Caught In Time…

ephemeral common blue

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

This tiny British butterfly is a male Common Blue. It’s about an inch across. And while it might be among our most common UK butterflies, having one pose like this is a rare occurrence. They’re usually pretty skittish, so you only catch a glint, a flitting chink of summer sky, and then they’re gone. This was a chance encounter on a summer’s evening.

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Expectations are like clouds – beautiful from afar, yet vanishing when you reach for them                                                                                                   Monika Ajay Kaul

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The light does not stay…  Tennessee Williams

There’s that moment as the sun disappears when there’s just enough light to take a photo.

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So passeth, in the passing of the day, of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre

Edmund Spencer

The glory of a Morning Glory is so brief, half a day at most. And you need to be up early to catch the best of it. I’m not sure how long the runner bean flowers last, perhaps a couple of days before they’re fertilised and begin to transform into beans. I must pay more attention next summer.

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windfall ed

mutation of weathers
and seasons,
a windfall composing
                                    the floor it rots into        

Seamus Heaney North

frosted apples bettter

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dandelion clock

The wind shall blow them none knows whither

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Foolhardy or deeply ironic: a dandelion clock for a timepiece? But then it always was such fun, huffing and puffing, seeing how far those little parachutes would fly. A sure way to annoy a gardener.

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Leaves 3 ed

Leaves are the verbs that conjugate the seasons

Gretel Ehrlich The Solace of Open Spaces

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Two seasons on Much Wenlock’s Linden Walk. Watching the leaves come and go through the year is another kind of time-keeping. The quiet sort.

leaves ed

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Lens-Artists: Ephemeral This week Tina sets the theme. Call in to see her thoughtful and inspiring post.

In Light And Shadow ~ Lakeside Reflections

Mellington Hall 9

These are the last photos from our Friday day out to Mellington Hall, caught in a brief burst of sunshine. The far glimpse of two swans across the lake had magic in it – a gentle scene for All Hallows’ Eve.

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November Shadows Day 4 Becky has the most fabulous shadows on show today. She’s flying high in a mass aerial display.

 

All Hallows’ Eve ~ Light And Shadow At Mellington Hall

Mellington Lake 3

On Friday we were out for a family lunch just over the border in Wales: destination Mellington Hall. It is only a few miles from Bishop’s Castle, an impressive Gothic pile built in the 1870s by Derbyshire ironmaster, Philip Wright, and now run as a country house hotel and holiday park.

Mellington Hall 5

“Built by iron, saved by eggs and rabbits.”

This is how the current owners describe the hall’s more recent history.

They then explain how the present enterprise derives from some creative family entrepreneurship over sixty years ago:

The establishment of the Holiday Park in the 1960s and the survival of the Hall are inextricably linked: the Hall was in a terrible state when Mr Jack Evans, the grandfather of the present owner, bought the Hall and parkland in 1959.

Jack built his business on collecting rabbits, other game and eggs from the nearby farms and selling the produce to shops and markets in the Midlands. Coincidentally, Jack’s wife Margaret had been in service at the Hall as a young girl but by the 1950s the Hall was almost certainly going to be demolished.

Prompted by business contacts in the Midlands looking for a rural bolt-hole, Jack created the Holiday Park in the 1960s to generate revenue which would pay for the restoration and upkeep of the hall and thus save it from demolition.

What a project.  And the restoration work is still ongoing.

You can see some photos of the Hall in its Victorian heyday HERE.

Mellington Hall 4

The grounds were originally landscaped by Joseph Paxton, but there has been further planting of specimen trees by Jack Evans. Work also still continues in the park, including the upkeep and creation of woodland paths, one of which links to the 177 mile Offa’s Dyke path, constructed along the England-Wales border in the late 700s CE by the Saxon king of Mercia.

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Friday, though, was not a day for big walks, or even short ones. Too many fierce squalls to contend with. But between two showers, and armed with brollies, we did manage a brief stroll to lake where a sudden burst of sunlight yielded the header photo.

On the drive home, sun and rain together created a huge double rainbow over the Camlad Valley, casting brilliant prisms across the foothills of Todleth, Roundton and Corndon Hills, but not quite caught here as we sped along.

Mellington Hall 6

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November Shadows  This month Becky invites us to post square-format photos on a shadowy theme, however we care to interpret it. You can join in as and when.