Entries tagged "moss and lichen growth"
2012-12-03
It is that time of year when nature likes to get out her frost compasses for us to admire.
I took this photo last Friday in the middle of the day.
We are looking due west.
The southern sun has thawed the areas it can get to, but unlike other suns, it cannot refresh the parts it cannot reach. (My apologies, I think a retro marketing slogan tried to creep in there.)
The frost shadow on the sand itself is quite straightforward, but the shadows and frost on the logs are more interesting, particularly when…
2011-02-28
I thought you might enjoy this picture I took a week ago of lichen and moss growing on a disused fountain in a garden in the south of France. Nature doesn't make compasses much easier to read, but just in case you're experiencing a moment of doubt: the photo is taken looking from the south side of the fountain looking towards the north.
2010-07-06
Churches are well worth a minute of navigational inquiry. The church itself is likely to show a preference for an east-west alignment, with the altar at the eastern end. But the fact that they are often old buildings that have been left exposed to the elements for long periods, without incessant redecorating or even cleaning, yields other interesting clues in the form of lichens, algae and mosses.Gravestones tend also to be aligned east-west also, so that the dead are ready when 'the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised'. Any exposed stone that faces east or west will…
2009-02-17
The Gooley family spent Sunday afternoon mucking about at Stonehenge and then heating baked beans and pasta on the VW campervan stove. A modern, but not very, ceremony that paid homage to some ancient rituals.I was perhaps the only tourist walking around the perimeter who was taking note of the varying moss and lichen growth as I worked my way round the stones from the north side through west, south, east and back. It wasn't the subtle shifts in colour that held my thoughts though.There is…
