Church Mice in Yorkshire, England

I love looking for animals in "art," and finding animals in unusual places. 

If they are in a painting, which is where you might expect to find them, I like seeking out the ugly ones, the ones with interesting faces or odd expressions, the ones peering around a corner. I call them "Whiskers in Shadows," although they do not all have whiskers.  

I have read that many of the carousel animals -- usually horses -- were modeled after animals that the carver, who had often emigrated, knew from home.  How sweet, and rather sad that they carved a beloved farm horse, or a childhood mount.   

When I see an ugly, out of place or odd looking animal I wonder if a student was left to finish the painting while the master went on to a new commission or if someone in the family had a try.   

   Like this cat.  The girl is one of the Knox family children from Buffalo, NY, USA.

  Her face, the lace on her dress, her hands are all well done.   But the face on that cat!!  It looks more like a rat.... and the front paw is out of proportion.  Did she refuse to pose unless the cat was there and the cat wasn't having any of it and took off so was painted from memory?  Did she paint the face and family indulged her.

It's a mystery and I just love finding these treasures. 

This mouse is in the church of St. Peter and St. Felix in the very small village of Kirby Hill, North Yorkshire, England.  

 Can you see it?  Probably not until I point it out.   
Here it is running along the ledge.

 

Robert (Mouseman) Thompson

(1876 - 1955)

A British furniture maker whose beautiful work was greatly in demand for both private homes and churches started carving the mice sometime in 1919 after he had a conversation with a colleague about "being as poor as a church mouse."  

Can you find this one on the alter?

I found others but there is no mention in the church brochure of how many are about.  Mice are private creatures so I won't post all the photographs. 

This church built in 1397 on the site of a former Anglo-Saxon church is famous for other things. It has a lepers squint (you look it up), stained glass windows and interesting gravestones. Some very old gravestones were used in the rebuilding which is why you find a stone sword on the wall all by itself.

 "Mousey" Thompson's descendants have continued the 

business and you can find out more about him and his furniture at   www.mousemanfurniture.com

Copyright Jennifer Gold 2016

Poetry and Birds on the Promenade, Morecambe, England

Lovely Morecambe-by-the-sea, England.  

Across the bay, which is in fact the Irish Sea, are the snow covered hills of the Lake District.

Underfoot, on the promenade, are bird footprints,

 flying birds, 

a labyrinth with a big gull or tern's egg in the middle.

 And a game of hopscotch based on the magpie rhyme. Complete with instructions.  

Along the railings, surely the original ones, are silent cast iron  cormorants mingling with screaming, live gulls.

"Where do sea birds go to see pictures?" 

While drying their concrete wings the cormorants seem to appreciate the joke.  

Or maybe not!

 The end of the promeade branches off like three pointing fingers on a hand.  They slope down to the sea so that walkers can get up close and personal with lurching waves sputtering curls of gray and white foam.

And then quite suddenly, it seems the tide is out and grassy patches of bright green cushion up in yards and yards of wet pebbles and a great sweep of shining mud flats.  

They make sense now, the dire warnings and signs of deep water, quick sand and fast changing tides.

  Clouds are stuffed into a wedge on one side of the bay.  They obscure the sunset although some rays beam over and as the day wanes smudges of peach accentuate the curves.

A lone gull flies by. Probably gray in sulight but now a silhouette against the darkening pewter of sea and clouds.  Then twenty or so, also black, far away and low glide over the flat, wet sand accentuating silvery reflections from the sky.  

If this was a painting my mother would have said, "That's not real.  It would never look like that."  But it does.

Because daylight is fading orange globe lights come on around the outside of the curving, sombre, minimalistic, "Art-Deco classic," Midland Hotel.  Built in 1933 it went through a bad patch.  Now refurbished it is apparently doing well in a slightly creepy, Cuban Maffia-ish way.  It has decadance and a history it is keeping to itself. 

I have afternoon tea.  Darjeeling in a small, white tea pot and layered on a silver cake stand are assorted sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, a generous slice of Victoria Jam Sandwich (a cake), and a triangular, custard tart.   

 It's a curved dining room with floor to ceiling windows facing out at the famous bay that was once a place of great joy for the hoards of mill workers and their families who piled off the trains at the nearby station and breathed for one glorious week, this bracing, salty, air into their lint damaged lungs.  

   

Copyright Jennifer Gold 2016