Time's tendrils

Leicester's Welford Road Cemetery is a little overgrown, with ivy reclaiming the vaults, slabs and tomb stones and tendrils spiralling up the monuments like some abandoned South American City lost in the rain forest. Well, maybe not that bad, but there are certainly areas where man has fought the vegetation and lost.

I was in Leicester on other business, but as I was there I thought I'd go and see if I could find the gravestone of my great great grandfather, who was buried there in 1892. Not that long ago, but Welford Road Cemetery is not only one of the oldest in the country but is over 12 hectares in size with around 10,000 headstones and 35,000 graves. A little big to wander around unassisted.

To be fair, I did have the location (Sector Uncon C grave 417) but could find not a soul to ask in the whole 12 hectares. And I was there over an hour, looking for a sexton, gardener, anyone. In vain. So I snapped a random monument, the birds' nest in the sky that is today's blip, and walked back to the railway station. Moral of the story: plan more carefully next time.