Gah! Good dog!
Pazuzu has nothing on this guy. The tour guide told us how much the school children love this thing. It gave me the icks.
Back to the almshouse. Their heraldic symbol was a leopard and this wooden one was on the pinnacle of the roof for many years. If you go to the gallery section of the Sackville College website, the first image is the replacement leopard. The new one was carved out of mahogany and then coated in resin, so it should last a while.
I was surprised to learn it didn’t take many hundreds of years to age like this: he’s 150 or so. The College became very run down in the early 19th C and a mid-Victorian benefactor funded a lot of renovation.
“College” in this sense means “a group of people with a particular job, purpose, duty, or power who are organized into a group for sharing ideas, making decisions, etc.” Not an institution of higher learning.
p.s. his tongue and ears are hammered lead.
p.p.s. today is Mo the cockerel’s birthday. He’s six. Hatch day, really, but no need to be pedantic. Tomorrow is Sam the cockerel’s – hence why he’s called Sam. I don’t do anything special for them. They’re chickens.
p.p.p.s. okay, I did sing “Happy Hatch Day to You!”
July 3, 2024 — 7:38 pm
Comments: 2
Strict.
I spent the day in a Jacobean almshouse. It was a work trip, so no Uncle B.
The almshouse was founded in 1609 by a member of the wealthy Sackville family. It was originally built to house 30 needy oldies with a connection to East Grinstead.
The way it was explained to me, the poorest workers had housing for as long as they could work (see tied cottages). When they couldn’t do the job any more, they were kicked out and became homeless. Mostly men, apparently, as the women could carry on longer in less physically demanding jobs.
Alms houses were built for them by the wealthy as an act of devotion. This one was written into the will of Robert Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
For the inmates, it was a life lived along strict lines. If they misbehaved or broke the rules, they were fined (imagine how little they had pay with). This is the lockbox they put the coins in. It had three locks, two you can see and one on the top that you can’t, opened by the warden and his two assistants.
July 2, 2024 — 7:51 pm
Comments: 6
Long gone
Still settling down to my new phone (spoiler: I like it). The is the very oldest picture on my camera roll: Charlotte in the snows of Rhode Island, 2005.
I hate Mondays. I mean, because Mondays. Duh.
Monday is also the day I clean the stovetop.
And boil down the chicken carcass from Sunday dinner. I hate this process. It smells, it’s slow and unpleasant – but it gives me two to four really great lunches in the week.
Inevitably, when the meat has cooled and I’m picking it off the bone, my chickens will come stand outside the kitchen window and peck around happily. They’re drawn to the window because they see me there and they’re hoping for a treat, but it makes me feel like the biggest of shits.
The cows used to do this on the little farm I grew up on. We’d be sitting there eating beef and they’d gather outside the dining room window eating hay. Only in this case, we really didn’t need to put cattle feed outside the dining room window. Honestly, Mother.
p.s. I know what you’re thinking. “She only cleans the stovetop once a week? Ewwwwww!“
July 1, 2024 — 6:53 pm
Comments: 4