On an evening delivery shift I did a few days ago, I was in Wansford, and surrounding g villages. The rivers, streams, and meadows were literally steaming. A good layer of fog slowly built over the course of the evening.
Very picturesque, but the very Devil to deliver in! In the dark of autumn eves is bad enough. But with added fog!?
The Swan, Old Weston.
As has become normal for me now, as I drive around I snap shots of stuff that looks good to me. Beautiful houses, churches (lots of these!), and, of course, the countryside.
I’m enjoying being out and about, and not cooped up in pokey little (or even large) rooms.
I love old buildings like this. Such character!
The bridge at Wansford, over the river Nene, is lovely. As the view atop this posts attests. Wansford is/was on the Great North Road. It is also a stop on the Nene Valley Railway.
Fromage et beurre Anglaise, dans du pain blanc grillé.
I recently had an Amazon delivery route that was 90% based in Stamford and environs. A very beautiful town and surrounding area. A couple of my packages were for someone at Rennet & Rind (view their website here), purveyors of bespoke cheeses!
Being a cheese nut, I had to sample their wares. And I wound up buying small taster portions of Lincolnshire Poacher and Montgomery Cheddar. Both utterly delish!
I also bought some lovely Netherend Farm butter.
Montgomery, left; Poacher, right.
These cheeses are best enjoyed on their own, perhaps with some red wine and suitable crackers. Maybe some quince jelly? Etc. But today, for lunch, we skimmed it, with cheese on supermarket white bread toast.
But, like Sting’s Englishman In New York, ‘I like my toast done on one side’!
Rennet & Rind take cheese seriously. They describe themselves as ‘cheese pioneers’, and there’s an ‘academy of cheese’ link on their website. My kind of people!
I was out delivering in Stamford, again, when I came across these two beauties, parked very close to each other.
Looking good!
I’m no expert on such cars. I just love how they look. Classy curves!
Look at the hood on this Morgan!
As already mentioned, I know zip about these marques. But, boy, I sure do know I dig ‘em! Just look at the long nose in this beautiful. And those wire wheels!? I always wanted to find wire wheels (and white walls!) for my MX5.
Very sexy!Ok, not rear of the year.
Not quite as good a looker in the derrière department!
Oh yeah, baby… you’re a Tiger… grrr!
Wow! Ok, from behind she’s ok. But from the front? What a stunner. Seeing cares like these reminds me that I’d rather hang on to my ol’ MX5, see if I can resurrect her, and not scrap her. Hmmm!?
Today’s addition to the Tiger I are these two pairs of fans. Part of the tanks cooling system; I’ve always love this element of German panzers.
A great deal of time and effort went into making these! At times – e.g. attaching the individual fan blades – I was questioning (and/or testing) my own sanity !
The above three pics are all me trying to find an angle that does justice to all the effort.
I first drafted this post in September or October, 2022. But I’ve only now finally gone back to and finished it!
If I’m honest this isn’t my normal mug o’ Java. But I’ve been softened up for it by Masayoshi Takanaka’s wonderful double-album of the same name, that’s both based on the story, and uses Ul de Rico’s art on’t the packaging.
I love this!
Sometimes getting an entry into something this way – so, the fabulous Takanaka album predisposes me to being more receptive to the artwork/story that inspired it – widens one’s aesthetics. If I’d only seen the book, I might’ve rejected it out of hand.
Pretty amazing, eh!?
Some of the artworks, such as the one that adorns Masayoshi’s album cover, or the one directly above this paragraph, really do draw me in, and seduce me. Others, like the one directly below, I’ve grown to love.
And this in turn leads me to dig stuff like this:
The rainbow goblins’ dream. Far out!
And in the end I’m won over, and full of admiration for the simple charms of the story, and the intensity of the artworks. How about this for endpapers:
Flowers melt into a marbled ink pattern.
Ul de Rico did a follow up, called The White Goblin. And Masayoshi Takanaka followed suit! I’m listening to the latter right now. I’m not as immediately smitten by it as I was by his Rainbow Goblins project. It’s a bit more mainstream rock/pop.
The saga continues!
But, truth be told, I feel myself being sucked in and won over. Seduced ever further from my own usual aesthetics. In the end, it feels to me as if I’m relaxing and letting Ul de Rico and Masayoshi Takanaka take me, one by each hand, into their visual and sonic worlds.
Thanks are due to Jonny Trunk for the ‘heads up’ on this one. The ‘Angle are caught here on film, in glorious colour, playing Sally Go Round The Roses, from an ITV show called Songs From The Two Brewers…
The audio of the whole – well, more of it (if, perhaps, not all of it; it starts after the first number of the set, Pentangle!) – can be heard here.
The BFI have some scant info on numerous episodes (view a page about them here; click each entry to find who the performers on each episode are) of this show intriguing show in their archive. But they don’t make it easy to access/view!
Today a rather groovy set of hole-punches arrived, via Amazon (along with Egg’s last album, 1974’s Civil Surface).
No, not miniature organ pipes.
They range from 0.5 mm to ???. I only used two tonight, the 0.5mm, for the radiator detailing covered in this post, and the 0.8mm, just see how they looked.
The 0.5 mm punch, and the bits it yields.
I used two different thicknesses of plastic card; the thinnest I have for these bits. I’m very pleased with the tools and the parts they produce.
Ta-dah!
I suppose such stuff still looks a bit rustic and home-made, compared to what the kit manufacturers themselves can do. But it’s a significant improvement on how I’ve made such parts up till now.
Panoramic views of the river (?)…… at (er… where?)
Some pictures from todays delivery routes. After a rainy start the day turned out really nice.
Whew… A tiny prison!Malefactors enter here.The Eaton Socon Cage, no less.View through the bars…The church at Eaton Socon.And the picturesque graveyard.
Ecclesiastical architecture really is my bag, baby. Although I’m a staunch humanist/atheist, or ‘naturalist and free thinker’, as A. C. Grayling styles it, I do love churches.
The church of (?), at (?).A sublime pano’.Gorgeous!
