The walk to the shops

1.  Molly notices that the boss seems to be going for a walk. and he's got his camera. Bunny, Polly and Socrates are around somewhere, and they don;t miss much either.  


2.  This is the path below the Panorama bar that connects my house to the village below with its many derelict houses (shades of the pot calling the kettle black)   As it happens the old farmhouse where I was reared had a big open fire in the kitchen and hanging in the chimney were two huge containers for water, a pot, and a kettle which you could tilt with a handle to pour water out of the spout.  You guessed...they were both soot black from a hundred years of hanging about over log fires.  In the harsh winters of the middle forties, regularly every Saturday evening water would be scooped from the pot into a galvanized bath placed in front of the fire.  The water made a strange sound as it was being poured, a flatter more rustling sound - as boiled water is wont to do.  I probably made strange sounds too at the indignity of being bathed, and knowing my bedroom would be little above freezing all night.  Before rubber was invented my hot-water-bottle was made of salt-glazed stoneware with a black bakalite stopper.  Not very cuddly I assure you.   We had 14 cats at that time but none was allowed to sleep on my bed.


Back to work.  3.  Below the wall a path which used to be cobbled, it still is, but many many decades have passed since villagers walked this way down to the shops a mile below, and the path is picturesquely overgrown for most of the year now.  You can see Socs and her Aunty Bess watching Polly play with something - throwing it up in the air and catching it.  I can tell you its not a ball.


At the end past another empty old house the path turns down left.   4. You can see the cobbled steps glistening with water that seeps up from the ground all winter.  Anyway, Blogger won't download more than 4 pictures from this amazing and riveting sequence, so I'll post the other 9 below.