Reading this book at the moment "Bess of Hardwick" by Mary S. Lovell. Bess was a wealthy woman  through her four marriages, but also by her own good management of her lands and properties. She was widely believed to be the second richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth I. Bess was always involved in improving and building her homes, and is best known for Hardwick Hall, her own design. Lord Burghley quipped that Hardwick was "more glass than wall" for its large windows which set a new fashion for the times. 

     Her fourth husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury, was appointed custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, a position that had great status but nearly bankrupted him, as he was expected to pay most of Mary's expenses, including the upkeep of her servants and horses. His pleas to the Queen (notorious for her close-fistedness) for more money only led to the Queen suggesting that Mary's number of servants be reduced by half. At first, Mary was quartered in the same house as Bess and the Earl, and Mary and Bess became friends. However, they later fell out as Bess believed Mary was playing the couple off against each other for her own gain. As he aged, the Earl became increasingly mentally unstable, probably with dementia, and he believed that his wife was plotting against him to steal his property. He was removed as custodian for the Queen of Scots as he was unreliable, and her care passed to others. 

     Bess continued to buy and improve her properties; she was like a very good CEO and never hesitated to go to law against any who gainsaid her, in particular her stepson Gilbert who believed he was entitled to receive all her property when she died, because she had married his father. An interesting read which reveals much about the everyday life of Elizabethan times, and not about royalty which is refreshing. 

 Back again.

I've decided to reactivate this blog after 8 years!

I did think to make a new blog, but it's much more trouble as "They" want to verify me with a cellphone number. I don't have one. "They" are Google and they have bought blogger since I last posted. Many things have changed in the world in eight years, not all of them (in fact, very few of them) for the better.

One of the better things is that I'm now retired. I want to practice my writing again now I have more time, and it will be one way of getting me away from Facebook and boring my friends with my incessant posting of things I find interesting, or fun, or beautiful, or enraging. This is called "pebbling" because it's what penguins do to other birds that they like. Penguins offer each other pebbles for nest building, apparently. (They also steal pebbles as well.) So I'll think of myself as a penguin, walking along a pebbly beach, squawking with joy when I find a particularly nice pebble.

I hope I can remember how this works. Somewhere there is a grammar/spellchecker if only I can find it.

Anyway, here's a nice picture of Florence.

The last post.

Sadly, I've decided that this will be my last post.  I've really lost enthusiasm for blogging, and have found it hard lately to find things to write about that would sustain my interest and the interest of readers. I'd like to thank those who have been regular readers and have offered kind and thoughtful comments during the seven years I've been blogging here. I won't be doing Instagram or Twitter as I find them too brief and superficial; I just don't like the "shoot from the lip" culture and don't wish to support it. So I wish you all well for the future, XXXXXX.

Catching up

Jungliness; green, green, green!

     I've been neglecting this blog lately, because I've started doing my family history. This has proved to be quite addictive. I don't know a lot about my family, because my Dad was estranged from his and he and my Mum both emigrated to New Zealand in the 1950s, so I never knew any of my other relations personally. Three of my grandparents were already dead by the time I arrived, but since they were in England anyway I only knew my surviving grandmother by her letters to me. She died in 1968. So being "orphaned" on many levels meant that I knew little about the past, and then only what my mother knew or chose to tell me.
     Some of the "family stories" that she told me have been proved to be quite wrong. Whether she made them up or whether she was told wrongly I don't know. Her belief that both of my great great-grandmothers (on her side) were Scots is totally untrue. There is a Scotsman, but a long, long way back.
     It's fascinating but also frustrating. My paternal grandfather seems to be a man of mystery entirely - where he came from has so far eluded me. There have been some interesting discoveries; my favourites so far are Joseph Morgan Melville, who worked as a shipwright in Chatham Naval dockyards in the early Victorian period, and William Douglas, a ropemaker, also employed at Chatham around the same time. Chatham Historic Dockyards website is interesting, and I found several youTube videos about the ropemaking process.
      This is the part I enjoy most about family history, finding the social history behind the names. It takes you to places and subjects you never would have thought about otherwise. Investigating my grandfather's role as a gunner in the First World War took me to books on field artillery, to see what kind of guns he would have been using - not something I would ever have had an interest in normally.
  Anyway, here are some garden pics. A lot of rain has made the garden quite jungly, but things are coming out in flower regardless.

Garden pics today

Irises starting to come out now. Planted potatoes today.

Thomas the Lettuce Slayer

Ixia

Bits and pieces

The bluebells were picking up reflected light from a window, making the blue quite glowy.

"Waterlily" camellia

Rhododendron in the morning light (not sure what this is called)

Church fair treasures. Old books, old jewellery, an embroidered doily and a funny battered old vase for miniature roses and jasmine.

A visit to Lyttelton

Interior of St Saviours Church, Lyttelton

I went over to Lyttelton today to see this church (part of  our Heritage Week celebrations).  Lyttelton is the port town of Christchurch, accessed through a long road tunnel built through the remains of an old volcanic caldera. It has a special place in my heart because I was born there, and lived there for the first six years of my life. It has a very different feel from Christchurch, enclosed and hilly as opposed to flat and open. It was one of the first towns established by the European settlers, and was a major entry port for immigrants, who then trudged wearily over the hills to Christchurch.

St Saviour's church was originally sited in West Lyttelton, and its particular mission was to minister to sailors. When worship was centralised in the town at Holy Trinity, St Saviours, then surplus to requirements, was moved through to Christchurch, becoming the chapel for the Cathedral Grammar School. Now it's back in Lyttelton on the site of the Holy Trinity Church, which sadly collapsed completely during the earthquakes. The central light fitting of Holy Trinity, the Corona Lucis, has been restored and re-installed in St Saviours. The original font from Holy Trinity, where my own little baby-bald head was baptised, is also now in the church.

The restored Crown of Light

Bored choir members whiled away the sermon carving their names into the organ-front. One W. Furneaux appears twice, in 1903 and 1905.

Very pretty reredos with grape motifs

Christ calming the waters, appropriate for a seamen's church.

The vicarage was also damaged badly, but is due to be restored soon.

Many picturesque old buildings abound. The town had a serious fire in the 1880s, and much of the early commercial centre was destroyed, but there are still many residential buildings from this period and after.

The earthquakes took a big toll on the old buildings of the port town. This is one of the prettiest houses, still awaiting restoration. When I was a child an old lady called Pretoria Wern lived here, a Boer war baby judging by her name.

This is my old house. It has gone through several phases of gentrification since we lived there. I still have a brass kettle and a china wash-basin jug that my father found in the cellar. It looks romantic but was a cold dark house which got little sunlight. I hope the present owners are more comfortable in it.

The street market, London Street. Every Saturday Lyttelton has a market in the main street. Many of the old buildings here have been removed due to earthquake damage, and sad, neglected sites gape open. Lyttelton has now become a trendy place for the kind of wealthy people who can afford to look poor, and with the alternative crowd of new hippies and creative types (think Portland only a little more gritty); it used to be very working-class, with most men employed on the wharves or on the railway that serviced the port.

Old house in Winchester Street. Old cottages here are often built right on to the pavement, which looks very quaint. Many of the street-names here are English; Oxford Street, Winchester Street, London Street. Homesick settlers touchingly called dirt tracks after busy thoroughfares in their homeland. They were nothing if not optimistic!

I hope you've enjoyed this look at a bit of Lyttelton, a town well-worth visiting on a fine and sunny spring Saturday.