Bride of Dreams by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; oil on canvas; 2019. My most recent oil painting, Bride of Dreams , is a radical departure from the seascapes and shoreline landscapes which I've been creating over the last two or three years. While  Bride of Dreams  depicts a domestic interior, it also has a strong narrative quality and is laced with symbolism. I won't explain this symbolism to others; I'll leave each viewer to interpret it for themselves. The bride was modelled by Rose Mairs, and the drawings for this came from a themed session for the Oxton life drawing group which I attend. Rose won the photography section of last year's Williamson Art Gallery's Open Exhibition. The cat, Bob, belongs to Janine Pinion, who won the painting section of the same exhibition. I enjoyed a lovely narrowboat cruise along the Shropshire Union Canal recently, on a day which turned out to be the hottest on record. Top speed seemed to be 3 mph, which made a refreshing change ...

The Dawn of Misty Dreams by Adele Cosgrove-Bray; watercolour; 2018. I've been thinking about the internet and how it's changed over time, and how my use of it has changed too. Around 17 years ago, purely out of curiosity, I took a Learn Direct course which promised to be an 'Introduction to the Internet'. I quickly became hooked on this strange new world where the creativity of total strangers provided a seemingly infinite variety of entertainment. Intrigued, I set out on a journey of exploration which not only made research for my novels easy but also brought me into the world of RPGs. I won't reveal which characters I played, or on which boards our games were played out. That would spoil the mystery - and mystery was all part of the fun. As a talented co-player, Tristan, once told me, "If I wanted reality, I'd go to my parish." We used message boards and linked LiveJournal blogs to these; role-played in Yahoo! IM till dawn broke. We...

David Bowie died today, aged 69, following an 18-month struggle with cancer. I never met him, not even briefly, but his music has been an important part of my life since he first appeared on "Top of the Pops" as Ziggy Stardust.  I was still a child then, but already into Marc Bolan's music.  David Bowie's music has been on my turntable, then cassette deck, then stack systems, then CD players ever since.  (I can't be bothered with my iPod; it's more trouble than it's worth and so gathers dust in a cupboard drawer.) Who could forget attending those "Bowie Nights" years ago, at Olivers nightclub in Leigh, when a perfectly mundane small-town disco would be transformed largely by an act of imagination into a doorway into another realm dedicated to the creative outpourings of Mr Bowie himself?  Everyday teens and twenties would tog themselves in theatrical replicas of his stage clothes, and dance the night away - or mime the night away, if a person...

One of Tim Hulme's many scale models on display at Bebington Central Library. Yesterday I travelled by train to Bebington, as a friend and fellow-member of Riverside Writers is currently exhibiting his large collection of hand-made scale models of castles, chateaux and historic buildings. Tim Hulme began making models as a boy, when his father would bring home huge cardboard tubes onto which silk fabric would have been wound at the Macclesfield silk mill where his father worked.  Later, as a young adult, he was touring a grand European house when he saw a scale model of it and declared, "I want one of those!"  He's been making them ever since. This is Tim's first exhibition, and a lot of  planning has gone into the display.  Nearly all the models have a photo of the actual building beside it for comparison, and there are information sheets offering historical backgrounds.  The models are very fragile.  Just transpo...

Last summer, I made a frog pond in our garden.  The very short video above shows the tadpoles which are currently swimming around, obviously enjoying the warmth which the spring sunshine is bringing to the shallows where they like to congregate.  They're quite fascinating to watch.  As soon as I get home from my day-job, I put the kettle on, let the dogs into the garden then visit my pond to see how the taddies are growing.  Right now they're making short work of a slug which drowned itself.  Ok, so that is a bit gross - but that's nature for you, red in fang and claw.... Today I added another doll to my collection, one I've wanted for absolutely ages:  Daisy, which was designed by Mary Quant.  As a child I had Daisy and a friend of hers as paperdolls ; goodness knows how many other paperdolls I had, hundreds at least.  Anyway, today I won an eBay auction for a Daisy, so I'll be looking forward to receiving that through the mail and ad...

Richard on top of the rock, to give an idea of its size.  This strange carving can be found on the Caldy side of Stapledon Woods, facing farm fields which are separated from the wood by a low sandstone wall with a castellated top.  In summer, the rock face is hidden from casual view by trees covering the slope which leads up to it from the path running alongside the sandstone wall. Has anyone got any information about this carving - what it is, its age and purpose?  I've been given several theories; one that it was made for shelter, (which seems dubious as it wouldn't work very well); or that it was somekind of ancient relinquary relating to pre-Xtian religious beliefs.  Any further ideas or documented evidence would be most welcome.

Above and below:  Calder Stones, Neolithic tomb stones, Liverpool. Believed to have once formed part of a Neolithic chambered tomb erected some 4,000 years ago, the Calder Stones have been protected inside a large greenhouse since 1954.  The circle's current arrangement is based only on 19th century guess-work about how a stone circle should look, following an assumption that druids had created the tomb - which actually predates druidry in Britain by a considerable margin. The tomb itself was destroyed some time during the 18th century.  The six remaining sandstone pieces were then sited near the main entrance to Calderstones Park in Allerton, Liverpool.  The disturbance revealed pottery urns containing human dust and bones. None of these were preserved as (or so I was told by park staff) the groundsmen who removed them smashed them all for 'fun'.  These photos were taken by me back in the spring o...

Apparently, the New York Public Library has spent $1million USD on ebooks and is planning a major re-design of the old building which will create large, airy spaces, a cafe, and remove old and hardly-used books to stacks in the basement. Closer to home, Liverpool Central Library is already undergoing a major structural overhaul, which promises to look amazing once finished and I'm looking forward to seeing it re-open. Wirral Libraries are also changing.  In their draft strategy  for the future, they write, "The Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport quotes a decline in the number of visits to library premises of around 25% over a 16 year period, and a steady decline in the loans of adults’ books over the decade prior to 2008/9 by more than a third." It goes on to define the library service as: "4 .1 - Wirral library is a friendly, accessible place that provides a safe, trusted and welcoming resource aimed at meeting the needs of the local ...

Take a look at this well-made video which presents a large selection of ancient Mayan artifacts carved with images which, to 21st century interpretation, look like aliens. I don't place much credence on the 'aliens from outer space' theory, as the sheer practicalities of any species travelling for untold light years just to arrive here, create geometric designs in a few crop fields, or dismember a few cows or probe a few drunks' backsides is just too silly. If a species possessed the technology to travel rapidly from other planets, don't you think they'd have the sense to pick up a copy of Gray's Anatomy ? (It's even almost named for them...!) Inter-dimensional travel makes far more rational sense. If you assume you are aware of everything around you, watch this very short video  from an earlier blog post of mine.  So, (assuming you did watch the video!) if you miss that much going on in the dimension which we're all familiar with, then how...

Here's a bit of interesting news for history buffs.  Apparently, rare and ancient texts owned by the Vatican and the Bodleian Library are going to be put into digital form and made available for public study.  This amounts to something like 1.5 million pages of previously largely unseen documents, which include works on the kabbalah, the Talmud, Hebrew manuscripts and the Gutenburg Bible. I wonder who decides which texts to share and which to keep private, and why?  Conspiracy theorists could have a field day, pondering over alleged plots to retain the world's Really Big Secrets for a small elite. Personally, I've found the best place to hide something is in plain sight.  Thinking back to my time as a library assistant in the Religion and Philosophy Library, at Liverpool's Central Library, I can easily remember the thousands upon thousands of books stored away in the stacks.  Wouldn't it be great if each and every one of those - and all those like them, st...

Penny, Felicity and Joyce enjoying the spring sunshine. Last night I discovered a flavour which I hate even more than aniseed, and that is cardamom.  Big pods of the stuff were in the curry which I had been really looking forward to, as I love a good curry.  Then I was attacked by what surely has to rank as being amongst the most vile flavours on earth.  People like this stuff?!!   Wikipedia describes it as having a "strong, unique taste".  I agree.  It's also revolting; spectacularly so, even. Each to our own, of course.  This body of mine has always had a strange relationship with some foods, which seems to run contrary to average reactions.  For example, peppermint tea, which is supposed to settle upset stomachs, actually makes me feel nauseous.  Salad, beloved by millions, gives me excruciating indigestion, as do certain dark green foods.  Echinacea, which is supposed to boost the immune system, gives me spli...

Have you ever stopped to think about the origins of bread?  It's such a familiar food that we rarely give it much thought outside of buying more, or deciding which sandwich filling to use.  Bread is supposed to be one of the oldest foods known to humanity, dating back approximately 30,000 years when flatbread was made from starch extracted from pounded plant roots.  Grain-based bread apparently emerged around 10,000 BC, made by Neolithic peoples who used also used air-borne yeast, or yeast already found on the grains themselves, to make the dough rise a little.  If some of this dough was kept until the next day then added to a fresh batch, the yeast was passed on - as with sourdough.  The Gauls and Iberians figured out how to take foam off beer to increase the yeast content.  Elsewhere in Europe, grains were soaked in wine to access yeast.  Who was the first person to walk past a patch of wild grasses and think, "Hey, I can do s...

"Archaeologist Alfonso Forgione, from L'Aquila University...said, 'I have never seen anything like this before. I'm convinced because of the nails found in the jaw and around the skeleton the woman was a witch.   S he was buried in bare earth, not in a coffin and she had no shroud around her either, intriguingly other nails were hammered around her to pin down her clothes.' " 'The second skeleton we have found was buried in a similar fashion but this time we found 17 dice around her - 17 is an unlucky number in Italy and also dice was a game that women were forbidden to play." Source: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/09/800-year-old-witch-burial-found-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArchaeologyNewsNetwork+%28The+Archaeology+News+Network%29   

"Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travellers. Known as the Donggar Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals...  Frescoes that are currently open to the public mainly depict Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and other deities, but also feature animals that are not native to Ngari." Source: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/06/rare-look-into-tibets-largest-buddhist.html

"Seventeen lost pyramids, thousands of tombs and more than 3000 settlements have been discovered in Egypt, using infrared technology from 700km above Earth.  "'These are just the sites close to the surface. There are many thousands of additional sites that the Nile has covered over with silt,' (U.S. Egyptologist) Sarah Parcak said." Source:  http://au.news.yahoo.com/queensland/a/-/article/9519866/egyptian-pyramids-found-from-space/

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"...People are working on exposing the pyramid walls every day... There are huge cement blocks underneath approximately a meter of soil everywhere they dig. Top, bottom, different sides of the pyramid… everywhere. They have found edges that connect two sides and even some entrances have been found.  The Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation is saying that this is a step pyramid and the 90 degree walls are its steps. Experts from all over the world are joining the project and are actively involved." Source:  http://www.bosnianpyramids.org/index.php?lang=en   (View the source link for a photo gallery and more information).

" Two thousand years ago, a Greek mechanic (built a) clockwork mechanism that displayed the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets on precisely marked dials. By turning a handle, the creator could watch his tiny celestial bodies trace their undulating paths through the sky...  The Antikythera mechanism is by far the most technologically sophisticated artefact that survives from antiquity...  Scientists delving into the astronomical theories encoded in this quintessentially Greek device have concluded that they are not Greek at all, but Babylonian — an empire predating this era by centuries. " Source: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/468496a.html

"For decades the official Stonehenge guidebooks have been full of fascinating facts and figures and theories surrounding the world's greatest prehistoric monument. What the glossy brochures do not mention, however, is the systematic rebuilding of the 4,000 year old stone circle throughout the 20th Century...  From 1901 to 1964, the majority of the stone circle was restored in a series of makeovers which have left it, in the words of one archaeologist, as 'a product of the 20th century heritage industry' ." Source (includes photos of rebuilding):  http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicstonehenge.htm

My feet first led me to St John the Baptist's some two decades ago.  I had seen enough of Chester's shops for one afternoon and, as if drawn by some subtle instinct, I found myself wandering around the sandstone ruins of what must have once been an impressive Norman church built close to the shores of the River Dee. Early churches were often built on top of pre-existing sacred sites, earlier even than the Roman shrine which once stood where the Norman ruins now lie.   With the Roman ampitheatre just yards away, this may have been a shrine to Mithras. A person can only speculate about what may have been here prior to the Roman structure.  During the Reformation, St John's received far worse treatment than the nearby, and much bigger, St Werburgh's Cathedral which legend places directly over an ancient Druidic Grove.   It seems unlikely that those same Druids would have overlooked this energy-rich focal point.  Norman ruins of an...