Monday,
18th December, 2006A COLD GREY MORNING. As I start to draw the house across the road, a blackbird flies into the stagshorn sumack.
Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary
Monday,
18th December, 2006
A COLD GREY MORNING. As I start to draw the house across the road, a blackbird
flies into the stagshorn sumack.
Late afternoon I hear a song thrush singing. With winter jasmine in full flower I get the feeling that spring can't be too far away.
At Diana and Malcolm's I draw the flowering cherry outside their window which they tell me is in need of pruning.
Diana
has started researching her family tree. There's some family history right here
on her mantlepiece: the vase and it's twin at the opposite end belonged the
Diana's Aunt Charlotte (1875-1960). These folksy flowerpiece vases
seem to have some art nouveau or arts & crafts movement influence. They
probably date from around 1900. Diana has photographs of Aunt Charlotte's parlour
in her house at Woolley, a farming village near Wakefield, and you can see the
vases on the dresser.
Charlotte's husband, Herbert Brookes (1873-1940) was the mason who worked on the war memorial at Woolley.
The clock dates from 1938; a wedding present to Diana's mum and dad on the 16th July that year.