dotsey.com » Photography

Ice house

Chris — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:22:47 +0000

It was a cold, frosty morning in the middle of winter…

Fortunately, these frost crystals were only on the outside of the glass. In the second picture, I like the way they snake along the bottom of the window frame, looking like a stretch of barbed wire.

Click the pics to see them bigger…and colder. Brrrr!

Here lies William McBeath

Chris — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:10:32 +0000

Visiting Canwick Road cemetery in Lincoln this afternoon, we spotted a small Scottish saltire flag planted at the foot of a tree at the cemetery’s northern boundary. Had it not been for another grave further along, almost completely hidden by foliage and bearing the strangely appropriate name, Bush, we could easily have missed it. After that, though, we were actively looking out for other hidden stones, hoping desperately to find evidence of a deceased Hedge, a Tree or even a Lurker.

No such luck, as it happened.

But then we saw the flag. And looking further we spotted a brass plaque fixed to the nearest tree trunk.

The plaque reads:

In this place lies William McBeath, who in 1872, along with three friends, had an idea to start a football team. That football team became Rangers FC.

Sports journalist Gary Ralston explains in his book, “Rangers 1872: The Gallant Pioneers”, how Rangers was formed by four young boys walking through a park in Glasgow who simply decided one day to form a football club. Apparently McBeath had quite a sad life, and in the ended his days in a Lincoln poorhouse on Burton Road. It is also said that a charge of bigamy and a fraud trial also featured in McBeath’s life before he died in 1917. He now lies in an unmarked grave in Washingborough Cemetery.

So, although someone has already researched McBeath’s life, his final resting place is still not marked by anything other than a little flag beneath a tree. Seems a shame, doesn’t it?

Shadow bottles

Chris — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:25:22 +0000

Imagine if we were rich. We’d have butlers to bring us our beans on toast (a rare English delicacy), servants to blow on our cups of tea so they’re not too hot for us to drink; and inevitably we’d have bought a dishwasher — after all, even the chief cook and bottlewasher demand labour-saving gadgets these days!

But if we had, then I wouldn’t have been in the kitchen earlier tonight, half submerged in a bowl of washing up water, accompanied by a couple of plates, a knife, a fork and a few other select pieces of the family silver, or rather, the family stainless steel! Nor would I have seen these shadows, falling on our de luxe plastic chopping boards. Formed by the light of the late evening sun, filtered through a single layer of mosquito netting, they really are rather artistic, aren’t they? Even, dare I say it, painterly (the shadows, that is, not the chopping boards).

See how the rough texture of the boards contrasts with the sinuous curves of the pattern on the bottles. I say, is that half a litre of best corn oil lurking at the back? By heavens, I’ll swear it is too!