Possibly the least interesting blog ever

Tags

Coronavirus, Covid-19, Glastonbury, Minor Injury Unit, Street, Vaccine, West Mendip Hospital

Going out just once a fortnight for my Click and Collect shopping and any other essential bits and pieces, there hasn’t been much to blog about since Christmas. How I long for restrictions to be lifted and to visit a garden or some such!

But I did have an extra outing yesterday, late afternoon Friday. I went for my first Covid-19 vaccination at the local Minor Injury Unit, the West Mendip Hospital, a few minutes’ drive away in north Glastonbury. My doctors’ surgery had called me three days previously and gave me not only this appointment, but that for my second jab, 12 weeks forward – to the very minute. (Then on Thursday I received a letter from the NHS inviting me to book an appointed online, to be ignored if I was already fixed up.)

I thought people might object to my taking photos, but not at all. The atmosphere was great, the many volunteers all very cheerful, and the one professional I met, a nurse from a surgery in Street, likewise.

First Philip

told me where to park, a task taken up a few yards on by Rob.

Then this lady, whose name I didn’t get, directed my reversing into the very nearest spot to the hospital entrance.

She told me I could go straight in. (Twelve days earlier a neighbour had had to park a long way away and was told to wait in the car until she was collected, and that they were running 15 minutes behind.)

I had arrived early deliberately because I had unrelated business with the normal hospital reception. This lady told me to explain that to the specially set-up desk.

I did so, had my hands sanitised, carried out my task, and returning to that special desk took this photo.

I was given a form and directed along this corridor This cheery gentleman is not blocking but welcoming me!

He made sure I turned right, and that I went along a corridor, where there was a row of about ten socially distanced chairs. My neighbour had had to sit on the nearest, and gradually move up, a chair at a time, each chair being sanitised after each movement. (The organiser in me would have done that bit differently, but in my case only the first (= furthest away) was occupied, and I sat on the second.)

I had just started reading the form,

when Nurse Emma came up to me and invited me into her cubicle.

She went through the form with me, and left the cubicle for a few seconds.

I’m kicking myself for not taking a photo of her actually drawing the vaccine from the vial when she came back, but I was too engrossed in asking her how much liquid she was going to put into me. The answer was 0.3 millilitres. ‘Is that all?’ I said, thinking of Tony Hancock in a reverse situation.

Having done the necessary (another photo-op missed) she gave me a very detailed leaflet, from which I later learned that I had been given COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT 162b2. I left a box of chocolates with her, and she directed me to a waiting area, where I restored my left arm’s clothing, and took this photo. All were (unsurprisingly) intrigued as to why I would want such a thing, but they gave their permission.

15 minutes later I was on my way out.

This lot at the entrance insisted (well, it was the man on the right again) that for completeness’ sake I should record them as I left in both directions,

and that was that.

Today the top of my arm is quite sore but not at all red, and that tells me that the antibodies are getting on with their work nicely. In 11 weeks and 6 days’ time, to the minute, I shall, all being well, be back there again.

Grantown-on-Spey 4

Tags

common sandpiper, Findhorn Valley, little grebe, Loch Farr, Loch Ruthven, mallard, Meadow pipit, oystercatcher, Raven, red deer, ring ouzel, RSPB, Slavonia, Slavonian grebe, Strathdearn

Sunday, 2nd June. The verdict as to what I should so on my final full day was unanimous: ‘Strathdearn’, they said, which is also known as the Findhorn Valley.

Findhorn Bridge

Through which can be seen a railway and a major road bridge

I made several stops along the valley As I got back in the car the first time, ‘Henry’ and ‘Clara’, out for a walk, asked me was I looking for waders. I replied I was looking for anything, in a very amateurish way. The waders were all over the fields they said.

I succeeded in seeing nothing for a while, except some colourful cows,

evidence that sheep had once inhabited this field,

some actual sheep,

and some oystercatchers too far away to get a decent picture. I liked the colours in this newish wall round a farmhouse.

And then it started raining. Many years ago, when I was working in Whitehall on public housing subsidies, it had been alleged to me that it rained sideways in Scotland. Here’s the proof.

With wind like this, no wonder it does.

It calmed down, and I came to a little layby. ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ were there with telescopes and heavy rainwear. Of course I pulled in. Birdwatchers always compare notes, though I had nothing to offer. The hope was to see a golden eagle. I stayed just a short while, which they clearly did not think was very professional of me, but I was keen to reach the car park at the end of the road for lunchtime, and I was now only halfway along.

I had stopped at a broad bank and had been watching the first oystercatcher making desultory nest-building moves, before the second came along and appeared to tell her there was no point. ‘Marie’ and ‘Hamish’, who said they were keepers (self-appointed or not, I was not sure) came along in a Landrover, and said they were concerned that a pair of dippers had been disturbed ‘just under that bridge’ in their nest-building recently. They seemed satisfied that I was not guilty and after some pleasantries drove on in the direction I had come from.

I continued on my way, and just before the car parking area, I encountered this meadow pipit, with caterpillar.

This was my view as I sat in the car starting to eat my lunch. I was really, really hoping to see a golden eagle or some other raptor.

Then I stopped chewing, because I could see two tiny protuberances at the top of the mountain. With my binoculars I saw this.

Then this.

Then this.

Then this!

I was spellbound.

In due course ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ came along, and asked me if I had seen the ravens. (As it was ‘Jock’ who asked me, I had to ask three times what he was asking, his accent was so strong.) The ravens were way up on a hillside behind me. I had been so mesmerised by the red deer (and nice and warm in the car as I ate) that I had not yet turned round to see them, on a far horizon.

I learned that ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’ came up to the Highlands from Dunfermline and Airdrie as often as they could to look for birds.

All of a sudden ‘Jack’ got very excited. ‘I don’t believe it!’. He had just been idly looking through his telescope, and there was … a ring ouzel. I had never seen one in my life, and I had previously met people who had travelled many miles unsuccessfully to see one. It is a mountain relative of the blackbird, and has a white bib. I was invited to to look at it through their telescope. I then tried to find it with my camera, in vain. So I took some general pictures of the gully, hoping I might pick the bird out on screen later.

Here’s one of the photos.

And yes, the bird is there. Yes it is. Here is a tiny segment of the main photo, enormously enlarged.

And here’s a tiny segment of another photo.

Clearly there is a blackbird with a white bib.

I was chuffed! Thank you ‘Jack’ and ‘Jock’. I’d never have seen either it or, probably, the ravens had you not been there. But that’s the birdwatching world (of which I do not count myself part). They love sharing their sightings.

Another car came along, but I was moving on. I had more plans. Again using the map and information provided by the hotel, I was making for RSPB reserve Loch Ruthven. But not before this common gull had greeted me beside my car.

And I had zoomed in on this ruin back along the Findhorn Valley.

There was what turned out to be a very narrow one-track road over some moorland to get to the reserve. The sun was coming out, and it made this ‘blasted heath’ a little more attractive.

(I don’t usually manage to take a 360 degree video at all steadily, but this time used the car as a leaning post.)

The road was only 7 miles long, but it took a while to travel it. There was a delightful small loch at the end of it, Loch Farr. But I stopped only long enough to take a picture of it, as I had a few more miles more to do.

This was the view as I parked the car at RSPB Loch Ruthven.

And these a couple of views as I walked along the path to the hide.

THE bird to see there is the rare Slavonian grebe. Half the UK’s breeding population is found at this loch. (I know, there are countries called Slovakia and Slovenia, but no Slavonia. I don’t know why the grebe is so-called! … Ah, I do now. Spellcheck didn’t underline the word, so I thought I’d better look it up. Slavonia is a region in Croatia. So now I know. Well, I still don’t know how the bird got its name. In the US it’s called the Horned grebe.)

Anyway, I didn’t see any. Neither did ‘Janet’ and ‘John’, who were already in the hide, and didn’t say hello. They left after after ‘Janet’ said to ‘John’, ‘Shall we give up?’ I was happy just to sit there and see

a female mallard and duckling,

several little grebes, aka dabchicks,

two common sandpipers,

and various other birds of which I didn’t get decent photos, and to enjoy this abstract.

As I left, ‘Nick’ came in. We exchanged shy smiles and as I made my way back along the pretty path I found my self thinking, ‘I’m sure I’ve met him before. Is he on the telly, or is he in in the Somerset Wildlife Trust?’ I didn’t work it out.

Half a day left. What shall I do tomorrow?

An orgy of exhibitions, concluded

Tags

Ardizzone, Bacchus, Camley Park, Cézanne, coot, Courtauld Gallery, Daumier, Granary Square, Gtand Union Canal, House of Illustration, Imperial War Museum, Kings Cross Development, Oradour-sur-Glane, Pissarro, Rodin, Somerset House, St Mary le Strand, St Pancras Station, World War 2

Ardizzone and Rodin.  Neither of us had before heard of the English illustrator, Edward Ardizzone (1900-1979).  But when I had read of the exhibition at the House of Illustration devoted to his work, I realised that I, like probably everyone else of my age who had read storybooks as a child, must have seen so many of his pictures.  And how familiar his style turned out to be!  And how delightful!  However, Ardizzone was also an official war artist in WW2, and in due course worked for the magazine ‘Punch’ .

But I’m getting ahead. The House of Illustration is on Granary Square, part of the Kings Cross development  project, and has been open there for a couple of years.  Mary and I stopped for coffee first at the café of a well-known supermarket housed in a very attractively converted old industrial building.

“A cappuccino and a flat white please.”

“We don’t do a flat white. Would you like a coffee?”

Well, that was a first!

Photography was not allowed, and they had run out of postcards.  I have picked these images up from internet sources (and will of course remove any subjected to protest that they are copyrighted.)

Illustrations for children.

Illustrations for adults

Many of his enticing book covers, for both adults and children, were exhibited.

War pictures

But this next really got to me.  (It is owned by the Imperial War Museum and is definitely in the public domain.)  It is called ‘A Drunken Dutchman in a Street in Bremen’.  So much more poignant than any photo.  And it reminded me of my visit to Oradour-sur-Glane a few years ago, that town sacked by the Nazis in 1944 as they retreated from western France, killing almost every single inhabitant, man, woman and child, many of them after they had been been herded into the church which was then set on fire.  The town was left as it was in 1945 as a memorial and is now a tourist ‘attraction’.

Outside once more, we walked around the Kings Cross development, not yet finished.  To my delight I found that it abutted, over the Grand Union Canal, the Camley Park nature reserve, which I have yet to visit.

St Pancras Station in silhouette

This coot was almost literally under our feet, on the ‘wrong’ side of the canal.

A short bus ride took us round to the sunny side of St Pancras Station, where we changed routes.

We were heading for the Courtauld gallery, housed in Somerset House, which has a very varied history.

Our view at lunch, taken in their café, would have been more interesting a few days either earlier or later.  Today they were clearing away the ice skating rink which had been there from mid-November to the middle of this month.

St Mary le Strand peeping over to the right

 

Making our way back to the Courtauld Gallery entrance, we heeded Bacchus’s warning.

Photography in the Rodin and Dance exhibition was not allowed, so here are scans of a couple of the more publishable exhibits.  Most of the others were studies (for sculptures) much too explicit for a nice girl like me to share. Rodin himself shared them with only a few friends.

 

The exhibition was small and quickly viewed, so we completed our visit to the Gallery by looking at some of the many other wonderful, well-known, exhibits. These are my photos.

Cézanne, The Lake at Annecy

Cézanne, The Card Players, one of Mary’s favourites

Pissarro, Lordship Lane, Dulwich

Rubens, Landscape by Moonlight

 

I had only visited the Courtauld Gallery once before, decades ago when I lived in London.  I had fallen for and bought a postcard of this picture of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Daumier. I still have it, very dog-eared from years of use as a bookmark.  So I treated myself to a new one:

Many, many thanks to Mary for her company and hospitality over this couple of days.

An orgy of exhibitions 1

Tags

Becket Casket, Clare Chasuble, Hyde Park Corner, Ismaili Centre, Jesse Cope, JOseph Nash, Knightsbridge, Lockwood Kipling, Mayo School of Art, No 14 bus, Opus Anglicanum, Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Prosper Lafaye, PSPO, rhododendron, Rudolf Swoboda, Rudyard Kipling, Shaftesbury Avenue, Steeple Aston Cope, Suzuki Masaya, Syon Cope, Transport for London, V and A, Victoria and Albert Museum

Mediaeval embroidery and John Lockwood Kipling. Earlier this week I spent a couple of days in London, staying with my friend Mary, to catch three exhibitions before they closed, this Sunday.  But the first astonishing exhibit was in Mary’s garden:  a rhododendron bush in full bloom!

My father’s favourite bus route when my parents lived in London was the number 14, because it passed so many places of interest. Over all the years since, it has remained the same, as far as I know.  Certainly the small part we did, on the way to the Victoria and Albert Museum, gave me plenty of photo opps from the upstairs front seat, through the tinted window.

Shaftesbury Avenue

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly

Hyde Park Corner

Knightsbridge.  Better hoarding or the naked building works?

 

As for this, seen several times along Knightsbridge, we wondered if it was OK to drive anti-socially elsewhere.We considered this building  virtually opposite the V and A, not particularly beautiful in the context of South Kensington, though when I went over later to see what it was – the Ismaili Centre – I could see that close up it had merit in many smaller architectural details.

The desire for coffee obliged us to walk across the central square of the museum.

Our principal target of the day was the exhibition, ‘Opus Anglicanum’, a style of English mediaeval embroidery which spread far into continental Europe.  We were astounded by the intricacy of the work, and although we were able to discover who these embroiderers were, we could gain no insight as to just how long it took to create these masterpieces, especially as those commissioned e.g. for visits of foreign rulers, and for funerals will have had tight deadlines.  The stitching was tiny in the extreme, and will have needed excellent light to execute. It was interesting to catch snatches of conversations of other visitors, some of whom clearly  had specialist knowledge.

Photos were not allowed, so the following are scanned from postcards. Sadly it is not possible to see the individual stitching in them.

The Clare Chasuble

The Syon Cope

Detail from The Jesse Cope

Detail from The Steeple Aston Cope

 

Exhibits were not only of embroidery:

The Becket Casket

 

Having spent a good long time at this wonderful exhibition, we crossed the central square once more,

and over lunch decided to visit another special exhibition in the Museum, (not in our original plan), that of work by, or inspired by, John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard (whom his parents named after the village in Staffordshire where they had met.) Lockwood was a designer, illustrator (including of his son’s books) teacher, journalist and curator.  Among other things he was an architectural sculptor to the South Kensington Museum, (now the V and A). He moved with his wife to become Director of the Mayo School of Art in Lahore. ‘His contribution to the impact of the British Empire on India’s artistic heritage is still recognised and debated today’.

These photos are mine.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and three of their children at the Indian Pavilion of the Great Exhibition, by Prosper Lafaye

The Great Exhibition: India No 4, by Joseph Nash

Pearlware jug, decorated by Lockwood Kipling

These nineteenth century saddle cloths had embroidery every bit as rich and intricate as we had seen in the morning

Student at the Mayo School, by Rudolf Swoboda

Rudyard Kipling illustrating his own stories

Lockwood Kipling for his grandchildren

 

This next picture was I think my favourite exhibit.  I just loved how the reflected harsh Indian light had enabled the colourful details on the near, shaded, side to be picked out.

A Peep at the Train by Rudolf Swoboda

Then as we returned again to the tearoom for final refreshment before making the journey back to Mary’s place, I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this in the Japanese section as we went through it.

 

Sprouting Box, by Suzuki Masaya, 1978, in acrylic

Teatime

Two concluding exhibitions the next day…

Messed up!

Think I may have messed up the posting of a blog which was due to appear this morning, and you may not have received an e-mail notification of it (if you’ve subscribed) or may not be able to comment (if you wish).  Anyway, opening this brief one hopefully may give you full access to the one before!  I’m still learning…