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Below is display of pictures received for OCTOBER competition

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The theme for this month is: 'Monuments/Statues of Interest'

The white Campeseno Monument is Cesar Manrique's tribute to the hard working farming people of Lanzarote.He dedicated the sculpture "to the forgotten endeavours of the unknown farmers of Lanzarote". The cubist monument was constructed in 1968 from farm debris, water tanks and old fishing boats and is said to depict a farmer, his cat and a rat.

This lovely lady with her quiet Buddhic presence, overlooks the pot bellied pigs, sheep, goats and peacocks who reside in 'pets corner' in Jesmond Dene. She has always been there, for as long as I have been frequenting the Dene, well over twenty years.

The staue is of Henry V111 and is part of the main gate of St John's college Cambridge founded in 1511. If you look carefully, the sword in his right hand has been replaced by a table leg. There are lots of myths as to when and why this was done but I guess it was a student prank.

The snap is of a haunted grave at St Marys church, Heworth. Legend says the three children from one family were burnt to death in a tragic accident and at midnight the sound of their crying can still be heard. Another tale is they can be heard playing tag around their tomb.

The photo is a little angel who was separated from a group and sat alone in the garden of my old cottage 'guarding the ivy'....

This is a picture I took in Rostock, N Germany about a month ago. It is at a central square of the town in front of the University and shows one of a few sculptures around a fountain called 'Brunnen der Lebensfreude' - 'Fountain of the Joy of Life'. It was built in 1980 in the course of the reconstruction of the whole place which was very badly damaged in World War 2.
The ensemble of spirited presentations of animals, people with family and in the middle the fountain with its various jets and bubbling springs was created by the artists Jo Jastram and Reinhard Dietrich. I think the sculptures may have depicted various situations in family or village life and perhaps our friend above is the horse/hog element in a rural community all representing the sheer 'joie de vivre'.

A symbol of strength in Jarrow the Vikings statue stands at the entrance to a shopping centre. Jarrow had the dubious privilege of being one of the earliest recipients of a Viking raid on the northeast coast. A raid in 794AD burnt the biscop monastery famous for St Bede. Fortunately the leader was killed and many of the raiders killed by the monks who were justifiably angry. Many vikings later settled in the area. Locally the statue is known as Plum and Duff.

The monument is located at the mouth of the river Tyne on Pier Road in Tynemouth and is constructed from marble and sandstone. It celebrates the life and achievements of Admiral Lord Collingwood, who was born the son of a Newcastle merchant in 1748. He went to sea in 1761 and rose swiftley through the naval ranks as first the American War of Indepedence and then the Napoleonic War pitched him into a number of victorious encounters. His connection with Lord Nelson began in the 1770's and it was as Nelson's second in command at the battle of Trafalgar that Collingwood achieved his greatest fame, both as master of his ship, the Royal Sovereign, and by taking command of the battle on the death of Nelson. Following Trafalgar he was awarded a peerage but died at sea in 1810 and was later buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His statue was sculpted by John Graham Lough and stands on a pedestal designed by John Dobson. The position of the monument marked Collingwood's family connection with North Shields and allowed the statue to be seen from the sea and river and let the great man stare out to sea, his hand resting on a rope wrapped bollard. The four cannon on the walls flanking the steps at the monument's base came from his flagship and were added to the monument in 1849, four years after it's original completion.

The busts came from Azerbaijan, the Republic of Georgia and the Czech Republic. The bust of Stalin was given to me over dinner with Stalin's Grandson.

Back row left to right:
Maxim Gorky -Russian Author and Political Activist
Josef Stalin -General Secretary of the Communist Party ('nuff said)
Josef Manes -Czechoslovakian Artist.

Front row left to right:
Felix Dzerzhinsky -Polish Communist Revolutionary and founder of the Bolshevik Secret Police Cheka.
Vladimir Lenin - Russian Revolutionary, Communist Politician, Main leader of the October Revolution and Head of the Soviet Socialist Republic.
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Russian novelist - wrote Crime & Punishment and The Brothers Karamsov.

The statue is in Lexington (USA) of a Minute Man. A Minute Man is a bloke who vowed to be ready in one minute to fight the British.

These cormorants are located in a seaside park in Port Angeles, approx. 32 miles west of our home in Sequim, Washington.