The Dead Centre of my Bike Ride



I am trying to regularly exercise and today I decided to go out on my bike. I didn't want a set route, but the opportunity to explore, cruising the roads and lanes around where I live. I love to take in the surrounding countryside, notice the wildlife, gawp at the houses and cottages...it is a great way of finding out more about the area around me plus I am just generally nosey!

Today, I passed by a church. Well I didn't pass by, as I decided to stop and photograph it (see attached photo). It was a warm afternoon, I was glad of a chance to pause, and was quite taken by the numerous headstones surrounding the wee place. Infact, I was tempted to go in and wander round but as the gate was shut and we are in the middle of a pandemic, I erred on the side of caution.

I quite like a good cemetery to explore. On a girls weekend in Warsaw, not realising how big the cemetery was, we nearly got shut in at the end of the day! Last year, I spent ages wandering round the beautiful grave stones in Samarkand (I was only on a short cut through to the town!), and in Pune I visited the local cemetery, reading the inscriptions of folk buried far from home, as research for my talk on the Raj. There is so much that you see in a cemetery. I am fascinated that Jewish headstones often contain piles of stones, a physical way to honour the deceased (a 'mitzvah'). In Mexico, for day of the dead, the cemetery becomes a hive of activity  with mariachi bands, and family picnics on the highly decorated graves. On a visit to Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin, I joined a tour in the graveyard to find out more about those connected with the 1916 Easter Rising. Fascinating stuff.

But, of course, cemeteries can be great cross-curricular resources for schools and universities. 'Dead Good Maths' from a resource produced by one UK cemetery, encourages students to study the ages on the headstones. Whether geography or poetry, they are fabulous places to make subjects more interesting, and find out about people from the past. Which was why I really wanted to explore the graveyard round Kirklinton Church. Those headstones looked like that had some brilliant stories to tell. I'll definately go back to read those inscriptions, and find out who lies beneath the soil around that little place of workship...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adaptable Bunnies!

Image
The Adaptable Knitted Rabbit Trail... As a Military Museum, we are not normally associated with these cottontail creatures. Especially the knitted variety. But what we do pride ourselves in is engaging with our visitors. And at this time of year our woolly friends like to make an appearance for our younger audience. Our original Easter holiday activity was a quiz and trail around the Museum but we soon found that our younger visitors over the holidays tended to be under ten years old, with many even younger. So our trail was not suitable. What the youngsters really wanted to do was something a little bit more basic.  Welcome to our annual Easter trail. The wee bunnies were created by my mum (thanks mum! x) after we decided that looking for things for a younger audience would be fun. We first trialled the idea, and it proved to be an immediate success. Plus the 12 little rabbits could easily slip into our display cases and the trail can be changed each year to offer ...
Read more

The Return of the Rabbits

Image
It doesn't seem five minutes since our knitted friends made an appearance on one of my blog posts. But then in April last year who would have thought that we would be in a lockdown 12 months later?   Our wee bunnies have once again become the theme of our social media over the Easter weekend. A little bit of fun both for staff and our virtual audience.  Several weeks ago we realised that we were in the same position as last year and would not be able to host an Easter trail for visitors in the Museum. However, last year we realised just before lockdown1, managed to photograph rabbits and put together a family-friendly trail before we retreated to our own homes. This year, it was not so easy and photographing the rabbits had to be undertaken during a weekly check of the Museum. So thanks to Angela who took on the challenge of photographing the bunnies round the gallery and then came up with the 'Elf on the Shelf' idea, pulling together a week of cheeky bunny posts. Working...
Read more

Put on those Rubber Gloves...

Image
We have now been open a week and all the staff are getting used to a new way of operating. All our visitors have been great, understanding the introduction of social distancing and the one-way system around the Museum. Our interactives are currently out of use, there is no children's trail at the reception desk and bottles of hand sanitiser are evident. But it is good to get the Museum back open. Even though my focus has now changed. Yes, my days are filled with cleaning. I don my gloves, pick up the cleaning bucket and head down to the gallery to polish the door handles and wipe hard surfaces with anti-bacteria spray. Although today I seem to have spent most of my time cleaning the toilets. I noticed that my purple signature was working its way down the checksheet as I wiped down the sink and the taps. Note to self - must remember the cloths are pink for sink and blue for loo. We are hitting the toilet cleaner hard so need to purchase a few more bottles next week. Floor cleaned, s...
Read more