Tessera

Claire Boardman @claireboardman.bsky.social · last wk.

Now the mint is in flower, the garden seems more full of life than ever. Bees and butterflies and hoverflies give way in the evenings to moths that bat at my face as I continue the seemingly endless cycle of watering.

A bee sitting on the fuzzy flowers of apple mint

Heritage Tourism/Sustainable Development: Work by colleagues @goodorgcic.bsky.social. "Capabilities are the opportunities people have available [& what therefore can] ultimately achieve. The distinction may appear subtle, but it transforms the way we evaluate success." tinyurl.com/2z2ynmmj

Insight to What Are We Really Measuring? Rethinking Success in Tourism

We’ve become exceptionally good at measuring the economic value, but remarkably poor at measuring what tourism actually does for the people who live in the places that visitors come to experience.

outsideinfluence.co.uk

The screech of a buzzard, the trill of a wren. A field full of grasshoppers then a woody copse marked on the map as Purgatory, a place of transition. Light into shade, hot into cool. On to Swift’s Hill, the grass almost sand-like, butterflies with every step. I sit for a while.

Path through a grassy field, with trees in the background. The grasses are green and brown and purple. The sky is bright blue with a hint of cloud.

A path through a patch of woodland. There are leaves on the ground and dense vegetation

A path along the side of Swift’s Hill, a steep slope covered in grasses with trees at the bottom and, in the distance, the edge of Stroud

View from Swift’s Hill over fields and woodland. There are a scattering of buildings in the foreground and, in the background, the edges of Stroud

A mouse chattering in the hedgerow, great cracks in the dry ground, fluffy thistles in the verges, golden clouds reflected in farmyard windows. A walk I’ve done countless times, always full of surprises.

River with dense vegetation on both banks, photographed from the middle of a bridge and with golden clouds in the background

Golden clouds reflected in a partially open window. The building is constructed of large pieces of stone

Purple thistles, some with fluffy seed heads, and tall grasses on a roadside verge

Overhead power lines in a field beside a river at dusk

Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 2w ago

My preferred way of reaching the Severn now is to follow the route of the Pill, once busy with ships connecting Berkeley to the world, squeezing down a path at the side of an industrial unit that gives way to a field full of butterflies and, occasionally, llamas. Ancient and modern, water and land.

Wide grassy path with ploughed field to one side and Berkeley Pill to the other on a summer’s day with some clouds in the sky

The wide River Severn, with Oldbury Power Station and the Severn Bridge in the distance

Close up on thistles growing on the banks of the River Severn. A bee can be seen on one flower.

Blackberries, some very ripe, growing in a hedgerow

Nice try, National Trust. I'm not falling for that again.

A yellow wooden box on a lawn with a sign on the outside that reads: crawl inside to spot creatures in the grass.

Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 2w ago

What if a village street name is the last clue to Freeland's hidden fighting past? Seven minutes of research from me, with Liz Green, for BBC Radio Oxford! Come for Wally Turner's accent, stay for me trying to say ANYTHING after four coffees in Chelmsford 'spoons: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Secret Oxfordshire - Wrestling on the Wroslyn Road - BBC Sounds

What if one village street name is the last clue to Freeland's hidden fighting past?

bbc.co.uk

A familiar walk to round off the day.

A single tree stands alone in a field, lit from behind by the setting sun. To the edge of the field is a dense clump of trees.

A river in evening light with trees on each of its banks

Several sunflowers silhouetted against an evening sky with a thin band of cloud

Skulls and Sheets @skullsandsheets.bsky.social · 2w ago

Built for people long forgotten, now called Hetty Pegler’s Tump remembering a seventeenth century landowning woman, and, judging by the flickering candle in the heart of the chamber and the rich smell of incense in the air, still very much a place of gathering and commemoration five millennia later.

Uley Long Barrow, a mound on the edge of a field with trees behind and a path leading to stones in the centre

Common knapweed in the foreground with the stone marking the entrance to the burial chamber just visible behind tall grass

Entrance to the burial chamber, lined with stones and with a gravel floor. At the back someone has lit a candle

Look at these wonderful chappies

Walk through the gate and you might just step off the edge of the world.

View from Coaley Peak. A gate and fence in the foreground with views stretching far over the vale below to the River Severn and beyond.

Charles Louis Richter@richterscale.bsky.social · 2w ago

Curious if vaccinating against smallpox using dried scabs was a primarily American way of doing things? Jenner preferred to use the fluid from pustules (dried for storage and transportation) and I've not come across accounts of anyone doing any different in the UK. Also, best not sniff the objects.

When my wife was cataloging the NMAH medical collection, she came across this little gold compact filled with a waxy substance, and no documentation. As with so many unknown objects, she gave it a sniff to see if it had an identifiable odor. Then she realized what it was.

Jon Pountney @jonpountney1.bsky.social · 2w ago

In the shadow of the last Blast Furnaces in Port Talbot, knapweed covered with beautiful burnet moths yesterday

Sophie Hall @sophlouisehall.bsky.social · 2w ago

Finally, someone asking the important questions

YouGov poll asking if you think you could throw a baguette further than a naan bread

Ada Palmer@adapalmer.bsky.social · 2w ago

Those of you who know me from my previous job will remember that finding uncatalogued smallpox scabs in the collections store was a constant fear of mine.

Historian friend was reading a civil war era letter in an archive, the letter said “In this envelope I include my smallpox scabs” and sure enough there they were. Had to call CDC for a hazmat team.

Jon Pountney @jonpountney1.bsky.social · 2w ago

A quick visit to the very sci-fi Stones of Margam 📡🛸. An Eisteddfod stone circle with Port Talbot Steelworks in the distance. Yes, I know my glasses are broken

Emily Rowe @emilyrowe1.bsky.social · 2w ago

Obsessed with these early modern memento mori woodcuts specifically for printers. Leave setting thy page, spent is thine age! 💀

High summer at the community orchard. Birds and bees and butterflies. Rustling in the long grass. Apples and pears rapidly maturing: verdant and crimson and russet. And plums! Their greens giving way to a dusty, matt purple. The promise of a shared harvest to come.

Red-green pears on the branch of a tree with very dry grass in the background

Gatekeeper butterfly with brown underwing and orange upperwing with a black spot resting on common knapweed in a patch of wildflowers

A bumblebee rests on loosestrife, whilst another flies through the air

A trip across the Severn today. Tretower with its rugged castle and the fields so, so dry. Then on to Brecon for Peregrine’s Circus. “My inner child is so excited”, said a grandfather nearby who sat wide-eyed throughout the show. Enchanting, moving and exhilarating all at once. It was a triumph.

Circular stone tower surrounded by dry grass on a summer day

Decorated medieval great hall. There are three tables set for a meal, one at right angles to the other and set on a platform. There is a colourful mural behind it.

Sign outside a circus box office advertising the show, “Belly of the Whale”, and that the box office is open one hour before each show

Inside of a circus tent with painted backdrop on stage, including waves. There is space for a band, with a number of instruments.

The garden seems to be doing ok, despite the heatwave and my inattention. The first three courgettes are picked and going into pasta tonight with some chilli, garlic and Parmesan. And the tomatoes are starting to ripen!

Three courgettes on a plate with a stripy design

Cherry tomatoes on the vine, mostly green but two orange and one red

I shall!

Instructions from a flat pack furniture manual, the English translation of which is given as “remember to tighten all the eccentric houses!”

In his 1798 Inquiry, where he set out his research on what would later become known as vaccination, Edward Jenner noted that 20 years earlier "the smallpox prevailed very much at Berkeley", his home town in rural Gloucestershire. The church records for that year tell the full story…

Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 3w ago

Heads up charities, community groups and small businesses in Gloucestershire looking for event posters. The lovely folks at Good News Gloucestershire will design one for £7.50 if you can’t afford to pay a graphic designer. Get in touch with them via their socials or goodnewsgloucestershire@gmail.com

If you're in the UK, you can now get SIGNED DEDICATED copies of SLEUTH-HOUND - about Joseph Bell, the "real Sherlock Holmes" - from @foxlanebooks.bsky.social! This is the only place offering personalized dedications, and it's a great way to support an indie bookshop: shorturl.at/IU6yN

A screenshot of Lindsey's book, with a bold black and red cover featuring fingerprints and a poison bottle.