Post Comment Love 4-6 March

Welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’re here.

I hope you’re all doing well, the world news is continuing to throw me, and I know I’m not the only one. Colleagues have spoken of their guilt about carrying on as normal and others on how their mind wanders to scenarios none of us hope materialise, and it’s easy to understand the feelings. Our world is so inter-connected now that it’s almost impossible for us to not have some sort of connection to the people there. I’ve needed to pull myself away from the news at times, and with a couple of days off earlier in the week I decided to start an early spring clean.

It wasn’t long before I really wondered what I’d started, but by that time it was too late to stop and go backwards - and I found myself, as you do, in more mess than when I started. Most of this pile of board games and puzzles, which I’ve had for many years will be finding their way to an online selling site, but only once I’ve found more energy for the next step of photographing, documenting, and making it actually happen.

A stack of board games and puzzles on a wooden floor

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

How tall is a Liver Bird?

Well, I suspect that is a question you weren’t expecting, and I’m not sure it was the first thing on my mind when we visited the Royal Liver Bird 360 attraction on our visit to Liverpool a few years back. But it is a really good question, and one that crosses your mind the closer you get to them. And if you’re curious, it’s 18 foot - with a wingspan of 24 foot. To put that into perspective a double decker bus is 14 ft 4” - so quite big, is a good answer.

But before we get to that, the building is pretty spectacular, and architecturally important. It’s perfectly symmetrical with entrances on all four sides, and its pioneering use of reinforced concrete earns it its place in architectural studies, but it’s also pretty special to look at. It cost £621,000 to build which is estimated to be the equivalent of around 58 million today.

Looking up at the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool

And know you know how tall a Liver Bird is, do you know their names?

These questions, all perfectly reasonable when you stop and think, are coming thick and fast now aren’t they? I suspect more of you might know the answer to this one, but they’re called Bella and Bertie. The legend is that they face away from each other as if they were to ever to mate and fly away the city would cease to exist. There’s another story though, and that’s that Bella looks out to sea watching for returning seamen, while Bertie looks inward into the city making sure the pubs are open.

A model of the liver birds

We started in the basement, and up we went. Firstly by a lift, then some stairs - stopping part way up to take in the views and see where we were heading next, and walking through an industrial part of the building which had a ship-like feel - not altogether surprising for a port city.

pipes over a window giving an industrial feel
clocks and dials and fuse board boxes on a wall

We were taken outside for a look at how far we’d got, and to look at the clocks. There’s four on the towers, pointing in the four cardinal directions. The clocks were started on 22 June 1911 at 1.40pm - the precise time George V was crowned, and became known as the Great George Liver Clocks.

Each of the clock faces are all 25ft in diameter, which is larger than that of Big Ben so they’re also the largest electronically driven clocks in the UK.

Getting a closer look up at the clocks - but still not at the top

Back inside, there was time for some arty-farty shots - but it also shows how the building decor changed now that we’re in more public areas.

looking upwards to a staircase painted white with black railings
a closer look at the underneath of the stairs above

And still we went up, and boy was it worth it.

At the top, outside looking across to one of the Liver Birds - Bertie - he's looking into land
looking through the structure of the building
Looking at views across the city
looking over the mersey

The views - all round - are amazing, and when you reach the top you realise why this is named the 360 experience, it really is. And despite the glorious weather for our visit on a sunny July day - it’s a windy experience too, but totally worth it.

MOH and I standing in short-sleeved tops with a liver bird in the background
I was featured on Blogger Showcase

The Garden Year: March 2022

Hello there and welcome back to my garden linky, which opens at the start of each month and stays open for the whole month - meaning you can link up at any time. You’re welcome to link any posts that have a garden theme - this could be your garden, the plants you’re growing or the gardens you visit, or anything in between - just so long as it’s related to gardening.

Plants in their prime this month

  • Deep coral pink Japanese quince flowers

  • Daffodils

  • Camellias

  • Forsythia

What to do in the garden this month

  • Prune bush and climbing roses

  • Plant shallots, onion sets and early potatoes

  • Cut back Dogwood and Willow grown for colourful stems

  • Hoe and mulch weeds to help get them under control early

pale yellow daffodils
“TheGardenYear

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter