Day of Dance 28 March 2015

23 Tue Jun 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in music, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

Tags

Day of Dance, Folk dancing, Halesworth, Halesworth Day of Dance, Morris dancing, Suffolk

Poster for the Day of Dance

The weekend before Easter Richard and I took Elinor in to Halesworth so that she could go to the hairdressers. We had a couple of things to buy and had arranged with Elinor that we would meet her back in the car park. When we got to Halesworth we discovered that a Day of Dance was taking place in the town.

Oxblood Molly, a Molly dancing team were hosting their first Day of Dance in Halesworth and had invited a number of other dance teams to come along and take part. Richard and I were delighted, as we love to watch Morris, Molly and Sword Dancing. Elinor isn’t so keen and we got a couple of messages from her telling us about the difficulty she had in getting into the hairdresser’s salon past a large group of dancers, musicians and also a man wearing a horse’s head ( the Hobby Horse).

This is the Oxblood Molly side (or team) dancing in Halesworth Thoroughfare. All the dances were performed outside the pubs in the town. The pub here is just out of shot on the right – The White Hart.

Molly Dancing originated in Cambridgeshire and is traditionally danced on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany when the agricultural workers went back to work after Christmas. A decorated plough was dragged through the streets and the farm workers accompanied it with blackened faces asking for pennies to help the poor plough boys. They disguised themselves so that their employers wouldn’t recognise them. During harsh winters the farm-workers were often close to starvation. The dance team went with the farm-workers; one of the dancers (all male) would be dressed as a woman, hence ‘Molly’.

This is Molly.

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Here is a selection of photographs of Oxblood Molly.

Danegeld Morris dancing in the yard of the White Swan pub.

There are six main styles of Morris Dance – Cotswold Morris, North West Morris, Border Morris, Longsword Dancing, Rapper and Molly Dancing. There is another less well-known style called Ploughstots (or Vessel Cupping, or Plew-ladding!) from the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.

Danegeld Morris dance in the North West style and wear clogs on their feet. This style was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries and came from the mill towns that had sprung up during the Industrial Revolution.

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This side is called Pedant’s Revolt and they dance in the Border Morris style. This is also the White Swan pub yard. Richard filmed a few of the teams on his phone. He only filmed short excerpts of three dances. The video below is of Pedant’s Revolt.

Here they are again outside The White Hart.

I like the pheasant’s feathers they wear in their hats

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This is Chelmsford Morris Ladies, another North West Morris group dancing in the White Swan pub yard. Below is another video.

Kenninghall Morris side – a Border Morris dance team relaxing after having performed outside the Swan.

They traditionally blacken their faces, though some of them had whitened their faces instead! A couple of the Oxblood Molly side are with them here.

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This side is Bows ‘n’ Belles and they are dancing outside the White Hart. They are another North West Morris team and their video is below.

We weren’t able to see all the groups dancing that day as we had promised to visit my mother that afternoon. It has made us want to go to more events like this!

Thanks for visiting!

A Walk to St Peter’s Church 12th April 2015

09 Sat May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 41 Comments

Tags

architecture, churches, St Peter South Elmham, Suffolk, walking

IMG_4351Primrose bank outside St Peters (480x640)

Primrose bank outside St Peter’s church

I am indebted to our Rector the Rev. Richard Thornburgh for the use of his Notes on the church of St Peter South Elmham. A leaflet we bought when we visited the church.

Richard and I went to church at St Peter South Elmham on the 12th April. It was a lovely spring day and the primroses on the bank outside the church were glorious! We decided that, as it was such a nice day, we would walk back to the church in the afternoon and try to get there across the fields instead of along the lanes. We had travelled there by car in the morning.

We set off on the same route across the fields that we usually use and were pleased to see that the ground was dry and virtually mud free.

Dried grass in the field.

Our goal; St Peters church across the fields. You can just see it behind the trees on the horizon.

We have been having to put up with almost continuous road repairs to our lanes for the past two or three months. The repairs are desperately needed but the long diversions to get past them have been very inconvenient. This was a strange place for this sign to be. It was half way along a very narrow lane with no other lanes turning off it. It would have confused a stranger!

Richard walking across the field at the valley bottom. The paths are so clearly marked in the fields. So many people have used these paths over the centuries that the ground is indented and the grass grows differently.

The Beck, our local stream, at the corner of the field; with blackthorn blossom.

Another view of St Peters church

The water in the Beck was beautifully clear.

Such a beautiful glossy horse in a field we walked past.

This bridge over the Beck at the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village has been rebuilt many times. You can just about see the couple of patches of red brick.

St Michael’s church in the village of St Michael can be seen from the bottom of the hill in St Peter’s village. Almost all our village churches in ‘The Saints’ are within very short distances of each other.

The view up the hill to St Peters church

Looking back down the hill from the church to where the bridge is.

St Peter’s churchyard

This is believed to be the base and part of the Preaching Cross which once stood at the nearby road junction.

The 14th century porch which has very worn carved faces (headstops) on the outer arch. Richard is inside reading notices on the notice-board. The door into the church from inside the porch, that Richard is standing in front of, is much older than the porch. It is early Norman – late 11th or 12th century.

The stoup recess inside the porch. This would have contained a bowl of Holy Water.

IMG_4374Window in the tower (2) (597x640)

The window in the tower.

The beautifully carved Rood screen and the chancel.

I was sorry not to be able to get a better photo of the Rood screen as it is quite lovely. I would have had to light the church properly so that the sunlight from the windows wasn’t causing the Rood Screen to be in silhouette. The screen isn’t all that old. It was presented to the church by the Adair family from Flixton Hall in 1923.

You can see the socket holes in the arch above the screen into which the original screen and tympanum were fitted. The originals were probably destroyed during the time of the Commonwealth.

The nave has a beautiful timber roof.

18th century pulpit.

The altar, the modern oak reredos behind the altar and the east window.

Carving in stone and wood

A list of the names of all the Rectors of St Peter’s church from the 14th century to the 19th century and their patrons.

The harmonium

Ancient door

This is the 15th century font with a typically East Anglican lion design. There are four lions round the shaft and angel faces with crossed hands above them. Above the angels are Tudor rose designs and blank shields. The font cover is 17th century work. Please ignore the decorative red bucket under the pew! I didn’t notice it when I took the photo.

Part of tomb panel

There used to be a Lady Chapel, built in the late 14th or 15th century, on the north side of the church. In the chapel, John Tasburgh Esq. and his wife Margery, owners of the land on which the church was built, were buried. The tomb panel pictured above (one of two) is all that is left of their tombs, and therefore all that’s left of the Lady Chapel which was desecrated during the Commonwealth years. By 1830 the chapel was in a terribly dilapidated state, the tombs had been dismantled and the panels used as the base for the new north wall. The panels extend for about another foot below ground level. The last of the chapel was demolished in the 1840’s.

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South side of the church

The tower

The east window

By the time we left the church it had become very windy and we really struggled in our walk home.

I thought at first I had found some wild strawberries, but on closer inspection I realised that this is a Barren Strawberry plant.

IMG_4397Barren strawberry flower (640x480)

Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)

The petals of the Barren Strawberry are widely spaced and the fruits are dry and papery. The terminal tooth of the end leaflet ( the plant is trifoliate like a strawberry plant) is shorter than the adjacent ones.

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The sky was beautiful.

Thanks for visiting!

Dunwich Heath – August 31st 2014

07 Thu May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 47 Comments

Tags

bell-heather, coastguard cottages, coastline, Dunwich Heath, dwarf gorse, erosion, gorse, heather, heathland, ling, marram, National Trust, sandlings, Sea Kale, shingle beach, Suffolk

Richard, Elinor and I took a trip to Dunwich Heath at the end of August last year. We wanted to go somewhere different to our usual places but didn’t want to make a long journey.

The old coastguard cottages. The National Trust tearoom is situated in the end cottage. The other cottages are rented out as holiday homes.

The County of Suffolk has six topographical regions each with its own distinct landscape features. I live in High Suffolk with its boulder-clay soil but just a couple of miles to the East of us the soil changes and becomes sand and gravel. This gravelly area is called The Sandlings and Dunwich Heath (part of the Sandlings) is right on the coast. To quote the National Trust description of the area –

‘Dunwich Heath is where the Sandlings meets the sea. It is 87 hectares (215 acres) of heather, gorse, grassland, woodland and crumbling sandy cliffs, as well as a mile of shifting sand and shingle beach. The Sandlings landscape was created by early farmers thousands of years ago. The sandy, free-draining soils became dominated by heather as farmers cleared the trees and introduced sheep to graze the land.

Within the Sandlings, only at Dunwich does the heathland extend to the cliff top – a rare example of coastal lowland heath.’

The shingle beach and cliffs

Late summer and early autumn is the best time to visit heathland as that is the time the heather is in flower.

We parked the car and walked to the beach first, as the seaside is Elinor’s favourite place to be.

Heather, gorse and bracken by the side of the path. This heather is going to seed; I love the orange colour of the seed capsules.

We found Sea Kale (Crambe maritima) as usual, with Marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) and Gorse behind it

Heather on the shoreline

You can see here what the cliffs are made of – sand and gravel in layers. It is no wonder they are crumbling away.

The sands are known as ‘crags’. The southern sandling crags are the oldest – a shelly ‘Coralline Crag’ which was deposited in warm tropical conditions about 3.5 million years ago forms an island and is surrounded by a sea of ‘Red Crag’ which is also full of fossilised shells. The northern crag known as ‘Norwich Crag’ is younger and is less than 2 million years old. Dunwich Heath is part of the ‘Norwich Crag’.

I have found three Belemnite fossils in my garden. Perhaps some gravel containing these fossils was brought to the area when the house was built or perhaps the land where we live is the border between the clay soil and the sandy soil.

The little holes are probably Sand Martin (Riparia riparia) nestholes. The pipe sticking out at the top left of the picture is probably a land drain.

Dunwich has disappeared into the sea at a rate of about 400 metres in 400 years. Houses and other buildings are still lost regularly. I don’t know what the structure at the top left of the picture is, or was!

We could see the town of Southwold to the north.

There is a large expanse of grassland here.

Richard and I left Elinor on the beach and went for a walk.

There were plenty of flowers and grasses to see. Further away across the water meadows and marshes are the two nuclear energy plants at Sizewell.

Parasol fungus (Macrolepiota procera) about 2′ tall!

Honeysuckle – not native

Common Ragwort – Senecio jacobaea

White Campion – Silene latifolia

This is the sight we had come to see. The beautiful heath in flower.

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Heather (Calluna vulgaris) also known as Ling.

Bell Heather(Erica cinerea) – (the larger flowers)

Dwarf Gorse (Ulex minor) There are plenty of Gorse (Ulex europaeus) bushes on the heath as well.

I heard and then saw a Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata) on the top of a Gorse bush, but he was too far away to photograph.

A plaque on the cliff-top

The plaque

Clouds

The beach

This next photograph really makes me laugh!

Look at Elinor’s expression! Goodness knows what I must have been wittering on about.

‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us / To see oursel’s as others see us! / It wad frae monie a blunder free us, / And foolish notion.’ Robert Burns

A Border Force ship patrolling the coast. The modern coastguards.

A sea-watch shelter. Looking at the water can be interesting and calming in itself but often ships, boats and other craft can be seen as well as sea-birds and mammals such as dolphins and seals.

We ended our visit with a cake each and a drink of choice at the tea-room.

A dramatic sunset when we got home.

Thank-you for visiting!

Yet More Things!

26 Sun Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

amelanchier, Ash, ash keys, bristly ox-tongue, clematis montana, crabapple 'Harry Baker', euonymus, garden, greylag, pasque flower, pieris, red-legged partridge, rosemary, saxifrage, spring, Suffolk, tulip, viburnum bodnantense, white dead-nettle, wild cherry

I was surprised to see two Red-legged Partridges (Alectoris rufa) in my garden one morning as I opened the kitchen blinds.

This one had obviously had a bad night.

Please ignore the weedy flowerbed – I have since tidied it up.

Shortly after I took this photo they both flew away.

The variagated Euonymus is looking bright with new leaves.

The Pieris ‘Forest Fire’ has tiny new pink leaves

The Clematis montana ‘Rubens’ I cut back a few weeks ago is showing me that it won’t be beaten.

The Rosemary is still flowering beautifully

The Ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) are flowering.

The flowers are very small and a warm purple colour. Ash trees have separate male and female flowers, mainly on separate trees but there are a few trees that have both male and female flowers but on separate branches! The trees around us are all females and produce thousands of Ash ‘keys’, winged seeds that hang from the trees in bunches in the autumn. My mother has plenty of Ash trees near her house but all hers are males – so no ‘keys’.

A reflective Greylag!

IMG_4449Bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (640x480)

A bumblebee on White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

A very over-grown corner of our garden. This ditch doesn’t belong to us but is part of the common land between our garden and the road. I expect that no-one will take responsibility for looking after this but if there is a problem with it in the future we will no doubt be asked to deal with it!

The Amelanchier is blossoming.

The Viburnum bodnantense produces dark pink flowers in the spring and pale pink or white flowers during the winter

Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium)

Wild Cherry

Pasque Flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

Red Saxifrage

A soft pink Tulip

It looks so different depending on the angle from which I photograph it

Tulips

The new leaves of Bristly Ox-tongue (Picris echioides). Another member of the Daisy family.

IMG_4476Crabapple 'Harry Baker' (640x480)

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ flower buds

I had an on-line conversation with a member of the WordPress team a week or so ago and asked about my missing posts. The person who dealt with my enquiry was extremely helpful but was unable to retrieve them. He would have been able to retrieve three old posts I had deleted on purpose but was unable to find the ones that had disappeared! Fortunately, a very dear friend who is an e-mail follower has been saving my posts and has sent all the missing ones to me. When I have the time I may post a page with them on for anyones information.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few Things I’ve Seen in my Garden.

21 Tue Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, fish, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 38 Comments

Tags

bird's nest, birds, Common Frog, cowslip, daffodils, ducks, fish, flowers, frogspawn, garden, Great Tit, ground-ivy, hazel, Hazel bud-gall, horse chestnut, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, moss, pond, primrose, primula, spring, Suffolk, sweet violet, tadpoles, trees, Water Mint

Two very handsome Mallard drakes (Anas platyrhynchos).

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea). Many of the newer leaves are purple and the plant has a slightly unpleasant minty scent.

As I have mentioned before, when we moved to this house there were no Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the garden at all. We now have a few plants here and there on the banks of our ditches.

The Cowslips (Primula veris) are beginning to bloom. We have always had plenty of these!

A primula hybrid that arrived unbidden about three years ago. I rather like it.

The house next door to us is the former village school. I am not sure when it closed but a friend of ours from church used to attend it during the 1940’s. Where our house and garden is now, there was a meadow full of wild flowers and our friend walked across it every day to collect the milk for the school from the farm next door. These wild flowers we have in our garden are all that’s left of the hundreds that used to be here up to about 50 or 60 years ago. I hope that we can hang on to these few and perhaps, by not using chemicals, encourage them to spread.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

This is our parcels and newspaper box at the end of our drive. We noticed during the winter that it was starting to rot and needed replacing. It appears that we weren’t the only ones to notice the state the box was in. I opened it the other day to find something had made a hole in the back of it ( you can see where the light is shining through just below my thumb as I lift the lid). The next day I found this straw and moss had been put in there. Richard saw a Great Tit (Parus major) flying away from the box so I suspect this is a Great Tit’s nest. I carefully peeped into it a day or so later and found the whole box stuffed full of moss and we can also see lots of straw sticking out from where the box sides are coming away from the base. We have tied up the box and put a ‘not in use’ sign on it and we now await the happy arrival of baby Great Tits.

I knew that Tits nested in holes and I also was aware that Willow Tits excavated their own holes but I hadn’t realised that Great Tits also excavated holes to nest in.

The top of the brick gate-post at the end of our drive is covered in moss and lichen but because we haven’t had much rain recently, it isn’t looking as good as usual. Birds have been collecting the moss for their nests too.

This is a close-up of one of the lichens.

The Marsh-marigold or King Cup (Caltha palustris) is flowering in the pond.

I love its shiny yellow petals.

I took this photo of the daffodils round the pond over a week ago and I am glad I did. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we had very warm weather (24 degrees C on Wednesday!) and the daffodils that had come out earliest began to wilt.

Earlier this year I posted pictures of these Hazel (Corylus avellana) bud galls. I went to look at them again last week and noticed tiny flies sitting on all of the galls. I wonder if these flies had hatched out of the galls.

New Hazel leaves

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica). The new shoots are growing round and in the big pond.

Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). This photo was taken about a week ago.

This photo of our Horse-chestnut tree was taken on the same day. These leaves are higher and get more sunlight. I was pleased to see that the flower panicles (candles) were growing nicely.

I saw the frogs spawning but unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me. I took this photo of the spawn later in the day. This is the first time I have found frogspawn in our pond and was surprised at how late in the year it was. We have a windswept, exposed garden which may account for it.

There were lots of eggs and I was glad that the fish that live in the pond hadn’t come out of hibernation yet.

I took this picture a week later as the tadpoles were hatching out. The fish still hadn’t woken up!

Two days after this the tadpoles had dispersed but I had also seen the fish swimming in the pond and leaping to catch flies. They were probably feasting on tadpoles too.

I found a dead fish on the path round the pond again – I found one last year that had been caught by the Heron who had been disturbed by one of us. I don’t know what had caught this year’s fish as there was no stab mark on it. It is interesting to see the workings of the food-chain. We are part of it as we get bitten by the flies that the fish eat!

Thank-you for visiting!

Daffodil Day

31 Tue Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

charity, Daffodil Day, open garden, spring flowers

The garden with the bridge over the water

Every year a friend from church holds a Daffodil Day in her garden in aid of her church. We get to walk round her wonderful garden full of spring flowers and also partake of refreshments provided by her and her colleagues. There are stalls selling plants and cakes and other produce and also raffles and a tombola.

A wet and windy afternoon

This year’s Daffodil Day wasn’t as successful as usual because of the awful weather on Sunday. There were frequent heavy showers often merging into more prolonged rain. The wind was very blustery and many people were put off from attending. Towards the end of the afternoon there was even a thunder-storm!

Not as many flowers as usual because of the cold weather

Richard and I arrived in the early afternoon and parked our car in one of the less muddy places. We enjoyed a hot drink and a cake while sitting under the awning. We bought a couple of small cakes and a pot of raspberry jam. We took part in the tombola and bought two plants.

I love this yew hedge!

It has an inviting archway.

The many trees are under-planted with daffodils and other spring bulbs. There are primroses and snowdrops and violets and many other pretty flowers.

A tree just starting to blossom

Scillas

Anemones

The summer-house

View of St Margaret’s church through the trees

This post is dedicated to wonderful people like Cordelia who work so hard all the time to raise funds for good causes with often very little return.

Out Like a Lion!

31 Tue Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, weather, wild birds

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

blackthorn, daffodils, early dog-violets, flint boulder, gales, garden plans, geese, goose nest, greylags, hyacinths, mallards, March, muck spreading, primroses, scillas, starlings

In my post at the beginning of the month I wondered if March would go out like a lamb because it had come in like a lion. Well – no – the month is going out as it came in, with gales!

I have just been outside and found my poor Hyacinths have been flattened! These are Hyacinthus Delft Blue.

The Blackthorn tree (Prunus spinosa), just coming into flower, has been battered.

The flowers are being ripped off the trees by the wind.

Ten days ago the local farmer began muck-spreading and we have only just got rid of the smell!

More countryside joys!

We have had a small flock of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) visiting our garden during the past week.

Despite my having put the ground feeder in a cage with extra chicken wire on two sides of it, the Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) seem determined to get to the bird seed.

The daffodils are coming out nicely around the garden.

The path round the pond is beginning to green up nicely.

The Early Dog-violets (Viola reichenbachiana) that grow in the grass-path round the pond are looking very pretty.

Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana)

The Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the ditch are looking fine too. When we first came to live here there weren’t any primroses at all, only cowslips. These have appeared in the last couple of years.

The Greylag geese (Anser anser) often come up close to the house to see what food there is for them to eat.

I took advantage of their absence and had a look at the nest which has a few eggs in it. This was taken before the goose had finished laying her eggs and started sitting on the nest.

This is the garden on the south side of the house. Work in progress: I have cleared the beds of weeds and other unwanted seedlings and will cover them with soil-improver next.

The central grass path will be kept (there is a flowerbed just out of shot on the left) and I want to position a couple of arches over it and train roses and clematis up them.

This narrow area of grass is difficult to mow and will eventually be removed and replaced with a gravel bed and stepping-stones to give access to the windows, electricity meter and the drain.

The soil here is very poor; full of stones and builder’s rubble. I am constantly finding very large flints just under the surface. People in days gone by used to think that stones grew and I can understand why they might think that.

This is a flint boulder I dug up last week – the ruler is a 30 cm one.

I put a pot with a primula in next to the boulder to give you an idea of the size.

Blue Scillas

White Scillas

These Scillas are flowering in the flowerbed on the left of the grass path. I have yet to weed here!

Thanks for visiting!

Wells-Next-the-Sea

26 Thu Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in family, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 36 Comments

Tags

beach, Norfolk, pine woods, Rain, sand, sea, Wells-Next-the-Sea

Wells-Next-the-Sea

Last summer we visited the seaside town of Wells-Next-the-Sea in north Norfolk. It is a very attractive little town with plenty of narrow, winding lanes, pretty cottages, interesting shops and a lovely wide green surrounded by elegant Georgian houses. The place is very dear to me as I spent many holidays here as a girl. It gets very crowded nowadays during the high-season and there is nowhere to park if you arrive after mid-morning.

Unfortunately, we set off rather late and stopped in Fakenham on the way to have lunch.

Fakenham is a pleasant market town in Norfolk

009Q's Coffee Shop and Bistro, Fakenham (640x480)

The place where we had our lunch.

Wells has a harbour but the beach is a mile away from the town and is reached by a narrow road and paths. There is a high bank next to the road which was built about 150 years ago to consolidate the channel that connects the sea to the harbour and also, I presume, to act as a sea defence. The paths are on the sea-wall. During the summer months there is also a narrow-gauge railway that shuttles holiday-makers to and from the beach.

View from the top of the bank, across the tidal waterway (called ‘The Run’ I believe) that connects the harbour with the open sea, to the mudflats and saltmarsh beyond.

We decided to forego the delights of the town and so drove along the road to the beach car-park at Pinewoods. We found nowhere to park (of course!) so left Alice and Elinor there with our belongings and drove back to the town where there was an overflow car-park next to the playing field. We thought we might return to the beach on the little train but we had just missed one and there was a long wait for the next. We walked along the sea wall in the strong sunshine. It was very warm work.

Looking towards the sea in the distance

A poor photograph of Viper’s-bugloss (Echium vulgare) that was growing at the side of the path

We found the girls and shared out the bags and chairs and started to walk through the pine woods to the beach. I remember playing in these woods with my brother and sister over forty years ago when it was wilder and there were fewer designated paths through the dunes. Red squirrels were still to be found there in the early 70’s but they were under great threat and had died out by the mid 1970’s I believe. Sadly, I never saw a live red squirrel only a dead one. At intervals along the path there are steep slopes and steps up to the top of the dunes from where you suddenly see miles of sandy beach and the sea in the distance.

A lovely sandy beach where one can find pretty shells and where jelly-fish swim in the shallow warm-water inlets

I love to see the pine trees so close to the sea.

We walked some way across the sand in the direction of the sea. The tide goes out for miles here but when it turns, it rolls in very quickly and many people get stranded on sandbanks every year by not heeding the tide and not listening out for the warning siren.

The beach huts here are on stilts

More beach huts

As seems to be what happens to us whenever we visit this beach, no sooner had we settled ourselves on the sand when the wind picked up and large clouds appeared. I was glad of my hat and coat.

What is known as ‘an interesting sky’.

A bit of cloudy sky didn’t put people off their relentless march towards the distant sea.

It’s okay! That raincloud isn’t coming this way!

It looks quite nice over there.

People began to make their way back towards the woods.

This is me! I was glad of the hat and coat.

A yacht going out to sea. Notice the off-shore windmills in the distance. These days it is rare to find a place where you can look out to sea and not see windmills.

The sea was getting rougher

There are always fishermen on the beach

The visibility was getting worse.

A buoy

Wet sand

When we saw this we reluctantly started back towards the pinewoods.

It began raining just as we reached the woods and rained very heavily while we walked under the trees. It stopped eventually and we walked back along the sea wall to the car.

The Royal Arcade, Norwich

22 Sun Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

architecture, Art Nouveau, Colman's Mustard Shop and Museum, Digby's Chocolates, Norwich, shopping, The Royal Arcade

IMG_4196Entrance to Royal Arcade (479x640)

The main entrance to the Royal Arcade

This is another of my Norwich posts and this time I am just going to focus on one place, The Royal Arcade. I usually visit it at some stage during all my walks round the city. I have gathered together a number of pictures that I have taken at different times and have spot-lighted this very interesting and beautiful place. Many people use and see it but don’t look at it.

IMG_4197Entrance to Royal Arcade (640x477)

This front has just undergone some renovation and is freshly painted.

IMG_4197Entrance to Royal Arcade (2) (640x468)

I cropped the former photo to show some of the details – the carving on the pillars in front of the windows, the tiles under the canopy and the tiny little crowns on top of the railing.

The first building to occupy this site from at least the 15th century was the ‘Angel Inn’. As well as being somewhere to eat and drink and spend the night the inn was also a place where one could be entertained. It hosted travelling shows and ‘spectacles’ – in 1685 a pair of elephants could be seen here. In the 1830’s it was the Headquarters of the Norwich Whigs (the fore-runners of the Liberal party) where there was once such a vicious brawl between the Whigs and their political rivals the Tories that the Mayor had to read the Riot Act and call in the militia.

The Angel was re-named and became the ‘Royal Hotel’ which occupied this site for about fifty years before moving to a newer building elsewhere. Joseph Stannard rebuilt the entrance when it became the ‘Royal Hotel’ in 1846 and this facade remained when the Royal Arcade was constructed in 1899.

Inside the Arcade.

The Arcade was built where the hotel stables and yard had been and followed the shape of the yard. It isn’t obvious when walking through the Arcade but from this angle you can see that the Arcade isn’t straight but bends slightly.

When it was first constructed it housed 24 bow-fronted shops, a pub and a clubroom.

This photo is looking towards the main entrance

This is a marvellous chocolatiere and confectioner’s shop in the Arcade.

IMG_4222Digby's Chocolate Shop (640x458)

The windows are always dressed so beautifully

The Mustard Shop and Museum. Colman’s Mustard has been part of Norwich life for a long time and is quite an institution. J. Colman began manufacturing mustard 200 years ago.

IMG_4221Old cash till in the Mustard Shop (640x480)

A beautiful old cash-till in the window.

A longer view of the interior.

The Royal Arcade is a 247′ long covered avenue and was designed and built by Dereham-born architect, George Skipper. It is a perfect example of Art Nouveau style.

This photo shows a plaque commemorating the architect and some of the wonderful decorative tiles that line the first floor.

The designs are typically Art Nouveau and are inspired by nature and femininity – floral shapes and peacocks. The tiles were designed by WJ Neatby (who also produced tiles for Harrod’s Food Hall (Harrods is a large and famous department store in London)). The tiles were manufactured by Doulton.

One of the pillars at the main entrance

Another entrance to the Arcade.

Here is that same entrance showing the lovely stained glass semi-circular window and the decorations on the outside of the Arcade.

This sign is over yet another entrance to the Arcade

This wrought-iron work along with other examples in the Arcade, the floor tiles and the beautiful lamps were added later during restoration in the 1980’s. They are happily in keeping with the rest of the building.

A very pretty clock.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit to the Royal Arcade.

Before the Eclipse

20 Fri Mar 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in family, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, weather, wild birds

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

daffodils, dotted border moth, ducks, early dog-violet, gardening, geese, greylags, hellebores, house sparrow, mallards, Mothering Sunday, Rip van Winkle daffodils, silver-lace primula, simnel cake, solar eclipse, Suffolk, viburnum bodnantense

Such a busy week I have had!

Some pretty, delicate daffodils growing at the top of the ditch-bank at the front of the house.

After a couple of problems were sorted out, Elinor’s week last week ended well. She spent Friday in London with her Art class visiting The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Natural History Museum and the Saatchi Gallery and had a wonderful time. She was able to rest as often as she needed to (she has scoliosis) and so therefore had hardly any back pain. She travelled by coach and, as many of her colleagues had never been to London before, the driver took them on a route that passed by many of the sights – they drove along the Embankment so they saw the Thames, Cleopatra’s Needle with the two Sphinx, then the Tower of London and the 2012 Olympic Stadium among others. I left her at the college at about 8.15 am and Richard collected her at 8.00 pm – so about twelve hours away from family – the longest time ever. I spent the day ironing.

Silver-lace Primula

Some more of my new Hellebores have begun flowering.

I was able to do a little gardening on Saturday. It was quite chilly but dry and I progressed quite well with the weeding I had started earlier in the week. Richard gave the lawn another mow and over the weekend he was able to finish cutting the leylandii hedge.

The Viburnum Bodnantense is just coming into leaf.

IMG_4235Rip van Winkle daffodils (640x480)

I love these little Rip-van-Winkle daffodils.

IMG_4237Rip van Winkle daffodil (640x480)

It looks more like a miniature Chrysanthemum from this angle.

Sunday was Mothering Sunday and I had told Mum I would be taking her to church. I collected her and helped her put the Simnel Cake she had made carefully into the car. She had received a phone call from one of the ladies at church asking if she would be bringing a cake as usual and fortunately she had the ingredients ready in case they asked her. I took an elderly retired priest back home after the service then took Mum home too. I arranged with her that Richard would collect her at 6.00 pm as she was coming for a meal at our house. It had to be an evening meal as I hadn’t time to cook lunch and drive to church. I spent most of the afternoon preparing the food. Mum provided an apple pie and another Simnel Cake for us.

This is the Simnel Cake Mum made for us last year. This year’s one looked the same so I’m reposting the photo

The temperature at the weekend was about 10 degrees C lower than the weekend before. The easterly wind dragged such a lot of cloud and mist in off the North Sea but not very much rain. I have had to water the pots and tubs as they are all drying out very quickly. Today the wind was veering round to the North, so a change – but not necessarily for the better!

This is an Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana). We have them growing on the grass path round the big pond. They are very small and the flower here was only just over an inch tall.

Here’s another one.

Richard travelled to Lancaster in Lancashire on Monday for work and continued there until Wednesday. He is now staying with his brother in Manchester as he wanted to see him and his mother. She has been assessed at last and to our complete surprise she has been told that she is fit to leave the respite home she has been in for three months and go home. We know that she is not at all able to look after herself – she cannot stand up on her own anymore, let alone walk. She would need 24 hour care and she would need her home adapting even more than it is at the moment. Richard and his brother needed to discuss this new challenge together and with Mum-in-law. They are also going to visit a couple of nursing homes to see if they are suitable for their mother to live in. They have spent the day at York, visiting the National Railway Museum.

This is the goose on a visit to her nest on the very brambly island on our pond. She has been laying eggs but hasn’t started sitting yet.

IMG_1972Greylag goose and gander (640x427)

Here is the goose and gander up close to the house. They come to have a look to see what food they can find under the bird-tables. I am sure the goose, if not the gander, is one of the goslings from two years ago. She follows me round the garden as I fill the feeders so of course I give her and the gander some special duck and goose mixture I have .

The Mallards also come up close to the house looking for food.

They are enthusiastic eaters and rip up a lot of grass too.

I had an appointment at the opticians on Tuesday and yet again failed to do well enough in one of the tests and have to go back again next week. Mum had another appointment at the eye clinic at Norwich hospital on Wednesday afternoon so I took her. Her appointment went well and we go back again in six weeks. I have done Mum’s shopping for her but it took three different trips.

A male House Sparrow in the crabapple tree.

Tomorrow morning we have a solar eclipse. We will be lucky to see anything of it because of the cloud cover. It may be possible to see it if the cloud thins early enough. I remember the last total solar eclipse 16 years ago. It was a bright, warm, sunny day and we all went out into the garden to witness it. What I remember most about it were the strange shadows – each leaf had two shadows and as it got darker it was such a strange twilight with the dimming sun above us and not on the horizon. As it got dark the birds stopped singing and the silence was eerie. I wonder what I will see tomorrow at 9.30 am? I will be just arriving home from taking Elinor to college.

This is a Dotted Border Moth (Agriopis marginaria) that I saw on the outside of my kitchen window. The strange white light is a reflection of my flash in the double-glazing.

Elinor has been invited to a party. One of her old school friends is holding an 18th birthday party tomorrow and Elinor thinks she would like to go. She may need collecting early but it will be so good for her even to go for a short time.

Thank-you for visiting!