Tag: books

Journeys into the past

On By Carol HenshawIn Art & Architecture, Books, bookshops and libraries, Family history, IrelandLeave a comment


My grandmother seemed to decide that I was to be the family archivist in the 1970s. She gave me a large number of photographs, letters from the First World War front that two of my great-great uncles fought in and letters from a relative in the USA to my great grandmother. Her father came from Ireland. A cousin had done some work on part of the family tree and this was passed onto me. Over the years I filled in many of the gaps and with the help of relatives, and the ever-increasing availability of information on the internet, now have got back as far as 1588 with the exception of the Irish relatives. James is from Northern Ireland so on a recent trip to visit his family we decided to delve further into his family tree as we had relatively little information. The major problem with Irish records is that so many public records were destroyed in the 1916 Easter Uprising. Volunteers have been digitising church register information and other information is already online. Our first step was talking to relatives, finding out if there was a family bible which often had names and dates of birth of all family members (there was not one) and then visiting the various graveyards where we were told some ancestors were buried.

In total we visited four and on the next rainy day I will start to plot out the tree and double-check what we have.

Mountstewart is an estate that used to be the home of the Marquess of Londonderry but is now under the care of the National Trust. We had been there previously so had a quick look at the house and devoted the rest of our time to the garden. Our last visit was late summer so this time it was good to see tulips and Tree Peonies blooming.


A range of animal sculptures sit along the top of the garden wall. This pig is one of them.

Across the road there are views across Strangford Lough.

On our last day we decided to pay a visit to Derry, a city neither of us had visited previously. The 400-year-old city walls stand up to eight metres high and are almost one mile around, making them the most complete city walls in Ireland.

The station is across the Foyle river from the walled city but there is a free bus link to the bus station which is near the shopping centre. We began our walk on the walls at New Gate which is near a bastion containing cannons.

Ferryquay Gate is one of the original four gates and led down to a ferry which used to cross the river. The Guildhall is nearby.

St Columbs Cathedral was built in 1633, one of the first after the Reformation and the oldest building in the city.

St. Augustine’s Church is known as ‘The Wee Church’ and was built on the site of an abbey which St Columba constructed around 543AD before sailing over to Iona in 563AD. It has been rebuilt a number of times until the last in 1872.

There are views all around: over to the Bogside

…and to St Eugene’s Cathedral

We spotted a bookshop near the Craft Village.

Foyle Books is run by a retired French teacher. It has a huge selection of Irish books and others. I picked up one on ‘Difficult to Translate Words and Phrases’ and had a chat with him about this. I had noted that French does not have a word for ‘iceberg’ and we agreed that had they remained in Canada for longer, they might have had one. He also told me that Irish Gaelic has no swear words and so use English ones. My other find was a Hungarian phrasebook which I have been looking for for a couple of months in preparation for our trip to Budapest alter this year. So far in both new and second-hand stores I had had no success. However, this shop had three different ones. I also spotted a book produced by another small society; there seem to be so many devoted to what appear to be minor interests. I had previously come across the Pylon Appreciation Society, but this was a book on British Piers published by The Piers Society which I had not heard of before. Along the wall outside the Millennium Forum is an Anthony Gormley sculpture. There were originally three but the others have ended up overseas.

To return to the station we crossed the Peace Bridge which was opened in 2011.

There is then a footpath/cycle route back to the station although some work was being done on part of it. We could have spent much more time here – there are several museums and plenty of culture. That will have to wait for another trip.

A few days in Paris

On By Carol HenshawIn Art & Architecture, France3 Comments


St Pancras International is a very civilised station and I wish others were like it. Unfortunately, I was not able to enjoy it to the full as I became unwell and wondered if I was going to be able to make the trip. However, I managed to get things under control as we boarded the Eurostar and in just over two hours were at the Gare du Nord in Paris. The station has had a problem with expensive unlicensed preying on passengers, but we found it easy to follow the signs to the licensed taxi rank. Soon we were at our hotel where I rested and recovered. This is at least our fourth trip to Paris, so we have seen most of the sights and were happy to just wander. We are close to the Arc de Triomphe

so then walked down the Champs Elysee which has only two closed shops but lots of temporary fencing piled up from the recent Maillot Jeune demonstrations. We did see a few demonstrators a couple of days later near the Arc. The American Embassy was well-guarded.I went to Fauchon on the Place de Madeleine to do some shopping and passed by Le Village Royale, a small upmarket shopping and restaurant court off the Rue Royale which was today decorated with umbrellas

and displaying bronze sculptures by Dirk de Keyzer, a Belgian artist and sculptor.



Le Village hosts regular sculpture exhibitions. Returning along the riverside, statues were glowing in the sunshine and there were views over to the Eiffel Tower.


In the afternoon we walked to the nearest green space, Parc Monceau; which was busy with workers enjoying their lunch in the sunshine. The main gates are huge wrought iron and gold and the park is decorated with statues, ponds with a bridge and various old constructions, none of which are labelled. There are also playgrounds for children. Nearer our hotel was a street market:

And the Église de St Ferdinand

We met up with our friends late afternoon and enjoyed a meal in a nearby Corsican restaurant. Saturday was match day so after a morning walk under blue skies enjoying the buildings it was time to join the crowds on the Metro to the Stade de France in St Denis for the Scotland-France rugby match.

Scotland, probably predictably, lost. Waiting for the crowds to diminish we stopped for a glass of wine at a co-operative in the centre of town. It sold products made by local artists and craftspeople but today the café was holding a special afternoon celebrating a children’s book author and illustrator with some wine. The artist had designed the wine labels.

On Sunday we visited the Musée du Quai Branly which has a fantastic collection of art and culture from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Our Eurostar tickets gave us 2 for 1 tickets and we spent a few hours inside.



Outside there are gardens with grasses and magnolia trees in bud. Walking back along the riverside in this unseasonable weather, we spotted some hammocks by the Seine.

All too soon it was time to return home.

We had seen plenty of armed police around the city but at the Gare du Nord the army were on duty. On the Eurostar I read that the first Café á Chien has opened in the Marais district. That will have to be on the list for another visit. I finished reading Adam Gopnik’s Paris and the Moon which has been sitting on my bookshelf since I found a copy in Washington DC in 2004. This trip was a good chance to revisit the New Yorker writer’s account of moving from New York to Paris in 1995 where he worked for five years and began to raise his family, observing the differences between the two cultures. It was interesting having made numerous visits to both France and the USA.

Discovering England’s Book Town

On By Carol HenshawIn Books, bookshops and libraries, Flowers. plants & trees, walks5 Comments


Many people are aware of Hay on Wye in Wales and Wigtown in Scotland but I suspect fewer are aware of Sedbergh which now promotes itself as England’s Book Town. It is only six miles from the M6, 10 from Kendal and sits just inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The transition is dramatic, leaving the busy motorway and driving along a two-lane road flanked by drystone walls and with hills in the background. It is upland farming country and Sedbergh is a small market town. The town sign said it was twinned with a town in Slovenia which seemed a little unusual. Apparently it featured in a BBC documentary series, ‘The Town that Wants a Twin’ in early 2005 and subsequently was twinned with Zreče in Slovenia. It has a narrow main street with shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants plus a small market on the day we visited. I was quite amused by the spelling mistake on this shop front.

There are six bookshops, the biggest of which is Westwood Books which has two floors and more than 70,000 books. Others combine bookselling with outdoor gear sales and focus on walking books and local subjects (Sleepy Elephant) or craft, fine arts and textiles (Avril’s Books). The Dales and Lakes Book Centre in the middle of the town is a co-operative of dealers and also has some new books, maps, cards and gifts. I added two volumes to my New Naturalist Collection in there. Outside the cherry blossom in the churchyard was wonderful.

The private boarding school and the local state school are the major employers in the town, although some say that is now changing and local small businesses are increasing. In 2015 it was designated a “Walkers Welcome’ Town, sits on the Dales Way: an 80 mile trail and there are many other local footpaths. Like many rural places it had to recover from the devastation caused by the foot and mouth epidemic in 2015. There are many local groups and clubs and a community orchard planted to the south.

Many of the conifers here and in the surrounding area were quite brown and I initially thought this may be some disease but after noticing it mainly on the east side of them, assume it was early new growth that was caught by the Beast from the East storm earlier this year.

All too soon it was time to leave as we had to get back to the M6 via a B road (Slacks Lane)to Tebay. The road runs parallel to the River Lune and also connects with various footpaths. The Lowgill Viaduct is one remnant of the old Lune Valley Railway which closed in 1954. It is an area well worth revisiting when we have a little more time. We might even walk the Dales Way.

Finding Books in the Fog

On By Carol HenshawIn Books, bookshops and libraries, roads1 Comment

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The northwest was shrouded in fog this morning as we left to drive to York. We were visiting the largest one-day book fair in the UK which attracts sellers from all over the country and having a break from jobs around the house and garden. The focus is on rare and unusual books and also some maps, prints and ephemera. The fog persisted until we were over Saddleworth Moor and the highest point of the English motorway system. As we descended into the Vale of York we could at least see where we were going. This journey across the Pennines and into Yorkshire used to be a regular one around 20 years ago as my parents lived in North Yorkshire for a few years but it was some time since I had crossed the country on this route. Just as on our local portion of the M6, they are also upgrading part of the M62 to a smart motorway so there are several miles of road works north of Manchester. We found the York Racecourse without too much difficulty. I have never been to see horse racing or bet on a horse race but this time last year I had to give a lecture at Aintree Racecourse and here I am this January at another one.
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Some familiar booksellers were there e.g. the Old Town Bookshop in Edinburgh and others I had not visited so far. Some, including one who used to be in Heswall but has now moved to North Wales now mainly sell via the internet and book fairs. I found a few volumes for one of my collections and enjoyed browsing and chatting to some of the sellers. The journey home was largely uneventful other than passing a Rowntrees Fruit Gum tanker. Presumably it was full of sugar syrup but I have not seen one of them before. Now it is time to rearrange the book shelves to accommodate the new purchases. I do have a large box in the study where books I am not going to read again are deposited for the next decluttering trip to Oxfam.

Reading about travelling westward on the train north

On By Carol HenshawIn Books, bookshops and libraries, Scotland, Trains & railwaysLeave a comment

England was beginning to move again yesterday after the Christmas break but not for long as the M6 was completely stationary in both directions last night and other roads were reporting problems. I was glad that I was taking the train this morning. Scotland is recovering from two severe storms over Christmas, while in Northern England we had much less severe wind and rain. We left the house in frosty darkness with all the stars visible as James took me to the station. In the lounge, I watched a TV programme highlighting the benefits recent wet summers and mild winters have had for farmers who have could keep animals outside for longer and cut more hay from the long grass but also the adverse impact it has had on many insects and wildflowers that need shorter grass to survive and birds such as barn owls who cannot see their prey in longer grass and whose numbers are declining. Yet another consequence of climate change.
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Not driving meant that I could dip into a book I found on Tuesday at Cavern Books, Dagfields, near Nantwich: http://www.cavernbooks.co.uk/. It is David Haward Bain’s The Old Iron Road: An Epic of Rails, Roads and the Urge to Go West. In 2000, the author (who is an established non-fiction writer and academic at a Vermont college) travelled along the routes followed by the early rail road, Lincoln Highway, California, Oregon and Pony Express trails with his family. He had more time than we could squeeze out of our jobs on our transcontinental drive and has researched and added much of the associated history along the way, including that of his own grandmother’s family. There is also a selection of old photographs in the book.

He began in Missouri, travelling north up the river valley from Kansas City and Independence where the California and Oregon trails often began. We passed through St Louis on our Route 66 drive before continuing southwest and here is the Lewis & Clark memorial by the river:
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At Omaha, his route coincided with the Lincoln Highway on Route 30 and our drive as we entered Nebraska on R30 from Iowa.
One of the things I enjoyed in Nebraska was the prairie grass in the Cottonmill Park near Kearney.
Prairie Grasses 2 Kearney NE 4 July 2016-1
By the time I had reached this stage of his book, dawn had broken in South Lancashire and the sun was fully up well before we reached Carlisle. The Cumbrian hills were covered in frost and mist but there were still large pools of water in the fields in southern Scotland. As I emerged from the station in Edinburgh, it was much milder. The city is gearing up for the Hogmanay celebrations and it will get much busier over the next two days. I shed my woollies and as I walked to the shops from the flat, noticed large numbers of branches on the ground from the surrounding trees. I will be out tomorrow to do a few things in town and looking forward to Friday to meeting friends and celebrating James’s birthday.

Not driving in San Francisco

On By Carol HenshawIn Beaches, birds & birdwatching, Books, bookshops and libraries, USA1 Comment

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For the last two days of our trip we were happy to dispense with the car. On the first morning we had a couple of things to do downtown so took the Muni from outside the motel, it is a very good, cheap way of getting around town. The city was still cool and grey. I did the obligatory pilgrimage to City Lights Books and found Robert Moor’s ‘On Trails’ which had been on my list since I read a review a few weeks ago.

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The following day we walked through Golden Gate Park to the Botanic Gardens. There were the usual joggers, cyclists and a few people doing Tai Chi. I saw a Stellar’s Jay but didn’t manage to whip the camera out in time. At the gardens we enjoyed a couple of hours there. Sunset Piano had created a sculpture from three pianos, one of which can be played and it is installed at the entrance. There are ten pianos placed around the garden and recitals take place at various times over the next couple of weeks. When there is not formal concert, anyone is welcome to come and play. We heard several people playing well and one excruciating rendition of the Moonlight Sonata. Afterwards we visited two local bookshops: one sold new and used, James found something there. At the Great Overland Book Company I found a couple of books and we had a chat with the proprietor who, like many of the people we have met along the way, wanted to talk about Brexit. In the afternoon I did some beachcombing as the fog had gone and we had blues sky with only a little light cloud over the ocean. I took some bird photographs including these long-billed dowitzers. There are numerous small pieces of plastic waste on the sand but no sea glass. I did find some intact sand dollars.

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A local guy told me that he had just seen a young seal and that the sea just off the beach was a rich fishing ground. He also said that he had seen whales from the shore. Gulls were eating crabs on the shore and the dowitzers were probing the wet sand.  I had hoped to get some sunset shots that evening but the fog returned a couple of hours before sunset and the strong wind was blowing sand around. The total miles walked  that day was eleven. Yesterday it was time to fly back home.  At San Francisco airport the police patrol the terminals on Segways. I noticed on Facebook that the London to Sydney Overland trip we were hoping to do in 2018 is ceasing after 2017 so 2018 might have to be the Big Lap in Australia. On the plane I watched as we crossed the Sierra Nevada, desert, the Rockies and sunset over Canada. The sun rose soon afterwards over the mountains, snow and ice of southern Greenland. As we started to descend over Ireland, I found it hard to adjust to seeing small green fields again but glad to be back home among them again for a while.

 

Lonely roads to Reno and over the mountain to North Tahoe

On By Carol HenshawIn roads, USA2 Comments

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Thursday morning we left Elko early to return to Highway 50 and the Lincoln Highway. A short  stretch of I80 took us to Carlin and then we drove south to Eureka. On this quiet road falcons and crows were using the telegraph poles as perches as there are no trees in this upland desert. There were plenty of rodents running across the road. There was so little traffic a farmer waved to us from his tractor while he was working in the field. Nearer to Eureka where we joined Highway 50, we saw several hares. We had coffee at the only establishment  which was open just before 9am in what is billed as the friendliest place on this road. There were a few people inside and a dog snoozing in the corner while his owner played the slot machines. Parked outside was a pickup with an ‘I’m no liberal’ sticker. No surprises there. Back on the road we drove over the first of many summits (there are 17 in total) on this road. It passes through several mountain ranges and one tunnel. There was the occasional flash of green in a valley. It was not totally immune to roadworks as some were being prepared for in one place. Just before Cold Springs, a convoy of six Corvettes zoomed passed us going in the opposite direction and we saw a rare sight on this road: a row of four mailboxes. Salt Wells is close to the Naval Air Range and the Great Sand Dune. The fashion in the salt flats seems to be to write your name in black rocks on the white salt at the road side. Only one person had painted the rocks in different colours. Just outside Fallon, we saw the first cornfield since the Mid West. The northern branch of the Lincoln Highway joins I80 and runs through the mountains alongside the Truckee River. We found our way into Reno and met up with a friend who gave us a tour of the city (we’ve only passed through on the train before) and treated us to lunch. We then found our way to our B&B which is west of the city centre where old motels which went out of business when the interstate opened, have been turned into a gallery and artists’ colony. Just as I finished editing my photographs for today and before I could get them uploaded and copied, my hard drive died. Today we diverted from the Lincoln Highway again, this time down to North Lake Tahoe. I was having some difficulty when I was booking the trip in finding accommodation in Truckee as it is high season so we headed SW out of Reno and over Mount Rosa summit (8911ft) then down into North Tahoe. We had a lazy day by the beach and enjoying the sun. I have been reading John Charles Fremont’s 1852 book: ‘Exploring Expeditions to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California’ as we have covered some of the same ground on this trip. He even noted eating seagulls at the Great Salt Lake so gulls have been inland for some time.  The beach was quiet when we arrived but got pretty busy later. As the wind increased and it started to cloud over, we headed to our hotel and look forward to seeing the Pacific Ocean tomorrow and reaching the end of the Highway.

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It’s a long way to San Francisco

On By Carol HenshawIn Music, roads, USA1 Comment

We have made it to New York and are now ensconced in our hotel in Queens. Our body clocks seemed to have adjusted already and I have banished the inevitable sleep-deprivation migraine that usually accompanies the first day of a holiday. I passed the short flight from Manchester to Heathrow enjoying the morning sun over the low clouds in the southeast. After a spell of people-watching in Terminal 5, we were treated to an upgrade at the gate which was very welcome. The immigration queue at JFK was very long but it was only a short hop afterwards on the AirTrain to the car rental lot. They told us the car did not have a SatNav but we could rent one for £400 which we declined as I have got all the maps we need. I started peering at the NYC map trying to find our hotel and on getting into the car, discovered it had a SatNav after all. However, I do not rely on them completely and have just read the story of people who had died after slavishly following one in Nevada and ending up stranded on a track miles from anywhere. The husband set off to walk for help in the wrong direction and died. The wife was found barely alive in their car, a few weeks later. There was another similar story that the Elko police had dealt with. Needless to say I always have a map and compass whether driving or walking as it is very easy to get disorientated in unfamiliar territory.

One book that is accompanying me on this journey is Cecelia Otto’s ‘An American Songline: a musical journey along the Lincoln Highway’. She travelled the road in 2013 giving concerts of vaudeville-era music in towns in every state she passed through. She reports that in 1910, members of the Lincoln Highway Association wrote a new chorus to the tune ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ singing the praises of the new road, hence her first chapter is titled ‘It’s a long way to California’. Tomorrow we will be heading over to Manhattan where the road starts and then to New Jersey which is a navigation challenge given the various routes the road has taken over the years. It is much easier in Pennsylvania where our next stop is Philadelphia.
Lincoln Highway Marker 8 Mar 2016 (1 of 1)

A new (old) railway to the River Tweed

On By Carol HenshawIn Scotland, Trains & railways, walks2 Comments

Born 29 days after Beeching took up the chair of British Railways Board and closed so many railway lines, I grew up with abandoned railways all around the country. Many of these have become footpaths, some of which I have walked upon. Today we travelled on a railway which re-opened last September. We had intended to do this much earlier but poor weather and other commitments meant it did not happen until today.It is the northern part of the old Waverley Route which used to run between Edinburgh and Carlisle and which was closed in 1969. The train takes an hour to get from Edinburgh to Tweedbank through some of the communities I used to work in and which are almost unrecognisable 30 years later as so much new housing has been built. At one point I had thought that I might walk along the abandoned railway line alongside the A7 as part of my planned walk from my home in south Cheshire to the one in Edinburgh. That will not happen now and I have found an alternative route. From the station at Tweedbank there is a cycle path to Melrose but you can divert on a footpath by the River Tweed which is part of the Southern Upland Way and the Borders Abbey Way and takes you into Melrose.
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One of the first places it passes is Skirmish Hill, site of a battle in 1526 when Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, was challenged by Walter Scott of Buccleuch over the custody of the 14-year-old King James V. Wildflowers were in bloom along the path and particularly striking was the comfrey.
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Nearer to Melrose we arrived at the Gattonside Suspension Bridge which is also known as the Chain Bridge and opened in 1826. In the town, we had a snack, bought some books (Melrose has a new and a secondhand bookshop) and explored the Priorwood Garden and dried flower shop which gave me some more ideas for drying my own flowers and plants.
Priorwood garden Melrose 4 June 2016-1
From the garden and surrounding streets you can see the abbey.
Melrose Abbey 4 June 2016-1
We did not have time to visit it today but walked back along the path to the station. Back in Edinburgh it was time to replace my old rucksack which has done many miles but is slowly falling apart despite lots of repairs. That done, we headed back to flat for diner with a friend before planning tomorrow’s journey.

Books and plants in London

On By Carol HenshawIn Books, bookshops and libraries, Flowers. plants & trees, London1 Comment

Today was another day that began with books. On our way back to the hotel last night, we spotted a notice for the Bloomsbury Book Fair which was to take place today. It is a regular fixture but this is the first time we have coincided with it. It was quite large with numerous bookstalls and also maps, prints and ephemera. I found two books for my New Naturalist collection and one for my old Baedekers. I have to carry around a list of the volumes I have or I would be buying duplicates. We also found a 17th century map of Africa.
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We then took the tube to Kew Gardens where we saw a small sample of what is to offer and I took some photographs which might be inspiration for abstract paintings at some point.
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The tulips were out, the daffodils almost over but there were some magnificent magnolias.
Kew Gardens 6 Magnolias 10 Apr 2016-1
Kew Gardens 7 Magnolia Stellata 10 Apr 2016-1
Afterwards we had a long leisurely lunch with relatives in Kew before heading back into Central London and planning for tomorrow.