jules' pics: June 2015

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Lovely James

awww, i'n't 'ee sweeet?

In photos on the internets, James makes most things look smaller than they are, because he is larger than you think, but maybe the little hill behind James was once a big mountain, before the glaciers scraped most of it away. It is fun to ride by bicycle as the track starts at a gentle slope and gets gradually steeper and steeper almost all the way up.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Englefield v Myohoji

Englefield seems to date from the mid 1500s, and Myohoji goes back to the 1200s. How much of which buildings may be "original" is another question, of course...

Anyway... in 2010, I blogged the Deva gate and famous moss steps at Myohoji.

Both places have a large number of trees, but at Englefield I found no red gate with protective angry monsters - there was just a little metal gate with an "honesty box", into which you are expected to put 6 quid. In November I expect you'd feel more moved to put in about tuppence, and with no red monsters to chase you down, why not? However, to make up for this lack of impressive gate-ness, the main building is very grand and the landscaped garden very large.

Oh look - a Japanese maple!
But the thing that really caused me to think of Myohoji was, of course, the daisy staircase.

Myohoji's moss steps repeated for those who can't click links back as far as 2010

Clearly Englefield need to grow more steps to make it proper zen, but there is potential, for example with the correct ferniness at bottom right hand side.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Parking

I've been missing Starbucks Parking on Sundays. In fact I've been missing all the colourful, shiny, expensive and overpowered cars of Kamakura and Yokohama. Here it is mostly Land Rovers with dogs in the back, Quad Bikes with dogs on the steering wheel, and Caravans full of dogs and holiday makers. But then last Sunday there appeared, just down the road at Falcon Manor...