Green and crimson lace
a corsage for the grey sky
hoping to bring cheer
Month: June 2016
Wordless Wednesday
Orchid Alley
I called into Buckland Abbey today for tea and cake – Bakewell tart if you’re wondering and while I sat avoiding the mizzle, my friend went outside. After a few minutes she came back in, all excited, ‘Gilly, Gilly you have to come see now!’
This is what she’d found.
Just past the Elizabethan garden, there’s a little path with a patch grass to the right.
Definitely two, maybe three varieties of orchid, a delight to see. I’d left my camera in the car so these are phone pics, click for a better view.
Mirroring
Paula says that mirrors do not always show the true state of things, I agree, until I look into one. Sometimes they can show an alternate reality, I think that’s happening in my photo.
Peace and happiness this weekend everyone.
Partners in mischief
Sabah, Christmas 2009, at the Sepilok orang-utan rehabilitation centre. I was beginning to feel pretty rough, dizzy in fact and I didn’t get better for a few days. It was annoying because we’d found somewhere to have an English Christmas dinner and I could only watch my friends enjoying it. Before that though, I’d seen a troup of orangs arrive for lunch in the centre. There were lots of long tailed macaques, cashing in on the free tuck. Very cheeky monkeys, who would sneek up behind you to see what they could find. Like the baby orangs they were cute when tiny, but here are a couple of pre-teens.
I don’t know what they were up to but they were definitely partners in mischief!
Lazy Poet’s Thursday Haiku
At last the jasmine
is beginning to flower
late fragrance this year
Wordless Wednesday
Peg it out
and then have a nice sit down!
June Roses
Jude’s garden challenge theme this month is the ‘Essence of Summer’. At the weekend I went to Northernhay, a park in the centre of town that I hadn’t been to for years. i don’t even remember it being planted as abundantly, but the borders were a credit to the gardeners, and they made my heart sing, especially the roses.
Visit Jude for some fragrant lilies, to see what others are posting and perhaps to join in.
Beside the City Wall
Yesterday I grabbed a little bit of sunshine and walked the dogs in towards town, with no particular plan. They aren’t very keen on the High Street, so I took a right and headed up Northernhay Street to the park. It was the first time I’ve been there for years and a perfect day for a peaceful stroll. Back in the days when I worked in the Civic Centre, it was a regular lunchtime spot in summer. When I was little and when my own children were, it was a favourite spot, along with the adjoining Rougemont Gardens, for roly-polys, so there I was again.
The first borders on my left were mostly new to me.
And I don’t remember this Paperbark Maple (Acer Griseum)
Time to walk up the steps
This is part of the old city wall.
But it feels like I’m walking in the woods.
One of the old gates, walking on past there are places to peep through.
Dido and Daisy prefer the shade and would like to run off into the trees, I like the sun on my face.
This wall cries out to stroked.
Ahh more steps!
But the view makes it worth it.
This is the entrance I was looking for. The path through Athelstan’s tower leads to Rougemont garden where you can walk inside the wall.
I didn’t linger in Rougemont, a sign said no dogs, but I ignored it long enough to spot the teenagers through the trees above.
And to get another angle on the tower.
Okay, time to follow the rules and back through to Northernhay. By the way the ‘hay’ part means field and we have Southernhay as well.
I walked up past the war memorial, to the little pond at the bottom of the slope.
When I was little there were goldfish that I loved to see, but no-one’s home now.
This is a short circular walk, part of the longer City Walk Trail, perhaps I’ll take one of the Redcoat Guide tours one day. For now I’m nearly back to the beginning, with the wall high above me. Northernhay is actually England’s oldest public space, it was created as a pleasure walk for local people in 1612, 400myears and still giving pleasure. I hope you enjoyed it, are you walking with Jo this Monday?
A last little bit of treasure.
Exeter’s history began nearly 2000 years ago, when the second Augustan Roman legion settled here in 55AD. A fortress was built overlooking the lowest crossing point of the Exe, known as Isca and manned by 6000 soldiers. An earth and timber rampart with a deep ditch in front protected the fortress.
Over the centuries the original grey volcanic rock was repaired using Heavitree Breccia, white Triassic sandstone and a pink Permian sandstone was used in the 17th century.
When the fall of the roman empire the city was pretty much abandoned and the land inside the wall returned to farmland, and little is known until Saxon times and from the 9th century the city grew quickly becoming one of the most prosperous in the country.
King Athelstan is credited with repairing the wall in time to withstand Viking attacks in 1001 AD and William the Conqueror in 1068 AD.
This photo is of a print I have, showing the city in the 17th century with the wall still intact, about seventy percent remains now. You should be able to click for a bigger view.
Lucid Gypsy 