Floral Friday

We dropped into the parish church yesterday as we were passing to see their annual flower show. The theme this year is  'For the joy of music'. There were some wonderfully creative pieces on display. This one is Swan Lake.

Hope you have a good weekend.

Arilx 

Tales from the abbey part 1

I have been a bit remiss in keeping up to date on here, but this one is from earlier this week. After a toasty and hectic fabulous weekend of dancing in Tewkesbury for this year's medieval festival, it was a great relief to break our homeward journey in Malmesbury and enjoy an hour or so of peace in the abbey. These are the tales it had to tell.

Hannah Twynnoy is believed to be the first person killed by a tiger in England. She was either a servant or a barmaid at the White Lion Inn [now a private house] and for reasons that aren't apparent there was a wild menagerie being kept on the premises. Despite several warnings from its keeper to not antagonise the tiger Hannah wouldn't leave it alone. Eventually she managed to provoke the poor beast so much so that it broke free from where it was being held and attacked her. Little is known about the victim, but the circumstances of her demise live on.

This fellow is King Athelestan [grandson of King Alfred] and in 937AD he became the first king of England. He was known to be a deeply religious man aswell as a successful diplomat. Following his death in Gloucester, his body was brought to Malmesbury to be buried as were his wishes. Many came to visit his remains and venerate him. The tomb you see is not contemporary. Instead it's a 15th century one built to commemorate him. Not only that, but it's also empty as his bones have been lost. It seems likely that they went missing after the dissolution of the monasteries, but may well still be buried there in a forgotten place.

That chap holding a pair of wings is Elmer who was one of the Benedictine monks from the original abbey which stood here. He was said to have seen Halley's Comet and have written about astrology. It's not clear why he climbed to the top of the abbey tower with wings attached to his arms and legs, but he did just that in about 1005AD and then jumped off the top. He managed to fly for several metres before crash landing and breaking both legs which left him lame for the rest of his life.

The abbey remains a large church, but it's easy to see where bits have been demolished. Whilst it has the most stunning Romanesque details around the doors, it's quite a plain white washed affair inside. It was so calm with a welcoming cafe. Just a few details this time. There are several old medieval books in display cabinets and I felt the need to capture and share the maginalia which made me smile.

Although we didn't have time to do the town justice, I can see that it will be worth stopping again when we are next over that way.

Arilx

 

If you're a carpet fitter

 

When you're a carpet fitter by trade and even the van reg is on brand.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Arilx

The Badlands

If I said that I had been to the Badlands over the weekend you might imagine that I had been hanging out in an arid and rocky terrain....I am sorry to disappoint you, but the West Sussex version is a verdant meadow full of butterflies and dotted with the yellow and purple spires of Common Agrimony and Betony.

It was David's birthday and when I quizzed him about how he might like to celebrate his suggestion was somewhere in the countryside and not too far away. That foxed me initially, but then I remembered The Mens [from the Anglo-Saxon ge-maennes meaning common ground] nature reserve which is only a few miles from here and one we've never visited. A gentle 5k walk meandering along by streams and under the canopy of ancient woodland was perfect. It's owned by Sussex Wildlife Trust who monitor the site yet operate a non intervention policy. When a big tree falls it is left in situ and over time it becomes another habitat for a whole host of plants and creatures. It has over 600 fungi species and I can't tell you how much I'm dying to come across the ones with names such as Jellybabies, Sulpher Knights or Powdery Pigbacks. I don't expect to find much that's new at this time of year, but it was a pleasure to meet the ever so teeny blue Water Pimpernel growing in a damp area of the wood and discover the long fronds of the Beech flowers.

Although we are very much in the middle of summer here, the signs of the Autumn are beginning to show themselves. There will be ripe blackberries ready in a few weeks and the other berries are putting in an appearance. At the moment the Lords and Ladies looks for all the world like a set of traffic lights with its different stages of ripening all on the one stalk.

One never knows what one might happen across when wandering. Old tumble down buildings are not such a great surprise, but a ruined bridge turned out to be one that was built by the Canadian soldiers stationed nearby in WWII. It was never finished and it seems might have been put up for training purposes.

The perfect walk ended with a fabulous cup of coffee and shared slice of cake in the independently run cafe just up the road. Husband tells me it was just how he wanted to spend his special day.

Arilx

 

Rosy

 

This stunning moth is one of my latest finds. It's called a Rosy Footman and that is its true colour. All I have done is to crop the picture. It looks for all the world like someone has drawn on that black wavy line and dots as an afterthought with a fine nibbed black pen.

Arilx

Putting the boot in

I have read about the story of John Schorne who was the rector of North Marston in Bucks from 1290 until his death in 1314. He came to fame because of the stories of his abilities to conjure the devil into a boot and exorcise evil. In life he was a very religious man and various folkloric miracles came to be attributed to him. Although he was never canonised as a saint, many came to venerate his relics and it was believed that he could cure you of gout amongst many other ailments. There are various nods to his fame in the village including a holy well which has its own boot with a devil which pops up. Some claim that this is where the jack-in-a-box toy originated. If I am ever up that way I shall seek it out. However, my chance to see some Schorne related material arrived sooner than I expected with a surprise within Sherborne Museum.

This wall painting [c1480] was discovered under many layers of wallpaper in Tudor Rose Cottage in 1962. The condition isn't marvellous, but with the eye of faith you can just about make out the boot and devil. the modern interpretation by James Gibb gives you a much better idea.

You might quite rightly wonder what the link is between Dorset and Buckinghamshire, for that's not John Schorne you're looking at. That fellow is Richard Beauchamp who was the Bishop of Salisbury from 1450-1481. He realised that Schorne was quite the hit with the pilgrims and sought permission from the pope to have his remains moved to the newly enlarged and redecorated St George's Chapel in Windsor [Beauchamp was also the Dean of Windsor]. Sherborne was part of the diocese of Salisbury.

Being such a child I was totally entranced by the story and the fact that there was a model of a boot which had the devil popping up. The lady on the front desk demonstrated it and then asked me if I'd like her to make Old St Nick reappear as she could see that I was desperate to take a photo. A folkloric tale with props is always going to make me ridiculously happy😈

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

꩜Aril꩜

Don't Feed The Goats!

 If you were in a mountainous region you might expect to see agile goats climbing the higher slopes, but goats on the cliffs in Bournemouth on our day we spent there were most definitely not on my list of things I had planned to see. Here they are happily munching away on the vegetation. I guess it makes a difference to the more traditional donkeys which I believe are no longer a thing down on the beach? Times change and for the better in this particular instance I think.

The one and only time I've ever been to Bournemouth was as a teenager with my then new boyfriend. I remember it being a drizzly cold day, but we stuck it out on the beach and then went for chips afterwards. It was those heady early days of a romance which floundered a few months later. The weather and temperature this time round was fairly similar, but staying on the outskirts meant that we could walk in and have a poke around on our first day away. I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to go back, but the way it's struggling saddened me. That said we enjoyed our few hours there and it made a good start to the holiday.

Even as a very much confirmed land lubber I do consider myself to be a bit of a closet hutter and the town has the most fabulous set of rainbow coloured beach huts. Very pleasingly they run across in various shades of one colour before moving onto the next block. I photographed them all, but for your sanity am restricting myself to just the one. Below are a few more details from around the seafront area. The tiles are part of an entire wall which is dedicated in memoriam to those who have died from Aids. The quirky coastal themed sculptures of a couple of a series that  are on the fence which runs all the way down. Some of them had a bit of a Beryl Cook feel about them which made me smile.

If you are a fan of art and musems the Russell-Cotes gallery is worth a look. It has the most fantastically preserved rich and vibrant Victorian interior. Everywhere you look there are rich colours, layer upon layer of decorative detail, stained glass and stuff. If I'm being honest I could appreciate it, but it left me a bit cold. Just a question of personal taste. What did please me greatly though were the pieces of Pre-Raphelite art on display and this modern work decorating the dome in the cafe by Sophie Ward.

The one thing I did want to do was to go and seek out the grave of Mary Shelley. Helpfully you're given a bleeding great notice and an arrow so there's no missing it. With the connection to her husband's family coming from Horsham and Percy being born here, his spouse was a highly acclaimed writer in her own right. Her Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein, was famously written after a night of ghost tales told during a storm in Geneva. Percy drowned in Italy in 1822. His remains washed ashore ten days later and he was cremated on the beach. However, his heart didn't burn [possibly due to calcification from the TB he had suffered]. It was saved and preserved in wine to be returned and then interred with Mary here upon her death.

We celebrated the literacy legacy of this famous couple by classily raising a glass in the Spoons across the road before plodding back. Well it had to be done didn't it and we were on foot after all🍻

꩜Aril꩜