Friday, April 27, 2007

Renishaw Hall - Sunny afternoon - More Bluebells

Picture 1 is one of Y's at Renishaw Hall, on the old Casio and I love it. It demonstrates that my lady wife can spot an 'ogee' curve when she sees one.

And I suspect that Madeline will find the 'blue' of the bluebells much more realistic. Thanks for the 'comment' Madeline and everything you said about my google homepage problem was correct. Eventually I recovered it but decided it was nature's way of telling me I should edit it and have some new features. Some I couldn't do without, but others I simply wasn't referring to often enough to justify keeping them.

The answer to Bungus's query about the 'edited out comment' is that it was me using Yahoo and IE to leave a comment to check if there was a problem. When I had establised that there wasn't a problem it seemed daft to leave a comment on my own blog. So I deleted it. I haven't suddenly stooped to censorship. And while on the subject of comments and links, thanks Jill for the yarnstorm link. The 'wavy crochet' looks incredibly difficult but I'm afraid I associate all 'crochet' with elderly ladies. Nice bright colours though !

The AGM was a success and Reg chaired it admirably. He had found his mallet and demonstrated great skill and artistry in its use. Nobody really nit-picked at all so I must withdraw my prediction that somebody would. Good decisions for the future were reached and the balance sheet and officer's reports showed the club to be in good fettle.

This morning we went to Renishaw Hall and, having set the mileage trip, was surprised to find it is only 20 miles. Chris dropped Joan off and although it had been raining earlier it stopped and the sun broke through. Just as the weather forecast sugested. They must be improving I think. Renishaw is a very beautiful place to be with acres and acres of woodland, bluebells and banks and a lake and statues, formal gardens, centuries old topiary and fountains.

And, as Picture 2 demonstrates, you do meet some interesting people at Renishaw. This particular young lady, silhouetted against the white door, welcomes you to a gallery and the Café where we had a splendid lunch before our serious bluebell hunt.

Just to nip back to 'line of beauty' curves, my guess about the real explanation is that gentle dan Chaucer was out walking with a lady friend in some woodland near his home in early May 1383 when, spotting this particularly beautifully curved path ahead, stopped and shouted "Oh Gee!" and it just sort of stuck thereafter.

On a mundane note. A few days ago from Morrisons we bought a small cherry madeira cake because it looked nice. It was so awful we put it out for the birds. They agreed apparently with our assessment. The starlings gave it a desultory peck and then ignored it; the sparrows tried but were no more enamoured. In the end, rather than risk rats, I recovered it from the tray and binned it.

Rest Day tomorrow. Butchers first and then a little shopping and the remainder of the day for messing about. I took a lot of photos in RAW format so they will need prolonged work. Then TJ's for Sunday lunch.

I know it's late but I think coffee, read, and some radio in bed. Catch you tomorrow.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a very cold morning. Just the day for 6 nips of different bitters in Wetherspoons (and a visit to Mnasfield Museum which almost anagrammatically never fails to amuse).

From yesterday:
Perhaps Mata Hari’s bluebells, like mine, are the rather washed out Spanish variety? Certainly the ones I see in the woods are much brighter and bolder.
I must confess that when you and Madeline start going on about Firefox and homepages and bookmarks and add-ons, etc, I am completely at sea! But I don’t seem to have your problems!
I feel I must quote Thomas Gray (1716-71, who said:
‘Where ignorance is bliss / ‘Tis folly to be wise.’
I just picked up that Gray also said ‘The lowing herd wind …’. I would have thought that like most collective nouns (eg, ‘team performs’) it should be ‘herd winds’ but my Longman says ‘herd, n taking singular or plural verb’. There you go then.

Today’s blubell picture is a distinct improvement, in part, at least, because of the more varied light I think.

What a mundane explanation of the expurgated comment. I almost wish I hadn’t asked.

I am sure that chairmen everywhere will be throwing up their hands in horror and apoplexy to hear a gavel referred to as a ‘mallet’. Shame on you!

In spite of an obvious affinity I have never been to Renishaw. But the welcoming silhouette is very alluring (reminiscent of a James Bond opening sequence, don’t you think?).

I never knew the Chaucers were Yanks; I always thought they were from Kent?
And surely there must be a little joke somewhere about having your cake and not eating it, Madeira?

PS (someone may be interested).
When rainwater goods were predominantly made of cast iron, the ‘ogee’ gutter was a sleeker, classier, more expensive and preferred option to the ‘half round’.
That was in the distant BP days, of course (Before Plastic).
ي

Anonymous said...

Loved the bluebells, and the 'line of beauty'. Colour looks fine to me....I think it must be a particularly good year for them - I go often on the train up to Waterloo, and the railway embankments (well, as far as Putney) are full of bluebells, I am sure far more than other years.

The cherry cake - I made a Yorkshire pudding on Sunday, don't know what I did wrong, mine are usually good, but it was awful, and the birds left it too.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that picture of the bluebells is much better! We have some in our garden which are gradually increasing year by year. No, Bungus, they are definitely NOT the Spanish variety; if I found any of those, I'd pull them up! There's a great deal of concern about the Spanish invasion (where's Sir Francis Drake when you need him!?) Our bluebells came for a friend's garden about 20 years ago and I know how to tell the difference between our native variety and the interlopers. I hope they don't wipe out our beautiful bluebells or cause all bluebells to become hybrids of the 2 types.
We have a lot of bluebells on the banks and in the woodland around here at this time of year, plus stitchwort and red campion and the ubiquitous dandelions! Driving or walking along the lanes here is very colourful. The best thing is that, although the hedgerows and banks have to be cut back to enable better visibility, our council has been educated by residents to delay this until flowers have seeded, so they keep on increasing.
I'm glad to see that you've got your Google problem sorted out. I didn't think it was basically a Firefox problem, rather one of those inexplicable glitches that happen sometimes and this time it picked on Google! This is known technically as an ACG (Annoying Computer Gremlin)!
For what it's worth, I sign out of Google at the end of my browsing session and sign in again the next day on the page I gave you. I always sign out/logout of any site, apart from WU where I'm permanently logged in!
All the same, I'm not going to WU today as I want to mess about with Speed Dial on Opera 9.20.