Hi Dear Folk,
It seems winter is upon us even though the days are gradually growing longer. Friday night it snowed and Saturday proved to be a very grey day, the type of day where you must rally your spirits and get stuck into something or you will just stay put, and ones spirits could match the weather.
I decided to get a couple of books from the library, Dispatch from LA mentioned Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude so on that recommendation I rang the library up, first to see if they were open and second to see if they had the book. They did not but they did have Riverside and The West Pier. After doing a little research on Patrick Hamilton it seems he had several of his books made into films, some more famous being Gaslight, Rope, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky released as a film The Bitter Harvest, another made into a series was The Charmer. To be quite honest all of these are not happy themes, so I will see if I like the books.
Our library has a book club that meets every third Saturday, I used to go quite regularly, but you know how life gets in the way of a life, so have not participated for a very long while, but I thought I'd get the book for next month which is In The Woods ,by Jana French, it is a murder mystery. I've started reading that and like it so far, so will continue on.
The last book I picked up in their little book sale area was The Arms of Krupp 1587 - 1968. As soon as I saw the title I knew I would be interested in this. They started in armaments making cannons, provided the munitions for all the major wars in European history down to WWI arming the Kaiser's army, making Big Bertha. Secretly kept going between the wars and then reappeared to produce armaments for Hitler, such as the Panzer Tanks in WWII, using slave labour and even having a children's concentration camp. Hitler gave them tax exemption that carried on after WWII. None of the family was ever tried for War Crimes and continued on quite happily after the war. In more recent times the government of Iran bought a 25% holding in Krupps.
Having a need to get out, Mr. B. and I decided to take a walk in the park, so here we are. This is our local park which you've seen before in the different seasons.
This collection of old buildings is called the Dairy, and it was used for that at one time.
Shapes seem to show up more clearly in this monochromatic landscape.
We did wonder why the elbow of the branch bent down one way and then did a right angle turn back upwards.
Here is a little colour in the bark of this old fallen tree.
Or the leaves still hanging on here.
I love the walk down here because you have the constant sound of the babbling brook.
This is the brightest thing I saw, besides a red cardinal, this fungus with some lichen behind. Isn't that an amazing colour in the winter gloom?
A little bright green here. A Pennsylvania winter is very dull, not like in the UK where you have so much green, we just do not.
In spring the above area will burst into a carpet of yellow celandines, in the mean time it was a hive of activity with little chickadees scrapping away and flicking up dead leaves at quite a rate, looking for bugs, along with sparrows and cardinals.
Some fungus, almost like stag horn.
My snow boot footprint, a snowflake. After this walk though I realized that I need new snow-boots, these leak and the right boot really leaks, so no good keeping them, because it is when it snows that I use them.
Look at the Canada Geese in the distance, I walked up to them to get some closer shots.
They made me laugh, because first they all started walking in one direction and then the next minute in unison they are airborne.
Have you ever seen Canada Geese come in for a landing, well they look like a Klingon space ship, the way their neck comes down, you know, from Star Trek. I have to think the designer based the idea after seeing a Canada Goose land.
Are there sounds in your mind that you just love, I heard two on our walk,
A little crochet and tea, that's my weekend.
Christy
It seems winter is upon us even though the days are gradually growing longer. Friday night it snowed and Saturday proved to be a very grey day, the type of day where you must rally your spirits and get stuck into something or you will just stay put, and ones spirits could match the weather.
I decided to get a couple of books from the library, Dispatch from LA mentioned Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude so on that recommendation I rang the library up, first to see if they were open and second to see if they had the book. They did not but they did have Riverside and The West Pier. After doing a little research on Patrick Hamilton it seems he had several of his books made into films, some more famous being Gaslight, Rope, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky released as a film The Bitter Harvest, another made into a series was The Charmer. To be quite honest all of these are not happy themes, so I will see if I like the books.
Our library has a book club that meets every third Saturday, I used to go quite regularly, but you know how life gets in the way of a life, so have not participated for a very long while, but I thought I'd get the book for next month which is In The Woods ,by Jana French, it is a murder mystery. I've started reading that and like it so far, so will continue on.
The last book I picked up in their little book sale area was The Arms of Krupp 1587 - 1968. As soon as I saw the title I knew I would be interested in this. They started in armaments making cannons, provided the munitions for all the major wars in European history down to WWI arming the Kaiser's army, making Big Bertha. Secretly kept going between the wars and then reappeared to produce armaments for Hitler, such as the Panzer Tanks in WWII, using slave labour and even having a children's concentration camp. Hitler gave them tax exemption that carried on after WWII. None of the family was ever tried for War Crimes and continued on quite happily after the war. In more recent times the government of Iran bought a 25% holding in Krupps.
Having a need to get out, Mr. B. and I decided to take a walk in the park, so here we are. This is our local park which you've seen before in the different seasons.
This collection of old buildings is called the Dairy, and it was used for that at one time.
Shapes seem to show up more clearly in this monochromatic landscape.
We did wonder why the elbow of the branch bent down one way and then did a right angle turn back upwards.
Here is a little colour in the bark of this old fallen tree.
Or the leaves still hanging on here.
I love the walk down here because you have the constant sound of the babbling brook.
This is the brightest thing I saw, besides a red cardinal, this fungus with some lichen behind. Isn't that an amazing colour in the winter gloom?
A little bright green here. A Pennsylvania winter is very dull, not like in the UK where you have so much green, we just do not.
In spring the above area will burst into a carpet of yellow celandines, in the mean time it was a hive of activity with little chickadees scrapping away and flicking up dead leaves at quite a rate, looking for bugs, along with sparrows and cardinals.
Some fungus, almost like stag horn.
My snow boot footprint, a snowflake. After this walk though I realized that I need new snow-boots, these leak and the right boot really leaks, so no good keeping them, because it is when it snows that I use them.
Look at the Canada Geese in the distance, I walked up to them to get some closer shots.
They made me laugh, because first they all started walking in one direction and then the next minute in unison they are airborne.
Have you ever seen Canada Geese come in for a landing, well they look like a Klingon space ship, the way their neck comes down, you know, from Star Trek. I have to think the designer based the idea after seeing a Canada Goose land.
Are there sounds in your mind that you just love, I heard two on our walk,
- Geese flying overhead
- Babbling brook
- Waves crashing at the seashore
- Train tooting at night
- Laughter of little children
A little crochet and tea, that's my weekend.
Christy
Your books sound interesting. Its good to get out and walk whatever the weather and your pictures are great especially the geese.
ReplyDeleteWinter has its own distinct beauty, lovely photos.
ReplyDeleteMeredith