Some buildings, like the lovely, old Cotswold stone house in the photo, were often built quite close to the area of flooding, choosing ground just high enough to stay dry.
Image 105 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
This view of the Churn flowing through the village of Baunton, a little north-east of Cirencester, shows it spilling over its banks and spreading across a field; this is normal, winter-time behaviour for the Churn for much of its length. Rising near the top of the Cotswolds at Seven Springs south of Cheltenham, it has cut a winding valley running towards Cirencester, the southern half of which is liable to flood.
Some buildings, like the lovely, old, Cotswold stone house in the photo, were often built quite close to the area of flooding, choosing ground just high enough to stay dry. Many other buildings in villages like Baunton were built a little higher still.
Historically, the regularly flooded land would serve as summer grazing and provide a hay crop in late summer. In this way, cattle could be kept on the land with a stock of hay as supplementary feed when winter grazing on the hillsides was prevented by snowfall. Higher (and drier) land could provide other crops like barley and wheat.
South of Cirencester, the Churn joins the Thames at Cricklade, and the combined flood plain is quite extensive. North Meadow on the edge of Cricklade is bordered by the converging rivers and is famous for its huge colony of snakeshead fritillaries By the time the Thames reaches Lechlade, it is navigable all the way to London and out into the North Sea.
When: 23rd December 2023 Where: Baunton, Gloucestershire
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We spent Christmas Day in Cheltenham with Judy’s Mum and Dad. We had the usual fun, a great Christmas dinner, lots of presents to unwrap, and a gas fire that kept the room as hot as a sauna! (1989)
June 2024 (6 months before publishing this article)
Click to enlarge
I’ve decided to include an even more recent section from now on, as that will allow us to enjoy a summer photo when it’s winter, and a winter photo when it’s summer.
This is from a walk I did on 11th June, along the towpath of the Stroudwater Canal on the edge of Stonehouse. This restored section of canal has a newly built railway bridge, and the canal stretches out to include a small lake called ‘The Ocean’, home to all manner of wildlife.
I enjoy a long walk now and then, perhaps ten or twelve miles; I still find this quite easy and very relaxing as well as interesting. I’ll continue as long as I can.
Erin, our cat, had come to the end of her life, the tumour was very large, she was no longer responding to steroid treatment, so we took her to the vet on 1st December and buried her in the garden on 2nd.
Donna was acting as a ‘guinea pig’ for a trial her brother, Paul, was running at the University of Bath. We drove over there and I sat in the car in heavy rain reading while Donna and Paul were working away in the lab. And throughout the month I scanned and organised a fair number of old 35 mm transparencies, mostly Judy’s but some of mine too.
We visited the family in Yorkshire over New Year having had Christmas at our house with Isobel, Paul and Vanessa.
We listened to Handel’s Messiah in Gloucester Cathedral, two of our friends were singing in the choir and it was a great performance.
There was a memorial service at Cirencester Baptist Church for my friend Stephen and a gathering later at the Corinium Hotel. I shall always remember the long conversations he and I had, it was a privilege to have known him.
We visited the family in Yorkshire in the middle of the month and had a great time with all sorts of different things to see and do, including a visit to Fairfax House in York.
Tony’s Parkinson’s was making him confused now, he’d been puzzled about there being two Donna’s.
We voted in the General Election and stayed up to watch the initial results coming in, but felt disappointed as it became clear the Conservatives had won again.
And we visited York just before Christmas, including going to an ice-hockey match in Hull with Debbie, Steve, Aidan and Sara. That was great fun, lots of action, fast and furious.
I’d had an ankle injury in 2013, and it was now feeling much improved, more comfortable than at any time since before I damaged it. We visited Anglesey Abbey around the middle of the month and enjoyed the garden there. Donna was struggling with too much to do; she was busy with teacher training, helping out at the Food Bank and finding church life and the small group unsatisfactory and time consuming as well.
We spent Christmas in York this year staying first with Debbie, then with Beth and Paz, the photo was taken at Debbie’s. Then after Christmas we visited Paul and Vanessa in Weston. A busy end to the year, but a very satisfactory one!
JHM:Simple Church went on sale. World events: Japan launched a sample return spacecraft to Ryugu ; and The Pakistani Taliban killed at least 145 people, mostly schoolchildren in Peshawar.
The building in the picture was where I worked when I started my employment at Unilever in April 1998. And here it is nearly eleven years later, being demolished in December 2009! Needless to say, our department had already been moved to alternative offices on the same site. I wrote in my journal,
‘The demolition has started in earnest now, they’re breaking up the concrete cladding and exposing the reinforced columns and floors. Quite a few of the familiar interiors are visible now; it’s weird to see.’
Play Doh!
We visited York on 20th December to see my daughters and their families, having the usual great time, this year at Beth and Paz’s home in Fulford. Meredith and Aidan enjoyed the Play Doh Factory.
We were on holiday in Thailand from 26th November until 10th December. On 26th December a huge tsunami hit the beach where we’d been staying (Khao Lak). Possibly as many as 10 000 people died on this part of the coastline, the worst hit part of Thailand; it felt like a very narrow escape!
We spent Christmas Day with Donna’s Mum and Dad in High Wycombe, then travelled west to Cirencester. And on Boxing Day we visited Cindy and Paul’s home at Bibury, a few miles east of Ciren. In the photo you can see Paz, Cindy and Beth all looking happy.
We’d also had pre-Christmas meals with Unilever colleagues earlier in the month.
Truffles (our new cat) had settled in well by this time. She was a young adult, not a kitten, and had struggled at first with a cat flap, but once she got the hang of it I think she really appreciated the freedom it gave her.
World events:Tori Murden became the first woman to row the Atlantic Ocean alone; and Boris Yeltsin resigned leaving Vladimir Putin as acting president of Russia.
Judy’s Mum and Dad came to visit us for Christmas dinner this year. Judy was almost back to normal, having made a good recovery following an operation to remove a bowel tumour, and then further illness caused by failed chemotherapy. Despite all this she had now bounced back really well.
This December we spent Christmas Day in Cheltenham with Judy’s Mum and Dad. We had the usual fun, a great Christmas dinner, lots of presents to unwrap, and a gas fire that kept the room as hot as a sauna!
We might have visited Cirencester later in the day to see my Mum and Dad before heading back home to Yatton.
At this time I was still working in my spare time on educational Sinclair Spectrum games for the Clever Clogs series from Computer Tutor, while employed at Long Ashton Research Station in their Plant Science Division.
World events: The Bhopal disaster in India killed 23 000+ people and injured over half a million; and the networking company Cisco Systems was formed.
At this time I was still studying pollen tube development in apple and pear cultivars at Long Ashton Research Station. Judy was at home working hard at managing the house and looking after the chilren; Debbie was four-years-old and Beth was just seven months.
I was working for Ken Stott at Long Ashton Research Station, partly on willow and poplar growth rates, but also helping Ray Williams in the Pomology Group doing interesting studies on apple pollination. Judy was working on human erythrocyte membrane proteins in the Biochemistry Lab in Woodland Road, Bristol.
Judy and I were living in a rented flat in Belmont Road, still saving for a deposit for a house but now in the knowledge we’d secured a mortgage. We began considering where we might find a house we could afford.
World events:Cyclone Tracy caused severe damage to Darwin, Australia; and Malta became a republic.
Judy and I were both in our final year at University, in Judy’s case at Aberystwyth where she celebrated an early Christmas party with friends (from left – Little Mary, Maggs, Big Mary, Jan, and two faces I know but can’t put names to. Judy isn’t in the picture as she took the photo).
This was the final Christmas before we were married, and 1970 would also be our graduation year.
World events: The Boeing 747 jumbo jet made its first passenger flight; and oil was discovered in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
I was lucky enough to be able to go on a School Cruise on an old troopship, the ‘Dunera’. We travelled by coach to London, then train to Dover, ferry to Calais, and train all the way to Venice where we boarded the ship. The route took us past Corfu and we visited Athens, Rhodes, and Istanbul. The photo shows the party looking at Lindos from above before boarding the coach again to walk through the village streets and make our way up the Acropolis.
World events:Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; and the US F-111 supersonic attack aircraft made its first flight.
My first term at Cirencester Grammar School came to an end and we enjoyed our Christmas holidays. I think I felt settled in by this time, and knew most of the other children in my class well enough.
I was in my second year at Querns School, and the end of the first term was approaching. We were still living on the Beeches Estate in Cirencester – Daddy, Mummy, me and little Cindy who was just three-years-old.
Mummy, Daddy and I moved house! We had been lodging with my grandparents in Victoria Road, Cirencester. But on 5th December we were able to move into a newly built council house on the Beeches Estate just the other side of the river. I had a change of address on my identity card (see whole card).
I don’t remember any of this, though, I was less than a year and a half old!
World events: The government of China moved to Taiwan; and UHF TV was broadcast daily for the first time.
Dad said goodbye to his friend Joe at the railway station on 4th of December; Joe was posted elsewhere. Mum and Dad were both annoyed by Dad’s CO lecturing him about their relationship.
On 9th, Dad travelled to Belfast by bus, then train to Larne, and boat to Stranraer reaching Carlisle at 01:15 on 10th. He was posted to Skendleby in Lincolnshire, another radar station, finally arriving there on 11th December. Mum and Dad began writing frequent letters to one another and Dad spent Christmas and New Year at Skendleby.
World events: The Soviet Union changed Turkish place names in Crimea to Russian; and Glenn Miller‘s plane was lost over the Channel en route to Paris.
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The old house is still interesting on the inside, at least one beautifully oak-panelled room is now a patient waiting room, and gives a hint of how the house would have appeared in its heyday.
Image 104 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
Cirencester had two hospitals in the 1950s. There was the Cirencester Memorial Hospital, the main part of which was demolished recently and is now one of the town’s car parks. And in 1948, the new NHS took over a large house near the Bull Ring (the town’s Roman Amphitheatre) and converted it internally as a maternity hospital – The Querns Maternity Hospital. Later, this was repurposed again as a general hospital and modern extensions were added. The Memorial Hospital closed.
The photo shows the rear view of the old house, you can see part of a modern extension on the extreme left. The old house is still interesting on the inside, at least one beautifully oak-panelled room is now a patient waiting room, and gives a hint of how the house would have appeared in its heyday.
I was born in this building when it was a maternity hospital, I was either the first or the second baby after the hospital opened in 1948.
Today, the NHS is struggling with insufficient funding and too few staff leading to long waiting times and impacting the wellbeing of patients, I hope the present government will be able to start correcting this, bringing the service back to full strength and effectiveness. That aside, the NHS remains a wonderful service for everyone who lives in the UK, a job it’s been doing for more than 70 years.
When: 9th January 2024 Where: Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Cirencester
For convenience, here’s a list of all the Cirencester area images:
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A master issues instructions, a servant follows instructions. Jesus teaches, his chosen apprentices learn; and it follows that if Jesus is persecuted they will be too.
The subject of hatred can be difficult, hating someone is not just a matter of disliking them, maybe we need to look at a dictionary definition.
The Greek word used here (μισέω – miseo) literally means to ‘detest’ (See the Bible Hub definition for details). In the Graeco-Roman world of the time it implied a strong emotional response of enmity and hostility. In Hebrew thought it was a little different, hatred was seen as being the opposite of love, but also as a righteous attitude to sin and idols. This can lead to misunderstanding in English translations when we read, for example, that we should ‘hate’ our father and mother. A better translation might be that we should love our father and mother less than we love Jesus.
We are Christ’s
In the previous section Jesus was talking about love; in verse 17 we read, ‘This is my command: love each other.’ And immediately afterwards he says, ‘If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first’. In other words, the world sees Jesus as sinful and idolatrous, and sees us in the same way because we follow him. We see this most clearly when we consider the approach of the Priests, the Pharisees, and the Saducees. They really did see Jesus and his followers as teaching dangerous and abhorrent errors.
He tells his apprentices (disciples) that the world would love them if they were themselves worldly. But we, too, are his disciples so let’s make this more direct and personal – the world would love you and me if we were worldly. Are we worldly? I hope not! And why are we not worldly? Because Jesus has chosen us out of the world. If you’re popular in the world you should be alarmed! Jesus is the head, not us. We are merely the body of Christ. Or more encouragingly, we are amazingly the body of Christ. So when the vicar offers you a wafer and tells you, ‘This is the body of Christ, broken for you’; you might retort, ‘No it’s not, I am part of the body of Christ, as are you’. But I’m not sure how well that would go down!
Master and servant
Jesus reminds them of something he told them previously, namely that masters are greater than their servants. A master issues instructions, a servant follows instructions. Jesus teaches, his chosen apprentices learn; and it follows that if Jesus is persecuted they will be too. And those who follow Jesus’ teaching will also follow theirs. They are going to share in more than his life, for elsewhere he clearly states that they have become his friends (no longer servants), so they (and we) become teachers like him and will be persecuted by some, followed by others.
The abuse will come because of his name, because they don’t know the Father. Jesus came as a servant, a messenger, in his Father’s name. We go as servants, as messengers, in Jesus’ name. And we go to those who don’t know his name, his mission or his character. Jesus came to reveal the truth to an ignorant world, to bring life to a dying world. So should we – but if we do not, can we really claim to be his followers at all?
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One of the joys of these walks is the sky. Sometimes it’s grey and overcast, sometimes it’s blue from horizon to horizon, but sometimes it’s full of interesting cloud formations at various heights.
Image 103 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
Traditional Cotswold fields were quite small, but as in many parts of the UK, farmers have removed hedgerows to combine small fields into larger ones that can be more efficiently cultivated, planted, and managed. Although this has some deleterious effects on wildlife and biodiversity, it does create some big skies. Here is an example.
This field is an easy walk west from Stratton where I live, along a permitted route along a stony track. I come out this way from time to time to enjoy the wide open spaces, to look at the nearby polo fields, to listen to the larks that nest here in considerable numbers, and to watch them rise higher and higher before plummeting down to land.
And one of the joys of these walks is the sky. Sometimes it’s grey and overcast, sometimes it’s blue from horizon to horizon, but sometimes it’s full of interesting cloud formations at various heights.
This wonderful world is full of beauty in big skies and also in tiny details. And it’s always different, no two days are alike.
When: 19th January 2024 Where: North-west of Cirencester
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
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Image 102 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
Hen Brook is a very small tributary stream that flows into the River Great Ouse in St Neots, Cambridgshire. We lived in St Neots for years before moving to Cirencester in 2017.
Walking just 100 metres or so from this point, Hen Brook really is tiny, but the final stretch before it enters the river was widened and deepened so that barges could reach the point in the town where much of the industry was in Victorian times. Today it remains navigable, as does the river itself. There’s an area for private boats around this area, and a yacht marina further downstream on the river itself. This was such a peaceful view that I just had to take a photo to remember it by, and years later I’m very glad I did. I hope you will like the composition as much as I do.
When: Summer 2010 (ish) Where: St Neots, Cambridgeshire
Favourites
For convenience, here’s a list of my favourite images:
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The news headlines are covering all kinds of world issues – the Russo-Ukrainian war, the revolution in Syria, Donald Trump’s coming second term in the White House, world economics, and more.
But there’s an event going on of far greater importance than any of those other issues, and that concerns the latest results of research into Antarctic sea-ice.
The problem? It’s melting much faster than we thought.
And why is that such a big deal? Because of the implications that global warming is progressing so much faster than we realised, combined with the potential loss of ice shelves, one and a half metres of sea-level rise far sooner than we expected, and the further potential for catastrophic sea level rises much, much greater than that.
That’s alarming in anyone’s book. But it’s not alarmist, it’s just stating an unpalatable truth. The time to begin thinking about consequences and mitigation is now, not in ten or twenty years time. And it’s most certainly way past time to deny that climate change is a thing at all.
I urge you to listen to the New Scientist podcast on this, episode 279 released on 6th December 2024. It has all the details.
Useful? Interesting?
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I really like Lariana’s drawings and paintings, as time has passed, they’ve reached a very professional level. All are good, many are outstanding.
Lariana’s drawingsandpaintings
Larger view
Today I want to write a little about a gifted artist I know. I first saw some of Lariana’s work when she and one of my friends, Kevin, met and later married. Kevin and I go back a number of years as good friends so my wife and I were delighted to get to know Lariana too.
I really like Lariana’s drawings and paintings, as time has passed they’ve reached a very professional level. All are good, many are outstanding. She covers a range of subjects including amusing, playful, cartoonish images that stretch the imagination, pictures connected with following Jesus, pets (Lariana is happy to work from photos of dogs or cats), wild animals (especially African big cats), and portraits (again, she will work from photos).
Lariana is willing to discuss commissions, but she also works on her own ideas and subjects. If you’d like to talk with her about a project you have in mind, or just browse some items she has produced in the past, please contact her on her Facebook page.
Useful? Interesting?
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I made a tracing using a soft grade of pencil, then turned the tracing paper over on top of a dull yellow sheet of art-grade paper, and rubbed down the traced lines.
Image 101 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Larger view
Meet Leo! I’m going to share the story behind this image.
This image of a lion first appeared printed on paper carrier bags from a British menswear chain in the 1960s. The chain was Foster Brothers, and I had bought something there and was given the paper carrier. I was impressed with the picture on the bag, it was in white, grey (not yellow), and black and I was fascinated at the way it had been rendered in three brightness levels. These days it would be dead easy with image manipulation software, but in the 1960s it must have involved clever photographic printing at high contrast levels and then some work by an artist.
I was so impressed by the image that I decided to make a copy of it for my girlfriend, Judy (later my wife). I made a tracing using a soft grade of pencil, then turned the tracing paper over on top of a dull yellow sheet of art-grade paper, and rubbed down the traced lines to leave an impression on the yellow paper. (For a lion, dull yellow seemed far more suitable than grey.)
Then, using white and black Indian inks, I filled in the traced areas using the carrier bag for guidance. The carrier had a cut-out to act as a handle, so I had to make up the missing area. It took a long time, but the final result is what you see here, and I was pleased with it. I also made a wooden frame for the picture and used a scrap piece of greenhouse glass salvaged from the family’s nursery business, suitably cut to size.
Judy was surprised as she didn’t know I’d been working on it. And she was delighted with it too. It hung on her bedroom wall at her parent’s house, and then after we were married, in our bedsit, then our flat, and finally our house in Yatton. After Judy died in 1995, and Donna and I married, Leo came too and still hangs on the wall in our dining room. I was about 18 when I made the picture, now I’m 76 and I still have it.
That’s the story of how Leo came to be. But I have more to say, not about the picture but about the nature of a lion. I might get to that tomorrow, but if not, then certainly within the next week or two.
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The seeds are not released until spring, and all winter long, these white ‘beards’ can be seen in Cotswold hedges, adding a touch of interest in an otherwise rather drab time of year.
Image 100 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.
Click to enlarge
These are the seeds of Clematis vitalba or ‘Old Man’s Beard’. This plant grows abundantly in Cotswold hedgerows, tolerating the limey soils in the region. In the summertime it doesn’t stand out, but if you know what to look for you can see its characteristic leaves and its stems winding through hedgerow plants and the lower branches of trees. The flowers are quite insignificant too, unlike the Clematis in garden centres, bred for large and showy flowers.
But wild Clematis comes into its own in the autumn; the seeds are hairy, as you can see, enabling them to blow away in the wind. If they land in a suitable spot they will germinate, put out a shoot with leaves, and try to find some support to climb up. But the seeds are not released until spring, and all winter long, these white ‘beards’ can be seen in Cotswold hedges, adding a touch of interest in an otherwise rather drab time of year.
The colourful garden Clematis cultivars were once propagated by grafting onto the wild seedlings as they were not easy to root as cuttings. But these days cuttings are the norm; with modern rooting hormones and high humidity conditions they root and grow very well indeed.
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
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