Dogs Etc.

Are you settling down to autumn?  I'm reluctant to, as I love spring and summer, but there's no doubt it's really on its way, with its seed heads and the the falling leaves. The rosebay willowherbs (those pink flowers in the picture below) are just about over, but at least it's still warm enough to sit outside in the sun.  I haven't had much time for blogging lately but I've taken every chance to keep in touch with nature, and I've seen some strange things.  Like, the other day I was on Hampstead Heath (below) picking blackberries, when I kept hearing bangs.



I looked around and eventually saw this - a woman throwing balloons into the air.



Her very clever dog was chasing the balloons and heading them onwards



but every now and then he got too excited, took a snap at the balloon and - bang!



I spoke to her just as she was packing the balloons away, to her dog's disappointment.She explained that he gets so excited that she has to give him a break - so now, they were off for a nice, quiet walk!

I am not sure you can call stuffed animals "nature".  In fact, they're almost the opposite. I saw lots of them, though, when a historical society I belong to made a trip to Quex Park, in Kent. The house belonged to a Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton, who was obsessed with hunting, and, like many dedicated hunters, was also very interested in the animals he shot. I never understand why someone who loves animals would want to spend their life shooting them, but there we are. And he did want to share his fascination with the folks back home. The specimens are beautifully stuffed and set against carefully researched and painted backgrounds and if you like that kind of thing they are really wonderful examples. More information on their website, here.

In his travels to exotic locations, the Major had really quite "Boys Own" type adventures and barely escaped alive at times from tribesmen - in whom he was also very interested.  (To be fair, he wasn't also trying to kill them, like the animals - but they certainly tried to kill him, on occasion.)

So the museum also contains all kinds of ethnographical curiosities, and altogether it is a very interesting period piece. The gallery shown below not only displays lots of antlers and dismayingly large numbers of elephant tusks, but there are also native spears arranged on the ceilings, and glass cases of objects reflecting a way of life which has almost entirely vanished - certainly for Westerners who travel abroad.

T6his particular room was used as a ward for convalescent soldiers during the First World War.  Imagine recovering in here!  Through the archway you can see a lion and its prey, although to be fair I imagine all the floor space in those days was given over to soldiers' beds.

Two of the Major's daughters shared his passion for faraway places. Both were highly intelligent women, and they devoted their lives to doing medical work among Africans. They also catalogued and recorded the way of life of their patients, (who were also their friends) so that now we know what they made and did and looked like.

There really is some splendid stuff to see - I particularly loved this bowl with six heads from Nigeria. 

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In search of a bit of my own history I have been sorting out some old albums passed down in my family.  For a hundred and fifty years, one branch of the family worked to bring the wonders of the electric telegraph to far flung places ranging from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and their families followed along - only a minority of my grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Britain, and neither of my parents were.

Some of the albums are very interesting.  Here is HMS Renown - the original battleship, built in 1895, pre-dreadnought.  She was scrapped in 1914. My relatives were pretty bad at labelling things but I'd guess this was probably somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Here is a snap with the following title.  It looks like "Becalmed Boat in Mediterranean"....but I think that must be wrong...

because no way is this the Mediterranean, surely. Anyone got any ideas? The robe looks a bit Turkish to me.

And a more homely note, here is "Tinker on the Horse" was taken in a farm that was very likely at in Tolleshunt Major,  Essex, about 1920.

I'm still wondering what this picture represents. It dates from around 1910, and seems to show women from all nations.  But which nations? The one in the centre could be Marianne of France. I don't think she is Britannia because she doesn't have a Union Jack.

The girl in tartan must be Scotland. I see a pre-war Japanese flag and a lady who might be dressed in a kimono.  Perhaps an Afghan lady in the centre.  An Indian, and a Russian in that white hat, do you think?



As for the event itself, goodness knows what it can have been.

I also visited the area where my parents spent most of their retirement, in West Berkshire/East Wiltshire.  The weather, as you can see, didn't really cooperate but I enjoyed the trip, anyway.  The photo is taken from the steps of the antique arcade in the centre of Hungerford.

While I was in the arcade I bought someone else's family photos, an album dating from the early 1940s.  I don't usually buy other peoples' family photos, but this album, although damaged, wasn't that expensive, and it was so carefully laid out,  with photos that were worth seeing. The owner listed all the places where he had served with the Army. 

 There is no name on the album, and I was rather sad to think that there were no descendants who wanted to keep it, because he was a good photographer.  I liked the way that the camels and people in the foreground here seem to be making no effort to escape what I suppose is a sandstorm approaching in (according to the caption) Khartoum.  Looks mighty scary - have any of you ever been in a sandstorm? I wonder how quickly it would typically move.  Do you think this was about a minute away, or half an hour away?  

Here is an air raid over Alexandria, Egypt, with searchlights criss crossing the sky. Or could it be a time exposure of tracer bullets?  

 Alexandria is where my father grew up.  I didn't notice Dad in any of the photos though!

And here are a couple of our anonymous soldier's colleagues at El Alamein, in the Western Desert.

I don't think I would have liked living then at all, but looking at this album I do sense that this owner felt a certain wonder that he had gone to so many places and seen so many things. The final picture in the album shows troops marching in a VE Sunday parade through the streets of Melton Mowbray, photographed by Heawood, a local photographer.   I wonder if the soldier did anything interesting with the rest of his life, and whether he was glad to back home in Leicestershire.  

My cousin lives near Melton and drove down to see us in London last weekend. I don't know why it always seems like the ends of the earth to me to go to where they live from here. It's actually only about two hours in the car.  I was glad she came though as they've just got what must be the nicest dog in the world.  He's a bit of a crossbreed I think, mainly a Pom.  Such a good tempered, friendly and altogether delightful dog.   He loves having his tummy stroked. 

He seems to have a lot of cats in his life, which he is on the whole pretty good friends with.  But then he seems to be friends with everyone.  Definitely my No. 1 dog of the year!

We stayed in a friend's cottage in East Anglia, and I was impressed by a couple of cars I spotted in Raveningham, Norfolk. The one on the left is surely a hearse, but its front seats are upholstered in gold, so there is obviously a story attached.   Both were looking a little dusty, as if they hadn't been driven recently. I don't suppose their original owners ever thought they'd end up in the depths of the Engish countryside.

I plan to visit everyone's blogs over the next few days, I am sorry for my absence and lack of comments. I seem to have a lot of work to do at the moment.  It all seems to be to do with art, so I hope I'll have a lot to tell you about it in due course.   One thing is sure at the moment though - and that is that I certainly have a lot to learn!