Category: Daily Toast

Image of the day – 1

The demolition of a famous old landmark, the ‘Air Balloon’ pub.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m going to post an image each day, or as often as I can; a photo I took, an image from Wikipedia, NASA, or some other open source, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy. This is the first in what may become a long series.

Roadworks on the A417, at the Air Balloon Roundabout

The scarp slope of the Cotswolds is steep, and roads usually have to twist and turn to reduce the slope to acceptable levels. A new section of dual carriagway is being built near the village of Birdlip, to complete the link from the M4 near Swindon to the M5 near Gloucester.

It’s involved the demolition of a famous old landmark, the ‘Air Balloon’ pub, and the amount of rock being moved is astronomical. All of this to smooth out a course for the new road that will let it make the 300 m climb in one, long, sweeping bend. The completion date is estimated to be Spring 2027.

Cirencester

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Cirencester area images:

A417 roadworks, Advent Market, Bishops Walk, Baunton, Canal 1, 2, Castle Street, Christmas lights 1, 2, Church 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Churn flood, Countryside, Fallen tree, Fleece, Gasworks, Gloucester Street, Hare 1, 2, Hospital, Market Place 1, Phoenix Fest, Riverside Walk, Stone plaque, Stratton Meadow, Tank traps, View, Wonky 1, 2, Yellow Iris

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Season’s Greetings

Fresh grace and peace in your life every day

It’s that time of year again, cards have gone out and others have arrived on our doormat. I’d really like to include my blog readers. So, whoever you are, wherever you live, here’s the image that was on this year’s card:

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And what I’d like to pray for everyone reading this is that you would find fresh grace and peace in your life every day and be blessed throughout the coming year. May 2019 be the year you meet Jesus as your friend and guide. And for those who already know him, may your journey find you going deeper and further with him than ever before, in increasing faith and obedience.

Happy New Year 2019 everyone!

The photo shows Cotoneaster berries covered with hoar frost, the photo was taken in 2012 in our old front garden before we moved to Cirencester.

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

An old school friend

Friends are important, we humans are fundamentally social beings

At my sister’s recent book launch, I was delighted to meet an old friend from school days, Nick Henderson. Although he looks older – as, of course, I do too – his personality is entirely as I remember from the mid 1960s. We agreed to meet again this morning at the Golden Cross in Cirencester, and it was a delight.

Nick and I last met when we were both living at home and very probably still at school. For a year or two we used to hang out quite a bit. I remember going with Nick to see a local band called The Corals during a record-breaking attempt at playing non-stop without repeating any songs; the drummer, one Colin Flooks, another lad from our school year, later became famous as Cozy Powell. And yes, they did break that record – in fact they smashed it by playing for 11½ hours.

TheCorals
The Corals during their record-breaking session, photo from The Wilts and Glos.

Nick and I talked about many things, catching up on our personal journeys over the last half century, recalling the cross-country runs that were compulsory on Wednesday afternoons at school, and thinking about Daglingworth Brook, the River Churn and how the water is channelled in and around the town. The drainage courses have changed over the years, altered for many reasons, beginning in Roman times when the town was young, and continuing right down to the present.

Friends are important, we humans are fundamentally social beings; renewing a connection after such a long gap has been a very special thing for me. More so than I had expected or imagined.

For more about Nick, take a look at his website and/or a site he edits, Anglicanism.org .

Walking the Swiss bisses

We were constantly surprised by the next unexpected vista

Every summer we go away somewhere different for a week – Donna and me along with two daughters, their husbands, and our four grandchildren. This year we stayed in a ski chalet in Haute-Nendaz in western Switzerland, just over the border from France.

Although prices are high in Switzerland, there are many wonderful compensations in terms of mountain scenery, clean streets and clean air, friendly people, and the walks. I had expected walks with big and tiring changes in elevation – and we certainly did our share of walks of that sort. But the bisses: what a wonderful experience!

Looking at a bisse
Looking at a bisse

I must admit, I had no idea what a bisse was when we drove from Geneva Airport, around Lake Geneva, and then south-west to Nendaz. I hadn’t even come across the word ‘bisse’. But we soon found a leaflet of local walks and discovered that several of them followed the local bisses. A bisse is an irrigation stream running gently downhill, almost following the contours of the mountains and hills. As a result the bisse paths are gentle and easy walking for the most part, and they wind around the slopes through woodland and meadow. The views of the mountains and valleys are spectacular; following the path through woodland and then coming out into the open again we were constantly surprised by the next unexpected vista.

The view from a bisse
The view from a bisse

All the way, the path is accompanied by the sparkling water hurrying  down its channel, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep, and sometimes disappearing into a large pipe and reappearing beside the path again a little further on. Some of these paths follow one bisse gently uphill and then pick up a different one for the return, making a lovely, circular tour through the countryside.

Further reading

A bowl of cacti

She gave me a beautifully arranged little bowl with a variety of colourful, healthy-looking cacti in it.

CactiLast time I saw my sister, Ruth, she surprised me with an early birthday present. She gave me a beautifully arranged little bowl with a variety of colourful, healthy-looking cacti in it. Lovely!

So – did she grow them painstakingly from seed? Or did she buy them fully grown and re-pot them in this beautiful arrangement? Or perhaps she bought the little earthenware pot already planted up.

To see what she did, scroll down for a larger picture…

Down

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Down some more…

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Here is the answer…
Cacti
She crocheted them, pot and all! How clever! How unexpected! And what fun. Thank you, Ruth!