C is for Chaffinch

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Margaret

There are countless numbers of chaffinches in our garden. It’s the second commonest breeding bird in the UK, so perhaps it’s not surprising that there are so many around. They eat insects and seeds, but they prefer to eat the seeds that have fallen to the ground rather than from the bird feeders.

We have put a tray of seeds on a garden table outside our kitchen patio doors and can watch them at quite close quarters as they come to eat the seeds. Whilst they crowd together on the ground they’re more cautious closer to the house and they only come one at a time to the table. David took these photos. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

I think this one is so lovely. It’s a female chaffinch that has just landed on the rail of the decking and the wind is ruffling her feathers.

In this next photo her feathers have settled down:

Then a male chaffinch arrived. He likes the sunflower seeds.

I love his colours.

An ABC Wednesday post for the letter C.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Margaret

Here’s another old photo from my family photos. This is my Great Aunty Emily, who was born in 1886 and died in 1935. On the back of this small photo, mounted on card, my Mother wrote ‘Aunty Emily Miss Taylor at Blackpool’. You can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

I doubt she was actually sat on the beach at Blackpool when this photo was taken, that deck chair looks remarkably near the waves and the sand looks very solid. I suppose she was on holiday there, but as the photo isn’t dated I don’t know when this was.

She was my Grandmother’s younger sister and I’ve found out from the Census Returns that she was born at Lostock Junction, Bolton in Lancashire. My Great Grandfather, her father was Thomas Taylor, a domestic gardener, born in 1856 at Bulwick, Northamptonshire. He had another daughter, Florrie, born in 1901 and a son Thomas William born in 1892. All his children were born in different places, as he moved from Northamptonshire, to Lancashire and then to Cheshire.

Emily never married, but stayed at home acting as Housekeeper for her father after her mother died in 1911. I have a copy of her death certificate 1935, which records that she was aged 51 and died at 94 Victoria Road, Hale, Cheshire of a cerebral haemorrhage. Her occupation was described as ‘Housekeeper (domestic) Daughter of Thomas Taylor a Gardener (domestic) (deceased) of 6 Oak Road, Hale’. My Granny, Evelyn Owens, was present at her death. Had my Granny come to stay with her because she wasn’t well – at that time Granny lived in Pen-y-fford, in Wales?

I knew Florrie because when I was a child she lived in the next road and I used to visit her each week with my Mother. She was lovely and looked very like Emily does in the photo (only older).

I also have a vague memory of Thomas William - Uncle Tom, because when his daughter, Joyce, her husband and their daughter Jennifer (who was born just over a year later than me) emigrated to Australia there was a family party before they left. I don’t know how old I was at the time, probably about 5. I remember Uncle Tom as a very large old man, who was very upset about his daughter emigrating! As usual I’m left wishing I knew more about these people.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog, At Home With Books.

Around the House and Garden

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Margaret

For this round of ABC Wednesday I’m focussing on various objects in our house and garden, beginning with

A for Asiatic Pheasants and also B for Blue and White Porcelain.

This is an oval meal dish in the Asiatic Pheasants design, which was popular during Queen Victoria’s reign. It’s an English design based on an oriental original and is a much lighter blue than the Willow pattern.

It’s large and very heavy, and I’m rather fond of it. It has a cartouche on the back, which identifies the manufacturer as James Beech 1877 – 1889 in Tunstall Staffordshire.

Booking Through Thursday: An Interview with Me

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Margaret

Booking Through Thursday asks:

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read? I don’t have a favourite time – any time is best. I read mostly early mornings and late at night.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.) Yes.

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.) I love porridge for a hot breakfast and muesli when I fancy a cold breakfast.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read? 2 – 3 hours.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago? About the same.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader? No

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? To read multiple books at the same time.

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go? Not everywhere, but most places – it’s easier now with my Kindle.

9. What KIND of book? If it’s a ‘real’ book it has to be small enough to fit in my bag or pocket and can be any genre – usually whatever I’m reading.

10. How old were you when you got your first library card? Four or five, I think, or I may have been able to borrow books on my mother’s card, I don’t know. I only remember borrowing books from the library before I went to school aged five.

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?) I don’t know the oldest physical book in my collection. It would be one of the books my parents or grandparents owned. I have several of these that I know my parents were given (as school and Sunday School prizes) in the 1920s, but there are a few like these that probably belonged to my grandparents:

Jane Eyre by Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) published by Richard Edward King, 88 Curtain Road, E.C. no date probably 1880s- 90s and The Channings by Mrs Henry Wood, published by Richard Bentley and Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen, 1890.

12. Do you read in bed? Yes – see question 1.

13. Do you write in your books?I was brought up never to write in books, but I sometimes do now – in pencil. I have some of my children’s books that I’ve coloured in the line drawings with coloured pencils and some novels I read for school with passages underlined in biro (I’m shocked by my younger self!)

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be? Read whatever you like and read, read, read. Never believe anyone who tells you that you should be doing something else rather than reading.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Margaret

I’ve been spending time doing some family history these last few days and looking at old photos. I came across this one of my father as a baby, with his brother Jack and sister Mary. He was born in 1914. How children’s clothes have changed! And none of them look too happy – click on photo to enlarge and see their expressions.

And here is a more cheerful one of Dad with his brother-in-law – I think this was taken at Mum and Dad’s wedding in 1938.

Finally, here’s a photo of Mum and Dad, which I really like. It was taken in Llandudno, probably on their honeymoon.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

Happy New Year 2012

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Margaret

I’m not a great one for making New Year resolutions – or keeping them, but these are a few things I’d like to achieve in my reading this year.

Read more from my to-be-read books and keep a record of how many I read (something I didn’t do last year).
Read the library books I borrow and not just keep on renewing them, or returning them unread.
Not get hung up if I don’t complete the reading challenges I’ve joined. Reading is for pleasure and it’s not something that ‘should’ be done.
Weed out and re-house books I know I’ll never re-read.

I’m compiling some statistics and deciding which are my favourite books from 2011, which I’ll post soon.

In the meantime I wish you all a Happy New Year and … Keep on Reading!

Saturday Snapshot – Happy Christmas

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Margaret

There may not be much time for blogging next week, so today I’m wishing all of you a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

The photo below is one of me taken a long time ago when I went to see Father Christmas in Fairytale-Land – actually it was in Lewis’s Department Store in Manchester (not John Lewis), but I thought it was wonderful.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Margaret

Today we woke up to the first snow of this winter. It wasn’t forecast! My new header shows the front garden and the photo below is of our back garden. See another photo David took this morning – here. As you’ll see he wished for snow!

A Saturday Snapshot post – see more on Alyce’s blog At Home with Books.

Saturday Snapshot – another look at the family album

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Margaret

Time to revisit old family photos. This week I’m featuring my Granny Leighton, my father’s mother. I loved visiting her, she was the epitome of a grandmother, with her white hair done up in a bun, and her lovely smiley face. She even sat in a rocking chair by the fire knitting, when she wasn’t dashing around the kitchen, singing whilst she cooked.

Here she is with her sister, who wasn’t such a happy lady – I was rather scared of her. I don’t know when the photo was taken or where they were, but they’re sitting on a wall, maybe on holiday or on a day out, both with their knitting. Granny is on the right of the photo – smiling, Great Aunty Alice on the left – not smiling!

And here she is in her garden with my cousin, Sylvia:

And another photo taken in her garden, this time with her big black cat:

Granny and Granddad had a large garden, divided into many sections for flowers and vegetables, and they also had an aviary full of birds. I loved going there, although I was scared of my Granddad’s dog, which fortunately for me, he kept tied up to his chair when he was in the house. It was a horrible dog, with a very fierce bark and growl.

See more Saturday Snapshots at Alyce’s blog At Home with Books.

Saturday Snapshot – In the Garden

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Margaret

Autumn is now well set in here. Our garden is well on the way to being covered in leaves. There are still some leaves clinging to the trees like this red maple:

whereas others still have their leaves, like the Japanese Maple shown below.

I was a bit concerned earlier this year that this little tree wouldn’t survive because its leaves were scorched by a late frost soon after the new shoots had opened.