A-Z Challenge - Houses, some real, some not - 'P'

P - Preston Hall

Preston Hall and Park overlooks the River Tees at Eaglescliffe. The Preston Hall Museum and its surroundings in 100 acres of beautiful park land which has undergone a make-over as the result of a Heritage Lottery Grant.

In addition to the winter gardens at the right, the museum houses displays of art, which normally includes Georges de la Tour’s famous Dice Players, armour and social history. 

Exhibitions show visitors what life was like in the 1800s with craft workers in a typical local street of the1890s. The street includes the shop of John Walker from Stockton; Walker was the inventor of the safety match.

Permanent attractions include an aviary, riverside and woodland paths. The Butterfly World  contains hundreds of butterflies from around the world and even some meerkats.

You may ride on the Teesside Small Gauge Railway or take a trip on the river to Yarm and Stockton aboard the pleasure boat, the Teesside Princess.

The park is an ideal place to walk a dog. Other facilities include safe surface play area for children, crazy golf and a café.

The walks by the river and the Quarry Wood Nature reserve are havens for wild life. 

Grassy areas are perfect for picnics and if you have a piscatorial bent the banks of the Tees provide pleasant spots for plumbing its depths.

[This is an edited post from the first A-Z Challenge I entered in 2011]

Black & White experiments.

During the A-Z Challenge this year it was Eva, I think, who invited me to post some black and white shots.

I've thought about it for a while and this is what I have come up with. You may recognise one that previously appeared in colour, but which one was it?

Gull's boat on the River Tees

Infinity Bridge over the Tees at Stockton

Tractor park

Dead limbs

I will also share these with 

at My Memory Art.

A-Z Challenge 2015 - Butterflies 'G'

G - Gatekeeper and Grayling

These are two brown butterflies, mostly brown with black spots and white markings resembling eyes on their wings The eye spots are to confuse their enemies.

The Gatekeeper is known by two other names

Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus)

Its second name of Hedge Brown indicates its favourite habitat while Small Meadow Brown shows it is closely related to the Meadow Brown.

That eye spot may also be seen on the underside of its wings.

Gatekeeper feeding on thistle

The Gatekeeper is common in most of lowland England and Wales, rare in Ireland and unknown in Scotland.

There is just one generation of Gatekeepers a year with adults emerging in July and peaking in early August. They spend much of their time basking with their wings open.

A variety of grasses are the foodplants for their caterpillars - bents, fescues, meadow and common couch grass.Brambles and ragwort are the adult butterfly's favourites along with thistles and fleabane.

Common Ragwort (with hover fly)

The ragwort photo was shot on a nature reserve at Stockton beside the River Tees. A second nature reserve is on the opposite river bank.

Maze Park with the A-19 flyover in the background

Maze Park, created from what was once an industrial eyesore is one home of the Grayling butterfly although I have yet to see one.

Grayling butterfly on knapweed

The Grayling (Hipparchia semele) is the largest of the brown butterflies with a wingspan of 2 inches or more. Notoriously camera shy its habitats are dry grasslands, sandy heath lands with colonies frequently near the sea.

Difficult to photograph because it always keeps its wings closed when settled. It often conceals its 'eye' behind the hindwing when at rest.

Grayling - DWT nature reserve

This video will enable you to see the upper wings of this butterfly, feeding on sea holly at Hightown, Merseyside in England.

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

I feel it when you're with me
It happens when you kiss me

Photo attributions:

• Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus): 25 July 2014, Clacton-on-Sea, Sansese at English Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0
• Gatekeeper butterfly feeding on a thistle: 26 July 2005, geograph.org.uk, by Martin Addison - CC BY-SA 2.0
• Youtube Video: Gatekeeper aka Hedge Brown - Butterflies in Cornwall, Paul Dinning
• Maze Park; 12 July 2005, geograph.org.uk, by Mike Garret - CC BY-SA.2.0
• Grayling butterfly feeding on knapweed: 17 July 2006, geograph.org.uk, by Anne Burgess - CC BY-SA 2.0
• Grayling - DWT nature reserve: 21 August 2013, by Ian Kirk, Broadstone, Dorset - CC BY-SA 2.0
• Youtube Video:Grayling Butterfly Hipparchia semele, by Steve Cross. 

True Lovers' Walk - Good Fences 48

The River Tees runs through the town of Yarm in North East England. It's about a three mile walk from where I live.

River Tees at Yarm

The Teesside Princess uses this quay for boat trips up and down the river between Yarm and Stockton-on-Tees.

The red fence extends part of the way along the river bank.

The footpath continues alongside the wall on the left leading to True Lover's Walk and Yarm Bridge (in the background above).

Yarm Bridge (in front) - Yarm Viaduct (behind)

There is a fence in that photo but you need exceptional eyesight to see it.

Hard to miss this one on the raised path.

If we take a closer look the fence on the viaduct is easy to see.

Yarm Bridge and Viaduct

The original stone bridge was built c1400 by Bishop Skirlaw of Durham and for 400 years was the only bridge across the Tees connecting Yorkshire and Durham. Parts of the original can still be seen in the wider modern day bridge which carries road traffic over the Tees

Yarm, the Viaduct and the Bridge

The viaduct was built in 1849; it has 43 arches, contains 7 million bricks and carries the railway over the town and the Tees. Our fence must skirt its entire length.

True Lovers' Walk continues upstream under the viaduct with the flood defence gates to properties on the left.

I shall have to continue along the path on another day to see what other 

I can find.

In the meantime I'm off to check out other fence posts at Teresa's Good-Fences-48.

Look Way Up - Thematic Photography

I know I've shown my first photo before but it fits 'Look Way Up' as well.

Infinity Bridge, River Tees, Stockton-on-Tees

I live in a bungalow and no buildings in the village are higher than two storeys so I have had to shoot what was available.

Twin trunks of Sycamore Tree next door, at the left of our drive

and on the right border with our neighbour (his tree).

Sycamore Tree (our bungalow at back left)

Then just up the lane is this telegraph pole.

Pole serving six telephone lines

It dwarfs the streetlight and has steps to help engineers to reach the top after they have had to 'Look Way Up.'

To see what others have found up there crane you neck over at Carmi's Thematic-photographic-285.

Messiness - Thematic Photography

When the River Tees is in flood, the flow is controlled by the Tees Barrage at Stockton. Debris brought down river backs up along the banks and the inlets. A sodden mess results. This seemed just right for Carmi's 'messiness' theme this week.

A Cormorant surveys the mess behind the boom.

Not bothered at all by the mess.

But he/she will not dive in there!

To see messiness left by others you need to visit Thematic-photographic-245.

Training - Sunday Stamps

Training seemed to be a good topic to chose now the Olympics have started. But as we did Olympic stamps last week I have picked trains instead.

Great Britain - 150th Anniversary of Public Railways 1975

This issue came about partly as a result of interest amongst philatelists and railway enthusiasts for a set of stamps featuring trains.

The village where I live is c5 miles from Stockton and 13 from Darlington. Yarm is the town three miles away which has this plaque on the Town Hall.

Pioneers of the first public railway

 The meeting to establish the first railway, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, was held at the Union Arms in Yarm.

Commemorative plaque - Union Arms, Yarm

For others' selections this week check out Sunday-stamps-81 where I know you will find some newly issued Olympic stamps.

 

Shoes - Sepia Saturday

I have never understood all the fuss about shoes (our theme for this week); they say you should put your best foot forward so I guess its a case of:

Yarm shop

This led to a bout of window shopping for shoes (female of course).

Buckles & Bows, Yarm

And the appropriately named -

The Shoe Box,Yarm

This shop is in a narrow wynd; its other window looks like this -

The Show Box window

The dress shop round the corner on the High Street sells shoes as well.

Shoe Stripes

These looked decidedly elegant compared with a shop in Stockton which was as empty as it looked.

Shoe Zone, Stockton

Not at all attracted to this I decided to look back in history and rejoiced in finding this 'gallant.'

Pepys & Lady Batten

By James Digman Winfield - 1861

The Diary of Samuel Pepys for Wednesday 15 November 1665 reads in part: "Up and all the morning at the office, busy, and at noon to the King’s Head taverne, where all the Trinity House dined to-day, to choose a new Master in the room of Hurlestone, that is dead, and Captain Crispe is chosen. But, Lord! to see how Sir W. Batten governs all and tramples upon Hurlestone, but I am confident the Company will grow the worse for that man’s death, for now Batten, and in him a lazy, corrupt, doating rogue, will have all the sway there. After dinner who comes in but my Lady Batten, and a troop of a dozen women almost, and expected, as I found afterward, to be made mighty much of, but nobody minded them; but the best jest was, that when they saw themselves not regarded, they would go away, and it was horrible foule weather; and my Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with new spicke and span white shoes, she dropped one of her galoshes in the dirt, where it stuck, and she forced to go home without one, at which she was horribly vexed, and I led her; and after vexing her a little more in mirth, I parted..."

In Edwardian times there were other delights:

High Heels 1910-1917

By Jean Agelou (1878-1921) - source www.edwardian-delights.com

I'd better stop at this point before I develop a high (heeled) fetish and return to what I posted recently under Pairs. 

Spare pair of shoes up street lamp in Norwich, Norfolk

(by Keith Evans -- CC A-SA 2.0 license)

But my favourite shoes will always be these  that you've seen before.

Sam worn out by gardening

OK they may be boots but

So perhaps you should walk right over to Sepia Saturday 114 and choose some more shoes.

National Library Day and Peter Robinson

 

National Library Day

Saturday 4 February was National Library day in the UK. I had the pleasure of attending Stockton Central Library for a talk and book signing by Peter Robinson, the creator of the Inspector Banks detective/mystery series - http://www.inspectorbanks.com/.

The event had been ‘sold out’ but the first snow of the winter resulted in some empty seats. Fortunately Peter had only travelled from the town of Richmond, Yorkshire not that many miles away; he had left his home in Toronto earlier in the week and, as he said, had just about got over the jet lag.

Peter’s first library, that used by Alan Bennett and novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, was at Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Before the Poison

For his talk Peter chose to explain that his latest book ‘Before the Poison’ was not part of the Banks series. The inspiration for the story came from a rundown house he found beyond the old racecourse at Richmond. At one time there had been limekilns in the area; in the book the house became Kilnsgate. Somewhat creepy, a love story of the past and present ‘Before the Poison’ covers the life of Grace Elizabeth Fox hanged in 1953 for poisoning her husband. Chris Lowe who has returned to live at Kilnsgate becomes entrapped by Grace’s story and comes to believe she did not poison her husband.

Peter Robinson explained how he incorporated Grace’s journal in the book. He read an extract which covered Grace’s experience as a Queen Alexandra’s nurse during the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in WWII.

Question and Answer Session

Interestingly Peter does not know who the murderer is when he starts a Banks book. He may be three-quarters of the way through before he decides who is the culprit. He does not have an outline or plan for his novels, nor character profiles.

He described the recent TV episodes with Stephen Tompkinson playing Alan Banks as two hours of mindless entertainment. He finds the TV version not to be the way he would do it. He believes Tompkinson is growing into the part but is too tall to be the Banks he wrote about.

The Eastvale location is based on a combination of Richmond and Ripon; TV scenes use Otley, near Leeds.

His best place for writing is in a cottage overlooking a lake north of Toronto. At Richmond he writes in the guest bedroom. He is not one to write while travelling or in hotels.

His next Banks book is to be based in Tallin, Estonia with the title ‘Watch in the Dark’ about a girl who goes missing while on a hen party in the city.

When asked how many drafts he produces before a novel is complete, Peter said his first draft has already been revised as he goes back to change details as he goes along. He may produce a further draft before the book is read by his wife, and his editors. The final version will then go to the copy editors. Effectively he has three goes at each book. He finds that writing with computers encourages you to make revisions as you go along.

When asked about his favourite authors Peter mentioned Michael Connelly, Mark Billingham and Ian Rankin. He mentioned specifically ‘The Greatcoat’ a ghost story by Helen Dunmore. He uses a Kindle for convenience while travelling, but agrees the e-readers will not replace books. Peter is also reading Alan Hunter’s books featuring the detective George Gently and stressed that the TV stories are nothing like the book.

Note:

‘Before the Poison’ is to be published in hardback in the USA on 7 February.

Seeing Red - Thematic Photography

In meeting the weekly themes set by Carmi I'm seeing things and interpreting photos in a different way than was intented when they were taken. Here's some that have me 'Seeing Red.'

Anemone

This plant has been in our garden for a long time, but decided to flower this past summer.

Cody has been around a long time too but is always ready for a game. When his coat is long then he is reddish as well.

Cody, waiting for the kick-off.

He's is only pretending to be alseep.

Also at the ready at Stockton's riverside was this fire engine with the high reach ladder and hose.

Simon Snorkel

Fire practice

A pedigree Border Collar with her red prizes has a water connection as well.

Elemark Waterlily (Lily)

This house in Yarm maintains both the red and and the water link.

Flood Cottage, Yarm

 And finally there is this fellow, definitely seeing red after flying into our lounge window early one morning.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

 If you want to 'spot' some more then please visit seeing-red