Cradle Snatcher to Grave

I was in our local town a couple of days ago, eating a sausage roll in the graveyard (not a euphemism) and noticed an interesting gravestone.

Actually, re-reading that, it sounds a bit wrong. I should say that I was actually eating a sausage roll in a graveyard.

Nope, can't get away from it. I was just eating a sausage roll in a graveyard. There's no way of making that look like anything other than what it was. I had a sausage roll, and I was in a graveyard. Eating it.

The point is that while there I was idly perusing the data inscribed upon the stones because my 3G signal was low, when I saw the following grave:

Stop pushing, there's room for everyone.

It's the final resting place of a chap called Samuel Aldridge, who shuffled off his mortal bucket in 1800 aged 81, and his wife Sarah who died 28 years later, aged 48.

Now, apart from their being something potentially disrespectful and possibly unholy about eating a Gregg's pork cylinder on a grave (Dancing? Yes. Frolicking? Fine. Turning widdershins whilst chanting excerpts from the Necronomicon? Not a problem. Eating a Greggs? Ooh, you've crossed a line there, pervert), there was something about those dates that intrigued me.

If Sam died in 1800 aged 81, that means he was born in 1719. His wife, dying in 1828 aged 48 was therefore born in 1780. That's a sixty-one year age gap.

Now, I am a modern liberal and in no way judgemental about the choices of life partner another person makes, as long as they are happy and both get something out of it. In this case, however, considering it was before the advent of many medications used to treat the afflictions of old age (and indeed Viagra), one thought did occur to me.

Way to go Sammy boy!

I’m just surprised he lasted till 1800.

I had other things to do in town apart from desecrate crypts with take-away snacks and so, after brushing my crumbs off on a cherub (also not a euphemism), I continued my sojourn, making a mental note to post that picture on the Gravel Farm for your perusal, for it brings to mind questions of mortality, history, spirituality, love and boffing the elderly to death.

I needed some rabbit treats for our elderly but still voracious bunny, Bert, who might be blind in one eye and unable to clean his nether regions but he can still get it on with your foot if you're wearing fluffy socks. For this reason I made my way into our local pet shop.

The regular reader might recall that this is the shop where I was once very excited to be offered the chance to purchase a squeaky rubber winking lady with a cat's head dressed in bondage gear.* In the end I declined to buy it because I'm not really that into bondage. Or bestiality. Or dog chew toys.

Although the winking lady with a cat's head dressed in bondage gear did apparently sell, the shop owner started to think she'd been catering to too specific a target market and was probably getting fed up with men in stained brown trench coats turning up at night asking if she'd got any new stock in. Upon my visit this time, she'd moved on to providing more mainstream figurines which will appeal to everyone.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you . . . Chicktoria Peckham:

"Does my parson's nose look big in this?"

I still didn't buy her though. I prefer a bit of meat on my birds.

After spending twenty minutes trying to come up with a pun involving the word "plucking", I had Chicktoria prized from my hands and was asked to leave.

Making my way to a budget shop which provides a select range of anything, I encountered the absolute pièce de résistance when it comes to today's theme of death and target markets.

          "I'll cook your heart!"

Leaving aside the fact that the model is actually rather pasty and looks like he'd be happy to serve you a sausage roll to eat on a gravestone, the wording makes it quite clear that this wig is intended only for a very select few.

I thought about buying it, but I don't know any sinister black children.


*Now there's a link that's hard to resist.

Fisher of Kings

Cycling along the abandoned canal on my way to work, a flash of electric blue catches my eye, describing rapid but gentle parabolas from overhanging willow bough to ivy-clad birch branch.

A kingfisher!

I am pleased. Although not especially rare, they are evasive and seldom seen, particularly on a canal, even one that is relatively unused by anyone other than cyclists and dog-feaces depositors. I stop my bike for a moment, and watch enraptured as it doesn't immediately disappear, maybe being a little more used to wandering bipeds than most others of its kind. Still though, it is only visible for a second or two at a time.

Its dazzling plumage is at odds with its inherent shyness, as if embarrassed by its own splendour. No artist has ever created a colour so full of vivid life, so effortlessly natural and yet so striking. It is a humbling exercise in the superior achievement of unconscious selection over the ever-striving efforts of our intellectual and artistic endeavours.

S'pretty.

Luckily, to capture the moment, I am a modern human, with all the advantages of superior technology that allow me to share this image, perhaps save a small, frozen portion of this ephemeral scene with other members of my species. With you, my friends, with you. We are a creature that generally uses sight as our prominent sense, and and this is reflected in our tools.

I take out my phone, thinking of the adverts where opportunistic photographers take super-sharp images for posterity, whipping out their handsets and snap!, capturing the elusive snow leopard or plummeting falcon and winning awards from the BBC and National Geographic for their efforts.

My turn.

Snap!

Oh . . . kay.

Too fast. I have to be patient. There it is again. Try another one but hold the phone still. 

Snap!

Missed it. Damn. The bird was moving too quickly this time. Bloody thing.Try again.

Snap!

Arse. Low light levels, that one. Hang on, it's flying again, quick!

Snap!

No? No. 

Oh sod it. Have some ducks in a line on high zoom instead:

Snap!

Brown they are. Very, very brown, and not at all shy about letting you know it. Now to wait for National Geographic to get in touch. I'll see you at the exhibition.

Challenge(d)

Occasionally, I set myself a challenge. Sometimes, it involves stopping crime or challenging injustices in the higher echelons of society. Other times, I aim to shift the balance of governmental power or find a new stable element and call it Dangermousium.

I rarely succeed in these, and am coming to the reluctant conclusion that I am setting the bar a tad on the high side. Even now, my self-imposed deadline for publishing a set of equations unifying gravity with current quantum theory is threatening to pass uncompleted because I can't find the plus button on my keyboard.

So, every now and then, I take things down a notch or two. One of those now-and-thens was a recent trip to the local supermarket, which is actually no bigger than most markets, and is essentially a big shop, so why it's called a supermarket I don't know. Moderatemarket would be more apt, I think. Anyway, I decided to take three photos on my phone which I would then put on this blog, be they funny, boring or just odd.

I walked in a picked a basket, which had a note in it. This in itself is not uncommon. People often leave their used shopping lists in the basket because they can't be arsed to take it out, and I'm one fo those interminable nosey sorts who will look at it, amazed that someone actually buys pink wafers and blue pop. I don't use shopping lists because I trust my memory, and anyway I quite enjoy the inevitable repeat trip for bread and milk 40 minutes later. Gets me out of the house.

This note though, wasn't a list, but an instruction:

It says "Lock Shed!", and even has a picture of a lock on it, to reiterate it's main thrust. I took a photo (obviously) as it's one of those things that raises lots of pointless questions, all of which serve no purpose whatsoever. Who left it? Don't they normally lock their shed? Why take the note to the supermarket, which is probably not where the shed is? Does the fast underlining mean that it's particularly important that the shed is locked today?Why? Is there a prisoner in it? Should I call the police and demand they start an investigation, perhaps using forensics and profiling and phones that go biddly-oop-oop and get answered after just one ring?

You know, the usual stuff.

After the nice lady asked me not to call 999 again, unless there was a real emergency, I continued with my shopping trip. Sadly, there was very little else that caught my eye in the Normalmarket, and I didn't fancy posting a picture of a dented tin, because that would be silly.

Also, I didn't see a dented tin.

So I bought a butty and went to the nearby churchyard to scoff it. Unfortunately, as I went to sit on a bench, I noted with disgust that there was poo on it:


I moved away and found another seat, and looked around for some picturey inspiration, but all I could find was a cruelly enclosed tree:

This did make me wonder what the point of the cage was, as it's too big to stop rabbits and squirrels, and there aren't any livestock in that area. It also doesn't stop local teens from using it as a cider-can-and-condom disposal unit, so I'm left with the only conclusion that the cage is to protect us from the tree, which is a terrifying thought.

So there you go. One set of random photos from a quick jaunt out. They're not big, and they're not clever, which suits me down to the ground.

+

Hey, there it is! It was right above the equals all the time!