Category: England

Postcards from Wales – and Shropshire – Combined

An unexpected treat yesterday. We went to Wales, to Chirk Castle, and on the way, we saw two feats of engineering in one: Chirk Aqueduct and Viaduct. Each of them has one end in England, the other in Wales. And what a sight! Completed in 1801 by William Jessop and Thomas Telford, the aqueduct is 710 foot (220 m) long and carries the canal 70 feet above the beautiful River Ceiriog across 10 circular masonry arches.

Walking along the towpath, as I did, high above the bucolic valley beneath, you can see next to it the railway viaduct opened in 1848 and designed by Scottish engineer Henry Robertson. It quite made our morning. I ventured too into the aqueduct’s tunnel – one of the first designed to have a towpath. Barges used to be manned by several men, with a horse walking up ahead on the side of the canal, attached to the barge by a rope. When the boat came to a tunnel, the horse would climb the hill and the men would lie on their backs and ‘walk’ their feet along the roof and walls of the tunnel (‘Legging it’). How grateful those men must have been to find a towpath at the disposal of their horse!

Whether you get a postcard from Chirk Castle remains to be seen. So much to do, so little time …

Here’s the Grandfather of the Skyscraper

We’re staying near Shrewsbury just now, vegetable-garden-minding for friends. This mainly involves eating quantities of just-picked produce, to prevent the courgettes becoming marrows, the lettuces bolting, and the beans giving up bothering.

This is not however a full-time job, so I’ll be sending you postcards from time to time. The first is from Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings. This was built in 1797, the very first building in the world to use an entirely iron frame. And that made it fireproof. Mill buildings – full of dust, fluff, combustible fibres and fabrics – largely built round a wooden carcass, had a nasty habit of burning down. BUT an iron frame was fireproof. And then it offered another advantage. Buildings made this way turned out to be strong enough to support mulltiple storeys. The way was paved for the skyscaper to be developed.

And the long and varied story of this mill deserves to be told – another day.

Here’s one of those cast iron pillars holding the building up, with photos of more modern steel-framed buildings in the background.

Postcards from Shropshire (1)

Six Word Saturday.

Pick a Word – then Pick a Photo

Here’s a challenge and a half. Take five words, chosen monthly by Paula of Lost in Translation, and illustrate them. Here are the words: MONASTIC; ABANDONED; CRYSTAL; ECHOING; AFFABLE.

Monastic was easy. Of course I chose Fountains Abbey, a religious community from 1132 until Henry VIII caused it to be surrendered to the crown in 1539, under the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It’s where I have the privilege of volunteering, so it’s almost become my back yard. Here, in my featured photo, is the Abbey in autumn.

Abandoned? So much choice. I’ve picked a rather wrecked house in Seville.

Crystal was trickier. I don’t move in the right circles. But here is a crazed plate glass window on a ferry bound for Spain which has a slightly crystal-ish look.

You may not think my next photo illustrates ‘echoing‘. But trust me – it does. I was among the first passengers to arrive at London Bridge Underground Station just after 5.00 a.m one morning recently. There was not another soul on my platform. Only me. It echoed.

And we’ll stay in London for my last image, a cheery one. This affable chappie was snapped on a day out with Sarah of Travel with Me fame. He was part of a fun sculpture trail for children’s wheelchair charity Whizz Kidz.

So there you have it. Following the links to Paula’s and Sarah’s posts will show you very different interpretations, and perhaps you’ve seen others in blogs you follow too.

Two Rectangles?

For this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Egidio asks us to consider compositions relying on two rectangles for their success. So I thought I’d offer a featured photo with lots of rectangles: the basic two, with sky at the top and earth at the bottom, and then, confusingly, a town square entirely tricked out in … squares. Emily and her Catalan family are looking out to sea.

I thought I’d include a couple more using this simplest of devices. The first from my beloved l’Albufera, which I’ve written about before – here (among several others).

And here’s another, from Lake Prespa in Greece, where the water reflects the sky above: the lower rectangle a pleasing echo of the upper.

And here’s one closer to home, in Whitby, a cormorant posing at the end of the pier.

A cormorant on railings at the end of the pier, Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Let’s stay beside the water: one a ferry across to Spain, spying on my fellow-passengers. At the Baltic Gateshead, spying on my fellow River Tyne enthusiasts, and in London, over looking the South Bank.

And finally we’ll whizz over to Barcelona, and wander round El Clot, and then Gràcia, where this view has two rectangles and includes any number of smaller ones, and the daily washing line.

Looking at Them Looking at Us

This week, for the Lens-Artists Challenge, Donna asks us to look for the connections we make in our lives. I’m going short and fairly light-hearted by looking at some of our connections with animal life. That feature photo, for instance, shows two children delighted by their squirrel companion in Málaga, while he is equally pleased about the free sunflower seeds.

Less pleased are these birds: an Arctic tern and a greylag goose. Both are warning me – or any other pesky human in the area – to leave well alone as far as their young chicks or goslings are concerned.

All my other images come from Down at the Farm.

Here are three curious creatures – two pigs and a cow – wanting to know if those human have anything to offer …

… while this small boy is pleased that the cow is willing to accept a mouthful of hay from him.

We have sheep living next door. Unusually, they’re rather fond of human company, and canter across to the fence hopefully whenever they see me pass. It’s all Cupboard Love of course, but I’m daft enough to fall for it and try to have a few cabbage stalks or something about my person to give to them.

And here’s a young girl desperately trying to make a friend of a hen. Who isn’t quite so sure.

For my last image, we’ll leave the farmyard in favour of the deer park at Studley Royal. The deer are as likely to be watching us as we are them. You can never quite trust humans, they think.

A History of a Flight in Ten Photos

My flight home from Barcelona the other day was remarkable for two reasons. For one, I had a window seat; and for two, the earth below was visible almost every mile of the way. Here’s the story of a journey.

A small port just south of Barcelona.
Arid fields.
The foothills of the Pyrenees.
The Pyrenees, still snow-capped in places.
Rural France.
We hugged the coast throughout almost all the French part of our flight.
Reaching England …
… and cloud cover.
Manchester almost in sight.

Oh, and here’s an eleventh photo, from terra firma: alongside the (static) travelator at Manchester Airport.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight …

Paula, who blogs at Lost in Translation, offers each month a different set of five words to illustrate. Look at this month’s: sabulous; brimming; guarding; berthing and bight. Interesting, aren’t they? I bet you had to haul the dictionary out for one, maybe two of them.

It was bight that caught my eye. It actually means …

But it doesn’t mean that to me. Like so many Brits, I’m a devotee of the Shipping Forecast, that four-times-daily forecast to anyone out at sea within reach of the British coast. The coastal waters are divided into zones, each evocatively named.

I’m not out at sea, dicing with the elements: I’m a rotten sailor anyway. But I can be soothed by the predictable poetic rhythms of the regular broadcast. Do watch this explanatory video. It’ll take up under two minutes of your life.

It’s so much a part of my life, I even have a cushion showing many of the much-loved names.

… and there you’ll have spotted it. German Bight. So that’s what Bight means to me. Ships at sea, their crew always ready, four times a day, to tune into that most necessary programme.

It seems only right then, that my four remaining photos should have been taken on the sea, or at any rate by the sea. Here they are …

This beach at Alnmouth, Northumberland is pretty sabulous, I’d say.
The Mediterranean is brimming at the moment: so much so that it’s slopped over the sands and is stealing the beaches of the Maresme coast in Catalonia. Diggers and excavators are fighting back, building groynes to inhibit the relentless march of the sea.
Just another day at work for this lifeguard, guarding the safety of Sunday swimmers at Premià de Mar.
Berthing at the fishing port of Arenys de Mar, Catalonia, before another night of fishing at sea.