This is the site where the commander of the New Jersey Brigade was headquartered at Valley Forge encampent during the Revolutionary War. The place is now called the Philander Chase Knox Estate, since he was the last owner of the property before it became part of the current park. He served both as U.S. Attorney General and as Secretary of State around the turn of the century. He was the last to remodel the home into it's current form, and even once had President Theodore Roosevelt as a guest there. (Maybe they even hung out together on this very cute back patio).

Built of native sandstone by skilled English stone masons, this early Anglican Church was erected to meet the spiritual needs of a group of people who came over from England in the 1830’s to settle the prairies of western Peoria county here in Illinois. One of the oldest churches in the area, there are sister churches to this one in Brimfield and Robin’s Nest (Jubilee). With Bishop Philander Chase nearby and a seminary for training young ministers established at Robin’s Nest, it looked like there was a fair chance that the western Peoria county prairie would be modeled after Yorkshire England. In Southern Illinois at a place called Albion, there was already an earlier successful English prairie settlement started by a man named George Flowers. At this early date the prairies of Illinois were completely up for grabs because they were considered undesirable for settlement due to a shortage of available wood for building housing and for heating and cooking. The English with their extensive knowledge of building with stone and heating with coal which is very abundant in Illinois were undeterred by the prairie conditions which caused American settlers to shun the prairies in their search for inhabitable lands. To this day a glance at the telephone book will reveal a large number of English surnames among the local population. These people came to stay and are an important part of the state’s establishment though they seem to be largely forgotten in discussions of early Illinois settlement. They were educated, skilled, and religiously devout.

 

This is George. I met him a few weeks ago on the slopes of Slieve Foye in the Cooley mountains. He said hes tired of all the philandering and wandering around and he`d love to settle down with a nice lady. He says as long as shes wooly, likes cuddles, isnt continually bleating on about something and has been footrot free for six months, he`s certain they could make a go of it!. Why do I not believe him?

Well,taking to some of the girls up there, they say hes not to be trusted and he has a bit of a reputation. Apparently he`ll just chew anybody`s` grass!!!

Keep smiling out there, stay in your own field and mind yourselves! Bah!!!!!

Pat.

 

Update; Never realisrd this photo was in explore till now,Feb 2022! Its another great honour for me especially when you really like the photo yourself. Thank you once again!!! Pat.

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October last year that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the unpleasant issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited Sir John as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Although she did not become engaged to him then, Lettice did reacquaint herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by mutual friends Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate in 1924. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again later that year at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. When Lettice’s understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, fell apart, Lettice agreed to Sir John’s proposal. Then, during the General Strike* that almost brought the nation to a standstill, Selwyn and Lettice were reintroduced, and she found out that Selwyn wasn’t engaged to another woman at all, as she was led to believe by Lady Zinnia, and it had all been a fabrication, leaving her in a quandary over what to do: break her engagement with Sir John and marry the man she truly loves and has never stopped loving, or remain engaged to Sir John, preserving his honour and the good name of her own family. Eventually, with some careful persuasion from friends, Lettice made the decision to end her engagement.

 

Thus, today we find ourselves at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home after breaking her engagement to wealthy Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, hoping to lay low and keep out of London whilst the sensation of her broken engagement becomes the talk over every breakfast table, ladies luncheon at Gunter’s** and society dinner at the Savoy***. Old enough to be Lettice’s father, Sir John was, until their ill-fated engagement, still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. For the sake of her family’s reputation and her own, she hopes that confining herself to Glynes for the duration will allow her to avoid any gossip or speculation as to why she ceased her engagement to Sir John.

 

Leslie finds Lettice in the Glynes stables, where she is polishing her saddle with Dubbin***** buffing the leather into a soft sheen. The sound of the cloth rubbing softly against the leather whispers through Lettice’s ears as she uses measured, round strokes across the golden brown leather.

 

“I thought I might find you here, Tice.” Leslie says gently with a warm, knowing smile.

 

Lettice is so focussed on the rhythmic buffing of the saddle, that she doesn’t even hear her beloved eldest brother walk in to the stables and she elicits a gasp of shock. “Oh Leslie!” She drops her buffing bush, which lands on the red brick flagstone floor with a clatter. “You startled me!”

 

“Sorry Tice.” he apologises.

 

“Oh, no need to apologise.” Lettice insists as she bends down and picks up her brush again. “It’s lovely to see you. How’s Bella this morning?”

 

“Hale and hearty******, thank you, Tice. She tells me that you and she are going over to Garstanton Park later today.” Leslie says, referring to the neighbouring property adjoining the Glynes estate to the south, the grand Gothic Victorian home belonging to his wife’s family, the Tyrwhitts, where his brother-in-law, Nigel, Lord Tyrwhitt, and widowed mother-in-law, Lady Isobel live.

 

“Yes, I thought I’d better break my news to Aunt Isobel and Nigel before either of them hear it from one of the Glynes village gossips.”

 

“But I thought you were very discreet when you told us about your broken engagement yesterday.” Leslie replies.

 

Lettice begins the rhythmic buffing strokes against her saddle again, and casts her brother a doubtful look, before snorting derisively.

 

“What?” Leslie asks.

 

“What kind of Viscount will you make, Leslie darling, if you don’t even recognise what happens beneath your own roof?”

 

“Glynes vast slate roof isn’t my roof yet, thank god!”

 

“But you know as well as I do, that the walls have ears.” Lettice remarks sagely. “No doubt Bramley, Moira or Emmery were loitering around the keyhole with intent.”

 

“Bramley would never do that!” Leslie counters. “He’s far to discreet to gossip.”

 

“Don’t you believe it, Leslie. He may be a butler, but he’s a frightful gossiper as well. Where do you think the Miss Evanses,” Lettice refers to the two elderly gossipy spinster sisters who live in Holland House, a Seventeenth Century manor house in Glynes village. “Get their most juicy titbits of Chetwynd news from?”

 

“Really?” Leslie’s eyes widen in surprise.

 

“Really, Leslie.” Lettice replies, looking up and giving her sibling a half-smile.

 

“I was saying that I thought I might find you in here this morning.” Leslie repeats.

 

“Well,” Lettice replies. “You know what Pater always says.”

 

“Nothing like a good ride after some bad news.” Lelsie recites.

 

“Exactly.”

 

“So, are you taking Morning Star out for a canter?”

 

“I am.” Lettice affirms. “I still miss her, now I’m in London.”

 

“You could always house her in the mews******* at Chetwynd Place,” Leslie suggests hopefully, reminding Lettice of the family’s London townhouse. Plenty of London families have retained at least a few favourite mounts********.”

 

“I know I could, but it would be unfair to her, Leslie. She needs exercise.”

 

“From my last visit up to town, I noted that Rotten Row******** is still there. I assume it hasn’t yet fallen into the clutches of those awful property developers********** who build mansion flats***********.”

 

“Oh!” Lettice exclaims in an offended tone. “Thanks awfully, Leslie.”

 

“I didn’t mean your mansion flat, Tice!”

 

“Anyway,” Lettice goes on. “Morning Star deserves better than the occasional trot or canter down Rotten Row when I have the time or the inclination.” At hearing her name, Lettice’s black mare with white markings, including the star shaped white patch between her eyes which gave her, her name, sticks her head out of her stable and nickers towards Lettice. “She needs open fields where she can gallop and be free. Isn’t that right, girl?” She addresses her last sentence to the horse, gazing into her liquid brown eyes. The mare responds with a whinny greeting. “I take it Bella is still taking her for brisk rides?”

 

“Of course!” Leslie assures his sister. “Bella loves taking Morning Star for an energetic ride across the meadows.”

 

Lettice cocks an eyebrow as she eyes her brother. “She’s not expecting************ yet, then?”

 

“Oh!” Leslie scoffs. “You’re as bad as Mater, Tice!” He sighs heavily before going on in a tired fashion, as though he has said it once too often, “No, Bella is not in a delicate condition, yet.”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that Leslie darling.” Lettice elucidates. “I just simply wanted to confirm that she’ll continue to ride Morning Star in my absence. After all, I can no more rely on you to ride her regularly than I can myself. We’re both too busy with our own lives now.”

 

Morning Star nickers again.

 

“I hope you’ve brought a treat for her, Tice.” He nods towards the horse, who stretches her elegant head as far forward over the top of her stable gate as she can, as she sniffs the air and snuffles. “Bella does rather spoil her, you know?”

 

Lettice reaches into the pocket of her fawn coloured twill jodhpurs************* and withdraws a large green Bramley’s Seedling************** apple. Spying it, Morning Star begins to snuffle nicker at the sight of the treat in her mistress’ hand. “Freshy picked off a tree in the Glynes orchard on my way here.”

 

“I hope that Mrs. Casterton didn’t catch you pilfering from the orchard, Tice.” Leslie says with caution, referencing the Chetwynd’s long serving cook.

 

“Doesn’t Morning Star deserve a special autumnal treat?” The horse whinnies. “See, Leslie?” Lettice says matter-of-factly. “She certainly thinks so.”

 

“You know Mrs. Casterton loves her Bramley’s for apple pies and for preserving.”

 

“Not to mention apple sauce to serve with a suckling pig from the Home Farm***************.” Lettice adds. “She won’t miss one apple, Leslie.” she scoffs lightly.

 

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Leslie retorts, slipping his hands into the deep pockets of his flannel trousers.

 

“Anyway,” Lettice goes on breezily. “Why shouldn’t I pick a Bramley’s from the kitchen garden? It’s not Mrs. Casterton’s orchard.”

 

“Nor is it yours, Tice.” Leslie counters.

 

“It’s more mine than it is hers.” Lettice pouts in a quick reply.

 

“And as heir to the estate, it’s more mine than it is yours.” Leslie overrules his sister.

 

“Then you’ll understand,” Lettice says cheekily, playing her trump card. “Loving Glynes as you do, and all the animals that reside here, that Morning Star needs her autumn treat of a Bramley’s.” She smirks as she returns the apple to her pocket, much to Morning Star’s evident disappointment as she stamps her hoofs. “Soon darling. Soon.” Lettice soothes her.

 

“Just make sure you cut it into quarters for her, Tice.” Leslie warns. “Morning Star was always a greedy mare, but she’s worse now with Bella’s constant treats for her. She’ll just as likely choke on it in her greed if you feed it to her whole. Do you have a penknife?” He immediately withdraws his own bone handled one from his right-hand pocket.

 

“No need.” Lettice withdraws a small silver handled pen knife from her right back pocket and holds it up before her brother.

 

“Jolly good show!” Leslie replies with a beaming smile.

 

“Now, you obviously wanted to see me about something Leslie, if you came to seek me out, here.” Lettice says, returning to her buffing of her saddle. “What is it you want?”

 

“I… err…” Leslie begins awkwardly, snatching up a stray piece of straw and twisting it between the elegant digits of his right hand as he lolls against the brick wall of the stable. “I just wanted to say that whilst I’m not unhappy that you’ve broken your quixotic***************** engagement to Sir John, I do feel for you, Tice.”

 

“Feel for me, Leslie darling?” Lettice queries as she pauses mid bush. “What on earth do you mean?”

 

“Well,” Leslie blusters. “I know it can’t have been an easy decision for you to make, worrying about your reputation and all that.”

 

“Oh well, it would have been unfair of me to have done otherwise, Leslie – leading Sir John on like that. Besides, now that I know that Selwyn isn’t, nor ever was, engaged to anyone else during our separation, I know that our understanding is on firm ground.”

 

“I’m happy for you Tice. Spenceley’s a good sort.” Leslie leans forward and places his right hand on his sister’s left shoulder. “I never took him for a cad, you know.”

 

“Thank you, Leslie.” Lettice sighs, smiling gratefully up into her brother’s handsome face, as she feels the heavy presence of his warm palm through the shoulder of her tweed hacking jacket******************.

 

He retracts his hand and settles back against the wall again. “All the same, Tice. It can’t have been easy for you.”

 

“That’s why I’m laying low here. I wouldn’t be able to handle the scrutiny in London, with everyone knowing who I am wherever I go.”

 

“Well, I’m glad you feel that you can use Glynes as your sanctuary, and I know that Pater and Mater feel the same. Glynes is your home, and always will be for as long as Pater is alive, and for as long as I am master of it, as his heir.”

 

“Thank you, Leslie.” Lettice replies again. “Just don’t forget what you promised me.”

 

“What have I promised you, Tice?”

 

“Don’t you remember? On the morning of your wedding day?”

 

Leslie’s bewildered face give away that he clearly has no recollection of anything he may have promised his little sister that day.

 

“It was a very momentous occasion, Tice – marrying Bella.” he begins in his defence. “I had a good deal on my mind that morning.”

 

“You promised that you would redecorate my bedroom when you become master of Glynes, and not keep it like the mausoleum to little pre-war Lettice like Mater has.

 

“Alright Tice.” Leslie chuckles. “But you may need to remind me again, when the time comes.”

 

“Fear not, dear brother,” Lettice smiles. “I will.”

 

The pair fall into the comfortable silence that siblings who are close often do, she continuing to buff her saddle and he staring out of the open stable doors across the yard, twisting the straw idly between his fingers – both drifting off into their own private thoughts. The air inside the stable around them feels warm, protected from the cooler autumnal atmosphere outside, and it carries the comforting fug of horsehair and the sweet smell of hay and feed on it. The cosy silence is only punctuated by the occasional nickering and whinnying of the horses in the pens around them, the echoing, rhythmic coos of the wood pigeons in the eaves above them, Lettice’s gentle buffing, and the distant mournful moo of a cow from the home farm.

 

It is Lettice who breaks the silence.

 

“You know, I always knew that Pater wasn’t keen on my engagement to John, but Mater’s response to the news was a surprise. I thought she would have been furious with me for breaking with such a wealthy bachelor.” Lettice chuckles sadly. “I was awaiting the barrage of ‘stupid girls’ from her.”

 

“You know Tice, even though the two of you are not terribly close, Mater still loves you. She only wants your happiness.”

 

“Oh, I know, Leslie darling. It just came as a surprise is all.” Lettice admits. “I rather thought she liked him. She must have liked him at least a little if she invited him as a prospective suitor for me to her Hunt Ball back in 22.”

 

“Oh, she did!” Leslie answers, looking back at his sister. “She did very much, back then, but since that time, certain… err,” He struggles to find the correct words. “Things… have come to light about Sir John.”

 

“Things?” Lettice queries.

 

Leslie doesn’t immediately reply, as he shuffles his polished brown leather filed boots over the flagstones, squashing dried dirt and dust between the paving stones with gritty sounding sweeps. “I don’t know whether it my place to say.”

 

“You’re my eldest and dearest brother, Leslie.” Lettice replies with an encouraging smile breaking across her face. “If not you, then who else?”

 

Leslie’s bright blue eyes dart about the stable in a desultory way, not landing on anything, least of all his sister’s face.

 

“I don’t know what you know of the character of the man you were going to marry, Tice, but Mater was talking to her cousin Gwendolyn one time, and she revealed something rather shocking to her, which took the shine off Sir John’s recommendation as a suitably eligible bachelor.”

 

“Well, what did she say?” Lettice persists.

 

“It isn’t very nice, Tice. This is, after all, the man to whom you were up until recently still engaged to.”

 

“But I’m not now, Leslie darling. What harm can come to me over whatever the Duchess of Whitby said to Mater?”

 

“She told Mater that Sir John was having a… a…”

 

“A what?”

 

“A liaison,” Leslie finally says with evident embarrassment as his cheeks flush with red. “With a West End Gaiety Girl*******************. A Pauline someone-or-other.”

 

“Oh do you mean Paula Young?” Lettice retorts matter-of-factly.

 

Leslie is momentarily stunned.

 

“You… you know about her?”

 

Lettice rolls her eyes. “Of course I do, Leslie darling! I know about her, and the many others that came before her. I’m twenty-five you know, not some unworldly ingénue, anymore.”

 

Leslie is struck dumb by his sister’s revelation.

 

Lettice bursts out laughing. “Don’t be so old-fashioned and preposterous, Leslie! I even met Miss Young once, and I must confess that she didn’t take to me, any more than I did to her.”

 

At length, Leslie asks, “So… so you knew… about Sir John’s… his philandering? His womanising?”

 

“Yes.” Lettice replies. “A little unconventional for the bride-to-be, I know, but John told me about them before I accepted his proposal. He wanted me to be sure that I knew what I was stepping into as Lady Nettleford-Hughes, and he wanted to be clear with me about what I could, and could not expect from my marriage to him.”

 

“And you agreed?” Leslie asks in breathless amazement, barely able to believe the revelations falling from his little sister’s mouth like pearls.

 

“Admittedly, it was an error of judgement on my part, Leslie.” Lettice defends her actions. “And I’m not proud of it, but at the time, I thought Selwyn was engaged to be married to a diamond mind heiress. I had photographic proof, which in my mind was irrefutable, but which I now know was all a fabrication – a ruse of lies, elaborately set up by Lady Zinnia.”

 

“You shock me, Tice.” is all Leslie can say falteringly as he shakes his head.

 

“Would you be prepared to hear another, shock, Leslie?” Lettice asks hopefully.

 

He looks suspiciously sideways at his sister. “I’m not entirely sure, Tice.” he says nervously.

 

“Oh please, Leslie darling! Be a brick!” Lettice pleads. “I can’t tell Pater or Mater about this.”

 

Leslie looks dubiously at his sister, shakes his head and sighs heavily. “Alright Tice.”

 

“I know why Lady Zinnia has set herself so against Selwyn’s and my marriage.” Lettice replies. “Selwyn himself told me after his mother became particularly piqued during a heated argument over our union one afternoon a few weeks ago.”

 

Leslie’s demeanour immediately changes from reluctance to interest as his head swivels towards Lettice and he leans forward with great interest. “You have my attention now, Tice.”

 

“You must promise me though, that you won’t tell Mater, and especially not Pater.”

 

“But why not, Tice?”

 

“Just promise me first, Leslie, that you won’t tell Mater or Pater.” Lettice urges.

 

“Alright,” Leslie acquiesces. “I promise. But why am I forbidden to tell them?”

 

“What I am about to tell you would upset them both too much, and I have no wish for them to be hurt, or any more distressed than they already are over the debacle of my current romantic situation.”

 

“Once upon a time, you would have done anything to see mater squirm, Tice. Have you become an overnight champion of our dear Mamma?” He emphasises the last two words in a way that eludes to sarcasm. “I always thought that I was her champion.”

 

“And as Sadie’s favourite child, you are,” Lettice retorts with a heavy sigh. “But please indulge me, just this once. I promise that I won’t do it again and tax your mind.”

 

“Very well, Tice.” Leslie chuckles with bemusement. “What is this great secret that I cannot share with either of our parents?”

 

“Do you remember the last time Lady Zinnia ever came to Glynes, Leslie?”

 

A barrage of guffaws burst from Leslie’s mouth as he laughs at the ridiculousness of Lettice’s question. “It’s been years since the Duchess came to Glynes, Tice!” he utters in disbelief. “It was well before the war. How could I possibly remember that particular occasion?”

 

“Well, I remember it clearly. It is etched forever in my mind for a particular incident, but it has only come to light recently, thanks to Selwyn, that my assumptions about the cause of that incident were incorrect.”

 

“Well?” Selwyn asks, folding his arms akimbo and shifting his weight to his left foot. “When was it?”

 

“It was early winter in 1906, before the snows arrived. The ground was hard at best, and muddy at worst. Pater was leading the Glynes Hunt. You rode in it too.”

 

“I would have been, what, sixteen then?” Leslie ponders, narrowing his eyes as he stares intently into space in front of him, yet sees not the present, but the past as he recalls it. “Yes, sixteen. I still had so much to learn about how to ride properly, and how to command my horse, rather than the other way around. I was always trying to pick up tips from Pater, but on hunt days, he was there in the front, and I…” He chuckles with self-conscious embarrassment. “I most definitely was not. Lady Zinnia always enjoyed the hunt as well. I think I told you once or twice in the past when you asked me about her, of her prowess as a horsewoman. She was always out in front with Pater and the other men: a force to be reckoned with, even though she rode side-saddle. She was a spirited woman, and I think the whiff of a fox’s fear in the air, or better yet, blood, spurned her on the way oxygen feeds a fire.”

 

“I do remember you telling me that, Leslie.” Lettice confirms. “You also told me that Lady Zinnia wasn’t one for gossiping with the Mater and the other ladies in the drawing room, that she was much happier in the company of men.”

 

“I think she liked the attention of men. She was frightfully clever, you see. It scared me. I felt so, so inadequate as a young man. She only liked men who were smart, and she kept them in her thrall. I remember very little about the Duke from those days. He didn’t often come, and when he didn’t, the Duchess would be a terrible flirt withy any man who met her intellect, even the married ones. I suspect that theirs is not a happy marriage, and she craved the attention he didn’t give her, for whatever reason.”

 

“You’re quite right about that Leslie.”

 

“I am? Goodness!” Leslie exclaims in surprise. “Perhaps I was more perceptive than I gave myself credit for as a sixteen year old.”

 

“Lady Zinnia and the Duke had an arranged marriage, and they loathe each other. Well, according to Selwyn at any rate. She did, and still does, like the company of men, and apparently, she has little care for their marital status. Everyone, or rather every man, is fair game in her books.”

 

“Beastly woman. Pater told me once when we were talking about her – goodness knows why – that one of Lady Zinnia’s few female friends was Alice Keppel********************, and that she was part of King Edward’s racy Sandringham set where flirtations, and more,” He blushes self-consciously. “Were de riguer*********************.”

 

“How funny that Pater happened to mention that about her.”

 

“Funny, why?” Leslie’s eyes widen. “Surely you aren’t going to tell me that Pater and the Duchess had a… a… a liaison!”

 

“No Leslie, it’s not that much of a shocking thing, but you’re closer than you think. You see, I remember that day of the hunt in 1906 because Lady Zinnia came and found Selwyn and I playing in the hedgerows. She was furious with Selwyn for getting so grubby, but she was even angrier at me for being what she called a wild and untamable creature, leading her son astray like that.”

 

“Well, her summation of you wasn’t entirely incorrect when you were that age, Tice.” Leslie chuckles. “You were wild, stubborn and willful. If you didn’t want to do something, no-one could convince you otherwise, even when you were threatened with a spanking with the wooden spoon.” He pauses. “Are you implying that the Duchess won’t countenance your engagement with her son because of some foolish childhood play that took place between the two of you twenty years ago. You were six for pity’s sake, and Spencely would only have been seven or eight!”

 

“I always thought that that incident had something to do with it, but it turns out that the reason why she was so incredibly angry that day, so thunderous that two decades later I can still picture her rage, was because Pater refused her.”

 

“Refused her what, Tice?”

 

“Her proposal to engage in an illicit liaison with her.” Lettice replies matter-of-factly. “Selwyn says that according to his mother’s recollections, she made a proposition to him, and he refused her because he was happily married to Mater. She felt slighted.”

 

“Lady Zinnia is refusing to accept yours and Spencely’s engagement because,” Leslie lowers his voice to just above a whisper. “Pater refused her… her… advances, twenty years ago?”

 

“That’s what it boils down to, Leslie darling. She still feels the sting of Pater’s refusal, all these years later.”

 

“Well, that is shocking, my dear Tice.”

 

“But Selwyn and I are determined that Lady Zinnia isn’t going to stop us this time. Once we have irrefutable proof of her wrongdoing,” A positive lilt enters Lettice’s voice as she speaks. “We’ll be free to marry.”

 

Leslie ponders for a moment or two, looking at his little sister’s face filled with a happiness he realises that he hasn’t seen in some time. Her eyes sparkle with hope, and her elation turn up the corners of her mouth.

 

“I don’t wish to put a dampener on your enthusiasm, dear Tice,” he cautions. “And please pardon me for asking this, but are you quite sure you want to marry Spencely when his dear mamma clearly loathes you. I know Isobel doesn’t always agree with my opinions, but all in all she’s a wonderful mother-in-law.” He shakes his head sadly. “I can’t envisage Lady Zinnia being anything close to anything resembling that.”

 

Lettice shrugs.

 

“You know, Leslie, I used to fear Lady Zinnia,” Lettice replies. “But now I pity her. I see her for who she really is: a sad, deluded, mean spirited and scheming person, who holds no real power over Selwyn or I. She may think that she can break our bond, but she doesn’t realise how unbreakable it is.”

 

Leslie chuckles good-naturedly.

 

“What’s so funny, Leslie darling?”

 

“You are, Tice.” He continues to chuckle. “You may be twenty years away from that day, and perhaps not wild like you were then, but I can still see the untamable, willful and determined child that lady Zinnia disliked, very much thriving in you now.”

 

And without another word, Leslie opens up his arms, and embraces his little sister in a warm embrace which she returns in equal measure.

 

“I wish you all the luck in the world in your battle against Lady Zinnia and her poison, Tice. And if you need a champion, you need look no further than me.”

 

“Thank you, Leslie darling!” Lettice replies gratefully, her lids lowering as she tightens her grip on Leslie.

 

When at length, they break their embrace, Lettice asks as she picks up her now gleaming saddle, “Do you think Lady Zinnia would object to me riding astride, Leslie darling?”

 

For a moment, Leslie doesn’t answer.

 

“I think Lady Zinnia would object to you doing anything with a horse, dear Tice,” He chuckles sadly. “Unless it meant your untimely death.”

 

“I do believe that you may be right on that note, Leslie darling.”

 

*The 1926 General Strike was a nine-day nationwide stoppage in the United Kingdom between the third and twelfth of May. It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to support over a million coal miners facing wage cuts and longer hours. Following "Black Friday" in 1921, miners faced a lockout after refusing "not a penny off the pay, not an hour on the day" wage reductions and longer hours. About one point seven million workers paralysed transport, printing, and heavy industries temporarily. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government declared a state of emergency, using volunteers and the military to maintain essential supplies and transport. The government produced the British Gazette to counter the strikers' message. The TUC ended the strike on May the twelfth, 1926, fearing it was moving toward a revolutionary, anti-democratic action. The miners remained locked out until the autumn, eventually accepting lower pay and longer hours, without securing any concessions.

 

**Gunter’s (officially Gunter’s Tea Shop) was London’s most famous and exclusive confectionery, catering, and high-society eatery. The business was founded in 1757 at numbers 7 to 8 Berkeley Square, in Mayfair, by an Italian pastry chef named Domenico Negri. He originally named it The Pot and Pineapple. The pineapple was chosen because it was the ultimate Georgian symbol of wealth, luxury, and exotic indulgence. In 1777, an Englishman named James Gunter entered into a partnership with Negri. By 1799, Gunter became the sole proprietor and rebranded the establishment under his own name. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, freezing technology was rare and expensive. Gunter’s became globally renowned for its exotic "ices," sorbets, and ice creams. They served dramatic flavours like pine, bergamot, maple, jasmine, and even Parmesan, often frozen into intricate pewter moulds shaped like fruits or meats. Gunter’s was famous for a unique social phenomenon. Because the shop itself was small, wealthy patrons would park their open-topped horse carriages under the plane trees of Berkeley Square. Waiters would dodge traffic to sprint across the road, bringing rapidly melting ice cream right to the carriages. Gunter's wasn't just a cafe; they were massive high-end event caterers. They provided the food, multi-tiered "bride cakes," and sugar architecture for royal balls and elite weddings, including making the wedding cake for Queen Victoria’s granddaughter in 1889.

 

***The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

 

*****Maintaining a leather saddle in 1920s England was a careful, regular ritual — part horsemanship, part housekeeping, and very much tied to traditional British country life. Saddles were expensive, and proper care was a mark of a competent groom or gentleman rider. Dubbin (a wax fat mixture of tallow, oil, and beeswax) was used for waterproofing, protecting from mud and rain, and giving a soft sheen. It was especially common in hunting and country saddles exposed to wet English weather.

 

******The idiom “Hale and hearty”, meaning “in excellent health and spirits”, comes from two old English words meaning healthy, whole, and strong, and the phrase developed in the Middle Ages, later becoming a fixed expression in Eighteenth and Nineteenth century British English, most commonly used in country speech. Considered slightly old fashioned by the 1920s, it was still respectable, and would not have been out of place for a country house butler, a county doctor, or country gentleman to say someone was “hale and hearty.”

 

*******Townhouses of aristocratic and upper middle class households in London and other major cities, often had mews behind them — purpose built rows of stables services by a shared private laneway with living quarters for grooms above. These were later converted into garages for the families’ motorcars, and these days in the aftermath of the death of the big houses, are sometimes all that remain of large properties, converted into small domestic dwellings and studio apartments, often called “mews apartments”.

 

********Even after the advent of affordable and reliable motorcars, it was not unknown for wealthy families to still keep horses in 1920s London. The decade is a fascinating transitional moment: horses were still everywhere, yet clearly on their way out. Aristocratic and upper middle class households in places like Mayfair, Kensington, Chelsea, and Hampstead often kept one to several horses because they had access to green spaces like Hampstead Heath and Hyde Park to exercise them. Uses for these favourite mounts included riding in Hyde Park (which was still a very fashionable pastime in the 1920s and a place to see and be seen in society), hunting (horses kept in London but ridden in the country) and carriage driving in earlier years, though rare by the mid 1920s.

 

*********Rotten Row is the famous horse riding track in Hyde Park, London, long associated with aristocratic display, fashionable society, and equestrian tradition. Rotten Row is a broad, sand covered bridle path running along the south side of Hyde Park. It stretches from Hyde Park Corner toward Kensington Palace. The surface was originally crushed gravel and sand, chosen to protect horses’ legs. Created in the late Seventeenth Century as a safe riding route for King William III between Kensington Palace and Whitehall, the name likely comes from “Route du Roi” (French: the King’s Road), which over time became “Rotten Row.” By the Victorian era, it had become the centre of London’s equestrian social life. In the 1920s, Rotten Row was still a prestigious place to ride, though less crowded than in Victorian times. You would still see gentlemen riders exercising their saddle horses, ladies riding side saddle (a tradition still practiced, though a declining by the 1920s), mounted police, grooms exercising horses from nearby mews stables and fashionable London society taking morning rides, including members of the Royal Family, not least of all King George V who loved riding his horses on Rotten Row. Even as motorcars took over the city, Rotten Row preserved the ritual of morning rides in Hyde Park. It remained a symbol of status, tradition, and London’s equestrian heritage.

 

**********The 1920s saw a major wave of mansion demolitions and flat building in central London. It was one of the biggest physical and social transformations of London between the two World Wars. Huge Victorian and Edwardian mansions in Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington, Bayswater, St John’s Wood became financially impossible to run after the Great War and servant shortages, taxation, and changing social habits made multi storey townhouses impractical. Land values soared as large plots occupied by single mansions were replaced by blocks of twenty to sixty flats.

 

***********A mansion flat was a high quality apartment in a purpose built block, usually with a porter or concierge, central heating, electric lifts, large and spacious rooms not typical of what we would expect in a flat today, modern plumbing and conveniences, decorative brickwork or stucco, and sometimes servants’ quarters on the top floor or a maid’s room adjunct to the owner’s living quarters. They were marketed as luxurious, modern, and socially respectable — a big shift from the Victorian suspicion of “flat living.” Living in a mansion flat became fashionable, a sign of modernity, was practical and international in style since Paris and New York had already embraced apartment living before London. Many aristocratic families sold their London mansions and moved into flats — a symbolic shift in British social life. In Mayfair Park Lane was transformed almost entirely between 1918 and 1930, with mansions replaced by flats and hotels. Kensington and South Kensington saw many large houses replaced by mansion blocks such as Kensington Mansions, Queen’s Gate Court. Middle-Class Bayswater became a centre of early flat development since the 1880s, but the 1920s saw a second boom. In St John’s Wood, large villas were demolished for modern flats like Wellington Court and Boydell Court, whilst in Bloomsbury, Georgian houses were converted into flats or demolished for new blocks.

 

************An upper class British person in the 1920s would never have used the term “pregnant” in polite company, even if the company was a parent or sibling. The word was considered too blunt, too physical, and not socially refined. Instead, they used a small set of euphemistic, decorous phrases that signalled the condition without naming it directly. Pregnancy was treated as a private affair, and was not discussed openly in mixed company. Euphemisms used included: “In a delicate condition” — the most common polite euphemism; gentle, discreet, and socially safe; “Expecting” — widely used, softer than “pregnant,” suitable for drawing room conversation and close family discussions; “In the family way” — an older phrase deemed acceptable but slightly domestic rather than elegant; and “With child” — archaic by the 1920s, but still used in rural or traditional households.

 

*************Jodhpurs in the 1920s (and earlier) were made from a few specific, traditional materials — all chosen for durability, flexibility, and the ability to withstand riding wear. This included twill cotton, which was the most common fabric by the mid 1920s. It was prized for its strong and durable diagonal weave, its breathability and the ease with which they could be washed.

 

**************Bramley’s Seedling is a classic local heritage variety English cooking apple — large, green, sharp, and powerful. This variety was very common in farm orchards and cottage gardens throughout the West Country, and by the 1920s it was already the dominant culinary variety in counties like Wiltshire.

 

***************A "home farm" is typically a farm that is part of a large country estate and provides food for the main house. In a British context, it was historically the land farmed directly by the landowner or an employed manager, often while the rest of the estate was rented out to tenant farmers.

 

****************Used as a gentleman’s everyday knife, a penknife is a small, elegant folding knife which was originally used for trimming quill pens. By the 1920s, with quills a thing of the past, it would have been used by the country squire to slice up freshly picked fruit, open letters in the absence of a letter opener, or used for small tasks like to cut stray soft, sapling age branches or cut twine. Upper class men in the country often carried one on their person. Penknives were often silver handled or bone handled.

 

*****************Referring to hypocrisy, highlighting a situation where someone criticises another person for a fault that they themselves share, the idiom originated in the early 1600s from the Spanish novel “Don Quixote”, which was translated into English by Thomas Shelton in 1620.

 

******************A tweed hacking jacket is the classic, practical riding jacket worn by both men and women in the British countryside — and in the 1920s, it was the everyday choice for a woman going out for a ride or a gallop on her own land. It’s the informal counterpart to the formal riding habit coat: warm, durable, and built for movement. A hacking jacket is a single breasted, tailored riding jacket made from sturdy tweed, designed specifically for comfort and mobility in the saddle. It is of a medium length cut (longer than a modern blazer) with a slightly nipped waist to give the cut an elegant look. It features a vented back for movement and slanted “hacking” pockets which were easy to reach whilst mounted.

 

*******************Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

********************Alice Frederica Keppel was a British society hostess and a long-time mistress and confidante of King Edward VII. Keppel grew up at Duntreath Castle, the family seat of the Edmonstone baronets in Scotland. She was the youngest child of Mary Elizabeth, née Parsons, and Sir William Edmonstone, 4th Baronet. In 1891 she married George Keppel, an army officer, and they had two daughters. Alice Keppel became one of the best society hostesses of the Edwardian era. Her beauty, charm and discretion impressed London society and brought her to the attention of the future King Edward VII in 1898, when he was still Prince of Wales, whose mistress she remained until his death, lightening the dark moods of his later years, and holding considerable influence. Through her younger daughter, Sonia Cubitt , Alice Keppel is the great-grandmother of Queen Camilla, the former mistress and second wife of King Edward VII's great-great-grandson King Charles III.

 

*********************In French, de rigueur means "out of strictness" or "according to strict etiquette"; one definition of our word rigor, to which rigueur is related, is "the quality of being strict, unyielding, or inflexible." In English, we tend to use de rigueur to describe a fashion or custom that is so commonplace within a context that it seems a prescribed, mandatory part of it.

 

This scene in a stable may look real to you, however you will find that it is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The leather saddle, which is made of genuine leather and had been worn, is a 1:12 artisan piece that was made in America. The leather riding crop, also made authentically like a real crop, was made by the same artisan.

 

The black velvet riding hat with its red satin lining is an artisan miniature. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism such as these are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. The maker of this hat is unknown, but is American.

 

The tin of leather wax is a 1:12 size artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to the label and the shapes of the tin.

 

The apple, formed using polymer clay, was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The basket in the background was also made by them.

 

The wooden stool the saddle is sitting on, and the yellow polishing rag came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The boxes you see in the background came from a specialist stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay. They have been aged and weathered on purpose.

 

The brick wall at the back is a very special piece in my miniatures collection. Made painstakingly by hand, this was made by my very dear Flickr friend and artist Kim Hagar (www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/), she surprised me with this amazing piece entitled “Wall” as a Christmas gift the year before last, with the intention that I use it in my miniatures photos. Each brick has been individually cut and then worn to give texture before being stuck to the backing board and then painted. She has created several floors in the same way for some of her own miniature projects which you can see in her “In Miniature” album here: www.flickr.com/photos/bkhagar_gallery/albums/721777203007....

As I write this, it’s kicking off big style outside. Monstrous gusts of wind and the electricity keeps flickering on and off. The woodburner is grumbling as it does its best against the blasts coming down the chimney and our highly strung cat is looking even more neurotic than she usually does. It’s going to be like this for a couple of hours at least before the eye of the storm moves eastward along the English Channel. Ah, the power has gone now. Apart from anything else, the fireside is providing some light. Latest update is that forty-three thousand homes in Cornwall are without power. Everyone is indoors, except for Ali’s nephew, whose job it is to try and restore the electricity supply to those forty-three thousand homes. Along with some colleagues I presume. Apparently he just told his wife that he’d see her in the morning. Just think, when you’re cowering under your kitchen table in a few hours from now, he’ll be at the top of an electricity pylon beating his chest as he tinkers about with an adjustable spanner and a pair of screwdrivers.

 

Earlier today I headed out for a very brief visit to Portreath after a morning of heavy rain that didn’t pause for a moment. I’d already checked the conditions and knew the tide was out and the sea flat, as it sometimes is in the build up to an Atlantic howler. As I arrived at the empty beach, the hard rain eased. Not what I wanted. I’d come prepared with the trusty old weather sealed gear built to withstand just about everything and a plan to try and capture the rain falling heavily across the water. Besides myself, the only other people on the beach were a pair of anglers. I’d seen them walking along the road towards the water just ahead of me. Fortune favours the intrepid from time to time, although the only thing I saw this chap catch was a lump of seaweed, which he studied carefully for some moments before deciding it wasn’t suitable for the dinner table later..

 

The sea was completely benign, with not a trace of what was due to follow as the darkness came along two hours later. Not much wind to speak of - just murky mizzly stuff, the bottom of the pile as far as shooting conditions go. Strangely silent. Precisely why I was here. And while the rain was no longer dropping in nice fat downward bullets, a soaking film of airborne grime was being driven horizontally across the beach. The sort of rain that drenches you from within before you’ve even noticed it. I have a very good raincoat, but I hadn’t bothered with the waterproof trousers, not for a fifteen minute stop on the beach. Within five of those fifteen minutes the trousers were sodden, but I really didn’t care. Nor did the guys with the fishing rods. In a few hours from now it would be too dangerous (and too dark) to be here, but for now this was fine. Even if the sea’s raging you can get close enough with the long lens. If I could just catch a moment with the rain charging from one side of the frame to the other.

 

I didn’t stay long. There were pasties to collect from the bakery, and there was work to be done at home. A few things in the garden needed taming before they could whomp into the house and the cars later. Trousers to dry. And then there were movies to download onto fully charged laptops, for when the electricity supply bade us goodnight. Ali’s already watching one - Jude Law seems to be philandering again. Phones, torches and candles, and we forgot to boil some water and pour it into thermos flasks. Besides which, once I’d taken a few shots, there wasn’t really much of a reason to stay here drowning under the sky. As I drove home, the heavens opened with full vent once more. In the early evening the family WhatsApp hummed with activity. We could all feel that strange air of calm before the battlefront in the sky charged over the coast and raced towards us with its teeth bared. Last time I looked out of the window the treetops were all waving about wildly at the edge of the garden. But at least this means they were all still standing I suppose.

 

I guess I’ll be able to share this story at some point - unless the world has ended. It’s difficult to be certain these days. So for now I’ll settle into a glass of Jameson’s and a film of my own. That fireside is looking like a nice comfortable spot right now.

The window faces northeast, away from winter sun. During the darkest time of the year, in November, the mini Phalaenopsis sends out its new flower stem. For months it reaches, buds, and waits. When the window becomes brighter in February, it begins to bloom. Slowly but reliably, it blooms and blooms and blooms. In late spring when a few moments of morning sunlight begin to fall directly on the little orchid, its newest flowers open toward the philandering sun. It does not need these moments of warmth and light, but visibly luxuriates in them each morning for a few weeks.

 

Projecty 365, 2023 Edition: Day 134/365

 

Thank you to everyone who visits, faves, and comments.

Philandering - Part 2: "It started with a fish"

Arctic terns. Fish works better than chocolate and flowers...

Quatre-yeux gris, Gray four-eyed opossum

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October last year that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice returned to Cavendish Mews and milled over her options over a week as she reeled from the news. Then, after that week, she knew exactly what to do to resolve the unpleasant issues raised by Lady Zinnia’s unwelcome news about her son. Taking extra care in her dress, she took herself off to the neighbouring upper-class London suburb of Belgravia and paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.

 

As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited Sir John as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Although she did not become engaged to him then, Lettice did reacquaint herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by mutual friends Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate in 1924. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again later that year at the Portland Gallery’s autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. When Lettice’s understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, fell apart, Lettice agreed to Sir John’s proposal. Then, during the General Strike* that almost brought the nation to a standstill, Selwyn and Lettice were reintroduced, and she found out that Selwyn wasn’t engaged to another woman at all, as she was led to believe by Lady Zinnia, and it had all been a fabrication, leaving her in a quandary over what to do: break her engagement with Sir John and marry the man she truly loves and has never stopped loving, or remain engaged to Sir John, preserving his honour and the good name of her own family. Eventually, with some careful persuasion from friends, Lettice made the decision to end her engagement.

 

Thus, today we find ourselves at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home after breaking her engagement to wealthy Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, hoping to seek sanctuary and lay low and keep out of London whilst the sensation of her broken engagement becomes the talk over every breakfast table, ladies luncheon at Gunter’s** and society dinner at the Savoy***. Old enough to be Lettice’s father, Sir John was, until their ill-fated engagement, still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. For the sake of her family’s reputation and her own, she hopes that confining herself to Glynes for the duration will allow her to avoid any gossip or speculation as to why she ceased her engagement to Sir John.

 

And so, we are in the very opulent and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its grand dimensions, high ceiling and gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings – a room that has always been one of Lettice’s favourites in the house, and a place where many significant events in her life have taken place. It is from here that she developed her love for collecting fine Limoges porcelain to emulate the collection amassed by her great, great paternal grandmother Lady Georgiana Chetwynd. No matter what time of day, the room is always light and airy thanks to its large full-length windows and beautiful golden yellow Georgian wallpaper decorated in a pattern of delicate blossoms and paper lanterns which seems almost to exude warmth and golden illumination. Whilst decorated with many generations of conspicuous consumption, it is not overly cluttered and it does not have the suffocating feel of Lady Sadie’s morning room, which she loathes, and it smells familiarly of a mixture of fresh air, bees wax polish and just a waft of roses. Lettice has just finished telling her parents, her brother and his wife that her engagement to Sir John is over.

 

“So, you see, Mamma and Pappa, I’ve decided that in light of the fact that Selwyn isn’t engaged and never has been to anyone else, it was unfair to John to continue our engagement, when I was in love with Selwyn.”

 

Glancing between the faces of the Viscount and Lady Sadie, Leslie and Arabella, she can see only stunned looks. Their surprise is also confirmed by their lack of response following Lettice’s surprise announcement. The room stays silent, save for the quiet ticking of several clocks set about polished surfaces around them, the hiss of dusty wood as it burns in the grate, and the muffled twitter of birds in the bushes outside the drawing room windows.

 

“Well say something.” Lettice prompts, but no-one says anything. Only her father, the Viscount, clears his throat awkwardly, breaking the silence. “Anything.” She looks imploringly to her parents seated either side of the fireplace like a pair of stiff andirons****. “Pater? Mater?”

 

Lettice isn’t quite sure what to do, and with the thick and awkward silence smothering her, she goes on in rather a rush of words, “I know it was foolish of me, and… and you have every right to be cross with me. I’ve tried to do my best to keep my reputation and that of the family as unscathed by this mess as possible.”

 

It is the Viscount who answers first. “Cross with you, my girl?” His eyes sparkle with joy as his lips curl upwards at the end. “Why on earth should I, or your mother be cross with you when you have brought us such wonderful news!”

 

“What?” Lettice asks in surprise.

 

The Viscount leaps with a sprightly gait from the stiff backed gilded salon chair upholstered with fabric painstakingly decorated with embroidery by his mother, causing Lettice to rise. He embraces her in a tight hug, startling Lettice who was not expecting such jubilation from her father at her announcement.

 

“Oh, my girl! My dear girl!” the Viscount chortles. “Cross?” He releases her and holds her at arm’s length. The old man is beaming broadly now, his face flushed with colour, and Lettice can see that his eyes are glistening with tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. “This truly is the most wonderful news!”

 

“It… it is?” Lettice asks in bewilderment.

 

“You’ve made me so happy!” the Viscount goes on with a chortle, letting her go.

 

“I have?” Lettice asks again, struck with surprise by her father’s ecstatic reaction.

 

“You were right, Sadie! One swallow does not a summer make!” he crows with delight as he almost skips around the gilded chinoiserie tea table with its galleried top on which a silver tea service and a plate of Mrs. Casterton’s homemade biscuits sit, and leans forward, placing a kiss tenderly on his wife’s lips as she raises her head to him. “A hastily arranged engagement does not necessarily lead to an ill-fated marriage!” He laughs, eliciting great guffaws of joy.

 

“Mamma?” Lettice asks her mother, looking in astonishment as she too beams at Lettice with a broad smile and tears in her eyes. She glances in bewilderment over to her brother and sister-in-law, who remain seated in silence on one of the gilded Louis Quatorze sofas, but they can only shrug, not understanding the Viscount or Lady Sadie’s jubilant reactions either.

 

“Oh forgive us, Lettice.” Lady Sadie says, standing up from her salon armchair next to the crackling fire and walking over to her perplexed daughter. “You must think your father and I have lost our senses.”

 

“Well,” Lettice heaves a heavy sigh that makes her shoulders rise and then fall with relief. “I must confess that I was expecting an animated reaction from you both,” She pauses. “But perhaps not one of jubilation.”

 

Lady Sadie chuckles lightly. “You will have to indulge your father and I, Lettice my dear, but neither of us were particularly keen on your engagement to Sir John.” She places a bejewelled hand on Lettice’s cheek and caresses her face lovingly with a beaming smile, before lowering her digits and giving Lettice’s forearm a gentle, conciliatory squeeze. “And I knew it was only a matter of time before you came to your senses.”

 

“And you were right, Sadie my dear!” the Viscount laughs. “You were quite right.”

 

“Of course I was right, Cosmo.” she replies matter-of-factly.

 

“I mean, I knew Pappa had his reservations about the marriage, but not you, Mamma.” Lettice replies. “I thought you would have been furious with me. You always seemed so keen on a match with Sir John.” she adds, “After all, you did invite him as an eligible bachelor to your Hunt Ball back in 22.”

 

“Yes… well…” Lady Sadie blusters as she withdraws a dainty lace trimmed handkerchief from the sleeve of her ecru coloured knitted cardigan and dabs at her nose and the corners of her eyes as the tears of joy threaten to spill. ‘We are all entitled to make mistakes on occasion.”

 

“A mistake, Mamma?” Lettice queries.

 

Lady Sadie suddenly realises that in her happiness at the news of the annulment of Lettice’s engagement to Sir John, she has been more candid and disclosing than she wanted to be. “Did I say a mistake?” she asks hesitantly. She knows all about Sir John’s philandering thanks to her cousin Gwendolyn, the Duchess of Whitby, and her own careful enquiries after the fact, but she does not want Lettice to know about her former fiancée’s womanising. “I… I merely mean that…” she stammers. “That you and Selwyn seemed to get along so well, and were so suited,” She gulps the air awkwardly. “And… and you were so unhappy when Lady Zinnia sent him away to Durban. It would have been a mistake for you to marry Sir John, if you had feelings for Selwyn, which you so obviously do.”

 

“We felt your engagement to Sir John was a little rash, my girl. That’s all.” the Viscount carries on, relieving his wife from having to explain herself any further. “Something of a hasty reaction, made in response to Selwyn’s apparent engagement.”

 

“Which we now know was simply a silly misunderstanding!” Lady Sadie adds with a relieved, breathy laugh.

 

“I shall telephone the Personal Column desk of The Times***** presently.” the Viscount says gaily, still beaming at Lettice’s news. “To announce the withdrawal of your engagement******.”

 

“Before you do that, Pappa, you might want to hear what I have to say about Selwyn’s engagement.” Lettice says seriously.

 

“But I thought you just said he wasn’t engaged, Tice.” Bella pipes up from the sofa next to Leslie.

 

“Oh no!” Lady Sadie exclaims, raising her long fingers to her lips in concern.

 

“What’s this?” the Viscount asks, his jubilation evaporating immediately as he sinks back down, deflated onto his seat with a sigh. “The roué! The cad!”

 

“He’s not engaged, Bella.” Lettice affirms with a calming gesture. “Please! Don’t worry, Mamma and Pappa. If I could only exp…”

 

“Oh, what a relief!” Lady Sadie exclaims as she too sinks back into the comfortable confines of her chair, fanning her phlegmatic face with her handkerchief as she does. “Did you hear that, Cosmo? Selwyn is definitely not engaged.”

 

“Thank god! Err… then I apologise for what I just said about young Spencely.” The Viscount says in a softer voice, tinged with remorse.

 

“I don’t know how many more shocks I can take in one day.” Lady Sadie goes on, still fanning herself. “Really Lettice! You’ll give me a turn.”

 

“For goodness sake!” Leslie suddenly bursts. “Mamma! Pappa!” He eyes his parents with a steely gaze. “Please stop being melodramatic! This isn’t about you! Hush and let Tice tell us what she wants to.” He nods with approval as the pair sit meekly in their seats, both suddenly looking sheepish in their places. “Now. Please go on, Tice. You were about to say?”

 

“Thank you, Leslie.” Lettice acknowledges her brother’s help with gratitude in her voice. “There was no, as you put it, Mamma, ‘silly misunderstanding’.”

 

“What?” Lady Sadie gasps, raising the handkerchief to her mouth again. “But you just…”

 

“Selwyn is not engaged, Mamma.” Lettice quickly cuts her mother off. “And nor was he, to anyone. However, there was no misunderstanding around the news that he was, being reported to me. It was a deliberate, unkind and underhand act, directed solely at me to send me leaping into some else’s arms, be it John or anyone really, other than Selwyn.”

 

“As I recall, Tice” Leslie remarks. “You said that you were shown newspaper articles that professed to Spencely’s engagement to the daughter of a… a platinum mine owner’s daughter, was it?”

 

“A diamond mine heiress,” Lettice corrects her brother. “Named Kitty Avendale.” She pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath to steel herself before continuing, the memory of being shown the offensive articles by Lady Zinnia in her Park Lane mansion still hurtful to her. “But they were all fabricated, very convincingly, and that’s why I believed that Selwyn really was engaged. They seemed, they looked so genuine.”

 

“Fabricated?” Leslie asks.

 

“By whom, Tice?” queries his wife with concern. “Who could do such a horrible thing?”

 

“Who would be so bloody despicable… so damn deplorable?” the Viscount seethes, his shackles suddenly up.

 

“Language, Cosmo!” chides Lady Sadie, looking aghast at him from her seat across from his.

 

“Well!” blusters the Viscount. “I damn well think I have a right to be irked, Sadie, and express it too. The blighter deserves to be hauled up by his bootstraps******* for what he’s done to our daughter!”

 

“Or hers.” Bella suggests tentatively in a gentle voice.

 

“What?” the Viscount roars.

 

“Well it… it could be a lady who masterminded the fabrication, sir.” Bella continues timidly as she slips closer to her husband.

 

“Balderdash!” the Viscount retorts with a derisive snort, inadvertently cutting Lettice off as she goes to speak.

 

“Cosmo!” Lady Sadie exclaims again, looking reproachfully at her husband. “Really!”

 

However, the Viscount ignores her, focussing his attentions on his young daughter-in-law instead. “Don’t talk such nonsense, Arabella! No lady would be so deceitful, or sink so low.”

 

“Then your exposure to ladies is sadly lacking, dear Cosmo.” Lady Sadie counters with a doleful shake of her head. “In my experience, I have known women who would sink as low as to fabricate their version of the truth, or indeed slide lower still, and let nothing impede them from achieving what they set out to do to disguise the truth, cheat another or shift blame away from themselves.”

 

“For pity’s sake, Pappa and Mamma!” Leslie implores. “Do please hush and let Lettice finish her story.”

 

“It was Lady Zinnia.” Lettice announces plainly. “Lady Zinnia fabricated them all.”

 

“Zinnia?” the Viscount’s eyes grow wide. “Surely not! Why on earth would Zinnia do something as low as that?”

 

“I know we haven’t seen her since before the war,” Lady Sadie adds. “But in spite of that, she’s always been such a good friend to our family. Hasn’t she Cosmo?”

 

“Indeed yes, my dear!” the Viscount affirms, folding his arms akimbo across his chest in a defensive gesture. “I can hardly believe that a lady like Zinnia would do such a thing.”

 

Lettice remembers how Leslie has said in the past that their father and Lady Zinnia were close.

 

“Believe it or not, it is true.” Lettice counters with a stern tone. “And we are currently gathering evidence to support this.”

 

“We?” the Viscount asks.

 

“Gerald and I,” Lettice elucidates, mentioning her oldest and closest childhood chum.

 

“Gerald Bruton?” Lady Sadie queries in astonishment.

 

“Yes Mamma. Gerald has kindly engaged the services of a Pinkerton******** to pursue lines of enquiries in Durban and Nairobi that are stymied here by misplaced deference to the Duchess.”

 

“Oh Lettice! For shame!” Lady Sadie exclaims, grasping the elegant, gilded arms of her chair with a tightening grip.

 

“You’re mother is right, Lettice.” the Viscount chides his daughter, defending his wife’s outburst at the same time. “Hiring a Pinkerton, for whatever noble reason, is a grubby business! You don’t want to get your name mixed up with any of that kind of business.”

 

“Well, thanks to Gerald, I won’t be.” Lettice goes on with a smile. “No matter what happens. Gerald kindly arranged the engagement of a Mr. Cookson under his own name, rather than mine, keeping our family name out of the whole sordid business, at risk to his own reputation, should anything untoward happen.”

 

“Gerald did?” Lady Sadie asks in a surprised voice.

 

“He did, Mamma. In fact, one could go so far as to say that he insisted on it.”

 

“Really?” Lady Sadie remarks.

 

“That’s very selfless of him.” the Viscount opines. “I’ve always liked young Bruton, ever since he was a lad and the two of you were taking lessons together up in the schoolroom. Unlike Roland, he’s a good sort of chap.”

 

“Well, I have a good deal more to thank Gerald for than just arranging Mr. Cookson’s services.” Lettice goes on. “Were it not for Gerald, I would not have met Selwyn again. He was the one who ran into Selwyn during the General Strike, listened to what he had to say, which was more than I was prepared to do at that moment, and then convinced him to follow him to the volunteer canteen********* I was working in, and pleaded Selwyn’s case, imploring me to listen to him.”

 

“Sounds like Gerald has been a bit of a brick for you, Tice.” Leslie remarks.

 

“Oh, he has, Leslie. He’s been wonderful, throughout all of this.”

 

As Lady Sadie listens to her son and daughter, a sick feeling curdles her stomach as she silently starts to question the way she has treated Gerald since his unwelcome comments at her Hunt Ball back in 1922. She begins to realise that she may well have misjudged him.

 

“But why would Lady Zinnia be against your marrying her son, Lettice?” Arabella asks. “I thought you said that she had come to some sort of arrangement with Selwyn.”

 

“She had, or so we thought, Bella. Selwyn had agreed not to correspond with me for the year Lady Zinnia banished him to Durban, and in return, she agreed that if he returned feeling the same way about me as he did when he left, that she would allow us to marry. We were under the assumption that she would keep her end of the bargain, but really she had no such intentions. She wanted to bundle Selwyn off so she could start this elaborate ruse to trick me into believing that he was engaged to someone else, and no longer cared for me, so that I would then marry someone else.”

 

“But why would she be so against you two marrying, Tice?” Arabella goes on. “I don’t understand, especially if what Sadie says is true about her being such a good friend to the family.”

 

Lettice knows the truth regarding Lady Zinnia’s proposal of an elicit liaison with her father when both of them were married, and his subsequent refusal, which was the catalyst of her refusal to allow Lettice and Selwyn to marry, but she doesn’t want to embarrass her father, or upset her mother by telling the sordid tale, so she uses the half-truth Lady Zinnia told her.

 

“She doesn’t think our family is aristocratic enough. She thinks we’re too insignificant, and bucolic.”

 

“Rubbish!” the Viscount retorts. “Chetwynds can be traced back to Norman times, and can be found mentioned in the Doomsday Book**********! You can’t get a great deal more damn aristocratic, venerable and ancient than that!”

 

“She is using that as an excuse, Pappa. We know that. The fact is that as far as Lady Zinnia is concerned, Selwyn has no say in whom he will marry. It is entirely her decision, and she had other marriages planned which are advantageous to her.”

 

Lady Sadie’s face drains of colour as she remembers Gerald’s warning to her, albeit in a slurred and drunken way, at her Hunt Ball in 1922. He had tried to tell her that Selwyn would not be able to marry Lettice for love, and that Lady Zinnia would choose his future bride from amongst the matches she thought suitable. He tried to warn her and she didn’t listen. She remains locked in her own thoughts for a few minutes, allowing the burble of her daughter’s, son’s and husband’s voice to drift around her, bot listening, until Lettice says something that brings her back to the present situation with a jolt.

 

“There is something else I must tell you too, that Mr. Cookson has uncovered.” Lettice says seriously.

 

“That sounds rather foreboding, Lettice my girl.” The Viscount says.

 

“It’s not a pleasant revelation, Pappa.” his daughter admits.

 

“Best get on with it then, eh what?” the Viscount encourages her seriously.

 

“Though his investigations, Mr Cookson has found that Lionel has been complicit in the ruse regarding Selwyn’s fabricated engagement, which means he would be following, whether knowingly or not, Lady Zinnia’s instructions.”

 

“No!” Leslie exclaims. “Surely even Lionel wouldn’t stoop so low?”

 

“Wouldn’t he, Leslie?” Lettice asks rhetorically. “He hates us all, as he places the misfortunes he so foolishly brought upon himself, squarely at our feet.” She shakes her head slowly. “He was disparaging about my arrangement with Selwyn, which he had heard about either though a letter from Mamma, or the social pages of the London newspapers circulating in Nairobi. He told me that it would all end up being nothing at all. Wouldn’t it please him no end to see me punished, as he himself has been punished, by being part of ruining my chances of a happy marriage?”

 

“God Lionel is worse than a beast!” Leslie spits hotly. “To treat us all with such contempt.”

 

“He’s diabolical, Leslie darling.” Arabella remarks, soothing her husband by rubbing his arm gently.

 

“There is no such person as Kitty Avendale, but there is a girl matching Kitty’s likeness called Kathy Daleeth, who is employed by Lionel at his Charlie Chet horse breeding stud in the Aberdare Range***********. We believe that Lionel was passing Kathy off as Kitty at the Muthaiga Club in Nairobi, to establish her in British Kenyan************ society, before she moved on to Durban to further Lady Zinnia’s plans by appearing in as many photographs with Selwyn as she could, which could then be used by Lady Zinnia to help make the articles she showed me all the more convincing. What better proof is there than photographic proof?”

 

“He wrote to me…” Lady Sadie suddenly interjects in a dazed voice.

 

“Who did, Sadie?” the Viscount asks.

 

“Lionel.” she answers flatly. “He wrote to me a few times of a mysterious benefactress, who he claims is a British aristocrat of some significance, purportedly, who has a great passion for thoroughbreds and steeplechasers and paid him very good money, probably more than is prudent, for several thoroughbreds from his stud, to be shipped back here to England.”

 

“Could that mysterious benefactress be Lady Zinnia?” Leslie asks aloud.

 

“Yes, I remember you telling me about her earlier this year, Mamma.” Lettice goes on. “After you’d received a letter from Lionel. You said she preferred her anonymity and had deep pockets.”

 

“He hasn’t written to ask for your father to settle his drinking and gambling debts for months now, either.” Lady Sadie adds.

 

“What if she paid Lionel for more than just horses?” Leslie remarks in a whisper, his eyes darting to Lettice’s, holding her gaze.

 

“That damnable monster!” the Viscount suddenly bursts, roaring to life, getting to his feet. “That idiot! The fool!” he goes on angrily, his face reddening and contorting with rage.

 

“Careful Cosmo!” Lady Sadie exclaims. “Your blood pressure., dear”

 

“Oh to hell with my blood pressure, and to hell with Lionel too!” the Viscount yells angrily. “This is the very last straw! I shall punish him well and truly! I shall cut off his whole allowance! Let’s see how long he can live off his own ill gotten gains, gambling and carousing at the Muthaiga Club!”

 

“You’ll do no such thing, Pappa!” Lettice hurriedly interjects.

 

“What?” the older man’s tirade comes to a sudden halt.

 

“I said no, Pappa.” Lettice reiterates. “You won’t cut his allowance.”

 

“Now see here, my girl! I’m your father, and I can do what I damn well like with Lionel’s allowance!”

 

“Cosmo! Language please!” Lady Sadie implores her husband again.

 

“How can you defend that traitorous worm, when he’s trying to cause great injury to you, Tice?” Leslie asks.

 

“No, Pappa!” Lettice insists again. “You mustn’t cut his allowance, even if you want to do so.”

 

“Why the hell shouldn’t I? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t!”

 

“Because if you do, Pappa, you’ll be giving the game away. All that work that Mr. Cookson has done in uncovering what he has for me thus far, will all be for naught.” Lettice sighs heavily before continuing, “Lady Zinnia will see the game is afoot, and like a startled deer she will vanish. Mr. Cookson is still making connections between Lady Zinnia, Lionel and these fabricated newspaper articles. Selwyn and I need definitive proof to set before Lady Zinnia. Without that, she’ll never agree to our marrying. Whereas, if we confront her with irrefutable proof of her scheming, and we threaten to expose her wrongdoings, she can’t refuse us. So please Pappa,” She looks imploringly to her father. “Don’t sever Lionel’s allowance. Just let it continue as normal, so he doesn’t suspect anything.”

 

“Tice has a point, Pappa.” Leslie remarks. “And a good one at that.”

 

“But it sticks in my craw, to pay my own son to be duplicitous and undermine his sister.” the Viscount mutters as he shakes his head.

 

“It does in mine too, Cosmo,” Lady Sadie says gently. “But Lettice is right. You’d be declaring something was afoot, and since Lionel can’t have done anything here in England to raise your ire to cause a cut to his allowance, and since, despite what he says, he must know he is aiding Zinnia to ruin Lettice’s happiness, he would report it back to her, and then we would no longer be on the front foot.”

 

“We, Mamma?” Lettice asks.

 

“Of course Lettice.” Lady Sadie says matter-of-factly, brushing down her skirt. “When one of us is in a tight corner, we all come together to assist him,” She coughs lightly. “Or her. And sometimes,” She turns and looks at her husband, giving him a hard stare. “That means stepping back from our natural reactions and doing what is right for the greater good.”

 

“Oh!” grumbles the Viscount begrudgingly. “Oh alright. I won’t penalise Lionel.”

 

“Very good, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie replies with a curt nod of approval. Returning her gaze to her daughter she goes on with a steely tone. “There we are, Lettice. The issue of alerting that ghastly Zinnia woman is rectified.”

 

“Mamma!” Lettice gasps in surprise.

 

The older woman picks up her teacup and leans forward to take up the silver teapot, before topping up her half empty vessel. “It might still come as a surprise to you, Lettice my dear, but your father isn’t the only one who loves you out of the two of us.”

 

“For now!” the Viscount barks before the astonished Lettice can reply. He seethes inn his seat with a look of thunder on his face, his arms crossed over his slightly podgy stomach as it protrudes from his golden yellow shepherd’s check waistcoat**************. “He will get his comeuppance, Sadie. I’ll make sure of that!”

 

“Yes, yes, of course you will, Cosmo dear.” his wife replies with a dismissive air as she settles back in her seat. “You may punish him as harshly as you see fit,” She pauses and stirs her cup of tea with her teaspoon looking like the cat who ate the cream*************** as she stares up at Lettice triumphantly. “Once Lettice firmly has that wedding ring on her finger, and not a moment before.”

 

*The 1926 General Strike was a nine-day nationwide stoppage in the United Kingdom between the third and twelfth of May. It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to support over a million coal miners facing wage cuts and longer hours. Following "Black Friday" in 1921, miners faced a lockout after refusing "not a penny off the pay, not an hour on the day" wage reductions and longer hours. About one point seven million workers paralysed transport, printing, and heavy industries temporarily. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government declared a state of emergency, using volunteers and the military to maintain essential supplies and transport. The government produced the British Gazette to counter the strikers' message. The TUC ended the strike on May the twelfth, 1926, fearing it was moving toward a revolutionary, anti-democratic action. The miners remained locked out until the autumn, eventually accepting lower pay and longer hours, without securing any concessions.

 

**Gunter’s (officially Gunter’s Tea Shop) was London’s most famous and exclusive confectionery, catering, and high-society eatery. The business was founded in 1757 at numbers 7 to 8 Berkeley Square, in Mayfair, by an Italian pastry chef named Domenico Negri. He originally named it The Pot and Pineapple. The pineapple was chosen because it was the ultimate Georgian symbol of wealth, luxury, and exotic indulgence. In 1777, an Englishman named James Gunter entered into a partnership with Negri. By 1799, Gunter became the sole proprietor and rebranded the establishment under his own name. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, freezing technology was rare and expensive. Gunter’s became globally renowned for its exotic "ices," sorbets, and ice creams. They served dramatic flavours like pine, bergamot, maple, jasmine, and even Parmesan, often frozen into intricate pewter moulds shaped like fruits or meats. Gunter’s was famous for a unique social phenomenon. Because the shop itself was small, wealthy patrons would park their open-topped horse carriages under the plane trees of Berkeley Square. Waiters would dodge traffic to sprint across the road, bringing rapidly melting ice cream right to the carriages. Gunter's wasn't just a cafe; they were massive high-end event caterers. They provided the food, multi-tiered "bride cakes," and sugar architecture for royal balls and elite weddings, including making the wedding cake for Queen Victoria’s granddaughter in 1889.

 

***The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.

 

****Andirons (also known as fire dogs) are two metal stands placed parallel inside a hearth. Each one has a horizontal bar (known as the “log rest”), a decorative vertical front post and short rear legs to keep the logs raised. Their job is simple: keep the logs off the hearth floor so air can circulate beneath them, making the fire burn hotter and cleaner.

 

*****The Times Personal Column desk at Printing House Square – sometimes referred to as the Announcements Desk or the Personal Advertisements Office – was the section of The Times devoted to engagements, marriages, deaths, in memoriam notices, social announcements and the withdrawals of engagements. It was staffed by clerks who handled paid personal notices, including the discreet “The engagement will not take place” type. Families could also refer to it as the Announcements Desk, which was the internal name used by The Times for the department.

 

******A broken engagements were announced in The Times in the 1920s, but only in a very specific, socially formal way, and not nearly as commonly as engagements themselves. They were usually printed as a short formal notice. This was considered the proper upper class method of publicly withdrawing an engagement that had already been announced in the paper. These notices were brief, discreet, never gave reasons as to why the engagement was no longer subsisting, and was placed in the Personal Column of the newspaper. Such announcements were used by families who had social standing, property, or public visibility. A secretary, solicitor, or family member would: telephone The Times Personal Column desk at Printing House Square, dictate the wording (always brief and formal), approve the proofread back over the telephone and arrange payment. Alternatively, if the family had to wish to deal with the matter themselves, they could send a typed letter or have their solicitor manage it on their behest. For the upper classes, The Times was the official record of social events. Placing a withdrawal through the Personal Column prevented gossip, signalled propriety and ensured the matter was handled with dignity. It was the correct and expected channel.

 

*******The phrase “to be hauled up by your bootlaces” is a British idiom from the late Nineteenth Century, meaning to be forced to improve oneself, behave better, or face discipline, usually by one’s own effort or by a stern authority. It’s related to the older metaphor of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, but with a distinctly British, slightly humorous, slightly scolding flavour.

 

********A “Pinkerton” is a private detective, and refers to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, founded by Allan Pinkerton, known for its historical role in labour disputes and spying. For decades after Allan Pinkerton's death, his name became a slang term for any private investigator, regardless of whether they worked for the Pinkerton Agency or not. Today, the agency (now simply called Pinkerton) focuses on risk management, intelligence, and security services.

 

*********During the 1926 General Strike, the volunteer canteens — often staffed by "titled ladies" to feed volunteers maintaining essential services — were largely organized and supported by the upper classes, society women, and the government's emergency volunteer network. Women from high society and the aristocracy, including Lady Louis Mountbatten, Lady Quilter, Lady Mary Ashley Cooper, and Lady Carmichael-Anstruther, participated in and helped manage these canteens. Canteens, such as those overseen by a "Mrs. Loeffler" at Scotland House and similar efforts in Hyde Park, provided food and refreshments to the thousands of middle-class volunteers, such as special constables, who broke the strike. These canteens were part of a coordinated effort by the Conservative government to maintain essential services and counter the strike's effectiveness. The focus of these efforts was to support the volunteer workforce—such as the "special constables"—to keep services running, as opposed to the soup kitchens operated in mining communities by workers' wives to support the miners.

 

**********The surname Chetwynd is one of England’s older aristocratic names, traceable to the Norman period and firmly rooted in Staffordshire. The name derives from Chetwynd, a manor near Newport, Shropshire, recorded in Domesday Book (1086) as Cetewinde or Chetewinde. The family took its name from this estate soon after the Norman Conquest. By the Twelfth Century, members of the de Chetwynd family appear in charters and land grants connected with Shropshire and Staffordshire. Records show that the Chetwynd family goes from medieval Staffordshire gentry into the British peerage by the early 1700s.

 

***********The Aberdare Range (formerly the Sattima Range) is a one hundred mile long mountain range of upland, north of Kenya's capital Nairobi with an average elevation of thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty feet. It straddles across the counties of Nyandarua, Nyeri, Muranga, Kiambu and Laikipia.

 

************The Muthaiga Club is a club in Nairobi. It is located in the suburb of Muthaiga, about fifteen minutes’ drive from the city centre. The Muthaiga Country Club opened on New Year's Eve in 1913, and became a gathering place for the colonial British settlers in British East Africa, which later became in 1920, the Colony of Kenya.

 

*************The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, with a ten mile coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence as the Republic of Kenya.

 

**************Shepherd’s check is a popular pattern for a rather sturdy tweed, commonly worn in the country. Coming in various colours and pattern styles, the small check version in black and white is commonly known as Pepita check in Germanic countries.

 

***************The British phrase, "the cat that ate the cream" means that someone looks extremely pleased with themselves, smug, self-satisfied, or quietly triumphant. It appears to have developed in the late Nineteenth Century. It is based on the familiar sight of a cat that has successfully helped itself to cream and is now feeling very pleased indeed. Historically, cream was considered a particularly rich and desirable food. A cat that had managed to steal it had obtained something better than ordinary milk, so it became a natural metaphor for someone enjoying an unexpected success or advantage. This interpretation is reflected in explanations of the idiom that connect it to a cat contentedly licking its whiskers after consuming cream.

 

This grand Georgian interior may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Palladian console table to the left of the fireplace, with their golden caryatids and marble is one of a pair was commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.

 

The petit point gilt salon chair and the gilt footstool are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about them is that they have been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petit point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which also makes them one-of-a-kind pieces. The artisan who made them says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The silver tea and coffee set on the central chinoiserie tea table, have been made with great attention to detail, and come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The wonderful selection of biscuits on offer were made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The gilt tea table in the middle of the photo on which they all stand is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The gilt edged floral teacups placed around the drawing room and plate on the table come from a miniatures specialist stockist on E-Bay.

 

To the left of the photo stands an artisan bonheur de jour (French lady's writing desk). A gift from my Mother when I was in my twenties, she had obtained this beautiful piece from an antique auction. Made in the 1950s of brass it is very heavy. It is set with hand-painted enamel panels featuring Rococo images. Originally part of a larger set featuring a table and chairs, or maybe a settee as well, individual pieces from these hand-painted sets are highly collectable and much sought after. I never knew this until the advent of E-Bay!

 

The elegant ornaments that decorate the surfaces of the Chetwynd’s palatial drawing room very much reflect the Eighteenth Century spirit of the room.

 

On the centre of the mantlepiece stands a Rococo carriage clock that has been hand painted and gilded with incredible attention to detail by British 1:12 miniature artisan, Victoria Fasken. To the left of the clock is a porcelain pot of yellow and blue petunias which has been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton. To the left of the vase of petunias is a Staffordshire sheep – one of a pair – which have been hand made, painted and gilded by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the sheep actually has a smile on its face!

 

Another, larger example of Ann Dalton’s petunia posies stands on the Peter Cluff Palladian console table and is flanked by two mid Victorian (circa 1850) hand painted child’s tea set pieces. The sugar bowl and milk jug have been painted to imitate Sèvres porcelain.

 

On the bombe chest behind the Louis settee stand a selection of 1950s Limoges miniature tea set pieces which I have had since I was a teenager. Each piece is individually stamped on its base with a green Limoges stamp. Also on the bombe chest sit two Georgian tea caddies which come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. In the centre of these pieces stands a sterling silver three prong candelabra made by an unknown artisan. They have actually fashioned a putti (cherub) holding the stem of the candelabra. The candles that came with it are also 1:12 artisan pieces and are actually made of wax.

 

The floral vase on the side table containing pink roses made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, is another example of 1950s Limoges, and like the tea set on the bombe chest, it features a green Limoges stamp. The vase containing cream roses is also a 1950s Limoges piece with a green backstamp.

 

The three piece Louis XV suite of settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery you can just see behind the pink roses was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper of Chinese lanterns from the 1770s.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster.

 

The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. But in Jackdaws only 1% of nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. Moreover, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. The call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows www.xeno-canto.org/671328 In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers. I photographed this one yesterday at Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire where they nest in rock crevices. This is a busy tourist attraction and they seem to have become more confiding with humans there. I thought it showed the plumage features particularly well; the pale eye, grey shawl and the slight purple iridescence on the flight feathers.

Stone structures are rather rare on the Illinois prairie. When the early settlers first came, buildings were put up using native timber. Later sawn lumber from the north woods and locally made bricks became available. Early houses are sometimes dated by the materials they are made of. This old stone farmhouse is an anomaly. It takes skilled stone masons and rock quarries to make such a structure, something that would not normally be found on the early prairie. Nearby are other stone buildings… a stone school, a stone barn, and a stone two story mansion or two. Where did the skilled laborers come from? This is not the work of prairie farmers or backwoods men. In 1839 an Anglican Bishop named Philander Chase came to the unsettled Illinois prairie to build a magnificent theological seminary and college for young men. He convinced a group of skilled laborers and farmers to immigrate with him from England to found a settlement and build the college. Native sandstone was quarried and transported and soon stone structures began to dot the landscape. Well built and durable, these 180 year old structures are still very serviceable and worthy of preservation. The old rural graveyards of western Peoria County are filled with the grave markers of these early English Pioneers. The college still stands at the settlement known as Robin’s Nest. A magnificent stone memorial marks the spot where Bishop Chase was laid to rest surrounded by the graves of his countrymen. Many English surnames survive among the people of this region all because an influential man had a dream. Cheers.

"It started with a fish". By Sis

I admit I have to many camera’s, more importantly to many systems, but lets just call it the philandering whims of an old man. Up until 2017 I had only one, Canon. Then with more time on my hands I had multiple short term flings with Olympus seduced by those sexy computational features going for one model then another. Then Fujifilm turned my head and at a whim I callously ditched Olympus, all that time Canon stays faithful. So Fujifilm becomes the other camera in my life and my relationships move into calmer waters, each camera knowing there place. Then pimped by another, Olympus calls its self OM and has more to offer to entice this sad old man and I’m suckered in again. Canon and Fujifulm wait in the wings while I go on another whirlwind romance. Eventually my head catches up to my fluttering heart to tell me I can’t support this trilogy and one must go. I haven’t taken Canon out for a while but surly I’m not thinking of getting rid of my old faithful. I take canon on a two day trip and go on a serious morning catchup together. The conditions are not what was expected and the date has no atmosphere, I even forget how to handle Canon’s finer features, I’m falling out of love. The last morning and the last try, even though OM is in the car I reluctantly take Canon again and Fujifilm tags along sporting a long lens, just in case. I have no guilt leaving OM as we’d just had a wild night together under the stars. I get to the lake shore and this morning the atmosphere is better than previously, I go through the motions of setting up Canon and then I look through the viewfinder and the magic reappears and I take this image.

Zurich, Switzerland

I like this old barn on the Philander Chase Knox Estate within Valley Forge National Park in Pennsylvania. Late on a Winter day it was all straight lines, bright surfaces and deep shadows.

 

Philander Knox was, at one time or another, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Definitely an over-achiever. Even more significantly of course, General Washington over-wintered (and trained) the Continental Army not far away in 1777-78, while keeping a watch on the British, who were spending the off-season in Philadelphia 20-some miles to the south and east. Now the estate is mostly a venue for wedding parties. I do not know if the term "a philanderer" has any connection to this Philander.

I had forgotten about this photograph I took back in the spring. It is a stunning male Pied Flycatcher in full breeding plumage. In springtime males sing and display to attract a female but the females hold out as long as possible for very good reason. This is because females build the nest and incubate the eggs, but while they are preoccupied the male will sometimes go off and find a second or even third mate. But the male does catch insects to help rear the chicks, but if his attentions are divided the success rate is lower. Just say a female can rear three chicks with the exclusive help of a male, but only two chicks if a male divides his labours between two nests. But this would mean a male could rear four chicks from two nests but only three from a single nest. So it is in the male's interest to have a second nest. But it is not in the female's interest to share him as she will rear fewer chicks. This is why the female holds out as long as possible, as the longer she makes him wait, the more likely it is that other females will be paired up, so she will have his sole attention. A true battle of the sexes.

The first thought was that someone had thrown a football at my head. It seemed unlikely – I didn’t know anyone around here and I’d absented myself from five a side that evening because after nearly a week of incessant rain and doubtful grey skies I wanted to go out into the sunshine with the camera. But in those split seconds of this unwanted exchange it dawned on me. Footballs don’t have wings and feathers but seagulls do, and everyone down here knows about their famed air raids on innocent souls carrying food in an obvious manner. Even Belgian Chocolate ice creams are considered fair game by those scavenging sky hyenas, and most of mine was now lying on the ground in front of me. It was a double scoop as well. I now had two options – I could either return to the hut past all of the amused spectators and buy another one, of which I’d take much better care in open spaces, or I could adopt a nonchalant air, as with pace unbroken I strode to the nearest sand dune to sit and sulk in the sunshine. I chose the latter course of action. And you thought this stuff only happened to unwary tourists didn’t you? We locals smirk quietly behind our hands when hapless visitors get mobbed by Herring Gulls in pursuit of pasties at St Ives, so in truth it makes us look all the more idiotic when we're subjected to the same fate. I can still almost taste that lost dollop of Belgian Chocolate lying melting on the car park floor. Callestick Farm ice cream too - what I'd tasted before the airborne assault had been moments stolen from the very heavens. Ironic that something from the heavens should steal if from me really.

 

Some time after this disturbing setback Lee arrived, and he was looking very pleased with himself. Of course I already knew why. He’s a man who changes his camera systems almost as often as Elizabeth Taylor did her husbands, and more than once I’ve arrived on location to find him wielding something completely different from the time we last convened without prior warning. If he ever stops buying and selling things, your favourite auction website may just have to close down, and that time may in fact now have come. Not that I’ve studied the life and marital events of Ms Taylor that closely, but think of the Sony A7r3 as his Richard Burton – the one he returned to and remarried; his spiritual home if you will. Last time he had one of these, I rarely heard him talking about other cameras, and since he was parted with it, he’s often lamented on the shortcomings of whatever he was using at the time in comparison to the Sony. With the addition of the same lens that our much admired Mads Peter Iversen so often uses, it seemed that my friend’s ceaseless wandering through the labyrinthine pages pages of eBay may at last be over – although I’m not racing down to Ladbrokes to fill in the betting slip. Besides which he hasn't found a wide angle lens to complete the bag yet. To make his triumphant grin just that bit wider, he’d managed to secure both camera and lens at very agreeable prices. Understandably he was happy at the outcome.

 

While I was pleased to see that Lee’s inveterate habit of camera philandering might finally be over, I had to admit to the presence of Iago’s green eyed monster on the beach. With Iceland to come later this year, he’ll be carrying a much lighter set up than me when we go marching up those slopes to the vantage point over Reynisfjara and Dyrholaey. While he has experimented with almost every brand on the market over the last few years, I’ve stuck steadfastly to the one I know and have gradually begun to make sense of. I may have upgraded the cameras and lenses, but each time the leap has been incremental. The gear I have is limited by my skills (or lack of them) alone, with the only downside being the weight of both the camera and the lenses. Most of the time that isn’t really an issue; except when long walks and handheld photography are on the menu. But there is a fighting chance that sometime soon I might find myself dabbling with a Sony too.

 

We’d decided a visit to the Mount was long overdue. It’s such an obvious subject, and one we shot far more regularly in the early days of our landscape journey, but in the last two years I'd only been here twice, despite it only being half an hour away from home. We were caught in two minds about where to set up our tripods, the decision being made easier by the fact that someone has put up what I can only describe as a giant polytunnel right in the middle of the façade that everyone sees from the central part of the beach. While there must be a purpose, it's a hideous addition to the Mount and my Photoshop skills fall short of airbrushing it convincingly from the scene. But for that we might have looked to the sidelight for our inspiration. But huge plastic edifices aren't going to be part of the story today.

 

In winter you can grab silhouettes from the eastern beach below the cliffs with the sun setting close to the mount, and despite some misgivings about the almost total absence of cloud we agreed this option would enable us to continue shooting well into the blue hour. The retreating tide meant that the foreground selections were forever changing, never lasting for more than a few minutes before losing their appeal. I took a number of shots during the moments before sunset and into the blue hour and in truth I liked all of them, so choosing one to share here wasn’t an easy decision. The rest either have appeared or will appear on the other channels where I share more of my photographs, so you’ll probably make your own mind up on whether I chose the right one to tell the story, but I loved the leading line made by the rockpool and the colours of the deepening sky. Bringing the tripod low, so helping to reduce that tricky featureless mid-ground that can so often slice a scene irretrievably in half was also important, and the long exposure time smoothed the sea to reduce the distractions. Almost worth the trials of negotiating my way back across the beach over wet slippery rocks in semi-darkness towards the steps that would lead to the pub and a very expensive pint of Korev, which Lee in his benevolent mood paid for. At least the seagulls wouldn’t be troubling us here in the warmth, surrounded by four walls under a solid roof as we were. I sometimes wonder whether our obsession with clouds can sometimes mean we overlook the simplicity that a plain sky brings, especially when it’s packed with so much colour. The lessons never stop being learned.

 

Another snow scene shot in Valley Forge at the old estate of Philander Chase Knox. It is now a public library that is open by appointment.

 

Explored

Camera trapping photo from Cocha Cashu Biological reserve, Manu NP, Peruvian Amazon.

 

Notice the out-of-focus cricket jumping to avoid the opossum at the top of the photo.

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. But Jackdaws are at the other end of the spectrum as only 1% of Jackdaw nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. In addition, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. They have a diagnostic pale blue eye and a grey head shawl, and the call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows. In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers.

Diego Maradona is the most important figure EVER in Buenos Aires and Argentina. Following his death Argentina declared three days of national mourning, and there was a global outpouring of grief among fans of the world’s most popular sport. Maradona, who died of a heart attack at age 60, was a controversial figure. Fans worshipped him for his extraordinary skills on the field, his charisma, and his championing of the poor. Critics pointed to his life of excess, including his drug addiction, philandering, paternity suits, his support of leftist leaders such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and allegations of domestic abuse of a girlfriend. Net-net, no matter how you look at him, Maradona is a larger-than-life persona with a legacy from here to Tokyo – La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. So why have I posted a Jackdaw under the title "Who's the Daddy?" Because the chances are, a male Jackdaw will be the daddy of his chicks as only 1% of nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. Moreover, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. They have a diagnostic pale blue eye and a grey head shawl, and the call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows. In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers. I photographed this one from my car while it perched on a seat at RSPB Dove Stone in Greater Manchester. I thought it showed the plumage features particularly well, including the iridescence on the flight feathers.

Photographed in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

 

Virgil Talmadge McCroskey (October 5, 1876 – September 14, 1970) was an American conservationist who spent most of his life in eastern Washington. He created two state parks on the Palouse: Steptoe Butte State Park in Washington and McCroskey State Park in Idaho.

 

Born in Monroe County, Tennessee, McCroskey was the ninth of ten children born to Joshua Philander Theodore McCroskey and Mary Minerva Gallaher McCroskey, who moved from Tennessee and settled in eastern Washington in 1879 as pioneers and established a homestead near the foot of Steptoe Butte.[4][5]

 

McCroskey arrived in Washington at age two as a child; Steptoe Butte was his playground.

 

He earned a degree in pharmacy at Washington State College in Pullman and in 1903 purchased the Elk Drug Store in Colfax, the facade of which still bears his name. Although he never married, during this period he raised two orphaned nieces and a nephew. McCroskey inherited his parents' farm in 1910 and retired from the pharmacy business in 1920. He spent the next few years traveling the world; he also drove all over the West, visiting national parks.

My father passed away early this morning, as dawn was breaking upon the horizon. I was by his side as he reinquished his last breath and left this Earth. It is ironic that he should die so near to Christmas, because his father had died on Christmas day at an early age when my dad was a mere adolescent. After a hard night of restless struggling, the end came peacefully. His respirations became more shallow. He then made an expression as if pained by something. Then the expression turned to peace as he nodded his head, as if answering some cosmic question that only he could hear. And then, he was gone.

Earlier in the night, his last words had been " I love you, daddy"

I would like to say that my father was a paragon of parental love and wisdom, but he wasn't. I would also like to say that we had a strong father-son bond, but I can't. He wasn't like Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, or any of those other television icons that made fatherhood appear like the noble calling that it should be.

His alcoholism and philandering didn't match up with his stern religiosity. In short, he was a man filled with contradictions. He was a diligent worker with a strong work ethic, but his money often went to support his mistresses-leaving mother to work harder to make up the difference.

But, despite his character flaws, I loved him. We all did. And I believe that, in his own odd way, he loved me too.

He was the quintessential likeable villain. He was a talented entertainer, public speaker, and pitch-man. He made his money as a salesman, and exceled at it.

He was a romantic dreamer. And just like most dreamers, he could sometimes be taken with dark moods and fits of rage. He was a troubled soul who never got over the injustice and poverty of his miserable childhood.

I want to remember my father with this old photo from October 1967, as a happy young man with a fast car and his whole life ahead of him.

 

I love you, dad, and I forgive you. And I hope to see you again one day in a better place.

Greetings from Buenos Aires… Maradona and Buenos Aires are inseparable from each other. Following his death Argentina declared three days of national mourning, and there was a global outpouring of grief among fans of the world’s most popular sport. Maradona, who died of a heart attack at age 60, was a controversial figure. Fans worshipped him for his extraordinary skills on the field, his charisma, and his championing of the poor. Critics pointed to his life of excess, including his drug addiction, philandering, paternity suits, his support of leftist leaders such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and allegations of domestic abuse of a girlfriend. Net-net, no matter how you look at him, Maradona is a larger-than-life persona with a legacy from here to Tokyo – La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

It is the Age of Steam. Foreign Powers seek to bring down Queen Victoriana's Empire. The battle to secure as many Dark Matter Coal resources rages! With so many machines, "normal" coal resources were exhausted within a decade of the first steampowered fusion engines invention.

 

Coalition forces have banded together to hire the most treacherous band of cut-throats that money can buy!

 

Atlas - an automaton fellow created by the Evil Mr Hydrogen. a geographical encylopedia and specialist knowledge bank.

 

Horatiio Nevermind - Trapped in a mine collapse and left for dead. Nevermind is hell bent on revenge. He is a former employee of Cornelius Boatwright Smith who he holds responsible for the poor working conditions at the Colliery. A brutal fighter!

 

Mr Hydrogen - The secret alter ego of Dr Jeb. Kyll. a profilic inventor, he created Atlas and Neverminds replaced appendages.

 

The Masked Philanderer - A career jewel thief and master of disguise the fastest fingers in all of Yorkshire!

 

Minerva Pleasance - A harlot, expertly versed in the ways of seduction and manipulation.

 

See the Heroes of the realm here!

 

www.flickr.com/photos/strawdog316/8370465650/

 

Totally inspired by Evan B and Brickthings wonderful Steamrod character concepts! Take a look here and bow down to it's magnificence!

 

www.flickr.com/photos/legojunkie/8302767804/in/photostream

  

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her old family home for the wedding of Leslie to Arabella, the daughter of their neighbours, Lord Sherbourne and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt. Today is the big day, and earlier in the morning Lettice was amongst the guests to watch her brother and his now wife exchange vows at the chapel in Glynes village. Now the wedding guests have repaired to the grand country house where the couple’s wedding breakfast* is being held in the Glynes grand dining room.

 

“I say, Sadie has been busy!” exclaims Gerald as he walks through the doors of the dining room.

 

“The whole household has been busy.” corrects Lettice as she walks proudly on his arm. “I could barely get a cup of tea, a slice of toast and a scraping of jam for breakfast,” she moans. “Which I had to take in my room because in here was out-of-bounds.”

 

The Glynes dining room, a large space, has been transformed into an indoor winter garden with tributes to the house’s gardeners with hothouse flower arrangements everywhere. Cascades of soft lilac wisteria, white blossom and pastel roses spill from vases on the mantlepiece and from jardinières on stands placed around the walls. The usual dining table used by the Chetwynds for dinners and banquets has been transformed into the bridal table, whilst several other smaller oblong tables have been brought in to serve as places for the other wedding breakfast guests. Each table is covered in crisp snowy white linen tablecloths taken from the Glynes great Elizabethan oak linen chests and pressed by housekeeper Mrs. Casterton’s staff, and upon their surfaces fine gilt white china, glassware and silver gleam, with each place setting carefully arranged by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler and Marsden, the first footman. Each table is graced with more fresh floral arrangements created by Lady Sadie herself and the parlour maid Emmery, whom the Countess has discovered has an aptitude for flower arranging. On the bridal table stands a grand three-tier wedding fruitcake made by Mrs. Honeychurch, the Chetwynd’s cook, its white royal icing edges decorated with pale yellow icing swirls and golden orange sugar roses.

 

“They look so happy,” Gerald remarks as they walk in front of the bridal table where Leslie and Isabella sit before the cake.

 

“I think Bella’s is your best wedding frock yet, Gerald.”

 

“Oh, do you really think so, Lettice?”

 

“I do.” she concurs proudly as they pass the bride and groom, admiring the creamy white satin boat neck of Bella’s wedding gown, trimmed with accents of antique lace, a gift to Isabella from Lady Sadie, taken from her own wedding dress.

 

‘Well, Bella was perfect to fit.” The pair move around to the table adjunct to the bridal table where they take their places. “She already had her ideas, which, unlike some women I see, were good ones, and I just had to bring them to life. She’s never has been a girl into fuss, and let’s be honest, she has so much natural beauty that no matter what I made for her would look wonderful on her.”

 

“And of course, I love my outfit too, Gerald.” Lettice smooths the pale buttery yellow crêpe of her frock which matches the pretty rose decorated wide brimmed straw hat made for her by Gerald’s friend Harriet.

 

“I should hope you do!” Gerald replies as he settles himself into his Chippendale style dining chair.

 

The pair watch as the country wedding guests, a mixture of family from both the Chetwynd and the Tyrwhitt clans, county society, guests from London and a smattering of local village folk, leisurely wend their way to their places, each marked with a handwritten card in Lady Sadie’s elegant copperplate script.

 

“I must say Lettice darling, I am grateful that you managed to convince Sadie to lift her embargo on me after the Hunt Ball and allow me to come.” Gerald remarks as he and Lettice nod at two of her distant spinster cousins from Guernsey as they make their way around them to their place much further down the table Lettice and Gerald are near the head of.

 

“Oh don’t thank me, Gerald.” Lettice replies. “Thank Leslie. He’s the one who confronted Mater and said that if he had to have cousins Eurphronia and Ethelreda from Guernsey,” She nods to the two rather horsey looking ladies now taking their places at the far end of the table. “Whom we haven’t seen nor heard from since Lally was married, then he and Bella were entitled to invite whichever guests they wanted, without question. And of course that included you.”

 

“Gosh! I must thank Leslie later then.”

 

“I still don’t know,” Lettice queries. “What was it you said to Mater that night of Hunt Ball that set her so against you. I’ve never known her to take against anyone so vehemently, except perhaps Aunt Egg.”

 

Gerald blushes, remembering the altercation he had with Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, at the ball. In a slightly inebriated state he told her that neither she nor Lettice had any sway over Selwyn Spencely’s choice of a wife, any more than Selwyn did himself, explaining that it was his mother, the Duchess of Mumford, Lady Zinnia, who would choose a wife for him. “I keep telling you, darling girl. I really don’t remember,” he replies awkwardly, covering his tracks as best as he can. “If you remember, I was rather tight** that night on your father’s champagne.”

 

“And I hope you will do so again today.” Lettice says cheekily, picking up the freshly poured glass of champagne set at her place just prior to her arrival.

 

“Try and stop me, darling!” Gerald picks up his glass and the two clink their glasses together in a conspiratorial toast.

 

“Lettice! Lettice stop that!” hisses her father, the Viscount, from his seat next to his wife at the bridal table, flapping his hand at her in an effort to gain her attention and growing red faced in the process. “Not until I make my speech.”

 

Lettice rolls her eyes and shakes her head, and like two admonished children, she and Gerald return their glasses, untouched, to their places with lowered heads.

 

“I am glad that Aunt Isobel was well enough to see Bella get married.” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh.

 

“Yes, I am too.” Gerald looks over the top of the wedding cake to see Isabella’s mother, whom they all call ‘Aunt Isobel’ despite her not being a blood relation, smiling proudly next to her husband, Sherbourne, as she looks down the table to her daughter and new son-in-law. “The radiotherapy*** seems to be having a positive impact on her health. Although evidently not enough for the Tyrwhitts to host the wedding breakfast.” he notes a little critically.

 

“Well, Mater thought it might tire poor Aunt Isobel out to arrange the wedding breakfast by herself, so she offered, and Isobel was probably too unwell at the time to refuse her.”

 

“Who would dare contradict Sadie’s wishes? Look, she is positively in her element, playing Lady Bountiful****, lording herself over all her minions, the great and good of the county.” Gerald says, nodding to Lettice’s beaming mother swathed in romantic soft pink floral silk de chiné wearing a floppy picture hat covered in satin roses in a matching shade.

 

“I do think Uncle Sherbourne looks rather tired though, don’t you Gerald?”

 

“Well, it isn’t every day that one loses one’s only daughter,” Gerald says dismissively. “He’s probably had a few sleepless nights worrying about her dowery and whether she has made the right decision.”

 

“Gerald!” Lettice slaps her friend playfully with her pale yellow kid gloves. “You surely can’t be suggesting that Leslie is a cad!” she laughs.

 

He chuckles in return and flashes her a beaming smile.

 

Returning her gloves to her lap, she glances up and over to where her eldest brother sits proudly in his morning suit gazing with fondness and laughing with his bride. Glowing can be the only adjective suitable to describe Leslie and Isabella as they radiate happiness.

 

“You must feel a little jealous,” Lettice remarks discreetly as she observes a slightly wistful look in her dear friend’s eyes as he too observes the happy couple.

 

“Of the sanctity of marriage?” Gerald scoffs with a dismissive snort. “Pray save me from that hell, Lettice darling!”

 

“You know what I mean, Gerald,” Lettice retorts. “Now that you’ve finally met someone.” she adds in a hushed tone.

 

Lettice bore witness to an exchange of affection between Gerald and a young oboe player named Cyril whilst visiting Gerald’s friend Harriet in Putney recently. As well as making hats, Harriet runs a boarding house for theatrical gentlemen where Cyril resides, and it is through her that Gerald met the handsome young musician.

 

“I hardly think we are at the marriage stage yet, Lettice darling.” Gerald whispers sagely. “Not that we could, mind you. We’ve only recently met. Anyway,” He glances meaningfully again at Leslie. “What’s the point in wishing for something you know you cannot have.”

 

Lettice reaches across to Gerald’s lap beneath the crisp white linen tablecloth and places her hand atop her friend’s, giving it a consoling squeeze. She sometimes forgets how her friend pined for many years with unrequited love for her eldest brother. Gerald has no more chance of marrying Cyril even if he does return Gerald’s affections, and Lettice can only imagine how careful her friend needs to be to avoid the authorities punishing him with imprisonment with hard labour just for loving another man.

 

“I wish Selwyn was here.” Lettice continues softly, casting her eyes down into her lap as she feels the sting of tears.

 

“What?” Gerald asks with a melodramatic gasp, quickly noticing Lettice’s sudden rush of emotion and trying to keep her from crying in front of her family and the rest of the county’s and the village’s society. “Am I not good enough for you as your squire?” He pouts at her and bats his long, dark eyelashes.

 

Lettice cannot help but let out a burst of laughter at his sad puppy dog face. “Oh Gerald! You know I don’t man that.”

 

“I know.” he says with a melancholy smile.

 

“You’re so good to me.”

 

“Agreed.” he nods. He then proceeds to add as a joking after thought, “Far better than you deserve.”

 

When Lettice laughs a little sadly, Gerald returns Lettice’s squeeze comfortingly. “I know you want Selwyn here. However,” he adds seriously. “You know it would be improper for him to be at such an intimate family occasion as your guest unless there has been a formal intention of marriage.”

 

“I know.” Lettice sighs.

 

“And Selwyn hasn’t made any such overtures, has he?”

 

Lettice looks down again. “Not yet.” she mumbles glumly.

 

“Well then. You shall simply have to settle for me, Lettice darling. I know I’m a poor second, and probably not even that. However, I will just have to do.”

 

“And you do splendidly, Gerald darling. You always know how to pick my spirits up when I’m feeling glum.”

 

“Isn’t that what best friends and chums of old are supposed to do?”

 

“Exactly right, Gerald.” Lettice replies, withdrawing her hands and discreetly dabbing the corners of her eyes with her pale yellow kid gloves. “What a pair we are, Gerald.” She sniffs. “Both of us crying for what we cannot have.”

 

“Don’t worry, everyone will think you are crying tears of joy for the happy couple, and that is how it should be. But don’t make a habit of blubbing when there is no conceivable reason to be crying, will you?”

 

“How do you do it, Gerald darling?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“Not break down and cry, sometimes?”

 

“Well, aren’t men supposed to be the superior race?” Gerald asks, mockingly. “It’s always a stiff upper lip and all that, don’t you know?” He smiles sadly at his friend and companion. “I suppose the truth of the matter is that Father probably beat it out of me as a child. I knew if I blubbed at the wrong time, I was in for a thrashing, or Roland would tell Father I was blubbing, so I was in for a thrashing, so I kept it hidden until I was alone.”

 

“I’m sorry Gerald.” Lettice mutters.

 

“Oh don’t be, Lettice darling. This is a wedding for heaven’s sake. Were supposed to be happy, not sad. No,” Gerald continues with a stoic sniff. “I’m happy for them and wish them well. Truly I do. It was inevitable really. They have always been destined to be together. Bella and Leslie are well suited for one another. They are both country folk. She loves riding and is interested in animal husbandry and all that awfully dirty estate business.” He waves his free left hand dismissively with a look of disgust at the thought of pigs in their muddy styes. “Whereas what I find best about the country is when we leave it to go back to the comfort and bright lights of London.”

 

“Don’t even mention animal husbandry, Gerald!” Lettice gasps, a shudder of revulsion running through her as she remembers the conversation she and her hated older brother Lionel had in Lady Sadie’s morning room a few days ago, when he spoke of women as fillies and mares, waiting to be sired by stallions.

 

“Oh, sorry Lettice darling!” Gerald apologises with a sombre glance at her. “I forgot.”

 

“I certainly can’t, even though I want to.”

 

“I knew things must have been looking bloody***** for you here when you sent that note across to me asking me to meet you at the Folly****** after dinner.”

 

“I can barely stand to even be in the same room as Lionel.” Lettice bristles as she looks across the Glynes dining room to the table set up on the opposite side of the bridal table, where her brother Lionel sits between their Aunt Eglantine, their father’s beloved younger sister, and Aunt Gladys, their mother’s parsimonious widowed elder sister. Emboldened by his imminent departure back to his place of exile in Kenya, he doesn’t even try and disguise his boredom at whatever the self-absorbed Gladys is saying to him.

 

“How can Aunt Egg stand to sit next to him?” Gerald asks.

 

“Because she doesn’t know about Lionel’s fathering of three illegitimate children in 1918.” Lettice elucidates quietly. “Lally and I joke openly about being Aunt Egg’s favourite niece depending upon the way the wind blows, but when it comes to her favourite nephew, there is no doubt as to who it is.”

 

“But why?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “I mean, she’s so lovely, artistic, and kind. And Lionel…” He shudders. “Lionel is such a… a…”

 

“A beast, Gerald?” She shrugs. “I guess there is no accounting for taste sometimes, even in our families. No, it would break her heart if she really knew what Lionel was like.”

 

“But that’s not fair to Leslie.”

 

“Oh, but Leslie is complicit in the subterfuge, Gerald. He’s so good and kind himself that he doesn’t want Aunt Egg upset by the truth. Besides, if she was upset, then Pater would be upset, and if he was upset, we all would be in for a beastly time.”

 

“How do you all do it?”

 

“Luckily Aunt Egg is safely ensconced with her own life in London, and with Lionel in Kenya, he’s barely ever mentioned. And if Aunt Egg does ask after him, we always glaze all the beastliness over with tales of derring-do******* from his sporadic letters to Mater and Pater, or what we’ve heard from friends who have passed through Nairobi and seen him.”

 

“I have to say that the Viscount and Sadie don’t seem too concerned about having him here.” Gerald observes as he glances in the direction of Lettice’s father and mother.

 

“Oh don’t be fooled,” Lettice elucidates as she glances at the smiling face of her father and her mother as she proudly plays mother-of-the-groom and gracious hostess to all the guests. “It’s all bravado: a show for Bella and the wedding guests. No-one wants to see a monster like Lionel spoil Bella and Leslie’s big day, except perhaps Lionel of course.”

 

“He always was unscrupulous.”

 

“Well, the last three years in exile certainly haven’t tempered his feelings of resentment and anger towards all of us, me especially.”

 

“But it was his own foolish philandering that got him banished to Africa.”

 

“Lionel doesn’t see it that way. As usual, he thinks that if I hadn’t told Mater and Pater about,” Lettice blushes at the thought. “About his indiscretion with Nelly, then those with Margaret and that poor simpleton Dora wouldn’t have come out and he would have gotten away with it.”

 

“It seems to me he did get away with it, and lightly.” Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper he adds. “Banishment and the absolution for three illegitimate children, all paid for by your father. It’s a rather splendid deal if you ask me. He could have done far worse.”

 

“Lionel doesn’t think so, and we’re all sick of his digs and barbs which he inflicts on us every chance he gets. Pater and Mater have been on pins and needles ever since Lionel arrived. I had to speak to Mrs. Casterton about cautioning the maids, and I still had to warn Moira, whom I caught making cow eyes******* at him.”

 

“That would certainly have encouraged him, the cad.”

 

“I’m sure it did, even though he swears to me that he’s only interested in older women now, and married ones at that.”

 

“Good god!” Gerald rolls his eyes and then stares harshly at Lionel who remains bored between his two aunts, totally unaware that he is being spoken of and scrutinised. “Can he get any more rakish?”

 

“Lally refused to come and stay as she finds him so abhorrent, and she doesn’t want the children exposed to his wickedness.”

 

“He wouldn’t…” Gerald scarlessly dares to speak the words. “Well, Lionel wouldn’t hurt the little dears, would he?”

 

“With Lionel,” Lettice shrugs. “You never can quite tell what his scheming and perverse little mind is planning next.” She sighs heavily. “That’s half the problem. Just when you think you have him worked out, and know his next move, he does something unexpected that throws you.”

 

“And the unexpected from Lionel is always nasty.” says Gerald wearily, remembering how horrible Lionel was to him as a little boy.

 

“Always. He’s so unpredictable, except in his predictability of being mean, nasty, spiteful or hurtful.”

 

“Well, he’ll be on board a train back to London tomorrow morning.” Gerald says with a sigh of relief. “When does he set sail?”

 

“The Walmer Castle******** leaves Southampton for Cape Town on Friday, and not a moment too soon with Lionel on board, if you ask me.”

 

The hubbub of the light chatter of the guests filling the dining room is suddenly shattered by the sharp and repetitious rap of metal against glass, silencing everyone as heads turn towards the bridal table, where Lettice’s father, Viscount Wrexham has raised himself to his feet, tapping his crystal champagne flute with a silver knife.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all to take your places please,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords. “As host for today’s wedding breakfast, I would just like to say a few words as the first course is served.”

 

Lettice and Gerald settle back into their seats as the Viscount commences his welcome speech to the assembled guests, all of whom pay attention to him, except for his eldest son Leslie and his new bride Isabella, who only have eyes for one another as they sit, smiling at one another in the centre of the bridal table.

 

*A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War.

 

**’Tight’ is an old fashioned upper-class euphemism for drunk.

 

**By the 1920s radiotherapy was well developed with the use of X-rays and radium. There was an increasing realisation of the importance of accurately measuring the dose of radiation and this was hampered by the lack of good apparatus. The science of radiobiology was still in its infancy and increasing knowledge of the biology of cancer and the effects of radiation on normal and pathological tissues made an enormous difference to treatment. Treatment planning began in this period with the use of multiple external beams. The X-ray tubes were also developing with replacement of the earlier gas tubes with the modern Coolidge hot-cathode vacuum tubes. The voltage that the tubes operated at also increased and it became possible to practice ‘deep X-ray treatment’ at 250 kV. Sir Stanford Cade published his influential book “Treatment of Cancer by Radium” in 1928 and this was one of the last major books on radiotherapy that was written by a surgeon.

 

****The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.

 

*****Lady Bountiful is a term used to describe a woman who engages in ostentatious acts of charity to impress others, and was often used in Edwardian times by titled ladies to describe themselves when conducting their charity or ministering works.

 

******In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.

 

*******The phrase derring-do comes from Middle English, dorring don meant simply "daring to do." The phrase was misprinted as derrynge do in a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there. A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Literary author Sir Walter Scott and others brought the noun into modern use.

 

********The RMS Walmer Castle was a passenger ship for Union-Castle Line, launched on the 6th of July 1901 and completed on the 20th of February 1902. The British government requisitioned her in 1917 and she then served as a troop ship in the North Atlantic. She returned to mercantile service, including sailings between Southampton and Cape Town after the war. She was scrapped in 1932.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house wedding is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chippendale dining room bridal table - covered by a fine linen tablecloth - and matching chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

In centre stage on the bridal table stands a three tier wedding cake covered in white icing, decorated with yellow swirls of icing and orange roses. The cake is made entirely of plaster, and I have had it since I was given it for a Christmas gift when I was seven.

 

The bridal table is set correctly for a five course Edwardian wedding breakfast, using cutlery and glassware from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The cutlery set is made of polished metal. The crockery is made by an unknown English company and each piece has been gilded by hand. The linen napkins and napkin rings were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Georgian silver water jug in front of the floral arrangement and the cruet set which peeps from behind it, have been made with great attention to detail, and come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The flower arrangement on the table in the gilt double handled vase comes from M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. On its mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

 

The pink and white roses in the Limoges vases were made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, whilst the larger floral arrangements of roses and cascading wisteria to either side of the fireplace come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom.

 

To the left of the photo stands a demilune table upon which stands a wine cooler also made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne in it is an artisan miniature and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The other bottles of wine, also made of glass with great attention to their lables, come from Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes dining room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

nrhp # 86001064- St. Philip's Episcopal Church is an historic Episcopal church located at 129 West Mound Street in Circleville, Ohio. The first Episcopal service in Circleville was held on May 26, 1817, by the Rev. Philander Chase, who in 1819 became the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. The stone church building was built in 1866 in a mixed Gothic and Tudor Revival style and was consecrated in 1868.[2] Besides its actual name, the church has been known as the "Little Church on the Mound,"[2] because it sits on the base of what was formerly one of Circleville's numerous Native American mounds that was historically known as "Mount Gilboa."[3]

 

In 1918, the church was modified by the construction of a Tudor Revival structure that has since been used as a parish hall. Despite this addition, the church's historic integrity was not damaged, as both its Gothic Revival style and the addition's Tudor Revival style are meant to resemble older English structures.[3] In recognition of its well-preserved historic architecture, St. Philip's was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.[1]

 

St. Philip's today is an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. The Rev. David E. Getreu is the 43rd Rector.

 

from Wikipedia

Senator Philander Chase Knox House.Headquarters of General William Maxwell.Built 1738-1835

We visited a couple of Guanajuato museums. The first one was Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Primer Depósito (Museum of Contemporary Art).

 

1 of 4.

 

The museum was founded in 2012.

 

I liked this piece by José Luis Cuevas - Los Siameses.

 

Cuevas' brooding figures graced exhibits from Paris to New York during a career as a painter, sculptor, writer, draftsman and engraver that spanned more than seven decades.

 

Cultivating the image of a philandering "tomcat", Cuevas drew on the work of Francisco de Goya and Pablo Picasso, and his depictions of dark, deformed, animal-like figures were a sharp break with the socialist-tinged muralism long popular in Mexico.

 

Cuevas was born in Mexico City 26 February, 1934 and died there in 2017.

  

The museum's permanent collection is made up of a series of bronze sculptures by internationally recognized artists such as , Leonora Carrington, José Luis Cuevas, Sergio Hernández and Gabriel Macotela and others like Javier de Jesús Hernández Capelo.

Love is a basic emotion, yet love’s a dangerous thing

A horribly vicious monster, held by a delicate string

The love of money is risky, the love of self even worse

The love of something forbidden, has netted mankind the curse

Instructed to love our neighbors, well-advised to not get caught

Despite an ancient profession, love cannot be sold or bought

Love is a matter of giving, which most are quite loath to do

Our focus is on receiving, if not—we’re ready to sue

Way too much is made of beauty, of riches and also fame

Loyalty is so forgotten, why bother to change your name?

The object of our affection, is often a movie star

Or maybe a rock musician, that’s strumming a fake guitar

Searching for love is normal, but finding it somewhat rare

Locating that certain someone, who’s game for a lifetime dare

But it’s when he fails to notice, or perhaps she spurns his date

That love ends in raw frustration, then quickly turns to hate

So take a lesson from nature, where matings are made for life

With no philandering husbands, and nary a wayward wife

Since each of us loves a puppy—we know their love is sincere

To express your love quite simply, just learn how to wag your rear!

 

Copyright © 2006 Jake Von Canon

The Bard of the Brazos

  

no rules, no limitations, no boundaries it's like an art

© All Rights Reserved by ajpscs

 

Everybody's Free

(to wear sunscreen)

Mary Schmich

Chicago Tribune

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97... wear sunscreen.

 

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

 

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

 

I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

 

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

 

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing every day that scares you.

 

Sing.

 

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss.

 

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

 

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch.

 

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

 

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

 

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

 

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Ecuador

  

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for 5 years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the North China Sea. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he has become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was.

As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow, a vigilante archer, to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree, and careless philanderer he used to be, while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under the cover of darkness.

 

A lego version of the Tv show Arrow very detailed minifigure from Christo, this is version 2.0 for me since I replaced the original plain legs for these printed ones from eclipsegrafx, I'll post another one just to show the second version of its printed face, beforehand comments and faves are always well appreciated!

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published by Fotofolio of Box 661, Canal Sta., NY, NY. The photography was by Rollie McKenna. The card has a divided back.

 

Dylan Thomas

 

Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'

 

Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.

 

He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.

 

Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.

 

While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.

 

Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.

 

Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.

 

During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.

 

Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.

 

-- Dylan Thomas - The Early Years

 

Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.

 

Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.

 

Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.

 

Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'

 

The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.

 

Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.

 

In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.

 

Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.

 

Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:

 

"Never was there such a dame school as ours,

so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with

the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons

drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,

where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over

undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling

of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick

under the table during English literature".

 

In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.

 

In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.

 

During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.

 

In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.

 

In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.

 

-- 1933–1939

 

In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.

 

Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:

 

-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'

-- 'Before I Knocked'

-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.

 

'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:

 

'And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the

west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and

the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they

shall rise again

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion'.

 

When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.

 

'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:

 

"The work is the sort of bomb

that bursts no more than once

in three years".

 

The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.

 

In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".

 

In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.

 

On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.

 

In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.

 

In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.

 

In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.

 

Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.

 

Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.

 

In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.

 

By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.

 

He later stated that:

 

"They are intellectual muckpots

leaning on a theory".

 

Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.

 

During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.

 

-- 1939–1945

 

In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.

 

Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.

 

Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.

 

Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.

 

At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".

 

Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.

 

Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.

 

In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:

 

"Our Swansea is dead".

 

Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.

 

In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.

 

In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:

 

-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.

-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).

-- 'Fuel for Battle'.

-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great

Britain set to Thomas's poetry.

-- 'A City Reborn'.

 

Other projects included:

 

-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).

-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's

footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.

-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.

 

In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.

 

In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.

 

The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.

 

The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.

 

In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.

 

In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:

 

"His nine months in New Quay were a second

flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the

earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems

and a good deal of other material".

 

His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:

 

"On the grounds of output, the bungalow

deserves a plaque of its own."

 

The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:

 

"New Quay was crucial in supplementing

the gallery of characters Thomas had to

hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."

 

-- Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949

 

Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.

 

In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.

 

However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.

 

In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.

 

On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.

 

He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.

 

Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:

 

"He is useful should a younger

generation poet be needed".

 

He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.

 

By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.

 

The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:

 

"This book alone, in my opinion,

ranks him as a major poet".

 

From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):

 

'Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon, I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art'.

 

The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.

 

On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.

 

He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.

 

In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.

 

A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.

 

Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96

 

Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.

 

Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.

 

In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:

 

"Dylan fished out a draft to show me

of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'

that was then called 'The Town That

Was Mad'."

 

-- Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953

 

(a) The First American Tour

 

The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.

 

The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.

 

Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.

 

The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:

 

"Would he arrive only to break

down on the stage?

Would some dismaying scene

take place at the faculty party?

Would he be offensive, violent,

obscene?"

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:

 

"Nobody ever needed encouragement

less, and he was drowned in it."

 

On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:

 

'Who once were a bloom of wayside

brides in the hawed house

And heard the lewd, wooed field

flow to the coming frost,

The scurrying, furred small friars

squeal in the dowse

Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the

white owl crossed.'

 

He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.

 

In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.

 

However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.

 

Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).

 

Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.

 

Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.

 

(b) The Second American Tour

 

Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.

 

It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.

 

The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.

 

The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:

 

"It is credited with launching the

audiobook industry in the United

States".

 

(c) The Third American Tour

 

In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.

 

Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.

 

During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:

 

"The rediscovery of love and

language in what might be left

after the world after the bomb."

 

The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.

 

Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.

 

During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.

 

After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.

 

(d) The Fourth American Tour

 

Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.

 

Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:

 

"Thomas is the greatest living

poet in the English language".

 

There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.

 

Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:

 

"He always felt that he had to get

out from this country because of

his chest being so bad."

 

Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.

 

Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.

 

There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.

 

Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.

 

He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:

 

"He was very ill when he got here."

 

After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.

 

(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).

 

The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.

 

Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.

 

The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.

 

Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:

 

"This circus out there has taken

the life out of me for now."

 

Reitell later said:

 

"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor

who thought injections would cure

anything".

 

At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:

 

"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think

that he would be able to do the last

performance because he was so ill…

Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so

ill…still my greatest memory of it is that

he had no voice."

 

On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.

 

A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.

 

On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:

 

"I've had eighteen straight

whiskies. I think that's the

record!"

 

However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount, although the barman could have been trying to exonerate himself from any blame.

 

Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".

 

The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:

 

"You sound as though from the tomb".

 

However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.

 

Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.

 

Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.

 

Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.

 

Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:

 

"The impression upon admission was acute

alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain

by alcohol, for which the patient was treated

without response".

 

Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:

 

"Is the bloody man dead yet?"

 

Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.

 

It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.

 

Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:

 

"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,

Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very

extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung

fields, both left and right."

 

The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:

 

"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection

with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.

The severity of the chest infection, with greyish

consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,

suggests that it had started before admission to

hospital."

 

Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.

 

-- Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death

 

Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.

 

At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.

 

The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.

 

Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.

 

FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.

 

Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.

 

Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.

 

Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:

 

"Ours was not only a love story, it was

a drink story, because without alcohol

it would never had got on its rocking

feet. The bar was our altar."

 

Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.

 

In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.

 

Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.

 

Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.

 

Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.

 

-- Dylan Thomas's Poetry

 

Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.

 

Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:

 

"There is a further characteristic which

distinguished Thomas's work from that

of other poets. It was unclassifiable."

 

Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.

 

Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.

 

His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.

 

Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.

 

Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:

 

"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,

based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism

derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and

pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the

human anatomy".

 

Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.

 

However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.

 

Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.

 

William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.

 

Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.

 

Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.

 

Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.

 

Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:

 

"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the

beginning because I had fallen in love with

words.

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,

and before I could read them for myself I had

come to love the words of them. The words

alone.

What the words stood for was of a very

secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is

the only expression I can think of, at once,

and am still at the mercy of words, though

sometimes now, knowing a little of their

behaviour very well, I think I can influence

them slightly and have even learned to beat

them now and then, which they appear to

enjoy.

I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began

to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,

to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I

had discovered the most important things, to

me, that could be ever."

 

Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.

 

Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:

 

-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style

-- After 1939, more straightforward

narratives.

 

Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.

 

-- Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet

 

Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:

 

"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by

Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."

 

Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:

 

"Dylan's inspiration and imagination

were rooted in his Welsh background".

 

Caitlin Thomas wrote that:

 

"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,

although there was nothing narrow about

the depth and understanding of his feelings.

The groove of direct hereditary descent in

the land of his birth, which he never in

thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."

 

Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.

 

Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:

 

"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,

Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply

compassionate."

 

Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:

 

"No major English poet has

ever been as Welsh as Dylan".

 

Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:

 

"Land of my fathers, and

my fathers can keep it".

 

While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.

 

Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:

 

"I only once heard Dylan express an

opinion on Welsh Nationalism.

He used three words. Two of them

were Welsh Nationalism."

 

Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".

 

Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:

 

"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much

of a Welshman".

 

FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.

 

Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work

 

Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.

 

When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:

 

"Dylan Thomas is now as much

a case history as a chapter in the

history of poetry".

 

He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':

 

"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's

notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that

attitudes to poetry attached themselves

to him which not only threaten the prestige,

effectiveness and accessibility to English

poetry, but also destroyed his true voice

and, at last, him."

 

The Poetry Archive notes that:

 

"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him

of being drunk on language as well as

whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that

the sound of language is central to his

style, he was also a disciplined writer

who re-drafted obsessively".

 

Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:

 

"Nothing could be more wrongheaded

than the English disputes about Dylan

Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling

obscure writer who can be enjoyed

without understanding."

 

Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':

 

"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated

schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow

with one small book as Swinburne had with

Poems and Ballads."

 

Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:

 

"No one can stick words into us

like pins... like Thomas can".

 

However he followed that by stating that:

 

"Dylan doesn't use his words

to any advantage".

 

Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:

 

"He is frothing at the mouth

with piss."

 

In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:

 

"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for

everything they detest, verbal obscurity,

metaphysical pretentiousness, and

romantic rhapsodizing".

 

Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.

 

In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.

 

Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.

 

The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.

 

John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.

 

Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.

 

-- Memorials to Dylan Thomas

 

In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.

 

Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:

 

'Oh as I was young and easy

in the mercy of his means

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like

the sea'.

 

Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.

 

In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.

 

In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.

 

In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.

 

In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.

 

Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.

 

-- List of Works by Dylan Thomas

 

-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.

-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.

-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.

-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.

-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.

 

-- Correspondence

 

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Vol I: 1931–1939

Vol II: 1939–1953.

-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.

 

-- Posthumous Film Adaptations

 

-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.

-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.

-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.

-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.

-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.

-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).

-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".

-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.

-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.

-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.

 

-- Opera Adaptation

 

-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.

 

-- Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas

 

"Somebody's boring me.

I think it's me."

 

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

 

"When one burns one's bridges,

what a very nice fire it makes."

 

"I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble; It is so sad and

beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."

 

"An alcoholic is someone you don't

like, who drinks as much as you do."

 

"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,

and my enquiry is as to their working, and my

problem is their subjugation and victory, down

throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-

expression."

 

"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea

with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.

Let me shipwreck in your thighs."

 

"Why do men think you can pick love up

and re-light it like a candle? Women know

when love is over."

 

"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.

I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading

Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."

 

"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,

I must leave you."

 

"My education was the liberty I had to read

indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes

hanging out."

 

"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."

 

"Our discreditable secret is that we don't

know anything at all, and our horrid inner

secret is that we don't care that we don't."

 

"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman

and my brother knocked it down and I knocked

my brother down and then we had tea."

 

"Though lovers be lost love shall not."

 

"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.

Then, when his soul is naked, is he one

with the man in the wind, and the west moon,

with the harmonious thunder of the sun."

 

"And books which told me everything

about the wasp, except why."

 

"We are not wholly bad or good, who

live our lives under Milk Wood."

 

"Love is the last light spoken."

 

"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...

by the side of a long and splendid curving

shore. This sea-town was my world."

 

"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.

They are better company, and their feelings

towards you are always genuine."

 

"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse

to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,

or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,

it is more compressed."

 

"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;

three: I am a lover of the human race, especially

of women."

 

"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever

questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't

know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."

 

"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and

confusions, are written for the love of man and in

praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."

 

"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."

 

"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.

And babies."

 

"Make gentle the life of this world."

 

"A worm tells summer better than the clock,

the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall

it tell me if a timeless insect says the world

wears away?"

 

"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come

closer now. Only you can hear the houses

sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt

and silent black, bandaged night."

 

"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.

She did not hear him, but stood over his bed

and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold

my hand, he said, and then: Why are you

putting the sheet over my face?"

 

"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."

 

"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."

Knox Bridge

 

Named after Philander C. Knox (1855-1921) United States Senator from Pennsylvania who owned 256 acres of land near the bridge and General Henry Knox (1750-1806) an officer quartered at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778.

 

Built 1865 by Robert Russell

  

aka....

Valley Forge Park Bridge

Valley Forge Dam Bridge

General Knox Covered Bridge

   

contact me on nick.volpe3@hotmail.com for use of this image.

 

This adorable juvenile opossum was found on a small sapling at night in Peru. They are known to be the most fierce of all Opossum species, regularly putting on an aggressive display and fighting off larger predators.

 

Èyùn the Seventeenth is a mostly likable future king from the year 8493. In this year, events set in motion in the present (year 776) day. He has come back and found only misfortune for a period: he worked as a sellsword prior to being found by Èyùn the Second (my Self-MOC). He's a terrible philanderer, and hides his serious demeanor in favor of a morale and hope boosting smile, but is among the friendliest of the Ghost Toa.

However, his firearms didn't make the jump back with him, and he now relies on an energy lance and throwing metal blades as defence.

 

Based on two MegaMan characters- GutsMan and MetalMan, and Fire Emblem's Inigo. (Which has also usurped Metroid Fusion as my favorite game of all time)

Currently houses the Horace Wilcox Library at Valley Forge.

Ecuador

Italian postcard by Playboy Edizioni Italiane, no. 2, 1982. Photo: Roberto Rocchi.

 

Beautiful and sexy Italian film actress Laura Antonelli (1941) appeared in 45 films between 1965 and 1991.

 

Laura Antonelli was born Laura Antonaz in 1941 in Pola (now Pula, Croatia), which at the time was the capital of the Italian province of Istria. She moved with her family first to Genoa and then to Venice, before they all eventually settled in Naples. She had a childhood interest in education, and as a teenager she became proficient at gymnastics. Setting aside ambitions to make a career in mathematics, she graduated as a gymnastics instructor. She moved to Rome, where she became a secondary school gym teacher and was able to meet people in the entertainment industry, who helped her find modelling jobs. Antonelli earliest engagements included Italian advertisements for Coca Cola and appearances on the TV show Carosello (1957-1977). In 1965, she made her first, uncredited film appearance in Le sedicenni/16 Year Olds (Luigi Petrini, 1965). Her 'American' debut came was in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (Mario Bava, 1966), an Italian-American coproduction starring Vincent Price. Two versions of the film were made, Italian and American. The American version was re-written, re-scored and re-edited without the participation of Bava. The film was not particularly successful. According to Wikipedia it is considered by many critics to be director Bava's worst film yet it was his commercially most successful film in Italy. Vincent Price's Goldfoot is the only character who appears in both versions. American distributor Samuel Z. Arkoff said the film's commercial reception was hurt by the refusal of Laura Antonelli to take her clothes off. Arkoff claimed she was originally willing to, but then his nephew, Ted Rusoff, who was sent to supervise the film, developed a crush on her and persuaded her not to do it. Other roles for Antonelli followed. She appeared in a number of sexy films such as the erotic drama Venere in pelliccia/Venus in Furs (Massimo Dallamano, 1969) and Il merlo maschio/The Male Blackbird (Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1971) about a frustrated cello player (Lando Buzzanca), who exposes his wife (Antonelli) in a reworking of the renowned photograph by Man Ray. In 1971, she also appeared opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in the successful French comedy Les Mariés de l'an Deux/The Married Couple of the Year Two (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1971) and the two stars also privately had a longtime affair. She did more French films with Belmondo, such as the black comedy Dr. Popaul (Claude Chabrol, 1972).

 

In 1973, Laura Antonelli had her breakthrough with the comedy Malizia/Malicious (Salvatore Samperi, 1973) for which she won the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Award, Nastro d'Argento in 1974. The film is about the parallel desire of a widower and his three teenage sons for their new housekeeper. The film challenged sexual taboos by presenting and mixing such themes as a 14 years old boy (Alessandro Momo) who blackmails the housekeeper into eventually tolerating his increasingly aggressive physical sexual harassment. In the same year, she also had a huge commercial success with the anthology comedy Sessomatto/How Funny Can Sex Be? (Dino Risi, 1973). From then on, she played leading roles in some major films. In Luchino Visconti's last film, L'innocente/The Innocent (1976) she played the wife of Giancarlo Giannini. Based on a novel by Gabriele d'Annunzio, the film is set amongst the aristocracy of 19th-century Italy. Wealthy Tullio (Giannini) thinks nothing of squiring his mistress (Jennifer O'Neill) in full view of his friends and the public. But when Giannini's cast-off wife (Antonelli) begins an affair with a young novelist, it is too much for the philandering aristocrat. In the romance Mogliamante/Wifemistress (Marco Vicario, 1977) with Marcello Mastroianni, she played a repressed wife experiencing a sexual awakening. Later she appeared in Passione d'Amore/Passion of Love (Ettore Scola, 1981). Antonelli's final role was in the sequel Malizia 2000/Malice 2000 (Salvatore Samperi, 1991). In 1991, cocaine was found during a police raid on Antonelli's home. She was subsequently convicted of possession and dealing and sentenced to house arrest. She spent ten years appealing the conviction, which was eventually overturned. In 2006, the Italian court of appeals ruled in the favour of Antonelli and ordered to pay the former actress 108,000 euros.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

I have kinda been in a weird place the last few weeks. Not sure how I feel about Flickr and some of the stuff that goes on around here. Or even why I bother taking photos......

 

I wanted to do an HBCCT photo for today but I didn't know what to do, so I checked out Musically Challenged for inspiration. Thats where I found this song: Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen!. I sat and listened to it and started smiling and I realized that this was exactly what I needed. The photo doesn't matter, it's the message of the song.

 

Baz Luhrmann - "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen!" If you can't listen then just read it :-)

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99...

 

Wear Sunscreen

 

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You're not as fat as you imagine.

 

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing everyday that scares you

 

Sing

 

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss

 

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind…the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch

 

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds know still don't.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

 

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own..

 

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

 

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time it's 40, it will look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen...

 

Happy Big Cushy Chair Tuesday everyone !

 

I was tagged by Toni_Catherine quite a while ago to do this:

Name: Jason

Gender: Male

Age: 41

Where You're From: South Dakota

Eye Color: Hazel/green

Hair Color: Brown

Favorite Sport: Snowboarding

Favorite Color: Red

Favorite Band: Rush

Siblings: Two brothers and one sister

Tattoos: none

Piercings: none

Hobbies: photography, sports of almost any kind, drinking beer, being happy!

 

I was also tagged by emeraldgirl to take a photo of my favorite rings/necklace, jewelry, etc. and explain why it is your favorite. Well....I don't wear any jewelery, not even a watch and for that matter I don't wear any accessories of any kind. No hats, no sun glasses, no nothing. The only thing I put on everyday other then clothes are my contacts, so I can see!

 

(8 of 52)²

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be

it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by

scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable

than my own meandering

experience…I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not

understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.

But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and

recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before

you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you

imagine.

 

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as

effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing

bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that

never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm

on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing everyday that scares you

 

Sing

 

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with

people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss

 

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes

you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with

yourself.

 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you

succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch

 

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your

life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they

wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year

olds I know still don’t.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

 

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe

you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky

chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t

congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your

choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,

use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people

think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever

own..

 

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for

good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the

people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you

should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and

lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you

knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live

in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will

philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize

that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were

noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,

maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one

might run out.

 

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will

look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who

supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of

fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the

ugly parts and recycling it for more than

it’s worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen…

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI&feature=related

SN: Caluromys Philander, Didelfidea Family

A rare marsupial in Brasil, found in the preserved forests of our Condo, Forest Hills, in Sao Paulo, Brazil

It is a small opossum which is known to make a high-pitched sound to scare enemies.

Cuíca-Lanosa

(Caluromys philander)

Bare-tailed wooly opossum - em inglês

A Cuíca-lanosa (Caluromys philander) é noturna, solitária, arborícolar e utiliza os estratos arbustivos ou arbóreos da floresta. Vive na Mata Atlântica, Cerrado e Amazônia. É um marsupial.

Bare-tailed woolly opossums, Caluromys philander, are found in the rainforests of South America. The northern end of their range is delimited by the Venezuelan Andes and extends east along the South American coast line to north-central Brazil.

Gestation is 24 days and then up to 120 days weaning in the marsupium

Nomes/Names:

C. philander has a wide geographic range and is know by many common names. These are: bare-tailed woolly opossum (English), yellow opossum (German), Awari (Surinamese), philander or Wollige opossum (Dutch), comadreja lunuda cola desnuda or comadreja rabuda (Venezuelan), Mucura-chichica (Brazilian), kotori o mahihimi (Yanomami). Historically, the species was called both Philander philander and Didelphis philander; these names are no longer commonly used nor are they appropriate.

Behaviour:

Bare-tailed woolly opossums are an arboreal species; they are rarely found in the understory and never on the ground. They prefer a dense upper-canopy for protection and nest in tree hollows or leaf nests within the canopy. They are nocturnal and tend to be more active for longer periods during the new moon apropos to the full moon. Nightly activity consists of foraging over their territory. Foraging duration lasts an average of 72.2 minutes followed by a period of rest and it is uncommon for more than two trees to be visited per night. C. philander has not been observed entering daily or seasonal torpor.

(www.animaldiversity.org)

  

Um marsupial raríssimo, chamado cuíca .A Cuíca-verdadeira ou Cuíca-de-quatro-olhos é um marsupial da família dos didelfídeos, encontrado nas florestas tropicais do México à Argentina.