Yes they were supposed to be lupins but I will call them flowers since the outline shapes are not quite right.
And Park House part 1 …
Park House is where I spent the first three years of my life in Thackley / Idle near Bradford. Looks like it is in idle though the address is Thackley. I remember it with deep love and affection. We lived with my maternal grandparents whilst my parents were in the early years of medical careers. My grandmother looked after me. It was a beautiful large stone house – the original stone floor slabs are still there in places. I have learnt, today, it was modelled on the Parsonage at Howarth. Of Brontë fame. See more later on.
I had another terrible night’s sleep. Probably something to do with the fact that I fell deeply asleep on the sofa the evening before. But, I’ve managed to stay awake all day today! So far.
The morning was the usual scramble that is a Tuesday. H got a walk to the Rec and back. It was frosty and chilly. I don’t think she was too bothered at its brevity.
I arrived in good time at Abbey Buildings in Abingdon and we were introduced to interesting techniques with chalk pastels, involving a surgical spirit wash over some sketchy base colours. And then the layers were built up with chalk pastels. We were given pictures of fields of lupins which flower en masse in certain parts of the world.
T was still in bed when I got home so I fed him a sandwich lunch and left him to his own devices. Since his current favourite activities are:
- To cover every available flat surface, be it a window sill, table top or kitchen work surface with ‘stuff’ spread out so the surface is no longer visible
- To accumulate beer cans by the bed. I remove them. He relocates them.
- Best left alone. It’s all too annoying.
I read for a bit and caught up with the devastatingly dreadful news about the Turkish /Syrian earthquakes. More recent reports indicated there were two quakes.
Later, I picked up Fleur from the Downs after netball club and dropped her at home. The Illis leave for Alpe d ‘Huez on Friday evening for their skiiing week – a party of 18 local friends who have bagged a chalet. A catered chalet!
And now …. to Park House, Park Road, Thackley. A little bit of my past, as explained earlier. Pen had been bombarding me with texts about family history digging into the past. In a wakeful moment I took on the search. Then I got excited!
I had never been able to find Park House on maps although I had searched quite diligently. But I found it today and then tracked it on Right Move where I discovered it was sold last year. My grandparents rented it for 17/6d per week from a family called Oliver. When they left, the Oliver family sold it to the Chief Constable of Bradford. This was probably mid 1950s. It was surrounded by stone walls with chips of glass on top. This fascinated me but I don’t think it’s allowed these days. I think I noticed it from the pram.
The above link contains many photos of the house when it was sold last year, and brings it back vividly after 70 years. How I loved that house! The last sellers looked after it nicely and over the last 70 years, the essential character has been retained. Probably being listed may have helped.
Some notes from Evernote :
I remember:
A walled rose garden and a bird bath in the front garden
All the main rooms downstairs- layout mainly unchanged. Library and posh sitting room to front. Kitchen is a bit different! Stone slabs on Floor then. Downstairs Toilet is same – used to smell of grandpa’s cigarettes. We used the library as a more casual sitting room.
The upstairs bathroom – the narrow one- I washed socks there during the last Coronation. To amuse me and keep me out of the way whilst adults watched it on … TV!!! Some of the bathrooms up there were bedrooms or dressing rooms then. I remember being sick all over the pillow once. The room had blue brick walls. Those were the days!
The front garden – there is a pic of me somewhere by an old bird Bath and of me and Nan and Nana (engagement ring) on terrace at front.
There was a field in front of the house with a ‘special’ school at the end of it (for the Deaf?). We looked into the field but there are shrubs there now. There used to be a donkey in the field that we fed with carrots. It seems to be a large school now.
The stone slab stairs leading upstairs – I put my (baby) brother in a box and carried him down those stairs only the bottom fell out and so did he. He bounced his way to the bottom. He didn’t half make a racket! I got into terrible trouble with my Mother but Nana was nice to me.
I’d better check out Lidgett Lane next. Found it! More later.
Thought for the Day
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