An Inspiration for one of Tolkien's Two Towers?

Actually Perrott's Folly, a Grade II listed building visible from the Birmingham Oratory where J R R Tolkien spent much time as a youth. He was a ward of one of the priests resident there after his mother died.

In fact, I learnt today that much of the surroundings in the Birmingham that Tolkien knew could have been the source of his inspiration in writing Lord of the Rings. The shape of the folly reminds me of the illustration of one of the towers on an early edition of Book 2 of LOTR.

It was a revelation to learn too that Tolkien was a devout, practising Catholic. Of LOTR he wrote, 'The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. — J.R.R. Tolkien to Robert Murray, S.J' There is some disagreement about how this has been effected. I always thought that the story was based on Nordic fantasy and that the Hobbits were an allegory of the resistance of the British to the power of Nazi Germany.

Read this article for an analysis of the Catholic and Christian overtones of the books, and realise that Frodo was NOT successful in destroying the ring of power, it was only providence that enabled Gollum to bite off Frodo's finger with the ring, lose his balance and fall into the fires of Mount Doom (Hell).

The other tower is the Edgbaston Waterworks Tower, which was not visible from my vantage point.

Len and I had returned to Birmingham for his follow up medical appointment. 

Oppressively humid, we were grateful for air conditioning in the car and at the offices, AND at the M&S foodhall in Ashby de la Zouch where we stopped off on our return to buy some microwave dinners. Colin very  kindly looked after Basil for the day.

It feels cooler this evening but only because cloud covers the sky, concealing the blood moon eclipse. The weather apps keep saying that it will rain within the next hour, but it never does.

Earlier this morning, I finally saw a Common Hawker flying above and around the pond. It had the coloration of a female but the end of the body was blue, like the male. Can dragonflies be gynandromorphic? I fetched my camera but it didn't hover, so I couldn't catch a photo. I wondered if it was looking for a spot to lay eggs. After ten minutes, it flew up into the trees and didn't return.

This evening, a small blue butterfly came into the garden. It too returned to the relative safety of the 'woodland.'