Kine

The kine are gathered by the bridge. Do you think they look like cows? You'd be right. The word kine has fallen out of use but it is the plural of cow and one of the rare words in English that has no letters in common with its singular form. The only other ones I can think of are -  I/we and me/us.

The bridge is over Kirkby Pool, another name to confuse because it isn't actually a pool but a river.  I thought I had a photo of  it with he traffic sign indicating vehicles keep to a 5mph limited over the bridge and only cross one at a time but could only find this side view.  The building to the left is Moss House Farm, maybe the kine are from there. 

Lets take a closer look at this one with the cute kink in its coat between its eyes. 

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at K here

John Laird Centre

I took this photograph some time ago for two reason, I love Victorian buildings and the added bonus was it started with the letter J and I knew it would could in handy for ABC Wednesday, however I kept forgetting my intent and diverted into other Js as the rounds past by but eventually it now makes an appearance.

This was originally the Laird School of Arts, the first public art school outside London, and the first ever purpose built college of art and science in England which opened in September 1871.  John Laird not only financed its construction but the also running costs and it was given to the town of Birkenhead.  Laird is most famous as part of the shipbuilding company Cammell Laird but he was also a great philanthropist and endowed many of the fine buildings in Birkenhead, would become its first mayor of and then retire from shipbuilding to become Birkenhead's first Member of Parliament.     

The school closed in 1979 and the building was purchased by Stanton Marine to use as their headquarters when it was extensively renovated and renamed The John Laird Centre.  Stanton Marine later became part of the British East India Company who now use the building as their headquarters which is rather appropriate, and perhaps the building has come full circle, because Cammell Laird built most of their ships in the 19th Century.
 

 An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at J here

  

Isle of Dogs

Taking the water bus down the Thames I passed the Isle of Dogs and the new waterside developments between Burrell's Wharf and Millwall Dock

Burrell's Wharf

This place has a long history of change and is located in the meander of the river surrounded on three sides by the Thames and the old East Indies Dock on the other.

It was such a beautiful day that once we were on dry land decided to take a stroll and idle along the riverside and with no destination in mind we enjoyed the skyline views while passing

through little parks (this one complete with what looks like a scouting group), residential properties and somehow ended up on the Isle of Dogs

where I imagine you could take your small boat down this slipway.

We wondered if we would come across the docks coming away from the river and down the road passing by the parish church of Christ and St John with St Luke.  (They were certainly covering all the bases rounding up a spiritual trio). We did walk further along but got lost in a maze of streets and with no map to guide us retraced our steps

past the post office and its post box

and the Great Eastern pub in Tower Hamlets.  I was not aware at the time but since learnt that the vast iron sailing ship imagined and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1858 (at the time the largest ship ever built), was constructed nearby at the shipyard of John Scott Russell in Millwall. I believe there are remnants of the launch ramp at Canary Wharf.   A missed opportunity there!  The Great Eastern is always referred to as 'the ill-fated', for despite Brunel's vision of it journeying to the far east carrying 4000 passengers, the boiler exploded on her maiden voyage, J Scott Russell went bankrupt and Brunel had a stroke. It did eventually sail across the Atlantic but it was not a success and was later modified into a cable laying vessel. Eventually she was beached at Rock Ferry, Liverpool and broken up just thirty years after her launch.

Great Eastern harboured at Milford Haven by Unknown - Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org

A little bit of her still stands proud in Liverpool as the flag pole at the kop end of Liverpool's Anfield ground once was one of Great Eastern's topmasts (Source: From Millwall to the Kop).

Meanwhile we left the Great Eastern pub behind to continue our walk back and stopped for refreshment at the

Island Gardens Café in its peaceful surroundings with a tea pot and cup embellished in the buildings brickwork before going back to the other side of the river via the foot tunnel.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at I here 

 

Haverbrack

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In the fields and woods around the hamlet of Haverbrack it looks as though nothing has changed for centuries, apart from the field gate, oh and the tarmacadam lane.  I rather like the stile with its steps, the limestone supports (which look like old field markers) and the fact they really do mean the "please shut" written on the gate because not only does it have a spring hinge there is the rope loop.

The post box in the barn end across the road is quite modern as well as it is an 'Elizabeth Regina' model, although as she will become our longest reigning monarch on 9th September, her innings, so far, of 63 years covers a reasonable time span.  Opposite the barn is one of the hamlets 17 houses and if I had planned this post I might have taken a picture of it with the children playing outside but we were just strolling along the paths and byways in the summer sunshine.

I find the name of the hamlet, Haverbrack. interesting but wonder how it gets its name.  One idea is that it is from the Old English:- hafri  - which is a ridge of land sown with oats and brack - a piece of ground broken up for cultivation.  (Place names starting with Haver are common around here).

Perhaps this is the ridge once sown with oats as we look over the river towards Farleton Fell

To complete the bucolic scene there are some wonderfully large and mature trees.  On the other hand if one looks through the historic records after the Norman invasion of 1066 when land was being doled out to the French victors those granted here in 1087 went to one named Haverbrec.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at H here

   

Fish Out of Water

A fish forever leaping on the flower banking of Grange Over Sands promenade caught in April when the spring flowers were in bloom.. There was also a flat fish nearby always associated with Morecambe Bay,

the fluke (possibly more commonly known as flounders).  I don't know if people still go fluke treading in the bay but it was a method of catching them by feeling for them with ones feet and then grabbing hold of them by head, gills and tail.  I've never fished in my life but have in the past waded across the silty channels of Morecambe Bay and suddenly felt something stir under my feet which made me and it move a whole lot faster, a very strange experience, and I'm never sure who is panicking more me, or the fish.

Here flying into view is one of our feathered friends. 

These wooden sculptures along the promenade are relatively recent and I wonder what they look now amongst the summer planting rather than the rather restricted cover of spring  They are all the creation of Andy Levy wood sculptor who works with both traditional tools and chainsaw carving.


A fondness for fish in the artistic sense has also just appeared locally as mosaics on the Haverigg foreshore but the sunlight was in the wrong direction for photography.  No problem, I'm just grateful that the sun is making an appearance after a less than stellar summer.  I contented myself with taking an image of this rather charming 

fishy embellishment on the new Haverigg information board.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at F here

 

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Electricity

On the intertidal flats of the Duddon Estuary at ebb tide the lone pylon stands sentinel by the Lakeland fells in the distance.  The cycles of erosion and deposition means the estuary is always changing and yet its quiet understated character remains the same.

Of course I cannot resist a potter along the channel to get a reflection of the pylon and the bright sunlight has wiped away almost all trace of the electricity lines. Wintering and passage birds also enjoy this quiet corner of Cumbria and its tasty treats beneath the mud and sands.  

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at E here

Razzle Dazzle

Here is the Mersey ferry 'Snowdrop' crossing the river heading for Seacombe and decked out in Dazzle, or to be more precise it is called "Everybody Razzle Dazzle" and the design is by Sir Peter Blake, a pioneer of pop art with a impish sense of humour.  I imagine he enjoyed this project.  I'm rather fond of his collages, of which the most famous is the cover of the Beatle's Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band album.

The Dazzle project was part of the Liverpool biennial but also to mark World War One which was when the artist Norman Wilkinson (1878-1971) came up with this idea to protect naval ships. Unlike normal camouflage whose objective is to hide,  this camouflage's idea was to mislead by making it difficult to estimate speed and bearing.  Every ship design was different, for the full dazzling differences feast your eyes here  (HMS Argus is confusing enough on a photo goodness only knows what it looked like on the high seas).  The connection with Liverpool is that the Dazzle ships of WW1 were mostly painted there.  When not serving in the navy and inventing Dazzle Norman Wilkinson was a fine maritime painter.  My first introduction to his work was the LMS railways travel posters of the 1920s and 1930s, today highly collectable items but for those without deep pockets available on postcards. I could have gone with a Liverpool view but as a contrast show a scene nearer in distance to where I live,  a dazzling day of

gentle sailing on Windermere.

Time to return to the Liverpool waterfront and the pilot ship Edmund Gardner in Canning Dry Dock with its Dazzle stripes.  Unfortunately all the area was padlocked and barricaded off so this was the best angle I could get, although the following day I did take some pictures from the rain splattered windows of the Maritime Museum, none of them very good, but the next photo at least shows more of the stripes

The Dazzle is by the artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (Induction Chromatique à Double Fréquence pour l'Edmund Gardner Ship, Liverpool, Paris 2014).

Lastly to complete the trio of Dazzle ships here is one I had no difficulty photographing from every angle because it was moored near Blackfriars Bridge in London and I merrily clicked my way along both banks of the Thames.

This is HMS President one of the three present day surviving Royal Naval ships of World War One (its date of 1918 may be a clue to one of the reasons it survived). This time the artist is Tobias Rehberger. When I took this photograph in May it was due to be officially 'launched ' in June so I wonder if the men at the front by the tug were putting some finishing touches or cleaning it.

Here is the ship's stern giving a closer view of the design and taken from the Victoria Embankment where she is moored.

All three ships were part of the  "14-18-NOW" WW1 Centenary Arts Commission.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week moored at D here