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Kew Gardens: Stunning Summer Colour

In June this year, Kew Garden’s newly-designed summer herbaceous borders in the famous Broad Walk opened to the public, and they are sensational. There are more than 27,000 flowering plants on show.

Broad walk 1

Richard Wilford’s 2016 Broad Walk

At 320 metres long, it is the longest double herbaceous border in the country – and possibly in the world. Continue reading Kew Gardens: Stunning Summer Colour

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The Importance of Left-handed Mugs

When my children were living at home, I had a hotch-potch of mugs, and, sooner or later, they broke, as mugs do. Looking at my current row of mugs, I see, with some alarm, that I may have turned into a mug fanatic.

Avebury right

Avebury – front

Nowadays, my mugs have to fulfil certain criteria: first, they must be interesting (i.e. historical). Second, they must be equally patterned on both sides. I’m left-handed and I’m fed up with picking up a mug with my left hand and realizing that the actual picture is on the other side. No more right-handed mugs, then.

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J. E. Millais and the Seductive Mariana

This is Mariana – and she has a problem. She was betrothed to Angelo, a man she was passionately in love with, but, when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck, the rat Angelo repudiated her. She now lives a lonely life in a moated grange. But things are about to change…

Mariana brighter

Millais’s painting ‘Mariana’

Continue reading J. E. Millais and the Seductive Mariana

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Buckingham Palace: 90 Years of Style

This year’s exhibition accompanying the summer opening of the state rooms at Buckingham Palace looks at 90 years of style from the Queen’s wardrobe. I always enjoy these Bloggers’ Breakfast occasions, from seeing who else has been invited (this time, the impressive Suzy Menkes of Vogue), the enthusiasm of the curator, and the welcome voucher for tea/coffee and our choice of cake afterwards.

For GR VIs coronation

Princesses’s dresses, robes and coronets for the coronation of King George VI, May 1937

Continue reading Buckingham Palace: 90 Years of Style

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V & A: The Case of the Shocking Red Dress

This is the culprit – one of the items in the Undressed: a Brief History of Underwear exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The signage tells us that it is a cuirass bodice dress in silk satin and lace, dating from 1876 and adds that it was considered shocking at the time because….  I thought it might be fun to look more closely at why it was so shocking.

Cuirace dress close up

Cuirass bodice dress, 1876

Continue reading V & A: The Case of the Shocking Red Dress

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From Domitian’s Villa to the Papal Barberini Gardens

Ever since Roman times, the rich and powerful have built villas in the hills surrounding Rome to escape the summer’s heat. Some, like Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, still survive. Others, like Castel Gandolfo, built in the 17th century for Pope Urban VIII as a summer palace, were built on top of Roman villa sites. And why not? The land was already levelled and useful top quality building material was there for the taking.

Castel Gondolfo Pope's palace

Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer palace

Continue reading From Domitian’s Villa to the Papal Barberini Gardens

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Kakopetria: a traditional Cypriot village

Sometimes, what attracts me to a place is simple aesthetic pleasure; I just like the look of it. Take Kakopetria, a traditional stone village in the foothills of the Troodos mountains in southern Cyprus.

Kokopatria old church

The old church with its steeply-pitched roof

There’s nothing grand about it; it’s been there for ever and it’s remained much as it always was. I don’t doubt that the Cypriot Tourist Board has done some restoration but their work hasn’t been intrusive. They may have whitewashed it – several years ago; but real people live here, hang up their washing on the wooden balconies, and chat in doorways.

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Celebrating Charlotte Brontë

2016 is the bi-centenary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë and the National Portrait Gallery is celebrating it with a small exhibition which looks at what inspired her writing.

3 sisters by Bramwell

The Brontë Sisters by Bramwell Brontë

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Agrigento, Sicily: the Wow! factor

One thing I love about travelling is suddenly seeing that unexpected something which sends shivers down your spine and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up: the beautiful gardens of Ninfa in Italy; local fishermen dancing in an old waterfront warehouse in Crete; or a small ruined temple set amidst olive groves full of spring flowers in Turkey. And at Agrigento in Sicily, I saw the telamon.

Agrigento museum telemon

The telamon in Agrigento Museum.; c0mpare his height with that of the women standing by his feet.

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Jane Austen and the Missing Grandparents

In this post, I want to look at the curious fact that none of Jane Austen’s heroines (whose ages range between seventeen and twenty-seven) or her heroes (whose ages range from about twenty-four to thirty-seven) have living grandparents. Indeed, that older generation of, say, sixty plus, seems to be missing. Can this be true? And, if so, what difference does it make? To answer these questions, we need a bit of background information about life expectancy in the early 19th century. Edwin Chadwick’s ground-breaking 1842 survey on public health, tells us that the life expectancy of a member of the gentry or professional class in Rutland (chosen as a typical rural location) was fifty-two; and for an artisan or labourer, it was thirty-eight. There are, of course, a number of factors to be taken into account: infant mortality rates, for example, but for the purpose of this post, I’m staying with the basic facts, as near as we can get them.

after Cassandra Austen, stipple engraving, published 1870
after Cassandra Austen, stipple engraving, published 1870

The only young lady in Jane Austen’s novels with a living grandparent is Jane Fairfax in Emma who has the aged Mrs Bates, ‘a very old lady, almost past everything but tea and quadrille.’ I’ll be looking at how old Mrs Bates actually is later.

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