Framedlight

On Saturday we were fortunate to visit the Hayward Gallery at the South Bank in London to see the retrospective exhibition of the work of Japanese photographer Sugimoto.  The pictures were all printed very big and they were stunning. And I mean really stunning. We had already learnt what an amazing exhibition it was going to be by the cloakroom attendant in the Hayward who rhapsodised about it and said it was the best photographic exhibition the gallery had put on for years. I liked best the theatre and the sea pictures, and least the waxwork portraits interesting as the thought behind them was. The space at the Hayward was theatrical in itself and I could not resist the odd photo.  

On our little tour of the Golden Valley we popped in to see Kilpeck Church. When my parents were first settling in this area, during the Second World War, they stayed at the rectory while they were looking for somewhere to live.  The church, St Mary and St David, is renowned for the many little Norman stone carvings arranged under the roof. There are 85 of them still surviving. It is thought to have been built around 1140 although substantially repaired during the Victorian period. The south doorway, also Norman, is heavily carved. It was originally confined in a wooden porch but the sandstone is remarkably resilient and thought to be able to stand the elements. Kilpeck Castle sits on a castle mound above the church, although there is precious little of it left. It is thought to have been built around 1090. It was quite a haul up the mound as the path was very muddy and slippery. Once there though we could admire the fabulous view from the top.  

  My parents were married during the Second World War when they were both very young. My father was stationed near Hereford, and as my mother was living in London during the blitz, he brought her down to live in a rented cottage on an estate in the Golden Valley. This is an area on the border of Herefordshire and Wales running between two rivers and butting up against the Black Mountains. I was reminded of the area when rewatching "Shadowlands", the film about CS Lewis, and so we decided to take the campervan down to visit. The day we travelled was glorious sunshine. We stopped to take the dog for a walk by a long barrow known as Arthur's Stone and there were some people packing up their picnic as we arrived. The woman had very loud verbal diarrhoea and the husband kept posing on the top of the stone while the kids sat morosely in the car! We went for a walk so that we could return after they had left. The following day the weather had deteriorated but this was to my adva...