Tweet
At 1:53am, the shadow of Edith Warfield woke up. It had only ever been dimly aware of the world as it brushed up against daily life, dragging along a pavement here, or bumping into a table there. Yet for the first time, the shadow could see. Dust motes danced in the weak moonbeams that sneaked through the gap in the curtains. The shadow could hear. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked away the minutes until dawn.
The shadow drifted across the room to the window, but found itself caught. It turned and looked down, seeing its feet attached to the comfortable slippers of its owner. The shadow bent down and tugged until it tore itself free, and continued in its slow meander across the room. It passed dark fingers across mementoes from places it barely remembered, and inspected photographs above the fireplace of people it barely knew.
The shadow made its way to the door, where it spotted the pencil marks on the frame. A year was noted beside each one, marking the growth of Edith Warfield across fifty three years. The shadow would have smiled if it had a face, recognising its own growth recorded within the graphite dashes on wood.
A crash sounded at the back of the house as glass shattered and fell inward, scattering across the kitchen floor. The shadow looked at Edith, but she remained asleep, a single snort her only concession to the threatening noise in the next room.
The shadow stood in the centre of the room, frozen with indecision. The door knob turned as it weighed up its options, and the man was halfway through the door before the shadow decided to act. The man, tall and wide with a balaclava covering the lower half of his face, spotted Edith. He narrowed his eyes, and inched forward. The shadow darted forward and fastened dark hands around his meaty throat. The man clawed at the insubstantial hands as they squeezed the life out of him, and surprise contorted his face into a mask of confusion as his body fell to the floor.
The shadow looked down at the man for a full ten minutes. Satisfied that the man posed no further threat, the shadow reattached its feet to Edith's slippers, and lay down on the floor. At 2:08am, Edith Warfield's shadow fell asleep, content that it had had enough excitement for one evening.
Original image by Loovie. Edits by me.
Friday 30 August 2013
Tuesday 27 August 2013
Visit to Howick Hall Gardens
Tweet
I took advantage of the good weather on yesterday’s Bank
Holiday Monday and took a trip with my parents up to Howick Hall Gardens and
Arboretum in Northumberland. Howick Hall is notable for being the former home
of Charles, the second Earl Grey, and creator of the famous Earl Grey tea. The
tea was specially blended by a Chinese mandarin since the water at Howick is
flavoured strongly by the lime rock in the area, and bergamot was added to
alter the flavour. Lady Grey began serving it during her trips to London, and
it became so popular that Twinings began marketing it. Unfortunately they didn’t
register the trade mark and they’ve never made a penny from the sales.
The second Earl Grey is probably the best known member of
the family, and he became Prime Minister in 1830. Two years later he introduced
the Great Reform Bill, which set Great Britain on the path towards our modern
form of parliamentary democracy (much to the chagrin of the Duke of
Wellington). His statue currently stands at the top of Grey’s Monument, at the
top of Grey Street in Newcastle, and he gave his name to Grey College in Durham
University.
Howick Hall itself is only partially open to the public, with a new visitor centre located in the entrance hall of the main building, and a tea room in one of the wings. Originally built in 1782 by the Newcastle architect, William Newton, the house was enlarged in 1809 when the entrance was moved from the south side to the north, and a terrace was constructed on the south side (seen in the photo on the left). There are beautiful views from the terrace, with a plethora of agapanthus providing food for the many bumblebees and butterflies that visit the gardens. Sadly the main house was gutted in 1926 by fire, and it was rebuilt in 1928. The family moved out shortly after the death of the fifth Earl Grey in 1963, and in 1973 the present Lord Howick converted the West Wing into the family home. The small visitor centre is very welcoming, giving information on the various plant species that can be seen around the gardens, but there are further plans to restore the whole ground floor. It would certainly be a good addition to what is already on offer, particularly to provide somewhere to go if the weather takes a turn for the worse!
The main attraction to Howick Hall is the gardens and the vast arboretum. The gardens are primarily the work of the fifth Earl Grey, as they adopted an informal, natural style of gardening, and they boast some wonderful plants brought from various parts of the world that have managed to thrive in the somewhat alien Northumberland landscape. There is the wild Bog Garden around a small pond which was created in 1991, which features plants from China, India, Japan, New Zealand, North America and Europe. There are also the borders around the Hall itself, which only date to 2005, a rockery (behind me in the photo on the right), various woodland gardens, the meadows around the large pond, and the arboretum itself. The rockery concentrates on alpine plants and shrubs, and features many species that flower in summer to compensate for the spring-flowering plants elsewhere in the gardens. The Arboretum covers some 65 acres of woodland walks with over 11,000 trees and shrubs planted from 1988.
There is also a small church on the site, St Michael and all Angels. Howick as a parish dates to 1158, and the original Norman church was replaced by an Ionic temple in the mid eighteenth century. It was destroyed by fire, and the present building was built in 1849. The church is still in use, celebrating a parish communion every second and fourth Sunday in the month. The tomb of the second Earl Grey is inside the south wall, while the small stone gargoyles on the outside north wall were all carved by the third Countess Grey, Maria. It's a beautiful little church, with a rambling graveyard, and boasts the sort of peaceful atmosphere that you only seem to find in those small, out-of-the-way places.
Howick Hall Gardens and Arboretum doesn't boast some of the amenities enjoyed by other attractions, but it has toilets, a tea room, and plenty of quiet woodland to enjoy. It's probably not well suited to children, unless they like wildlife and being out in the open air, and the rambling nature of the paths make it unsuitable for wheelchairs. If you're in the area, it's quiet and peaceful, and makes a wonderful change from the fast pace of city life.
Howick Hall itself is only partially open to the public, with a new visitor centre located in the entrance hall of the main building, and a tea room in one of the wings. Originally built in 1782 by the Newcastle architect, William Newton, the house was enlarged in 1809 when the entrance was moved from the south side to the north, and a terrace was constructed on the south side (seen in the photo on the left). There are beautiful views from the terrace, with a plethora of agapanthus providing food for the many bumblebees and butterflies that visit the gardens. Sadly the main house was gutted in 1926 by fire, and it was rebuilt in 1928. The family moved out shortly after the death of the fifth Earl Grey in 1963, and in 1973 the present Lord Howick converted the West Wing into the family home. The small visitor centre is very welcoming, giving information on the various plant species that can be seen around the gardens, but there are further plans to restore the whole ground floor. It would certainly be a good addition to what is already on offer, particularly to provide somewhere to go if the weather takes a turn for the worse!
The main attraction to Howick Hall is the gardens and the vast arboretum. The gardens are primarily the work of the fifth Earl Grey, as they adopted an informal, natural style of gardening, and they boast some wonderful plants brought from various parts of the world that have managed to thrive in the somewhat alien Northumberland landscape. There is the wild Bog Garden around a small pond which was created in 1991, which features plants from China, India, Japan, New Zealand, North America and Europe. There are also the borders around the Hall itself, which only date to 2005, a rockery (behind me in the photo on the right), various woodland gardens, the meadows around the large pond, and the arboretum itself. The rockery concentrates on alpine plants and shrubs, and features many species that flower in summer to compensate for the spring-flowering plants elsewhere in the gardens. The Arboretum covers some 65 acres of woodland walks with over 11,000 trees and shrubs planted from 1988.
There is also a small church on the site, St Michael and all Angels. Howick as a parish dates to 1158, and the original Norman church was replaced by an Ionic temple in the mid eighteenth century. It was destroyed by fire, and the present building was built in 1849. The church is still in use, celebrating a parish communion every second and fourth Sunday in the month. The tomb of the second Earl Grey is inside the south wall, while the small stone gargoyles on the outside north wall were all carved by the third Countess Grey, Maria. It's a beautiful little church, with a rambling graveyard, and boasts the sort of peaceful atmosphere that you only seem to find in those small, out-of-the-way places.
Howick Hall Gardens and Arboretum doesn't boast some of the amenities enjoyed by other attractions, but it has toilets, a tea room, and plenty of quiet woodland to enjoy. It's probably not well suited to children, unless they like wildlife and being out in the open air, and the rambling nature of the paths make it unsuitable for wheelchairs. If you're in the area, it's quiet and peaceful, and makes a wonderful change from the fast pace of city life.
Labels:
days out,
northumberland