ABC Wednesday: J is for Jigsaw

(Click on image to view full-size version)
This is a substantial wooden jigsaw made by Galt Toys. It features the "traditional/historic" counties of England & Wales. These are what is generally referred to as the pre-1971 configuration before the creation of the current local government administrative areas.

I took this photo after some friends on Facebook began discussing such a jigsaw. It seems there a number of different designs; their's had Denbigh and Flint as a single piece whereas my Flint is seperate, being bulked by the inclusion of the Dee estuary. In mine Rutland is joined on to Leicestershire, but some versions have a seperate Rutland piece.

Hungtingdon and Cambridge (under the light-flash in the photo) is other piece that contains two counties.

Yorkshire is divided into its Ridings and the Furness area of Lancashire is attached to Westmorland but distinguished by its colour. There is a county labelled "London" but no Middlesex.

Another things different with my jigsaw compared to those of my friends is that each county with the exception of Anglesey and Flint include one or more pictograms. Most are understandable although a few now seem somewhat anachronisitic.

A contribution to ABC Wednesday.

Canalside plants at Stalybridge

I was in Stalybridge yesterday taking some pictures for the Geograph website.


Having posted this picture of canalside plants, I thought I'd ask on their forum for some help identifying the flowers.

Rosebay willow herb, foxglove, iris, purple loosestrife, monbretia and bullrushes were all mentioned.

To aid identification, I've posted here crops from the original photograph (click on the images to see them full-size)








Someone asked if it was the same clump of flowers as the one in this earlier photograph (shown below) from July 2004.


It is indeed, so below is a crop from the original of that photograph.


Thanks to all the botanists who have a greater knowledge of these things than myself.

ABC Wednesday - G is for Geograph

The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland.

A geograph is defined as a picture of an aspect of a square, or prominent feature of the square, showing the context of its geographical location and taken from within that square. In other words, a picture giving the viewer a good idea of the general topography of the area — what the area within the square looks like.

Squares are the 1km x 1km grid reference squares shown on the maps of the Ordnance Survey.

The project has been going for a few years now, and so the kudos of being the photographer who provides the first geograph for a specific square is very difficult to achieve. Most the squares that are still left to be bagged are in remote areas not accessible by footpaths let alone roads. Nonetheless I have managed to provide three first geographs


My first was Puffin island off Ballynahow on Square V3468.


The second was Gated road to Kinnighallen Farm on Square NN7546.


The third was Loch Rannoch on Square NN5756.

But it isn't really about grabbing the first geograph. Some squares have lots of geographs and what are known as supplemental photographs. It is about building up a picture of these islands. Go and take a look for yourself.

ABC Wednesday - Y is for Yorkshire

This map is reproduced by permission from the website of the Yorkshire Ridings Society (link now defunct).

Known as God's own Country the boundaries of Yorkshire as shown above were established in the ninth century.

When Local Government was reorganised in 1974 some people believed that the old counties no longer existed despite a Government Statement that

The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change, despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties.

Maps of the historical counties of Britain and more information can be found on the website of the Association of British Counties.


The ramparts of Skipton Castle.

I've been a Life member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society for about forty years now. Established in 1897, it is the world's oldest surviving dialect society. It holds four meetings a year around the county and publishes both an annual Transactions and a Summer Bulletin.

The former generally contains a number of scholarly articles such as (in the 2007 edition) LEXICAL EROSION AND INNOVATION IN NORTH-WEST DERBYSHIRE by Jon Fyne, which sounds a bit dry and tangential, but is actually a fascinating read. It also includes some excellent original poetry. The latter publication is generally the place for more popular contemporary writing and verse in dialect.

One of the strengths of the YDS is its ability to attract on the one hand, academics whose interests are primarly in language, linguistics or history, and on the other, creative writers and speakers of dialect. My deepest regret as a Council member is my inability to attend meetings these days.


The view from the top of Holme Moss.

My favourite Yorkshire Dialect poet was the late Fred Brown - read his poem Euclid's Childer.

There are several writers of haiku in Scots; one of the best is John McDonald, but so far as I know, I'm the only person to have written haiku in Yorkshire dialect. These SIX YORKSHIRE HAIKU were published in Summer Bulletin in 2002.

wooid stack'd
ahint t'shed
oe'er-ran wi' bahndweed

wheeir t'muck-stacks were
lush trees nah grow
on t'illside

hot efternooin
sheep on t'fells kip
bi a stoan

river agate —
ducks on t'igh bank
waddle i' a lahne

med blahnd
bi t'low Jan'ry sun
Paris ti Hades

ower t'M1
a breet-een'd kestrel
'ovvers

© Gerald England, 2002

ABC Wednesday - T is for Travel

I could have gone T for Tallinn but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here and here.

I could have gone T for Trondheim but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here.

I could have gone T for Tenerife but you can see my photos and account of that island here.

People seem to have the impression that I am well-travelled but I have only visited 13% of the world.



This map and the others you can compile on the net are bit misleading but interesting nonetheless. For the first 50-odd years of my life apart from a week in Amsterdam in 1980 [which included a day-trip to Brussels] and one holiday in Denmark, I never left the UK. However we saw an awful lot of the UK from St Agnes in the Scillies to Unst in Shetland. Very few areas of the British Isles are unvisited.

We didn't start world-travelling until 1999 when we ventured across the sea to Ireland. Later that year we flew via Amsterdam to Los Angeles. On the visited countries map that is enough to colour in the whole of the USA from New York westwards including Alaska.

In 2001 we had our tremendous holiday of a lifetime spending a month travelling around New Zealand which puts some colour in the bottom right-hand corner. The dot representing Singapore, our only stopover in Asia barely shows up.

The following year, having had to give up driving, we took a coach holiday through Europe visiting 9 countries in 9 days. There were some highlights but, in some respects it was possibly one of our grimmest holidays. It certainly colours the map though.

It was three years before we ventured abroad again on a fabulous cruise to Ireland, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In 2006 we went quite mad (and why not?). Firstly we had a holiday in February to Tenerife, which adds Spain to the map even though we've never seen its mainland. June saw us on our second cruise, this time to the Baltics. Although we only visit St. Petersburg, the map covers in the whole of Russia all the way to Siberia! Finally at the end of September we went to Crete, which adds Greece to the map even though we've never seen its mainland.

Our only holiday this year was a week in Southport. We have enjoyed a few day-trips to various places. The likelihood is that we won't be doing very much physical travelling in the future except for short journeys. Any regrets? Absolutely none. I travel Around the World everyday without leaving home.

Cluster Map 2007

ClustrMaps have just archived my map for last year so I've taken a copy. I put a clustrmap on my blog, not so much as to count the number of visitors but because I'm quite fascinated by maps.

If you are similarly fascinated by maps of all kinds I recommend a visit to Stange Maps.