Monthly Archives: August 2017

Gerolimenas

Katyuli Lloyd has illustrated the new Folio Society edition of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani.  The cover shows ‘The blood-feud towers of Yerolimenas’ [or Gerolimenas].  Writing in The Oldie (September 2017), she describes ‘Yerolimenas, a pretty, coastal town…But I wasn’t prepared … Continue reading

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Nature of Photography 2

‘I used to think photographs merely showed the viewer what the world looked like, but I realised very early on that a photograph is much more than that.  A photograph tells a story without necessarily answering any questions.’  Agnieszka Sosnowska, … Continue reading

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Beechwoods Regeneration

Natural regeneration of woodland is the process by which dying trees are replaced by new ones growing from seeds that fall and germinate in situ.  Over much of the last two to three hundred years foresters have restocked and created … Continue reading

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Skin Deep

Sir Thomas Overbury included the line, ‘All the carnall beauty of my wife is but skin-deep’ in his poem ‘A Wife’, written in 1613.  From it we have the proverb ‘Beauty is only skin deep’.  Bark is the layer covering … Continue reading

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Pink

A Google search tells me that: ‘The color pink represents caring, compassion and love. The pink color stands for unconditional love and understanding, and is associated with giving and receiving care. Since pink is a combination of red and white, … Continue reading

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Meridian – Millennium

A prime meridian, based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, was established by Sir George Airy in 1851. In October 1884 delegates from 25 nations met in Washington, D.C. and agreed on the Greenwich meridian as the official geographic/temporal reference line. … Continue reading

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Glasshouse

Greenhouse: ‘an enclosure with a transparent (glass) roof and walls used for the cultivation or protection of tender plants’. Glasshouse: slang for a military prison; ‘The term Glasshouse originated from the military prison at Aldershot, which had a glazed roof’.  … Continue reading

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Beechwoods Slug

If really felt like late summer in the Beechwoods this morning – bright sun, but a chill wind that sent a surf-like susurrus through the treetops. Big mushrooms with scaly biscuit coloured caps sprouting through the open ground under the … Continue reading

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Maize Maze

Another alternative crop.  Rectory Farm on the Fen-edge at Landbeach harvests leisure.  Hidden in the field is the Maize Maze, a jungly labyrinth in the meandering form of a castle and dragon for family adventures.  At the end of the … Continue reading

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Sustainable Fenland

The early morning sun picks up a ruler-straight line of light across the graphic landscape of the Fens.  A solar array.  The Fens, drained over the centuries in what Ian Rotham claims is the ‘greatest single ecological catastrophe that ever … Continue reading

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Tourism Backlash

On Saturday 12th August the Guardian carried a full page article, ‘Wish you weren’t here: locals take on tourists in Europe’s crowded hotspots’.  Spain is the focus for much of the spate of anti-tourist incidents reported, but it’s not alone … Continue reading

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Car Futures

Computer controlled self-driving cars are being touted as the future for motoring.  Well, just maybe, though it has the ring of one of those mistaken ‘Tomorrow’s World’ promises about it.  Will it be safer, or at least as safe as … Continue reading

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Beechwoods Origins

I went to the Cambridgeshire Collection today to see if old OS maps of the Beechwoods give any clues as to why it has its distinctive shape.  The map for 1903 shows the familiar modern shape for the woods established … Continue reading

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Beechwoods Block?

I walked in the Beechwoods early this morning.  The sky was heavily overcast, lending the woods a flat, sombre, in places gloomy, air.  The play of light and shade that characterises the woods on good summer days was gone.  I … Continue reading

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Bartlow Enigma

What is this object, one of several, hunkered down in a shelter belt near Hills Farm, Bartlow?  A trap? If so, what for?  A military left over?  Left over from what? Ventilation for something running underground?    An unlikely place for … Continue reading

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