Thursday, May 17, 2007

Burghley House again - It's stopped raining


Another panorama. From yesterday's Burghley House visit. The Sculpture Garden opens into the Surprise Garden which has lots of fun and witty things. On the way out there is a curtain of water created by around 10 close together fountains. If you walk towards it with confidence, the fountains stop when you are a metre away and you walk through dry. Kids must love seeing if they can beat the system and get drenched. Picture 1 is of a lovely area to sit. Not yesterday though.

I suppose the woodland light-installation suffered in translation rather.


Picture 2 is another. Neons in The Ice House. The photograph is to show the effect of the neons inside the structure around 90% of which is an underground, bricklined cylindrical shaft. Apparently ice was collected from the lake, stored therein and covered with straw where we were told it would remain unthawed for up to 2 years. One assumes it was then broken into small cubes to chill the Cecil's G & Ts. I promise I will return to more normal pictures soon.

Thanks Anon1 for the vierge sauce recipe. Although tomorrow is our normal 'fish' day we are going to a cousins for lunch, but next appropriate fish dish we have, I shall make some and report back. Pete (Manxislander) once suggested a linked 'recipe' page for the blog and there may be merit in his suggestion. Bungus offered us a beaut only the other day.

I chanced upon this quote this morning:-

"Lots of people think they're charitable if they give away their old clothes
and things they don't want. It isn't charity to give away things you want
to get rid of and it isn't a sacrifice to do things you don't mind doing."
-Myrtle Reed, author (1874-1911)

My first reaction was "how small minded and petty ?". If you are throwing things out and think 'someone may be able to use this' , to take it down to the charity shop is a charitable gesture in my opinion. Likewise when you give up your time to help others, even if it is something you enjoy doing. I wouldn't think that 'an hour in the pub with Myrtle' would have been a lot of fun. Now that would be an act of charity!

Y has been grannying at Burton Joyce as normal today and I shall collect her from the tram around 6.30pm and as there isn't any camera club, and I've done mi' blog we shall enjoy the evening together.

Tomorrow we go to cousin Kenneth's for lunch. And we are taking Joan with us. She loves it at Kenneth's and he is good fun. Catch you tomorrow.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anon 1 - Love your line 'I wouldn't think that 'an hour in the pub with Myrtle' would have been a lot of fun. Now that would be an act of charity!' - that will keep coming back to me all evening and make me chuckle!

I took some clothes, toys and videos to our local charity shop only yesterday and they were very grateful and I felt pleased that I'd made the effort.

A recipe page sounds like a grand idea, I'm sure we could swap lots of tasty dishes.

Anonymous said...

In my last paid employment I had some part in the surveying of several ice-houses (as well as numerous dovecotes). One ice-house which we renovated at Annesley Woodhouse had to be dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt when the new junction to the M1 was formed. Now it is no longer visible.
There are two in the grounds of Rufford Abbey.
I believe their principal function was the storage of game etc – a sort of deep freeze (Oh ah surr; but there’s some as do say that the several courses of decorative brickwork at the top of the underground chamber did give rise to that there name)..

There you go then: ‘vierge’ doesn’t mean ‘green’, only in the sense of ‘inexperienced’. It is the French word for ‘virgin’ (I think I have seen it on olive oil bottles).
And as vierge sauce appears to be suitable for Sandra’s restricted diet I think we shall be trying it too. I found a couple of recipes in Google – one basically olive oil, basil, ground coriander and tomato, the other with several other herbs and spices.
If the 'recipe' page does become a reality I shall certainly put forward my Columbian Chicken which is a sort of Cullen Skink with fenugreek leaves. Also Sandra's Wetmoreland plum pudding.

I suppose Myrtle was a stiff-backed creature of her time. I suspect there was rather a lot of piety flavoured ice cream about in those days. I can see what she is getting at but I have a feeling that if she were writing today she might put it rather differently. Personally, I prefer Spike Milligan.

PET HATE WORDS
1) The use, as a noun, of ‘invite’ instead of ‘invitation’ (even though it is in the dictionary).
2) ‘Different to’ instead of ‘different from’. You wouldn’t say ‘similar from’, would you?.

Anonymous said...

PS
That should be Westmoreland, although it could well be wet moorland and it was originally, in the recipe book, West Country anyway, and made with apples.

Anonymous said...

We have the remains of an ice-house a couple of streets away - in thr grounds of a block of council flats - land was originally part of the Fauconberg Estate owned by Lady Fauconberg (daughter of Oliver Cromwell) and legend has it that the locked box in the crypt of local church (where Lady F. worhipped) contains OC's head. Our children were fascinated by this story, didn't understand why the box could not be opened, I don't know either!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps they can't find the key?