More ten mile project fun...Minster Lovell Hall
Just down from Burford, on the beautiful Windrush river, on the edge of Wychwood forest is this incredible 15th C relic.I love it here.
It was a great, grand hall and the main residence of the Lovell family, (isn’t that a lovely name...Lovell). King Richard III was a family friend and stayed in the minster for visits.
The minster was a U shape, with a central great hall, enormous fireplaces, staircases, turrets and stone archways.
Here is R walking thru the main hall to show the scale.
This is the great hall. Can you just imagine tapestries, roaring fires, musicians, ladies in wimples, emboidered gowns and jewels. Actually, a beautiful jewel was found here and is on display at the Ashmolean in Oxford.
When it was investigated by archeologists, a skeleton was found in the basement!
The footprint is still here. So is the dovecote and the church.
Minster Lovell Hall...the best place to daydream.
Hedgerow Jam for the village flower and veg show, (only one pot...the rest for me).
Do you know about English hedgerows?Well, let me tell you. They are wild, living fences. A border line between properties, a windbreak between fields, a haven for small creatures, a closely planted, semi-impenetrable mix of shrubs and trees entangled and entwined together. Here in Oxfordshire they usually contain sloe, elderberry, crab apples, damson plums, roses and other lovely edible plants like bramble berry, blackberry and hawthorn.Wouldn’t it be a shame not to use all this bounty for some seasonal jams?I thought you’d agree.It’s been such a late summer that this year the sloes, hawthorns and rose hips aren’t quite ready, so I made the jam from huge, sour windfall cooking apples, elderberries, damson plums, bramble and blackberries.It’s really easy and here’s the basic recipe:Quarter apples, put in a little water along with elderberries and damsons and simmer for a few minutes.Pulp these fruits thru a sieve, or food mill, throw out the pits.Add some blackberries and bramble berries.Usually I go for equal measures of pulped fruit to berries, this year it was 2lbs pulp plus 2 lbs berries)Add the same amount of sugar, this year it was 4 lbs sugar to the 4 lbs of fruit.Boil to jam point. (You know how to do this don’t you? Cold plate, drop a little jam, does it wrinkle...good, it’s done)Ladle into hot sterilised jars...sealThere you go.Oh, clean up is easy...lick left over jam from the stirring spoon, pot, fingers...you get the picture.Mmmm, good.
The bride in the city...City Explo[it/r]ation, a Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge
Terence S. Jones issued "Urban" as the Wordpress challenge. Raw, unphotoshopped images of city/town life. I love his idea of City Explo[it/r]ation. Here is a snap, a click, a shutter release; an unfiltered moment when a little girl showed her balloon flower to a bride who was in the middle of her wedding photo shoot. The groom, photographer, and rest of the party smiled on. After all, it's not every day that a little girl meets a princess in the street.
Within the ten miles...Burford!
You gotta love Burford, the ideal Cotswold town. Burh = fortified town and Ford = river crossing. Could there be any other town where Uther Pendragon, King Arthur’s father, gave a golden dragon as a standard? Bet it was a real dragon, bet it breathed fire.In this lovely, lovely town 15th and 16thC buildings function as homes, shops, hotels and pubs.So let's go.Let's park up beside this warm stone wall.
Let's follow the small road to the High street. It's summer crazy with people.
The High street is full of lovely shops.
And little alleys with shops.
Look at this mix of 15th to 17thC buildings.
The shops give way to cottages and homes.
Many with large archway entrances for horses and carriages, now handy for cars.
The town ends, and we stop at the Windrush River. But now we get to go up the other side!
What my kids are up to at my house while I'm in England
Miss you monkeys.Thanks for the photos.xxxxoooo + x
Sunday rest? Never! Sunday race #3 (Sensing a pattern here)
Seven am Sunday morning jumped out of bed, fed the cat and hooned off in the turbo mini 40 miles X country to Winchcombe, Gloucestershire (Pronounced Glosstr-shure, not Glau-chester-shire, (so I’m corrected)), for a fun day racing. Met Jason in the Carterham7 half way at Stow-on-the-Wold and chased each other till we got there.
Parked up the two cars where they could be much admired...
...along with some other beauties...
...and walked the track's bends and turns.
On the drive there, the turbo mini developed a sticking master cylinder and so had to be parked up and not raced. Pity, and, sometimes this happens with experimental engine designs.Still had tons of fun in the Carterham7.
The twisty and turney track was well raced and there was loads of time to watch others...
...including this exquisite Bentley Napier from the 1930, (with an airplane engine and no exhausts).
Working on the ten mile project...St Mary's chapel
I found it for you.This lovely, lovely little chapel.
Driving the direct road you sometimes have to take a turn. You just have to, don’t you?When a friend told me about a little chapel standing on its own in the middle of nowhere somewhere towards Chimney...or it could be Cote, but anyway...in that direction over there...isn’t that something you just have to find? I think so.
Apparently it has existed since the 12C in some form or another. Apparently it was endowed to the vicars of Bampton along with 2lb of wax/year for candles.
The chapel was granted burial rights in the 15C, baptism rights by the 16C.
It fell out of favour for some reason by 1772 and became derelict. But was repaired and renovated by 1785 and the medieval bell was rehung in the belfry.
On the way home, driving thru the village of Cote, I bought armloads of the most spectacular dahlias, fresh picked tomatoes, beans and onions.
Found Graham the village butcher and got some sausages from him.Guess what’s for supper! All locally grown, made, sourced. I love that, don’t you?
And the meadow keeps meadowing along
So, the pomp and pageantry of the Olympics has just about settled for 2012 and a funny thing is happening; people are still trying to generate news and debate around the Olympics and, I suppose, this will continue for some time, except now comes the criticism, the issues debate. The money issue, the doping issue, the several-countries-churning-out-pro-athletes issue, the list is practically endless with everyone making some point or another.In the meantime, the meadow has grown, bloomed, fruited and seeded and is carrying on as though nothing really matters very much.
So another Olympic games has been played and won in London but also here in the meadow.The Olympic rings are still hanging under Tower Bridge. In the meadow the Teasel is sporting its own rings for so many peacock butterflies.
So many gold medals for many deserving athletes, so many golden flowers on the ragwort.
So many billions have been dispersed in London, here, in Northmoor, so many elder seed heads waiting for goldfinches to disperse the seeds.
And it’s all been a terrific experience. I’ve loved every minute of the Olympics just as much as I’ve loved every minute of the meadow this summer.
And in the end, after the pomp and pageantry dies down, there still will be time for another soft shower of thistle seeds on the wind.
Closing the gap; thought about and photographed for the meadow but also for the Wordpress Weekly Writing Challenge: Mind the Gap.
You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!!!
Sunday morning, jumped out of bed, fed the cat and hooned 90 miles X country in the turbo mini.What’s this we found?Mini Day at Santa Pod raceway!I know I do go on about minis...but I just love them so much.Hello mini!
Oooo, got to get a GB badge for my mini!
Look at this amazing thing! It’s an extremely valuable and rare mini cooper from one of the early years. Comes with its own swamp garden too!
It will end up being restored and looking spectacular and be worth maybe 25,000 GBP, ($38,000)...like this one:
Here are some lovely mini fronts...
And some mini bums too.
Some minis were dressed for the club shows,
Others were just...um...indescribable. :) Doesn't it make you smile?
And some minis were beautifully engineered for power...
And this one for sheer speed!
Looking inside R’s turbo mini...it's hard for me to drive this powerful beastie.
And this says it all!
Some fun!
A summer poetry contest from The River
The River Journal has issued a summer poetry contest to a photo prompt. Here is the Facebook page. The photo is this brilliant photo:
Here is what I came up with: UncertaintyAcross the miles my thoughts fly to youA swarm of golden mothsTo beat at the window panes of the darkWill you hear them and let them inOr will you sleep and wake to find them at dawn, dead on the sillWill you gather them in a towel and throw them awayThey will continue to flyUntil they form a golden rainbow over sea and landAcross which I could walkYou send a voice to meOn brittle wings, dove-gray wingsBut it flies through a course of nets and snaresReaching me it falls exhaustedAnd with its dying breathIt whispers a word I cannot graspI look at the skyAnd feel I’m stuck hereA tree with severed roots