photography – Page 147

The Wrekin

The best-known landmark in Shropshire is the Wrekin, at only 1,335 feet it has attracted a lot of attention given its modest size. Those of you who have passed Shrewsbury on the M54 heading to mid-Wales will have noticed this volcanic-looking lump by the side of the road and from the Cressage side (south of Shrewsbury) which is my usual approach these days, it looks like a sleeping dragon with the tree-line resembling scales along its backbone. From the top you can supposedly see 15 counties.

wrekin 032 — The pink cooling towers at Buildwas in the Severn Gorge

Whenever I drove around Shrewsbury when I first came to the county in 2002 I used to say to the OH that I could never get lost if I could see the Wrekin – I just headed straight for it – so I was amused to find this saying “a Shropshire mon is nivver lost if he con see the Wrekin” Apparently I wasn’t the first to think of it though naturally being from Yorkshire I’d never pronounce it like THAT!

I remember my mother referring to a circuitous route as “going all around the houses”, here in Shropshire it is “going all around the Wrekin”.

There, somewhere, nor-nor-east from me
Was Shropshire, where I longed to be
Ercall and Mynd, Severn and Wrekin, you and me

~ John Masefield on the heaving deck of a ship in Cardigan Bay Continue reading The Wrekin

Bench series #13

For the month of March I’m looking for Wooden benches

Sweet seat (D) — The Rose Garden – Mottisfont (NT) Hampshire

If you would like to join in with the Bench photo challenge then please take a look at my Bench Series page. No complicated rules, just a bench and a camera required 🙂

Create your own post and title it Bench Series: March
Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
Add the tag ‘bench series’ so everyone can find the benches easily in the WP Reader
Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new bench theme comes out on the first Sunday in April

This is the last week for your wooden benches. Next month I am looking for any bench with a view. The view is important so make sure to include it. (You can use sea views though that is a topic for May, so you might want to save those for that month 🙂 )

My Picks of the Week:

Klara finds yet another unusually shaped bench – I can see myself lying around on this one!
Daily Musings finds a well-worn bench that is frequented by seagulls.
Julia has provided a very sturdy bench, though I’m not too sure about sitting underneath a tree that attracts birds…
Debbie is going for an arty look in Vienna, whilst a new visitor, Marsha, from California joins in with a natural bench on a beach and Gilly also has a beautiful natural bench for us. Final pick is a very colourful bench from Issy.

Thanks to everyone who has linked in their wooden benches this month.

Froggie went a-courtin’, and he did ride, mm-hmm

A lovely spring walk in the walled garden at Croft Castle this weekend brought me to the pond. I like the pond, but so does everyone else so you have to be patient and wait until almost closing time to have it to yourself.

The beech hedge is still brown, but the weeping willow is showing signs of new life and at last the bench is empty of people.

But look closer at the pond… and the curious ramp in the corner

and you will see there is life …and new life beginning.

As these frogs get fresh with one another.

I think we should leave them alone, don’t you?

Fresh shoots and leaves

The Pink and Burgundy Collection

Buds

Japanese Maple

Sambucus Nigra “Eva”

salix gracilisytyla ‘Melanostachys’

rose bush

Japanese Maple

Buds

Pieris

Spring Greens

Paeonia delavayii

corylopsis glabrescens ‘Longwood Chimes’

Light through new leaves

The time of year when suddenly the earth explodes into colour.

The Stiperstones

The word Stiperstones comes from “stripped-stone” an effect caused during the last Ice-Age, a geological abnormality that is unique to Britain.” ~ Michael Raven

(Y Carneddau Tuon – The Dark Rocks)

The Stiperstones is a wild ridge of Quartzite tors surrounded by a sea of heather located south-west of the county town of Shrewsbury and offers panoramic views of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. But the mystery and fear generated by the serrated skyline led to some sinister associations in the past.

Shropshire has more than its fair share of giants. There is a Giant’s Chair on Titterstone Clee, but the feature with the same name found on the Stiperstones has become known as the Devil’s Chair.

The story is that the devil came over from Ireland with a leather apron full of stones either to block the Hell Gutter, a ravine on the side of the hill, or to dam the River Severn. He sat down to rest on what became the Devil’s Chair and when he got up his apron strings broke and the great stones were scattered all around.

Whenever he can, the devil flops into the chair so that his weight can help push down the Stiperstones since he believes that if they sink into the earth, England, a country he hates, will perish. If anyone else dares to sit in his chair a thunderstorm will immediately erupt.

Mary Webb (author 1881-1927) wrote in her book ‘The Golden Arrow’

Nothing ever altered its look. …it remained inviolable, taciturn, evil. It glowered darkly in the dawn, it came through the snow like jagged bones through flesh…

source: The Folklore of Shropshire by Roy Plamer, printed by Logaston Press

BTW Google spell-check wants to replace Stiperstones with superstitions – how spooky is that?