One advantage of longer days and lighter evenings is that you can go for a stroll after your evening meal, without needing to carry torches. This is what my daughter and I did with the smallest grandchildren yesterday.
On a Thursday I collect the two smallest grandchildren from school, and 8 year old Granddaughter Number Four and I chivy 5 year old Grandson Number Two away from the attractions of the school playground and his small friends so that we can catch a bus to my house. Some time later my daughter arrives and we all have tea together before she gives her father a lift to chess club on her way home with the children. Yesterday an old friend gave Phil a lift to chess club and so my daughter and the small people hung around a little longer than usual and we went for a walk in the last of the evening sunshine.
We more or less walked my usual running route, along the main road to Rumbles Lane where we took a left turn, diverging from my usual route. At the end of the lane we turned right onto an unmade road in front of a row of houses, past some fields, took ?another right and left and we were back onto Sandbed Lane, my usual route. From there we went down Hull Mill Lane to the millpond, where we stopped to play Pooh Sticks on the small bridge over the stream. There we saw frogs: it’s that time of year when frogs get busy. As we made our way into the wooded area leading to the next millpond, Eagle Mill Pond, we spotted deer on the hillside.
Altogether a successful walk, nature-wise, My daughter and I commented that there never used to be deer around here when she was small. Maybe they were always there but we never saw them. In recent years, even though they are good at hiding themselves, we come across them on a fairly regular basis.
The small children sat on trees and posed for us.
Recently I think I misread a headline, or maybe the news item I read had a misleading photo. It was all about a new statue / sculpture outside Manchester Piccadilly railway station “to welcome and protect passengers”. The picture showed a huge bee, the symbol of hardworking industrial Manchester.
All very well, I thought, but isn’t it a bit superstitious to say that a bee sculpture will “protect passengers”? Checking up on the details now, I discover that the sculpture that is meant to do this is in fact a set of letters, an abbreviation of the name Manchester, made of metal pieces riveted together, representing the city’s industrial heritage. It’s placed on the pavement next to the taxi rank and it is intended to prevent vehicles from mounting the pavement and endangering passengers arriving at or leaving the station. There you go!
Heritage of a different kind has been found in a former Tudor hunting lodge, The Ashes, in Inglewood Forest, near Penrith in Cumbria. Work on the property revealed 16th century wall paintings of fantastical plants and animals. One contemporary writer, Henry Peacham, described the style as “an unnaturall or unorderly composition for delight sake, of men, beasts, birds, fishes, flowers &c without (as we say) Rime or reason.” So that is how wealthy Tudors liked to decorate their houses.
Some friends of ours used to let their children draw pictures on a wall in their house. I wonder if those pictures will be rediscovered hundreds of years down the line, indicative of what early 21st century decor was like!
Finally, here’s a little comment on the USA imposing tariffs, particularly on small uninhabited islands.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!