This is a small collage of a Tenerife farmhouse I am trying to finish off at the moment. It has been a bit of therapy and has served to get my hand and eye in after a couple of fairly sterile weeks.
So I did a therapeutic studio clean up and started this and now hope to return to my writers' houses, especially after discovering this ancient little yellowing booklet which had fallen down and was languishing behind the bookshelf:
It contains some very evocative small reproductions of contemporary engravings and watercolours. I was especially interested in one by the poet's daughter, Dora. It shows Dove Cottage walled by what looks for all the world like a row of headstones and not the drystone wall we see today.
But however much I peer at it, I can't for the life of me make out what they are. Perhaps just huge slates lined up... a mystery.
Sounds like a mystery ready for the making to me: a hidden book reappearing after all these years full of tales of the lakes district and photos of unexplained headstones used as fences...many tidbits to create your own version of a 'who dunnit'. Headstones with typos on them were used as foundations on the summer camps, supports for wooden bridges around here (we have a lot of marble) when I was a kid. Too bad I didn't follow that trail closer-not many remain in their secondary, recycled mode. It was fun to read about the misspelled names, dates as a summer activity in my youth.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin.
ReplyDeleteI may write to the Dove Cottage museum and ask whether they know. I'd rather do authentic than modern rebuild. I love gravestones and graveyards. I got the habit early - when I was about 7 upwards - there was a shortcut home from school through a very romantic rural (though in the middle of a London suburb) churchyard. Very quiet and creepy - I'd think twice about it these days, which is a sad indictment of our times. Look at me, talking like an old biddy!