Tish Farrell Writer

Elementally Exhilarating And A Cautionary Tale

A scene of things to come in the northern hemisphere – daffodil extravaganza. But not just yet. The leaves may be pushing up through the soil, even a few buds showing, but spring is on hold, as in icily gripped. We had more snow last night, only a dusting, but the temperature feels Siberian. So to brighten things up I’m reprising these photos from a visit to Bodnant Garden in North Wales, taken in early spring a few years ago.

I’m lucky to still have them.

Which brings me to this week’s moderate, though potentially horrendous disaster on the computer front, the bottom line of which is: do not put blind faith in an external hard drive for storage purposes! Back up the back up. And then back that up too.

I’ve had so many ‘lost file’ situations over the years – dying computers being the main cause. So I should have known not to keep my photo files on an external hard drive without some consistent backing-up routines. I’m also thinking that leaving the thing mostly attached to the PC was not a good idea – not least with Windows 10 wretched updates so often on the rampage. They seem to create total system muck-ups before and after they happen.

Anyway, the storage failure is not as bad as it might have been, and I have enlisted the aid of an IT whizz to see if he can extract the files. I can also retrieve some lost shots from my blog though I’m not looking forward to doing that. In the meantime more cheering daffodils are called for. It was wonderful to see the effect they had as soon as people clapped eyes on them – and not just the children.

Life In Colour: YELLOW Jude has given as a new colour to think about in February. Guaranteed to lift the spirits.

On The Garden Fence

A couple of winters ago we tried pinning fat balls to the garden fence for passing birds to peck at. Then along came this big old rook from the nearby rookery. You can see what will happen next. And it did. No sharing here.

Bird Weekly: on wire or fence Visit Lisa at Eyes Wide Open – the go-to blog for bird lovers

Life In Colour ~ Brown Can Be Beautiful

This year at Travel Words Jude is encouraging us to think hard about colour in our photography. This is the final week for brown – earth shades. From Sunday there will be a new colour scheme to look out for.

Life in Colour: Brown

Our Town ‘On The Farm’

The path to Bradley Farm

Walk out of Much Wenlock in any direction and you will almost instantly find yourself amongst crop fields or pasture. Our town is quite literally ‘on the farm’. The field name behind our house on Sheinton Street says it all: Townsend Meadow. In the nineteenth century it really did mark the town’s end. I also remember when there was still a working farm, Brook House Farm, in the town centre, one of the last of its kind. These days the farmyard buildings have been barn-converted and gentrified. I recall glancing through a newly installed window in the roadside barn and seeing a small grand piano standing where once winter-housed cattle huffed in their straw filled stalls. Odd to say, but when the farm went, it seemed the town had lost its heart.

There are also small fields within the town boundary. Our scenic route to the shops features the path beside the Cutlins, the meadow where various members of the Highland Cattle clan, aka the MacMoos, are often installed. And then, when you reach the kissing gate at the bottom of the path, and after all decide not to go shopping, you can turn up the lane by the Priory ruins and be eyed up by sheep in the Priory Park. Baaaaah!

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: anything farm related

Changing Seasons: This Was January 2021

Apologies for the swift change in temperatures after yesterday’s balmy temperatures on the Zambezi. Here in Wenlock we have been suffering frigid twirls and swirls of Polar Vortex: snow, sleet, wind, frost and in between, torrential rain. But we’ve had some sun too with china blue skies. Here’s the month’s round-up:

Snowy landscapes: Windmill Hill (including the above with this mysterious snow tree), Linden Walk and Linden Field, over the garden fence…

Birds and beasties…

Frost art including some very fancy ice works created by my allotment water butt…

And the first signs of spring…

The Changing Seasons: January 2021

Dreaming Upstream Zambezi

There were many things we saw and did while living in Zambia and Kenya that were hard to process – even head on; even when fully present. It was as if the actuality dial in one’s brain kept sliding out of tune, sparking dissonance: am I here or am I simply observing myself here, courtesy of an imagined translocation from the pages of some hyper-real travelogue. I mean to say, how could I possibly be taking a sundowner boat ride up the Zambezi. How had I come to this place where I never expected to be?

We were living in Lusaka, Zambia, at the time. That posting had been unexpected too, notice given only on the day we exited Kenya after ten months there. Suddenly Graham was on another short-term attachment, this time to the EU Delegation, managing the distribution of food aid to drought-stricken villages. Then one day an old school friend, en route from the UK to New Zealand, wrote suggesting he and partner make a visit, but he could only get incoming flights to Harare. OK said G. We’ll drive down and pick you up.

And so began a fantastic make-shift safari – out of Zambia into Zimbabwe – crossing the border (and downstream Zambezi) at Chirundu then heading south for Harare. Then on further south through Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe. After that a loop west and north through Bulawayo, the Matopos and Hwange National Parks and back to the Zambezi and the Zambian border at Victoria Falls. And so one evening we found ourselves on a sundowner cruise, ambling upstream between Zimbabwe and Zambia. But then again perhaps that wasn’t really me.

I couldn’t end this final ‘up’ post in Becky’s inspiring month-long challenge without a downstream view too. Look out! Here we go – up and over the knife edge – Victoria Falls – Mosi-oa-Tunya – The Smoke That Thunders. Way-haaaaay…

Square Up #31 A big big thank you to Becky for helping to keep our spirits up all through January

Giddy Up, You Slow Coach Camels!

It was meant to be a diverting event between the horse racing at Nairobi’s Ngong Racecourse. Officers from Kenya’s Police Anti-Stock Theft Unit were demonstrating their mounted expertise by racing their camels. The camel units usually operate far away in the arid zones of the Northern District, patrolling the border with Somalia, so perhaps the genteel and leafy ambiance of the Jockey Club enclave did not enthuse the camels.They certainly took much urging to leave the starting line and then, having started, there was little inclination to finish. An underwhelming contest then, though it added to the many and varied goings on of a Nairobi racing weekend.

The Ngong races are a hangover (pun retrospectively intended) from British colonial settler days when, for a week around Christmas, farmers left their lonely farms and ranches and gathered in town to let their hair down. For many it was a drunken spree, at least if you are to believe Evelyn Waugh’s 1931 account in Remote People. I’ve quoted from it before but it’s worth a second go:

I found myself involved in a luncheon party. We went on together to the Races. Someone gave me a cardboard disc to wear in my button-hole; someone else, called Raymond, introduced me to a bookie and told me which horses to back. None of them won…

Someone took me to a marquee where we drank champagne. When I wanted to pay for a round the barman gave me a little piece of paper to sign and a cigar.

We went back to Muthaiga and drank champagne out of a silver cup which someone had won.

Someone said, ‘You mustn’t think Kenya is always like this.

I see from the internet there has been plenty of racing at the Ngong Racecourse during January. These days it is a well ordered multi-cultural affair. I’ve also just had a quick trawl through the Kenya Jockey Club’s Facebook photos but found no sign of camels. Obviously lacking in appropriate competitive attitude.

Square Up #30

Six Word Saturday

Upstart Partridge

One of the extraordinary things that happened last March, along with advent-lockdown, was the appearance of this red-legged partridge on top of the old privy roof. Well! Never had this kind of thing happened in the garden before. In my experience partridges are rather covert birds. You’re lucky to have a fleeting glimpse if you happen to startle one along a farm-field hedgerow. This one, however, stood in full view for ages. Not only that, it began to further advertise its presence with some very loud and rasping calls. It was all rather thrilling. Who knew that partridge plumage was so very magnificent. I certainly didn’t.

Square Up #29

Bird Weekly: Lisa calls for brown feathered varieties

Life in Colour: Brown

Uppity Little Birds, Robins

But it’s always cheering to spot one. Even more so if they burst into song and brighten up a wintery twilight. But they can be fractious, being fiercely territorial when it comes to seeing off competitors. They are also very demanding. For much of last year I had one appear as soon as I started work on my allotment plot. If I went near any of my compost heaps, it was there at my feet, demanding that I instantly turn over the heap so it could stuff itself with worms. Obviously I had been labouring under a misapprehension thinking I was the allotment holder. Silly me. As I said: robins rule. I was just there as the field hand.

Square Up #28

Upcycling–Heritage Style: Who Can Spot It?

Since my yesterday’s post on Wenlock’s old buildings, I’ve been having a chat with Yvette at Priorhouse Blog about recycled parts. And that reminded me of this – the gates to the little village church of St. Andrew, Wroxeter. It lies on the other side of Wenlock Edge from us, the northerly end, just a few miles away as the crow flies.

Wroxeter is famous for its archaeological remains – Viroconium Roman City no less, now in the midst of farm fields. Even Charles Dickens came there to do his own Time-Team-like investigations: the remains were a huge tourist attraction in the late nineteenth century.

The nearby church is now sadly redundant, but you can still visit it. It had its origins in Saxon times but much of the surviving fabric belongs to 17th and 18th century remodelling. The gateway was added in the late 19th century.

So: have you guessed it?

Roman columns no less, doubtless transported down the lane on the back of a farm cart. The shafts are said to be from the Roman baths, the capitols added from elsewhere among the ruins. But they are very handsome, aren’t they. Well re-purposed. There’s more of the Roman City in the church walls. And inside, the font is made from an upturned column base.

I’m wondering, too, about the little figures mounted high in the tower. They have a Roman shrine look about them. And their recycling here would not be surprising. From earliest prehistoric times humans have adopted, adapted and generally put to their own purposes earlier sacred relics and monuments, well-tended sanctity being a valued resource; the more venerable the better. An interesting thought to ponder upon in increasingly strange times.

Square Up #27