Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

I wonder how many of us wander around a town without ever really looking at the buildings? We look in shop windows, perhaps notice if the door is easy to open or not, but do we ever bother with the skyline? With the shapes of the roofs, the style of the windows or even what the buildings were made of? Try it. Look up and see what is under the eaves. If you look closely, you might even spot a few grotesques or even a gargoyle glaring down at you. What’s the difference? Well, the terms tend to be used interchangeably these days, but technically a gargoyle is a grotesque, but a grotesque is not necessarily a gargoyle. From Ely Cathedral Grotesques were named after the strange heads found in the underground or buried ruins of Roman buildings known as Grottes. They often are in the form of animals, real or imaginary, such as lion heads or dragons. Others show human heads, such as monks, or possibly to honour the person paying for the building, though many seem to have a very different pu...

 This may not be quite up to Keat's view of Autumn, but I hope it evokes a positive feeling as we head towards winter and whatever that may bring us.  “ It serves no useful purpose now,” he told them. “ Once it marked a boundary, built in local stone, the easiest to hand, stretching out across the land, showing how man divided up his world. But now, it serves no useful purpose.” Fallen into disrepair: decayed, dishevelled, ivy creeping over the coppice stones. And briars, bowed with luscious fruits bursting in the autumn sun, or ripped apart by urgent beaks. Blackbird whistles a warning to the world, alerting all, freezing the moment. Scarlet rose hips glisten, polished bags bulging,  spilling the last pieces onto the dark earth, and a mouse scurries to snatch the bounty into the safe haven of the crumbling courses. The people move on, picking their way over sharp, white stones fresh laid on the worn-out car park. They scurry to the tea ...