Month: April 2019

During our visit to Hilltop Farm (see rabbits, rabbits, rabbits…) we enjoyed looking round the garden and finding the many nooks and crannies to photograph. I saw this gate which attracted my attention but only when we returned home, and read the leaflet properly, did we realise this was Tom Kitten’s gate. I was intrigued by the similarity of the illustration, done by Beatrix Potter in 1907, and the gate as it is now, over 100 years later. Surely this couldn’t be the same gate? It looked in fairly good condition. Perhaps it was a more recent addition, based on that original illustration, just to satisfy the thousands of visitors, including many Japanese, who come each year. If it is the original gate, then surely the hinges, latch and wood must have been replaced many times.

I was reminded of the classic scene in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ in which Trigger claims that he’s had his road sweeper’s broom for 20 years. But then he adds that the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles. “How can it be the same bloody broom then?” asks Sid the café owner. Trigger produces a picture of him and his broom and asks: “what more proof do you need?”

So how can this be the same gate? Well see the original illustration and my photograph – what more proof do you need?

Make way for sweet May flowers.  April has started true to form with showers most days this week.  Rain, but not as much as in Seathwaite, Lake District. That is the wettest place in England and receives between two and three metres of rainfall each year. I took this photograph a while ago near Hawkshead, 30 miles or so from Seathwaite. The National Trust had thoughtfully provided umbrellas for visitors walking the short distance from the car park and ticket office to the entrance to Hill Top Farm. Short, but long enough to get drenched if caught in a Cumbrian shower.

It was a dull day but then the rain stopped and the sun made a brief appearance. Brief, and barely long enough to highlight the colour and shapes of these umbrellas for a quick photograph. It could almost be an art installation at the Tate; or being even more fanciful, perhaps it’s the parking area for those dropping into a meeting of the Mary Poppins Appreciation Society.

Do any get stolen or are they dutifully returned after each use? Is it someone’s job to count these at the end of the day? (not as easy as it sounds – try it if you have nothing better to do!