Donovan may have sung of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man, but last night we heard his female counterpart. She was one of ten or so musicians gathered for Folk Night at a pub. The ensemble consisted of squeeze boxes, spoons, penny whistles, an Irish harp, autoharp, a pedal organ, guitars. Granted, there were bits where they were “singing songs of luh-uh-uhve” but actually there were more sea chanties and traditional folk tunes, music hall oldies and a few original numbers. High level…
The meadowsweet is in bloom along the less well mown bits of the towpath. Popular names of common plants being what they are, it is also known as Bridewort, Meadow Queen, Meadow Wort, Pride of the Meadow, Queen of the Meadow, Lady of the Meadow, Dollof, and Meadsweet. It was used as flavoring for mead, an insect repellent, and a charming addition to bridal bouquets. While it would not guarantee the happiness of the marriage it would at least protect…
Just outside Polesworth there is a monument of fossil fuel. Poised on top of an old slag heap from the local coal mines there is a golden pillar forty feet tall. The cross section represents a silver birch leaf, but you can’t see that unless you are forty one feet tall, or happen to have a forty foot ladder in your backpack. Stilts might also work, or a really tall unicycle. Anyway, it represents solar energy stored in fossil fuels,…
Atherstone, formerly known as Adderstone, has nothing to do with snakes, so the lady in the Heritage Centre told us, when we asked about the snakes in the Atherstone Mural… … and the Atherstone Totem Pole. What the Atherstone Heritage Centre does have to offer is the fact that the canal runs through town and they used to make hats here. The lady there is also convinced that it is the site of both Boudicca’s last stand, and the Battle…
Today we left the rural idylls of the Ashby Canal and returned to the Coventry Canal, taking a big loop through the outskirts of Nuneaton. The canal side back yards were variously besplattered with roses… … resplendent with fake geese… … or littered with skeletons. The towpath graffiti gets a B-minus at best. We passed a narrowboat decorated with battle swans made out of old tires. Past Nuneaton, the agriculture is pretty varied. There are designer cows… … horses, sheep,…
OK, I can cross that off the bucket list. I’ve now seen an ancient Greek depiction of juggling. This one is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It’s from Athens in about 450 BCE. There are only a handful of Greek juggling images I know of. Images of athletics or anal sex are far more common. It is always women juggling, and they are usually seated, or in one case bending over awkwardly. Did Greek homes have low ceilings that…
Tortoise sex proceeds at about the same speed as a narrowboat. I have a childhood memory of visiting Twycross Zoo, soon probably not that long after it opened in 1963. The chimps there were famous for appearing dressed as members of the working class in TV commercials for PG Tips tea. I remember seeing them performing at a tea party, and afterwards they came around and shook hands with the watching kids. Yep, I got to shake a chimpanzee’s hand….
We are moored up tonight between the fields where the Battle of Bosworth actually took place, and Crown Hill, where Richard III’s crown was found on a thorn bush and place on Henry VII’s head. We know it’s the right place, because it’s on all the street signs. The village on the hill is called Stoke Golding, and is a bustling place with three pubs, a school, two hairdressers, and a convenience store. The local church dates back to the…
Last night we reached the last turning point on the Ashby and turned around. The canal used to go further, but subsidence due to coal mining meant that the last third of the canal had to be abandoned. However, the local canal enthusiasts are a determined bunch and the last winding hole had a permanent rummage sale to help raise the hundreds of millions of pounds that will be required to reopen the missing bits. They have some other sources…
It sounds like something from The Gashlycrumb Tinies, doesn’t it, right before “N is for Neo who Thought he was God”. But Sir Marmaduke Constable was a real person who survived the battles of Bosworth and Flodden, only to die when he swallowed a frog in a glass of water. That is one of the best things in the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. There’s not much that remains of the Battle of Bosworth. In fact there is so little left…