It’s November, so leaves and petals in the UK have largely done a bunk. Still, maybe I can find a little spring and summer time cheer in the archives, and fulfill my obligations to Monochrome Madness‘ host this week, Dawn; as well as to Becky’s NovemberShadows.
The header photograph includes both: tulip leaves shafting upwards, and topped by the simple clean lines of the tulip flower.
For the rest, it’s a miscellany that took my fancy. But all are either in shadow, or casting a shadow. So first … leaves…
… and flowers…
And finally, a doughty dandelion, flourishing on a brick wall in the gardens of Beningbrough Hall, near York. How it nourished all those leaves and petals is quite beyond me.
This week, it’s my turn to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I decided on Clocks and Timepieces. Easy, I thought. Well, up to a point. There are plenty of clocks in towns, in stations, on churches and on public buildings. But too often they’re bit samey-samey. So I’m starting with one that we came upon by chance on our last day in Alsace, in Munster’s Catholic Church. It’s a modern Horloge de la Création, installed at the behest of André Voegele from Strasbourg, who has made it his ambition to install unusual timepieces. This one is interesting alright. It tells the time: hour by hour, minute by minute. But it also counts the years down, month by month; the days of the week; and the phases of the moon. It’s topped by a splendid cockerel, whom I chopped off a bit in my header photo. So here he is. I’m sure he’s a reliable alarm clock. Cocks usually are.
As to the rest. I have an indifferent photo of a clock that hasn’t functioned since 2007 – the Swiss Glockenspiel Clock in London; a clock outside St. Pancras Station; one from a station waiting room in Keighley; an intriguing one spotted outside an apartment block in Barcelona; the centrepiece of Thirsk’s Market Square; and a clock which is not a clock, but helps to govern the workings of the one high up outside Masham’s Parish Church. Now. Can you tell which is which?
And finally. A clock which is a shadow of its former self. This alarm clock sat in a hedge on a country road which I often passed during Daily Exercise in Lockdown. It stayed there for months after Normal Sevice had been resumed. It was always 8 o’clock. Then one day it disappeared. Life has not been the same since. I offer it to Becky for NovemberShadows.
The lonely alarm clock of Musterfield. Tells the correct time twice daily, but the alarm never rings.
In August last year we were in Shrewsbury. One of the places we enjoyed visiting was Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings (it did exactly what it said, once upon a time). I wrote about it here. But I didn’t show you some of the very fine shadows we found. Here they are now:
Or is it two benches? Either way, it/they could do with a lick of paint to keep up with the cheerful shop front behind.
And that, Jude, is me done with benches I think. Unless I spot anything interesting in the remaining months of the year. My archive is now a bench-free zone – apart from the ones I’ve shown you. But it’s been fun. Thank you.
This week’s Monochrome Madness, hosted by Elke of Pictures Imperfect, takes pets as its subject. We don’t have one of those, though we are required to provide daily chats and cuddles to Newt, the dog next door on one side, and catering services when her owner is away to MiMi, the cat next door on the other side.
So I’m taking you to Bamburgh in Northumbria, where we were walking recently on the best sort of afternoon at an English seaside, with bright sun, breeze and gentle warmth. It was an afternoon for beach strolls and games … and for taking the dog out to play.
Now I’ve always hated funfairs, even as a child. Too noisy! Too crowded! Too scary! But I’ve always loved markets – local markets I mean, full (ideally)of stalls selling freshly picked lettuce and spinach, earth-covered newly-pulled potatoes or carrots. Local cheeses. Local fish. Local anything really.
But … I haven’t got time this week to curate photos from dozens of irresistible markets in France, in Spain, in Germany for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Found at the Fair or Market, hosted by Anne-Christine. Most of my Spanish family is coming over for a fortnight. Hooray! So I’ll use this opportunity to present just one photo, taken when they were with us last year, and we visited Beamish and its properly old fashioned fairground. It can serve for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness too.
I’m off duty now. No posts (apart from Indian Friday, which I’ve scheduled). No comments. No visits to all the blogs I enjoy reading. My daughter will usually be working remotely: so we’ll be i/c the children, now 4 years old and 20 months. So … a different kind of duty, even more pleasurable than the world of blogging.
Just because you can barely see them doesn’t mean the benches aren’t there. Morris dancers at Ripon Theatre Festival needed to take the weight off their feet from time to time, and their dresses and general Festival clutter seem to cover from view the benches they used pretty effectively.
British readers will recognise the allusion to the Flanders and Swann ‘A Transport of Delight’, celebrating the good old London bus. These specimens aren’t from London, but to be found transporting visitors round the vast site which is the museum at Beamish. This is a marvellous place celebrating the day-to-day life of working men and women in the North East of England, mainly from 1900 to the 1950s, but with glances back to earlier times too.
By the way, this is the last day for sending your 100 word story: ‘But What if She Says Yes?’ suggested in my post last Saturday. Only two of you (well, three, counting me) have been brave enough so far.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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