All's Well

I've been absent from the blogging world for a while but it's simply because I've been so busy. This is just to catch up with one or two things that have been happening over the last few weeks, there has been a great deal of working on my garden which is now looking at least reasonably under control. There's also been a lot of walking with B Baggins when we've had several sightings of deer including this stag who suddenly appeared on the lane in front of us and was trotting away before I could get a good photo.

There have been several outings with both Time Travellers and Totley History Group including a visit to Beauchief Abbey. The church that is there now was originally part of the Abbey church. After the Reformation the Abbey was aquired by Sir Nicholas Strelley and it remained in this family until 1923. It was converted into a private chapel in 1662 and the interior has hardly altered since then.The pulpit, pews and altar table are all the original 17th century fittings. It deserves a post to itself which I'll do at some point when life is less hectic. Clicking on the photo will enlarge it so that you can see more detail.

We also had the once in a life time chance to go behind these gates and explore the 17th century Beauchief Hall which, after decades as a hotel and then offices has now been bought by someone who plans to restore it sympathetically and live in it as a private home again.

This is the front of the Hall with steps leading down from a lovely stone terrace into the garden which doesn't look very inspiring from this angle.....

.....but it's actually a lovely walled garden which has been well maintained.

Just to one side of main entrance is this wonderful stone mounting block.

I loved these curved steps leading down from the terrace, the archway on the left is where carriages would have driven through, the family and their guests would have then have gone up the steps to the main entrance. The doorway to the left led to the kitchens, servants hall etc. It was really great to be able to wander all over the house and explore at our leisure. It required a degree of imagination in many areas which is why there are no interior photos as they wouldn't have been very inspiring.

Then of course there was two days at Bakewell Show in early August, with my friend J (the countrywoman) on Wednesday and then on Thursday L (the shopping queen) came with me. J and I always go and see the cattle first and we are invariably the only people there apart from the farmers. We got a close up of this lovely English Longhorn which is a very ancient breed originating in the north of England.

J and I picked this handsome Hereford bull as a winner as soon as we saw him and here he is with his proud owner.

Diane and her family are at Bakewell every year demonstrating spinning and J and I always go and see them. Hopefully this winter we'll be getting some lessons from Diane - J and I both have our own spinning wheels now. Mine is purely decorative so far!

I always love seeing vintage cars.

This was one of the more unusual exhibits - not quite the vehicle I'd envisaged for my final journey!

I defintely prefer the more dignified Victorian version:)

The heavy horses are always my favourites, this one was in the decorated harness class, in the 19th century the horsemen took great pride in decorating their working horses for special occasions.

There are more entries in the heavy horse classes in recent years, it's good that they are also being used more for logging in woodland areas where they do far less damage than tractors.

For once I actually agreed with the judges - the title of this class was 'Still Life' and I think that this was perfect.

I was in East Anglia over the August Bank Holiday weekend staying with my son and his family. I don't know quite whether to say I was in Suffolk or Norfolk as they literally live on the border of the two counties. On the Sunday we went to Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse where they were having a WW2 'Village at War' weekend.

Another favourite thing - I love these old hay wagons.

George having fun 'milking'.

This was absolutely right down my street, the farmhouse kitchen being used to demostrate wartime cookery. If you enlarge the photo you'll be able to see the remains of the infamous 'Woolton Pie' on the table at the back on the right. The lady in the pink blouse told me that it's really nice and that she often cooks it at home for her family. I plan to have a go at it this autumn.

When we bought our tickets (which were like Identity Cards)the boys were given a 'ration book' so that they could go to the village shop and collect their 'sweet ration'. They are looking rather bemused about the whole thing but it took me back to when I was a little girl - I remember clearly going shopping with my mum and having the ration book with us. Sweets didn't come off the ration until I was 6 1/2 years old. It's worth enlarging this to see the expression on George's face:)

There are three Suffolk horses at Gressenhall and this is one of them working, there was a crop in the field so he may be pulling some sort of hoe? - I wasn't close enough to see and I'm no expert on farm machinery. The Suffolks are my favourite of all the heavy horses.

Gabriel trying out the wheelchair and being 'tended' by the VAD nurse - another of the many re-enactors. We had a really brilliant day here and will be going again.

Ever since Neil and Cesca went to live in Suffolk I've been angling for them to take me to Sutton Hoo. What a disappointment! In true National Trust fashion everything was fenced off and the only way to get near the burial mounds was to join a guided tour at a cost of an extra £2.50 each - I'm a member of the NT but we'd already paid £18-50 for Neil and Ces to get in. In any case the boys are too young for guided tours so we didn't want to do that anyway. There was a complete lack of imagination in evidence and it makes me once again question whether I want to belong to the National Trust - it seems to me that it's an organization that is far too full of its own importance. English Heritage is much better! Anyway we didn't stay very long and the only photos I took were of Gabriel climbing a tree and...

....this rather splendid carved seat.Wish I'd had the sense to include the whole thing in the photo so that you can see properly the it's shaped like a boat.Anyway Sutton Hoo is somewhere that we shan't be visiting again!

I shan't be around now for the next couple of weeks as my eldest son and his family are over from South Africa and he and my two granddaughters are staying with me while Hannah does the two week residential course at the start of the second year of her Masters Degree. They are over at their other grandparents house today hence the chance to do a post. We are off to Wales for a few days next weekend - first time I've been since Steve was a 6 week old baby. Apparently we are going to be climbing Snowdon!

Aspects of Africa

The area of South Africa where Steve and Hannah live has many other beautiful and interesting things to see apart from the wild animals. Above is a strelitzia which is often called the bird of paradise flower and you can see why. I took this photo in the Botanical Gardens in Nelspruit but it grows wild on the Eastern Cape. As always clicking on the photos will enlarge them. This is a long post but since it's nearly 4 months since I returned from South Africa I thought that it's about time I drew a line under things this time!

Another trip up into the Drakensbergs took us to the Mankelexele Massif. Inside this dolomite mountain are Sudwala Caves which were formed about 240 million years ago, making them the oldest known caves in the world. No-one knows the true extent of this huge cave system and legend has it that there is no end to them.
The caves were used for shelter in prehistoric times, probably due in part to a constant supply of fresh air from an unknown source in the caves. This flow of air maintains the temperature at a constant 18C.

The caves are full of the most amazing stalagmites, stalactites and flowstones. Many of them have names and the one above is known as 'The Screaming Monster' and has taken 160 million years to form. A stalactite in the Sudwala caves grows at about 2.5cm in a hundred years. In case you are wondering there is a simple way to remember which is which - a stalagmite grows up from the ground and a stalactite grows down from the ceiling

This formation is called The Three Nuns because the shadow cast on the wall looks like three nuns kneeling in prayer.

Here we have the Lowveld Rocket. In this case a stalagmite and a stalactite have formed a single column which is about 150 million years old.

I think this was my favourite of all the spectacular formations in the caves - it's a piece of flowstone in the shape of a horse's head. Flowstone is formed when water is flowing down a wall or along the floor but it is made of the same calcite deposits as stalagmites and stalactites.

These are stromatolites - fossils of the first oxygen producing plants on earth called collenia. They were a type of blue-green algae that floated in the oceans of the world over 2 billion years ago!

Back to the present and it's time for some lunch. Important decisions to be made here!

Mine's a chocolate ice lolly please!

Me too - but it's melting faster than I can eat it.

This is the beautiful view we had as we ate our lunch, we could see for miles from our perch high up in the mountain. The drive up to the caves was quite something and going back down was even more breathtaking in more ways than one - you just hoped that the brakes wouldn't fail!

This orb spider was one of many in the area around the shop and cafe. Steve took this close-up - I wouldn't have dared to go that near to it.

Hannah spotted these 'whatever-they-ares' and their nest on the ceiling in the Ladies loo! It made me wonder what other wildlife was lurking about in there - we certainly saw a spitting cobra disappearing into the rocks on the opposite side of the path. Steve spotted it and it was much smaller than I expected. He had a very close encounter with one a couple of months before we arrived when it got into their washing machine (which lives on the verandah) and he had to deal with it - fortunately thanks to help from an African friend all ended well except from the snake's point of view.

The following day we went up to Hoedspruit to the Endangered Species Centre. Here they focus on the conservation and breeding of rare and endangered species particularly cheetahs. They also care for orphaned and injured animals.

This is the African Wild Dog or Painted Wolf which is Steve's favourite wild animal. The Wild Dog is an endangered species because of loss of habitat, they hunt in packs and require very large areas of territory and much of this has been taken over by the ever expanding human population. Once there were about half a million Wild Dog in Africa, now only somewhere between 3000 and 5000 of them remain.

One of the features of the Endangered Species Centre is the 'vulture restaurant' seen in this photo with some of the clientele. The long-legged birds are Marabou Storks, these can be up to 3 feet in height with a wingspan of 10.5 feet. Along with the Andean Condor it has the largest wingspan of any landbird. I confess that I find them rather cute:)

This handsome pair with the beautiful blue eyes are Hooded Vultures - believe it or not they are among the smallest of the African vultures! Vultures get a very poor press but they are actually extremely important ecologically. They are scavengers and keep natural and man-made habitats free of carcasses and waste and by doing this they restrict the spread of diseases such as anthrax and botulism. The different types of vulture each have a different role to play in stripping the carcase of every scrap of flesh, those with the strong sharp beaks opening it up the others taking their turn until finally the smaller ones clean up the remaining scraps.

Mpumalanga's sub-tropical climate makes it one of the best areas in the world for growing bananas and everywhere you go you see banana plantations with the trees all apparently growing a fine crop of blue plastic bags! Actually the bags are there to protect the fruit from damage by sun, wind, birds and insects:)

These are my favourite road signs in the whole world! It's a poor photo as it was late in the afternoon and the sun was shining straight into the camera but I had to take it while I could. The sign makes me smile but it is a very serious sign indeed as hippos are extremely dangerous animals.

Our last day and as the girls were both in school/nursery and Hannah had to work, Steve,Juliette and I had a day on our own. We decided to drive up to Sabie to visit a couple of the waterfalls, I love this photo of Steve and Juliette standing in front of Lone Creek Falls.

Lone Creek Falls pour over a 222ft high cliff covered in trees, moss and ferns.

Steve said I should take an 'artistic' shot of the Falls so here it is:)

I think that this photo of the water hitting the rocks at the bottom is rather good though I say it myself!

As we were driving from Lone Creek Fall to our next stop the sky was beginning to look rather threatening.

After parking the car there is a stiff climb of about half a mile up a narrow track through lush forest and you can hear the waters of Bridal Veil Falls long before you see them.

The Falls are 192 feet high and get their name from the resemblance to a bridal veil, this is Juliette's photo which caught the delicacy better than any of mine.We kept hearing a rumble of thunder in the distance and I saw Steve keep glancing up at the sky. Suddenly he said "Time to go" and we set off back down the steep track. I was picking my way carefully as befits a lady of a certain age when there were a couple of cracks of thunder closely followed by lightning flashes and I was off down that track like a young mountain goat! Suffice it to say that I arrived back at the car ahead of both Steve and Juliette:):)

Just in time too - African storms can be both violent and spectacular but I'd rather see them from inside a car than from halfway down a mountain. The windscreen wipers were going full belt when I took this photo. We headed back to Sabie and the Pancake House where the staff dashed out with golf umbrellas to shelter us as we raced for the entrance. We sat and watched the storm as we ate our pancakes, there's a huge choice of fillings and they are really good, Steve and Hannah go here quite often.

Finally the storm began to pass and the Drakensberg Mountains started to reappear through the mist. It was a pretty memorable end to a brilliant holiday.