The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
12 Comments CherryPie on Jan 17th 2010
What a stressful morning! At least the sun has come out now reminding me that soon I will be able to get out and about enjoying gardens again. In the meanwhile I still have the photographs from previous garden visits. These were taken at Sissinghurst which is a garden in a ruin in a farm. It was created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in the 1930s.
The site is ancient— “hurst” is the Saxon term for “an enclosed wood”. A manorhouse with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages.The house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII’s Privy Councillors, and hugely enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. For Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and its garden rooms came to be a poignant and romantic substitute for Knole, reputedly the largest house in Britain, which as the only child of Lionel, the 3rd Lord Sackville she would have inherited had she been a male, but which had passed to her uncle as the male heir.
After the collapse of the Baker family in the late 17th century, the building had many uses: as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years’ War; as the workhouse for the Cranbrook Union; after which it became homes for farm labourers.
Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930 after concern that their property Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent, was close to development over which they had no control. Although Sissinghurst was derelict, they purchased the ruins and the farm around it and began constructing the garden we know today. The layout by Nicolson and planting by Sackville-West were both strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens.
7 Comments CherryPie on Jan 17th 2010
Synopsys (from book cover):
In the breadth of bitter-sweet Scottish history there is not more poignant, nor more important, battle than Flodden. Before Flodden a proud country under its dynamic Stewart king James IV was emerging as a distinct and flourishing nation within Europe. With defeat the inevitability of Scotland’s reformation and union with England is hard to deny. Flodden was an ignominious and disastrous moment for the Scots, all the more so for being a largely unnecessary encounter, fought with superior numbers and arms, which left the country weak, exposed and leaderless.
Review:
I picked up this book during my visits to the places that were significant in the Flodden campaign. It looked interesting and I thought it would give a more in depth background than could be gained from the various guide books.
The book is written in a very sympathetic way and the style is more that of a novel than a history book which makes it very readable. It covers the political, military and historical background that led up to the battle taking place. It describes the two opposing forces in detail, the commanders that led each army, the weapons and tactics involved and describes their relative strengths and weaknesses. The book explains the routes that the two armies took to arrive in their eventual battle positions, which gives insight on how the English army had managed to cut the Scottish army off from it’s homeland.
There are plenty of maps to show the relative positions in the build up to the battle and the positions during the battle.
The book is well researched and you can almost feel yourself on the battlefield alongside the two armies. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has an interest history, military history or battlefields of England or Britain.
6 Comments CherryPie on Jan 16th 2010
These photos were all hand held in low lighting without using the flash, they have all turned out rather jiggly. I really don’t believe that I am displaying my sub-standard photos for everyone to see!
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
36 Comments CherryPie on Jan 15th 2010
I saw this fun challenge to undertake a photo tour of where we blog the most. I felt compelled to check back through my archives to bring to you this virtual tour of the place where I blog from. All photos were taking by me from my blogging space.
If you want to see the mosaic photos in a larger size, follow the links below.
1. Friendship…, 2. Contemplating Autumn, 3. Before Sunset
, 4. FUTAB – Enjoying Autumn, 5. Dreaming of the Magic Garden, 6. Dressed up and Ready to Go, 7. Workspace View, 8. Moo For You
This final photo is new to everyone and was taken last week in our snowy interlude.
PS: There seems to be rather a lot of photos of me :-/
14 Comments CherryPie on Jan 14th 2010
The promised snow did arrive over night and it was snowing like the clappers when I got up this morning. As I mentioned yesterday I had no choice but to go into work because I was on Business Improvements Delivering Excellence training. So there was nothing for it but to put my best foot forward and venture into the snow.
Just as I was about to leave the house the phone started ringing (this is becoming a habit ) setting me back a few minutes. Eventually I left the house, located my car underneath it’s layer of snow and made my way slowly into work.
The estate road was very slippery and slidey but the main roads weren’t too bad if not brilliant. There was more than the fair share of idiots on the road, I think the snow attracts them. The snow was very thick when I got to work and there was a mini snowplow careering round the car park at speed. I guess boys just have to have their fun but at least it gave me a nice place to park without any snow.
It was worth the journey in because I found the course very useful. We were concentrating on problem solving and my team of trainees picked an area of my work which has been causing me problems for ages. So now I have a way forward which is beneficial to my team and organisation as a whole, we just need to do some more work on it and get it implemented.
As we finished the course, the snow picked up and started to come down thick and fast. I was contemplating leaving early just in case the roads got a bit iffy later. When I got back to my desk I found some priority A buy requirements needing attention from me before they could be passed through to the purchasing section. When I looked at them a bit more closely I found that the items were required extremely urgently in support of military equipment due to be deployed to Afghanistan. Of course my conscience wouldn’t allow me to go home until I had actioned them.
By the time I left, the snow was quite thick but the roads were fine and by the time I got home the snow was thawing as fast as it was falling despite it being below freezing. The first thing I did when I got home was to venture into the garden to capture some snowy shots whilst I still had the opportunity.
16 Comments CherryPie on Jan 13th 2010
