365 Photo Challenge - March

The subject for March was stone. I thought the world outside was full of rocks and the challenge should be a piece of cake. The problem, I found, was that most of the rock to be found just sitting around waiting to be photographed in the northwest was the big hunk of dark grey rock used in rockeries. There are rockeries everywhere around here...and every rock in every rockery looks almost exactly the same.  Fortunately, my parents were rockhounds when I was a child, so I had odds and ends of their collection to dip into.

Something about this subject brought out my tendency to corny jokes...

She had a splitting head-ache.

Dumber than a box of rocks....

A geode-   the Schrodinger's Cat of the mineral world.

Now that I am halfway the April's subject - Foliage - I am suddenly discovering all sorts of rocks, minerals, and objects made of stone that I wish I had included. I fear that will be the major downside to this project...all the things I find a couple of months too late.

Framlingham Castle, Suffolk

Framlingham Castle was a spur of the moment stop. It is not one of the more famous castles, nor does it feature in the 'Must-See' books and articles. But on this day we were on schedule, so the opportunity to put ourselves behind, as usual, was something we could not pass by.

First, the history, which will be brief because we all know the important stuff is what we actually did there. Framlingham is a 12th century fortress which was the refuge of Mary Tudor when she was proclaimed Queen in 1553. Having passed through many hands, it finally wound up owned by Pembroke College, which as a philanthropic gesture in 1636 took down all internal buildings and constructed a poorhouse within the site.

The interior of Framlingham                                              Photo by Amethina

 I chose to pass up entering the castle itself, choosing instead to make some lovely old men very nervous by plopping myself and my camera down on a bench at the end of the bowls lawn. They couldn't tell whether I was taking pictures of them or the castle. It was lots of fun.

One of the many and varied chimneys on the castle

The Castle exterior

The nervous old men

While I was entertaining myself, the kids viewed the castle, which included walking the walls and exploring the remains.

There is nothing like a castle wall to give you a commanding view of the neighborhood
Photo by Amethina

Vertigo-inducing view of the circular stairs from the top of a tower
Photo by Amethina

All this was pure joy for my son-in-law. He's had a lifetime of interest in knights, their weaponry, and of course, their castles. This wasn't the first castle he had explored, but Framlingham gave him an opportunity for a one-off thrill. I was waiting at the car when they left the castle and as they approached I could see the happy grin of a ten year old on my son-in-law's face.

"Tell her," said my daughter.

He paused a moment for effect, then leaned forward and said..."I peed in a castle."

Shouldn't it have said "KNIGHTS" instead of "GENTLEMEN"?

Note: For the English majors among you, in spite of the urge to write "pee'd", I did my research and the past tense of "pee" is properly "peed". Still doesn't look right though...

365 Photo Challenge - February

February's subject was Fabric and like January, there was no shortage of subjects in my own home. No accident this, the weather was as cold and wet as expected. The only challenge was to find as wide a variety of fabric as possible.

In the end, I made quite a few sentimental choices:

My favorite necktie (remember when women were wearing men's vests and neckties?)

My football scarf

My needlework

My March subject is Stone, which is going along quite nicely. But I must admit I am looking forward to April and Foliage as spring in the Northwest will give me loads of opportunities....outside.

Spring Adventures

I woke up early this morning and remembered it was the first day of spring, so I sprung (sorry) out of bed determined to make something of the morning. My first look out of the window was a mixed blessing...so cold there was frost on the roofs of the next building, thick fog to the east, but clear to the north and....wait for it...it wasn't raining!

Frosted Landscape

So I grabbed my camera and my grocery list and headed out. By the time I hit the main intersection I could see bits of sunshine and a massed fly-over of herons above the heronry. Waiting for the light to change, I glanced in my rearview and saw Elvis. Yes, I started off spring this year with an Elvis sighting. Elvis jet-black hair in his later years comb-over, Elvis sideburns, Elvis sunglasses. He was driving an aged Ford, which was my first clue that he wasn't the real Elvis. My second clue was the woman in the passenger seat...gray-haired and smoking a cigarette. For a moment I entertained the idea of following the car to it's destination just to see what he was wearing, but he turned right and my Starbucks was to the left.

I was also concerned about the herons. (Nature Kills) By the time I had my coffee and was sitting at the heronry, everyone was back at their nests except for the odd father-to-be flying off for another branch. It was only a few minutes later that a large bald eagle flew swiftly across the heronry and out of sight, creating a cacaphony of raucous heron calls and a mass shifting of herons facing the sun, to herons facing the retreating enemy. I decided to leave before he came back, but I am happy to report that last year's predations don't seem to have affected the numbers of nesting herons this year.

2014 Happy Families

Leaving the grocery store, I made a loop through the neighborhood looking for a good 'Stone' photo for my Flickr 365 project, but I kept getting derailed by the early blooming trees - plum, cherry, the odd camelia, that ever-present pale purple species rhody, and my personal favorite - forsythia. I don't think there is any shrub more often improperly pruned than forsythia so to appreciate the real beauty, you almost have to look for one in an untended yard. I never did find a photo-worthy bush, so I had to settle for just a branch, fortuitously planted in front of a color-matched trailer.

Forsythia

 It may not have been the most exciting Spring Adventure, but I didn't waste much gas and I got a few laughs.

Snape Maltings, Suffolk

The composer Benjamin Britten was inspired by the 'vast skies and moody seas' of the Suffolk coast. A central figure of 20th-century British classical music, he was born in Lowestoft and died in Aldeburgh. He was one of the founders of the Aldeburgh Music Festival in 1948.

Benjamin Britten

Newson Garrett was a Victorian entrepreneur who purchased land at the small port of Maltings in the 1800's. Within three years of his arrival Garrett was shipping 17,000 quarters of barley a year from Snape and being one to spot an opportunity he built the Maltings in 1854 and was soon shipping malt rather than barley to the  brewing areas of Norwich and London. When this process came to an end in the 1960's, thirty acres of land and seven acres of industrial buildings were left vacant.

Serendipitously, Britten's festival was outgrowing it's first home at about the same time and he had the brilliance to envision the conversion of the largest malthouse into a concert hall, which was opened by the Queen in 1967. The complex is now home to rehearsal space as well as independent shops, galleries, restaurants, art exhibitions and what the English estate agents call 'character properties'...all tucked into brick buildings - new, old, and very old...but all brick.

Entering the complex, we found buildings that were neat and welcoming with freshly painted black and white trim. The gift shops, galleries, and restaurants were quite busy even at midday on a midweek in mid-May. It wasn't until we were heading out the exit that the complex took on a distinctly wabi-sabi aspect. In these unused buildings, time had done what it does best and created a beautiful palette of slow, steady disintegration.

 

Photo by Amethina

Photo by Amethina

I very much fear that over time, all of these wonderful old bedraggled buildings will be cleaned up and converted into character townhouses and bolt-holes for wealthy Londoners. I would like to think the worn and aged bricks are better prepared to absorb the strains of music of a similar age as it wafts over the Suffolk saltings.

Notes:
Saltings: An area of coastal land that is regularly covered by the tide.
Maltings: A malt house, or maltings, is a building where cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth. The malt is used in brewing beer, whiskey and in certain foods. The traditional malt house was largely phased out during the twentieth century.

Chelsworth, Suffolk

Next on our little loop through Suffolk Villages is Chelsworth - as small (if not smaller) and as colorful as Kersey, and with as little to comment upon.  It sits on the River Brett so it is blessed with such things as quaint green rowboats, footbridges & willows, and swans.

We were greeted by the typical East Anglian village sign sporting - what else - an English Robin...

 

 And a patch of English Bluebells....

And a 400 year old pub...

But the best thing about Chelsworth is that the entrance to the 14th & 15th century All Saints Church is through someone's front garden. Now that's a village I could be happy in.

I know it's the wrong part of England and I know their boat was blue, but I kept
expecting to see Ratty & Mole come tripping down to the boat, picnic basket in hand.

System Fail

Many years ago, when the cartilage in my knees started going, I developed a concentrated effort to minimize my traffic around the house. By the time my knees were all-metal and painless, I had developed hip & back problems so my efforts continued. I now have an almost unconscious system in place where I never go from room to room empty-handed and there are recognizable 'stations' where things are placed waiting to be shuttled closer to where they belong.

For the most part, this system works brilliantly, only occasionally resulting in unsightly build-ups on the end of my sofa or the ironing board in the studio.

Lately I have noticed what can only be described as an epidemic of brainfarts in my system. I would like to ascribe this to a system working so smoothly that I have stopped even thinking about it.

In reality, I am afraid it's simply a case of my ability to multi-task fading...how else can you explain my arriving at my computer desk this morning expecting to settle down with a fresh cup of coffee, a newly microwaved heating pad, and a banana...and instead finding myself with coffee, heating pad, & a can of garbanzo beans?