A Country Walk

Welford Park, in Berkshire, opens in February for a month, to show off its beautiful snowdrops. It has woods, a river, a swamp, formal gardens and secret gates. There is a dog cemetery, dogwood, aconites, a sweet tearoom and a pretty church. I have come home with a couple of pots of snowdrops, to add to my tiny clump. They are best planted 'in the green' and are supposed to multiply a little every year. Mine were doing but this year have not! There are lots of photos today so you can follow me on my walk if you like. As we were driving there we went through some woodland. Ahead on the road we saw a line of five deer crossing-in a very orderly and beautiful way. As we drew level to where they were they had become invisible in the wood again.

Grey Day

I love grey so grey days are OK. The sun tried to come out this morning but just managed to shine through the clouds a little. We both had a day off from working today and went out to see a couple of exhibitions at Tate Britain. We decided to get the Thames Clipper as the Jubilee line was off, but got the wrong one. Westminster was in sight when the boat started to turn around! We got there eventually. The exhibitions were both good. One was Rachel Whiteread's drawings and the other was the photography of Eadweard Muybridge. Both fascinating and inspiring.
I found this review which, although quite negative about her previous work, sums up how Whiteread draws in a much better way than I could-

''Her gift is for applying a sculptor's feeling for materials to two-dimensional images. In particular, she uses the obliterating opacity of correction fluid to stark effect, blanking out a building in a street, or a step in a staircase to trip up the mind, making it fumble through the white-out in search of what is no longer there.''

I had never thought of using correction fluid as an art medium-but think it is such a great idea-so bought some today!

Eadweard Muybridge had an interesting life and long career as a photographer. He is most famous for pioneering techniques which allowed photographs to be taken of animals (famously the horse-showing how all four legs leave the ground at a certain point in a gallop.) and people in motion, thus showing in detail what the human eye could not perceive. This lead to his developing the zooipraxiscope-a device which took the still frames and reanimated them. Here is a little example. (The drawings are from photos) This was early cinema. His tale is fascinating and the photos he took of the American landscape are beautiful. I was a sucker for the moving ruler illustrating a naked running man! It must have been so exciting to see these pictures come back to life for the first time. It is funny to think how excited I get when I do one of those little animations-how things have come full circle for amateurs like me to try really basic techniques digitally. It makes me wonder what someone like Muybridge would come up with now, with all the technology available.

I took lots of photos along the river-most of which were not great. I played around with the few I liked.
I used one of Kim Klassen's textures-this Friday's freebie actually-called appropriately 'Grey Day'. Go and visit Kim and sign up for her texture lovin' list and you will receive freebies and great offers on other textures and courses.
This picture was taken because of the cormorant sitting on the post in the foreground. I used Kim's texture, played around with the blending modes and added my picture back on top before doing some more blending. The effects you can get are so varied.
I love the way this one has come out. Like a drawing or etching or some such art technique!

A giant bicycle has somehow replaced the London Eye!

As promised the recipe for the fig and cinnamon cake. It is from December's issue of Country Homes and Interiors. It is really lovely cake-the figs are toffee like and just the right amount of chewy. I am not sure about the icing though. It uses Quark cheese-a kind of curd cheese. The amount of icing sugar it recommended made no difference to the runniness of the cheese and eventually I gave up adding more. It tasted OK with the orange zest and vanilla essence. Any cream cheese type icing with these flavourings would be good. I kept the icing in a container rather than pouring it on so we have used it as a sauce.

If you click on it it should enlarge big enough to read. Let me know if not and I could email you!

Were Horses Yellow in Those Days?

I went to the Tower of London yesterday with my Dad and Joan, for her birthday. It should be called the Towers of London, as there are 22 of them-not all remaining, but the memory of them is there. My favourite tower names are Bloody Tower (appropriate), Brick Tower (literal) and Cradle Tower (sounds fairy-tale-like). The exhibition of armour is interesting-I love seeing actual things that actual historical figures wore-it helps me to believe it is all real! We saw an exhibition about Napolean and Nelson a few years ago and they were both tiny! Enery the Eighth was average height. I don't know how they got on a horse with all that weight.

A member of the Queen's Guard guarding away.

His one and a half pound hat is a doddle compared to the armour.

In the armour exhibition there are a group of carved horses belonging to kings. Three of them are shades of yellow-this one being the brightest. The title of this post is what we overheard a little boy asking his Dad. A very good question I thought! Joan started talking to him and we also found out that he thinks he will be clever when he is eleven, but isn't yet!

When I downloaded the photos this ghostly face appeared!!!!!

Enery the Eighth looking at his armour and that of his horse.

Here he is again-in a case of wooden carved Kings.

All the pretty horses.

This is the book I am reading at the moment-

another Cormac McCarthy-and very enjoyable so far.

The best thing about the day, we all agreed, was the boat trip on the Thames Clipper. I don't know why my film has come out this small, but it will give you an idea of how fast it was! If you are ever here, or live here and have not been on it, go on it! It was very exciting. 30 knots. This is about 35 miles an hour. We were beaten by a cormorant flying past low to the water at one point!

The worst thing about the day was the shocking cost of a flapjack. £2.50! How can that be? Needless to say we didn't have lunch there. We went to a subway-which I have never been to before and was quite fun. I didn't realise you chose all your fillings and got big wodges of salad with it too. Oh-and if you want to see the crown jewels, get there early before a huge queue builds up. We didn't see them!

Fossil Hunting Friday

Today I went out on my own, to a place I went to when I was a child but not since. I suddenly remembered it, and googled 'beach with sharks teeth kent'
which took me here. Here is Herne Bay in Kent, specifically Beltinge and Reculver. It was cool when I set off in the morning, and as I imagined walking around on mud I wore my boots, jeans and a shirt. By the time I was walking along the beach it was boiling and I wished I had brought my swimming costume! I had to walk a long way to find a loo, then back again to where I thought I would find fossils. I sat on the beach for a while to cool off and it was so peaceful. It is a lovely beach with cliffs, rock pools and good views. I wandered around looking unsuccessfully for fossilised sharks teeth. I was asked by a lady there with her family if I was fossil hunting as she thought I might be some kind of expert-must have been the boots! I had to disappoint her, but her son didn't care, he just rushed up and proudly showed me his bucket of crabs!

As I was walking back, having given up on finding anything, I found the thing at the bottom-looks like a tooth which is what caught my eye, but is in fact a claw of a crab-I think. But, it was right next to the thing above which is a tooth-I think! It is certainly a fossil! I was so excited to have found something! Then I went on to find lots of fossilised bivalve shells and some fossilised wood-pictures tomorrow of those. The website above has good pictures of the kinds of things you can find. I have just looked at the website again and discovered that my fossil is about 56 million years old. I find that hard to comprehend! Now it is continuing to age on my kitchen table.

This is Reculver. The building is a twelfth century church-or at least its remains. I drove up here when I had finally climbed back up the 75 steps from the beach at Beltinge. I was happy to find a cafe, toilets and a pub-for future outings! I will have a proper look at the ruins next time.

Sinister looking funnels above a building on the sea front.

I think they are extractor fans of some sort.

I liked this beach umbrella.

Weathered wooden post.

Found in Hastings

I seem to be visiting all the main resorts of the south coast this holiday. If I had my way I would go to the seaside every day though, so I am quite happy about it! Today was Hastings, which has marvellous junk opportunities, picturesque fishing huts, boats and cliffs, a funicular railway, and lots of traditional seaside fun such as fairs and amusement arcades. We parked near the beach and had a little stroll before having lunch. I found this creature as we were leaving. He is about 3/4 inch long and looks like a woodlouse. Below are some other things I found today.
A giant's shoe.

Fairground gate-it was billed as this anyway.

I quite like it, but feel it was a bit overpriced at £90!

Filigree fronted fish list.
A gypsy and her caravan (in this lovely shop)
Not overpriced, but pricey at £175.
A collection of Crucifixes.

A knight in dull armour.

A screaming blue lady.

A rainbow girl in a pizza restaurant.

A wooden white hart.

Dungeness 3

Sea Kale
Herring Gull on the shingle

Dead fish-but I had to touch it to check-the eye looked so alive.

The Britannia pub had a huge collection of keyrings hanging from the beams.

Toilet decor in the pub.