Well, I’ve been neglecting this blog something terrible.
I went off for a quiet week in Aberystwyth and was a bit busy eating and drinking and taking photos. Dunno what happened to the rest of the last month or so though. I didn’t drink that much. I don’t think.
Oh, and I’ve been growing some herbs from seed to plant out on my patio. They haven’t died yet.
The Old College was the original home of the university in Aberystwyth, opened in 1872 and the first university in Wales (grand total: 26 students; the first female students arrived in 1883). The Penglais campus on the hill (with important outliers at Llanbadarn) is now, with the expansion of the university in the second half of the twentieth century, the main site for teaching. Old College is now largely used for administration, although two major departments, Welsh and Education, still reside there.
In a period of building expansion with the coming of the railway line during the 1860s, it had originally been built as a hotel, but the company went bust before completion and offered it to the recently established university committee. It was a bargain; about £80,000 had already been spent on the building works, and the university got it (though incomplete) for £10,000. But it was still a struggle to get the university up and running. Much of the early funding came from public subscriptions within Wales (it’s clear that getting any aid at all from governments was an extremely difficult task until the mid-1880s), and many of those were very small sums, the “pennies from the people of Wales” as authors (rather sentimentally) put it. But perhaps that had advantages; as a result, they regarded it as their college and were prepared to fight for its survival at the most desperate time after the fire of 1885, and when official policy (and money) would have ignored Aberystwyth in favour of colleges at Cardiff and Bangor.
At intervals between August and September 2004 I posted several photos of 17th-century documents from the Chester Great Sessions records (taken during my research trip to the National Archives), which were surprisingly popular. Here they are again, all in one place.
A murder trial – coroner’s inquisition (click on image for more info)
Witness statement, assault case (click on image for more info)
Witness statement
Witness statement
Sorry for lack of posting lately – I’ve been enjoying some much needed holiday. Here are some photos from my trip to Aberystwyth last week, anyway. (They’d have been up earlier, but I’m damned if I can find the password for my original Flickr account, so I’ve had to set up a new one, for now. I hate it when that happens…)
(This year is the 100th anniversary of the National Library of Wales.)
This week I’ll hopefully be going down to London to see some terracotta soldiers. There may be blogging, there may not.
Decided not to take camera to barbecue on south beach yesterday, which was a mistake. One can never have enough photos of the beach on a beautiful June afternoon. So instead here’s a photo from August 2004, taken from the castle – I’m quite surprised I never posted this one at the time, because it’s one of my favourites.
South Beach from the castle mound (facing roughly south west I think)
Yes, at last, this is what caught my eye in Philadelphia…
This is the top and bottom half of the Art Institute of Philadelphia on Chestnut Street, a stunning art deco building “originally designed in 1928 as CBS’ flagship radio station affiliate”. (I could possibly have photo’d the whole building at once if I’d been prepared to lie down in the middle of the road to get the angle. Not going to happen.)
…
Alternatively, how about some carbuncles? I give you…
(more…)
(To clarify: this is the view west, over Cardigan Bay, from my window here in Aberystwyth. Regular long-time visitors will have seen the view a few times, but I don’t think I’ve posted one of Aber’s pink sunsets before. They happen quite frequently, especially when we’ve had a cold clear sunny day like today.)
I am such a sick puppy.
I started to write a comment in response to Rebecca’s post about the pleasures of the beach, but as is the way with these things sometimes, it turned into something I wanted to post here.
In a way, the downside of living by the sea is that you start to take it for granted, not least the fresh air; it’s always moving, never gets that stagnant, smoggy feel of inland places – especially cities.
When my friends who are living inland come to visit, the first thing they always have to do is rush down to the seafront and take plenty of deep breaths, with me following behind going, huh? what’s the big deal? And then I start to see it through their eyes and remember why I love it here so much.
It’s not the world’s greatest beach – no golden sands here, I’m afraid. (And there are spots round by the pier where the delicious aroma of rotting seaweed can become just a little overpowering.) But the views are sublime at any time of year.
OK, this time of year I need my fan turned on in the afternoons when I’m working in my living room. But that’s the downside of having a very large west-facing window (aka ‘sun-trap’), isn’t it?
(Really must get a better picture of this view from my window when the sun is out…)
Followed the crowd and got a Flickr free account. Right now you can see some photos I took on a trip to Brighton (liked the place a lot, which shows just what sort of middle-class lefty I’ve turned into, I suppose) last year and have been meaning to post ever since…
(Because I am writing this conference paper and blogging is such a good form of avoidance…)
Yesterday evening there was the most spectacular thunderstorm we’ve had in quite a while. It had been building up all afternoon, really, horribly muggy. And then the sky started to turn this ominous shade of slate grey and there was only one way it could all end…
(Here is a more normal view from the same window as that last picture…)
I couldn’t get a picture of the lightning though. Now that was something.
(Largely because I can only read parts of it and might have completely misunderstood them.)
But, man, it doesn’t matter if you can read it: you’ve just got to see this photo.
I have a few Welsh blogs on my circuit; if I were less lazy and could remember more vocabulary, it would be great reading practice. Anyway, it’s Geraint’s birthday (soon? or now?), and he thinks this (in the picture) is the most beautiful place in Wales. (I think…)
I got me an Easter egg. All mine! All mine!
But I can’t remember when I last had one. So it’s a special treat.
It’s not easy to type with chocolate on your fingers, you know.
Natalie posted last week about the ‘new’ Dorothy Sayers novel she just read. (We are both serious Sayers fans.) I commented there and mentioned my enjoyment of tacky covers on older editions of crime novels. Why not share a few favourites with you?
Still, just to start with the non-tacky: a classic green-and-white Penguin (this by Gladys Mitchell, edition of 1961, originally published 1942). OK, they have tried to spice it up a bit. “Death and disappearance in a women’s college”!
This is a bit of splendid 1970s-tacky (edn 1978; pub 1976). I don’t know what impression they were trying to give, but it’s just way off the mark. (Dunnett got quite a few howlers from her publishers in her time. Check out the German versions of the ‘Dolly’ series. Sooo bad. I want one. And I don’t read German.)
But this edition of Gaudy Night (edn 1963; pub 1935) is just an all-time favourite. (I’ve just noticed that my copy of Strong Poison must be from the same set. It’s bad, but not that bad. Wonder what the rest are like?)
Oh, they don’t make ‘em like that any more.
(Unless, of course, parody is the name of the game.)
… Although others may find it interesting too.
NK commented on the look of the Latin addition to one of the petitions I posted earlier. Well, this is an image from what are known as the Chester Crown Books, which list the people who were brought before the Cheshire Great Sessions (prisoners from the gaol, those bound over to appear, presented by juries, etc). This will be early 17th century (I could check the date but want to get this posted), and it’s from the section listing prisoners being tried for felony. The list would have been drawn up at the beginning of the session of the court, and then as they went through the session the notes in the left-hand margins were added to record the prisoners’ fates.*
If you look again at the English language documents I linked in the earlier post you’ll see that the hand being used here is quite different – and I’d think of it, I suppose, as more ‘medieval’. (The entries in the Crown Books aren’t all entirely in Latin, but they do tend to use this hand even when writing in English.)
…………
* If you look next to the first prisoner’s entry you can see ‘Judm’ (I’ve forgotten the exact Latin, but it means ‘judgement’) and a strange looking-symbol starting with a squiqqle (which is actually – trust me – ‘Sur’). What those mean is that the prisoner was sentenced to death (squiggly-’Sur’ is a contracted form of ‘Suspendatur’: ‘to be hanged’).
See, this is what the freezer should look like. (I mean the lack of ice, not the emptiness.)
But a nearly empty freezer means a trip to the farmers market (and local shops) to stock up on carnivorous deliciousness: lamb chops, stewing lamb, lamb shank, beef mince, chicken drumsticks…
And I got part of a duck carcase to make some stock for soup. Not something I usually do, but they were there, and at 39p, had to be worth a try. Quite a bit of meat on there still, too, as you can see. And it does taste fine.
PS: I’m thinking duck noodle soup for dinner tomorrow, a bit like this (but probably using up the duck liver instead of bean curd).
Apart from being a cool Christmas present from my mates M. and C., that is? (If you’re reading this, thanks!)
It’s a tagine, anyway. A pretty little one for singletons like me who like north African food. (The word tagine is used for both the pot with its special conical lid and for the luscious stews cooked in it.)
So, this is a lamb and apricot tagine (with potatoes and carrots; it was a very small packet of lamb hiding in the freezer. I’m on a drive to empty my rather iced-up freezer so I can defrost it and restock at the next farmers’ market.) Flavourings: cumin, coriander, cinnamon, garlic, ginger and honey. Yum yum yum yum.
More tagine recipes (if you don’t have one, a heavy casserole dish with a close-fitting lid will give pretty good results):
From Cookin’ with Google (lots of ‘em)
Stefan’s Florilegium
Berber Trading Co
One for veggies
Back on the beach this afternoon. It was colder than at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And it has been a little windy…
