View allAll Photos Tagged expected

Stevie Nicks And Dave Stewart Perform At Sydney Entertainment Centre

 

You wouldn't usually expect for Dave Stewart to be support for a Stevie Nicks tour, but that's exactly what's happening this Australian tour, and Sydney fans saw it happen at the iconic Sydney Entertainment Centre tonight.

 

Casual fans probably didn't know that Stewart produced Nicks' new album, In Your Dreams, and believe us - it's a real treat for both Stewart and Nicks' fans.

 

Brian McFadden acted as a bit of a third wheel, but there's no doubt McFadden still enjoys a strong fan base in Australia.

 

Nicks performed Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, the band's prized #1 from years gone by.

 

We also heard numbers from her new A Vampire's Dream, Soldier's Angel.

 

The new songs featured Stewart on guitar and resonated with the Sydney audience.

 

If you were a Nicks, Stewart or even a McFadden fan, this is the place you had to be at tonight.

 

Promotional information secured by the Australia promoter of the tour reads:

 

McManus Entertainment is thrilled to announce that Brian McFadden will be joining the legendary Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart as a special guest for the 2011 Australian tour. McFadden will join the bill for the entire tour.

 

Celebrated musician and songwriter Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics will also be touring Australia for this very special show.

 

Joining Stevie for these special shows will be celebrated musician and songwriter Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, who co-produced Stevie's new solo album, "In Your Dreams". Fans of both Fleetwood Mac and Eurythmics will be thrilled to know that Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart will be performing their greatest hits from their respective bands as well as highlights form their solo careers.

 

"I'm so excited to bring Stevie back to Australia and give her the opportunity to play to her many fans across the country," said promoter Andrew McManus. "Stevie has one of the most unique and recognisable voices in the history of popular music and is also one of the greatest songwriters of all time. And I think there will be a whole new generation of fans due to the recent episode of 'Glee' based on the legendary Fleetwood Mac album, "Rumours."

 

Apart from Stevie's incredible work with Fleetwood Mac, she has also had an extensive solo career, collectively having more than 40 top 50 hits and selling more than 140 million albums worldwide. Just a few of her many solo hits include Edge of Seventeen, Leather and Lace, Stand Back, Bella Donna, Rooms On Fire and Stop Draggin' My Heart Around. Stevie will also be playing songs from Fleetwood Mac's extensive back catalogue. Some of their most loved songs include Rhiannon, Gypsy, Sara, Landslide, Dreams and Seven Wonders.

 

Joining Stevie on her Australian tour is Grammy and BRIT Award winning musician, songwriter and producer, Dave Stewart. Dave is best known for his work with Eurythmics and recently co-produced and co-wrote many of the songs on Stevie's latest album, "In Your Dreams". The album closes with the Stevie and Dave duet Cheaper Than Free. And Stevie sang a track with Dave on his 2010 solo album, "The Blackbird Diaries". His music career spans three decades and more than 100 million album sales. Some of Dave's biggest hits include I Only Want To Be With You (The Tourists) and Eurythmics hits Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Missionary Man, Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves, Would I Lie To You? and Thorn In My Side.

  

It's was a wonderful night for music fans in Sydney and a concert that anyone who attended will remember fondly for many years to come.

 

Websites

 

Stevie Nicks official website - The Nicks Fix

www.stevienicks.net

 

Dave Stewart official website

www.davestewart.com

 

Brian McFadden

www.brianmcfadden.com.au

 

Sydney Entertainment Centre

www.sydentcent.com.au

 

McManus Entertainment

www.mcmanusentertainment.com

 

Flourish PR

www.flourishpr.com

 

Eva Rinaldi Photography Flickr

www.flickr.com/evarinaldiphotography

 

Eva Rinaldi Photography

www.evarinaldi.com

 

Music News Australia

www.musicnewsaustralia.com

 

N. Chase photo

 

From what I've been able to gather, the 1970s seemed to have been a somewhat eclectic time on American railroads. It appears that the unusual was the norm. As an example we have an odd trio of locomotives at Conrail's Collinwood Yard in Cleveland in March of 1978. Closest to the camera is FP7a 4341, followed by Amtrak E8a 441 (which was a former L&N unit), which is then succeeded by Conrail GP40 3049 and then the nose of FP7a 4349 peeks out behind. Not exactly an everyday combination but I guess this was the 1970s.

 

Collinwood, OH

March 1978

 

Train of the Day

10/19/18

Media Information on the WMOF2018 Closing Mass in Phoenix Park

3.00pm Sunday 26 August 2018

 

The WMOF2018 Closing Mass will be celebrated by Pope Francis in Phoenix Park, Dublin on Sunday 26 August. 500,000 people are expected to attend the Mass including up to 20,000 overseas visitors.

 

A mammoth 12-hour programme exploring faith through music, reflections, video and drama will entertain pilgrims as they arrive to and make their way home from the Phoenix Park. Prelude in the Park will feature national and international performers from Ireland, England, America, Germany, Austria, France, India, Canada and USA. They will lead worship, drama and pop-up concerts to prepare everyone for the arrival of Pope Francis at 2.30pm.

 

Over 1,000 performers from the world of music, arts and Church ministry groups were involved in the three-day Pastoral Congress in the RDS. Many of these will bring a taste of their Congress programme to entertain the crowds before and after Mass.

 

Eimear Quinn, Daniel O Donnell, Derek Ryan, Paddy Maloney, Comholtas as well as Christian Performers Rexband from India, Rend Collective from Northern Ireland will feature. Other performers include Audrey Assad, Factor One – Dublin, Aris Choir, Dublin Gospel Choir, YOUCAT Foundation, KisiKids, Fr. Ray Kelly, I Am – Worship Band from Derry, Donna Taggart, O Neill Sisters from Kerry.

 

The Mass

Father Liam Lawton, liturgical composer and priest of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, will sing the psalm, The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor, which he has composed for the Papal Mass. Father Liam will be joined by a 3,000 strong papal Mass choir that has been brought together for the Mass.

 

The first reading will be proclaimed ‘as Gaeilge’ by Marie Wheldon from Clontarf, who was involved in the new Irish language translation of ‘An Leabhar Aifreann’. While Teresa Menendez, originally from Argentina and marketing manager for the World Meeting of Families 2018, will read the second reading in Spanish.

 

Rev. Noel McHugh, Permanent Deacon of Dublin Diocese, will preach the Gospel. Married to Paula, their son, John, died (aged 23) running a half marathon in the Phoenix Park in September 2015.

 

Mother of five Emma Mhic Mhathuna, will bring up one of the offertory gifts for the Papal Mass in the Phoenix Park tomorrow afternoon. The mother of five will be accompanied by her children, Natasha, Seamus, Mario, Oisín, and Donnacha, and friends, Mai Uí Bhruic and Tomás Ó Bruic.

 

Also involved in the offertory procession will be:

•Olive Foley, widow of former Ireland rugby international and Munster head coach, Anthony ‘Axel’ Foley, and their children, Dan and Tony;

•Paul and Bridget Uzo, and their children Stephanie and Kelvin, representatives of the African Community in the Archdiocese of Dublin;

•The family of one of those killed in the Omagh bombing 20 years ago;

•and a family involved in the “All Are Welcome” Mass in Avila, in Donnybrook, Dublin.

 

•LITURGICAL MUSIC

The music chosen for the Papal Mass will place an emphasis on congregational singing, so many of the pieces will be familiar to those in the Phoenix Park congregation of 500,000.

Irish music and composers feature prominently throughout the Mass. The Opening Hymn is A Joy For All The Earth, written by Ephrem Feeley, which is the official hymn for WMOF2018.

 

The music chosen for the Papal Mass will place an emphasis on congregational singing so many of the pieces will be familiar to those in the Phoenix Park congregation of 500,000.

Irish music and composers feature prominently throughout the Mass. The Opening Hymn is A Joy For All The Earth which is the official hymn for WMOF2018 written by Ephrem Feeley. Well-known liturgical composer Father Liam Lawton has composed a new Psalm for the Mass which is called The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor.

 

Two pieces by Ireland’s most renowned liturgical composer, Seán Ó Riada, feature as the Penitential Rite/Kyrie (A Thiarna Déan Trócaire), and at the Lord’s Prayer (Ár nAthair). Fintan O’Carroll’s Celtic Alleluia with an enhanced verse by Ronan McDonagh will be sung as the Gospel acclamation.

 

The Apostles’ Creed will be John O’Keeffe’s own composition, while Fr. Pat Ahern’s A Thiarna Éist Linn will be sung between the Prayers of the Faithful.

 

As this is a World Meeting of Families there will be a number of international composers featured in the Mass including Caritas et Amor by Z. Randall Stroope has been chosen for the Presentation of Gifts and three piece from Jean-Paul Lécot’s Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes will feature as the Gloria, Sanctus, and Doxology/Amen.

 

The Communion hymns will be Ave Verum (William Byrd), The Last Supper (Bernard Sexton), Come Feast at this Table (Ian Callanan), Anima Christi (Mon. Marco Frisina), and Bí Íosa im Chroíse.

 

And finally, the Anthem to Our Lady will be Go mBeannaítear Duit, A Mhuire by Peadar Ó Riada (son of Seán), and the Recessional Hymn: Jesus Christ, You Are My Life by Mon. Marco Frisina.

 

•THE VESTMENTS - POPE FRANCIS WILL WEAR GREEN VESTMENTS INSPIRED BY CELTIC IMAGERY

Green has been chosen as the colour of vestments to be worn by Pope Francis during the Closing Mass of WMOF2018 which is the colour associated in the liturgy with Ordinary Time. The green is a symbol of how God is ever-faithful, and it also quite appropriate for a celebration in Ireland.

At the centre of each vestment is the Trinity spiral, the same as can be seen in the WMOF2018 logo. The three parts of the spiral represent the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and also draws from Celtic imagery, as spirals can be found on many ancient stones and monuments of Ireland’s past. The colours used in the spiral are the same green, red and gold as the vestments.

Alongside the central spiral are lines which lift and spread out along the side of the vestments. These lines are inspired by the line in the liturgy ‘Lift up your hearts’ inviting us to participate in the celebration of Mass. When expanded the lines represent a cross, with the Trinity spiral as the head of the cross.

The vestments were produced by Haftina, a family business based in Poland, which specialises in liturgical vestments, chalice gowns, altar tablecloths and canopies. The vestment designs were created by Haftina in collaboration with the WMOF2018 Liturgical Committee.

•PENAL CROSS AND PROCESSIONAL CROSS

A penal cross will be present on the Altar while Pope Francis celebrates Mass in the Phoenix Park. The cross, which is carved into a single piece of wood, dates back to 1763 and has been cared for at a Carmelite Community in the Archdiocese of Dublin. The carvings on the front and back of the cross are designed to tell the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The penal cross served as the inspiration for the processional cross which was newly created by Anne Murphy of Eala Enamels, based in Co Carlow in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

•CHALICES AND CIBORIA

To aid in the distribution of Holy Communion during celebrations of Mass both at the Pastoral Congress in the RDS and at the Phoenix Park, 4,000 ciboria and 200 chalices have been produced by MMI who are based in the Bluebell industrial estate in Dublin. The ciboria and chalices are pewter and silver, adorned with a Celtic cross containing the Trinity spiral of WMOF2018.

ENDS

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

· The Closing Mass of WMOF2018 will take place in the Phoenix Park, Dublin on Sunday 26 August at 3.00pm. Pope Francis will celebrate this Mass which will have a congregation of 500,000 people including 15,000 from overseas.

 

Biographies of Liturgical Music Team:

 

· Liturgical Music Coordinator, Derek Mahady is a native of Rooskey, Co. Roscommon and works as a choral conductor, vocalist, piano accompanist and music educator. Derek has been involved in liturgical music from an early age. He began his liturgical music ministry in parishes throughout his home diocese of Elphin and his neighbouring diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois. Currently, he works in music ministry at Newman University Church, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin and has regularly featured as a regional and national tutor for the Irish Church Music Association. Derek holds a Master of Arts Degree in Choral Conducting from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, a Higher Diploma in Education from University of Dublin, Trinity College and a Bachelor of Music (Pedagogy) from the Dublin Institute of Technology, Conservatory of Music and Drama. Derek also features as a soloist on the first recording of the official World Meeting of Families 2018 hymn A Joy for all the Earth.

 

· Conductor, John O’Keeffe is director of Sacred Music and Choral Groups at St Patrick’s College and NUI Maynooth. The native of Portmagee, Co Kerry, studied Church music at St Finian’s College, Mullingar, before going on to further education at universities in Maynooth, Limerick, and UCD, and at the Catholic cathedrals of Dublin and Westminster, where he served as organ scholar.

 

· Organist, David Grealy, began his musical training as a chorister in the Galway Boy Singers, and organ scholar of Galway Cathedral from 2002-2005. He has held various positions as organist, including at Westminster Cathedral, and is currently the associate organist in St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, where he works closely with the Palestrina Choir, as well as playing the organ for the Cathedral’s busy schedule of liturgies.

 

· Assistant Conductor of Massed Choir, Amy Ryan is originally from Killarney, Co Kerry. She holds a BMus from the CIT Cork School of Music and a Masters degree from the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music, Hungary. As Assistant Director of St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral Girls’ Choir from 2015-2018, she led the choir in Sunday morning liturgies, most recently on RTÉ television. Amy founded and conducts award-winning chamber choir, Cuore. In March of this year she conducted the Irish premiere of Graun’s passion oratorio Der Tod Jesu with Jubilate Choir. In April she conducted UCD Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonic Choir in their performance of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem at the National Concert Hall. Amy currently lectures in Music at Trinity College, Dublin and at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

 

· Assistant Conductor of Massed Choir, Dominic Finn is originally from Cobh, Co. Cork. He studied a Degree in Arts & Music at UCC, followed by a Diploma in Sacred Music at NUI Maynooth. He is currently the Director of Music at St. Colman’s Cathedral Cobh, and has been involved there for over 24 years as well as throughout the Diocese of Cloyne. Dominic also works as a secondary school teacher at Colaiste Muire, Cobh where he teaches Geography and Music. His choirs at St. Colman’s Cathedral have done many national broadcasts and recordings over the years, and have also worked with several composers such as Philip Stopford, John Rutter, and Liam Lawton to name just a few. Dominic has travelled extensively conducting his choirs from the Cathedral in major venues including St. Stephen’s Cathedral Vienna, Westminster Cathedral London, St. James’s Church, Spanish Place London, along with St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City in 2009 and 2013. Next year Dominic will oversee the music for the 100 year celebrations of the Dedication of St. Colman’s Cathedral, Diocese of Cloyne.

 

· Father Liam Lawton is a priest of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. Throughout his two decade-long career, his songs have been sung by choirs all over the world, have been translated into a number of different languages, and national and international artists have recorded them. He has recorded 18 collections of music to date, and has graced the stages of the Vatican, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall Chicago, the Anaheim Convention Centre in L.A., The Malmo Arena in Sweden, The National Concert Hall, Dublin, and many of the world’s sacred sites.

 

Public Wall Art Mural

 

Copyright © 2013 Tomitheos ARTWORK & PHOTOGRAPHY - All Rights Reserved

 

Not what I expected to see as I came round the corner! An Iveco “Jurassic Park Tour Bus” parked at the top of the industrial estate. Perhaps the Allosaurus on Five Locks Road (see below) has been included in the tour itinerary.

 

There’s a warning about keeping the windows up - not much use if a Tyrannosaurus Rex decides to stomp on the minibus!

A days fishing. The Ouse was higher than I expected but fishable. After the first hour here without a bite I began scratching my head. I moved downstream 50 yards - another blank hour. Upstream again - another hour. Another 50 yards upstream and after 30 minutes an enormous otter surfaced just to my left. So that explained that. The heavens opened. A slippery half mile upstream I settled into another favourite swim this time not feeling optimistic. 15 minutes with the rain pelting off me and I decided to pour a cup of coffee from my flask. No sooner did I lift it for a sip than the rod whipped round completely unexpectedly. I dropped the coffee, missed the fish, and came home. This is the point where I say “never mind, it’s not all about catching fish....”

Warwick Bridge Corn Mill was known as Little Corby Mill and there has been a mill in Little Corby since at least the mid 12th Century. Robert de Vallibus, lord of the barony of Gilsland, gave Little Corby and Fenton to Alexander de Windsor, including the mill, and the fishery. He then gave part of the profits of the mill to Lanercost Abbey.

 

Part control of the mill passed to Hugh de Salked of Corby Castle, then full control of the mill was eventually achieved by the Howards of Corby Castle. The Mill was rebuilt in 1802 for £750, with most of the present structure dating to a rebuild of 1839

.

In the 1980s the mill was entered onto the National Heritage List for England Register at Grade 2 due to its exceptional architectural merit and historic interest, particularly due to the fact that waterwheel, operational machinery, and millstones were all still in situ and the mill remained unaltered since Georgian times.

 

The mill was sold off in the 1980s and continued to play an important role in local life, processing grain for local farmers to use as animal feed. The Corn Mill ceased working in 1989 when the last miller retired.

 

The Mill was sold in 1990 as part of a development site to a housing developer. Once the new houses were built, it was sold at auction in 1995 and was never expected to work again.

 

A £2 Million restoration project has now been completed with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic England, The Architectural Heritage Fund, the RDEP Leader Fund, Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Waste Management Environment Trust, Arts Council England.

Brook lies about a quarter mile from the start of Wye Down, I can see it in the spring when I am orchid hunting, but never really thought about what the village was like, or even called.

 

After looking at John Vigar's book, I realised there were a few churches in east Kent I had missed out, and Brook was one. I dd not read up on it, so did not know what to expect. In fact, it seems of similar construction to Brabourne, with a stocky tower, and inside, sadly locked, the tower has a private chapel built into it.

 

But what is obvious is the hole in the north side facing the road. This clearly needed further inspection.

 

You reach the church via a bridge over a stream, presumably after which the village is named, and there is a path leading to the church door, which was unlocked.

 

On closer inspection, the recess in the north wall lead to a door, and inside the church, there was an oval door. This is a hagioscope (or squint), but I have never seen one in the outside wall of a church before.

 

Once home, I did some research, and found out about anchorites, people who decided to leave the cares of the world, lived like hermits attached to a church, with a window into the church so to witness the services.

 

If this wasn't remarkable enough, elsewhere inside the church had been re-ordered in the 1980s so it now resembles a 12th century Norman church, and has a remarkable collection of wall paintings on top of all that.

 

To call it breathtaking would be an understatement.

 

----------------------------------------------

 

An anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress; adj. anchoritic; from Ancient Greek: ἀναχωρητής, anachōrētḗs, "one who has retired from the world",[2][3] from the verb ἀναχωρέω, anachōréō, signifying "to withdraw", "to retire"[4]) is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life. Whilst anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit,[5] unlike hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting instead for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches. Also unlike hermits, anchorites were subject to a religious rite of consecration that closely resembled the funeral rite, following which—theoretically, at least—they would be considered dead to the world, a type of living saint. Anchorites had a certain autonomy, as they did not answer to any ecclesiastical authority other than the bishop.[6]

 

The anchoritic life is one of the earliest forms of Christian monastic living. In the Roman Catholic Church today, it is one of the "Other Forms of Consecrated Life" and governed by the same norms as the consecrated eremitic life.[7] From the 12th to the 16th centuries, female anchorites consistently outnumbered their male equivalents, sometimes by as many as four to one (in the 13th century), dropping eventually to two to one (in the 15th century). The gender of a high number of anchorites, however, is not recorded for these periods.

 

The anchoritic life became widespread during the early and high Middle Ages.[9] Examples of the dwellings of anchorites and anchoresses survive. A large number of these are in England. They tended to be a simple cell (also called anchorhold), built against one of the walls of the local village church.[10] In the Germanic lands, from at least the 10th century, it was customary for the bishop to say the office of the dead as the anchorite entered his cell, to signify the anchorite's death to the world and rebirth to a spiritual life of solitary communion with God and the angels. Sometimes, if the anchorite were walled up inside the cell, the bishop would put his seal upon the wall to stamp it with his authority. Some anchorites, however, freely moved between their cell and the adjoining church.[11]

 

Most anchoritic strongholds were small, perhaps no more than 12 to 15 ft (3.7 to 4.6 m) square, with three windows. Viewing the altar, hearing Mass, and receiving Holy Communion was possible through one small, shuttered window in the common wall facing the sanctuary, called a "hagioscope" or "squint". Anchorites would also provide spiritual advice and counsel to visitors through this window, as the anchorites gained a reputation for wisdom.[12] Another small window would allow access to those who saw to the anchorite's physical needs, such as food and other necessities. A third window, often facing the street, but covered with translucent cloth, would allow light into the cell.[6]

 

Anchorites were supposed to remain in their cell in all eventualities. Some were even burned in their cells, which they refused to leave even when pirates or other attackers were looting and burning their towns.[13] They ate frugal meals, spending their days both in contemplative prayer and interceding on behalf of others. Anchorites' bodily waste was managed by means of a chamber pot.[14]

 

In addition to being the crucial physical location wherein the anchorite could embark on the journey towards union with God and the culmination of spiritual perfection, the anchorhold also provided a spiritual and geographic focus for many of those people from the wider society who came to ask for advice and spiritual guidance. It is clear that, although set apart from the community at large by stone walls and specific spiritual precepts, the anchorite also lay at the very centre of that same community. The anchorhold was clearly also a communal 'womb' from which would emerge an idealized sense of a community's own reborn potential, both as Christians and as human subjects.[8]

 

An idea of their daily routine can be gleaned from an anchoritic Rule. The most widely known today is the early 13th century text known as Ancrene Wisse.[15] Another, less widely known, example is the rule known as De Institutione Inclusarum written in the 12th century, around 1160–62, by Aelred of Rievaulx for his sister.[16] It is estimated that the daily set devotions detailed in Ancrene Wisse would take some four hours, on top of which anchoresses would listen to services in the church, and engage in their own private prayers and devotional reading.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorite

 

------------------------------------------------

 

Since its re-ordering in 1986 Brook church has shown the visitor what a church interior might have looked like in the twelfth century. The chancel is empty except for the medieval stone altar, discovered a few years ago in the churchyard, and now set on two ragstone pillars. The church is large, for throughout the medieval period it belonged to Christ Church, Canterbury. There is much Norman work to be seen, including the three-stage west tower which contains a purpose-built chapel or `westwerk`. The church has a comprehensive series of thirteenth-century wall paintings, overlain by some fourteenth- and seventeenth-century murals, although the early paintings are not as well preserved as in some other churches. In the north wall of the chancel is a small almond-shaped hagioscope to the exterior. It may have connected to an anchorite's cell, but is more likely to have been associated with the exposition of a relic on the high altar. It is certainly not a low side window as the tower bell would have been used for this purpose.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Brook

 

--------------------------------------------

 

LIES the next parish southward from Wye. It is written in antient records both Broc and Broke, and takes its name from its low situation on the stream which runs through it, baroca in Saxon signifying a rivulet. It seems once to have been accounted a hundred of itself; but at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, in the year 1080, it was reputed to be in the hundred of Wye, as it is now.

 

The parish is very small, and is but little known, lying out of the way of all traffic and throughfare. It is not more than a mile across each way, and has in it about twenty houses. It lies very low and wet, in a deep miry soil. There is some coppice wood in the southern part of it, about forty-three acres, of which twenty-eighty belong to the dean and chapter of Canterbury. The village is nearly in the centre of the parish, having the church at the north end of it. There is a small hamlet, called Little Bedleston, consisting of only two houses, in the eastern part of the parish, close under the high ridge of hills called Braborne-downs, to the foot of which this parish extends eastward.

 

BROOKE was given, long before the conquest, by Karlemann, a priest, to the church of Canterbury; but it was wrested from the church in the troublesome times which soon after followed, by reason of the Danish wars, and it continued in lay hands at the accession of the Conqueror; soon after which it appears to have been in the possession of Hugh de Montfort, from whom archbishop Lanfranc recovered Brooke again to his church in the solemn assembly of the whole county, held on this occassion by the king's command, at Pinenden-heath in 1076; and then on the division which the archbishop made of the lands of his church, this manor was allotted by him, among others, to the share of the priory of Christ-church, Canterbury; accordingly it is thus entered among the possessions of it, in the survey of Domesday, under the general title of Terra Monachorum Archiepi, i. e. lands of the monks of the archbishops;

 

In the hundred of Wi, the archbishop himself holds one manor, which was taxed at one suling, in the time of king Edward the Confessor, and now, for half a suling. The arable land is two carucates. In demesne there is one, and three villeins, with four borderers having two carucates and an half. There is a church, and one mill of two shillings, and two servants, and seven acres of meadow. Wood for the pannage of ten hogs. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards, it was worth fifty shillings, now four pounds.

 

This manor was soon after this let to farm, by the monks, to Robert de Rumene, at the above rent, and was allotted de cibo eorum, that is, to the use of their refectory; and the possession of it was confirmed to them both by king Henry I. and II. (fn. 1) King Edward II. in his 10th year, granted to the prior and convent free warren in all their demesne lands in Broke, among other places which they were in possession of at the time of the charter of liberties granted to them by his grandfather Henry III. about which time this manor was valued at 22l. 1s. 10d. In which state it afterwards continued till the dissolution of the priory of Christchurch in the 31st year of Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, where it did not remain long, for the king settled it by his dotation-charter, in his 33d year, on his new-erected dean and chapter of Canterbury, part of whose possessions it still remains.

 

The demesne lands have been constantly let by the dean and chapter on a beneficial lease, at the yearly rent of 13l. 6s. 8d. in money, and four quarters of wheat. The present lessee is Mr. John Berry, of Newbery, Berkshire; but the manerial rights they retain in their own hands.

 

A court baron is regularly held for this manor. There are no parochial charities.

 

BROOKE is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge. The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is but small, consisting of one isle and a chancel, with a low square tower at the west end, in which are two bells. There are no memorials of any account in it.

 

The church of Brooke has always been accounted an appendage to the manor, and as such passed with it from the priory of Christ-church into the hands of the crown, and from thence to the dean and chapter of Canterbury, who are the present patrons of it. The woods belonging to the dean and chapter here, claim an exemption from paying tithes.

 

¶This rectory is valued in the king's books at 7l. 7s. 3d. and is of the clear yearly certified value of thirty pounds. In 1588 it was valued at thirty pounds. Communicants ninety-two. In 1640 at sixty pounds. Communicants sixty. There are now only ten communicants. In 1724 it was augmented with the sum of 200l. given by the governors of queen Anne's bounty, on the gift of 100l. from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, and the like sum from Dr. Godolphin, dean of St. Paul's; with which there was purchased a piece of land, containing nine acres, called Great Chequer field, adjoining to the town of Wye.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol7/pp381-384

Wasn't expecting to see these in Assford, and all of these vehicles were on SouthEastern Trains Rail Replacement Service to and from Canterbury West and Ebbsfleet.

 

And be sure to check by my other acount: www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?path=&nsid=77145939%40..., to see what else I saw Very Recently!!

The Temple of Dendur

 

•Period: Roman Period

•Reign: reign of Augustus Caesar

•Date: completed by 10 B.C.

•Geography: From Egypt, Nubia, Dendur, West bank of the Nile River, 50 miles South of Aswan

•Medium: Aeolian sandstone

•Dimensions:

oTemple Proper:

Height: 6.40 m (21 ft.)

Width: 6.40 m (21 ft.)

Length: 12.50 m (41 ft.)

oGate:

Height: 8.08 m (26.5 ft.)

Width: 3.66 m (12 ft.)

Depth: 3.35 m (11 ft.)

•Credit Line: Given to the United States by Egypt in 1965, awarded to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1967, and installed in The Sackler Wing in 1978

•Accession Number: 68.154

 

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 131.

 

Egyptian temples were not simply houses for a cult image but also represented, in their design and decoration, a variety of religious and mythological concepts. One important symbolic aspect was based on the understanding of the temple as an image of the natural world as the Egyptians knew it. Lining the temple base are carvings of papyrus and lotus plants that seem to grow from water, symbolized by figures of the Nile god Hapy. The two columns on the porch rise toward the sky like tall bundles of papyrus stalks with lotus blossoms bound with them. Above the gate and temple entrance are images of the sun disk flanked by the outspread wings of Horus, the sky god. The sky is also represented by the vultures, wings outspread, that appear on the ceiling of the entrance porch.

 

On the outer walls between earth and sky are carved scenes of the king making offerings to deities who hold scepters and the ankh, the symbol of life. The figures are carved in sunk relief. In the brilliant Egyptian sunlight, shadows cast along the figures’ edges would have emphasized their outlines. Isis, Osiris, their son Horus, and the other deities are identified by their crowns and the inscriptions beside their figures. These scenes are repeated in two horizontal registers. The king is identified by his regalia and by his names, which appear close to his head in elongated oval shapes called cartouches; many of the cartouches simply read “pharaoh.” This king was actually Caesar Augustus of Rome, who, as ruler of Egypt, had himself depicted in the traditional regalia of the pharaoh. Augustus had many temples erected in Egyptian style, honoring Egyptian deities. This small temple, built about 15 B.C., honored the goddess Isis and, beside her, Pedesi and Pihor, deified sons of a local Nubian chieftain.

 

In the first room of the temple, reliefs again show the “pharaoh” praying and offering to the gods, but the relief here is raised from the background so that the figures can be seen easily in the more indirect light. From this room one can look into the temple past the middle room used for offering ceremonies and into the sanctuary of the goddess Isis. The only carvings in these two rooms are around the door frame leading into the sanctuary and on the back wall of the sanctuary, where a relief depicts Pihor worshiping Isis, and below—partly destroyed—Pedesi worshiping Osiris.

 

Curatorial Interpretation

 

History

 

After the conquest of Egypt in 31 B.C., Augustus confiscated the property of Egyptian temples and centralized their administration. As a kind of compensation, he commissioned at least 17 building projects for local gods, including the small Isis-temple of Dendur (ancient Tutzis) in Lower Nubia. No date for the temple’s construction is recorded except that the cartouches include the name of the “Autokrator Kaisaros,” that is Augustus. But one assumes reasonably that it was built during the peaceful years following the Roman-Kushite wars of 25-22 B.C., which had ended with the treaty of Samos of the year 21 B.C.

 

The dates 20 or 15 B.C. are usually given. Since Augustus only died in 14 A.D., a later date can not be ruled out. There is also no evidence for the Roman prefect who may have commissioned the building. The three possible candidates are:

  

•Gaius Petronius or Publius Petronius: 24 B.C. - 21 B.C. (who destroyed Napata)

•Publius Rubrius Barbarus: to 12 B.C.

•Gaius Turranius: 7 B.C. - 4 B.C.

 

A detailed Coptic inscription states that in 577 (or 559?) A.D. the temple was converted into a Christian church. Since 1820, the temple has been a favorite travel destination for explorers and artists, who produced numerous depictions and early photographs of the temple. Graffiti on the pronaos walls recall their visits.

 

The first Aswan dam brought the water 3 m below the doorsill of the temple. In 1908, conservation work was carried out in preparation for a seasonal flooding of the building. The building was completely drowned annually by the two raisings of the first Aswan dam, in 1907-12 and 1929-33. Remains of the wall paint were washed away but the walls remained structurally unharmed. Lake Nasser, created in 1970 by the building of the Aswan High Dam, would have submerged the temple forever. In 1962, the gate and temple were therefore documented and taken down as part of the Nubian salvage campaign. In recognition of the American contribution to the campaign, the gate and temple were presented to the United States in 1965.

 

Thanks to the initiative of Henry Fischer and Thomas Hoving, the temple was awarded to the Metropolitan Museum and in 1974/75 rebuilt in the newly created Sackler wing designed by Kevin Roche (born 1922) and John Dinkeloo (1918-81). The architects were faced with the problem that the temple was not free standing but built into a sloping rock surface, a landscape that was not desired by the Museum. The temple therefore had to be squeezed into the shape of a freestanding building, presented on a granite stage. The material chosen (red granite and “mason granite”) reflects with its shiny, polished surfaces the architect’s imagination of imperial-style pharaonic architecture. The stepped planes in front and around the temple house are modern creations that do not follow the original arrangement. These alterations, implemented for practical reasons, are quite appealing for the visitor but not hold up against modern conservation standards. The opening was celebrated on September 27, 1978.

 

Description

 

a)Cult Terrace

 

The temple towered impressively over the water of the Nile, visually supported by a 3.5 m high, 15 m broad and 16 m deep terrace (much higher than the reconstruction in the Museum). The front of the terrace had no opening but a front curving inward, probably better to withstand the torrent of the Nile. Similar terraces are known at Elephantine, Philae, Qasr Ibrim, Kalabsha, Ajuala and Dabod (see Jaritz 1980, pls. 48-49). The waterfront and the sides were closed with low parapet walls, which were underpinned by a heavy, protruding ledge. The re-creation in the Museum is made of granite because the original sandstone would not have withstood the museum’s traffic. The granite parapet wall designed by Roche-Dinkeloo consisted originally of two courses of blocks. The upper course was removed in 1995 in order to improve the vista on the temple terrace.

 

b)Temple Enclosure and Gate

 

The temple enclosure (temenos) rose on top of a 90 cm high step above the rear (west) side of the terrace. A monumental gate in the center formed the east front of the temenos.

 

The gate was for unknown reasons not exactly aligned with the temple-house behind. The visible parts of the gate are decorated with relief. The gate is 6.50 m high (including the cavetto), the doorway is 1.60 m wide and 4.35 m (from the court level). A staircase of 5 steps leads from the gate down onto the cult terrace.

 

The rough outer sidewalls of the gate suggest that it was incorporated in a massive wall or pylon built of brick or stone, closing off the Nile front of the temenos. Apparently no traces of a pylon were noticed at the site and it could well be that it was never built. However, the existence of a pylon is implied in the Museum’s reconstruction by a layer of irregular stones.

 

One would expect that high walls running east-west from the pylon to the mountain slope behind would have enclosed the sides of the temenos. Blackman’s plan shows the remains of these walls, but they no longer appear on Ashiri’s plan of 1972. In the Museum reconstruction, the parapet walls flanking the front platform suggest a continuation backwards in the direction of the cliffs.

 

The interior floor of the temenos was never completely level and the rock surface began to slope up beginning at the pronaos. The irregular lower edge of the exterior reliefs of the temple walls indicate the inclination of the slope. The center of the east court was treated differently. There, the gate and temple were connected by a 7 m broad walkway, made of masonry and rising 50 cm above the rough court level. This walkway is clearly visible on an old photo of the site. However, the photo was taken after modern consolidation of the temple and how much of it was modern is not recorded.

 

A door in the lateral south wall is shown on Blackman’s plan. Perhaps another one opened in the north side. However, there was no processional approach from the riverside because the cult terrace blocked an axial approach.

  

c)Temple House

 

The temple was primarily dedicated to Isis, mistress of Philae, who was the patron saint of Lower Nubia, an area known as the Dodekaschoinos. Attached was the cult of two brothers, Pedesi and Pihor, the sons of a local Nubian chieftain Quper. They carry the title hesy, which is normally bestowed on people drowned in the Nile. One assumes that Quper and his sons had earned merit in the Meroitic wars of the Romans.

 

The actual temple house represents a distyle in antis, with two quatrefoil column capitals in the front opening. This temple type was common in Ptolemaic times (as seen for example in tomb chapels at Tuna el-Gebel and Dakka) with several larger variations that include a wider pronaos with more front columns. The temple house is ca. 13 m long, 6.5 m wide and 5 m high (to the roof) and includes 3 consecutive rooms: entrance hall or pronaos; offering hall; and sanctuary. Depictions from the 19th century suggest that the cavetto cornice of the temple house was still largely in place around 1839. Today, only one block is left.

 

The entrance hall or pronaos has an open front with two 3.95 m high columns (including the abacus) columns carrying the architraves. The columns have quatrefoil papyrus capitals with a four-story lily decoration. The lateral interspaces were closed with screen walls.

 

The pronaos has a small side door in the southwest corner. This door was part of the temple structure and is incorporated into the decoration of the walls. Another, smaller side door in the northeast corner was cut through the existing building, damaging the wall reliefs. Both doors suggest that the access from the front of the pronaos was not always possible.

 

A large room follows behind, assumed to have been the offering hall. Except for the door in the rear wall, the room is undecorated, and was apparently unfinished.

 

The walls of the sanctuary are also undecorated except for a stela-like panel in the center of the rear wall. Its decoration depicts Pihor worshiping Isis, and below – partly destroyed – Pedesi worshiping Osiris. The floor and lowermost part of the rear and sidewalls are carved from the rock.

 

All the rest of the interior and exterior is covered with relief, showing the “pharaoh” (“kaisaros autokrator”) praying and offering to the gods.

 

d)Rock Chamber

 

In the cliff behind the temple was a small rock chamber with a basin in the floor. In front was a court with a kind of tiny pylon. One assumes that this was the tomb of the two brothers and perhaps the predecessor of the temple. The entrance was behind the stela of Pedesi and Pihor.

 

The 1.65 m thick rear wall of the temple-house includes a built-in secret chamber accessed from the south end through a door closed with a thin, removable block. This crypt has been explained as the tomb of one of the brothers or as a hiding place for a priest giving oracles through a hole in the wall. The crypt could also have been a hiding place for liturgical equipment.

 

e)Evaluation

 

The Dendur temple is comparatively small but impressive and a major example of Roman architecture based on the Ptolemaic building tradition in Egypt. The temple demonstrates an important aspect of Egyptian architecture. The modern viewer is impressed by the monumental gate or pylon forming the front of the temple. However, the gate of temples like that of Dendur cannot be reached by a frontal, axial approach. The access is blocked by a cult terrace (for example the first pylon of Karnak or the pylon of Medinet Habu). These pylons/gates were not intended as entrances but as exits, monumental stages where the god (in the form of a cult figure) emerges from the interior and performs his/her appearance at the “gates of appearances.” From the gate of the Dendur temple, the divinity descended onto the cult terrace, were it reposed and viewed the Nile and the realm. Jaritz (1980, pp. 61-654) has shown that the cult terrace of the Khnum temple on Elephantine also was the gathering place for cult communities who celebrated repasts with the divinity.

 

Dieter Arnold 2016

 

Provenance

 

Given to the United States by the Egyptian Government, 1965. Awarded to the Museum by the U.S. Government, 1967.

 

Selected References

 

•Gau, Francois Chretien 1822. Antiquités de la Nubie : ou, Monumens inédits des bords du Nil, situés entre la première et la seconde cataracte, dessinés et mesurés en 1819. Stuttgart, pl. 23-5.

•Rifaud, Jean-Jacques 1830. Voyage en Égypte, en Nubie et lieux circonvoisins depuis 1805 jusqu’en 1827. Paris: Crapelet, pp. 27-8.

•Blackman, Aylward M. 1911. The temple of Dendûr. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale.

•Monnet-Saleh, Janine 1969. “Observations sur le temple de Dendour.” In Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 68, pp. 1–13.

•El-Achiri, Hassan, M. Aly, F.-A. Hamid, and Ch. LeBlanc 1972. Le temple de Dandour, 1-3. Collection scientifique (Markaz Tasjīl al-Āthār al-Miṣrīyah), Cairo.

•Jaritz, Horst 1980. Elephantine III : Die Terrassen vor den Tempeln des Chnum und der Satet : Architektur und Deutung. Mainz am Rhein: Zabern.

•Bagnall, Roger 1985. “Publius Petronius, Augustan Prefect of Egypt.” In Papyrology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 85-93.

•Bianchi, Robert Steven 1998. “The Oracle at the Temple of Dendur.” In Egyptian Religion. The Last Thousand Years. Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur, 85, pp. 773-80.

•Arnold, Dieter 1999. Temples of the Last Pharaohs. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 244-46.

•Hill, Marsha 2000. “Roman Egypt.” In The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West, edited by Elizabeth J. Milleker. New Haven: Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 84-5, figs. 62-63, p. 207.

•Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, p. 58.

•Metropolitan Museum of Art 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York and New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, p. 58.

 

Timeline of Art History (2000-Present)

 

Timelines

 

•Egypt, 1-500A.D.

 

MetPublications

 

•The Art of Ancient Egypt: A Resource for Educators

•“Dendur: The Six-Hundred-Forty-Third Stone”: Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 33 (1998)

•Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

•Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Arabic)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Chinese)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (French)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (German)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Italian)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Japanese)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Korean)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Portuguese)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Russian)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Spanish)

•The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 1, Egypt and the Ancient Near East

•One Met. Many Worlds.

•“The Temple of Dendur”: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 36, no. 1 (Summer, 1978)

•The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West

"....And because it cannot be expected that stout-booted, stout hearted girls will grow up without misfortune or miscalculation of some kind, they require a reminder, from time to time, about the dangers that lurk both in dark forests and in the crevices of one's own imaginings."

 

From

'Rosie Littles Cautionary Tales for Girls'

By Dannielle Wood

cybershutterbug.com/wordpress/?p=8601

  

Expect a Circus - © 2017 – Robert N. Clinton (aka CyberShutterbug)

 

Some of the tens of thousand of protesters protesting at President Donald Trump's speech in Phoenix on August 22, 2017

From the early 50's until a fire in the 80's this was the site of Gold Star Studios, then the center of rock music recording on the West Coast. Located on Santa Monica Boulevard near Vine Street (about a mile south of Hollywood & Vine), it is near Paramount Studios (incorporating the former RKO/Desilu Studios) and the Hollywood Forever Cemetary where numerous famous stars are buried.

 

As one of the first independent recording studios it was not constrained by the "old line" policies of the majors and developed its own unique commercially succesful sound. Using custom-built recording equipment and its "best ever" echo chamber, it was home to Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound", an unmatched "Wrecking Crew" house band, and source of hundreds of hit records.

 

A very abbreviated list of top artists that were associated with Gold Star:

 

Hal Blaine - the world's most recorded drummer

 

Tommy Tedesco - the world's most recorded guitarist

 

Jack Nitzsche - arranger - including many hits produced by Phil Spector. Co-wrote "Up Where We Belong".

 

Sonny Bono - percussion. Brought his girlfriend Cher to Gold Star. The backing on his defiantly patriotic "Revolution Kind" is a great example of the Gold Star sound.

 

Cher - graduated from backing singer to superstar. Recorded "Bang Bang" and "You Better Sit Down Kids" at Gold Star

 

Ronnettes - recorded "Be My Baby" at Gold Star -- favorite song of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. The elaborate intro to their "Do I Love You?" clearly highlights the elements of the Gold Star sound.

 

Beach Boys - recorded "Don't Worry Baby" at Gold Star - a tribute to "Be My Baby" with same Hal Blaine drum intro

 

Paul Revere & the Raiders - recorded "Kicks" and "Hungry" at Gold Star with Hal Blaine on drums

 

Buffalo Springfield - recorded "Expecting to Fly" at Gold Star with Jack Nitzsche as arranger

 

Righteous Brothers - recorded "Ebb Tide", "Unchained Melody", "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" (the most played song ever on US radio), and many others at Gold Star

 

Ike & Tina Turner - recorded "River Deep-Mountain High" and "I'll Never Need More Than This" at Goldstar - Tina was never hotter and no one ever did a better job of soaring over the Wall of Sound

 

Darlene Love - recorded the best rock Christmas song ever at Gold Star: "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"

 

Crystals - recorded "Uptown", "He's a Rebel", and the quickly withdrawn "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss" at Gold Star. Group often included Darlene Love.

 

Glen Campbell - started as session guitarist at Gold Star

 

Leon Russell - played keyboards at Gold Star early in his career

 

Later recordings that paid tribute to the Gold Star sound include:

 

Bruce Springsteen - "Born to Run"

 

The Tubes - "Don't Touch Me There"

 

Eddie Money - "Take Me Home Tonight" which featured Ronnie of the Ronnettes reprisng the chorus from "Be My Baby"

 

(These are the one's that instantly come to mind -- there are hundreds more).

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Added February 2013: As the result of a comment, the photo has been updated. According to Wikipedia:

 

"Gold Star Recording Studios was located at 6252 Santa Monica Boulevard near the corner of Vine Street in Hollywood. The studio closed in 1984. A fire occurred in the structure after its closure, but all contents had been removed prior to the fire. The building was later demolished. A strip mall currently stands on the original location."

 

6252 Santa Monica Boulevard is now occupied by the water store in the above photo. The photo previously here was 6223 Santa Monica Boulevard, across the street. It had a "strong resemblence" to an alleged photo of the studio on a now non-existent web site.

Dos millones de personas exhiben su dignidad en un día histórico

 

Las Marchas de la Dignidad 22M han conseguido superar todas las expectativas. Dos millones de personas han abarrotado las calles de Madrid exigiendo “Pan, trabajo y techo” en una fiesta de la democracia y del pueblo.

 

Madrid, 22 de marzo de 2014

 

Las Marchas de la Dignidad 22M han conseguido inundar esta tarde el centro de Madrid con una masiva marea obrera y ciudadana. Dos millones de personas han abarrotado las calles de Madrid. Cuando la cabecera avanzaba por Cibeles, el Paseo de Recoletos y la Plaza Colón estaban completamente llenos de gente. En ese momento la cola de la manifestación aún no se había movido de Atocha.

 

A pesar de los obstáculos que el Gobierno ha ido poniendo en el camino para impedir el éxito de la movilización, se ha demostrado que “Sí se puede”, se ha demostrado que el pueblo no quiere más recortes, que no quiere pagar una deuda de los bancos a costa de los derechos sociales.

 

El 22M ha agradecido la extraordinaria acogida del pueblo de Madrid que se ha lanzado a la calle no sólo a aplaudir esta mañana a las diferentes columnas que se dirigían hacia Atocha sino que además se ha sumado masivamente a la manifestación.

 

Tras llegar a Colón la periodista Olga Rodríguez y el actor Willi Toledo leyeron el manifiesto de la marcha de la dignidad que planteaba superar este sistema que crea desigualdad y este régimen del 78 lleno de corrupción.

 

Tras la lectura del manifiesto, las diferentes intervenciones de las 10 columnas han puesto el valor la defensa de los derechos sociales y los servicios públicos, de un empleo decente, de la renta básica, del derecho a la vivienda y han criticado los recortes y exigido que se vaya el Gobierno del PP y todos los gobiernos que ejecutan las políticas de la Troika.

 

Tras las intervenciones se dio paso un acto musical amenizado por el cantaor Manuel Gerena y la Solfónica de Madrid.

 

Disturbios

 

Precisamente, sobre las 20.15 h., cuando comenzaba la actuación de la Solfónica se comenzaron a producir cargas policiales en la calle Génova. Dos o tres encapuchados, ajenos a la manifestación, que fue absolutamente masiva y pacífica, tiraron unos petardos cerca del cordón policial que protegía la sede del PP con el fin de provocar a la policía. El dispositivo policial en un ejercicio de inaudita irresponsabilidad profesional procedió entonces a cargar hacia Colón cuando se desarrollaba el acto final de la manifestación y con una plaza llena de familias.

 

A pesar de los reclamos que se le hizo desde la megafonía a la policía en el sentido de que estaba interfiriendo un acto legal, ésta continuó cargando en dirección hacia el Paseo de Recoletos que estaba completamente lleno de personas pacíficas que no tenían nada que ver con los cuatro provocadores parapoliciales de siempre. Asimismo, cuando aún no había concluido el acto, un nuevo dispositivo policial se desplazó desde la calle Jorge Juan para cortar en dos la manifestación, aislando por completo las miles de personas que seguían el acto en Colón de las decenas de miles que no habían podido llegar a Colón y que seguían avanzando por el Paseo de Recoletos.

 

Las marchas de la Dignidad 22M han responsabilizado a los mandos del dispositivo policial y a la Delegada del Gobierno de los disturbios ocurridos. Según manifestaciones de portavoces de la marcha: “no sólo no han protegido una manifestación legal, no sólo no han protegido los derechos fundamentales, como era su obligación, sino que han cargado de forma innecesaria y abusiva contra miles de personas pacíficas, interfiriendo un acto legal”.

 

La Sra. Cifuentes ha demostrado una vez más que no cree en las libertades y la democracia y ha organizado este montaje policial para justificar la represión e intentando convertir una movilización masiva y pacífica en un problema de orden público.

 

Exigimos la inmediata puesta en libertad sin cargos de l@s detenid@s en el brutal ataque de la policía a las #Marchas22M y que las movilizaciones anunciadas para mañana domingo 23 y el lunes 24 no se vean alteradas por la desproporcionada actuación policial de esta noche.

LC-A+ RL / cross processed Kodak Ektachrome E320T tungsten film

Exposed at iso 1600 in the Imperial War Museum, iso 800 in Lambeth North tube station.

 

I had no idea what to expect at Yalding, either the town or church. Jools realised it was near to West Farleigh, so we went to investigate.

 

Across what looked like a canal and then the river via an old pack bridge, with the tower of the church on the far bank.

 

The town, or this part of it, stretched either side of the High Street, and once parked, we approach the church down an alleyway and I see the porch doors open; a good sign.

 

I explained what I was at the church for: are you going to be long, I was asked.

 

As quick as I can be.

 

What I found was a huge parish church, the back of which had been converted into a community space, with a fitted kitchen, wooden floor for use possible as a gym or space for yoga, and the east kept as a fine parish church, filled with monuments, memorials and fine fixtures and fittings. Three wardens were tidying up preparing for Candlemass the next day.

 

I go round taking shots, taking nearly and hour to do so, as there was so much detail.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

The little cupola on the west tower is topped by a weathervane dated 1734, and summons us to a large church, heavily restored in the 1860s, but worth travelling a long way to see. The nave roof has two interesting features - one is a form of celure or canopy of honour over the third bay from the west. It must have served some long-forgotten purpose. At the east end of the nave there is a real Canopy of Honour in its more usual position over the chancel arch. The south transept contains many interesting features - niches in the walls, bare stonework walls and a good arcaded tomb chest recessed into the south wall. There is a telling string course that suggests a thirteenth-century date, although the two windows in its east wall are Decorated in style. The most recent feature in the church - and by far the most important - is the engraved glass window in the chancel. It was engraved by Laurence Whistler in 1979 and commemorates Edmund Blunden, the First World War poet. It depicts a trench, barbed wire, a shell-burst and verses from Blunden's poems. This feature apart it is the nineteenth-century work that dominates Yalding - especially the awful encaustic tiles with arrow-like designs, the crude pulpit with symbols of the evangelists and the poor quality pews. The glass isn't much better, the Light of the World in the south chancel window being especially poor, but the south window of the south transept (1877) showing scenes from the Life of Christ redeems the state of the art.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Yalding

 

-------------------------------------------

 

YALDING.

NORTH-WESTWARD from Hunton lies Yalding, antiently written Ealding, which signifies the antient meadow or low ground.

 

Most of this parish is in the hundred of Twyford, and the rest of it, viz. the borough of Rugmerhill, is in the antient demesne of Aylesford. That part of this parish, which holds of the manor of West Farleigh, is in the borough of West Farleigh, and the borsholder thereof ought to be chosen at the court leet there, and so much thereof as is held of the manor of Hunton, is in the borough of Hunton, and the borsholder thereof is chosen at the court leet there; and the inhabitants of neither of these boroughs owe service to the court holden for the hundred of Twyford, within which hundred they both are; but at that court a constable for that hundred may be chosen out of either of these boroughs.

 

THIS PARISH lying southward of the quarry hills, is within the district of the Weald. It is but narrow, but extends full four miles in length from north to south, the upper or northern part reaches up to the quarry hill adjoining to West Farleigh, near which is Yalding down, on which is a large kiln for the purpose of burning pit coal into coke, which is effected by laying the coal under earth, and when set on fire quenching the cinders; the method is used in making charcoal from wood, the former particularly is much used in the oasts for the drying of hops, so profitably encouraged in this neighbourhood. Below it, near the river Medway, its western boundary in this part, opposite to Nettlested, stands the seat of Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. a retired, but not an ill chosen situation. It was for several generations the residence of the family of Kinward, which from the reign of king Henry VIII. was possessed of good estates in this parish and its neighbourhood, and bore for their arms, Azure, on a bend or, three roses gules, between three cross-croslets, fitchee argent. Robert Kenward, esq. of Yalding, resided here, and dying in 1720, was buried with the rest of his family in this church; he left a son John, and several daughters, of whom the third, Martha, married the late Sir Gregory Page, bart. and died S. P. John Kenward, esq. the son, died in 1749, leaving by Alicia his wife, youngest daughter of Francis Brooke, esq. of Rochester, one daughter and heir Alicia, who carried this seat and a considerable estate in this neighbourhood to Sir John Shaw, bart. late of Eltham, whose eldest son, Sir John Gregory Shaw, bart. is the present owner of it, and resides here. (fn. 1). In this part of the parish the land is kindly both for corn and hops, of which there are several plantations, and round the down there are some rich grass lands, but further southward where the parish extends to Brenchley, Horsemonden, and Mar den, it is rather a sorlorn country, the land lying very low, and the soil is exceeding wet and miry, and much of it very poor, and greatly subject to rushes, being a stiff unfertile clay; the hedge rows are broad and interspersed with quantities of large spreading oak trees.

 

The river Medway flows from Tunbridge along the west side of the upper part of this parish as mentioned before, there are across it here two bridges, Twyford and Brandt bridge, leading hither from Watringbury, Nettlested and East Peckham; a small stream, which comes from Marden, and is here called the Twist, flows through the lower part of this parish towards the west side of it, and joins the main river at Twyford bridge, which extends over both of them; another larger stream being a principal head of the Medway flowing from Style-bridge by Hunton clappers, separating these two parishes, joins the main river, about a quarter of a mile below Twyford bridge; on the conflux of these two larger streams the town of Yalding is situated, having a long narrow stone bridge of communication from one part of the town to the other, on the opposite bank of the Hunton stream. Leland who lived in king Henry the VIIIth.'s reign, calls it a a praty townelet, to which however at present it has no pretensions. The church and court-lodge stand at the north end of the town. A fair is held in it on WhitMonday, and on October 15, yearly. The high road over Teston bridge, and through West Farleigh, leads through the town, and thence southward along the hamlets of Denover and Collens-street to Marden; at a small distance from the former is the borough of Rugmarhill, esteemed to be within the antient demesne of Aylesford, belonging to Mrs. Milner.

 

Adjoining the town southward is Yalding lees, over which there is another high road, which leads from Twyford bridge, parallel with the other before-mentioned, along the hamlet of Lodingford, and thence through the lower part of this parish towards Brenchley, near the boundaries of which in this parish is an estate still called Oldlands, which appears in king Edward II's reign to have been part of the demesne lands of the manor of Yalding, for he then confirmed to the priory of Tunbridge a rent charge to be received out of the asserts of the old and new lands of the late Richard de Clare, in Dennemannesbrooke, which he had given to it on its foundation; lower down, close to the stream of the Twist, is the manor house of Bockingsold, the lands of which extend across the river into Brenchley and Horsemonden and other parishes.

 

A third high road over Brandt bridge passes along the western bounds of this parish, over Betsurn-green towards Lamberhurst and Sussex.

 

A new commission of sewers under the great seal, was not many years ago obtained to scour and cleanse that branch of the river Medway, or if I may so call it, the Yalding river from Goldwell in Great Chart, through Smarden, Hunton, and other intermediate parishes to its junction with the Rain river, at a place called Stickmouth, a little below the town of Yalding.

 

The commissioners for the navigation of the river Medway, about twenty years ago, made a navigable cut or canal, from a place in the river called Hampsted, where they judiciously constructed a lock to a place in the river near Twyford bridge, where they erected a tumbling bay for the water, when at a certain height, to pass over. The contrivance of this cut from one bend or angle of the river to the other, is of the greatest utility to the navigation, by not only shortening the passage, but by baying up a convenient depth of water, which they could not have had along the lees, and other adjoining low lands on each side of that part of the river, which is avoided by it, or at least not without a very great expence.

 

At the river here the barges are loaded with timber, great guns, bullets, &c. for Chatham and Sheerness docks, London, and other parts, and bring back coals, and other commodities for the supply of the neighbouring country.

 

In 1757 a large eel was caught in the river here, which measured five feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in girt, and weighed upwards of forty pounds.

 

THE MANOR OF YALDING, or Ealding, as it was usually written, was, after the conquest, part of the possessions of the eminent family of Clare, who became afterwards earls of Gloucester and Hertford, (fn. 2) the ancestor of whom, Richard Fitz Gilbert, came into England with William the Conqueror, and gave him great assistance in the memorable battle of Hastings, and in respect of his near alliance in blood to the king, he was advanced to great honor, and had large possessions bestowed upon him, both in Normandy and England; among the latter was this estate of Yalding, as appears from the survey of Domesday, taken in the 15th year of the Conqueror's reign, in which it is thus entered, under the title of Terra Richardi F. Gislebti:

 

Richard de Tonebridge holds Ealdinges, and Aldret held it of king Edward, and then and now it was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is sixteen carucates. There are two churches (viz. Yalding and Brenchley) and fifteen servants, and two mills of twenty-five shillings, and four fisheries of one thousand and seven hundred eels, all but twenty. There are five acres of pasture, and wood for the pannage of one hundred and fifty hogs.

 

In the time of king Edward the Consessor, and afterwards, it was worth thirty pounds, now twenty pounds, on account of the lands lying waste to that amount.

 

The above-mentioned Richard Fitz Gilbert, at the latter end of the Conqueror's reign, was usually called Richard de Tonebridge, from his possessions and residence there, and his descendants took the name of Clare, for the like reason of their possessing that honor. His descendant, Gilbert, son of Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, owned it in the reign of king Henry III. and in the 21st year of Edward I. he claimed before the justices itinerant, and was allowed all the privileges of a manor.

 

¶Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, his son, by Joane, of Acres, king Edward I.'s daughter, succeeded to it, and dying in the 7th year of king Edward II. without surviving issue, his three sisters became his coheirs, and on the partition of their inheritance, this manor, among others in this county, was allotted to Margaret, the second sister, then wife of Hugh de Audley, junior, who in the 12th year of Edward II. obtained for his manor of Ealding, a market to be held here weekly, and a fair to continue three days yearly, viz. the vigil, the day of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the day subsequent to it. He died in the 21st year of it, holding this manor, which he held for his life, by the law of England, of the king in capite. He left an only daughter and heir Margaret, then the wife of Ralph Stafford, who in her right became possessed of the manor of Yalding, and was a man greatly esteemed by king Edward III. who among other marks of his favor, in his 24th year, advanced him to the title of earl of Stafford.

 

After which it continued in his descendants down to his great grandson, Humphry Stafford, who was created duke of Buckingham anno 23 Henry VI. whose grandson Henry, duke of Buckingham, having put himself in arms against king Richard, in favor of Henry, earl of Richmond, and being deserted by his army, had concealed himself in the house of one Ralph Banister, who had been his servant, who on the king's proclamation of a reward of 1000l. or 100l. per annum, for the discovering of the duke, betrayed him, and he was without either arraignment or judgment, beheaded at Salisbury.

 

YALDING is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Rochester and deanry of Malling.

 

The church, which is a large handsome building, consists of three isles and a large chancel, with a square tower at the west end. Against the south wall in it is a very antient altar tomb, which has been much desaced, on which is remaining, Ermine, a bend gules. There was formerly a brass plate on it. On a large stone in the middle isle, is a memorial for Robert Penhurst, descended from Sir Robert Penhurst, of Penhurst, in Suffex, who died in 1610. The arms, on a shield, a mullet. In the chancel there is a handsome monument for the family of Warde, who bore for their arms, Azure, a cross flory or, and one for the family of Kenward, in this parish. In the pavement of the church are several large broad stones, a kind of petrifaction of the testaceous kind, dug up in the moors or low lands in this parish.

 

Richard de Clare, earl of Hertford, gave the church of Aldinges, with the chapel of Brenchesley, and all their appurtenances, in pure and perpetual alms, to the priory of Tunbridge, lately founded by him.

 

Gilbert de Glanvill, bishop of Rochester, who came to that fee in the 31st year of king Henry II. confirmed this gift, and granted, that the prior and canons should possess the appropriation of this church in pure and perpetual alms; saving a perpetual vicarage in it, granted by his authority, with the assent and presentation of the prior and canons as follows:

 

That the vicar should have the altarage, and all obventions, and small tithes belonging to this church, and all houses, which were within the court, and the land belonging to the church, together with the tenants and homages, and the alder-bed, and the tithes of sheaves of Wenesmannesbroke, and the tithes of Longesbroke, of the new assart, and the moiety of meadow belonging to the church; all which were granted to him, to hold under the yearly pension of two shillings, duly to be paid to the prior and canons; and that the vicar should sustain all episcopal burthens and customs, as well for the prior and canons as for himself. And he granted to the prior and canons as part of the appropriation, the tithes of sheaves of this church, excepting the said tithes of Wenesmannesbroke, and of Longebroke; and that they should have the moiety of the meadow belonging to the church, with the fisheries, and the place in which the two greater barns stood, with the barns themselves, and the whole outer court in which the stable stood, with the garden which was towards the east, and the small piece of land which lay by the garden, and the rent of four-pence, which ought to be paid yearly to the court of Eyles forde; reserving to himself the power of altering the endowment of this vicarage, if at any time it should seem expedient; saving, nevertheless, all episcopal rights to the bishop of Rochester, &c. (fn. 16)

 

The church of Yalding, together with the advowson of the vicarage, remained with the priory of Tunbridge, till the suppression of it, in the 17th year of king Henry VIII. when being one of those smaller monasteries which cardinal Wolsey had obtained for the endowment of his colleges, it was surrendered into his hands, with all the possessions belonging to it.

 

After which the king granted his licence to him, in his 18th year, to appropriate and annex this church, among others of the cardinal's patronage, to the dean and canons of the college founded by him in the university of Oxford. But here it staid only four years, when this great prelate being cast in a præmunire in 1529, the estates of that college were forfeited to the king, and became part of the royal revenue.

 

¶Queen Elizabeth, in her 10th year, granted the rectory or parsonage of Yalding, and the advowson of the vicarage, for thirty years, to Mr. John Warde, at the yearly rent of thirty pounds, in whose possession they continued till king James I. in his 5th year, granted the see of them to Richard Lyddale and Edward Bostock, at the like yearly rent, (fn. 17) and they soon afterwards alienated them to Ambrose Warde, gent. of this parish, son of John above-mentioned, in whose descendants they continued down till they came into the possession of three brothers, Thomas, of Littlebrook, in Stone; George and Ambrose, among whose descendants they came afterwards to be divided, and again sub-divided in different shares, one third part to captain Thomas Amhurst, of Rochester; one third of a third part, and a third of a sixth part to Mr. Holmes, of Derby; Mr. Ambrose Ward, of Littlebrook, and the Rev. Mr. Richard Warde, late of Oxford, each alike, and the remaining sixth part by the Rev. Mr. John Warde, the present vicar of this parish, who some years ago rebuilt the vicarage-house in a very handsome manner.

 

This rectory now pays a yearly fee-farm rent of thirty pounds to the crown.

 

It is valued in the king's books, at 20l. 18s. 9d. and the yearly tenths at 2l. 1s. 10½d.

 

There are two separate manors, one belonging to the rectory or parsonage, and the other to the vicarage of this church.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol5/pp154-173

The festival celebrates the finest in both gardening and food. Visitors can expect stunning show gardens and nursery displays alongside a bounty of food producers, shopping and top tips from garden experts and celebrity chefs.

 

Set against the picturesque Malvern Hills, show gardens are always a number one destination, with five designers being awarded with RHS Gold Medals in 2016.

 

The Floral Marquee is bursting with examples of the finest nurseries in the UK and abroad, with many old favourites and new varieties on sale.

 

The foodie hotspot, Festival Food and Drink Pavilion, is a lively market of food producers offering a variety of artisan produce. At the heart is a Kitchen Theatre where celebrity guests and local producers showcase their skills and produce.

 

Other festival favourites include the School Gardens, Get Going Get Growing pavilion and Family Day (Sunday).

 

RHS Malvern Spring Festival is a joint partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society and Three Counties Agricultural Society.

 

An entirely new vision brings RHS Malvern Spring Festival into full bloom for 2017, taking inspiration from the event’s Spa town heritage. The landmark four-day spectacle, taking place from Thursday 11 – Sunday 14 May at the Three Counties Showground, welcomes all new features and exhibits and a vibrant line up of the finest in gardening, food and lifestyle.

 

Jane Furze, Head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, said: “We are so excited to share the glorious plans that are afoot for RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. It really is going to be a sensational year for our leading event with plenty for everyone. Whether you’re a newcomer to gardening, a veteran horticulturalist or simply looking for a family day out, RHS Malvern Spring Festival has it all. We look forward to welcoming visitors to our stunning showcase of spring in May.”

 

The new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival takes inspiration from Malvern Spa’s Victorian heyday as a fashionable health resort – a place where day-trippers descended to take advantage of the clean air and to enjoy the health giving waters amongst the romantic beauty of the hills and into a town of pleasure gardens, assembly rooms and numerous eating-places.

 

Promising a bountiful day out for everyone, visitors can expect:

 

NEW FOR 2017

 

FLORAL MARQUEE

RHS Malvern Spring Festival boasts the UK’s longest Floral Marquee at over 195 metres – the equivalent length of four Olympic swimming pools. The Floral Marquee welcomes more than 65 leading UK and international nurseries, setting the horticultural standards with impressive displays of prized blooms and new varieties. Exhibitors in the Floral Marquee represent the very best in plants and advice available. Here visitors can browse and buy from the very best.

 

JOE SWIFT’S PLANT HUNTER PARLOUR

BBC Gardeners’ World presenter and acclaimed garden expert, Joe Swift brings to life a new centerpiece of the Floral Marquee – Joe’s Plant Hunter Parlour. This immersive experience like no other features daily talks from award winning nurseries and welcomes budding gardeners big and small to discover, learn and indulge their inner plant hunter.

 

LIVE WELL

Newly introduced for the very first time, this dedicated zone interprets and explores the theme of health and wellbeing in the 21st century.

 

JEKKA MCVICAR’S HEALTH & WELLBEING GARDEN

The centrepiece of the Live Well zone, British Queen of Herbs, Jekka McVicar designs and builds a specially commissioned permanent garden, bringing to life the role gardens continue to play in our health and sense of wellbeing. Jekka’s garden is a living working space for mind, body and senses.

 

The garden is both a tranquil seating space where visitors can spend time amongst the aromatic herb beds, and a place to learn and explore what living well meant in yesteryear and what it means today. Visitors are invited to join daily ‘herbal conversations’ with Jekka herself and explore the awe-inspiring world of alternative therapies. The garden is in support of Pathways, a day service for adults with learning disabilities and difficulties.

 

GROW

A horticultural experience by Jon Wheatley, RHS Gold Medal winning gardener and Chairman of RHS South West in Bloom, Grow takes inspiration from interactive Country gardens and wildflower borders, showcasing a variety of edible beds and bountiful Grow To Show competitions.

 

SPA GARDENS

A brand new category introduced for the very first time to RHS Malvern Spring Festival, offering a unique platform for emerging gardening talent. Glorious gardens from up and coming designers bring to life the new vision and reflect the thirst for knowledge, new horizons and innovative technology at the heart of Malvern’s Victorian heritage. Gold Medal winning Chelsea garden designer, Jo Thompson is mentoring the new talent as they embark on this exciting new challenge. The Spa Gardens category also features one garden from an international designer supported by the esteemed Moscow Flower Show. This is part of a newly introduced exchange programme, which in return offers one selected British Spa Garden designer the once in a lifetime chance to showcase at Moscow Flower Show in July.

 

INDOOR SHOPPING ARCADES

A premium quality shopping experience, it is here that visitors can pick up unique pieces in fashion, furniture, homewares, horticulture, gifts and more from independent designers, craftsmen, artisans and artists.

 

PLANT ARCADES

An exciting open-air shopping experience with over 35 nurseries, each showcasing a wonderful array of plants. Plant steals aplenty can be found here, especially during the famous sell-off on Sunday.

 

MAKING A WELCOME RETURN

 

FESTIVAL GREEN

The heart of RHS Malvern Spring Festival featuring a colourful array of pleasure gardens, a bandstand of live music, an impressive collection of classic cars, an array of global flavours from the International Street Food Market, and plenty of places to picnic. It is here visitors rediscover the Victorian love of amusement, surprise and delight, alongside enjoying unique show gardens unlike any other.

 

FESTIVAL THEATRE

Hosted by RHS Malvern Spring Festival favourite and award winning writer and broadcaster, James Alexander-Sinclair, the Festival Theatre plays host to a lively line up of leading experts and familiar faces. Visitors may take a seat and enjoy demonstrations, talks and exciting features as personalities share their knowledge and passion for all things gardening and food. Confirmed experts include Carol Klein, Joe Swift, Jekka McVicar and Jon Wheatley with plenty more to be announced soon.

 

SHOW GARDENS

The highest standard of garden design is showcased in the Show Gardens of RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. Leading designers create awe-inspiring gardens as they compete for prestigious RHS accolades including Gold medals and the coveted Best In Show. RHS Malvern Spring Festival is famed as the show that raises the bar for design and horticultural talent with numerous RHS Gold medals awarded in 2016. This year is tipped to be no exception.

 

FOOD & DRINK PAVILION

A foodie hotspot, the Food & Drink Pavilion is a magnificent celebration of British tastes with bountiful offerings from the country’s best-loved artisan producers. Expect the freshest field produce, big cheeses, bread of heaven, specialty gins, decadent bakes and more.

 

KITCHEN GARDEN THEATRE

This animated live kitchen, hosted by Mark Diacono, showcases a line up of delicious cookery demonstrations from culinary experts and the country’s top chefs. Mark shares advice from his home farm cookery school, Otter Farm and experience as head gardener at River Cottage.

 

YOUNG GARDENER

A hive of activity tailored to inspire the next generation of gardeners and horticulturalists with fun hands-on activities to help children learn and explore the wonderful world of plants and gardens.

 

FAMILY DAY

Budding gardeners great and small are invited to get green fingered with a dedicated Family Day on the Sunday of RHS Malvern Spring Festival. This exciting and educational day with plenty of hands on activities is the ideal opportunity to engage children in the fun of gardening and the great outdoors. Expect Kids Cookery demonstrations, make and take crafts, Kids Plant and Grow workshops with BBC Blue Peter Gardener, Chris Collins and more.

 

SCHOOL GARDENS

RHS Malvern Spring Festival is one of the only RHS Shows in the UK to have a collection of Show Gardens designed and built entirely by young people. This year sees over 12 schools and educational groups from across the three counties taking part, led by BBC Blue Peter Gardener, Chris Collins.

 

RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. For more information, please call 01684 584900 or visit

 

British Queen of Herbs, Jekka McVicar will unveil the first ever specially commissioned permanent garden at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. A magnificent centrepiece of the celebrated event’s all-new Live Well zone, Jekka’s garden will bring to life the contribution horticulture continues to make to our health and wellbeing in today’s bustling modern world. The Health & Wellbeing Garden will be launched when the show opens its gates on Thursday 11 May at the Three Counties Showground.#

 

RHS Ambassador for Health through Horticulture, Jekka McVicar said: “I am delighted to have been asked to create a lasting garden for RHS Malvern Spring Festival. I want the Health & Wellbeing Garden to be a usable and beautiful space that is embraced by people of all ages – a space for growth, education and reflection. With the Malvern Hills as a dramatic backdrop, RHS Malvern Spring Festival is such a beautiful place and because it’s at the start of the summer, it’s always a time of such optimism. It is a real privilege to bring this garden to life as part of such a dynamic and exciting show.”

 

Jekka’s Health & Wellbeing garden, as the focus for the new Live Well Zone, is inspired by the increasing need for reflection and escape from the stresses of modern life. It also seeks to preserve and share the vital knowledge of how horticulture and its associated therapies can help the mind, body and soul. The garden will be a living, working space with a tranquil seating area, where visitors can immerse themselves amongst the aromatic herb beds, and also educate themselves on the place that herbs and horticulture play in today’s society.

 

Head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, Jane Furze said: “It is a real pleasure to be working with Jekka to build a garden not only for this year’s event, but also for the future. Jekka’s designs look spectacular and we cannot wait to see these brought to life and shared with our many visitors. The Health & Wellbeing Garden will no doubt be a real highlight of RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 and for many years to come.”

 

Throughout the 4-days of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, Jekka will host daily ‘herb conversations’ in the garden, unearthing hidden gems from the world of alternative therapies, food and gardening. Jekka will also provide insights into herbs as the foundation of modern medicine, seeking to preserve the knowledge that over time is danger of being lost.

 

The Health & Wellbeing Garden is in support of Pathways, a work-focused day service for adults with learning disabilities and difficulties. Pathways use gardening and the environment as an educational tool to introduce young adults to the working world. Clients of Pathways benefit from gaining vital skills for entering the working world, these include trust, communication, interaction with peers, taking direction and responsibility for themselves and others.

 

Leaving a legacy, Jekka’s garden will provide Pathways with a nurturing space to continue their works in encouraging clients to grow. Throughout the show times, Pathways will sell plants and refreshments from the garden. Funds raised from these sales go towards covering the costs of the residential trip taken twice each year for clients of Pathways, a vital retreat for clients that contributes to their sense of wellbeing. Outside of show days, Pathways and local schools will host sessions in the garden. The garden aims to inspire visitors of all ages and abilities with engaging elements tailored for all.

 

Jekka’s design will incorporate the unique and flexible WoodBlocX system, specially selected to provide permanent raised bed structures to house the garden’s vast selection of herbs and edibles. The centrepiece of the garden contains four large planted sections featuring smooth curves constructed from the unique WoodBlocX system. WoodBlocX use sustainable, long-lasting, organic and FSC accredited wooden bricks, which can be used to create any shape such as the naturally fluid curves seen in Jekka’s elegant design.

 

Considered an unmatched expert by the UK’s top chefs and horticulturalists, Jekka McVicar is an enterprising British herb grower, organic gardening expert, author and broadcaster. Jekka’s Herb Farm, in nearby South Gloucestershire, boasts the largest collection of culinary herbs in the UK with more than 500 different varieties.

 

Alongside her RHS Ambassadorship for Health through Horticulture, Jekka’s accolades include 62 RHS Gold Medals, Garden Media Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the RHS Lawrence Medal for the best exhibit shown at any RHS show in 2009. Jekka is also a Vice President of the RHS, Vice President of the Herb Society, is a founder member of the RHS Herb advisory group, and a member of the RHS Three Counties Agricultural Society Joint Committee. Jekka has herself exhibited at RHS Malvern Spring Festival since 1993 and has been a vital contributor to the team at Three Counties for over a decade.

 

RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. Tickets are now on sale. For more information and to book tickets, please call

Today was a glorious fall day nearly 70F!! My husband snuck out of work early and we went out for a couple of hours. We will be glad we did since gale force winds are expected tomorrow and Sunday!!!

 

The Rhode River connects with the West River and then the Chesapeake Bay.

"I expect to pass through this world, but once;

Any good thing therefore that I can do,

or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature,

let me do it now;

Let me not defer or neglect it,

for I shall not pass this way again."

 

better view

  

www.taskade.com

Disregard email drafts, notes applications and daily agenda administrators: Taskade does all that and the sky is the limit from there

 

All that I have to keep my life running is put away on the web. Some place. I can't discover it.

 

I'm discussing all the record numbers, meeting notes, daily agendas, contact data and section drafts I have to see each day. Additionally the plans I need to cook, wines I have to attempt, and YouTube recordings I should watch. A portion of that stuff lives in my email inbox, and some in Google Docs. At that point there are my Pinterest sheets, incidental bookmarks and the Evernote account I can never compose lucidly.

 

In principle, the web makes it simpler than any time in recent memory to keep all that I need a couple of taps away. Actually, the web has a method of dividing our lives. It resembles I composed everything in a journal and afterward become inebriated, tore out each page and shrouded them in better places around my home.

 

Taskade makes an extraordinary device for easy plans for the day, and you can utilize photographs, emoticons and stock workmanship to tidy them up.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

In the course of recent weeks, an application called Taskade has helped me transform mayhem into request. Taskade joins huge numbers of the best highlights of Google Docs, Excel and Dropbox, alongside heaps of assignment the executives and hierarchical instruments. Taskade Labs Chief Executive Ivan Zhao depicts the item as "the up and coming age of Microsoft Office," which is a little hyperbolic and a ton aspiring. However, it is the best life-association device I've attempted.

 

Taskade consolidates the highlights of a note-taking application, an assignment the executives application and a spreadsheet device the way that Steve Jobs joined an iPod, a cellphone and an internet browser into the iPhone: All these devices cooperate to make something more than its parts.

 

I should make reference to that Taskade is genuinely costly: It has a restricted complementary plan, and expenses $8 every month for hefty use. All things considered, it may pay for itself in the applications it replaces, and I've discovered it effectively worth the expense.

 

I presently have a page with all my carrier and lodging faithfulness numbers in a bulleted list, over a photograph of my dental protection card and an installed map with bearings to my dental specialist's office. I made information bases with all the films, books, TV shows, and YouTube recordings I have to get to—every cell opens to a rich archive with my notes and considerations. Taskade has all the meetings, research material and frameworks for my segments. I'm getting hitched soon and am gazing intently at my marital daily agenda consistently.

 

One of Taskade's most up to date includes is an information base apparatus, which you can see as a table, a schedule and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

I used to require five separate applications to keep so much stuff straight. Presently it's all in Taskade, a couple of snaps or a basic pursuit away.

 

Square by Block

 

It may be simpler to consider Taskade a super-straightforward web designer than a profitability application.

 

At the point when you open another page in the application, you're truly making a clear matrix onto which you can put and organize pretty much anything. The application's fundamental component is the square, which could be a passage of text, a bulleted list, a table, a picture, a code piece, a YouTube video, a PDF and that's only the tip of the iceberg. You embed blocks with a tap or console alternate way, and afterward reorder and sort out these however much you might want. You can without much of a stretch change the idea of a square, as well. For example, you can choose a lot of text and transform it into a daily agenda.

 

Taskade's essential component is the square, which takes numerous structures: text, joins, pictures, bookmarks and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

Taskade resembles chess: simple to learn, hard to ace. The application itself looks genuinely natural, with a sidebar on the left and your open page on the right. It has a couple of stylish comforts, similar to the alternative to add a spread photograph to the head of any page.

 

At the point when you first open the application, however, it doesn't do what's necessary to assist you with understanding all that it can do. Even following quite a while of utilizing Taskade every day, I'm just currently making sense of the most proficient approaches to get things done while attempting to abstain from settling on awful design choices. Do I truly require a full-page photograph inside my daily agenda? My recommendation: Make weighty utilization of Taskade's layouts, since they help you spread out pages and show what the application's prepared to do.

 

There are local Taskade applications for Windows, Mac and iOS. Mr. Zhao says an Android application ought to be accessible inside weeks. The web application works wonderfully on work area and portable, as well, and it's precisely the same experience regardless of which stage you're utilizing.

 

Taskade is exceptionally reliant on web network. It works disconnected uniquely with pages you've opened as of late while associated—which implies everything you can do is cross your fingers each time you open Taskade on a plane. On the upside, you can implant tweets and YouTube recordings, even whole website pages, inside a Taskade report.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

In spite of the fact that I use Taskade to keep steady over my own work and life (and you ought to as well), Taskade is intended for business groups. It offers communitarian altering, inline remarks and valuable devices for overseeing consents and allocating undertakings. In the event that you utilize Slack, you can get cautions each time somebody remarks on or changes a Taskade archive. Is anything but a substitute for Slack or Salesforce, however it can supplant a significant number of the apparatuses endless organizations use to store and offer data.

 

All in one resource

 

Matt Galligan, organizer of the Picks and Shovels Co., a digital money administrations startup, offered a valuable representation for Taskade. He says utilizing the application is much the same as shopping on Amazon. Previously, "stores specific," he stated, "and they worked admirably." Then Amazon went along and accumulated everything. It perhaps wasn't the best store for any single thing, yet the one-stop comfort made it brilliant.

 

That is simply it: Taskade isn't as ground-breaking a spreadsheet device as Excel, and it doesn't have a portion of the errand the board highlights I need—when an undertaking is expected, I might want an alarm, for example. (Taskade says that is coming.) Yet the application has helped me shave the spots I hold stuff down to only two. I can't prevent email from coming in; I can put everything else in Taskade.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

There's parcels left for the Taskade group to do, obviously. Notwithstanding task updates, it's additionally taking a shot at schedule sync, PowerPoint-style introduction includes, a web trimmer, better disconnected help and that Android application. It's additionally wanting to help administrations, for example, Zapier and If This Then That (IFTTT), which help move information between applications. In any case, it as of now accomplishes more than any of its rivals.

 

For quite a long time, I've bobbed around different note-taking applications and efficiency devices, never entirely upbeat. Evernote makes it simple to catch data, yet I never preferred the interface. Google Docs and Keep don't offer enough highlights. Trello, Asana and other task the board programming don't work for note taking.

 

Taskade wires the best of each—and others—into an uncommon renaissance application, capable in endless techniques for creation and association. I can't put a cost on the true serenity that originates from an unfragmented life. Pause, yes I can: It's eight bucks every month.

 

Crude Paste Data

 

Disregard email drafts, notes applications and daily agenda supervisors: Taskade does all that and that's only the tip of the iceberg

 

All that I have to keep my life running is put away on the web. Some place. I can't discover it.

 

I'm discussing all the record numbers, meeting notes, plans for the day, contact data and segment drafts I have to see each day. Besides the plans I need to cook, wines I have to attempt, and YouTube recordings I should watch. A portion of that stuff lives in my email inbox, and some in Google Docs. At that point there are my Pinterest sheets, random bookmarks and the Evernote account I can never arrange soundly.

 

In principle, the web makes it simpler than any time in recent memory to keep all that I need a couple of taps away. In actuality, the web has a method of dividing our lives. It resembles I composed everything in a scratch pad and afterward become inebriated, tore out each page and shrouded them in better places around my home.

 

Taskade makes an incredible device for easy plans for the day, and you can utilize photographs, emoticons and stock workmanship to tidy them up.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

In the course of recent weeks, an application called Taskade has helped me transform mayhem into request. Taskade consolidates a significant number of the best highlights of Google Docs, Excel and Dropbox, alongside loads of undertaking the executives and authoritative instruments. Taskade Labs Chief Executive Ivan Zhao depicts the item as "the up and coming age of Microsoft Office," which is a little hyperbolic and a ton aggressive. Be that as it may, it is the best life-association apparatus I've attempted.

 

Taskade joins the highlights of a note-taking application, an assignment the executives application and a spreadsheet instrument the way that Steve Jobs consolidated an iPod, a cellphone and an internet browser into the iPhone: All these apparatuses cooperate to make something more than its parts.

 

I should make reference to that Taskade is genuinely costly: It has a restricted complementary plan, and expenses $8 every month for substantial use. In any case, it may pay for itself in the applications it replaces, and I've discovered it effectively worth the expense.

 

I presently have a page with all my carrier and inn faithfulness numbers in a bulleted list, over a photograph of my dental protection card and an implanted guide with bearings to my dental specialist's office. I made information bases with all the films, books, TV shows, and YouTube recordings I have to get to—every cell opens to a rich archive with my notes and considerations. Taskade has all the meetings, research material and diagrams for my segments. I'm getting hitched soon and am gazing intently at my marital plan for the day consistently.

 

One of Taskade's freshest highlights is an information base apparatus, which you can see as a table, a schedule and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

 

Photograph: David Pierce/The Wall Street Journal

 

I used to require five separate applications to keep so much stuff straight. Presently it's all in Taskad

Expected To Ship in June

Day 3 of 2017 Mid-Season Invitational Group Stage at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 12 May 2017.

Expected to rock the world (and probably the headboards) all next week is the arrival of best-selling filth-fest FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. Focus Features and Universal Pictures are behind the adaptation of the first in E.L. James’ best-selling book series with the steamy story following the kinky e...

 

bit.ly/1KyJwmT

Promise Fulfilled, Accomplishment Achieved at WSSU Commencement on May 14

 

WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- For Jeanette Valentine, earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration will be fulfilling on many levels.

 

Valentine, 50, is one of the approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students who are expected to participate in WSSU’s Spring Commencement exercises on May 14 at 9:45 a.m. in the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Stephen A. Smith, noted journalist, media personality and motivational speaker, will be the keynote speaker.

 

Commencement will mark a special satisfaction not just because Valentine, a travel audit officer in WSSU’s accounting department, will be graduating with her 24-year-old son William R. Valentine. It’s because of a long-time promise fulfilled. Valentine made the promise to her mother back in 1978. Her mother and father never graduated from high school. When Valentine’s mother, who was battling cancer, asked her to promise she would graduate college, Valentine did. Valentine’s mother died two weeks before she graduated high school. Valentine was devastated over losing her mother.

 

“I started school at WSSU that year, but it lasted only one semester. I didn’t have the drive. I was still too distressed and overcome by my mother’s death. I couldn’t focus on school,” Valentine said.

 

Instead, Valentine got married, had two children and eventually went to work at a few jobs before coming to work at WSSU in 2006. In 2007, she decided to return to school since her children were adults. At the same time, her son who graduated high school in 2004 was thinking about returning to college after quitting previously. By fall 2007, both with full-time jobs returned to school at WSSU. He was an exercise science major and she was in the School of Business and Economics.

 

“He was so career focused on his job and he was doing well. But I kept pushing him and telling him he had to get a degree. I was thrilled he came back to school and that we were in school at the same time. It was exciting,” said Valentine.

 

Eventually Valentine saw her son was distracted by work. They talked and it was he who asked they agree to push each other so they could graduate at the same time.

 

That time is now. Valentine is thrilled they are graduating together. She says it feels like she has kept the promise made to her mother times two.

“In addition to the accomplishment, it may be quite an emotional day,” Valentine said.

 

Valentine is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the international honor society for collegiate schools of business as well as Alpha Sigma Lambda, a national honor society for Adult Learners in Continuing Higher Education. She plans to pursue her master’s degree at Liberty University.

 

Extraordinary Journey

It will be a festive ending to an extraordinary journey for Jerrica Scott, 24, of Winston-Salem. For Scott, commencement will symbolize the end of a passage marked by limitations, fear and uncertainty. It will be a celebration of a personal renaissance, driven by a theme that anything is possible with faith, passion and purpose.

 

“No matter how bad things may look, you can make a difference in your own life and the lives of others if you work really hard and know things can change. Soon things may look different, then not so bad, better, even good.”

 

Scott’s journey is verification of her belief. She entered WSSU to earn a four-year bachelor’s degree in elementary education six years ago as a single teen-aged mom. During that time as a full-time student, living on her own with her young daughter, she worked full-time, changed majors multiple times, quit school, got married, had another child, returned to school, made up a semester of credits lost when she quit and found her way back to the major that gave her the purpose.

 

“Just before I started my freshman year, I could hear people saying now that I had a baby as a teenager, my life was over or I wouldn’t get very far,” noted Scott. “Because I got pregnant in high school and had a baby in my first year of college, it didn’t mean I would be a failure. I did not want to be the stereotype of a young single mom who would work only at fast food restaurants or be on welfare the rest of her life.”

 

Although Scott was determined, she became distracted during her second year.

 

“I was failing classes miserably. I was living on my own and I was 18 years old. I felt lost and beaten, so I quit school,” Scott said who worked as a waitress. “Then one day, my manager told me the biggest thing he regretted was not finishing school. So if you don’t want to be waiting tables for the rest of your life, you need to go back to school. “

 

That was the turning point for Scott. She also thought about her mother, a cosmetologist, who always stressed the importance of education and often expressed interest in wanting her children to be greater than she. Scott soon quit her job and returned to school. Her best friend and others helped her find her way back to the major that aligned with where her talents and passions had always been -- elementary education.

 

“My best friend told me this is what I suppose to be doing. She told me we are going over there right now and you are going to get enrolled back into school. I just thank her,” said Scott.

 

Then she met a good man who cared about her and her daughter. It was like an unattainable dream. They soon married. Her second daughter was born in 2010. Now in school and completely focused on her education, Scott delivered the baby on a Friday and returned class on Monday.

 

Scott is currently working as a substitute teacher and searching for a fulltime permanent teaching job. She is also going to be the “first in my family to graduate college.”

 

Multiple Job Offers Early in Her Senior Year

Information technology major Kristen Dunlap, 21, of Charlotte, has accomplished a standout achievement, even before she completed her last year of college. In this challenging economy, she had two job offers from Fortune 500 companies one before her senior year, the other early in her senior year. She selected one position which she will begin this summer.

 

Dunlap attributes her success to internships, which she began participating in back in her freshman year. That first one was a summer research experience for undergraduate WSSU computer science students at WSSU, funded by NASA. She used, GIS visualization tools to visualize North Carolina weather patterns. The goal of the summer program was to expose students to researching skills and help to develop their problem solving and critical thinking skills.

 

For her second year, Dunlap interned at the NASA Langley, Va., facility where she worked as a liaison between the technology and client teams for the database tracking system used to manage NASA’s contractual projects.

 

For summer 2010, she was an intern at Altria Client Services in Richmond ,Va., where she worked on data archiving to consolidate previous and current information to migrate to a new system.

 

“You can never underestimate the value of internships. I started utilizing the WSSU Career Services office in my second year. My parents always told me to be aggressive at seeking job opportunities. I didn’t want to be a person to work hard for four years and have no job in the end,” Dunlap said.

 

She will start her new job at Altria Client Services as an IT assistant analyst.

 

The Entertainment Mogul

Erikka Rainey, 22, of Philadelphia wants to be a female Sean “P-Diddy” Combs. In fact, she has wanted to be an entertainment mogul from a very young age. As a child, she dabbled in music and even took classes, but by age 14, she knew wholeheartedly that she wanted to be on the business side of the music industry.

 

“When I first learned about P-Diddy, I knew that was where I wanted my future to be,” said Rainey. “I look up to P- Diddy because I’m working to be the first female to start a record label, then restaurants, clothing lines and television shows.”

 

When she sees a famous entertainer, she wonders what sort of things they did in their career to get famous. If not famous, she wonders what it would take to make them famous. While at WSSU she jumped at every opportunity to market and promote musical artists and events. She worked with Hidden Beach Recordings to promote events for a new CD. She passed out flyers and did social media and internet marketing for jazz artist Monette Sudler of Philadelphia this past summer.

 

“If there’s one thing I live by, it’s take advantage of all opportunities. Don’t close yourself off to anything. You never know what you will learn that can be the key to your future,” Rainey said.

 

An honor student, Rainey will be attending New York University’s (NYU) music business program in the fall. She plans to maintain at least one home in New York City after graduate school when her career kicks off.

Emus are not what you expect to see on the top of a mountain in New Zealand.

 

This pair live at The Woolshed cafe, on the top of the Takaka Hill (c 790m) between Nelson and Golden Bay. They endure snow and freezing winds on a regular basis during the winter, and breed in the autumn. The boy, here with blue tinges, does egg duty, often not eating or drinking for some considerable time, all during the winter! The chick is born late winter. I think these birds were perhaps designed for a warmer climate than this.

 

However, I love spending time watching these birds and pondering what their ratite cousins, the moa, would have looked like and how they would have handled, and did handle, the same conditions. Being serious limestone country, there are many tomos around this area and finds of moa bones/remains are common. Moa were here, up until about 1400AD if the scientists are right, and perhaps after for a time provided they could keep away from hungry Maori. Science also shows us that early Maori managed to kill off around 10,000 moa in the space of about 60 years, before they moved on to other slow, fat prey.

 

Sometimes, just sometimes, I would love for scientists to use ancient DNA to clone a moa. Other times, perhaps it is better we remain in ignorance of such technology. :-)

I expected dk bley, or perhaps silver. Some color they've actually come in a set in.

 

*I am not selling, giving away, or trading any of these.*

Envy Her - she is absolutely stunning and believe it or not, but just in a few days she will give birth to a little Charmer!!!

 

Well, I didn't expect to get a shot like this in the last week of March! This time last year, the UK was in the middle of a heat wave, temperatures got to 20C and now this year, we've got snow... Lots of it! Madness. Actually, although we had quite a bit of snow over the weekend, it temporarily warmed up on Monday and mostly melted on lower ground near our house. However, after risking our necks slipping our way through town (the pavements were still covered in ice!), Barney and I found plenty of nice powdery snow up on the hills. Barney went wild :)

 

He had a fantastic time, almost all of my shots were similar to this: mad looking dog approaching at top speed! I learned early on to take photos very quickly, then jump out the way before there's a collision. A few yrs back, on another snowy hillside Barney knocked dad right off his feet and very nearly into an electric fence... Evil hound just skipped away, laughing his head off while my dad cursed Barney specifically and collies in general, and I tried very hard not to giggle (and took note to watch out for the dog)! Barney is better trained and less inclined to knock people over now but in snow, all bets are off... Collisions, nippings and bag snatches are all risks you take when out with a snow-crazed Barney!

 

I know there are lots of experienced dog owners on here, so I thought I'd ask some advice. When people meet Barn, they mostly assume he's barely older than a pup (he's skinny and bouncy!) but he's 6 1/2 now. He has an active life - lots of running, jumping, twisting etc - tending to hurl himself around a lot! Anyway, I've noticed recently that in the evenings after a long(ish) walk Barney is definitely looking a bit stiff. Nothing terrible and he's not limping but is definitely slower than normal getting up after rest. So, any suggestions for supplements/tips etc that might help with mild achiness?

 

Expect more from this little lady soon from a new shoot!

 

Model - Rosie Razor

Styling & Wardrobe - Rosie Razor

Photography & Post Processing - Myself

MiMo, Mike Mozart painting of a Tall ship signed MiMo, Mike Mozart age 12, 1974. Painted in Maine. At the time, Weekly Reader Publications company was based in Middletown Connecticut! This video shows How Newspapers & Magazines expected commercial black and white duotone, ( Black plus one other color), artwork and illustrations to be prepared BEFORE any Computers! I created over a thousand pieces like this for dozens of clients! This piece for Weekly Reader About 1981

 

About Me

Wolfgang Mikyáll Mozart, known professionally by several pen named as a commercial artist, fine artist and video celebrity Mikke Mozart, Michael Wolfe or Mike Mozart has been an professional artist and product designer since the age of 14.

 

As an illustrator for over 40 years, Mike specializes in creating artwork of some of the most popular children's characters for many companies, such as Disney, Warner Brothers, Mattel and Crayola to name a few.

  

MiMo, (MIke MOzart), manages to thematize current events and convey a message through color that excites collectors over a work.

 

Passionate about painting since he was a child, Mike has had a long and diverse art career. Starting out as a street artist back in the 70s, Mike used his initiative and his love of art to break into the illustration world when he was a teenager - a career that would span over 40 years.

 

These days, Mike enjoys well-deserved success as a fine canvas artist in his own right, but he has never lost the love of painting that fueled him forward from a young age. In fact, listening to him speak about the happiness he gets from creating art, you can feel an almost childlike wonderment in his voice - and this is certainly reflected in his bright, colorful artwork featuring nostalgic cartoon characters like the Monopoly Man, Richie Rich and Uncle Scrooge. Mike also created the super popular TheToyChannel on YouTube, where he has reviewed thousands of classic toys. As well as the Toy Review Channel Jeepersmedia featuring critical reviews of the worst toys in history!

 

•Over half a billion total views across my two top Youtube channels: JeepersMedia and TheToyChannel

  

Appeared as co-host in the Kids Program Funtime and Funtime Express from 1983 to 1988. With the puppet TX Critter, created by Paul Fusco, TX was the prototype Alf Puppet! TX critter was puppeteered by Don Wunderlee after Paul Fusco left for Hollywood for the hugely successful Alf TV

 

Mike Mozart, have created several thousand products over 40+ years that were produced and sold worldwide in ALL the major retailers! Walmart, Target, K-Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Kohls, Zellers, Sears, JC Penney, Lord and Taylor, Macy’s Filenes, Nordstrom, Toys R Us, Play World, Child World, Kay Bee, Canadian Tire, Michaels arts and crafts, Hobby Lobby, A.C. Moore, Dick Blick, Garden Ridge, Bronners, Stop and Shop, Albertsons, Piggley Wiggley, Giant Foods, literally ever brick and mortar retailer.

 

Recently, I have been best known for my fine art paintings of The Monopoly Guy, Richie Rich and Uncle Scrooge McDuck! I was the ghost artist designer behind the artist Alec monopoly!

 

I have appeared over a hundred times on QVC, HSN, TSC ( The Shopping Channel Canada), Infomercials, talk shows ( Mostly on NBC!

 

I have illustrated countless Children’s books. Created hundreds of toy products.

 

My products for Easter Christmas and Halloween have sold worldwide for decades! At least 2,000 different products that actually sold into major retailers. I was the designer and artist of lines for all the Disney licensed seasonal products! Mickey Mouse and Friends, Winnie the Pooh, Ducktales, Ariel, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast! Sesame Street, Muppets, Teletubbies, Batman, the Real Ghostbusters, Looney Tunes and so much more!

 

I invented house and Garden infomercial products that I sold live for over a decade on HSN, QVC, etc! A couple dozen specialty planters, Crayola Products, Home Decor Products, Amazing Hand Tools, Toys, LED Lights and more!

 

My real full name is Wolfgang Mikyáll Mozart, I was Wolf or Wolfie to everyone until I was 16 and used the English version of my middle name, Mikke or Mike.

 

Most of my products up until 2006 were marked and sold as the brand “Michael Wolfe” for the designer’s name. An adaptation of Wolfgang Mikyáll.

 

I spent my summers in Maine, working on a farm and spending time at my Grandmother classic one room log cabin with sleeping lofts in a spring fed lake!

 

My mother was half American Indian. My father was of Finnish Norse Viking descent. Hence, the giant huge Beard!

I got it into my head that I failed to finish my shots, so had long planned a return. So, with the weather expected to be grim on Monday, I switched from orchids to churches.

 

I think this is right, the dedication is after two Roman gladiators, and is one shared with Challock, although Blean has Cosmas spelt differently, just add some confusion.

 

Blean is on the main road north out of Canterbury, but set back, in what was the site of a Roman villa.

 

It was hooping it down when I arrived, so I scampered as fast as my fat little legs could carry me to the south side of the church and saw the fine "church open" sign, welcoming me.

 

Again, I could not find the light switches, so the building remained in semi-darkness.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

How wonderful to find an unlocked isolated church in an area where many are kept closed! This charming flint building stands on a well-used public footpath (the former Roman Salt Road) that runs across a dry valley outside Canterbury. Its tree-shaded churchyard contains venerable yews and the church itself, dedicated to Ss Cosmas and Damian (see also Challock) is welcoming indeed. The nave and chancel are thirteenth century - see the typical lancet windows - but the huge north aisle, doubling the church in size, dates from the 1860s. Its arcade, however, is a good copy of thirteenth century work with huge cylindrical piers and an easternmost arch that stops short of the floor as if to allow space for a Rood Screen. The interior is light and spacious with much emphasis on the rustic medieval roof timbers. The twin-lancet east window contains some good mid-Victorian glass by Henry Holiday. The altar rails are seventeenth century whilst tucked behind the main door is a huge early eighteenth century memorial. As part of their millennium celebrations the locals reordered the church to great effect, moving the clumsy organ to the back and replacing it by the pulpit. These works have improved the interior no end.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Blean

 

-------------------------------------------

 

BLEANE,

OR Cosmus Bleane, stiled in all judicial proceedings St. Cosmus and Damian in the Blean, is the next parish southward from Swaycliffe, which latter name it took from the two saints, to whom the church of it is dedicated, and from its having been situated within the district which was once the king's antient forest of Bleane.

 

IT IS situated in a wild country, enveloped with woods, having much rough and poor land in it, and the inhabitants are in general like the soil, equally poor and rough. The turnpike road from Canterbury to Whitstaple, runs along the western side of it. It reaches as far as the half-way house on that road; and from Denstroud common, the houses of which only are within it, as far as the brook next to St. Stephen's parish eastward, in breadth about three miles. The soil in general consists of an unsertile stiff clay, and a cold loam, both very wet and miry. There is no village in it, but there are about forty houses dispersed throughout the whole of it. There are three commons or small heaths in it; two, over which the Whitstaple road runs, called Hoad common, and Bleane common; on the eastern side of the former is Hoad-court, great part of which has been pulled down within these few years, and the remainder has been converted into a farm-house; the third, in the eastern part of it, is called Tyler-hill common. On the east side of Bleane common, on the knoll of the hill, is a good brick house, formerly of better note, though now only a farm-house, called Amery-court. It was antiently called Le Ambry, alias Le Amery-court, being a corruption for the almonry court, from its being given in alms to St. Sepulchere's nunnery. It was lately the property of the Rev. Mr. Boucherie, who died in 1789, and now of his widow. The northern part of this parish is all coppice wood, among which is a considerable part of the great tract called Clowes wood, belonging jointly to Sir Edward Dering and Sir Rowland Wynne, barts. It was antiently called Cluse, and was formerly a manor, and was, in Edward III.'s reign, in the possession of a family of its own name. It afterwards passed to the Ropers, of St. Dunstan's, and thence in like manner as that of Boteler's-court before-described, to the present possessors of it. On the west side of the parish is the manor of Goodmans, which formerly belonged to Sir John Rough, of Brenley, and afterwards to the Farewells, of Boughton, of whom it was purchased in 1741, by the Rev. Julius Deedes, whose grandson William Deedes, esq. of St. Stephen's sold it in 1796, to Mr. William Cantis, of Canterbury, the present owner of it.

 

There are within the bounds of this parish, four several districts of land, which are reputed to be within the liberty and ville of Christ-church, in Canterbury, and have been so time out of mind, and their christenings are entered as such in this parish register. The inheritance of them belongs to the dean and chapter of Canterbury.

 

THE MANOR OF BLEANE, called in Domesday, Blehem, was at the time of taking that survey, part of the possessions of Hamo de Crevequer, usually stiled in the records of that time, Hamo Vicecomes, which name he acquired from his having been appointed Vicecomes, or sheriff of this county, soon after his coming over hither with the Conqueror, and holding the office till his death, which was not till Henry I.'s reign. According it is thus entered in the above survey, under the general title of Terra Hamonis Vicecomitis:

 

In the lath of Borowart, in Witestaple hundred, Haimo himself holds Blehem. Norman held it of king Ed ward, and then, and now, it was taxed at one suling. The arable land is four carucates, and twelve villeins having three carucates. In demesne there is one carucate. There is a church, and two acres of meadow, and pannage for sixty hogs. There is one fishery. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, it was worth eight pounds, and afterwards, and now, it was and is worth six pounds.

 

Hamo de Crevequer, a descendant of Hamo abovementioned, possessed this manor in king Richard I.'s reign, from whence he is stiled in some antient deeds relating to it, Sir Hamo del Blen. (fn. 1) He died anno 47 king Henry III. Leaving Robert his grandson his heir, who held it by knight's service; but taking part with the discontented barons, this manor was most probably seized among the rest of his estates, which remained in the crown till it was granted to one of the family of Badlesmere, and Bartholomew de Badlesmere, usually stiled the rich lord Badlesmere of Ledes, possessed it in king Edward II.'s reign, in the 9th year of which, he obtained a special charter of freewarren in all his demesne lands within it. He afterwards associated himself with the rebellious barons, but being taken prisoner, he was converyed to Canterbury, and executed in the 16th year of that reign, at the gallows of Blean, within this manor, to make the ignominy of his death the more conspicuous. By the inquisition, which was not taken till anno 2 king Edward III. at which time the process and judgment against him was reversed, it was sound that he died possessed of the manor of Blean, among others, which were then restored to his son Giles de Badlesmere, who died s. p. in the 12th year of king Edward III. anno 1337, (fn. 2) so that his four sisters became his coheirs, and upon a partition of their inheritance, it sell to the share of Margerie, wife of William, lord Roos, of Hamlake. She survived her husband, and afterwards possessed this manor for her life, and in the 32d year of the above reign, granted her interest in it to Thomas de Wolton and Robert de Denton; which was confirmed by her only surviving son Thomas, lord Roos, of Hamlake, who the next year granted the inheritance of it to the same Thos. de Wolton, master of the hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr, of Eastbridge, in Canterbury, and his successors, in Support of the charities and alms made in it, at which time the hospital was possessed of much other land in this parish by the gift of several other persons. (fn. 3) After which this manor, with the other premises abovementioned, remained with the hospital, which escaped the suppression of such foundations in the reigns of king Henry VIII. and king Edward VI. and it remains with the other lands given to it at different times, now part of the possessions of the above-mentioned hospital.

 

A court leet and court baron is held for this manor of Bleane and Hothe-court, at which a borshoulders is chosen for the borough of Bleane.

 

If there ever was a court-lodge or manston to the manor of Blean, it has been demolished time out of mind; for that of Hoad-court hereafter described, has deyond memory been the only one belonging to both these manors, which indeed seem to have been long since united, if ever they were two, and now are but one and the same manor, and should be more properly stiled the manor of Bleane, alias Hothe-court.

 

HOTHE, or HOADE COURT, so called from its situation, close to the hothe, or common here, is a manor, lying in the south east part of this parish, which was once the estate of Sir John de la Lee, who in the year 1360, anno 35 king Edward III. gave it, to Thomas de Wolton and his successors, masters of the hospital of Eastbregge, towards certain acts of piety in it. (fn. 4) After which it remained in the possession of the hospital till the latter and of queen Elizabeth's reign, when Dr. Lause, prebendary of Canterbury, and the archbishop's commissary, then master of it, with the privity of archbishop Whitgift, (fn. 5) made a benesicial lease of this manor, at which it seems he then resided, with divers other lands, at the reserved rent of forty-eight pounds, for his own use and benefit, to his brother Fermyn Lause, for threre lives. He died in 1594, and by his will devised his interest in the above lease to John Boys, esq. and Robert Grove, of Eastry. In consequence of which, Fermyn Lause, above-mentioned, then of Aylsham, in Norfolk, conveyed the lease to them, the sole interest in which became vested in John Boys, esq. above-mentioned, afterwards knighted, and of St. Gregory's priory, in Canterbury, a man of much note in his profession of the law. He was steward to five archbishops, recorder of Canterbury, and then of Sandwich, judge of the chancery court of the five ports, and M. P. for Sandwich, and for Canterbury, and founder of Jesus or Boys's hospital, in Northgate, Canterbury. He was fifth and youngest son of William Boys, esq. of Nonington, by his wife Mary, sister and heir of Sir Edward Ringsley, and bore for his arms, Or, a griffin, segreant, sable, within a bordure, gules, being those borne by his ancestors. He resided at times here at Hoadcourt, which he died possessed of in 1612, without surviving issue, though he had been twice married, and was buried in the north isle of Canterbury cathedral, where his monument, with his effigies on it, still remains, having by his will devised his interest in the lease of this manor to his nephew Thomas Boys, of Canterbury, with remainder to John his son. (fn. 6)

 

Thomas Boys, esq. above mentioned, was afterwards of Hoad court, as was John Boys, his eldest son, who succeeded him here, by the limitation in Sir John Boys's will, and resided at Hoad-court, as did his descendants down to colonel John Boys, who died here in 1748, and was buried with his ancestors in this church, leaving by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Dalyson, esq. two daughters his coheirs, Elizabeth, married to the Rev. Charles Wake, and Anne to the Rev. Osmund Beauvoir, who respectively, in right of their wives, became jointly entitled to the lease of this manor, with the seat and lands belonging to it; but after some years intervening, on a partition made, it was wholly allotted to the former, who held it for three lives, from the master of the hospital of Eastbridge; since whose death in 1796, his interest in it is become vested in the Rev. John Honywood, his son-in-law, the present possessor of it.

 

The Rev. C. Wake above-mentioned, LL. D. was prebendary of Westminster, and rector of East Knoyle and Fonthill, in Wiltshire. He was first married to Eliz. Boys, by whom he had Charles, vicar of Shoreham, and Elizabeth, who married the Rev. J. Honywood above-mentioned. He married 2dly the daughter of Mr. Beckford, by whom he had several children. Dr. Beauvoir was formerly head master of the king's school, in Canterbury, and married Anne Boys, as above-mentioned, who died in 1762, and was buried in Bleane church, by whom he had three sons, Osmund, William, and Cholmondeley, who survived to maturity, but all died unmarried; and two daughters, Elizabeth, married to William Hammond, esq. of St. Albans, in this county, and Isabella, married to the Rev. Richard Blackett Dechair, vicar of Shebbertswell, and of Postling, in this county. Dr. Beauvoir married secondly Mary, only daughter and heir of Fane William Sharpe, esq. (Since re-married to Dr. Douglas) but by whom he had no issue; he died in 1789, and was buried in the nave of the cathedral at Bath. He bore for his arms, Argent, a chevron between three cinquefoils, gules, quartered with those of Compton, of Guernsey.

 

In the rentals of the manor of Blean, there is mention made of the payment of gate silver (a custom not often met with). It seems to be a payment made by the tenants of the manor, for the repair of the gates leading to and from the Blean, to prevent their cattle from straying and being lost.

 

WELL-COURT, now usually called Wild-court, is a manor, situated near the northern bounds of this parish, the house of it being partly in it and partly in that of St. Stephen's. It is stiled in antient records, Ebolestone, alias Well-court, and was once part of the possessions of the family of At-Lese, one of whom, Sir Richard At-Lese, died s. p. possessed of it in 1394. Upon which it descended to his two nieces, daughters and coheirs likewise of his brother Marcellus At-Lese, of whom Lucy the eldest, married first to John Norton, esq. and secondly to William Langley, esq. of Knolton, (fn. 7) had this manor as part of her inheritance, and accordingly entitled both her husbands in succession to it. She had issue by both of them, who after their deaths shared this manor between them. In which state it continued for many years, till Thomas Langley, son of John, alienated his part of it, in the IIth year of king Henry VIII. to his relation Sir John Norton, the possessor of the other moiety, who then became owner of the whole of it, of which he died possessed in the 34th year of that reign, and was Succeeded in it by his natural son Thomas Green, usually stiled Norton, alias Green, whose two grandsons Thomas and George Green, in the 7th year of James I. alienated it to John Best, in which name the fee of it continued till the latter end of the last century, though in king Charles II.'s reign, it had come by means of mortgage, or some other such assignment, into the possession of Lovelace, then of Wild, and afterwards of William Rooke, esq. of St. Laurence, afterwards knighted, when it was passed away to Thomas Fleet, yeoman, who then lived in it. He died in the possession of it in 1712, s. p. and by his will devised it to his cousin Thomas Fleet, son of John Fleet, of Bleane, since which, by the limitations in the above will, it is now come to Mr. Thomas Fleet, who is the present owner, and resides in it.

 

BOTELERS,alias Botelers court, is a manor, nearly in the centre of this parish, which, in the 20th year of king Edward III. was, with the manors of Chesfield and Cluse, now called Clowes, held by knight's service by the same owners. Soon after which, it became the property and residence of the family of Boteler, whence it gained the name of Botelers-court, and continued in it till it was at length sold to one of the Ropers, of St. Dunstans, near Canterbury; in whose posterity it continued down to Edward Roper, esq. of Eltham, who died possessed of it in 1723, s. p. since which it has passed in like manner as that of Chestfield, in Swaycliffe, heretofore described, down to Sir Edward Dering and Sir Rowland Wynne, barts. and they are at this time the joint proprietors of it.

 

There are no parochial charities.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Westbere.

 

The church, which is dedicated to St. Cosmus and Damianus, is but small and mean. It consists of only one isle and a chancel, having a low pointed turret at the west end, in which hangs one bell. In the chancel is a memorial for John Boys, esq. of Hoad-court, eldest son of John Boys, esq. of that place, obt. 1660; and a mural monument for John Boys, esq. of Hode, who married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Head, bart. obt. 1710; arms, quarterly, Boys, Phalop, Alday, and Ringsley, impaling Head. Besides which, there are several other memorials of less account.

 

The church was antiently an appendage to the manor, and remained so till Hamo de Crevequer, called in the charter, Hamo de Blen, son of Etardus de Crevequer, the lord of it, gave this church, with all its appurtenances, to the master and brethren of the hospital of Eastbridge; and by another deed he granted to them, that is to the rector of this church, and the brethren of that hospital, the parsonage-house, with its appurtenances, late belonging to the rectory of it, and one acre of ground, and certain annual rent in this parish, to hold in free, pure and perpetual alms; all which was confirmed by archbishop Langton, by which means the rectory and parsonage of it became appropriated, and confirmed to the hospital, and the master or keeper became parson of it; but archbishop Sudbury afterwards, in 1375, converted the rectory or parsonage so appropriated, into a perpetual vicarage, which he then founded and endowed; but on account of the inconveniences arising to the parishioners, especially those who were infirm, from the distance they were at from the priest who had the cure of souls, who usually lived at the hospital, which was a mile or more distant from them, whom they were obliged with much trouble to seek after there; by which means the duties of this church, as well as the parishioners, were either neglected or wholly omitted. Therefore, weighing these inconveniences, and being desirous to remedy them as far as was in his power, he decreed, that there should be in this church in future, a perpetual vicar, having within the parish of the same, the mansion which the master of the hospital had erected for the same; and that the vicar should have likewise the tithes and oblations under-mentioned, amounting, as was supposed, to 10l. and upwards, for the supporting of himself in food, and the under-mentioned burthens; and that the presentation of the vicar on each vacancy, should belong to the keeper of the hospital for ever. Moreover, that the vicar should have, in part of the said sum, for his endowment, all predial tithes at Natynden, due to the hospital of old time, which were worth five marcs or thereabout yearly, and also all predial tithes through this whole parish; excepting of the demesne lands and estates of the hospital within the parish, whilst in tillage; and excepting all manner of predial tithes, and others whatsoever, arising from the lands, and beasts feeding on them, and their young folded on them, lying on the south part of the course of water running in this parish, called Vischmannysbourne, between the church and the court of the hospital at le Hothe, of which tithes he should not claim any thing, in any shape whatever. Moreover, that the vicar should have, towards the making up the sum of the aforesaid 10l. all tithes of calves, lambs, geese, flax, wool, milk, milkmeats, cheese, hay, herbage, silva cedua, and all titheable things within the parish, except only as before excepted. The vicar, therefore, should have all oblations in the church, and parish without the court of the hospital at la Hoth; and as the vicar himself, as if rector of the place, would possess such emoluments within it, he should support the undermentioned burthens from them, that is, he should amend and repair the chancel of the church at his own cost, and should support the mansion already built for him, and should find wine and bread and lights in the church, necessary for the celebrations, at his own expence, and should undergo all other burthens to be imposed in future on the church, which were not then taxed to the payment of the tenths, and should acknowledge them duly, and pay them; that he should be obliged to make a continual residence within the parish, as the other vicars of churches were obliged by law to do; and that he should obey the keeper of the hospital in all lawful and honest matters, the archbishop reserving to himself and his successors, the power of correcting, augmenting, and diminishing this his decree, as often as it should be expeding to him and them so to do.

 

According to which endowment, the vicarage of this church still continues, the vicar, as if rector of the parish, receiving all the tithes, both great and small, within it, except as is therein excepted, and of the portion of lands in Nackington; and from the time before-mentioned, the keeper, or master, as he is now called, of Eastbridge hospital, has continued, and is, the present patron of it.

 

¶The vicarage is valued in the king's books at 10l. and the yearly tenths at one pound. In 1537 here were thirty families, and ninety-four communicants. In 1588 it was valued at 40l. communicants 129. In 1640 it was valued at 65l. the like number of communicants. It was lately certified to be of the clear yearly value of 73l. 14s. 6d. but it is now worth near double that sum. The portion of tithes, in the parish of Nackington, &c. consists of those arising from 116 acres of land, or thereabout, lying in various detached pieces, belonging to different owners, and is worth about 44l. annual value.

 

There are near two acres of glebe land belonging to it.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol8/pp524-536

Livorno 2015 © Michel Guillet

 

Needless to say we have been busy with work, life and soon to be new life.

My first week at work completed. I surprised myself. I was expecting to be planning escape routes, finding reasons to leave early, sourcing hiding places for tots of whiskey and emergency chocolate.

To my utter shock I found that I was able to partake in my favourite past time whilst being paid. I had regular bouts of hysterics (and not the unhappy, smudged make up, pulling hair out kind). I had forgotten that real people (and not only Russell Brand or Eddie Izzard) are able to make me bend double.

 

So this weekend, having done one of those 5-day weeks that I have heard legend of I felt totally justified in returning to loaf-dom. Previously my lolling on the bed with a library of vengeful DVDs playing continuously throughout the day, lying in a nest of magazines and books and permitting myself to nap like a fifteen year old goth on his summer holidays felt just a little bit uncomfortable. I felt the odd wince of pain as I recalled all the things I ought to be doing. I wrote lists that I knew would be used only as bookmarks.

 

Now having spent 40 hours wincing in an office at different things that needed to be done I had to turn off my guilt valve and wallow in luxurious nothing.

 

I’m becoming a dirty old woman though.

 

Athletics is on TV and where once I wouldn’t have been that interested now I ogle like a farmer at an auction.

I shouldn’t admit this but I hope that I am not alone….. During the weekend I was sat on the tube when a gaggle of cricketing schoolboys stumbled aboard my carriage oozing boyish scents, lynx, Physio sport – these cheap boyish deodorants drive me a bit wild and I (surreptitiously of course) studied them and wondered which would become fabulous specimens of men in a few years time. I wondered if there should be some kind of bidding system on ebay for boys/men coming of age and you can put in a bid and see in a few years time if you win your very own fresh young man to corrupt. They did it in Japan with Geishas – and perhaps there could be a clause where you could withdraw your bid if you found that your chosen boy was developing into rather a geeky gangly stork rather than the curly haired figure of David that you had hoped.

     

Berlin, Germany - February 14 --- during the 2019 League of Legends European Championship Series Week 3 at the LEC Studio on February 14, 2020 in Berlin Germany (Photo by Michal Konkol/Riot Games)

My Sister in law, with only 2 weeks till her due date!

My niece is expecting a child in September.

 

2017 World Championship Group Stage at Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium in Wuhan, Hubei, China on 8 October 2017.

Selective color by a friend.

Feb 18th 2010

 

After the excitement of the night before (when both couples got engaged) we decided we would get up late and have an explore of Kiruna itself.

 

According to a leaflet I picked up from Kiruna Town Hall (or Stadshus), some facts about Kiruna are:

 

*Area - 20,000 sqkm

*Pop - 26,000

*1,400km north of Stockholm

*140km north of the Arctic Circle

 

To be honest, at no stage did I feel I was out in the wildnerness. I had expected to feel that way, thinking that because Kiruna was so far away from other towns, it would be somehow apart from what was going on.

 

The population is such because of the Iron Ore mines (Britain and Germany fought over them in WW2). Unfortunately the Iron Ore mining has had a disasterous effect on the environment, creating cracks and fissures to such an extent that the town in likely to have to move in the next 10 years. In the Town Hall there was an interesting display showing where the cracks were, and the votes that had taken place on which buildings to save. The Town Hall was included as was the Church.

 

We visited the Town Hall - it was a really nice building. Quite 60s in style - it was inaugurated in 1963 and the architect was Artur von Schmalensee.

 

Being an architecture nerd I liked a few details I found out about it -

 

* the clock tower is adorned with sculptures made by Bror Marklund and the 23 bells chime every hour in daytime.

*the front door knobs are made of reindeer horn and curly grained birch wood

*Italian stone mosiacs adorn the floor

*the walls are built of Dutch handmade bricks

 

There are also some interesting art pieces -

 

*big painting on the wall of Kirunavaara, painted 1905

*the big sculpture in the entrance hall is made of birch and reindeer horn by the Lappish artist Lars Sunna and represents a mixture of Lappish signs.

 

From the Town Hall we headed to the wooden Church. Another award winning building and totally different to the churches I have visited in UK and southern Europe. There is no decoration or ornamentation. I'm not sure whether this is by design or because of religion.

 

After a walk and photo session we were cold and hungry so headed for pizza. The guy at the pizza place spoke no English so it was a case of pick something and hope for the best. We ended up with ham, mushrooms, onion and prawns!

 

I sadly don't have any photos of the evening's activities. I left my camera at home due to the cold and because Paul was taking his.

 

We had booked to got Snowmobiling and Dog Sledding. A double package for £95 each. This was a good deal bearing in mind that each on their own seemed to cost round the £70 mark. Bit of prior research paid off.

 

We were picked up at the hotel and headed off to meet two other couples (who had also happened to be watching the Northern Lights the night before and had heard that 2 couples had got engaged!).

 

After changing (or rather putting on over our own clothes) an all-in-one snow suit and boots we headed out into the snow.

 

Our group was give the snowmobiles first and we were to meet with the dog sled group at the Sami tent half way and then swap after warm drinks and cakes.

 

Me and Paul shared a snowmobile as did Stephen and Susie. Me and Paul followed the instructor and were wizzing along at a good speed, doing a few jumps. I let Paul do most of the driving but did have a go and managed a couple of jumps myself.

 

Stephen and Susie were what Paul called "Driving Miss Daisy". At one point they veered off the track and had to be collected by the instructor. We were nearly at the Sami tent when we realised that Susie and Stephen were no longer behind us and we couldn't see their lights. The instructor turned around and headed back over the snow field. 15 mins passed and they hadnn't returned and Paul said he spotted smoke. I told him he hadn't and it was somewhere in the distance. Paul became instant - he had seen smoke behind and now he saw a fire.

 

With that we attempted to reverse our snowmobile but became bogged down in the snow. I climbed off to help and was up to my thighs in snow. Eventually we managed to loop round and headed back towards where Susie and Stephen were. There was indeed a fire blazing and Stephen and Susie's snowmobile had exploded and caught fire. They said it was felt warm, and they had seen smoke and fire in the engine so jumped off. Good thing really because there was a full tank of fuel on board. Fortunately no-one was hurt and the dog sled had been following so caught up with us.

 

After some debate the other couples swapped and rode the 2 remaining snowmobiles and we were put on the dog sled.

 

It was a short, but very smelly, distance to the Sami tent for drinks and cake. The guy lit a fire which smoked out the tent but eventually was bearable and warm.

 

We complete our trip back to base on the dog sled. It wasn't especially comfortable and the dogs poo-ed, trumped and farted as they ran along so it was quite stinky! One dog fart is bad. 12 becomes unbearable!

 

After 2 hours our trip was over. Another eventful evening in Sweden!

 

We finished our evening in the hotel pub having a meal. I chose the traditional Pytti Pana which is chopped meat, onions and potatoes with a poached egg on top. It was really nice.

 

Susie and Stephen had just about recovered. We debated about letting parents know and Paul texted his and Stephen's mum and dad who were obviously worried, but at least knew we were safe.

 

As we ate our meal we debated what the headlines would have been if something worse had occurred - "Newly engaged couples burnt alive on snowmobile" etc.

Papplewick 1940's Event 2024.

1 2 ••• 25 26 28 30 31 ••• 79 80