Author: changinglifestyleblogs

Hi,

Once again I am here telling you about our weekend in Cardiff. The meeting of BWARS was on at the museum in Cardiff so I accompanied your father down for a break. When we arranged it I wasn’t aware that one of you would be coming home for a wedding. However by the time I found out the hotel was booked. In the end as you only passed through briefly on Friday night and Sunday evening I didn’t feel I was neglecting you.

We arrived early for the first meeting and parked in the long stay parking. The entomology department has been reduced considerably  due to cuts and they operate on a skeleton staff.

In spite of this there were several younger people at the meeting. After eating lunch, I skipped the ID session not wanting to spend hours looking at insects down a microscope. I signed up for the free art tour and we were shown around by a volunteer who took us to see the landscapes.

The first landscapes were from the early seventeenth century and appeared more as architect plans for a house and garden than paintings. They were  designed to show off how wealthy the owners were and thus how much land they possessed.  Of course now that the house and gardens no longer exist it is invaluable to historians who want to find out how these houses were laid out and how the gardens of the time were designed. On painting is of the front of the house and gardens and one of the rear. On the right you can see the sea in the background

We were lead on a whistle stop tour through some Poussin landscapes where we were shown how the story of the picture had diminished over time and the landscape had come to dominate the canvas.

The story of this particular landscape is of a general who had been falsely accused forces to commit suicide and here his body is being taken out of the city of Athens for disposal elsewhere. Late in the story he is pardoned so his grieving widow brings his ashes back for a proper burial in the city.  The other painting in this pair shows the widow of the general gathering up his ashes so that she can return them to the city.

Well that’s all right then unless you are the dead general. Anyway this particular painting was bought by Clive of India who had similar problems to the general in the painting without (thankfully) the forced suicide.  Perhaps he empathised with the plight of public humiliation of someone who had worked so hard for their country, perhaps he thought that his reputation would be cleared?

In the Nether;ands in the 17th century the merchant class grew after the end of the wars with Spain and as a result artists flourished as wealthy patrons looked for something to spend all that money on and show how wealthy they were. In this picture the scene is painted from a boat anchored on the water.

I expect if you were a merchant the last thing you would want on the wall sis a storm at sea, reminding you off all that investment perilously sailing to your customers. Consequently here it is very calm and the water is barely moving. Again for historians this provides a great deal of detail on costumes or ordinary sailors at the time and how the boats were designed. The sailing boat with the bent mast is a sail that is opened downwards under gravity rather than being hoisted. The operation requires fewer sailors and such sails were used on London barges of the time.

Then the pastoral movement provided bucolic scenes of plenty and contentment from artists that were removed from the daily privations. No mud, no toil, no smells, no poverty, no exploitation, just happy shepherds and milkmaids.

Here is a Gainsborough.

This soldiers farewell was one of my  favourites, although the sentiments are maudlin and very Victorian the picture is almost photographic in the portrayal of the scene and so sharp. I felt I could touch the scene. (Of course I didn’t try). Fanciful I may be but not deluded.

At the end of the nineteenth century came the impressionists and here the landscapes have an unfocused dreamlike quality. thanks to the generosity of two sisters who bequeathed their collection to the museum there are many impressionist paintings.

The bottom painting on the right reminded me of lake Anguilara although it is London.

These next paintings were painted by  Alfred Sisely and are a couple of views of the coast of Wales. He  was born and lived in France, but was a british citizen. He had a French mistress with whom he had a number of children. However it was the law that if you were not married neither your partner nor your children could inherit. So his mistress put her foot down and they came to the UK and to Wales presumably to keep things quiet in case of a scandal and they were married in Cardiff.  Once married there was no problem about the inheritance. During their honeymoon he went out painting every day and the result are these charming landscapes. He was one of the impressionists who believed in painting in the open air  “en plein air”. The museum has two lovely paintings of the Welsh coast that he painted at this time.

It is curious to think that had the railway not been developed artists would have found it much more difficult to travel to out of the way places to paint. In addition paint was produced in tubes making more portable, no more grinding pigments and mixing them every time you wanted to paint. Canvases were pre-prepared so they could be carried around . Do you agree? This impressionist painting reminded me of those intense dreamlike landscapes of Van Gogh.

These tiny landscapes were lovely  despite being over 200 years old they appear curiously modern. I think it is to do with their  brightness, clean lines and clear colours. Again they had that photographic quality.  I liked them.

Finally here are the last few landscapes the first in a John Singer Sargent known for his portraits but here he paints a tyrolean landscape with two figures reclining. Almost photographic it draws you in.

Here are a couple of twentieth century paintings one of men making hay more modern happy peasants and the other cute children by the seaside. Both were utterly charming and portray an ideal world. After horrific wars perhaps people wanted to believe that the world would become a better place or perhaps they were harking back to an earlier more leisurely romantic time. What do you think?

Dear Son,

I though I would update you on how our trip round Attenborough went last Sunday. By the time we had finished phonecalls it was later than we had hoped. However the weather was perfect so we set off quickly before any other distractions came along.

Just outside the sand martin hide were two common sandpipers. David photographed them on his phone. In case you were wondering it is near that big clump of vegetation.

See what I mean about it being a beautiful day. At the corner of the building a

female goosander was sat somewhat incongruously.

From tower hide we watched a raven fly across to Barton in Fabis and a buzzard circling the woods opposite. A black necked grebe was trying to hide in amongst the little grebes and a green sandpiper tried to look inconspicuous amongst the dunlin on the long island. There were more reed buntings than last time. The statistics for fledging cand martins were encouraging this year most of those ringed had fledged.

A kingfisher flew across but I missed it as it was so rapid. Three little egrets saw amongst the ducks and black headed gulls. Most of the ducks were in eclipse but it was good to see the return of some of the winter species, shoveler, a few widgeon as well as the commoner teal, mallard, tufteds and gadwell. we heard several Cetti’s warblers always skulking in bushes. Snipe were lurking at the edges of the islands and several ringed plovers were patrolling. occassionally we would see a duck that had completed its moult and it stood out as being particularly splendid. It has been so long since we went birding I found myself fascinated by watching tufted ducks diving the look so much more elegant under water. I hadn’t noticed how bright the yellow eye is nor how its colour is emphasised by the black pupil at the centre.

We walked to the old fishermans’ car park at a gentle stroll. We found a mixed flock of tits, lots of long tailed tits flitting through the trees calling incessantly, but also blue tits and great tits associated with them. A female blackcap was tagging along and both robins and wrens were present.  from the centre of the village we headed beside the works pond towards the bund most of this pond has been filled in with sediment from the gravel extraction. I finally saw my own kingfisher low over the pond. We moved though the wood towards the railway line and the crossing where we turned towards the river. It is always quieter at this end and we had avoided most of the prams cyclists and pushchairs. We walked back along the river towards the bund and noticed that most of the great crested grebes were changing back to winter plumage. Our peace was disturbed by a speedboat on the river but apart from that it was a long languorous stroll. Common darters crossed the path ahead of us. Unfortunately they refused to pose as this one has so this is from the web.

From time to time a curious migrant hawker would come to investigate us. One was so fresh it took your father some time to determine it wasn’t a southern migrant hawker as these have been seen in Essex. The image here is from the web as we only had a phone

The late summer sun had also brought out the butterflies many of them speckled woods but also small and green veined white, comma, and red admiral.

There were many honey bees feeding on the hymalayan balsam that has returned and some common carder bees Bombus Pascorum. We also found a bee mimic, volucella bombylans this large hoverfly resembles a bee.

The brilliantly named marmalade hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus was everywhere.

The oak trees were full of acorns so there were jays magpies and squirrels. Many of the acorns had knopper galls on them as you can see here.

We walked five miles saw fifty two species of bird as well as many insects and plants and had a wonderful sunday morning.

Since we returned we have found a rove beetle in the kitchen and a moth caterpillar on a pile of books at school. The temperature today has exceeded that in Morocco and we are having a mini heatwave.

Much love Mum

As we were staying in Hythe we used the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway to visit Dungeness. It was a remarkably windy day but it was dry and the sun was shining intermittently which is something to be pleased about in England. Accordingly we did find quite a few invertebrates and plants.There were several species of butterfly. The gatekeeper with the two spots in the forewing. Pyronia tithonus.  Image is from butterfly conservation they were too flighty to photograph

A number of meadow brown butterflies Maniola jurtina. Image is from butterfly.org as they wouldn’t stay still for us.

There were a number of common blue butterflies. Polyommatus icarus. Here is a photo from butterfly conservation to illustrate the species.

We found a couple of Painted lady butterflies Cynthia vanessa. These are often migrants blown across from the continent.

We also saw at least three red admirals Vanessa atalanta.

Alongside these were both large white butterflies Pieris brassicae, small white butterflies Pieris rapae and green veined white butterflies Pieris napi. In the past these three species were all grouped together as cabbage white butterflies.

Green veined white and large white with small white beneath. The photos are from butterfly conservation to illustrate the differences.

We found the carline thistle Carlina vulgaris . I had not seen one before and I was struck with its  architectural shape.

Beside the train station we found the aptly named yellow horned sea poppy. Glaucium flavum.   It only grows along the sea shore. It is toxic but I found it very attractive. (Sorry a bit of whimsey here). It even features in a poem.

A poppy grows upon the shore,

Bursts her twin cups in summer late:

Her leaves are glaucus-green and hoar,

Her petals yellow, delicate.

She has no lovers like the red,

That dances with the noble corn:

Her blossoms on the waves are shed,

Where she stands shivering and forlorn.

Shorter Poems Robert Bridges

Sea kale  Crambe maritima was abundant it always appears so leathery I am surprised it was once considered a popular vegetable. Although I would not recommend gathering any plant material from a nature reserve

In Dungeness a species of  bumble bee used to live.  Its latin name is  Bombus subterraneus but commonly it is called the short haired bumblebee. It is one of  only 27 bumblebee species native to the UK. (This is one reason for learning to identify them, twenty seven species is manageable whereas over 2,000 moths is less so).

(This image is from the BWARS website as we didn’t find one.)

This bee was once widespread across the south of England, occurring as far north as Humberside, but from the 1960s onwards its population declined, probably due to the loss of species rich grassland habitats. Consequently its distribution became fragmented with colonies isolated. It was last recorded near the RSBP Dungeness nature reserve in 1988 and declared extinct in 2000.  Thankfully a population of UK origin survives in New Zealand, where they were introduced in 1895 to pollinate red clover. Attempts were made to captive rear and export queens back from New Zealand to the UK but with limited success. Results from genetic analysis showed high levels of inbreeding. Thus, in 2011, Natural England and the project partners agreed to change the reintroduction source location from New Zealand to a European source. Sweden was chosen as it supports the most robust population and has a broadly similar climate to the UK. Once suitable source locations had been found, a sample of bees were collected and  checked for diseases. 89 queen bees were collected from southern Sweden and put into quarantine. At the end of May, 51 healthy queens were released at RSPB’s Dungeness reserve. This process was repeated the following year with 100 queens bees collected and 49 released. During July that year seven workers were seen in the Dungeness area, one of which was melanistic (dark form), proving that at least two queens had successfully founded nests. In Spring 2014 a further 46 healthy queens were released at the Dungeness site and during July and August that year, three worker bees were seen around Dungeness and a fourth outside the area, providing encouraging signs that the bees may be nesting in the surrounding area. In 2015 25 queens were released in the site and three workers were seen in a single day and over the following four days. This indicates that  the habitat is suitable to support a healthy colony.  We searched extensively for this bumblebee but we didn’t find any. Since it is a huge area this is not surprising but rather disappointing.

Despite our disappointment we did find large numbers of most of the common species of  bumblebee;

The common carder Bombus pascorum, (Image is from BWARS website).

The white tailed bumblebee Bombus leucorum,

The buff tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris (Image is from BWARS website)

The red tailed Bumblebee Bombus lapidarius. (Image is from bumblebee. org)

We found the wind rather trying whilst we attempted to photograph the insects and consequently many of the images are from butterfly conservation or BWARS images.

We also found common blue damselfly 

Whilst spending a few days in Kent we came across an archaeologist who was very well informed about the medieval churches around Hythe Brookland and Rye . This was something I had never heard about and so under his advice we visited some of these churches and began to read about them and here is what I found out. I also took quite a few photos.

Near the hotel was a tin tabernacle which doubled as a cinema and meeting space for the local community. I rather liked it and I hadn’t seen one before. Apparently they come in kit form a sort of IKEA church.

It is not surprising that in a county that contain the most famous church in England that churches would abound. In addition when one considers that this church was the scene of one of the most famous murders of the the middle ages then the place becomes much more attractive. I refer of course to the Murder of Thomas a Becket whose death was allegedly authorised by Henry II . Following this event Thomas was declared a martyr and his remains were carefully kept by the cathedral, who then turned the site into a place of pilgrimage and made a lot of money from it. This was due in part to the medieval fascination with relics and the belief that such remains could prove to be miraculous.

The church at Brooklands I have not seen this stable door arrangement on a church before

Owing to this, a number of churches have some nod to Thomas a Becket and here in  Brooklands on Romney Marsh, the church has a medieval mural of the martyrdom of Thomas a Becket. This is remarkable, not so much for the subject, but for the fact it has withstood the deprecations of both Cromwells Thomas and Oliver and the whole destruction of religious iconography that accompanied the reformation. Although to be fair it was covered up.

In addition the church has the most fantastic bell tower that is completely separate from the church and stands in the church yard. The tiles are wooden.

A reminder of the fact that a couple of hundred years ago everyone would have had to pay tithes a tenth of their crops to the church was found in these weights. This ensured the church received its due demands.

As well as this I found a tomb of a sailor with a rather amusing epitaph.

In case you can’t read it I added the description.

and a grave with a name I had never heard before. Gamaliel.

It sounds like something from Lord of the Rings. I felt a bit ashamed of myself for judging those parents who name their children after trendy things the Paris, Morpheus, Tequila, Chardonnay, Mercedes and Sarumans of the modern generation. Obviously this is not a modern trend.

Further on we found a lovely lead baptistry very heavy and  beautifully carved. I hope the church security is good. The lead was stolen from St Leonard’s in Wollaton last week again. Most churches in the area have replaced the lead with a less costly material. Indeed most of the lead on St Leonards was replaced  with an alternative material after the last theft.

Most of the churches on the marsh had that smell of damp and mould and old hymn books. However the one in Hythe did not. It has a ossory where you can go and stare at the bones of dead people if you are so inclined. however having given myself nightmares over the one in Rome I wasn’t about to repeat the experience. The church was much lighter than many of the other ones and didn’t smell which was a relief. It was cool on a hot day and very quiet we wandered around enjoying the silence and the high roof.  The churches in both Rye and Hythe are massive indicating either a much larger population or a more devout community or alternatively a stopover for pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.

Here is details of the altar it seems a bit ornate compared to what I am used to. I preferred this simple chapel. I know in Rome the churches are full of lovely art and sculpture. However they. did not have the reformation.

So this was our day for looking at churches I found it restful and interesting but I am glad that My favourite Geek prefers wildlife to old churches as I wouldn’t want to do it all the time. Thanks to the expert though I can now identify a Norman arch.

Lots of love your mother

We decided to forgo a visit to Folkestone and instead spent the day travelling the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway.

Being married to my favourite geek he was in seventh heaven. we spent considerable time in the museum. We then photographed the trains.

We watched the engines on the turntables  and photographed those.

The tracks are very narrow and it seems as if they are barely wide enough to accommodate the train. However apart from some jolts and noise it was a very smooth ride. We then photographed the tracks and the various carriages.  It was a rather windy day and Mr Geek lost his new hat owing to a particularly severe gust, we were travelling in an open carriage at the time.

at the museum there was a train in camouflage that had been used during the war.

We visited the model railway museum where Mr Geek was in heaven. Whilst enjoying the trains, I confess I was rather bored with the models, although judging from the numbers of children and their parents in the museum I was in a minority. Still I read a book in the corner whilst Mr Geek indulged his passion for all things mechanical.

We explored the sands at Romney Sands and saw our first waders feeding. I have to admit that this is the first ‘seaside ‘ resort where we haven’t seen many birds except the ubiquitous Herring Gulls. I found it disconcerting.

We found some lovely plants and invertebrates at Dungeness, despite its bleak appearance it was full of plants and invertebrates. We also found a lovely pub that did spectacular fish and chips. In spite of being in the middle of nowhere this establishment was packed. This usually indicates it is a good place to eat and has a reputation. It did a spectacular lemon drizzle cake. So fortified we had a long walk before returning for the return journey on the train. When we returned to the hotel we had walked seven miles.

Hope you like the photos