Does anyone know...?

For once a blog with no attendant photograph...!

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain.
He stepped in a puddle right up to his middle
And never went there again.

The man in the moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich.
He went to the south and burnt his mouth
By eating cold pease porridge

Does anyone know any other Nursery Rhymes which feature the name of a town?

new camera

This picture shows where we celebrated after I bought a new camera, as a result of pressure from the daughters, one of them thinking I was getting better and should have a better one (!?), and the other wanting my 'old' one so that she could start her blog - 'going gwada', q.v. @ blogspot.com.

Queen Vic at Holborn Viaduct

I have been doing some research into Victorian London and came across this delightful ' common man's take ' on the opening of the Holborn Viaduct in 1869. It had been a noble and very expensive project which had taken 6 years in the making, but was very appreciated by all and sundry. Holborn Circus - where the clock tower now stands - was separated from the Old Bailey (though it was actually the site of Newgate Prison originally) by the valley of the Fleet River. The river had been covered over in the eighteenth century, but the banks - Holborn Hill - formed notorious steep climbs which the coaches and horses of the time, and also pedestrians, found very difficult to negotiate. I hope you can and do enjoy reading it - it is at the maximum size I could put it at on the blog.




It was printed by H. Disley, Printer, 57, High Street, St Giles, London. The Source of the document is: Curiosities of Street Literature, London,Reeves and Turner, 196, Strand, 1871. The web site is noted for each verse.

The New River

The New River is not so new. It was a canal built in the 17th century to bring water from near Ware to London, but its last few miles have been culverted since the nineteenth century. A small section has been made by Islington following near to its original course to make a very pleasant walk alongside a small stream. These photographs are from that. I was out yesterday looking at reflections and the first photograph is quite a dramatic design, even if I haven't quite got the colour right, probably because I was looking a little too near towards the sun.



Further on I had the delight in capturing something I would not have succeeeded in doing had I worked for it. The mallard drakes were arguing over a female and I was recording some of the action. No easy task. But in this photograph, the action is in the background, and none too clear, but the drake in the foreground has been caught in mid-quack, which I think is rather cool.

Valentine's Day surpise

There was great fun in the household today in regard to Valentine's Day celebration. The other week I was in a local park taking careful photos when I spotted a couple of lovey doves ( or pigeons or something ) and stopped to take a hasty photo of them.



I was only just in time as they flew off almost immediately afterwards. Then, during the family trip to Whitstable last Saturday, beautifully recorded by Evie on her blog, her sister, the young Mum of 2.9 children, said she liked a certain seat. So I took a photo of the same.


Strangely enough I am not sure that she actually sat on it, but that's neither here nor there...
Back home the g.l decided to show yours truly how to send that photo via email, but somehow managed to send the photo of the two birds instead. After some mystification and bemusement the error was later corrected.

After careful thought on my part I decided that the same birdy photo would make a suitable subject for a Valentine's Card for the g.l. and managed last night to put it together, and left it on the kitchen table for her to see this morning for she would be rising before me. This she did and later I came up to make a cup of tea. To my great astonishment I found that the g.l. had left me a Valentine's card - with the two little birds as its main design!

Someone's comment was to the effect that that is what comes from being married for nearly 40 years! Why did I mention the seat/bird photo mix-up? Well the g.l. was doing the Valentine card around the same time, so we may have here a rare example of a Freudian photo slip, or not...

meme at dunadan request

What on earth (or in heaven or anywhere else for that matter) is a meme? Split it and it looks very self-centred ( me me) and I'm bad enough there already! Or is it an acrostic -'make every memory exciting' (that would be fun!), or perhaps, 'most Englishmen marry Engishwomen' -(though I happily married a Scottish girl). However the dunadan in a recent blog challenges(?) me to go to page 123 and perform a task, so for what it is worth, here it is:

St Pancras Station by Simon Bradley

"Communication between storeys was by means of speaking tubes, set likewise alongside the service lifts. All these facilities were grouped vertically, like the service cores of modern steel-or concrete-framed buildings. There was also a sealed shaft for 'dust', which would have included ashes from the hundreds of fires, and even a tube for the stream of outgoing letters: the usual method of public and private communication in the days before telephones, when the penny post within central London would normally achieve delivery later the same day."

Post the same day? Them were the days!

USA Election

Following on from our esteemed dunadan's example I tried out the Electoral Compass and ended up with the same result as he -nearest to Bill Richardson and furthest from Fred Thompson. Which is just as well as apparently it puts me in the traditional camp and that's where I'm solidly based. Mind you I did not understand the significance of the figures relating to each candidate so it is just as well they said where I stood - or sat.