Blogging our Christmas Holiday (9)

Another jigsaw....a 300-piece map of the world with teeny-tiny pieces each no larger than a thumbnail, packed into an 8cm x 7.5cm x 3cm box without a picture, and which when assembled measures 25cm x 19cm. (A cup and saucer is included in the first photo to provide a sense of scale.) It took the two of us just over two hours to complete. Now to read some History Today magazine to recuperate!

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (8)

Third jigsaw finished -- what heroes we are!



Now to watch some St David of Attenborough, from our St David of Attenborough DVD collection....

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (7)

We've moved on to our third jigsaw, of one of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries woven at the end of the 15th century and now displayed in the Musee National du Moyen Age, Paris. As you might imagine if you follow the links and examine the tapestries for yourselves, there are hours of fun to be had just sorting the pieces into colours and shapes, never mind actually assembling the jigsaw....

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (6)

We're on to our second jigsaw of the holiday -- a scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, from the British Museum's collection.

Blogging our Christmas holiday (5)

We went out for a walk today: a loop up through Downhills Park, through Lordship Rec, around Tottenham Cemetery and back via Bruce Castle Park. It wasn't as cold as when we'd attempted the same route last year (when it was so cold that we had to abandon the route at the halfway point and return home), but there was more snow and ice than there had been last Christmas (contradictory though that may sound). I took some photographs, and here's a selection. In order, they show Lordship Rec in the early afternoon sun; the Wugster in Tottenham Cemetery; a squadron of ducks slithering towards us as we arrived at the lake at the Cemetery's furthest point (we hadn't even got the bread out of our bags, so they were presumably mobbing us in the expectation that any visitors would be carrying food for them); the Wugster scattering bread for the birds; and a very inquisitive goose.

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (4)

The jigsaw approaches completion (although we suspect that -- bought second-hand, as it was, from a charity shop -- some edge pieces are missing)....



....but then it was time to stop for dinner. (No idea what the Wugster is looking at there, but that may just be to avoid the actinic flash of the camera and the resulting red-eye.)

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (3)

We've decorated our cake with trees and rabbits from the garden of one of the Wugster's dolls-houses....



....stuffed the pheasant with a mixture of onions, chestnuts and juniper berries....



....and given it a couple of glasses of red wine to help it on its way.

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (2)

We iced our cake, only a day later than planned, and found that we didn't have quite enough icing (or marzipan) to cover the whole thing. Poot!

Blogging our Christmas Holiday (1)

The holiday begins....and so does work on the first jigsaw, of an antique dolls-house made by Sara Ploos van Amstel in 1743 and now in the Haags Gemeentemuseum (according to the box, although the museum's website denies all knowledge of it).

Lyme Regis, Winter 2010 (4)

Here's the final tranche of photographs from our walk along the River Lim in Lyme regis last Sunday, showing -- in order -- snowy houses and gardens; a stretch along the river known as Jericho, with the Wugster photographing something; another stretch showing where the flow of water has been divided between the higher mill leat, on the left, and the river itself, on the right; a stretch of the river known as Leper's Well, again with the Wugster photographing something; and, finally, the Town Mill a listed building parts of which date from the medieval period and which in the past few years has been brought back into working order, both generating its own hydro-electricity and grinding flour. Here we stopped for afternoon tea at the very nice cafe round the back and purchased some cheese from the cheesemonger whose shop is visible on the right of the photograph.

Lyme Regis, Winter 2010 (3)

Here's some more photographs of the walk we took on the Sunday, continuing from where I left off in the last post, showing Gore Lane Woods (where a couple of summers ago we saw several badger setts -- obviously, we didn't stop for a look in the woods on this occasion); the woods above Uplyme; a signpost on the path along the River Lim where it leave Uplyme and enters Lyme Regis; the Wugster striding along the road by the river; and some artistically snowy trees on the bank of the river.

Tomorrow I'll post some photographs from the remainder of the walk, which finished with afternoon tea and some cheese purchases at the Town Mill. (Cheese purchases? Why, yes, Gromit, lad....)

Lyme Regis, Winter 2010 (2)

Here's the second tranche of photographs from our weekend in snowy Lyme Regis, showing the first part of a walk we took on Sunday. The walk took us along Ware Lane, which starts from the junction with the road to Seaton just opposite my parents' house, to its second junction with the Seaton Road where it turns into Gore Lane and runs down into Uplyme, then into Lyme Regis and along the River Lim for afternoon tea (or more accurately, black coffee and hot chocolate) at the cafe at the Town Mill.

The five photographs below show, in order, a well rugged-up Wugster leading the way along Ware Lane; tobogganers on the hills inland from Ware Cliffs; a view of Ware Lane unsullied by human footprints (although we in fact met a number of people out for a walk on that cold, crisp day); Ware House, the former centre of a large farm estate which has been much sub-divided and sold off and after which the Lane and the Cliffs are named; and the Wugster leading the way along Gore Lane as we trundle down into Uplyme.

More snow pictures tomorrow!

Lyme Regis, Winter 2010 (1)

The Wugster and I spent the weekend visiting my parents in Lyme Regis, and were almost-but-not-quite cut off by the snow. It started snowing heavily in London just as we were leaving on Friday lunchtime, snowed overnight in the West Country on both Friday-Saturday and Saturday-Sunday, and again this morning. Train services back to London were heavily disrupted; our journey took twice as long as budgeted and required a break and a change of trains at Salisbury. Anyway, here's the first of what will be four or five (or even six) tranches of photographs from the weekend, showing -- in order -- my parents' garden on the morning of Saturday 18 December; a view over Coram Towers towards Charmouth as we walked down into town that morning; a view from almost the same vantage point of Golden Cap (the highest point on the Channel coast) and Thorncombe Beacon, the next summit to its east (i.e., the right); a view down through Langmoor Gardens to the, er, "beach"; and a view from Langmoor Gardens of the snowy Cobb (when even at midday the winter sun is so low in the sky that some glare seems unavoidable). Look at all that show and shiver, you wimpy Aussies you!

Today's the Day

The Wugster and I were married 27 years ago today.

27 years! No one is more astonished by this than the two of us. It only seems a few years ago that we were approaching our thirtieth birthdays -- where did all that time go?

An Afternoon Out

We spent this afternoon at the Horniman Museum in south London, a first for both of us. It has an extensive ethnographic collection, although Judith thought the labelling could have been better; it also has a "Nature Base", an interactive feature aimed at acquainting young children with the wildlife they're likely to see in London's parks and gardens. This includes a working beehive (although it will obviously "work" more in summer, when there is nectar to be foraged) and a vivarium of harvest mice, Britain's smallest rodent.

As might be expected, these little creatures seem to spend more time hiding in their nest of grass and wheat stalks than scuttling about in plain view, a situation not helped by a load of young children crashing and banging about and scaring them into keeping out of sight. But then, suddenly: activity! Little pink noses poking out of the grass, little dark button eyes scanning for threats....then out they came, three of them, each about the size of my thumb (excluding the tail), clambering up the wheat stalks to pick off the kernels and settle down for a good old feed, little cheeks pumping away as they gnawed through the husks to get at the germ within.

Everybody duly went "goo" and took lots of close-up photographs. What darling little wuggles they were!

The 2010 Potato Harvest

Yesterday started fine and clear in our part of the world, and stayed fine and clear for several hours; so we skipped our usual Saturday morning visit to the farmers market at Stoke Newignton and went to the allotment instead, to harvest the remaining potatoes (which provided the excuse, if one was needed, to completely dig over one of the beds and repais its edging. Not that there aren't a number of other beds which also need (a) completely digging over, to clear their weed layer, and (b) their edging repaired -- fork-lift pallet planks just don't last any time at all these days). Inevitably, it clouded over and rained a couple of times, but we pretty much completed our self-assigned task -- and, for the time of year, managed to harvest an amazing variety of stuff -- several pods of peas, clutches of rocket and spinach leaves, two pots of raspberrries. And the potatoes -- a mixture of Red Duke of York, Sarpo Mira (the less red ones), Kestrel (with purple eyes) and Pentland Javelin (the sausagey-shaped ones). The potentially, er, "suggestive" positioning of certain of these items in the photograph is left as an exercise for the reader (fnurr fnurr).

"We'll come in low out of the rising sun, and about a mile out we'll put on the music."

When Daniel and Mitchell stayed overnight with us, while the other Truepeople went to the ballet, they were very interested in my helicopter models. They were even more interested when I pulled open the drawer under the spare bed in my office to show them the boxes and boxes of unmade helicopter models. Why hadn't I made any of them? Mitchell (or Daniel) wanted to know. In vain did I explain the concept of Adult Lack Of Time which kids never seem to grasp (full-time work, a garden and house to maintain, books to be read and Serious Cult Material to watch on television, etc. etc.) -- although I was slightly startled to hear myself say that I hadn't made a model since we'd bought our house, getting on for seventeen years ago. (Seventeen years!) This didn't stop Daniel (or Mitchell) suggesting that I extract a box at random and start making a new model right there and then, despite the imminence of dinner. (Perhaps they wanted to watch how a professional goes about it. Making models as a spectator sport? It would -- literally -- have meant watching paint dry.)

(Mitchell (or Daniel) also wanted to know why, since we weren't interested in and didn't participate in sport, we didn't use the time they thought we would notionally have devoted to same to play MurderDeathKill VII on the X-Box or Warhammer 40,000 AD instead. I once again attempted to explain that adults simply do not have the non-school free time which kids take for granted -- as they will discover for themselves ten years from now.)

Looking through the unmade models, I did notice a couple of duplicates -- the result (I theorise) of not having a list to hand on the occasions that I venture into the branch of Model Zone near my workplace. (I have now constructed such a list.) I was in the shop a couple of days ago, needing some polystyrene cement to resituate the pods on the starboard winglet of the Mil 24, which I noticed (when the boys were looking at it) had obviously been broken off at some point but Not Glued Back Properly. While in the shop, my eyes strayed towards a display of Revell Mini Kits, a range of teeny-tiny snap-together models (so teeny-tiny that no scale is given) which included an Apache Gunship. Something to put on my desk at work, I thought, and -- on impulse -- bought one.

Except that it's clearly too delicate to leave at work (for the cleaners to -- doubtless inadvertently -- break), so I brought it home instead. And -- having fixed the Mil 24's starboard winglet -- have duly snapped it together (with some careful dabs of polystyrene cement to keep it together). My first new helicopter model in getting on for seventeen years. What a hero I are!

Here are some photographs -- one of the box (with a pen for scale); one of the parts before assembly; one during assembly; and two of the completed model, sitting on the palm of the Wugster*.







*Note the spelling there, Daniel (or Mitchell). This being our made-up word, it will be spelled how we require. So there!

Photographs from Scotland (8)

These photographs all show aspects of the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the remains of the Abbey to which it is attached.

The Abbey was founded around 1128 and from an early date contained chambers for the specific use of the kings of Scotland, who found its surroundings more pleasant than Edinburgh Castle on its rock a mile to the west; by the second half of the 15th century, the royal lodgings had become larger and more important than the abbey. James IV took the decision to convert the lodgings into a palace on his marriage to Mary Tudor in 1503; any remains of this work will now lie below the rectangular tower built by James V in 1528 at the northwest corner of the palace, which was originally surrounded by a small moat. (The tower is now most famously associated with Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of her Italian secretary David Rizzio by her then husband, Lord Darnley, in 1566.) The palace was extended by James VI (James I of England) and Charles I in the early 17th century but damaged by Cromwellian forces (and then fire) in 1651. The present design of the palace dates largely from the reign of Charles II: a quadrangle surrounded by three-storey wings on the north, east and south sides, with a two-storey facade pierced by an elaborate triumphal gateway surmounted by the arms of Scotland on the west.

The photographs below show, in order, a view of the palace from Salisbury Crags to the south; part of the western facade with the gate to the right of centre and (on the left) the west face of the rectangular tower built by James V; the sole remaining tower of the western front of the abbey church, attached to the northern side of the palace; part of the nave of the abbey church, which projects beyond the eastern line of the palace (it is also visible in the first photograph); and a closer view of the elaborate triumphal gateway in the western facade of the palace.

Photographs from Scotland (7)

On our last day in Edinburgh, I climbed Arthur's Seat for a view over the city and the surrounding countryside. (Although I think you actually get a better -- more detailed -- view of the city centre from Salisbury Crags, which I visited on the way back down. From there, through binoculars, I saw a puff of white smoke from the one o'clock gun on the Castle and noted moments afterwards -- one of course can't see both at the same time -- that the ball at the top of Nelson's Tower on Calton Hill had fallen.) It was a fairly grey day: some patches of clear sky, but too much cloud and haze to try taking photographs of anything too far away. (One would have needed an SLR with a telephoto lens of epically phallic proportions to resolve worthwhile detail.) The Pentland Hills, to the west, stood out; the bump of Mount Lomond was visible on the northwest horizon; the northern shore of the Firth of Forth was clear; much further away, to the east, at the mouth of the Firth, were North Berwick Law and -- beyond it -- Bass Rock, from where Simon King usually reports for the BBC's Autumnwatch (but not this time. I was slightly surprised by how white the Rock is, or at least how clearly its whiteness stood out: I know that the bazillions of gannets which roost there produce bazillions of tonnes of guano, but still....

But the real surprise about getting to the top of Arthur's Seat was the number of other people up there -- judging by their language, it appeared to be a group of German (or Austrian) students on a field geology trip. It was all a little like one now imagines the summit of Everest to be, with people queueing below the col for their five minutes of waving a flag and photographing each other before having to descend to make way for the next party. Here's a photograph: