Photography
How different the world now looks since that icy day in February that I ventured out to St. Thomas’ hospital opposite Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. Those first doses of the Covid-19 vaccination lightened our fear and started the release from lockdown.
Haematite extraction - Florence Mine, Egremont, Cumbria
The chilling sight of a decaying pit head. Haematite was mined here, not coal. It’s one thing to visit a mining museum, quite another to walk around an abandoned working with the machinery still in place and rusting around you in the spring sunshine. You think of and can almost hear the men who worked here from 1914 over several generations, building and operating this untidy structure that now whistles in the wind.
Colourfulflowers in the wonderful first rush of spring sunshine and before the storms bash the blooms. Fantastic to see colour again after this grim and grey winter in lockdown. These are flowers in and around the walled garden of Preston Manor, Brighton. Look out for the flowers around George the Brighton Pavilion cat’s memorial.
Simnel Cake for Easter
Cassata for Easter
Traditional treats for our Easter weekend, Terry baked us a Simnel Cake and his own version of a Cassata, cooking from basic ingredients. Plus some chocolate Easter eggs. We didn’t get to enjoy Easter together last year so it’s time for some celebration in our “bubble”. Commercial gyms in England are expected to re-open next Monday...
Gardens are for dreaming: several successive days of rain have left the garden here drenched with the tops of the fells and mountains laced with snow that’s out of sight because of low cloud. The botanists describe this environment as Temperate Rainforest, and it can be really fertile; the moist plants are delightfully fragrant. The smells and sounds of the dripping plants conjuring up the days we hiked the Routeburn trail in New Zealand or the primeval laurel forests of Madeira and the Islas Canarias or as a child visiting Moseley Botanical Gardens with my now ninety year-old Aunt.
Here is a set of photos just from walks around my garden in Keswick, snatched between working on fixing up inside.
