As I approach 50, my thoughts are filled with premonitions of death…. so I like to hang around cemeteries. Believe as much of that sentence as you wish. I suspect Abe didn’t stick around for long in this world, but his gravestone is still there. One day though, probably the ivy will take over.
This is taken in the same churchyard as the photo a day short of a year ago: the same Saturday of the year, that is. And for the same reason, in that we were seeing Joe’s annual drama club show in the attached church hall. But I am not supposed to take and publish pictures of all that (child protection and all that) so here are some memorials instead. The fact that this has all their blank back sides on gives it a rather eerie feel, I think.
The St Thomas’ Centre, where I did some work today, is a converted church, and its front yard is paved with these grave markers. Which would have made an excellent photo had it not been hurling down with rain whenever I was outside: the wettest day in months, actually. So, bad photo alert. Sorry.
Heptonstall is the oldest part of Hebden Bridge, built several hundred feet above where the main town now stands. Its cemetery is home to the town’s most well-known deceased resident, Sylvia Plath. This part of the churchyard, located between the 19th century church seen here and its ruined, 15th century predecessor, is a Gothic playground of tombs that is always good for a photo.
A day killing time in Collingwood before heading down to the start of the Heaphy Track. This graveyard sits on a hill above the town, and most of the graves date from the 19th century. The engravings etched onto the headstones are often a story in themselves, highlighting the harsher nature of life in the past: the graves of three teenagers, one who drowned trying to cross the nearby Aorere River, and two brothers who died within three days of each other (presumably of the same infectious disease), were the most touching.
As we are at another 50-day milestone – day 550 – I have added some photos to the ‘Best of the Rest’ page. I also note that today marks the end of 18 months of doing this blog since I started on 26/8/11.
a.k.a. ‘Lament for a Lost Spring’… Sorry to wax lyrical, it’s probably just the result of spending the day in a church selling piles of 2nd hand books to bargain-hungry pensioners.
