Rosalind Ahmed

@21rosa

Museums, galleries, medieval and Irish literature, folklore, poetry, botany, Cumbrian walks, Oxfam bookstores. Remainer trying to do the right thing in a world that's going/gone off balance. All 📸 mine, unless stated

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Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 20d

On Wednesdays We Wear Black

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 20d

"Idleness for me is not a giving up on life but a spirited grabbing hold of it" Tom Hodgkinson, founder of contemporary magazine 'The Idler' and advocate of hammock days 🎨 The art of dandified idling #WyrdWednesday

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 20d

According to Welsh tradition, "Whoever sleeps on Snowdon will awake either a poet or a madman". A couple of hundred years ago, two minstrels, Huwcyn Siôn y Canu & Huw Belisa, tested this out. On waking, one was "inspired by the celestial muse, the other quite bereaved of his senses" #WyrdWednesday

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 21d

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekCforCurves on the New Brighton Beach Promenade, Wallasey

the longest promenade in the country on the northern tip of the Wirral peninsula in Merseyside 📸 October 2024

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 21d

Am too idle to tell #WyrdWednesday an entire tale; instead, here's the pith: "Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre" Camus 'A Happy Death' (written between 1936–1938)

Albert Camus, René Lehmann, Emile Leon & Michel Gallimard on a boat, mainly wearing shapeless tan apparel & smoking tabs (the photo is of its time). All look appropriately idle

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 22d

A sad day for the north east 🖤🤍 RIP Kevin Keegan, pictured in the mural with fellow footballing icon, Bobby Robson. Standing proud near the gates of St James' Park & sponsored by @newcastleunited.com 'Wor Peter' marks 40 years of St Oswald's Hospice providing support to patients and loved ones

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 23d

'Two Owls at Sunset' (c. 1860) is attributed to an artist who went by the pseudonym 'Didymus' meaning double or twin. The pairing of the owls and the branches suggests reflection and relationship #OwlishMonday

A pair of owls under a crescent moon. The landscape is backlit by orange and yellow tones

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 25d

#BlueSkyArtShow compact clusters of ash pollen #growing in spring #EastCoastKin

Awaiting wind dispersal against a blue sky and white clouds on an April afternoon

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 25d

GR post box built into The Steamboat real ale and rum pub in South Shields. Built in 1850, it expanded to encompass the old post office in 1941 #PostBoxSaturday

The cypher indicates that this post box hailed from 1910-1936

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 25d

Some of the design notes for this year's production were on display in the Bar Convent heritage centre. Such skill and imagination went into the pageantry

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 25d

"That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society" 'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby' Charles Dickens (1839) 📸 Lewis W. Hine child labourers (early 20th century) #BookWormSat

Hine's documentary photography and investigative journalism often endangered his own safety. He supported the end of child labour in the US and used his work to evidence its obscenity; those with vested interests whose own curled darlings wanted for nothing, at least not in public, were not impressed.

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 25d

Hollyhock this afternoon #FridayFlowers #BloomScrolling #EastCoastKin

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· 26d

Each shrouded, howling ghost is doomed to bear a writhing flame: this is its own soul. Failure to overcome the Fortress of Fear in life has trapped these phantoms in the Land of Illusion for eternity 🎨 Daisy Makeig-Jones 'Ghostly Wood' inspired by the 'Legend of Croquemitaine' #PhantomsFriday

The French 'Legend of Croquemitaine' was written by Ernest Louis Victor Jules L’Epine and illustrated by Gustave Doré in 1866. Inspired by the tale and various artists' depictions of it, Daisy Makeig-Jones designed this bowl as part of Wedgwood’s Fairyland Lustre collection, which was in production from 1915-1929.

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 12

Sea rocket or cakile maritima - cakile from its Arabic name + Latin maritimus of, or from, the sea. Coastal currents carry sea rocket around our shores. #AquaticPlants on Spittal beach, Tweedmouth yesterday #wildflowerhour

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 11

GR pillar box in the coastal town of Spittal #PostBoxSaturday @folkloresociety.bsky.social

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 11

#BlueSkyArtShow Saturday July 11, 2026 The #Quiet of an early summer evening in Sedbergh

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 11

"The meadow was on a level with Jacob's eyes as he lay back; gilt with buttercups, but the grass did not run like the thin green water of the graveyard grass about to overflow the tombstones, but stood juicy and thick" 'Jacob’s Room' Virginia Woolf 📸 mine Sunday 24 May, 2026 #BookWormSat

Buttercup glows in long grass. Evening sunlight in Elsdon, Northumberland

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 11

flowering gorse bush leaning over towards the sea as if its growth were towards completion of yellow in blue Thomas A. Clark (2014) 🎨 Peregrine Mulvogue Feeney (c.1885) #BookWormSat

✍🏻 Thomas A. Clark 'flowering gorse bush' from the collection 'Yellow & Blue': two primary colours that are the basis of 2/3rds of the colour of earth's surface. In 1973, Clark co-founded Moschatel Press, named after the plant Adoxa moschatellina or Town Hall Clock. 🎨 Peregrine Mulvogue Feeney (1837-1913) was a Birmingham painter and bookseller, and author of a poetry collection. He was brother-in-law of painter John William Waterhouse, the Pre-Raphaelite artist. Known mainly for his coastal and scenic art, he was one of the circle of Birmingham painters attracted to the light and landscape of Cornwall. This oil painting 'Baggy Point, Devon (Landscape, Sark)' is undated. It depicts a clifftop path lined by yellow gorse bushes reaching to the blue sea

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 7

Under a Resolution of the House of Commons of 2 March 1624, Members of Parliament cannot directly resign their seat. But there are other ways it can be vacated. See this Parliamentry briefing p. 14, section 4.6 entitled 'Imprisonment and Treason'. Just saying. #Farage

House of Commons library. Briefing Paper Number 06395, 11 September 2019.
Readily available online

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 7

Not so much #ThickTrunkTuesday as Thick Trunkses! Multi trunked tree in an ancient northern woodland

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 7

#WeekAforAbandoned Seems like its residents have vacated this churchyard vault #AlphabetChallenge

An early nineteenth century mausoleum with its door hanging off. It has moss covered stone slabs (presumably from other old graves) in front of it to deter entry - and exit 😱
📸 March 2022

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 6

A magnificent headpiece for #OwlishMonday It was created for an 1890 Crystal Palace Christmas eve panto. "Oh no, it wasn't!" "Oh yes, it was!" The designer Wilhelm was famous for spectacular costumes including this owl headdress, crescent moon staff, necklace of stars & shimmering golden-blue robe

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 4

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, & by the time it is printed & bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again #BookWormSat

✍🏻 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' C.S. Lewis (1949/50) 🎨 by the original Narnia illustrator, Pauline Baynes. This edition published by Harper Collins June 16, 2026. A little girl with dark hair wearing a blue dress has linked arms with a faun carrying a snow capped umbrella to shelter them as they walk through a wintery woodland towards the glow of a cast iron lamppost

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 1

On Wednesdays We Wear Black 🖤

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jul 1

Impossible to miss the six stone circles atop the peat-rich wilds of Machrie Moor, but what lies buried beneath? Yesterday archaeologists revealed that a seventh circle lies under the surface. Under the surface: that dark and secret place where all that is wyrd smoulders ... #WyrdWednesday

🎨 William Andrews Nesfield 'Circle of stones near Tormore, Isle of Arran' (detail). This early 19th century watercolour shows the three remaining standing stones of Stone Circle 2 (there were originally 7 or 8 stones in this circle).
Geophysics survey reveals new ancient circle at Machrie Moor https://share.google/CyyIA4M6seib4lvXN

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jun 30

A tree trunk's mossy blanket traps moisture and provides protection from harsh sunlight enabling sorrel to thrive in ancient woodland #ThickTrunkTuesday #EastCoastKin @bsbibotany.bsky.social

📸 taken in spring. The wood sorrel has a chance to absorb nutrients relatively early in the growing season thus stealing a march on competitors!

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jun 29

Athena with an Owl c. 450 BC. Athena's ancient epithet Glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις) translates to "bright-eyed" or "owl-eyed" representing her ability to see into any situation with clarity and insight #OwlishMonday

The "little owl" (Athene noctua) sits on Athena's outstretched palm; goddess and bird gaze upon each other. Bronze statue on a wooden plinth

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jun 28

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekYforYonder #StunDay View across the valley onto ancient volcanic hills #Northumberland #EastCoastKin

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jun 27

Wyrdly cool things happening in the Biddick Arts Centre, Washington (no, not that one) tonight @wyrdwednesday.bsky.social

Rosalind Ahmed@21rosa· Jun 27

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” 'The Use of Life' John Lubbock 🎨 'Galatée' (detail) Jean-François Jalabert #BookWormSat