stuff in the VandA

the illusion of winter ... and whilst i'll never be tempted to join the english defence league, i'd like to assert my national right to fry liver and onions at six in the morning

at sheffield park, flouncing in ...

... flaunting herself ...

... and flouncing out again

appropriately, on armistice day, i found this document on display in the new museum on the bluebell line at sheffield park station

her wonderful daughter alex just told me that tina's gone ... last week i had promised her that paul newman would be waiting by the gate to lead her directly, hand in hand, to the bluebell wood

...and this is what was playing on the radio when i got the message

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri2CzfI84Wk&feature=related

i had often wondered why none of my country friends make jam with spindleberries

http://www.thepoisongarden.co.uk/atoz/euonymus_europaeus.htm

bags of crisps were packed in tins like this when i started school in 1954 ... i found this one in an alley way behind a restaurant this afternoon ... and despite all our wet weather it was as bone dry as if someone had just put it out

http://www.flickr.com/photos/castlekay/2630591987/

burwash rose ... a generous gift from it's maker ...

http://www.traditionalcheesedairy.co.uk/news.htm

... many thanks ... we'll savour it when the loved one gets home this evening

romance open brackets love close brackets divorce marriage

some mildly discordant domestic discourse which failed to ruin our weekend ...

He: "Do you know ?  I think you've never, ever, polished my shoes for me !"

She: "You might like to get on the internet this evening and start researching ... like ... where your nearest soup kitchen will be."

bronze stuff in the ashmolean

a well-travelled saddle

miracles of modern humanity ( chapter 99 ) ... roy and laura

shameless ashmoleans

alas ! poor rudolf ... i knew him well !

thinks: i haven't owned a comb for thirty years

trucker's rest break on a dark day in denbies vinyard

i am sipping from a small glass of torres diez in memory of my sweet friend george collinson who passed away this morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV0RtQ_BOT0

british summer time bites the dust ... nearly but never completely

read, learn, and inwardly digest ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12849630

shocking and distasteful ...

écoutez ...
http://soundcloud.com/kraftykuts/krafty-kuts-radio-1-with-annie

autumn sunbathers ... ten yards from my bus stop at putney heath

fancy floristry at burwash church

prick up your ears and take in eleven minutes of someone else's lateral thinking, a beautifully spoken eleven minute tour of the mind

http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/1/dFs9WO2B8uI

a little bit of local colour

rugby fans at the french bar near clapham common at half past nine on sunday morning

how the poor become poorer ... by shopping in oxfam

some of this week's BTs

Walking from the bus stop to the work place on a moonlit night, seen across the dark open space of a newly demolished factory, silhouetted against the brightly lit laundry in acre lane, the elegant black form of a sure-footed young fox trotting sixty yards along the narrow top of a six foot wall.

Later, in the brilliant cloudless mid-morning, in the High Weald, whilst loading the truck on a steep ramp besides a small cheese factory, i lift my head at the sound of horseshoes in the lane, and see two white ponies trotting up the gentle slope towards Stonegate village, silhouetted against the cold blue sky with two stout ladies bouncing in the saddles.

Back in the city, seen from the top deck of the homeward bus, quite unusually, a pair of falcons, unfamiliar to me with short wings and deep chests and dark tails, clearly side-lit in the late afternoon sunlight whilst circling on a thermal for a long time, high, but not too high, above a supermarket near the crossroads at Clapham Junction, where, by an improbable coincidence, there stands a famous Victorian pub named The Falcon.

one bt, although sometimes there isn't time to grab the camera ...

Last saturday, after sitting in an empty carriage for twenty minutes whilst my train was held at brockenhurst station, i went to the door just in time to see a huge steam locomotive drawing a long train of ancient carriages stained with years of use and filled with happy day trippers heading for corfe castle ... but there wasn't time to grab the camera

Six hours later, as i walked back from the hospice at christchurch to the station, i heard the same train thundering under the bridge, but just too far away for me to run with my camera ... so all i saw was the cloud of smoke, and all i smelled was soot and sulphur.

An hour and a half afterwards, as my train slid quietly through the darkness towards london, i caught a faint whiff of that sulphur and soot again, ... and a minute later we were gradually overtaking the dimly lit steam excursion carriages, so slowly that i could see the fabrics on the seats, the crisp linen tablecloths, the glinting brass table lamps ... and then the open plan carriages where old fashioned families sprawled amongst shopping bags, cast off coats, huddles of children ... and all so gradually that there was time for them to wave at me and for me to wave back.

http://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/news783.htm

a conspiracy of cats

read all about it ! read all about it ! mystery patient ( tina schol, the last time i set eyes on her ) wears no-longer-fashionable sweater knitted by photographer's mother ( sylvia forward ) twenty-five years ago whilst scrutinizing terry pratchett interview in today's guardian ... and she's only the very same person that slipped a copy of "mort" to me about twenty years ago

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/oct/14/terry-pratchett-life-writing

ladybird metamorphosis on clapham common

last night the moon light crept into the quietest room, illuminating the dusty floor ... so naturally, my thoughts turned to dandruff

hey nonny no ! only five or six months 'til spring !

roelandt savery's dancing dodos

i don't really know if they danced but i like to think they'd have enlivened the grounds of many of our stately homes had mankind not been so unkind

here's an excellent history of the subject

http://julianhume.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/History-of-the-dodo-Hume.pdf

beware, slimmers ! ... this is an hornazo

baked by santi, the village baker of lagartera in toledo province ... a great man, and a self taught architect, too

eaten, ( probably mostly ), during this past weekend by my cruel friend linda, who must only have photographed it just to make me nostalgic ( i am not jealous, i am not salivating, do you hear me, linda ? )

if i remember rightly, it is a gigantic compartmentalized pasty containing localized fillings of mutton, of chorizo, and a boiled egg

at weekends we assiduously perfect the four R's ... by writing ...

... reading, and relinquishing all responsibilities

the colour purple ... delightful classical scholarship via metafilter

just click on this link for a short essay on antique perceptions by the late william harris

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/purple.html

he seems to have been a delightfully free thinker ... and doodler

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/ss/spot.html

in the past i've struggled and failed to paint with purple

here's an image borrowed from some clever young americans who don't have that problem

http://lotsoferaserdust.deviantart.com/art/Purple-Sea-172639231