PhotoHunt: surprise

I am constantly surprised by things while I am out with my camera but I'm slow to react and rarely manage to catch the object of my surprise.  this time was an exception though.  I was concentrating on a picture of the mill stream and the remains of the wall at Hyde Abbey when I caught sight of something which you can just see at the bottom right of the picture.  I looked more closely.

Mother duck and three ducklings.  I was surprised, first that she hadn't moved, but also that in August she would have such young ducklings.  You need to click on the picture to see the ducklings properly.

I was at this point going to direct you to an earlier post about the abbey at Hyde when I had another surprise - I can't find it.  I am certain there was one, I can remember at least one of the comments.

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Shiver my timbers

The other day, you remember, that day when the sun was shining, I thought about getting out and about with my camera.  One of the places I wanted to visit was Bucklers Hard, an attractive place in itself, but what interested me was that fact that it was an important centre for shipbuilding in the 18th and 19th centuries, using timber from the New Forest.  Shipbuilders in those days were ideally located near both the ports they served and the sources of timber.  Association of ideas then took me off to the HMS Victory in Portsmouth which I saw earlier this year.

There were so many different woods used on HMS Victory, from the structure of the hull down to the food barrels and the brooms used to sweep the decks.

• Oak

We probably all think of oak as being the timber used - "Hearts of Oak" - and it was, 90% of the Victory was oak.  It took the equivalent of 100 acres of woodland, and the need for regeneration of forests was understood even then.  Admiral Collingwood used to fill his pockets with acorns to scatter in suitable places, to ensure future supplies.  An act of considerable optimism.

• Elm

Elm was valuable to ship builders because it doesn't rot when kept in water.  The keel of the Victory and the planking under the waterline were made from lengths of elm.  It was also used for casing the pumps, in the capstan used to raise the ship's anchor, in pulleys, and for the gun carriages.  Its strong and irregular grain and bendable nature made it ideal for planking in the ship's boats too, used not as lifeboats but as tugs or for transporting goods and people.

• Pine

Scots pine, fir and spruce were used to make masts because they grow tall and straight, as well as being supple and lightweight.  As there wasn't enough Scots pine available, a great deal of wood had to be imported from the Baltic.

The figurehead would have been carved from elm or oak because it had to be able to withstand the elements in the very exposed position it held.

• Ash

The wood from ash trees is strong and springy, and tolerates impact.  It  was used to make the ship's wheel, the tiller, poles to ram shot into the guns, and as levers and pulleys.

• Yew

The wood from this tree was seen in contrasting places on HMS Victory. Below the waterline was the carpenter's store room and where the tool handles were yew.  High above in the admiral's quarters at the stern of the ship, some of Nelson's finest pieces of furniture would have been made from yew.  The beautiful deep colour was much sought after.

• Hazel

Hazel wood is an inexpensive and widely available wood, that regrows quickly when cut back to the ground.  At the time of HMS Victory it was very widely used.  Being flexible and strong it was used for the hoops that bound together wooden casks that contained food such as peas, oatmeal, biscuit and other dried food.  It was also used for hoops on gunpowder barrels. 

• Black poplar

For safety reasons cartridges were transported in boxes from the gunpowder store to the guns.  Boxes varied in size according to the type of cartridges needed for each gun.  They had to be lightweight so the cases were made from poplar and fitted with an elm lid.  There were 240 of these cases on the Victory.

• Alder, birch, rowan and willow

These were all used in the making of charcoal which in turn was used to make gunpowder.  Charcoal was also used to keep the gunpowder dry.  Rowan wood had an additional use in bowls and plates.

• Beech

Beech trees produce hard, fine grained, easily worked wood.  It was used for internal woodwork and furniture and pulleys

• Silver Birch

Finally, last but not least, silver birch. Twigs from this lovely tree were plentiful and cheap. Brooms and brushes were made of them by the ship's boys who were given the most menial tasks. The youngest crew member on the Victory was just 12 years old.

After a long list like that, it's easy to see that woods and forests played a huge part but were quickly depleted.  Three of the ships built  in Bucklers Hard were at the Battle of Trafalgar so the demand for wood was high.  Nelson himself acknowledged the importance of trees to the success of the British navy and, in 1803, wrote to Parliament calling for more trees to be planted to safeguard ship building timber supplies.  Two hundred years after that battle, the Woodland Trust is engaged in a five year project to plant 12 million trees in 33 woods throughout the UK, the Trafalgar Woods project.  Each wood is named after one of the ships in the battle - 27 ships of the line plus support vessels.

The Project celebrates the crucial part played by timber in the UK's nautical past, links the past with the present, and regenerates the landscape.  It is a unique but very appropriate way to remember the battle, echoing commemorative tree-planting done at the time.

PhotoHunt: ripples

Ripples in the river.  I took this on a late December evening.  I was fascinated by the change from the almost ripple-free river, smooth ripples over the weir, followed by turbulent ripples as the water fell to the lower level.

"Here, on the river's verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left." ~ Paul Cezanne

Ripples in the sea and the sky.  In spite of what this looks like, it was taken mid morning in March of last year.

"I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky" ~ John Masefield

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Rag rugs or red rags

During the general sorting out of house contents leading up to the house move (date still uncertain) I've accumulated the usual pile of clothes that aren't suitable to give to many charity shops.  What to do with them?  It annoys me to have to throw them out with the general rubbish.

The Salvation Army and Oxfam do recycle textiles, selling on unwearable clothes or fabrics as raw materials.  They can be shredded and used as insulation materials, in roofing felts, padding, or used as cloths in a range of industries.  Wool can be reclaimed and made into yarn by specialists.  TRAID takes torn or stained clothing and remakes into one-off garments which are then sold under the TRAIDremade label.

Boujad rug from Flickr/Luciano Ghersi

Taking TRAID's initiative a step further are women in Morocco who are using pieces of material from old clothes to creating rugs in the Essaouira tradition.  They use a hook to knot the pieces of fabric on to a canvas backing and let their imaginations create beautiful ethnic-style rugs in geometric designs.  Développement Durable has some good pictures of the colourful end product.

There are other ways to make rag rugs - braiding, crochet - but I'm no crafty expert.  I will not be making us a rug out of the odd sock mountain, but I'll be giving them to Oxfam rather than to landfill.

PhotoHunt: artificial

Agde, on the south coast of France, view 1

Agde again, view 2.

Avignon in Provence.

Things artificial often have a bad press, but here we have three examples of trompe l'oeil putting the art into artificial, and blurring the line between the real and the artificial.

As always, you can click on the photos for a larger view.

If you'd like to join in and find other other players, visit TNchick's site.

Family portraits

I have a large number of photos belonging to my father's family, most of whom I don't recognise nor, sadly, are they labelled.  These two are are exceptions to that, and I know that the lady on the left is my great-grandmother and the man with a sword is my great-grandfather.  They were married in 1849.

The picture on the right is quite faded.  I don't know if there is anything anyone can do about it.  Can it be rescued?  I would love to have it preserved for future generations.  The sword in the photo has been preserved or at least it is still in existence.  It, as well as the pictures, has moved around with us for years. It's sitting up in our loft right now waiting for its next move to a new attic. 

Intriguingly, alongside these two photos, I found this in a better condition.

Why on earth would anyone include an advertisement for Globe Polish, albeit with a picture of Lord Kitchener, amongst family portraits?  Perhaps they used the polish for the sword. I wonder if Lord Kitchener was happy for his name and image to be used to endorse a metal polish?

PhotoHunt: low

We've had a great deal of low pressure this summer, resulting in low cloud.  Mainly accompanied by rain....

But when low cloud is accompanied by a low sun, sometimes the result is delight.

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Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It was Mrs. B. who was charged with teaching some English Literature to 3A.  We weren't very fond of Mrs. B., not even when our class teacher assured us she was really quite fun, had once had too many glasses of sherry, fallen asleep and woken to find her toes were "all curled up like little rosebuds". 

So, poor Mrs. B. had an uphill struggle to teach us to appreciate poetry. All the same, she must have done something right because I still remember where Tennyson went to school (in Louth, in the same county as our school - give or take 200 years) and this passage from the Lotus Eaters:

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

I read today that 6 August 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Tennyson's birth, and all at once all these snippets of information came popping back into my mind.  But I have to tell you, Mrs. B., while the phrase does linger in the mind, describing toes as rosebuds just doesn't work.

Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's nose went sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes went twinkle, twinkle.

Seen the other night.  No doubt she was after the snail that got away.  Please note the green, green, grass of home.  The result of the rainiest summer EVER.


The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle on Project Gutenberg

PhotoHunt: entertainment

Not, perhaps the form of entertainment I was expecting, but this Insect Circus Museum was one of the sideshows at the recent Winchester Hat Fair, a weekend of performing street artists.

This acrobat, able supported by some likely looking lads from the crowd, did more talking than acrobatics but was entertaining nevertheless.

Some entertainment for everyone. A place for elven warriors and fair damsels on a mission.

The dinosaurs, "Saurus" inclined to peck at anyone showing too close an interest.  Do dinosaurs peck?  These ones did.

Why is it the Hat Fair?  Because they pass a hat around after the performance, of course!

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