Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
Hoghton Tower, in Lancashire, has a reputation as of the most haunted places in England. Regular apparitions include a Black Dog, The Green Lady and a little girl. Visitations and unearthly occurrences are recorded in a ghost file. Continue reading “Grass Maze at Hoghton Tower, Lancashire”
My sweetheart and I love going to the annual Saddleworth Rushcart to watch the morris dancers. It’s very British: a happy day, where old traditions are celebrated – colourful, good-humoured fun, with just enough of an element of ‘why would they do this?’ to keep the crowd wondering.
Did I mention they drag a massive cart of rushes up a lengthy hill before the dancing starts?
I always enjoy watching the faces of the dancers – some seem to be feeling pure happiness; others are concentrating hard, or lost in the flow. It surely can’t be easy wearing those heavy floral hats! Continue reading “Morris Dancers at the Saddleworth Rushcart”
Night was drawing in when I took this photo of the trees and street lights in Albert Square, Manchester, dressed in red lanterns to celebrate Chinese New Year.
The auspicious colour did seem to have mystical properties, glowing even in the dusk as the lanterns danced in the wintry wind. Continue reading “Celebrating Chinese New Year 2016: The Year of the Monkey”
Fountains Abbey was built by Cistercians in an isolated spot where the River Skell meanders through a steep sided valley. It’s part of the varied and extensive Studley Royal Estate, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most popular pay-to-enter of the National Trust’s sites. Continue reading “Fountains Abbey: a Jewel in the National Trust’s Crown”
During our visit to Grasmere yesterday, clouds lay low over rolling hills, but the greyness just added atmosphere to the water, hills, woods, dry stone walls, ferns and wildflowers along our way.
We’d stopped off here to walk around the lake: my idea of exercise! Our route took us past houses, lakeside businesses, farmland and woods before swinging down to the path around the shore. Continue reading “Grasmere: an uplifting walk round the poet’s lake”
This weekend we were lured to a Yellow Book charity open day in a thriving community garden, Mossfield Allotments in Urmston, by promises of fruit, veggies and flowers, gardeners we could chat to, a brass band & all the cake we could eat for 50p per slice. Now, that’s a North West day out! You might call it entrapment for people of our ilk.
I loved this artichoke plant I saw in one of the allotment gardens, but I’ve had to crop it quite tightly as my iPhone’s narrow depth of field makes the background very distracting. The blue and turquoise supports at the top make a frame of sorts, though I’d magically whisk them away if I had the editing skills. Continue reading “Artichokes and allotments”
I’m starting this occasional series on writers and writing by sharing some photos that help place the most romantic literary siblings England has ever produced, Emily, Anne and Charlotte Brontë, in their Yorkshire town, Haworth. Continue reading “Haworth: home of the Brontës”
Susan Rushton 