Speaking Machines, Mechanical Birds, and Evolution!

A spectacular view of Lichfield Cathedral
from a window at Erasmus Darwin House -
imagine enjoying that view ever day!

A couple of weeks back  my Younger Daughter popped home on a flying visit, so on the Friday morning we decided we wanted to go out, but we’re both a bit short of cash at the moment, so it had to be somewhere near, easy to get to, and cheap - plus it had to be an ‘inside place’ because it was pouring with rain! Erasmus Darwin’s House, at Lichfield, fitted the bill on all counts, and we had a lovely time learning about the man who was Charles Darwin’s grandfather, followed by tea and cake in one of the city’s cafes (home-made strawberry cheesecake and tea in a china pot – Lichfield is very civilised like that!). 

Afternoon Tea then (above) and now (below). Things
haven't changed that much, but in Erasmus Darwin's
time tea was very expensive - if you look carefully you
can see a metal caddy, where tea was locked away.

And, since people outside Lichfield never seem to have heard of Erasmus, I thought I’d share some photos on Saturday Snapshot, because he’s a fascinating character who really does deserve a wider audience. And today seemed a good time, because Thursday (December 12) was the anniversary of his birth in 1731, and there are all sorts of activities going on there all weekend.

A portrait of Erasmus Darwin, taken off the
Erasmus Darwin Foundation website.

Erasmus was one of those 18th Century polymaths who seemed to be an expert at everything – the extent of his knowledge and expertise just takes my breath away. He was a physician (I love that word, it sounds so much better than a plain old doctor), scientist, inventor, poet and philosopher, and wrote about evolution long before his grandson got in on the act! He had great curiosity in the world around him, and observed and recorded things in a very detached and methodical way.

He was a newly qualified physician when he moved to Lichfield in 1756, aged just 25, and quickly became renowned for his ideas and skills. George III asked him to be the Royal Physician, but Erasmus turned the offer down, preferring to remain independent.

Darwin House: The posh front entrance! The white,
 ghostly shape in the top, left-hand window, is a model
of Erasmus.

He was a leading member of the Lunar Society, a group of Midlands-based friends, whose work gained them national acclaim and helped power the industrial revolution. The circle included James Watt (the steam engine man) and pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood, and the informal club (a kind of ‘think-tank’ I guess) gathered once a month, when the moon was full, so they could see their way home! And they called themselves ‘lunaticks’! Anyway, Darwin and his wife bought an old Medieval house, and he promptly embarked on an improvement scheme, enlarging it and building a stylish new frontage looking out on to Beacon Street. I believe the correct term for it is Palladian, but I always say Georgian – all symmetrical, with steps and big windows.

Steps up to the door - I'll bet it it seemed a long, steep
climb after a night out with the 'Lunatiks'.

The back part of the house remained unchanged, and is less imposing, but much nicer, and this is where the entrance used by visitors. You reach it along a little alley from The Close (the area around the Cathedral –I’ll put up some more pictures from around there another day, because it really is very beautiful, and very historic). 

This is my Daughter in the alley which runs
along the back of historic old houses and
leads to Erasmus Darwin House.

The little gardens have been planted out into areas with sweet-smelling medicinal and culinary herbs, and are absolutely glorious in the summer. On a nice day you can sit there with a good book, soaking up the sunshine and inhaling the fragrant air, and it’s absolutely idyllic.

At the moment the garden is a shadow of what it is like
in summer.

Once you’re inside the house, doesn’t seem as big as you expect (it’s the opposite of the Tardis), but I think the back bit is deceptive, because it's joined up to other buildings. When I worked in Lichfield, in the 1990s, the house was empty and terribly dilapidated, and I think most people had forgotten all about Erasmus. But a group of enthusiasts got together and campaigned, and raised money, and won Lottery finding and other grants, so everything could be put into good order. They carried out research, acquired exhibits, and finally opened to the public in 1999.  

The back door - in the window you can see
 the  reflection of one of the Cathedral spires

Now visitors can see Erasmus Darwin's parlour, his library, an inventions room, and a study and consulting room, and there is also a seminar room where it is thought the Lunar Society met, as well as an exhibition room, with a display showing how his poetry influenced Coleridge and Southey. It’s all very hands on, with videos and recordings of people trying out his inventions, reading his poems, and telling you about his life, as well as some really clear information bards. And, best of all, you can try on reproduction Georgian clothes – and play with models of some of his inventions!

A view of the upper stories at the back - from these
windows you can see the Cathedral.

My Daughter and I loved the speaking machine, which says ‘ma’ and ‘pa’ and is not a recording device, but a man-made version of a human mouth, nose, lungs and larynx! Emily, who is studying to be a speech therapist, was fascinated to see how Erasmus had observed the way sounds (and speech) are formed, and documented his findings, detailing what he learned about phonetics. The machine he made actually said 'mama' and 'papa' and, as you can imagine, it was an absolute sensation. 

 The model of a speaking machine created
by Erasmus.The bellows at the bottom
represent the lungs, and there are holes
for the mouth and nose.

He also invented a horizontal windmill (for Wedgwood's factory), a turning mechanism for coaches which is still used in vehicles today, and a copying machine - a sort of hinged, swivelling arm, fixed in the middle, with a pen at one end which wrote as a marker at the other end traced a signature. There used to be a children's plastic toy which worked along similar lines, but I don't know if it's still made.

Erasmus highlighted many of the medical, environmental
and scientific issues which are still being discussed today.

I expect that for many visitors it's the information about evolution which is most fascinating. Charles Darwin may have been credited with proving the theory of evolution by natural selection, but Erasmus published the idea some 70 years earlier (in verse!). He knew humans were descended from ape-like creatures, and traced the origins of life back through amphibians and fish to specks in primeval seas. He took the words 'E conchis omnia' (everything from shells) as his personal motto, and even had it painted on the side of his carriage - but painted it over following criticism from the Canon of the Cathedral, who denounced Darwin for blasphemy. There is a new statue of him (which I've managed to miss each time I've been up to the house) holding a shell, which references his comment, and his theories on evolutionary development.

'Erasmus Darwin' at his writing desk.

He was, apparently, a devoted family man. He and his first wife Polly had three sons who survived, Charles, Erasmus and Robert (who was the father of Charles, of evolution fame). When Polly died in 1770 he employed Mary Parker to look after the children, and had two daughters by her. Then he fell in love with Elizabeth Pole, who was married (you can listen to one of his love poems to her) and married her after the death of her husband in 1781, and had another seven children with her. However, Erasmus left Lichfield at that point because she insisted that they move to Derby.

Daughter and Friend... Emily, peering
through a window alongside a figure
of Erasmus.

His house isn’t a grand place, and it’s not all that big (if you’re in Lichfield you could easily visit Erasmus’ home and Samuel Johnson’s birthplace on the same day, and have time to mooch around in the Cathedral as well). Anyway, Erasmus is such an extraordinary man I am delighted that Lichfield celebrates his life and achievements this way, and I think the Erasmus Darwin Foundation, which runs the place, needs support, because members work so hard to preserve the building, and to ensure Erasmus is not forgotten. Their website is brilliant (I've stolen most of my information from it) and you'll find it at http://www.erasmusdarwin.org/.   

A spectacular mechanical bird designed by Erasmus.

*(Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda, at West Metro Mummy - click to follow the links to other participants).

I do like hats - especially when they're 18th century style!

Pumpkins, Spiders, Candles and Leaves!

Well, October has been and gone, the clocks have gone back, dark nights have arrived, the weather has been truly awful, and winter seems to be well on the way, so it’s a bit late for an autumnal post, but I’m doing one anyway for this week’s Saturday Snapshot. 

Table Scene for Hallowe'en.

First up is a Hallowe’en photo, taken by Elder Daughter when she and her boyfriend visited us a couple of weeks back, and I created a seasonal table centre. I crocheted pumpkins and leaves, and made pompoms,and balanced them all on this spooky spider (it’s really a cardboard cake stand – part of a Marks and Spencer donation of goods to Oxfam), and there were Hallowe’en crackers (M&S again, gifted to Oxfam – I couldn’t resist buying both items). And I dug out my little pumpkin candles (saved from last year) and bought chunky orange candle, and hey presto, we had instant table décor, with very little effort! And I know self-praise is no recommendation, but I still think it looks pretty, and I didn’t forget the food (after all, it’s the meal that’s important), so I cooked cooked nut roast, with added cranberries and pumpkin seeds, for myself, and chicken, roasted with fresh rosemary and grated lemon rind for the carnivores, who tucked into both dishes with great relish, so it’s just as well I did 
plenty of the veggie recipe!

My 'rescue' embroidery of a Woodland Cottage in
Autumn, complete with trailing threads!

Next up is an autumnal embroidery. A friend of my mother’s started doing it years ago, and gave it to mum to finish, because she felt she wasn’t up to working on it any more. Mum said her eyes weren’t good enough for cross stitch, so she gave it to me, and I’ve been working on it (on and off) over the last six months or so. It’s not quite as easy as I thought, because the lady who was stitching it worked inwards from the edges, and I continued that way, although I always find it better to start at the middle and work out. However, although the edges are now finished, the central panel is not aligning correctly, so I am following the chart as best I can, adding in compensatory stitches to fill the gaps in some places, and missing some stitches out altogether. Hopefully, because there’s a fair amount of flowers and foliage, no-one will realise there’s anything wrong!

There only seems to be a black and white image with
the instructions, but it's supposed to look like this,
and was a kit from the Craft Collection Ltd

I want to finish it because the lady who started it died recently, and she was such a nice person, and was a such a good friend to Mum. Anyway, I love the autumnal colours, and the shapes of the leaves and seeds around the edge, and I’m sure it will be OK when I finally complete it. It should look like the picture above.

A Chestnut Tree in MacGregor Park - it's lost a lot of
leaves since I took this.

Continuing the autumnal feel, I have some photographs I took a few weeks ago, showing trees, leaves and berries before the bad weather kicked in, and we were still at the stage where I was thinking of Keats – you know, the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ and so on, and so forth.  I love that poem. 

Hawthorn berries- I can always recognise these!

The sky was blue, and the sun shone, and the trees were still full of leaves, which were just beginning to turn colour, and there were berries, and fruits, and seeds. It certainly doesn’t look very mellow or fruitful at the moment: there are tattered dead leaves blowing everywhere, and lots of fallen twigs, and the outer casings of conkers and beechnuts, and broken wings of sycamore seeds, and acorn ‘cups’ (the acorns have disappeared).

Oak 'apples' - they are made by some kind of gall wasp.

And everything looks very wet, and it’s quite blustery, but there are still bright scarlet berries on many trees and bushes, and if you look closely in the wooded areas you can spot fungi growing through the debris.

Beautifully coloured leaves were everywhere in the Town
Wall Nature Reserve, and this was one of the nicest.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda, at West Metro Mummy - click to follow the links to other participants.

Some kind of fungus in Alvecote Wood.

Saturday Snapshot: Getting Back into My Stride

Lakeside view:  Tamworth's Borrowpit Lake is fringed by
bushes and trees, and provides a home for water birds.

For some reason the walking has gone a bit to pot over the summer, and I’m not really sure why – partly, I think, because there were several days when I didn’t go out because I thought it might thunder. I know, that’s sad. I’m sad. Anyway, I got out of the habit of taking a regular walk, but I have been busy in the garden over the summer, which is good exercise, and I did a lot of walking on our various trips.

The Snowdome has a ski slope with real snow, a pool and a
gym. From this angle it doesn't look too bad, but it;s a
hideous building, which dominates the landscape.

However, I decided I must get back into walking again, because it makes me feel so much better, mentally and physically. So on Tuesday morning I donned a jumper (it was jolly cold outside), and my wonderful walking boots (I still love them, and the pink laces) and set off to see what’s been happening in the Big Wide World. And I'm posting some photos for Saturday Snapshot to show you where I went - including some shots of Tamworth's modern buildings (which I tend to avoid), alongside photos of nice things! The town may not be very big, but it's very built up, and I really value our little 'wild' areas and parks. 

These vivid yellow flowers added a welcome splash
of colour to the day.

Anyway, I went down the road, under the Arches (which I've written about here), into the Castle Pleasure Grounds, across the the Snowdome car park, round the edge of Borrowpit  Lake, over the River Anker, alongside the drainage channel and over the road to Ventura Park (our out-of-town shopping area). 

This is the Holiday Inn which, like the Snowdome doesn't
look too bad here, but from the other side it's vile,
and the photos don't show how big  the buildings are.

It was very grey, and bitterly cold, but there were flocks of ducks and geese on the water, and the two mallard crosses, which are much bigger and darker than the others, are still there. Back in the summer I was pleased to see they had young - I had wondered if they would breed, because sometimes hybrids don't, but this week there was no sign of the youngsters. I know they would be well grown by now, but their colouring was so distinctive they would be quite unmissable if they were around.

Part of our out-of-town shopping area. This was very early
in the morning - by 10am the car park is always packed, and
vehicles are circling round, hooting, and fighting for a space.

Grey squirrels were scampering about, and there were plenty of birds (but I could only recognise pigeons and magpies!). And there were still masses of wildflowers blooming in the grass, along the river bank, in the car park, and in the Castle Grounds. I spotted a drift of pale purple balsam growing on the very edge of the River Anker. I think this is Himalayan Balsam, which can grow quite tall, and is very invasive, but it might be another variety. At any rate, it looked pretty. But flowering season is coming to an end. The leaves on some trees were just beginning to change colour, and there were lots of berries on the trees, some of them still green or orange, rather than the bright red they become later in the season.

From the front I think this flower looks like an
open mouth! Is it Himalayan Balsam?

Over by the shops I had to indulge in a spot of retail therapy – just to keep warm you understand! I was sooooooo cold I couldn’t move my fingers! It was FREEZING, and it’s only September, so I hope this is not a foretaste of what’s to come. In any case, I need to find my gloves, which I stashed away in a safe place at the end of winter, but it’s such a safe place I can’t remember where it is!

In another couple of weeks these berries will be a glorious red.

What’s that you say? What did I buy? I bought a pretty notebook and matching file to keep things in, because I got an old printer working with my new laptop, and went mad printing off crochet patterns, and maps and information about the local nature reserves! And I got some some vitamin pills  and Echinacea tablets, in the hopes they will help ward off winter colds, and some loose tea, because I love the ritual of making tea in a pretty china pot. 

I love the pretty design on this notebook and file.

By the time I’d warmed enough to venture outside again, it was raining, but it was so nice to be out walking in the fresh air that I really didn’t mind, and I made my way back through the Castle Grounds and up the road to home. (Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda, at West Metro Mummy - click to follow the links to other participants.)

The Castle is the most beautiful building in
Tamworth.

Copper Sinks and Chinese Silks

The poshest back door I've ever seen! Much nicer than
the front I think. 

It seems a while since I posted a Saturday Snapshot – we’ve been away three times over the last few weeks (the Man of the House teaches, so he has to take time off during the school holidays) so we’re completely out of routine at the moment. Anyway, the new term has started, so normality is slowly re-establishing itself, and for this week’s Saturday Snapshot I thought I would post up some more of the photos I took when we visited our elder daughter and her boyfriend in Plymouth.

Saltram's front entrance,

These were taken at Saltram, a beautiful Georgian mansion about a 20-minute walk from Lucy’s home in Plympton. During our visit we looked at an old map on the wall and were fascinated to discover that the housing estate was built on land which once belonged to the ‘big house’. We were also intrigued to learn that the house featured in Ang Lee’s film of Sense and Sensibility (the  where Emma Thompson played Elinor) – Saltram was ‘cast’ as Norwood Park, the home that Mrs Dashwood and her daughters are forced to leave when her husband dies.

Part of the saloon, where guests would have been
 entertained. It is very ornate indeed!

The estate gets its name from the salt that was harvested on the nearby river estuary, and the original house seems to date back to Tudor times, but was extensively altered and enlarged in the 18thC, when it was acquired by the wealthy Parker family, who became Earls of Morley. It was they who had it fitted out in the fashion of the day, with no expense spared. Each generation added and embellished, keeping it sylish and luxurious. Most of it was designed by the great Robert Adam, and the ornate drawing room (or saloon, as they would have called it), with its decorative plasterwork and furnishings, is considered to be one of his finest interiors. The walls are packed with paintings, and there;s golden gilding, and glittering crystal chandeliers, and it's all very beautiful, and very opulent, but a bit overwhelming - almost intimidating. A room to impress visitors perhaps, rather than somewhere for the family to curl up and relax.

Oh dear, this is saved upright, and it's doing  that weird
thing again, but you can get a glimpse of the ceiling, and
the chanderliers, and some of the paintings. 

At the same time formal gardens were created, and a landscaped park was established, forming artistic 'natural' views from the windows.

Is it time for lunch yet? I love  the clock
perched up on the roof.

There are so many rooms and corridors I wonder if guests or new members of staff ever got lost! I certainly would have done: I have no sense of direction, and without the Guide Book I might still be wandering round and round searching vainly for the exit! There are the most incredible bedrooms, with four-poster beds and adjoining ‘dressing rooms’ – the walls of one bedroom and dressing room are covered in exquisitely hand-painted silk, all the way from China, showing little Chinese scenes. And there’s a grand staircase, and a dining room with a table laid out with out with silver cutlery and delicate china and glasses. It all looks so posh I would be terrified of eating or drinking, but I guess this was what the Parkers were used to. 

Oriental Art: A room papered with hand-painted
Chinese silk..

Then there's a mirror room (more Chinese paper and decorations here - chinoiserie was very popular in high society), a garden room, a map room, a study, and a wonderful library, lined floor to ceiling with leather-bound books, and there were lots of little bookshelves in the other rooms, so I like to think the family enjoyed reading. I get the impression they were very cultured; they were certainly patrons of the arts, and the place is packed with paintings, many by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was a friend of the family (he was brought up in Plympton, where his father was in charge of the school).

The big hearth, with its open range and roasting spits.

But, as with so many period houses, it’s the areas where the servants lived and worked that are the most unforgettable. There must have been an army of people employed here (in the house and on the land) to keep the family in such luxurious style, and it must have been such hard work. With no electricity, the only form of heat and light would have been open fires and candles, which must have created a lot of smoke and soot, so the maids must have been constantly sweeping and dusting and cleaning and polishing. There were clothes to be laundered and pressed, bedding to be regularly aired, acres of carpets to be beaten clean, and what seems like miles of woodwork to be polished.

Copper pans on the cooking range. This was state-of-the-art
kitchen equipment in the 1880s. The range would have been
buffed  to a shine with black lead.

In the kitchen a whole host of staff must have been kept busy cooking for the family, guests, themselves, and their fellow workers. The servants ate plain, filling fare made from cheap ingredients - the sumptuous dishes served up in the dining room were obviously considered to be far too good for them, and I guess there was the cost to be considered as well. Kitchen staff didn't just do the daily cooking. Sure, they baked and roasted and boiled and fried to produce meals for everyone, but there were no fridges or freezers remember, so food had to be preserved using traditional techniques, which were very labour intensive. There were jams, pickles, and chutneys to be made; meat to be cured, and fruit fruit to be bottled. Butter was churned here, and I am sure they would have made cheese as well. And on top of all that food preparation, there was cleaning to be done...

The original slow cooker: A hay box, used for long, slow
cooking in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The kitchen was remodelled in 1913, but still has the great hearth and roasting spits, as well as open range installed around 1810, so you get a pretty good impression of what it was like working here a couple of hundred years ago. And the huge, cast-iron, coal-fired closed range which stands in the centre of the room also predates the early 20thC revamp, dating from 1885. There’s a pantry, a scullery, a butchery, a larder, and the most incredible collection of copper utensils I’ve ever seen – some 600 items ranging from minute intricately shaped sweet moulds up to gigantic, plain saucepans, and all gleaming like new pins. There were even copper sinks in the scullery for washing the pots and pans! Just imagine the scouring and polishing that must have gone on to keep it all in tip-top condition!  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: progress is a wonderful thing where housework and cooking are concerned!

Dining in style - but this room was a long way from the kitchen.

There must have have been an awful lot of fetching, carrying, and lifting as well. I bet most of the staff ended up with back problems. They were cooking for vast numbers, and the pots and pans were enormous - they must have been so heavy when they were full of food. In addition, the kitchen quarters are a fair old distance from the family rooms (this is always the case at these places - the landed gentry didn't want to be disturbed by common things like cooking smells and noise). So food, and hot serving dishes and everything would have been carried backwards and forwards to the dining room, which must have been a task and a half. Makes you wonder how much stuff got dropped, spilt and broken!

No, it's not a giant's watering can - it's for filling baths
with water, and you have no idea how heavy it was!

But the worst job of all must have been carting hot water along the corridors and up the stairs to the bedrooms, where it was poured into 'hip' baths so the family, and their visitors, could wash themselves. And when they had finished, the dirty water had to be heaved away and disposed of!  Metal hot water cans, which look like watering cans for a giant's garden, were used to transport the water. When full, one of these containers weighed around 13kg, which is 28.7lbs, or just over 2 stones - and it took around six of them to fill a bath! It was one of the duties allocated to chambermaids, who were usually about 15 years old, and I cannot imagine how they coped. Neither my daughters nor I could lift the full can displayed in a sink in the scullery, and even the Man of the House struggled to move it, so how these young girls managed I just don't know. They must have staggered under the weight, and walked along with the hot metal can banging against their legs, which must have been permanently bruised, and hot water slopping over their feet. 

The family make a new friend!dd caption

The gardens and grounds would have been just as busy, for Saltram would have been pretty much self-sufficient, producing fruit and vegetables for the estate, raising animals and poultry on the estate farms to provide meat, milk and eggs, and even growing its own grain and brewing beer. Timber was grown on the estate woodlands and sold to shipyards and barrel makers in Plymouth, so foresters were employed, as well as men to work in the sawpit and the mill where wood was processed (though neither of these has survived). But the stables can be seen, as well-built as the house itself: top quality accommodation for top quality animals - race horses were bred here. 

In the pink! Waterlilies in the formal pool.

Exotic plants from all over the world can be seen in the formal gardens, which were largely developed in the 19thC, and are a joy to behold, with winding paths leading you through all kinds of little areas, and fabulous flowers and foliage, all very lush and green. 

The orangery. Isn't it beautiful?

There's an amazing orangery, built in 1773 in neo-Classical style - so says the Guide Book. I'm never sure exactly what that means, but it has pillars, and lots of glass windows, and is all in proportion. It looks like something from Versailles, and best of all, it is still used to over-winter citrus trees. How cool is that? We were tremendously excited to see little green fruits hanging from the branches (the trees were all lined up outside in the largest of large pots, and appeared to be thriving, despite the vagaries of the English weather). We so hope these are oranges, but one small, unripe citrus fruit looks much like another to us. However, the trusty Guide Book only mentions oranges, so I shall assume we have seen oranges growing outside an orangery, and that makes me happy!

Citrus fruit growing outside the orangery - you can see from
the water droplets that it was a bit rainy that day.

We even saw a ha-ha, a kind of ditch, running along the edge of the lawn in front of the house to separate it from the fields where cattle still graze, down at a lower level. I’ve read about ha-has, but don’t remember seeing one before, and there's a duck pond, as well as an ornamental pool with a fountain and water lilies. 

Don't push! Younger Daughter and the Man of the House
by the ornamental pool.

The house and its lands remained in the hands of the Parker family for more than 200 years. They were still here during the Second World War, when an American army unit set up camp in the grounds. But the property suffered bomb damage, the family fortune dwindled, and life changed - people were no longer prepared to spend a life of drudgery 'in service', and by the 1950s there only two servants left to look after the elderly fourth earl, who was childless, and his bachelor brother. So when the fifth earl succeeded, everything was transferred to the National Trust.

A shady spot in the garden.

Like all NT properties, it isn't cheap to go round, but the house is wonderful. There's masses to see, including photographs and portraits of the family, and lots of information about the way (and their servants) lived, with a special focus on the late 1700s and early 1800s.  And the gardens are an absolute delight - there are plenty of labels telling you what the plants are, which is nice if you are not much of a horticulturist. You could spend a day just roaming around outside, and I gather the remaining parklands have become a wildlife haven, with rare species of plants and animals, which I think is rather nice, but you need to know what are looking for.

Don't let Mum loose in the library - we'll never get her out!

We thoroughly enjoyed our day out, and saw so much it's hard to know what to write about. In addition to the house and garden there's a lovely little cafe, a shop, charming follies in the grounds, and the old chapel has been turned into a gallery for local artists and craftspeople. And there were second-handbooks stacked in one of the old stables. Just for once, I didn't find anything I wanted, but I thought it was a lovely touch. 

And so to bed!

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mummy - click to follow links and see photos from other paticipants.