Fossil forraging in Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis is a timeless sort of place. It's been here for over a millennium. The Saxons hung out and fished. It's been written up in the Doomsday Book.  Jane Austin came for the sea air, Mary Anning found her many fossils hereabouts and generations of would-be palaeontologists have followed in her footsteps.

In the summer it can get a bit chocker, but the beaches are plenty big enough to allow the masses to spread out and not tread on one another's toes.

My favourite bit of town is the East Cliff Beach which is at the end of the promenade. Carry on past the museum that's been built on the site of Mary Anning's old shop and family home. It extends north east towards Charmouth. In fact you can see the visitor centre at Charmouth and the oddly shaped cliff that sits on the other side of it in the distance.  Out here it feels sort of otherworldly. The colours are strong from the intense green of the abundant seaweed to the dead grey of the crumbling sea cliffs.

Lyme Regis, Dorset, Devon

Dino rampage at the Eden Project, Cornwall

Calling all dino fans - or perhaps, more accurately, calling the mums and dads of all dino fans! If you've got a child who's mad about the big prehistoric lizards I've got the perfect day out for you: down in Eden they've brought the dinos back from extinction, and they're running amok through the perfectly manicured flowerbeds. It's all a bit crazy ... but it's guaranteed to delight.

Emi has had one of his best chums down for a few days to stay with us in deepest, darkest Devon. Both boys are mad about dinos, so when I asked them what they'd like to do I got a list that had a predictably pre-historic theme to it: a trip to the Jurassic coast was mentioned, and so was the dino rampage down at Eden. Emi had picked up a leaflet about it in town, stored it away and then waited for the perfect opportunity to suggest it as a day-out.

Coldharbour Mill: a little piece of knitting history ...

The other day I popped by a wool spinning mill with more history than you could shake a stick at. The Coldharbour Mill in Uffculme, Devon (just beside junction 27 on the M5) is a little chunk of the West Country's industrial heritage. It's been doing its thing, spinning wool from raw fleeces, for more than 200 years. At first it was powered by a huge water wheel, then they upgraded to steam. These days they mostly run on mains electricity, but on certain days of the year they fire up their huge beam engine and return to the age of steam once again.

Coldharbour Mill, Uffculme, Devon

The Lost Gardens of Heligan in high summer ...

The last time we visited the Lost Gardens was in the springtime. They were divine. The apple trees, the bluebells and the wild garlic were blooming and the rhododendrons had just passed their best and were dropping great carpets of cerise petals on the ground.  Last week we returned to see them at the height of their summer glory. And, whilst they were very different from how they'd looked in the springtime, they delighted us with displays of ripening fruit, larder-filling vegetable drills and happy farmyard animals hanging out down by the orchards.

I've got nothing against the great Renaissance gardens or the celebrated English Landscape Movement that set out with the single objective of being pretty. All of that stuff rocks, but what really makes my heart sing is a beautiful, practical garden that's full of things I could feed my family with. And that is where these gardens come into their own. Yes, they're pretty. Yes, they please the eye. Yes, they tick all the boxes on the aesthetic check list that add up to good design. But the highest compliment that I can pay them is to say that they, quite literally, look good enough to eat.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall

Okehampton ... once the beating heart of Devon

Okehampton is the town just down the road that we pass through on our regular trips to Cornwall. It sits on the edge of Dartmoor, and perhaps it's because it's on our own back door that we've never really taken the trouble to explore it properly. Does that make sense ? Am I the only person who's got an irrational tendency to overlook what's within easy striking-distance of home in favour of gallivanting off to far-flung places? I guess far-away fields always look greener ... .

Now as it happens Okehampton is a town with a lot of things to boast about, but it's a modest place that doesn't really shout much about its attractions. There's a medieval motte and bailey castle, St. James' Church, a Tudor Chapel of Ease, there's a museum of Dartmoor life, a very fine 19th century railway bridge, the Meldon Viaduct, spanning the ravine of the Okement River and, just outside of town in the beautiful village of Sticklepath there's an amazing, fully working blacksmith's forge with all the latest water-powered kit from the early days of the Industrial Revolution. I've already written about it here: Finch Forge.

Okehampton Castle, Devon

Finch Foundry, Sticklepath, Devon ...

The other day we were keen to go exploring, but the weather didn't look great and, having got a good soaking on our supposedly rain-proof trip to the Levant Mine in Cornwall, we wanted to play things safe and not stray too far from home. So we decided to mosey on down the road to the pretty little village of Sticklepath, not far from Okehampton in Devon.

My father's grandfather (my great grandfather) was a blacksmith back in Ireland, so my father was interested to see the last working water-powered forge in England. And it proved to be a thing of wonder, which was way above and beyond anything that my ancestor ever operated.

Finch Foundry, Sticklepath, Devon

Levant Mine and Beam Engine, Cornwall ...

Yesterday morning started well, but clouded over in line with what the weathermen had told us would happen. We had set ourselves up, however, to outsmart the weather. Our rain-proof day out involved travelling down to Pendeen, near St. Just in Cornwall to see an ancient copper mine with a working steam engine, which had sounded really, really interesting ... to Emi and my father.

A mine (underground - and in this case one with workings that crept out for over a mile under the sea) a steam engine and lots of mine housings: what could possibly go wrong with our rain-proof plans?

Levant Mine Buildings, Cornwall

The Giant's Causeway ...

The Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland

The other day we walked in the footsteps of giants down at the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim. It's funny how many giant stories there are over here, but the one about Finn MacCool, the war-mongering giant, who decided to rely on his wits and not to fight is one of the better ones.

Back in the day Finn was the leader of the Fianna, a fearsome band of warriors, who ruled the roost in these parts. As leader of the pack old Finn boy developed quite a swagger. Some might say he became a belligerent bully. And like all bullies he nursed a serious chip on his shoulder. For reasons that few could ever understand Finn MacCool was a giant with something to prove.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge ...

Yesterday Emi, my father and I visited one of my favourite childhood haunts, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, just outside Ballycastle in County Antrim. I remember coming here as a little girl and being both scared out of my wits and exhilarated with the challenge of crossing the bridge. Reaching the other side safely always felt like a really big deal to my eight or nine year old self.

The wobbly bridge swings in the sea breeze between the mainland and Carrick-a-Rede island, some 100 foot or 30 metres above the waves spanning the 60 foot/ 20 metre chasm over the sea that makes Carrick-a-Rede an island. These days the nice people at the National Trust award Crossing the Bridge certificates to the brave folk who make it out and back again. 

  

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, County Antrim

Carrick-a-Rede is an anglicisation of the Gaelic Carraig-a-Rade, which translates as rock in the road. The road here is the sea route of the Atlantic salmon, which follows a westward journey past the island, and the island is the rock in that road. 

Waiting for the Holyhead to Dublin ferry ...

On Friday Emi, the Wonder Dog and I arrived in Holyhead six hours early for our ferry crossing to Dublin. I really hadn't intended to be quite so early, but with the vagaries of what the traffic might be like on the M6 we'd left London first thing in the morning to arrive in plenty of time. As luck would have it we encountered no problems on the roads, but arrived half an hour too late to make the earlier sailing. So what could we do with six hours to spare in Holyhead?

Tankfest 2015 ... a beauty pageant for ... tanks and armoured vehicles

Last weekend we were in Dorset for Tankfest 2015 ... and, whilst I really wasn't expecting to feel this way, I have to say that it was pretty amazing. I was dragged along because the child had got lost last year, resulting in the whole festival being locked down for 20 minutes on a code red, as Mr B and several members the British Army ran around frantically trying to find him. The whole thing was so traumatic (for Mr. B) that they insisted I come along this year to sit on a picnic rug and give them a rendezvous point to come back to if they got separated.

I agreed, knowing how much they had both enjoyed the festival last year, but expecting that it would be a day to be endured rather than enjoyed (I didn't set out on Saturday morning with any great love for, or interest in, tanks!). But I spent a very pleasant day, doing my knitting on a grassy bank with thousands of tank enthusiasts, a hot sun overhead and the most amazing armoured vehicles going through their paces in the arena in front of us. It was a fabulous spectacle: dramatic with a hell-raising capital D and a great big mechanised roar ... .

Stonehenge ... epic!

There are few sights that are more commanding than this one: 

As I drive out of London, on my way home to Devon, I look forward to seeing it on my right as I make my way across Salisbury Plain. It marks the half-way point of my journey.  Sitting in the traffic on the A303 I often ponder the mysteries of those stones.  How did they get there? By means of one of Merlin's magic spells? Coincidentally by the movement of the melting ice-sheets  - glacial erratics, I believe is the term ? Or were they put there by the muscle-power of a race of men whose culture and beliefs have been lost across the span of time that separates their world from our own?

As you can see it's a place of mystery that inspires you to think outside the box of your everyday existence and to forget about the traffic.

The White Lough, County Tyrone ...

We've made it ... all the way home to beautiful County Tyrone for the Christmas holidays. 

I am always so relieved when I get off the car ferry in Dublin. Emi and I are the world's worst sailors. Any little swell and we're ill. Luckily the Irish Sea was in a pretty good mood yesterday afternoon when we crossed her, but the weird thing was that one of the engines on the ship wasn't working properly and so, with very little explanation from the crew, our three hour crossing lasted an extra hour. 

I spent my time knitting a sock and watching the horizon through a window in the lounge. Mr B, who's never ever sick, always tells me that the secret to not being sea sick is to watch the horizon. So I sat there, watching the horizon, and then the (very) distant lights on the horizon when darkness had fallen. And then my watch because those distant lights seemed much too distant for a ship that ought to have been docking. 

Everyone else was calm and didn't seem to notice, but for someone like me who spends the trip sitting still and wishing the whole thing was over, it felt uncomfortable.

We were very happy to make it back to our little village in South Tyrone. 

This morning we went for a lovely winter walk around our local lake, the White Lough - or White Ness, as Emi calls it in hope that one day it will grow its very own monster that he can boast about to his friends at school. 

I was very taken with this cheerful little robin, who was hopping around on the bare boughs of the lakeside trees. 

This little house sits on the brow of a hill just beside the lake. It's a cowshed these days, but once upon a time a family lived there with their children and all their animals. It's very small, but it must have been a magical place to live. 

The lake looked cold, very cold. Amazingly there were quite a few fishermen sitting patiently at the end of the jetties waiting for fish to bite.

I had to admire their determination. Sitting there for hours and hours in the damp, cold of the lakeside air must have chilled their bones all the way through to the marrow. I hope they caught a few whoppers to make it all worthwhile.

All the best for now,


Bonny x

As shared on Texture Tuesday

The Roman Baths ... in Bath ...

Yes, we're still on the trail of those pesky Romans, as Emi works his way slowly through his half-term homework assignment.

On our way back to London from Devon we stopped off to take a look at the Roman Baths in ... Bath. No prizes for guessing how this city got its name!

I've been here so many times I think I could hire myself out as a tour guide. Everyone who comes to visit us from overseas gets dragged down to Bath at some point during their stay. It's such a great place to visit, and it was a real pleasure to show little Emi around. He's been pushed around the sights in his pram before, but claims not to remember a great deal about it.

Have you ever seen a more timeless looking place than this?

It's like an onion with every skin a different age. 

Before the Romans the Celts lived here. Some of their gods are still in evidence at the complex.

This sacred trinity of mother goddesses was dug up at Bathwick. They were being venerated here long before the Romans started polishing their lances and wondering whether or not they should cross the Rubicon.

And even after they'd been conquered the ancient Britons still managed to do Roman things their way. Take a look at this wonderful carving that once stood proud on the central plinth of the temple here in Bath. Is it a (male) Gorgon with the snakes for hair, Neptune, god of the seas or our good old Green Man, Master of the Celtic Wild Wood? It's anyone's guess, but whichever way you cut the cake he's gorgeous.

The temple here was dedicated to Sulis Minerva, the goddess of the heavenly hot spring.  Is it just me, or does anyone else think she looks a bit like Margaret Thatcher? Maybe it's just the way she's had her hair curled.

And when we got right down to pool level there were still a few Romans hanging around enjoying the party. I wonder what they're talking about. Where's the best place to get your chariot serviced? Why doesn't anyone in this country know how to cook a decent stuffed dormouse? I wouldn't know where to begin, but at least they did a good job of blending in with the tourists (not).

Here's another chap who's been standing around for so long that he's turned to stone. I think he's drawing his sword to clear a way through all the tourists to get to the pool. It was standing room only when we passed through. And everyone - absolutely everyone - was listening to the talkie guide they hand out at the door.

The water rises out of the ground heated to a steaming 46º C (115º F). It's the only place in the UK where this happens, and those old Romans thought that it was the work of the gods.

It would be amazing to go for a dip in that ancient pool with all those regal statues looking on. These days they've got an amazing modern spa where you can do just that. The best bit is the rooftop pool where you can drift around admiring the view of the rooftops through the steam rising off the water.

It's a brilliant spot to pass an afternoon and Emi seemed to learn a load of stuff about the Romans. But it would be magical to go at night and have the place to yourself. Can you just imagine floating around in the hot water with a glass of something cool and delicious, watching the stars twinkle overhead? How very decadent!

All the best,

Bonny x

Art of the Brick ... an exhibition in Lego

Calling all Lego fans:  I’ve found just the exhibition for you.

It's the Art of the Brick, which is running at the Old Truman Brewery just off Brick Lane until 4th January. 

Mr B and I headed off to check it out on Sunday afternoon with Emi. Emi (age 8) is a huge Lego fan, and he was really excited by the idea of a Lego art display.

The first thing that I must say is that the exhibition is really good fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and I found myself smiling at the playful ingenuity of what had been built.

You're welcomed into a classical gallery with a collection that includes Rodin's Thinker and Michaelangelo's David, all faithfully rendered in little plastic bricks. In the case of David it took a total of 16,349 bricks to put him together.

 The detail achieved with the clean straight lines of the bricks is impressive, and they are beautifully displayed with bold backdrops and perfect lighting.

There are about 80 works on display. The artisit, Nathan Sawaya, has been exhibiting his Lego sculptures all around the world since 2007, and to date over a million people have been to see them.

Yesterday afternoon lots of children were bustling around with cameras taking photos that would no doubt inspire a raft of work once they got home.

Everything has been constructed from standard issue, go-buy-it-in-a-toy-shop Lego, so, in theory, there was nothing on display that those busy little people wouldn't have been able to produce at home.

Sawaya, after working for a while as a corporate lawyer, decided that what he really wanted to do was go and explore the creative, artistic possibilities of the Lego brick. I loved the fact that he had used such a familiar, everyday toy to create his installations. It made the whole thing feel a bit cheeky and irreverent, almost as though he were sending up the art-world and its tendency to take itself too seriously.

On the other hand some of the work on display felt quite serious. The yellow man above was captioned: Ever have those days when you've given so much of yourself that it feels like a hole has been left in you? That message and his open torso felt a bit eery and surreal given how the sculpture was incongruously made out of cheerful yellow Lego bricks. It made me pause and think for a moment.

These huge faces (below) were real show-stoppers. The detail of their features was almost hypnotic. The red one had the most amazing - and impossible to photograph - eyelashes. The blue face is a self portrait.

One of my favourite installations was the swimmer. Using a clear perspex table and with some artfully positioned mirrors and discarded bricks for surf the illusion of someone moving through the water was complete.

Emi was very impressed with the huge T-Rex, but I'm not sure that he's got the 80,000 beige bricks that he'll need if he want's to build one in the front room at home.

Mr. B liked the huge pencil that had written yes on the carpet; he likes to embrace the positive.

And then there were the  Lego Beatles. There was also a Lego One Direction, but let's not go there ... .

I enjoyed my whistle-stop tour of the art world.

How do you like the Lego version of Monet's San Giorgio Maggoire at dusk?

Or how about Van Gogh's starry night at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence?

Maybe you'd prefer the Mona Lisa ... 'cos he's made her too.

Personally I liked his rendition of Munch's Scream. I think it's better than the original!

All three of us really enjoyed the exhibition. It's not specifically aimed at children, but lots of parents brought their little folk. My poor child gets dragged along to everything because I have some crazy idea that it'll help develop him into a rounded person. But I'm guessing that a lot of other normal people felt that, because the exhibition was made using their children's favourite toy, it was cool to bring them along. And for me that was just great. I could hear lots of mums and dads explaining patiently to their little ones that this was the Mona Lisa, who had a certain, lovely smile, and over here was a Van Gogh ... he cut his ear off, you know ... and so it went on.  Lots of children were getting their first introduction to the art world, and it was through a medium that made everyone feel comfortable, and in some ways empowered the parents to go into explanations that they might not have felt able to speak aloud in the hushed and disapproving silence of a normal gallery.

If you'd like to check it out you can find all the necessary details at the website: The Art of the Brick.

All the best,

Bonny x

As shared on Image-in-ing and Our World Tuesday

Stowe House Gardens

 A couple of weeks' ago, Emi and I had a big day out with my very, very dear friend Jenny who was celebrating her birthday. We decided to head out of the Big Smoke to somewhere that none of us had ever been to before. As we had Maxi-the-wonder-dog in tow, we needed a canine-friendly destination. In the end we hit upon the idea of going to Stowe House Gardens in Buckinghamshire, one time home of the Dukes of Buckingham.

And there we took a trip back in time to the days when the sun never set on the British Empire and every wannabe aristo had to go on the Grand Tour to have their tastes and ideas refined and polished to shine in polite society. Stowe was built on a truly imperial scale, and has over the years played host to many movers and shakers who lived their lives in an imperial fashion.

Tsar Alexander I came here for a visit in 1810. Then in 1814 the Grand Duke Michael, his brother came and had a look around. They both liked it so much that in 1818 the Grand Duke Nicholas, who later became Tsar Nicholas I came for a look-see as well.

Can you imagine what it must have been like in those days at Stow, hosting the Imperial family of All the Russians? I imagine the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, as he became in 1820 when the title was created, went to quite some lengths to make sure that no one (or at least no one imperial) was allowed to get bored. 

The Duke's name, when he started out in life had been a breath-taking Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, which was a bit fancy-pants even by the standards of his day. What had happened you see was that the male heirs in the family had developed a strong penchant for marrying wealthy, titled heiresses. Each son then wanted to honour (or show off) his impeccable maternal lineage by adopting his mother's surname along with those of his father. And all those hyphens soon added up to an imperial ship-load of money in the family coffers.

Today I'd find it difficult to take someone seriously who insisted on using such a multi-hyphenated moniker, but old Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville didn't seem to reckon on encountering such cynicism as mine. In fact he himself added the -Brydges-Chandos- bit by royal warrant in 1799. Maybe it gave him something to talk about ... I say, old chap, do you know that I've got more surnames than anyone else in England ...  . Although he was commonly known as Lord Grenville's fat nephew, and Ph D, which was said to stand for phat duke and the gros Marquis, which would suggest that he may not have been the most svelte, dynamic man in England at the time.

Perhaps it was his amazing garden that did it, because the Great and the Good came in their droves to visit old Dickie Whatshisname.

Of all the follies and temples in the gardens my personal favourite is this gothic temple, reflecting my own strong preference for the irregularity and chaos of the gothic over the perfect symmetry and order of the classical. Jenny agreed. In fact it was the thing that both of us were most strongly drawn to when we first looked around the park. We spotted it in the distance and agreed that we'd have to bend our steps towards the church, but of course, silly us, it wasn't anything so prosaic and everyday as a simple church: it was a folly dressed up as a gothic temple.

Isn't it amazing? We thought it would make a great venue for a stonking Halloween party. 

But anyway, back to old Dickie Whatshisname: he followed in the family tradition and hooked himself Lady Anne Brydges, a very grand heiress, as his wife. Lady Anne could trace her bloodline back to the Plantagenet Kings of England. As a consequence, when they had a son and heir, he added the surname Plantagenet to his list of monikers, even though none of his Plantagenet relations seemed to have done so since they were Kings of England.  And he was known as ... wait for it ... <drum roll> ... Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville.

Young Richard thingy-thingy-whathisname made quite a splash in society for two not-so-great reasons. He bagged himself the requisite grand heiress (Lady Mary Campbell - and there are strictly no prizes for guessing which extra surname his child and heir added to the ever-increasing list of family names) but then he decided that he'd made a terrible mistake and - shock, horror - he divorced her. So? No big deal, you may well say and today, by the standards of our age, I'd have to agree with you. People get divorced all the time these days and it's really not a biggie, but way back then, believe me, it was a huge biggie. No one got divorced - unless they were Henry VIII. And if you weren't Henry VIII, but were still hell-bent on being the exception to the rule, you'd need nothing less than an Act of Parliament to pull it off. And that's exactly what young Richard thingy-thingy-whatshisname did. He got himself an Act of Parliament divorce from Lady Mary in 1850. 

Financial difficulties may have added to his marriage problems. You see, despite having inherited riches that would have made even Croesus feel a little light in the bank-account department, young Richard thingy-thingy-whathisname was declared bankrupt in 1847 with debts totalling over £1 million. Now wait up: in today's money that would add up to well over a staggering £100 million. In addition to all the other names he'd accumulated he was known thereafter as the greatest debtor in the world. Embarrassed by all the attention from his not-so-friendly creditors he wisely took himself off to live abroad in August 1847.

His bankruptcy prompted the most prominent English country house auction of the century when Christies set up shop in the State Dining room at Stowe and sold off all the family silver, art, fine furniture, assorted knick-knacks, over 21,000 bottles of wine and 500 bottles of spirits. The auction started on 15th August 1848 and lasted until 7th October 1848. Unfortunately it only raised £75,400, which was a drop in the ocean given how much was owed. So they also had to sell off the family's London home, a little place on the other side of Pall Mall that went by the name of Buckingham House. And some 36,000 acres of land that the family owned on their estates in Ireland, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Cornwall, Hampshire and Somerset also had to go under the hammer.

But they did manage to hold onto Stowe and its magnificent gardens. 

The second duke died a broken man in the Great Western Hotel, Paddington in 1861 and his son, Richard Plantagenet Cambell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville inherited what was left of his estate and became the third (and last) Duke of Buckingham. Sensibly, in order to save ink, he usually operated under the name Richard Temple-Grenville. He didn't have a male heir, so the title became extinct on his death.

By the Third Duke's time the estate had contracted dramatically and the glory days of the family were over. The grounds, which had previously been attended to by a staff of 40, were now managed by a staff of 4, and I'm guessing that those 4 gardeners lived hectic busy lives trying to keep this place in order. 

The gardens are amazing, truly amazing. But for me, personally, they're just a bit too grand, rather like all those surplus surnames hanging on a chain of hyphens. 

It's true that around every corner there is a stunning view as though the eighteenth century gardeners who laid them out had the modern-day obsession with landscape photography in mind when they went to work.

There's a Temple of British Worthies, designed by William Kent, which celebrates the very best that these isles have produced in terms of human achievement. On the left are the men of contemplation and learning: writers, scholars and scientists, and on the right are the men of action: monarchs, warriors and statesmen. Above them all, in the alcove at the top, is Mercury.

And here they are, the selected British worthies: 

The worthies: top row left to right: Sir Thomas Gresham, Alexander Pope, Ignatius Jones and John Milton.
Second row from the top, left to right: William Shakespeare, John Locke,  Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Francis Bacon.
Third row from the top, left to right: King Alfred, Edward, Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth I and King William III.
Bottom row, left to right: Sir Francis Drake,  John Hampden, John Barnard and Sir Walter Raleigh.

I suppose if you were the Duke of Buckingham, wandering around your rolling acres with a different, perfect vista to look at in every direction and the very best of British Worthies for company, you might well become complacent and introverted to the point where you obsessed on names and honours rather than the changing world around you. Whatever the way of it, there's a salutary lesson there for everyone, even us lesser mortals who don't have so many rolling acres or surnames to count.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

(As shared on Friday Finds and Image-in-ing)

And if you're looking for inspiration for a day out of London how about:

Corfe Castle

or Tresco Abbey

or a quiet stroll on Dartmoor