of the noxious odours and their height disguised the buildings. It was an easy way for people to identify where they should be going if they needed to answer the call of nature without having to ask any indelicate questions. Most people would call them Hollyhocks and even growing up the side of a tarmac path they're simply gorgeous. The fine lines on the centre of them really show how they're part of the Mallow family.

Arilx