TAKING STOCK

After my last posting, I found these two photographs, of my Grandfather's garden, the garden that is my favourite of past house gardens. There's my grandfather, relaxing in front of his greenhouse, which looks to be full of tomato plants and in the other photograph there I am toddling up another gravel path. It looks as though I am pulling off a flower head, naughty me! I just wanted to show you them so as you could get an idea of how it was a typical post First World War English garden even into the early 1960's.



I feel as if I have lost the month of January, and some of February. Ideas and projects for the new year, got cast aside in the double whammy of completely sorting out my Mother's belongings and life and the great hard drive crash. I actually feel as though my year started at the beginning of this week and am now in the process of taking stock of what I achieved last year and building on it this year.

I have my swap projects under control again, and am going back to my Daisy Lupin Designs. These Daisy Lupin designs, will be in the site I created to run along side my blog, and has been under construction for the past three or four months. Bascially I will be putting up for sale on there items I create, including Daisy Fae dolls and Podlings, all protected by copyright, especially the Podlings, [I have noticed similar things starting to be seen around blogland], only true Podlings come with the Podling certificate and story though. I am also making Mark II podlings. It is so lovely to be creating again. I think it will be easier to sell through this site than Ebay and etsy and I can set up paypal for payments, apparently.

I am also trying to set up a visual display site for the work of people who I am in a group with. You would not believe how difficult it is to write down terms and conditions clearly and simply so they do not sound ambiguous and everyone can understand exactly how the things will run, without bombarding me with emails. I am trying to make sure I cover all aspects of this project, and it is quite complicated and taking me quite a while, to set it up.

I am also dithering about setting up a sort of, how can I explain this, Daisy Lupin exploration course, through email. Basically, this is very early work in progress, but for a small sum people could be sent by email instructions for finding out more about themselves through doing given exercises, a mixture of writing, games, drawing etc. I know it sounds slightly boring but no, it would be typically Daisy Lupin, flight of fancy, quirkiness and musing. This is probably important for me as I love exploring my mind and creativity in many ways that I think others would enjoy.

Those three projects listed above are what I have written in my journal as achievable this year. Wish me luck.



I came across these photographs of the nearest town to me, actually it is a city as it has a small cathedral, it is also where I was born. The first photograph shows the fine neo-gothic Victorian Railway station, at one time a very important station in the railway network. Trains going to all points, north, south, east and west. That is what you would walk out of if you came by train. You would then walk up a slight incline, past the hotel next to the station and face this edifice.



Actually there are two of them, one on either side of the road. These were where the southern gates to the city stood at one time, the city walls were either side of them. These are not the original structures. There had been a gate in the city walls from medieval times, this was replaced in the sixteenth century by a fortress, thought needed to protect the city, this was around the time of Henry VIII and his dissolution of the monastries. This fortress, in turn was demolished and in 1810 these two ovals towers were built, at the bottom of one of the towers there is still some of the stonework of the previous fortress. These two citadels were known as the courts and until a few years ago the one on the left was the criminal court and the one on the right was the civil court. Many years ago the jail was also further along from the citadel tower on the left hand side.



In front of the right side tower is The Crescent [you can just see it in the top right hand corner of this photograph] what must have been a wonderful sweep, once of large houses, now they are shops at the bottom and flats above. It must have been my town's answer to the magnificent crescents that were being built in London and Bath. Unfortunately, the crescent is now a traffic nightmare.




This little alleyway runs at the back of the right hand side of the citadel and is known as Citadel row, it used to be full of tiny little shops, but is now owned by the council, who used some of it as offices for a while.



The large black and white building on this photograph stretches all the way back down Citadel Row. It is not a tudor or mock tudor building as most people think but it is an example of an arts and crafts style building. It belongs to the council and used to be let out as shops and offices, but after the floods of 2005 which flooded the police station at the other end of town, the police use this building as a police station until their new one is ready.

Another posting I will show you some more of the historic parts of my nearest town, and at a later date I will also show you photographs of my nearest local market town. Hope you have enjoyed seeing the above photos showing small slices of local history.