Monday 19 January 2009

In My Small Corner

'Isabelle' has just taken a short tour around her neighbourhood, and I enjoyed it - so here is mine!


There are so many regional names for alleyways like this - alleys, snickets, gangways? Then there are different names for them when they are between buildings. What ever they are called, where I live they either go down....


...or up. This one goes up to the churchyard, and is lit by gas-lamps. Other lamp-posts are useful for supporting notices forbidding the drinking of alcohol, the feeding of pigeons and the allowing of one's dog to relieve itself. And rightly so in a venerable town like this!



The playground is empty on a cold Monday morning. By evening the youngsters banned from drinking alcohol in the churchyard will be at it here....



....and probably tossing the empties in here. In the day time toddlers feed ducks and a kingfisher darts about, regardless of the passing humans (who rarely seem to notice it) and the bobbing lager cans.



The dragons just keep a consistent watch.



Underneath another bridge, nearer home, a variety of small ferns enjoy life in the dribbles of rainwater.



Back to the garden. There are snowdrops, daffodil spears, hellebores and some wonderfully noisy birds. The sap is rising!

9 comments:

  1. Such a green and wonderful neighborhood. Reminds me of bits of Boston, but older and mossier and more interesting.

    Word verification, LEDGE.

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  2. Oh my, look at all that green! We won't see green for months yet! (Can't even see the asphalt for the snow right now.) Enjoy it!

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  3. Zhoen and Leslee: your comments make me more appreciative of my surroundings - which sometimes seem dark and damp and cold.
    Yes, there are lots of ledges for all the mosses and ferns to enjoy.

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  4. Ah, nice, RR. Thank you. I can add Twitten to your list of alley names. A Sussex variation.

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  5. Oooh, I liked this. I became quite heart-sick for the UK. I always do, when it's hot here and cold and wet there!

    I like the alley ways and your garden looks very inviting.

    Thankyou for taking me 'walkies'. I might have to do one of these photo posts now;)

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  6. Thank you, mm and HHnB, your comments really do make me appreicate my own surrounding more - thanks to Isabelle for the idea in the first place.
    Twitten is a really nice one!

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  7. Oh, oh, oh. Your garden looks tantalisingly lovely. We don't have a single snowdrop yet, and it't the end of January. Sigh.

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  8. These photographs made me nostalgic for England, too. I love the various names for alleys. I bet there are lots of interesting dialect ones that don't make the thesaurus. However, in Roget I did find the two Scottish ones of "wynd" (which conjures up wonderful mind's-eye images) and "vennel", which is also found in Durham, and seems to have come from Latin via Norman-French.

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  9. I think your pictures show what I love best about England - those little walkways. I had never heard the name 'snicket' - might that be where Lemony Snicket comes from? Though I haven't read the books so I don't really know what I'm talking about. :<) I've just come to your blog via the sidebar on Paula's House of Toast. I'll be back.

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