On the move - Farewell Watford, it's been great.

So, the house is full of cardboard boxes and it feels as if I have been in the loft for weeks.  References were made to shallow grave but I swear that the drilling was to dismantle some shelves.  We have lived in this welcoming house in a lovely terrace in North Watford for 13 years but it's now time for a new adventure.  Heading a bit further North to Totternhoe on Tuesday we leave a heap of memories and some truly brilliant neighbours and friends.  The people 5 doors away who shared our cat for a time and who we have enjoyed the company of ever since, either side who have taken in parcels, plied us with Sloe gin and have experienced goldfinch envy as our tree in the garden has been loaded down with up to 10 of the fighting little blighters at times. 

Here are just a few photos from the collection to show what a great town this is and here's hoping that the house that has looked after us for the last 13 years proves as friendly and welcoming to the new family that will be moving in.

 

And to finish, a poem from Margaret Atwood

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Margaret Atwood

Farewell my beautiful Tess.

Tess around 1995 to July 2013

Cycling around Watford

I seem to have waited ages today for the temperature to drop enough to take my bike out for a spin.  One of the good things about living here is that we are not too far from the canal although a hybrid bike on a canal path that is under construction was certainly very bumpy.

Looking back along the canal on the way to King's Langley

Lots of people from the boats having a late afternoon wine and the bushes full of blackbirds and wrens bouncing out at you as you cycle along.  Didn't get very far, along to King's Langley then back across to the park where the whole of Watford still appeared to be splashing around in the play-pools.

 

Ferns growing out of the old bridge wall

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