Tag: Popular

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Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas, and Memories of Roses

Romantic tumble of roses at the Antique Rose Emporium

A free-to-visit garden is not to be sniffed at – but then again, some of them are. Few visitors to a rose garden can resist leaning in to inhale the fragrance. We seem hard-wired to think ‘scent’ the moment after we think ‘rose’.

Shakespeare’s ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ can’t take all the credit. Scent associations trap memories like flies in amber in a lifetime’s layering of impressions. Continue reading “Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, Texas, and Memories of Roses”

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Trust The Great Beech For a Bold, Bright Winter Garden

Autumn beech leaves
Beech leaves dry to a striking bronzy-brown

In Phantastes by George MacDonald, a country maiden warns the hero, Anodos, to shun the Ash and the Alder, but says he can ‘trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech.’ Sure enough, Anodos meets a Beech tree with a voice ‘like a solution of all musical sounds’ who longs to be a woman. She invites him to cut lengths from her hair, and uses them to create a protective girdle of beech leaves for his magical journey. Continue reading “Trust The Great Beech For a Bold, Bright Winter Garden”

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Twelve Snippets from Prague

As real travel would neither be safe nor legal, I’m indulging in photo-travel by using Becky’s Squares Challenge (Up) as an excuse to revisit our brief trip to Prague in January two years ago.

Painted tree trunk with the John Lennon wall, Prague

1. (Layered up) Locals and visitors have been adding slogans, quotes, I-was-heres and drawings to The Lennon Wall since the singer’s death. The wall has always been controversial, so authorities and activists have often covered up the colours with  fresh layers of paint, to find it quickly filled with artwork and slogans again. It is now protected by new rules (no spraying) while cameras help enforce the theme of peace and love. Continue reading “Twelve Snippets from Prague”