The Tenacious Rose

The Golden Cockerel Press was an English fine press operating between 1920 and 1961. Its history and further information can be found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Cockerel_Press.

Tapster’s Tapestry is a little gem of satirical phantasy published in 1938 which I finished reading last night. These two illustrations are of the title page and the jacket, repeating one of the full page illustrations and made of stiff cartridge paper, still intact after 82 years.

Gwenda Morgan’s illustrations are good examples of her period.

As we left the house for a forest drive this afternoon we admired the tenacity of this strongly scented climbing rose clinging to life suspended by a stem broken by the recent storm Alex.

Today was unseasonably warm with sunshine and showers subject to fast moving clouds photographed at various autumnal locations including

Bennets Lane;

Anna Lane;

and Forest Road

with its now replenished reflective pools.

Ponies enhanced the landscape on the road to Burley

where curly tailed piglets buried their snuffling, snorting, snouts in their frantic competitive foraging for acorns.

I am delighted to report that there was plenty of Jackie’s chicken and leek pie for another sitting served with crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; tender cabbage, and meaty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Montpeyroux Recital 2018.

54 comments

  1. You have an amazing library and garden! It’s funny–I took a picture of some geraniums we have that just bloomed, and I used the same word, tenacity.
    Your landscape photos are beautiful–but I do love that little curly-tailed pig!

  2. Really enjoyed the views of the different lanes and roads. Glad to see that water seems to be in abundance now. I can’t help but notice the several different breeds of hogs in your pictorials, and that the breeds stick together. Or are herds confined to their own areas of foraging?

  3. It always inspires me to see a plant, especially a flower, thriving with a broken or bent stem. Lovely autumn pictures to provide momentary escape.

  4. Tapster’s Tapestry seems to be a disturbing book, and yet it captures the maniacal moods of the planet well. Those are vivid autumnal photographs.

  5. Beautiful transitional turbulent skies, Derrick and Jackie, and I always love those narrow country lanes disappearing around the bend, so inviting for a walk! The forest drive with its reflective pools and animals are always a treat. The little porkers seem to busy to look up. đŸ™‚

    1. Thank you very much, Lavinia. A couple of visitors to the forest had stopped to admire the pigs and I said exactly that to them. The man was tickling one’s tummy. That got it lying on its back for more, but I didn’t think it politic to photograph that đŸ™‚

  6. happy to see your rose abloom despite a broken stem! great captures of moody skies and autumn colors in the countryside. such a delight to see the piglets foraging đŸ™‚ đŸ™‚

  7. How beautifully autumnal your surroundings are, the clouds, the acorn foraging piglets and those fabulous shades of autumn gold.

  8. Those illustrations are so detailed…cool shapes and motion!
    Your autumn photos are lovely!
    The clouds seem to be talkin’…and, oh, the leaves, the tree covered leaves, the tree canopied lanes, and all reflected in the water! Gorgeous!
    Love the piggy tails! So curly! My doggy, Cooper…his tail is usually an exclamation point ! or a question mark ? …Ha…and often it is a waggin’! đŸ˜€
    HUGS!!! đŸ™‚

Leave a Reply