The Discovery of Birds
Apr. 23rd, 2025 04:08 pmToday we elebrate Shakespeare's birthday: last Thursday was mine. We went out to lunch, meeting our friends A. and D. at the Rose & Crown in Romaldkirk. This was a treat: a long-overdue get together with people we don't see often enough. But it didn't feel like a birthday treat, exactly: agreeing to meet on my birthday felt like getting one treat for the price of two. After I did a certain amount of grumbling about this, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
durham_rambler agreed to go out again the following day, to visit Ushaw: it isn't far, we have season tickets and he had already pointed out that their current exhibition sounded interesting: it is called The Discovery of Birds, and features relevant books from their library.
The welcoming display boards showed images from a nineteenth century History of British Birds: the birds were in fact identified, but in such small print that I didn't spot it untildurham_rambler pointed it out, and was rather smug about identifying this very gaudy starling (it reminded me of a weaver I met once in Shetland, who took a similar inspiration from these not-obviously-colourful birds). After a short stroll in the gardens (the rhododendrons are just getting started: we should go back in a couple of weeks), we went inside.
( Inside... )
We called in at the second-hand bookshop, but didn't buy anything; we lunched on soup and sandwiches at the café; and I went home well-satisfied with my day out. I'm not hard to please.
durham_rambler agreed to go out again the following day, to visit Ushaw: it isn't far, we have season tickets and he had already pointed out that their current exhibition sounded interesting: it is called The Discovery of Birds, and features relevant books from their library.The welcoming display boards showed images from a nineteenth century History of British Birds: the birds were in fact identified, but in such small print that I didn't spot it until
durham_rambler pointed it out, and was rather smug about identifying this very gaudy starling (it reminded me of a weaver I met once in Shetland, who took a similar inspiration from these not-obviously-colourful birds). After a short stroll in the gardens (the rhododendrons are just getting started: we should go back in a couple of weeks), we went inside.( Inside... )
We called in at the second-hand bookshop, but didn't buy anything; we lunched on soup and sandwiches at the café; and I went home well-satisfied with my day out. I'm not hard to please.
