Gateway to a Walled Garden

The walled garden concerned is at Norton Priory.  CJ has blogged about it and I shall doubtless do some more posts too.  This gate really captured my fancy because I love gates and doorways.  I'm not a person of great imagination so I don't look and wonder what lies behind.  I just love them for that which they are.

A Grump

I'm afraid I have to apologise to the Thankful Fairies and the Keeper of the Glad Games today.  I was a Grump.  I'm not often a Grump.  Leastways I don't think I am.  Although there are occasions....  Today was one of them.  It was the Scottish Golf Croquet Open Championship Tournament.  Sounds grander than it is.  Last year I came second.  That was probably more of an achievement than the previous year when I won.  Although I would say that when I won it was the day after I finished my radiotherapy treatment.  Had the tournament been the day before or the day after I would not have been capable of playing.  It's a funny old world.  Anyway, as usual, I digress and am rambling.

Today started really well.  The sun shone.  It was almost bordering upon warm.  I was playing really well.  Then the clouds came.  The wind went cold.  The rain started.  Heavily.  My play deteriorated.  Then I had to wait , wet and cold, for about 90 minutes for my next game.  By the time I was back on the lawn I was cold, wet and stiff and my wrist was bandaged and sore.  I was a real Grump.  I lost my next game 0:7.   I was even grumpier.

Then the rain stopped.  It got a bit warmer.  It was early evening by this time and I had one more game.  One game away from some spag bol and a glass of wine.  I won.  It was the deciding game to take me into the last four tomorrow.  The competition is fierce.  I shall be playing one of the UK's top 20:  best of 3 at 0930.  

I'd better have an early night tonight.

The Journey

In Durham's Millenium Square is a sculpture: The Journey by Fenwick Lawson. The bronze of the original wooden sculpture 'The Journey', by the renowned sculptor Fenwick Lawson who is County Durham born and a City of Durham resident. The sculpture is in Millenium square just off Claypath near to the Market Place and it depicts the journey of monks, fleeing Lindisfarne Abbey (Holy Island) off the Northumberland coast. They are carrying the uncorrupted body of St Cuthbert to it's eventual destination at Durham. The monks were forced to flee Lindisfarne in A.D. 875 because of continued attacks there by the Vikings.

A Few Images from Durham

Actually these are the sort of images one could find almost anywhere but I thought that I'd share them anyway:

Unusual burgers for the UK!

I though this was a rather attractive, imaginative, practical and unusual set of railings

Dad used to call me a Mugwump.  No one in the shop knew why it was so called.  One girl (for that she was) said she thought it was someone who sat on a fence (literally rather than actually) and that quite a few people came in and said their parents had called them one. You need to Wiki it for a fuller explanation.  The little door to the right hides a splendid cellar restaurant where we had dinner - the best restaurant pan-fried duck breast that I have ever tasted.

This one is to amuse my New Zealand friends