Local Interest.

[motodraconis]

Inspired by rodia's pictures. I have finally got round to hitting back with a few pics of my local area, which may or may not be of interest. (I'm a bit crap with cameras.)Perhaps anyone reading this would care to hit back with pics of their own local area? I'd be intrigued to see 'em.
I've also submitted a picture from my locality to Ugly Wood Art and await to see if my offering passes the test. (That is, of being Ugly, Wooden, etc.)





The lovely Jubilee Bridge and Widnes Power Station, viewed across the Mersey. (Actually, I'm not being sarcastic about the bridge for once, I genuinely think it's cool, though it probably looks better close up.)


Another delightful picturesque view across the Mersey, this time of lovely Runcorn.


Mersey Mud Saves Lives apparently.


Here's a shot of the aforementioned lifesaving muck.


No hang on, maybe this mud is more dangerous than previously intimated, I mean, we're talking a scarey cliff-drop that can reach a metre in height! With a terrifying landing on soft mud. (Ah! Perhaps that's how Mersey Mud saves lives.)


Local ugly crumbling pile.


Sickeningly cute motif of the British countryside, even in Liverpool, there's no refuge from oldy worldy chocolate box cottages.

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Well, I admit this is a more cutsey villagey part of Liverpool. I was more central when I lived in the Green Room, but I had to move out as the gun waving incident outside my window, the various shootings and the skinhead neighbour threatening to beat me up cos I'd had to park my car a with a few inches of it encroaching on "his" road space was starting to freak me out a trifle.
Soft Southerner that I am.

eeeeerie

[wikkid-beast.livejournal.com]

strangely enough, the view from my place is oddly similar to that of your first pic. i'll post one soon as i can.

Re: eeeeerie

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Cool! I look forward to seeing it, does it come complete with slimey life-saving mud too?
(I did read the blurb under the sign, but they never did explain their grand claim of the powers of Mersey mud.)

Re: eeeeerie

[wikkid-beast.livejournal.com]

there is gross mud, you just can't see it all the time. I posted some pics in my journal. the bridge seems farther in the pic than it is in real life. some kitty pics too, just for kicks.

[spodlife]

Funny, I did a photo shoot just like this back in April. I live in a very rural area! I would like to live nearer the sea though :-)

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Nice pics especially the one with the beautiful suspension bridge. Hope you get a chance to drive, or better still walk, across that at sunset. Or at night when it's all lit up. I find big industrial landscapes quite exciting - here it's mills in the Lancs direction, wind farms in t'Dales - over your way it's power stations and that huge, unstoppable river.

The saved lives are avian ones, judging from that info board. Estuary mudflats are a threatened habitat that birds rely on. So do lots of invertebrates. If there are any salt marshes you might like to look for glasswort, a weird-looking edible plant (you cook it like asparagus and eat it by running each stem between your teeth, stripping off the soft part and leaving the fibrous core - it's tasty) but salt marshes are a threatened habitat too, so it would be quite antisocial to pick more than a tiny sample of the glasswort.

In case this post isn't preachy enough already, I can't resist recommending the books of Helen Forrester which are nearly all set in Liverpool, and which I find wonderfully evocative. There's a series about her poverty-stricken childhood: Tuppence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, Lime Street at Two, and another whose title I forget. Also several novels including Three Women of Liverpool and Yes, Mama.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Considering the amount of rubbish, (including what looked like toxic waste cannisters,) I saw piled up on the the banks, not to mention all the industrial works, I'm not sure I'd want to be eating anything growing out of the banks of the Mersey. There are larks in the fields, but apart from the odd sickly gull feeding on waste matter, birdlife was pretty minimal.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

It does look calm and rural, rolling downs, pretty flowers, butterflies, then AAARGH! Scarey metal head!
Wasn't expecting that. :-)

[spodlife]

The scarey metal head would probably qualify for Ugle Wood Art, if it was made of wood! It took us by surprise too.