Saturday 8 March 2008

A Day in the Country

I had quite a quiet week last week after being away but I did go out on a day trip on Thursday with our local coach company. The trip was to Loughborough on market day and also to Mount St Bernard Abbey.

Mount Saint Bernard Abbey is situated outside the town of Shepshed and is a place I would like to go back to as we didn't have a lot of time to explore it all. The Abbey building is impressive from the outside. It sits square and imposing on the hilltop and yet is masked from the road behind trees and rocks.





I spent some time exploring the gardens which led up to the calvary from where I took the photo immediately above. The gardens are protected by a beautiful drystone wall



The rocks in the grounds of the Abbey have wonderful colours and textures


And hidden away behind the Calvary hill there are watertanks which have wonderful colours and rust marks on them



The monks work a farm alongside the Abbey and I was suddenly transported back 40+ years standing at the farm gate and smelling the sileage! From the age of 9 to about 17 I used to stay on my aunt's pig farm in the school holidays. I'm probably totally mad here but I love "country smells" and this farmyard took me right back.


Loughborough is an interesting town that I have not visited before. The market was lively and bustling and there was some interesting sculpture in the town.


This is The Sock statue and as you can see is very striking.

Images of the town's history are etched into the statue.


The statue above, as you can see, is rusting beautifully. There was a plaque explaining the history of this statue was on the plinth but, unfortunately, I forgot to photograph it. Oops!

Finally, this tower stands in Queen's Park and is known as the Carillion Tower. It was erected in memory of the men lost in World War I. If I had done my research before I went I would have known that the bells are played on a Thursday at 1.00pm. Unfortunately I didn't know this so I missed an experience.
What did you say? Shopping? Nooooooooooo! Course not! ;)

2 comments:

Mrs Moog said...

Great photos again Julie!
I love the colours and textures on those water tanks.
The Sock statue and the other figure remind me of the feeling of Antony Gormley's work, which I just love!

thanks for a visual treat :)

xxx

p.s. shopping? As if!!!

Dot said...

You are a wonderful photographer Julie. I love how you notice all kinds of different details. The colors on the water tanks are incredible!