Dragons in the church

Ben, Sarah and I had a a very enjoyable trip out to Luddingtom in the Brook, a tiny hamlet on the border of Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire, to visit Carry Akroyd's studio. I'd never met Carry, though we have been Facebook friends for a while, but we got on like a house on fire - it turned out that she had worked with many of the botanists at Monk's Wood, some of whom I also knew. We chatted about her work, which currently includes illustrating the covers of the British Wildlife series. She's working on the woodland title and I was able to suggest that she visited Old Sulehay Forest, which has some wonderful old trees in a woodland setting.

After coffee and cake in her garden, we then walked across the field to see the display of Dragons in St. Margaret's Church, which included two of Carry's paintings. According to the version of the story in The Golden Legend, St. Margaret was a native of Antioch and the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a Christian woman. Having embraced Christianity and consecrated her virginity to God, Margaret was disowned by her father, adopted by her nurse, and lived in the country keeping sheep with her foster mother. Olybrius, Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East, asked to marry her, but with the demand that she renounce Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. Her emblem is a dragon, and various gargoyles on the church clearly had dragon wings.

We returned to the studio, where Sarah and I both bought prints which will hang in our respective bedrooms. Mine showed nesting Guillemots - calming sea colours and a reminder of the coast that I love but rarely get to. Sarah and Ben's was of a Song Thrush in a tree full of blossom, which will look perfect in their new house. A lovely visit all round.