Category: England

A Buxton Bench

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.

For Jude’s Bench Challenge.

Dogs on the Beach

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.

Found at the Fair!

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.

‘Hold Very Tight Please! Ding Ding’

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.

For Becky’s #SimplyRed.

and Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.

I Spy with my Little Eye …

something beginning with H. That’s what Sarah of Travel with Me wants from us today for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.

Well, in among all the other acts, Ripon’s Theatre Festival included a few sets of Morris dancers – just as likely to be women as men these days. And they all flaunt terrific Headgear on their Heads. I mean… Hats. Here are a couple: and including two more in the featured photo.

Horses. I won’t show you show-jumpers, or mares with their foals in bucolic meadows. Here’s one waiting patiently for the 159 in Masham one evening as we were on our way to Photo Club. The last bus had left an hour and a half before. In truth, she was on the way to Appleby Horse Fair, an event that. although centuries old, isn’t as long-established as Morris dancing. This horse was one of dozens of horses and vardoes we see making their slow way there in the weeks before.

Let’s continue to be a little Olde Worlde. Here’s a House spotted last year in Vitré in Brittany, a town which boasts almost no other housing style.

Or shall we go for a little Hut in the grounds of Sleningford Old Hall, or a tiny House, fairies-for-the-use-of, in Nidd Hall?

Fairies make me think of other out-of this world creatures, as seen at Hallowe’en.

Not frightened yet? I can sort that out. Here’s the Hideous Head of a Gegant in Premià de Mar , and a Haunting Harridan from the Puppet Museum in Cádiz.

I don’t want to leave you quivering though. Let’s go back to Morris Dancing and Hats of course, and let the Slubbing Billys cheer you up. In black and white, and in Glorious Technicolor With Red Highlights for Becky’s #SimplyRed Squares.

Perfectly Placed Postboxes

The featured image, spotted in Buxton, in England’s Peak District sets the tone. Here is is, a cheery chappy, just waiting to receive your letter. If you write letters any more ….

Then there’s our local post box, still with an image painted on the wall behind dating from 2014, the year we moved here, and the year that the Tour de France started in Yorkshire, and passed through the village. And in a nearby village, the box dates from the reign of Queen Victoria. Look! ‘VR’: Victoria Regina. And finally, a box spotted last autumn topped off with yarn bombing for Hallowe’en.

For Becky’s #SimplyRed Squares.

A Rusty Red Bench

This rusting wreck is multi-tasking today. It’s lived a blameless and long life in the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, offering views of the Dales and what’s left of the Abbey in the long years since Henry VIII had it made unfit for purpose during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Today though, it’s doing a tour of duty for Becky’s #Simply Red; for Jude’s Bench Challenge; and for Debbie’s One Word Sunday. It’s a little dishonest, as I’ve had to tinker a bit to make it Simply Red. Don’t tell the ghosts of those monks who once called this place home.

I’ve even managed a tweaked shot of part of the Abbey looking a little red too.