January 2013

Almond blossoms in Ibiza

A Prickly pear invasion! – Ibiza

Photos by Pilar Meira

Our begonia – first flowering for years!

Seville Orange Marmalade

Bought at our greengrocers in Millbrook, these bitter oranges are available only for a few weeks at this time of year. They are imported from Spain and perhaps Ibiza! where a local supermarket sold delicious naranja amarga mermelada  (bitter orange marmalade)

Celebrating 150 years of the London Underground

Look through the window as you travel between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn on the Central Line and you'll see a station - where no passengers have alighted since 1932. This used to be British Museum station. Travel on the Piccadilly Line between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner, the tunnel wall changes from cast iron tubing to bricks. This also used to be a station. Down Street, closed in the same year as British Museum. These stations are often referred to as ghost stations.
There are about 40 abandoned or relocated stations on the Underground network along its entire 255 miles (408Km) of trackway - some subsurface and some above ground. Some have vanished without trace whereas others are almost intact, grimey time capsules of the era when they were closed.
The world famous underground map (well, technically it's a diagram not a map), was originally designed by Harry Beck in 1931.

London Underground workers building the Piccadilly Line extension at Turnpike Lane in 1930

Londoners take shelter in the London Underground during the Blitz 1940-1941

The Tube's famously dirt-disguising patterned seat fabric!

The fire-damaged escalators at King's Cross underground station in London in 1987  caused by cigarette stubs falling bellow the escalator housing. Smoking was banned throughout the London underground after this.

Oyster cards were introduced on the Tube in 2003

Torchbearer and London Underground employee John Light carrying the Olympic Flame onto an underground train at Wimbledon Station, London in 2012

Millbrook – Cornwall

Hope for WORLD PEACE – double rainbow and seagull over our back garden.

Sunny view on Christmas day!

First and last ‘Flica’ catamaran launched at Foss Quay – this boat built by Alan

Possibly offices to the old brick works at Southdown - Millbrook

View of Millbrook estuary from Southdown lane

Women in the history of Cambridge

Illustrator – Dilara Arin

The Cyclist- In 1897, a proposal was put before Cambridge University’s Senate to grant full degrees to female graduates. Male students responded in outrage. on the day of the debate, an effigy of a woman on a bicycle was suspended out of the window of a building opposite the Senate House. Banners reading ‘No gowns for Girtonites’ and ‘Varsity for Men’ flew alongside it.

The 1897 proposal did not pass and upon hearing this result, the triumphant mob tore down the effigy. They then savagely attacked the mannequin, decapitating and tearing it to pieces in a frenzy. What remained of the woman on a bicycle was stuffed through Newnham Collage Gates.

Women studying at Cambridge University were not to receive the titles of full degrees until 1921 and even then without associated privileges.

A poetry booklet about Women in the history of Cambridge is being republished and all its illustrations renewed.

Henry Scott Tuke – Falmouth Cornwall

Best known for his paintings of bathing boys, Henry Scott Tuke was in fact, a very diverse and talented artist in a variety of subjects and media. His first commissions were portraits of family and friends, including other Quakers such as the Fox family. Tuke was also known as great maritime artist, a very accurate depicter of every kind of sailing craft from Lowestoft fishing boats that came to Falmouth in the winter, to wooden and steel hulled sailing ships such as barques and brigantines, to smaller quay punts and yawls.

 
 


August Blue - 1894

Our Jack – 1889
Jack Rolling standing on a boat with Falmouth town in the background

  
Morning Gossip - 1886


Archway in Rock Pool

  
Denny mending a sail


In Tow

BBC Autumnwatch! - Aigas Field Centre Scotland

Red Squirrel - Instantly recognisable by their red fur, ear tufts and long, fluffy tails, red squirrels were once the only squirrel species in Europe.

David Hockney – Woldgate Woods

Autumn morning – photo by Campbell

London’s TUC March Against the Cuts - 20 October 2012

The NUT’s amazing balloons.

Britain needs a future that works!

Some 300,000 people went on the TUC’s London March, walking from Embankment to Hyde Park  in a march against austerity and for A Future That Works. Let us add to this, the thousands more who marched in Glasgow and Belfast.

BBC estimated 100,000 for the London March, however fifty years of protest marches has taught me to always multiply the ‘official’ estimate by three to obtain a realistic number although why this should work, I do not know!

The Humblebee

Arctic Bumblebee (Bombus polaris)
From Shakespeare through to Darwin they were known as "humblebees", because of the humming sound they make. Then in the 20th century, for some reason, they became "bumblebees".


Tierra Del Fuego Bumblebee (Bombus igneous)
Not a good photo yet the best I could find!
I saw many of these huge bumblebees, on the Straits of Magellan Islets, foraging amongst fuchsia blooms.

  Bumblebees do not store food (honey) to survive winter. The little food they do store serves as a reserve meant for feeding the larvae and the egg-producing queen or it is used to survive cold, windy and rainy days. Just like in social wasps the whole colony dies at the end of the season, usually in late summer or autumn. The new queens seek for a place to hibernate.  Most Bumblebee colonies count about 50 to 150 animals. Only the Earth Bumblebee may have richly populated nests in which you find 200 up to 600 individuals.

Coastal walk via Cawsand and Kingsand - Cornwall 14th October 2012

Kingsand Institute
The Institute in Kingsand was built in 1911 to celebrate the coronation of King George V - its clock tower being a famous local landmark.

The twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand (notorious for smuggling) merge with one another, but historically Kingsand was in Devon, while Cawsand was in Cornwall. On the old county boundary between the two villages there is a house called Devon Corn, which still has the marker on the front of the house. In 1844 however the boundary was redrawn along the Tamar and Kingsand became part of Cornwall.


Kingsand village


Autumn burning - Cawsand village in the distance


Autumn lichen on the coast path


Mount Edgcumbe Country Park - Folly dated 1747  which replaced a navigation obelisk. Built using medieval stone from the churches of St. George and St. Lawrence, at Stonehouse just across the estuary in Devon.

Millbrook’s strange bird - Cornwall

Egyptian Goose  (Alopochen aegyptiacus)

Related to the shelduck, this pale brown and grey goose has distinctive dark brown eye-patches and contrasting white wing patches in flight. It was introduced as an ornamental wildfowl species and has escaped into the wild, now successfully breeding in a feral state. - RSPB bird identifying service!

Life in Millbrook village - Cornwall

Card from niece Janet - Artist Nina Hutton – Oyster catchers, always in pairs!

Our Brika coffee and Alan’s ‘Anzac snap’ made with black treacle yum!

Millbrook Pumping Station – still pretty despite its colours fading with time.  It was painted by primary school children 20 years ago.

At Foss Quay, a recently launched catamaran, one that Alan built in 1986 !   It was the first ‘Flica’ (a Richard Woods design) off the mould.

‘Sarona’ - Millbrook’s prettiest little timber sailing boat

International Peace Day – 20th September 2012

Brian Haw – Parliament Square Peace Campaigner against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since his death. the peace campaign at Parliament Square continues; now an incredible 4129 days since Brian Haw’s initial stand 2nd June 2001

248 days without shelter since tents were stolen 16th January 2012 by the London Metropolitan Police

Tucson Arizona  - USA

The highly vulnerable, unique & endearing marsupial - Australia