October Events

Hello friends, there's a lot to catch up on from October! Most days, I find time for a walk at one of the parks nearby my house, but since I want to keep up with longer rambles too, I have been exploring areas for day trips from Liverpool. One of the places I visited was Heswall on the Wirral (I snooped on Paul McCartney's house while I was there too—Rembrandt, where he wrote "Golden Slumbers"). Also, I've discovered a historic church in Allerton called All Hallows. It's a listed building with fourteen windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. Very beautiful! I enjoy attending services there when I can. And I've been to two services by the Liverpool Bach Collective, an ensemble that performs Bach's cantatas at a different church in the city about once every month as part of an evening worship service.

The Central Library put on Sonnets in the Stacks: A Poetry Celebration in the Hornby Library, which was—though I hesitate to use the term heartwarming—very inspiring. I loved hearing poets (mainly local poets) read in person. There was such a mix of humour, wit, and rhyme in all their work. Similar to seeing a play performed live, with a lot of poetry, it is more meaningful to hear a poem performed. You can lose yourself in the world of the poem. During the open mic, almost everyone attending shared a poem or story. I talked with one of the poets afterwards about her writing process and translating, and also got some recommendations for places to walk.

The Liverpool Irish Festival took place in October and I went along to a trad session at Peter Kavanagh's pub as well as a céilí hosted by the Movema dance group with Saltcutters providing live music. A good time, too, to listen again to the podcast series Give the Beatles Back to the Irish! I recently met up with one of my cousins in London. We walked to Primrose Hill in Regents Park, did some shopping in Oxford Street, and visited the Science Museum. I was glad to be visiting the museum with him because he could explain the artefacts on display. He gave good analogies that I could actually understand! I got to visit a friend in Wales this month, and although the weather was extremely windy and wet because of a storm, we did get in a walk on the Lôn Las Menai path along the coast in Caernarfon. Stormy days are a good time to visit the bookshop (well, any day is really) and read Welsh poetry.

Finally, I've really been enjoying the weekly book group I'm attending at The Reader in Calderstones Park. We are reading through Wendell Berry's book of stories Stand By Me. If I'd have to read a book set in Kentucky, this is the book I would pick. And it's so funny to read it with British people!

The River Dee from Heswall

Heswall

Heswall Beach

Walking in Heswall

At Heswall Dales

Toadstool 

Ground life

Rembrandt, Paul McCartney's house in Heswall
(image from beatlesbooks.com)

All Hallows Church, Allerton

East Window, All Hallows
(image by Rex Harris from eb-j.org)

St Joseph's Church, Blundellsands

Crosby Beach

Liverpool Bach Collective

Hornby Library, Liverpool Central Library
(image from Things Helen Loves)

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 
(image from The Science Museum)

Month-going longcase clock
by George Stratford
(image from The Science Museum)

Caernarfon, Wales

Calderstones Park, Liverpool

Calderstones Park, Liverpool

Thanks for reading!

Llandudno

Hello friends, I got to take a day trip to Llandudno in Wales, last week. The town was a popular holiday destination in Victorian times, notably visited by Alice Liddell's family (which is why there's an Alice theme). Highlights for me were visiting the beach and seeing Martin Llewellyn's artwork at the Ffin y Parc Gallery. I didn't get to the Great Orme nature reserve, though, so that will have to be a trip for another time!

Coast at Llandudno

Llandudno Beach

View from Happy Valley Botanical Gardens

Knitting with the goats

View over the town

Llandudno Bay

Alice-themed mosaic

Mad Hatter

Martin Llewellyn's Exhibition at Ffin y Parc

Hidden Cottage

Cottage, Llanberis

Llandudno's Library

'These are our forests.'

Maisie's Tea Company

Thanks for reading!

Liverpool Museums

I have been making the rounds of free museums in and around Liverpool. Having previously visited The Beatles Story Museum and the Liverpool Beatles Museum, which you can read about in my post from May 2024, I can add several other museums and art galleries to the list. Now, the Beatles museums aren't free sadly, but there are some Beatles artefacts at the Museum of Liverpool. There are listening booths, too, where you can hear some famous music from Liverpool groups. Inspired by this, I created my own list: Merseybeat! I also learned where Liverpool Castle used to be and saw artefacts from the old overhead railway system and a model of the planned Catholic Cathedral. On a BBC programme highlighting the Museum of Liverpool, the museum's director Laura Pye said:

 'Liverpool is a very confident city. I think one way of summing this up is a vote that was made recently about which would be the second city in Britain. They asked people from across England which would be the second city in England. The people of Manchester said Manchester, the people of Birmingham said Birmingham, the people of Newcastle said Newcastle, the people of Liverpool said London.' 

The World Museum—which was very busy the day I visited during school holidays—has an aquarium and a collection on ancient Egypt. The mummy room is most popular, morbidly. All I can think about is the story of mummy brown paint and the several thousand mummified cats used as fertiliser on English fields in the 1800s. At the Atkinson in Southport, there was also a small exhibit on ancient Egypt, including a limestone stela from circa 1550 BC on loan from the Manchester Museum. It kind of makes me dizzy to think of things that old. The Tate Liverpool is closed for renovation right now, but they have a space with RIBA North by the docks. What I saw there was the exhibit on Roaming Britain. I haven't seen St George's Hall yet because I can't figure out how to get inside, haha! Sudley House in Mossley Hill is the historic former residence of George Holt now owned by the National Trust. The grounds are also a free park. Victoria Gallery and Museum on the University of Liverpool campus is worth visiting just to see the inside of the building! Both the Walker Art Gallery and the Lady Lever have excellent Pre-Raphaelite works on display. (For photos of the Lady Lever and also of Speke Hall, see my post from May of this year.) The Williamson in Birkenhead has a lovely collection of Della Robbia pottery. The company was started by Harold Rathbone of the Liverpool School in 1894 and was in business for about 12 years. Okay, before this starts to sound like Antiques Roadshow...

Lastly, there's an interesting National Trust exhibit on now in the Hornby Library (at Central Library) about the work of photographers E. Chambré and Margaret Hardman. Their Rodney Street house is a museum. You can browse through some of their photographs here: Chambré Hardman Collection. 

Museum of Liverpool, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Stuart Sutcliffe's acoustic guitar

John Lennon's 1963 suede jacket

World Museum, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Chocolate-Chip Starfish, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

The Book of the Dead

The Atkinson, Southport

Limestone stela circa 1550–1295 BC

Roaming Britain at RIBA, Romani artefacts

Tiling at Sudley House

Fireplace at Sudley House

The Finding of the Saviour at the Temple
by William Holman Hunt

Grounds at Sudley House

Victoria Museum & Gallery

At Victoria Museum & Gallery

At Victoria Museum & Gallery

Ruth by Edward Burne-Jones

Walker Art Gallery, image from liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Dante's Dream by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Echo and Narcissus by J.W. Waterhouse
(and cast of William Holman Hunt's hand below)

Williamson Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead

Williamson Gallery and Museum

Pimpernel by Morris & Co.

Panel by Della Robbia Pottery

Della Robbia Pottery

Della Robbia Pottery

Della Robbia panel by Cassandra Annie Walker

Schoolboys on the Ferry by E. Chambré Hardman,
image from ntprints.com

Both Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen come from Liverpool

Next week I'm visiting Strawberry Fields during Heritage Days. I've also been to visit the John Rylands Library in Manchester—look for a future post on that and a few more places in Manchester! Thanks for reading!