Author Archives: carolinemmurray

The Botanic Gardens Again ..

Posted on 02/11/2024 by carolinemmurray

I am cheating, by using a lot of photographs, as my brain is still too full of mush to write coherently, but Cambridge University Botanic Garden Alpine House is now (as always at this time of year and in spring) … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Lord Samuel’s Bequest

Posted on 19/08/2024 by carolinemmurray

It is far too long since I last managed to complete a blog. I continue to be permanently exhausted, and my brain is mush – so much so that when I wanted to add an updating link to my 2020 … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Belgium, Museums and Galleries, The Netherlands, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

The Eight Wonders of the World

Posted on 02/06/2024 by carolinemmurray

(NB: This is a blog which I posted in 2020 and managed to delete while I was trying update it today … another example of my current and continuing brain fog.) One of the many ways in which my day … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Uses of Quercus suber

Posted on 08/01/2024 by carolinemmurray

I’ve been trying to remember when the first screw-top caps for wine bottles came in. First there were rigid plastic ‘corks’, and then aluminium screw-caps – sometimes even for wines which in our rather lowly circle might be described as … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, Natural history, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Plant of the Month: October 2023

Posted on 18/10/2023 by carolinemmurray

One of the plants continuing to flower in this most unusual October weather has been Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, or the hardy plumbago plant. It is native to western China, and seems to have been discovered on an expedition by the Russian … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

St Thomas’s Onions

Posted on 11/10/2023 by carolinemmurray

Part of my early morning routine (assuming I have the time to do anything except swallow my medication and dash out of the house) is to read the daily blog of the great and good Gentle Author: https://spitalfieldslife.com/. He posts … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Plant of the Month, July 2023

Posted on 12/07/2023 by carolinemmurray

it is almost exactly a year since I last did a ‘Plant of the Month’ post, so I thought I had better get back into that particular delightful harness. In @CUBotanicGarden the other day, I was admiring the way in … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, History, Natural history | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Knossos after Fifty Years

Posted on 07/07/2023 by carolinemmurray

No, we haven’t been to Crete after all our other recent jollies, merely (sic) to Oxford, to see the Ashmolean exhibition ‘Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality’. I have mentioned a few times recently the problem that I am having with … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Biography, Classics, Greece, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Art and Algology

Posted on 22/06/2023 by carolinemmurray

A bit more about how everything is in fact connected to everything else … I first came across Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (née Watkins: 1804–89) early in 2016, when I was trying to find out about Armenian bole, and regretted that … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Botany, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | 2 Comments

Sant’ Apollinare

Posted on 09/06/2023 by carolinemmurray

Winding back a bit from our recent trip to the Netherlands, we had the great good fortune to spend ten days in Italy at the end of April, of which three were in Ravenna before going up to Venice by … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Biography, History, Italy, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments