Helmshore daisies

I love the sunshine, the mill pond looked cracking today

1) a Roman...

Chester Races this weekend was completely excellent. A winner in every way except on the horses! Chester was especially beautiful in the glorious sunshine and it was Roman day to boot!

Fourteen years...

And I still miss you everyday

A walk in the woods

We made the most of the lovely weather and went for a walk around Stocks reservoir. This is a really interesting local site. Once a village, with three farms, cottages, a church, a vicarage and a school, Stocks in Bowland was flooded by United Utilities in the early 20th century to create a much needed reservoir to service the local area. My Gran always used to tell of the time my great-grandfather volunteered to exhume the graves of the church to give its occupants a less-watery final resting place. Gruesome. Today the church is outside of the reservoir limits and a thriving local archaeology site. As my friend Jen pointed out, it's funny how they care so much about it now, when they weren't bothered about flooding it only a hundred years ago!

Spend a penny?

Back when woollen fulling mills were in full production in the Lancashire valleys, human urine was a valuable thing. Families could earn a penny for a pot of wee, as it was good stuff for stripping the lanolin from the woollen cloth so that it could be 'fulled' (made thicker and warmer). The chap who came to take it, was 'taking the piss'- he probably tried not to pay for it. When synthetic soaps began being used instead, people we so poor because they'd 'not a pot to piss in'!

Another lovely, lavatory phrase 'spending a penny' comes from something completely different however, it's a lot more classy! Public lavatories used to be the reserve of those who could afford to spend a penny for the loo door to open for them, such as these beautifully preserved ones at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

Oh to be young

Tinkerbell and Gabrille (high school musical!), just because...