Roundabout

We had such a lovely day in Oxford on Wednesday. We specifically went to see the Anglo-Saxon Alfred jewel, which Jamie’s wanted to see for a couple of years. Made in the 9th century with the inscription ‘Alfred ordered for me to be made’ it’s a very special item with amazingly intricate gold work surrounding enamel work and a rock crystal. It was ploughed up in the 17th century - imagine finding that!

We enjoyed wandering through the galleries seeing some incredible works of art and historic artefacts. Here are a few which I particularly liked (and I got a half decent photo of). Where possible I’ve added a link where you’ll be able to see better images than I managed, but even better, why not go and visit the Ashmolean- it really is worth visiting more than once.

I love the little satyr on the right who meets your eye.

Domenico Fetti (1588 - 1623)

Look at this beautiful night-scene, the clouds are so perfect.

Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

The lighting in this painting is so stunning - just incredible what a few well-placed brush strokes can produce. Unbelievable to think it was painted over 350 years ago. I was raving about this to my sister and she said “Haven’t you ever seen a painting before?!” 😂 

Matthias Stom ~1640

I love the flowers in this, with the blossom showing the arrival of Spring. Such skill in making the material look so real, beautiful.

Frederick Sandys (1829-1904)

Another lovely creation full of flowers. I’d enjoy sitting there!

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)

I particularly like the reflection in the lily pond in this one, though the style is not my preferred as it looks almost too modern.

Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873)

I could have spent hours staring at some of the art whereas a glimpse at others was enough to know it wasn’t my cup of tea. The still life works are amazing but are a bit samey - and there are a lot of them, this is just a small portion.

Apart from the Alfred Jewel this article caught Jamie’s eye. Not the most beautiful in the building 😊 but, you know, we all have our preferences.

The Martin Brothers 1898

This interesting tapestry of Oxfordshire and surrounding counties from 1660 fills a whole wall - it’s undergone quite a lot of restoration unsurprisingly.

Oxfordshire tapestry 1660

As you’d expect, Hungerford is there and Littlecote, that I posted about last week, but I’m surprised to see ‘Charnham Street’, which is our main road into the town, listed as a separate settlement. I’m hoping someone local can shed some light on that.

Anyway this fella with a garlic on his head 🤭 reminds me that this used to be an allotment blog..!

We’ve visited each day to water and check on progress. I was disappointed that something has tucked into our lettuce and emerging row of turnips so I’ve resorted to slug pellets and netted over the top of them. I’ve planted a few of the perennials around the plots to provide a bit of lasting colour, hopefully and tidied up one of the messy areas. I’ve sowed these beans in various locations:

Borlotti Lamon climbing

Greek Gigantes climbing

Jacob’s Cattle dwarf

We should have seen the last of the cold nights now and we’re moving into a mini-heatwave (hooray!). It’s lovely to see a few more flowers emerging and the valerian scent is on the air - beautiful!

The song title has been chosen as a few of us plotholders have been helping Hungerford/Britain in Bloom by weeding/digging and planting up one of the roundabouts as you enter Hungerford - we hope it’ll soon be a lovely mix of colours, rather than just the yellow and green of buttercups! It includes lupin, astilbe, verbena boreansis, golden rod, geranium, cow daisy and borage to name a few.

So here’s the song by Yes - oh dear, it’s the 8-plus minute version! Go and make a cup of tea.

Too Late

Autumn really provides us with some lovely Sunrises and Sunsets. This was the view from our window one morning in September and there have been some excellent pink clouds at both ends of the day. At home we’ve noticed bats flitting about when it’s still quite light before dusk and after dark a hedgehog has been trundling through the courtyard.

The allotment is waiting to be cleared, but my heart’s not in it at the moment. That bed has the parsnips and beetroot but almost everywhere else needs clearing. We want to dig a trench under the old polytunnel frame where the climbing beans will grow next year. All the old foliage can go in there but I need to clear the squashes first - maybe I’ll actually do that today…

I’ve planted some daffodil bulbs around the orchard and in the flower plot and I did get round to planting the garlic at the beginning of the month - about 30 Czechmate Wight. Sprinkled onion fertiliser on the leeks, onions and those garlic cloves.

I pulled the last Pink Fir potato from there. Just enough for a couple of meals from some potatoes left on the allotment spares shelf, with 20cm chits! They were very tasty roasted.

At the end of September I cleared the small raised bed - the pak choi had all bolted and the Chinese cabbage disappeared - but I discovered the seed tray where I’d sown All Year Round cauliflower! I hoed and cleared (not dug, brassica don’t want dug soil - luckily!) an area in the brassica cage and stuck 14 seedlings in, so we’ll see…. I don’t know if the whole country is the same but we have hoards of whitefly - in the town as well as at the allotment.

There are still a few redcurrant tomatoes hanging on, but I’m expecting that this was the last meal that included fresh home-grown toms this year - they’ve certainly served us well!

Talking of food - we visited beautiful Oxford yesterday specifically for the regular street food market at Gloucester Green and to visit a museum. 

Gloucester Green didn’t disappoint - so much choice Nepalese, Thai, Lebanese, Italian, Korean with so many veggie options! I opted for a Persian halloumi bowl - so delicious- and Jamie had Chinese dumplings - yum yum 😋 

We browsed the shops including Blackwells Bookstore and visited The Covered Market for coffee and cake at Browns Cafe - it’s a must.

We wandered along streets - a bit dodgy for Jamie at times - admiring the architecture and considering the history in these cobbled alleyways and walls - so beautiful. And spotting the weird features and gargoyles on many of the buildings.

We heard music and when we turned into Broad Street we stumbled across another street market - what a stroke of luck! Being surrounded by so many different nationalities and languages makes Oxford such an interesting city to sit, watch and listen. Oh, and have a little drink of course ☺️

What a lovely, exhausting day! Now, as we’re well into October and it’s not windy or rainy I really should go to the allotment… Carole King provides the great song because we didn’t make it to the museum on time! That’s ok, we’ll be back.

Upon a Winters Night

It's Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas!

We've had a very busy month. It's been extremely wet, but luckily on a few important dates it didn't rain so it's been a lot of fun getting ready for Christmas. We had our usual trip to Oxford and I had some delicious tofu Singapore noodles in the Gloucester Green street market.

Then bought a few pressies at the Christmas Market before having a cuppa in the Covered Market - visiting some of my favourite places in the City.

The beautiful Elisabeth Convent (Belarus) convent - I should have bought more there

Back in Hungerford we saw Will Young (local singer) switch on our lovely Christmas lights and enjoyed the Christmas Extravaganza, including being in the lantern parade - this year we made the HAHA lanterns in the shape of snails.

 

Somebody paid me £4 for mine at the end of the parade! I gave it to The Big Issue seller.

Kerry's is now residing on her plot - although it's a skeleton again because the rain removed all the paper.
We managed to avoid rain at the Newbury lantern parade - huge compared to the Hungerford one, but we're hoping ours will grow and more people join in in future years.

It's been a very wet Autumn/Winter so far.

 

That's not the allotment. It's the River Kennet in Hungerford which is very full and fast-flowing at the moment. We did actually visit the plot yesterday and it was very soggy, although it was a crisp clear blue sky day. We only visited to pull some carrots for our, now traditional, carrot lox which we'll have on Christmas Day. We have our big Christmas meal late this evening.

Here's the latest addition to our Christmas tree. Unfortunately we had to buy sprouts but we may get some from the plot for another meal this Christmas.

We had lovely visits to family and lots of shopping trips. And this is a photo from our window as the sun set at the end of the shortest day of 2019. Hooray, we're on the way back up now - but I wouldn't mind a bit of snow before Christmas holiday is over (or maybe just at the end of the holiday so I can't drive to work)!

Here's a lovely version of this song performed by Cara Dillon. Enjoy and Happy Christmas!

Spaceman

50 years on from the first man on the moon I figure space deserves a mention on my blog.

Of course, this isn't a spaceman, but he looks like one to me.

We had a trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford yesterday.

What an amazing place - so much to see!

Too much, on the hottest day of the year at 30°.

I loved all the masks and figurines - apologies for the quality of photos, the glass cases make it tricky.

The whole place was stacked full of interesting artifacts, though we missed the shrunken heads. Some were just plain freaky!

Bad photo - but you get the gist

The Museum of Natural History was interesting too. Not just the architecture.

I loved seeing all the skeletons, particularly the huge ones. But not keen on all the stuffed birds and animals.

We went up the Carfax Tower. Those 99 spiral staircase steps were hard work, but worthwhile.

So lovely to see the Dreaming Spires from that height.

And be above the crowds in that heat.

It was so hot that we actually didn't buy anything (apart from food). It was just too hot to be shopping!

Aah, such a lovely day. Back to my birthplace on my birthday.
And the song is by Babylon Zoo.