Buddleia from our garden a few weeks ago.
Just a little bit of summer …
Category Archives: photography
Stondon Massey
A week or so ago we had a little jaunt through SW Essex; I needed to go there on business and it seemed an opportunity not to be missed. Regrettably we didn’t do as much as we would have liked as I wasn’t feeling very brilliant – but we did visit a couple of churches.
The first church was at Stondon Massey, north of Brentwood. The church is a mile or so north of the current village, the suggestion being that the village centre moved due to the various plagues, especially the Black Death of 1349-50. The church dates back to around 1100, with several periods of extension and rebuild. The west window, shown below, appears to date from the early 15th century, and possibly earlier. The wall is of flint, which is the only local “stone” as Stondon Massey is on the southern edge of the ice from the last great glaciation. This flintwork is delightful and “rustic” – much more in keeping with the place than the dull, dark, finely worked, obviously Victorian flintwork on the north-east corner of the church. Note too the decorative use made of the lovely red (probably Roman) tiles.
Unfortunately the church was locked (fie to parishes who lock their churches!) so we could only appreciate it’s age and beauty from the outside. Not that we minded too much as the churchyard (below) was one of the most delightful I’ve seen, embroidered as it is by a multiplicity of oaks and yews with lots of dappled shade and well kept grass all paying homage to the carefully tended graves.
Those of you who know your English music will recall that the Tudor composer William Byrd (c.1540-1623) retired from the Chapel Royal in his early 50s and lived his last 30 or so years at Stondon Massey. Byrd was a recusant Catholic who was regularly heavily fined for failure to attend Anglican Sunday worship and it’s possible he chose Stondon Massey due to its proximity to his patron, Lord Petre, who lived at Ingatestone. Byrd died at Stondon Massey and may be buried there, although there is no documentary evidence for his burial.
Byrd is one of my “heroes” hence snapping up the opportunity to visit on a lovely sunny August day. I think we shall be revisiting.
I’ll keep you in suspense about church number two; watch this space for a post in (I hope) a few days time.
Click on the images for larger views on Flickr.
Extra Cat
Yesterday we acquired another kitten – a boy kitten. Well we can’t have a household of just two girlie cats! Again he came from our local animal rescue charity Guardian Angels and was being fostered by the lovely Kat in Isleworth. Kat said she hadn’t named him but was referring to him as “Boy”. By the time we got him home, it had stuck. He’s about 9 weeks old, mostly white with some tabby splotches. He’s also got noticeably, and strikingly, curly whiskers, a very triangular head and big ears – which makes us wonder if he doesn’t have some Devon Rex (or similar) in his make up; maybe a Devon Rex grandfather?
So here are the first couple of decent photos, taken at lunchtime yesterday, within an hour or so of him arriving. In the first he is offering to help with lunch. Well what self-respecting cat wouldn’t when there’s cold roast salmon on offer?
Like all kittens he’s slightly scruffy, but that never stops them looking cute …
He’s still quite phased by everything. He was the last of the litter to find a home, so he’s been without his brothers’ company for a while. He hated the car journey home. And everything here is different, new and scary especially with two big cats around. But he’ll be fine. I’m confident they’ll all adjust.
If nothing else Boy will eat for England. He clearly wasn’t starving when we brought him home. Nevertheless between about 1pm and midnight yesterday he demolished two complete sachets of kitten food, several teaspoons worth of cold salmon, a piece of raw steak the size of a large almond, and several similar pieces of cooked steak. Oh and the piece of pasta I dropped on the floor. By the evening he was very round and drum-like in the middle; he looked as if he’d swallowed a basketball and was about to split a seam. But then it is every kitten’s ambition to be like that: most cat’s run by the motto “Eat now, lest hungry later”. As Garfield always said: “Eat and sleep. Eat and Sleep. There must be more to life but I do hope not!”
Meanwhile WPC Primrose sat and watched, ready to intervene in any indecorous behaviour:
Actually, apart from spending time out, and being pissed off because our bedroom is out of bounds at present, both Tilly and Rosie are being quite good.
Oxfordshire Photo
I don’t these days get round to posting a weekly photograph all that often, partly because I’ve not been doing so much photography recently.
But a few weeks ago we had a day out in Oxfordshire. I had a meeting in Oxford in the morning and we then meandered our way home via Islip and Brightwell Baldwin, both of which have ancestral connections for me.
This is a wonderful, clearly very old, thatched stone cottage which backs onto Islip churchyard – indeed it is the churchyard wall!
We shall be revisiting both Islip and Brightwell Baldwin.
Sprunging
Suddenly it’s Spring. Everything in our garden is growing, and green, and flowering. From the bright shocking pink of our “Ballerina” crab apple tree to …
… our small pendant ornamental crab apple …
… the cherry tree …
… and the tulips.
Our edible apple tree is just beginning to break into flower, so it should be full out in the next couple of days, and the lilac won’t be very far behind.
And just to top it all, the sun is shining!
Career Criminals Twain
The kittens (huh, some kittens, they’re a year in 2 weeks time and both over 4kg!) caught this morning trying to convince us that butter wouldn’t melt in their hot little paws.
Rosie (behind) and Wiz for once not practising for their Assassin’s Guild exams:
But then, “You ain’t seen me, right. It was him.”
And well might Rosie try to shift the blame, because the last two nights she has brought mouse (fortunately already dead) into the bedroom at about 4AM and proceeded to play with it, noisily. Monday night’s was confiscated after she’d kept us awake for half an hour; last night’s she took away and lost somewhere. (It was later found hidden in the dining room.)
Hermit Crat?
And it came to pass that earlier today we had a pile of toot in the living room, where we were in the process of turning out the rat’s nest known as the under-stairs cupboard. Upon this pile there was a green bucket. And in the bucket a strange furry hermit crab — or should I say cat:
Pussy Porn
Yes, it’s once more time for some pussy porn. So here is a shot taken today of Tilly, our Queen Cat, who will be four in May. I just don’t know how they look so pretty and cute!
Click the image for a larger view
Special Cat Edition
Unlike the cats, I can’t sleep. Half an hour ago (ie. 2AM) this was Rosie sleeping on a towel on the window seat in our bedroom …
Click the image for a larger view
The Moon and Venus
December sunset sky yesterday looking almost due south from outside our house. This was taken on my point & shoot and handheld so it isn’t ideally sharp!
The Moon and Venus
Greenford; 3 December 2016