autumn colour 2

Endsleigh House surrounded by its autumnal clothes (see link for a Spring view), taken from the peasant's side of the river.

autumn images 1

a deceptive and beautiful image from a long walk by the Tamar today. It was raining leaves, but it is very difficult to capture that image.

from mariners to midges

this little midge is about an eighth of an inch long (3 or 4 mm), what struck me in the grand scheme of things is that he consists mostly of fluffy or plumed antennae. Detecting chemicals in the air must be extremely important, or maybe lady midges prefer lads with big plumes

on the subject of interesting things 2

and 42 years later, aged 50, he has made it to coxswain of the launch (I am not sure what this means in naval terms). I suspect 50 was a good age for a seaman. This is a sort of identity card before the days of photographs.

on the subject of interesting things

these are the indenture papers of Spot's best friend's great great great grandfather, born in 1795, and apprenticed at the tender age of eight on 8 December 1803, two years before the battle of Trafalgar. Painter was, I think, a seaman trade in the merchant navy. By the strange path that these things follow, his grand-daughter met and married the son of a Naval boatswain, presumably because they moved in sea faring circles (lots of tacking?). Her husband went on to design the great battleships of the late Victorian era and the first world war. I showed this document to a friend today, who visits the web site occasionally. His grandfather was a Naval constructor and helped to build several ships, including HMS Indefatigable; his family tradition has it that most of them were sunk at the battle of Jutland. When I checked out HMS Indefatigable today, who should have designed it but my very own great grandfather. It is odd to think that our (g) grandfathers must have spent many hours working together and that a hundred years later, after a multitude of life events and moves all over the world, their (g) grandsons found themselves sitting around discussing life and philosophy, and examined a document that was to link them together in a most unexpected way.

Great GP also went on to write a English Italian dictionary of Naval Terms, the only available copy of which is in the Congress library; can a love of things Italian be genetic? And his son Stanley, my great uncle was a midshipman on a battleship in the battle of Jutland. The ship was beached on the Goodwin sands, and all escaped including the ship's cat. I do not know whether to attribute his escape to good design or sound construction. Great grandpa made a fortune out of it anyway, which he dissipated on the French Riviera, and on an annuity, dying shortly after the purchase of which, thus setting the family on a new and entirely unjustified path of poverty, and proving the old saw of rags to rags in three generations.

More interesting things another day (and see this link to amongst the oaks which set me thinking).

autumn colour

One of the beech trees in our garden, the leaves are a nuisance on the grass, but look stunning in the pale winter sunlight seen against the dark bark.

Poor Spot has had a nervous breakdown following Bonfire night (see this link for an explanation of this 400 year old ritual), and fireworks all week and especially on Friday when we made the mistake of going out. He tried to eat and scratch his way through the front door, and then disappeared for three hours because everyone else thought he had been a bit of a wuss. He has recovered now. Fireworks and dogs don't mix.