i found this picture by tom la fontaine a while ago and was delighted to get so many responses when i posted it on the malmesbury now and then facebook page ... particularly these words from anne neal which brought the horses to life again

Anne Neal I've been talking to an old Moonraker about the picture, and thought you may be interested to know ........The horses in the picture were Percheron's, and belonged to Percy Webb, who bought them at the late Col.Llewellyn Palmers sale, approx 1962. One of the horses was used by one of the Pagintons to enter into Malmesbury carnival as Steptoe and son........The late Jesse Webb,of Bristol Street, used one of the horses to bring a load of manure down to Bristol St. There it would stay in the road until Jesse returned from returning the horse and cart, and then he would move it.........the old Moonraker remembers ian la Fontaine well and thought him a very nice fellow.

boxing day fashion dilemma ... which hat should i wear when i put out the rubbish ?

a little video about bosch by sarah jaffray has appeared on the wellcome collection website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9kfjgSGmx8&feature=youtu.be

one likes to spend december the 25th in one's pyjamas in the company of a good book ... ruth scurr is hereby promoted to THE PANTHEON OF FINE WIMMIN

http://www.ruthscurr.co.uk/

re-exploring the sierras near cazorla ... no wonder i got lost

Sir Philip Sydney's wonderful sister ... Lady Mary Sydney Herbert

her epitaph ...

Underneath this sable hearse,
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.

Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and learned and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sidney

i always try my hardest to get a window seat ... last week i saw this geological feature as we flew south over pamplona ...

hooray for spain's online geological survey !

http://info.igme.es/cartografia/magna50.asp?hoja=142&bis=

in the mood ... second version, with extra balls

whilst i loved to watch barcelona humiliating real madrid recently ... i wish i could have been at this game, too ...

... standing at the halfway line in the sunshine ...

i suppose i've kinda gotten used to writing letters by hand ...

unexpected co-incidences ( part 99 )

having woken at one, apparently completely refreshed after only six hours sleep, and having nearly two hours to spare before work, i used the time to write a few more pages of my current letter to "someone i never write to" ...

and as do all bores of a certain age, i started to write about something that can't possibly interest her ... the lack of interest shown about thomas hobbes, the author of LEVIATHAN, by my school teachers when i was a child in malmesbury, his birthplace

four hours later whilst it was still dark ... what should leap out and poke me in the eye as i walked past a magazine rack towards a sandwich shelf ....

... a lucid discussion of our current dilemma from the perspective of hobbes' views on government ... so i paid my money and read the article over breakfast, as you do ! and later i read a page by the learned karen armstrong, one of the permanent fixtures in my pantheon of fine wimmin

we love french culture ... for instance, cythera ... to-ing and fro-ing

wimmin and horses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxdVgtADjxQ