Sunday Picture Post: Honeysuckle

Posted on May 19, 2019 by crispina kemp

Woodbine, aka Honeysuckle aka Lonicera periclymenum opens its flowers … and I couldn’t decide which shot to use. All photos taken 16th May 2019

Honeysuckle

honeysuckle

 

Honeysuckle

 

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 25 Comments

Hethel

Posted on May 18, 2019 by crispina kemp

No, that’s not the name of this gentleman’s wife (it was Mary), but the village where this magnificent marble effigy can be found.

Myles Branthwaite effigy

Myles and Mary Branthwaite in Hethel church: 16 May 2019

Norwich born Myles Branthwaite Esq, died August 1612, aged 55. Dates are not given for his wife.

1612, I think that qualifies for the #2019picoftheweek title: A Long Time Ago

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

Despite I am impressed by the marble carving and its detail, that’s not why the tiny Norfolk village of Hethel is famous. It lays claim to two unrelated features.

Hethel Old Thorn

Hethel Old Thorn: 16 May 2019

At 0.025 hectares Hethel Old Thorn is possibly one of the smallest nature reserves in England.

Reputed meeting place for the peasants during their revolt against King John, which puts its age in excess of 700 years. In 1841, when Ninhams produced the engraving (seen on Norfolk Naturalists Trust’s signage below) the trunk then measured 12’ 1” in circumference, with a branch-spread of over 31 yards. Since then the thorn has split into several separate portions, all still very much alive.

Old Thorn Signage

Norfolk Naturalists Trust showing etching by Ninhams executed 1841: 16 May 2019

And Hethel is also HQ for the famous Lotus sports and racing cars, and home of the Formula One Team Lotus. (Sorry, no photos)

Posted in History, Photos | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

CCC#27: The New Green Earth

Posted on May 16, 2019 by crispina kemp
Winding grassy way

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #27

Come dance with me in the month of May
Come welcome in the green-clothed day
Come follow where the fairies tread
Where decked in white fay maidens wed
Come skip with me and flick your heels
Dance Irish jigs and Scottish reels
Come follow me and sing a song
Don’t know the words? Tra-lah along
For ended is the winter’s dearth
Let’s celebrate the new green Earth

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , | 26 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #27

Posted on May 15, 2019 by crispina kemp
Winding grassy way

CCC#27

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge | Tagged , | 51 Comments

No Denial

Posted on May 14, 2019 by crispina kemp

Did you love him?

Who me? Don’t be ridiculous.

Did you send him that letter?

Certainly not. I would not.

Did you take the photos?

Of him and that girl? No, wasn’t me.

Did you tamper with his car?

And what do I know about cars? You think me a mechanic? I’m not.

Did you kill him?

You mean those hemlock seeds found in his pepper-grinder? Do you have my fingerprints?

Yes.

Then what use my denial?

77 words

Written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Posted in Mostly Micro | Tagged , | 26 Comments

What Pegman Saw: Stones for the Dead

Posted on May 13, 2019 by crispina kemp
Madagascar by Cedric Bourges

Madagascar from Google Maps

Wood is for the living; stone for the dead. That’s the old way.

Yes, Papa, but if we keep chopping down trees and grubbing them up, there’ll be nothing left but the ancestral stones.

My boy, my boy, we honour our ancestors, we follow their ways. Would you have us dishonour them, have them bring plague or famine upon us?

No, Papa, no. But after two thousand years of our ancestors’ ways, what’s left for the living? Not for you, not for me, but there are other things here, alive and equally deserving.

And wood, my boy, is for the living, and stone for the dead. So, you answer me this: What is our reason for living, if not to honour those who went before us?

But, Papa, look! This is what’s left. Nothing. And now not even me, Papa. I’m leaving.

wordcount: 142

Written for What Pegman Saw

Wood is for the living, and stone for the dead: So said Malagasy archaeologist Ramilisonina to the British archaeologist Mike Pearson Parker on seeing Stonehenge during a visit to England after their many seasons of fieldwork together in Madagascar. As Mike Pearson Parker later reported, these words opened his eyes to the intrinsic nature of the megalithic monument and launched him into the most successful and thorough exploration of the surrounding landscape. To say I am in awe of Mike Pearson Parker, and through him Ramilisonina, is an understatement. I drool at their feet. And I’m sure Ramilisonina, whose life-work has been the study of the island’s prehistory, would not like to see all that he loves crumble because of an adherence to ‘the old ways’.

Posted in History, Mostly Micro, Thoughts | Tagged , , , | 33 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: By Hedge and Bank

Posted on May 12, 2019 by crispina kemp

Last Friday’s walk yielded lots of photos of wayside plants. Which to feature is the problem.

Laid Oak Hedge

Goddess of the Hedge … can you see her? 3rd May 2019

In times of yore hedges were ‘laid’ … i.e. cut in such a way as to encourage new growth which then would weave a sturdy, beast-proof barrier. While the practice has been revived on nature reserves, it’s time-consuming and isn’t practiced elsewhere.

However, walk alongside an old hedge, and chances are you’ll see an unnatural pattern of growth down by its soil-eroded roots. As in this one above. But this ancient hedge is doubly exceptional, in that it is oak. So possibly it predates *enclosure* when quickthorn and hawthorn became the norm.

Stitchwort

Cascades of white as stitchwort tumbles down a grassy bank beside a country lane: 3rd May 2019

Horsetail

Horsetail, a relic of the Age of Dinosaurs: 3rd May 2019

Horsetails poke their orange heads above the more common hedge plants along this swampy-verge beside Cargate Lane … and even the name shouts of age.

wayside apple blossom

Apple blossom: 3rd May 2019

And what is a wayside hedge without the odd apple? This last image makes me think of the Garden of Eden …

Posted in Photos | Tagged , | 32 Comments

The Very Gall …

Posted on May 11, 2019 by crispina kemp
Oak Gall

Oak gall in my daughter’s hand: 3rd May 2019

Undeniably eligible for the 2019picoftheweek title: In Your Hand

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

The gall-fly, in need of sustenance for her developing larvae, genetically modifies the oak to produce for her infants this cosy home. I know some of my readers will high-five the air when I say reproduction for the gall-fly (aka gall wasp) is usually parthenogenetic … i.e. no male required.

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 39 Comments

CCC#26: Mutton Jeff

Posted on May 9, 2019 by crispina kemp
Bunker Cliff

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #26

Jeff strained on tiptoes atop his post. But still no sign of his relief.

Do not leave your post, they drummed into him when first he enlisted. And his post was to guard this stretch of coast.

Bored, frustrated, he sighed. Not a sign of a boat, a ship or a plane since a fortnight after he came. Not since that awesome day the ground shook fit to break, and blackness fell from the sky. How long ago was that? The gorse and the bracken had sprouted and grown since then.

He looked again at the crumpled grease-stained paper. His orders. Perhaps he’d misunderstood, not able to hear since his return from the front. He ought to have told his C.O.

Mutton Jeff, that was him. Deaf.

Written from Crimson’s Creative Challenge #26

The photo was taken on from the beach just north of Lowestoft (at Lowestoft Ness, the most easterly point in Great Britain), where many of the defence installations remain from WWII.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Mostly Micro | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #26

Posted on May 8, 2019 by crispina kemp
Bunker Cliff

CCC#26

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge | Tagged , | 49 Comments