Category: Blogs

Many of my blog posts are published on Shine A Light On Life, including the series in my Sampler. I also regularly blog on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter, mainly about events local to me.

Concert in the Park

CONCERTS IN THE PARK
July 26
By
Lynne Pearl
It was a bright shiny day like so many tis summer of all summers. Our forebears knew how to enjoy themselves so they built gardens with a view to pleasure in fact they often called them pleasure gardens.
So in this park there is a garden, a fountain, a bandstand, a river, a steam running by and ducks to feed. There are multiple flower beds of very kind and even a rose garden, circular with every colour of rose you can imagine and in the centre, brightly coloured flowers in geometric patterns. It is summer time for flower beds.

But today we were not so much looking at flower beds but listening to music of all kinds. We were attending the concerts in the park. There were brass bands, choirs, a duet, a junior band and a concert band. We had every kind of music.

TRUCKS GALORE

It was really hot this year, in fact the cows were looking at us gratefully as we drove in car after car because they had been moved out of their accustomed fields up on the Smetharpe WW2 airfield to the shade of nice big barn. They weren’t going to be out in the sun. The visitors were.

Bath in Sunshine

As we had plenty of time, we decided to go back the long way and visit Bath. Nobody knew Bath except our driver so we all agreed we would give it a go. So we set off finding our way out of the tangle of city streets, following back street directions from the human sat nav, until gradually the city began to slip away, bit by tangled web bit. The houses, got bigger and farther apart, and the parks began to be bigger, then there were all sorts of churches and community buildings and then suddenly beyond the current zebra crossing there were the green hills in the distance. We were nearly safely out and able to hi the high road from the city to the countryside.

Wisteria in the West Country

WISTERIA

The West Country
Blog by Lynne Pearl

It is a sign of Spring, and it is on the front of the Castle. It hangs like a mauve mist. All winter the castle stands folorn and wet and shrouded in mist or fine drizzle sometimes buffeted by high winds, but now the blush of mauve creeps over the port cullis and the flagstones. It curls and frames all the windows and reaches to the sky and the crenelated roof tops.

Magnolias

I felt dedicated to taking photos of magnolias because they are so splendid and brave in the wind and the rain, so extravagantly glorious in the face of human folly.  I would wander the morning streets of Devon fascinated by the steadfastness of the magnolia trees.  They were obviously old and venerable but somehow knew how to with stand the storms a the sea, lashed by rain, more and glorious. 

Winter Sun and Sky

A few days later, we have had snow every day for three days straight but it melts by the afternoon most of it.  But the light is magnificent and the moon in the clear night sky is full and very bright.

Sun on Winter Sea

It is the end of the year and instead of a forest of Christmas trees as I had expected to write about, the sun has that winter brilliance like crystal and the sea is brittle, hard and bright.

In winter the sea has a soft quality that is not there in summer, it is as if it is resting until the next storm that is. Sometimes we have huge waves and there is roller upon roller chasing in to shore, but most folk will not go in it. We stand, watch and feel its magnificence. And today it is calm and beautiful like a sapphire that you would wear as adornment.

Bickleigh Castle

We went to see Bickleigh castle a whole coach load of us, in a small coach that was full with twenty adults out for the day. Our kind driver drove us first of all to Bickleigh Mill, where there was a long stop for a leisurely lunch. It was a cloudy day with puddles everywhere but it was crowded and warm inside.

When everyone had eaten their fill, we set off again, this time to cross the river by that wonderful old stone bridge that inspired Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge over Troubled waters’ so evocative of faithfulness and loyalty. We weren’t going to explore the inside of the castle but roam the grounds.

Return from Savary Island: June ’25

From Powell River we drove to the ferry in Saltery Bay, this one is the smaller ferry, maybe half the size of the ferry that serves Vancover so I reckon there was maybe two hundred cars on board and we all fitted. We waited in the car park above the dock. Everything is mountainous here. It was hot so we got out of our cars and started to walk towards the little park with trees nearby for kids to play on. From there we could look down on the dock and watch for the ferry drawing in, from above. It drew in quietly from between two arms of the mountains falling into the sea.

Savary Island

Savary is unutterably gorgeous and I swim in a blue sea with pink star fish and mountains in the distance, dark under a blue blue sky. The beach is pale sand and the land is covered in deep green fir trees. Its still June so the water is cold but good.