November Sky over Watford

This was taken last week. The afternoon was so dark with the rain absolutely hammering down. At just about 4pm everything suddenly changed - there was a straight strip of turquoise sky on the horizon and everything else turned amber and red. I know we moan about the weather but this was truly spectacular (and a great view from the back of our house.)

IMGP0526sm, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Autumn bites

I love Ted Hughes's poems about the Autumn although they always seem so melancholy as can only really be written by someone with a real knowledge of living in the country.

The Seven Sorrows

The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.

The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.

And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.

The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle's palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.

And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.

And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox's sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox's prayer.

And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.

Ted Hughes :

A couple of photos from a walk along the canal in Watford 

and the beautiful Cassiobury park.

Ada Lovelace Day - Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling

Inspired by my evening at the IET yesterday celebrating Ada Lovelace day (Who was Ada Lovelace?) I enjoyed watching some clever, funny and inspiring women who have science and technology at the heart of their worlds, comedians, robotocist and theramin player, cartoonist and games writer so  I wanted to include a brief post about a lady that I was told about many years ago when I made a foray into the engineering world.

Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling was born in 1909 in Hampshire and after studying Electrical Engineering and achieving and MSC in Mechanical engineering was employed by the Royal Aircraft establishment.  There are many useful references and blog and posts about her if you google her name but her main claim to fame was in producing a solution that helped to resolve some of the engine flooding and consequent cut out problems with the carburetors in Rolls Royce Merlin engines.  The issue caused the planes to stall when in combat situations and since the engines were used in early versions of fighter planes such as the Spitfire and Hurricane during World War 2, pilots were keen to have the problem resolved.

Beatrice also raced motorcycles throughout the 1930s (seen here on her Norton) and worked on many other engineering related projects after the War.  A pub in Hampshire is named the "Tilly" Shilling in her honour.

Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green (Not too far from Watford)

IMGP0433_HMoore, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Today we have spent a wonderful day with friends enjoying the October skies, seeing the sheep and being impressed by the beautiful home and land where the sculptor Henry Moore lived.

There are barns filled with the moquettes, hundreds of little models that were used like sketches to explore his ideas - along with skulls, bones, stones and items collected to inspire and guide his work.  Anyone interested in taking a trip there, go to http://www.henry-moore.org/pg  to find out a bit more, although I would say that it will be closed from the end of October until next year.

Sheep feature quite highly in some of his sketches and ideas and it was great to get to see the "sheep sculpture" out in the field behind the barns.  At first look it may not look like two sheep, but is based on how the creatures stand together and sometimes relate to one another.  What I really liked is that the sheep in the field can walk through and rub against the sculptures, so you get to see a shiny bronze line around the sculpture where this happens.

 

 

I think that this large bronze was one of my favourites, although the incredible hand woven tapestries, interpretations of some of his charcoal, wax resist and ink sketches and designs that took two people around 9 months each to make (and could not be photographed) were also pretty memorable.

Rob testing the acoustics

Imagine Watford in town

IMGP9198_Rosa's bar, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

What better excuse to take out the camera than a brief burst of sunshine and a series of very lively and theatrical events happening in Watford town centre. Sadly I missed the giant insects which paraded past the clubbing district but did catch some outlandish hairdressers working on willing members of the public and the joyful performance of Rosa's bar by Wired Aerial Theatre.

Bad flying experience

This little blue-tit managed to fly in through the back door this morning while searching for bugs. It looked really strange with him flying around and landing on the blinds but he couldn't get out and made a lurch for the back window stunning himself and landing on the table. He felt of nothing and had such beautiful fresh feathers and I really thought that he had damaged himself. After watching him sitting on the outside table for a bit he finally recovered and flew back up into the tree.

Is this the Spring?

IMGP8761_Tess, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Today has been a most glorious day, it even felt warm this afternoon as I was tidying up the garden. Two bin bags of old leaves from last year and a complete re-potting of the rhododendron which has spent too much of its time tipped over in its pot this last couple of months.

Tess has spent a lot of time staring into the borders pretending that she is awake although she actually has her eyes closed. Her coat has been glittering in the sun and it is lovely to see her outside in the sunshine.

No, this isn't Watford....It's La Thuile

Had a fantastic trip to La Thuile in Italy early in the year. A fair bit of snow and blue skies for the whole week.

It was great to get back out on the mountains again and enjoy some brilliant company.

Picking berries in Harold last year

P1060416_edited-1, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Can't believe it has taken me five months to post these images up. We have already finished quite a lot of the sloe gin that was prepared from the berries picked in September and that sky has such an Autumn feel about it.

The job takes quite a bit of concentration...

The sunglasses may be due to optimism or could be to prevent thorn damage.