familiar forms (something for everyone)

Some ivy, on a lichened fence on Wimbledon Hill - one of my ways to and from school until I was 11, and representing an archetype of suburban vegetative growth;

a fore hoof of the white ram - one of the Dacre Beasts - in the V&A - that originally belonged (heraldicarily speaking) to Margaret de Multon, wife of Ranulph de Dacres, who built Naworth Castle (in Cumberland) in 1335, and that used to stand in the Great Hall on one side of our front door when we rented the Morpeth Tower between 1957-1961 (so I passed it every day for four years).  I always go and greet the Beasts (given to the V&A - estate duty) every time I go there (and we were there today to visit the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition);

and, at a family gathering this evening, Alice and my mother, both looking very pensive.