24th June 2026

Burnham:  Well he rode in on his charger (the train) into town with a few of his loyal followers.  Gosh how the journalists worshipped him,  like frenzied piranha they fell on him.  Here was fresh meat news ready to be torn apart in the future.   Marina Hyde writes of the whole show that in all the hullaballoo the terrible train crash on Friday was quietly forgotten.  One driver dead,  and 53 people remaining in hospital, eight of which are seriously injured  The photo that accompanies the article shows people working to help, this is how society should be seen, please journalists, not the latest scoop of nothingness.

The trains are also feeling the heat, many trains have been taken out of service here, probably about half.  My daughter (who always tells entertaining tales about Manchester) sat on a train to come home but the train was full to the hilt and rail staff were going along asking people to get off so that the train could move.  She decided to get off, probably because of the young man sat next to her was smelling strongly of 'weed'.   He had also broken off with his girlfriend and lamented very verbally about it.  Karen got off the train but  she looked back to see if anyone had taken her seat but no it was empty.  She does what she always does and goes and gets a meal and waits till later to catch a less full train home.

To return to Burnham, I sincerely hope he does make a difference, we are in for a good 'left' solution and at least he has some experience of running a metropolis.  As a note, I almost got run over by one of his trams, they are silent!  Also I hope Ed Milliband gets to be chancellor, we need more green action on the ground, as this heat wave shows.  Will some people please take their heads out of the sand and start recognising we are in trouble as far as Climate Change is happening.

And yes I note how much high regard Milliband gets from his critics, after all who can forget the Edstone, we couldn't because we lived not far from the village of Edstone but for a moment just enjoy the beauty of Yorkshire for a minute and then remember that politics are like a river, it just floats by.

Silent Earth

We have been there before

 

Dickens's sentence in full reads, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way . Taken from Rebecca Solnit's - Winners and Losers: A Hell of a Week in the Us of A    💖💗💗 Been rather messy in Britain as well.....😎  There is a little girl outside yelling her head off about going to school.  Life is just miserable sometimes. Take this rose bush for instance it is called 'Jam and Jerusalem', someone nursed this hybrid into life, probably over years, but then a few years on it developed, for me, the most terrible case of black spot on the leaves and slowly died.  Historically significant for me but not for you.

Elmet

I am pottering as usual

I have always been intrigued by the period after the Romans and before 1066 AD, often called the 'dark ages', only dark of course because we have no information on them,  and especially about the small kingdom of Elmet. The vale of Caldervale is also part of Elmet..  But as you can see on the map probably Roman Eburacum, or York as it is now known, would have been in ruins. Also on the map you can see the first Roman wall called Antonine Wall built against the Picts was soon to be superseded by Hadrian's Wall and that is why the 'practise camps' written about earlier is of interest.

Ted Hughes was born in the town of Mytholmroyd which lies in the valley of the Caldervale (I have as much problem spelling that word as I do saying it) and which probably gives him the right to call one of his books - Remains of Elmet, but obviously this small Brythonic kingdom got subsumed into its larger neighbours of Mercia and I think Bernicia and became part of Northumbria.

This book is somewhat dark in word and photography.  Bleak is of course the word to use of Fay Godwin's black and white photos, they strike sombre notes in one's soul.  Ted  Hughes words even more so.  You can see why such mournful fiction as the Bronte's writings would stem from these cruel landscapes, Jane Eyre especially.  So Ted Hughes captured the mood of the moors, with the despairing lives lived out in a poor farming landscape.

I have always loved Pike and  Thought Fox.  The poem Pike of course because I fished as a child, sitting by the river's edge watching the lazy movement of trout.  Water has that power to lure you into it's depths.  In the shallows it rippled over the stones.

But that reminds me of the following You tube video of Japanese Gardens in Kyoto.  It is the most restful video to watch.  A classic Japanese garden has no need of flowers, it rests on moss, stone, water and greenery.  Trees and shrubs are shaped for harmony and also for a quietness for meditation.  I am not sure you lose yourself in 'nothingness' but the meeting with nature must surely calm the self.  I found the link on Bensozia's blog, for which I thank him.

20th June 2026

 I have noticed a slight scornful note when Andy Burnham is mentioned as 'King of the North'.  We are of course plagued by London based journalists, who sadly have only a sneering attitude when they talk politics.  Also, there is this awful social media where everyone can come and take a swipe.

I  only know that Burnham has done a good job as Mayor of Manchester, he has a slick appeal, and I reckon the North sending him to London to play for the big time is sticking their finger up to London;) You will all no doubt agree that the Labour Party has fallen away from its roots, lets see what Burnham can do.

Lillie came back yesterday for the summer hols, though she is off once more on a Scout's camping trip this weekend.  She said it was so good to be back in Todmorden, people in the street actually smiled at you, so different to London.

There was a false King once in Yorkshire, called David Hartley and his gang, and in 18th century Yorkshire  the criminal act of coin-clipping took place as the mechanised looms and mills came in, forcing people out of earning money at home.  Clipping coins  became quite serious and the value of the pound devalued because of it, so Hartley and his henchman were hunted down and hung.

You can just imagine how it was the remote farms, now ruined, were ideal places for the clipping to take place and it flourished, though not for long.

I have written about Hartley, he is buried in the churchyard at Heptonstall, as is his wife.  There was an element of Robin Hood about Hartley, he stole to help the poor.  Something to think on!

Palindrome Day

Clipping Coins

Clipped and Counterfeited

Midsummer this weekend, how has it come round so quick.

Painter -Atkinson Grimshaw

 John Atkinson Grimshaw - 1836 to 1893

Reflections on the Thames - John Atkinson Grimshaw

I came across this painter a few months ago and was bowled over by his use of light.  Even more intrigued by the fact that he came from Leeds.  He had a humble beginning, as many painters do.  His family were from the Baptist sect and his mother did not like him painting, turning off the gas in his room for a start.  It reminded me of another Northern painter. L. S. Lowry, his mother told him to burn his paintings.  Probably all down to prudishness and the fear of naked bodies.

What had suddenly struck me about Grimshaw was his nocturnal paintings especially about the park in Leeds reminding me of my own childhood, walking back in winter after school, and the lights picking up the puddles in the road.  Grimshaw had captured exactly the mood of the moment - the feeling of emptiness. 

James Abbot Mckneill Whistler said of Grimshaw - I considered myself the inventor of Nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlight pictures.  I never knew Whistler was an American, the two shared a studio at one stage.

Moonlit scene near Leeds - John Atkinson Grimshaw

Grimshaw came from Leeds and his paintings rested on a method of projecting a scene onto a surface.  It was called camera obscura. Grimshaw was self-taught, his draughtmanship failed as did his understanding of perspective but this method did not appeal to the critics of the time, I suppose they saw it as 'cheating' but his use of colour, lighting and shadow put him in another category altogether.

Also of course he painted scenes round Whitby which are also very evocative, a town dear to my heart, just for its general messiness and crowded streets of holidaymakers.  Though in this instance I have chosen his Shipping on the Clyde.

Shipping on the Clyde

Always click on the photo snaps because for some reason they become more distinct framed by black!

I am enjoying the book on his life, Andrew bought it recently, his family are also part of the Leeds scene and funnily enough the name Grimshaw came up on one of my friends on F/B.  It was Lillie's friend, so perhaps I shall investigate the name ;)

16th June 2026

 Just come back from the doctors, my first visit in the last several years that I have seen one locally.  Well I passed muster with flying colours, well almost. At the moment I am haunted by the little shuffling old man saying 'bloody computers, bloody computers'.  When he was told at the reception desk that he had to book an appointment online.  Yes there is that big yawning chasm between those that do and those that don't.  Of course he was directed to the other side of the desk so that the appointment could be made. 

It is good to see of course that the computer giants are being brought to heel about the effect social media has on our young people.  Not all young people of course but there is a worrying trend with false information posted online and the agitators stirring things up.  It would be good that a 'truth verification' app followed us all around  and quibbled when we did something wrong.

AI is already beginning to show its bad side, where are the philosophers for a start ready to add to the 'facts' we are shown as gospel truth.  Has the internet become a 'tower of Babel'?  Everyone must have 'free speech' no matter how their thinking goes.  We must rely on education for the most of us.

How badly it can go wrong has manifested itself in the sweep to the right of authoritarian discussions or happenings on the street and in the thinking.  We see it in this country when bullies such as Farage makes a play for power and gather large crowds who want to go back to an England that never really existed.

It is probably the fault of the internet and its wide influence over the world that we are experiencing this rift in cool commonsense action and it is another battle to be fought for sanity.  In the end seven (or eight) billion people on this Earth can't really call their own views on the matter, it has to be by meetings and talking together that will resolve the matter.

So a rose to meditate on and perhaps a drink to remind us that humans can gather together in a convivial manner and discuss such things. 

David Hockney

 Talk is of the death of David Hockney.  A shock to many of us.  We are privileged that a certain Jonathon Silver had bought the great Salt Mill at Saltaire and following his friendship with Hockney had set up a permanent exhibition of his work.  I can't transfer the words of old blogs without having red backgrounds to this post but this link will give you some explanation.  

Hockney made a great impression on me, but so did the enormous mill, go up to the top empty space and think of riding a bike round.  The mill could not turn itself into a spectacular modern mall its charm was elsewhere.  The heavy industrial history lay heavy on it flagged stone floors.  My daughter loved it for the cakes we would order in the restaurant, Andrew had lived in Shipley and it was part of his home ground.  A trip to Salt Mill will give you some photos, albeit rather dark, but still.  I hope his work there is a permanent record and that it belongs to this part of the country, though the paintings we saw were of France.

Thinking about it I have probably also written of Sir Titus Salt (there is a name to wonder about).  A visionary maybe, for he built Saltaire for his workers.  Also although we no longer hear from Tasker sadly, a relative in his family was one of the architects of Titus Salt's buildings.

These references I note are for family by the way.  Suddenly I find that I can find anything on my blog and it becomes a diary.

North Stoke: Salts Mill

Cathedral of Industry

One Bag of Peruvian Wool

North Stoke: 25th August 2025

Roman York

Emperor Constantine the Great. Reigned from 306 till his death in 337 

Well I mentioned in the blog on Roman practice camps at Cawthorn a couple of days ago, that the Roman soldiers were probably settled at Malton which was a few miles from York/Eboracum..  York was the Roman headquarters here in the North, and the father of the above (to be) emperor was killed fighting in the city and the army immediately called for Constantine to be made emperor which he duly was.  He looks a handsome fella in his recently made statue in York.  He ruled for a long time and became a Christian but lived the life of an Emperor fighting all over the continent.

My interest lies in the fact that he became St. Constantine and has become the object of a plea for an Antiochian Orthodox community to have their own church in York. So when 'The Abbey of Misrule' email came through with the funding plea, I watched the following video with great interest.  Not only for the beautiful portrayal of York but for the lesson in religious worship of the group.

The group was sincere and also simple, and when my non religious hackles rise up, it is time to question my feeling towards religious worship.  Here though I loved the nobility of the need for a church, a rather disused but beautiful one seemed to be the one chosen.  They do have a chapel in I think the university but it is temporary and the  wooden framing for the altar all has to be removed and stored elsewhere.  So a record of an unusual group worshipping in York.

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Sad news today.  David Hockney has died at the age of 88 years old.  His paintings were often to be found at Salt Mill, Saltaire.  The long empty workrooms ideal for his successional paintings.  I have written about him a couple of times.

11th June 2026

Just puts the giggle into the day

Start at any year.  So I started at 2012, and as you know we start at the end of the year in cold December on our blogs.  So the first thing I notice is that I am  talking about things  about to happen in 2013.  There is a trip to Germany to take back some Japanese scrolls to a museum in the town of Bietigheim-Bissingen to the Hochdorf Museum.  We were welcomed royally, the mayor proudly took us round his town, the curator of the museum looked after us, a first and pleasant visit to Germany.  There was also our friends from America, Bucky and Loie, who were coming over and we were going to see some of the sites in England, Sutton Hoo being one of them and then of course Wales.

Bucky and Loie at Pentre Ifan

But that is to look forward and I had to go backwards through the blogs.  We had been down to Whitby to see my family and I note we two stayed at my little cottage, which I miss so much still.  It must have been refurbished by then from the rather drab state I had bought it in.  A tartan fitted carpet downstairs that had given me such a shock;) and a bathroom that definitely needed a new bath suite.  Settling in.  Of course it was totally unsuitable for large parties of my family, as the children squashed on the floor but it was only for a few hours in the day.

Tiny but perfect 

And I am sure this memory of family will be interesting to the family, it is obviously around bonfire night when the family came down to Chelmsford for a couple of nights to go shopping in London.  Meetings.  Tom still uses the photo of Lillie and him taken by me.

  

9th June 2026

 

I ventured out this morning to Lidl as it is my turn to cook. Early morning sun made the yellow of the petals of the Yellow Welsh Poppy - Meconopsis Cambrica translucent on a plant atop a wall.  Such a clear bright colour this little wild plant gives to a garden, disrupting any formal layout of plants, it just jumps in and announces its presence.  And it is not even Welsh, it is a native of the Himalayas.  Robinson says of it is that is a determined colonist but is a cheerful plant for the wild garden or on a dry surface beneath a wall.  According to the info on the net.

Carl Linnaeus named it Papaver Cambrica in 1753. it was later separated from it's type genus by Louis Vigier in 1814 and transferred to the Meconopsis genera.  But in 2011 a study proved that Linnaeus was right in his naming.  At this stage I will shut up because a whole taxonomy had to be altered;)

The Town Plan 

Proposed alteration of Bramsche Square.  Architect's drawing

I passed the building works of the theatre. they have apparently fitted a great glass window in the front.  Building works are everywhere (the weather is warm).  Our Bramsche car park part of the Town Plan and green area around the little named 'Pollination Street' is abuzz with noise, backing noises, crashing noises, I hope the trees will survive.  Of course there has been a big to do about the ransacking of the car park for space for people to sit round in.  But the inside market and the outside market will all have money spent on them to brighten up the place.

Sunday

 Stonehenge Headline  Mike Pitts of British Archaeology magazine in questioning mood.  Probably the only person I would trust to say anything sensible about Stonehenge, marvelling at the latest story of the movement of the Altar Stone from Scotland.  Yes it could be a glacial movement but sort of via Doggerland.  Doggerland for those who do not know  where it is now, it is that patch of land that once joined us to Europe in the North Sea. 

 

"He finds the glacier scenario more “plausible”: “these findings could imply that the people of Doggerland attached cultural significance to the Altar Stone … [and so saved] it from being submerged by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age”.

A drowned landscape, which is rather exciting.  How do we know? Well fisherman trawling the bottom of the sea there have fished up prehistoric axes and arrowheads, showing that once long ago the land was settled.      Ten thousand years ago we were part of Northern Europe (my DNA tells me that by the way) and then seven thousand years ago approximately a glacier pushed through and it is what it is today.   Vincent Gaffney and co-workers explored this lost land and wrote a very complicated book on the subject, I did not understand it!  But then a Wiki will explain this lost land and of course the scientists who study it with great interest.

You will note that Pitts is just a tad offensive about newspaper headlines - aren't we all of course. The journalists leap on any piece of news, tear it apart without understanding, headline a few facts again without  understanding them, and then off we go on their ignorance .

Well there is, in the Private Eye magazine a funny set of Breaking News by Mail Online, a couple for your delectation.....

Video Exclusive: Woman, 24, in cropped t-shirt and skintight shorts leaves VERY little to the imagination as she tragically plunges to her death.

Friends fear Meghan not to be trusted with kitchen knife

Starmer denies mainlining heroin with Rachel Reeves in urine-infested Downing Street.

This is a favourite. 

 Dan Hodges.  Day after day, people are dropping dead from old age.  Why is Starmer doing nothing about it?

Well when England finally kicks the bucket (it won't) we shall be glad of Ian Hislop and his team of erudite journalists ploughing through the latest scandal, and missing being sued by an inch.  Speak up, speak out ;)

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Drifting

Well, I am not well;) so I am curtailing my use of this computer for a time.  Though it takes me to the marvels of the world, I think it is playing havoc with my eyes.  Lying in bed this morning idling on the tablet through an old blog of mine, - Poems, Paintings and Photos, especially from 2008. I came across Dragons and Yews.  It was a period of my life when I fell in love with the early Saxon writings, the poetry so strong and dense, and often  strangely enough very sad, always harking after a better time.  If you click on Dragons and yews, you will find the tale of the Nicor, a terrible sea monster.  This reference had taken me back to when the family had owned two small engineering factories, and the one in the Midlands was called Nicor.  It was strange at the time coming on the meaning and though both men are long gone and dead, I often wondered why they named it as such.

Now there is another story told by Nennius (an 8th AD Welsh monk), who though his stories are often thought of as mythlike and foolish, does tell an exceedingly good tale. Dragons dreams can foretell a future event, and in one of the chapters of Nennius's book, he tells the story of a young boys dream. Nennius had access to 5th century books, and this story is about Vortigen, who had found a young boy call Ambrose, the boy had a dream in which he saw a tent at the bottom of a pool, in this tent slept two dragons , a red one and a green one. They woke up and fought, and the red dragon who represented the Saxons overcame the green dragon who represented the British, the tale in its full version from Nennius is told here.....

"a pool; come and dig:" they did so, and found the pool. "Now," continued he, "tell me what is in it;" but they were ashamed, and made no reply. "I," said the boy, "can discover it to you: there are two vases in the pool;" they examined, and found it so: continuing his questions," What is in the vases?" they were silent: "there is a tent in them," said the boy; "separate them, and you shall find it so;" this being done by the king's command, there was found in them a folded tent. The boy, going on with his questions, asked the wise men what was in it? But they not knowing what to reply, "There are," said he, "two serpents, one white and the other red; unfold the tent;" they obeyed, and two sleeping serpents were discovered; "consider attentively," said the boy, "what they are doing." The serpents began to struggle with each other; and the white one, raising himself up, threw down the other into the middle of the tent, and sometimes drove him to the edge of it; and this was repeated thrice. At length the red one, apparently the weaker of the two, recovering his strength, expelled the white one from the tent; and the latter being pursued through the pool by the red one, disappeared. Then the boy, asking the wise men what was signified by this wonderful omen, and they expressing their ignorance, he said to the king, "I will now unfold to you the meaning of this mystery. The pool is the emblem of this world, and the tent that of your kingdom: the two serpents are two dragons; the red serpent is your dragon, but the white serpent is the dragon of the people who occupy several provinces and districts of Britain, even almost from sea to sea: at length, however, our people shall rise and drive away the Saxon race from beyond the sea, whence they originally came....

The old yew in Pewsey Valley.  It has an incredibly beautiful inner wood, though torn with old age it has a special beauty.

Sensible Voices

The Hijacking of the Henry Nowak case

Yesterday I had hopefully had my last migraine. It is now sapping my strength of course, all these headaches.  I could put the last one down yesterday to AI and its over long questioning when my dear granddaughter got me established on the surgery's list. I f******just wanted an appointment for medication ;).  You will be pleased to know that I am now a fully written up patient of the NHS.  I'm sure it is just teething problems with AI!

 Why this video?  Professor Tim Wilson is an owl like voice in the wilderness,  Farage is a lethal menace, disrupting this country for his own benefit.  Farage should be dismissed from public life and sent to America, where he can soft soap Trump to the cows come home.  Which shouldn't be too long from now by the way.

Our hearts ache for the family of Henry Nowak and for the lad himself, who has been denied a long life just at the moment of his adulthood by a wicked act of violence.  The police will come under scrutiny, it will be long and painful for the family and we should respect their wishes for the murder of their son not to be used for some cheap publicity act and especially for violence on the streets.  The agitators stirring up trouble should be ignored.  Robinson and Farage manipulated by the likes of Elon Musk should be ignored and it is up to us to turn our backs on them.

As an addenda to the AI  little soiree, my appointment got cancelled twenty minutes later and Lillie spent time phoning the surgery, she is such a good girl.

Cawthorn Camps

 Whenever I am ill and all I am left with is my brain for company, I find a subject to think about.  So this time 'Cawthorn Roman Practice Camps' fell into place.  I suddenly remembered the Romans were here, in this part of the country to put down the large Brigantes tribe.  The camps, I think two, but they maybe have been a third were situated on a scarp overlooking the land below. And they have always been interpreted as practise camps.  In other words the Roman soldiers dug the ditches and lived on this tract of land as part of their training.  Just like, in fact today's soldiers do.  Cawthorn is but four miles from Pickering and should I feel a need for a walk it wasn't too far to take a reluctant spaniel, my Lucy.  Not that she appreciated it one bit!

I suddenly remembered (migraines are good at jolting the memory) that someone had either asked me onto his F/B or I had flashed through it.  The name came back to me George Chaplin of Brigantes Nation.  A comprehensive guide and viewpoint.  He had probably recognised me from my role in Heritage Action, all so long ago.......

So his blog is on my side role at the moment.  The large area of Yorkshire and Cumbria were part of a loose confederation of tribes 'Up North'.  The Romans were of course bent on defeating them, and of course did not succeed with the Picts? in Scotland as Hadrian's Wall testifies.  

I have always been curious about the Brigante Tribe, for a start it had a woman leader - Cartimandu from about AD43 to AD69. Similar of course to the Iceni Tribe on the East coast with Boudica as leader of the tribe.  The Romans raped both Bodica's daughters to subdue her but rather than give in Boudica pulled together a large army and ravaged the towns of both Colchester and St.Albans, killing the Roman Matrons in a gruesome manner.

But to return to Queen Cartimandu, one of the first Queens.  She seems to have come from a noble family and was a leader by right.  She had trouble with her co-leader and husband Venutius.  This was because (well apart from the obvious) Cartimandu had betrayed a fellow resistance leader, Caractacus to the Romans, and had captured him and sent him to Rome in chains. Even her people did not like her.  But currying favour with the enemy and getting rewards is power to the corrupt who seek only for themselves.  Today's history might prove that also, mankind never moves far from greed.

So these 'practise camps' stood in the British countryside with Roman roads to Malton (and then to York) where you can find in the Museum at Malton, finds from the digs that took place.  Also interestingly enough, grub Haus  were found which relate to a later Saxon settlement.

Pottering

Yesterday was my second day of a hellish migraine attack.  Today better but rather battered and bruised from the experience. Also decided to look for a particular photo of Paul.  It appears so sharply in my mind and yet I cannot find it amongst all the photos I have and I am sad.  So I start with getting rid of photos that have long gone past their sell by date.  And find this photo of mock orange and Ladies Mantle, which is one of my favourite flowers for vases.

So what was the photo of? 2008 at Coat's Water near Swindon, someone mentioned Richard Jeffries the other day, and I had read three of his books, one of which was written around Coate Water.

That meeting led to many walks in the area.  I was in the middle of a divorce, perhaps nearing the end and Paul and I both shared a love of Avebury and our meetings became more often.  Moss came with us, slightly distrustful of course, it was normally just me and him and Moss didn't like strangers.  He was a companion dog, very useful on long walks, he always just knew the way back to the car and knew how to keep himself safe from electric fencing and mad cows.

In all my reading of this time I was probably searching for a truth of whether  nature is really alive.  People get lost in books, I remember Nan Shepherd's book - The Living Mountain, I gave it to someone and I don't think they ever thanked me for it!  MacFarlane had read it as well and he glowed over it but somehow my mind said that MacFarlane was just following in steps that had gone before

To find yourself as part of nature is not a public thing, though we write of it as such.  The love we have for the things around is inborn, perhaps a spiritual part of us that responds, though sometimes I will argue it is that 21% of oxygen we breath that gives us that feeling of joy and well being, but then that is a practical person talking.

Below is Coate Water, not quite the vast exapanse that Jeffries remembered in his books of Bevis and Wild London  but enough to write stories around and that is after all what we humans do as a necessity.

I am still in pyjamas but feeling better.  Lunch was the risotto I I made yesterday for the others, and it was pretty good with a medley of vegetables and asparagus in it.  We have a rota of cooks, Andrew 2, me 2, Karen 2, and you may wonder what happens on the seventh day, it is a free day to cook for yourself.

Coate Water

North Stoke: Bevis by Richard Jefferies

 North Stoke: Christmas Reading 2007

North Stoke: 4th December 2021

Words

I am into words this morning, because I have one almighty headache.  It must be the thunderstorm rollicking around overhead.  But it has brought cooler weather and perhaps the thought that climate change is not really an option.

This may sound offensive but either we are experiencing an early Halloween or someone is digging up the graveyard of early Labour leaders.  Welcome on stage Tony Blair with his ideas on how to kick start the country.  This comes from his famous organisation called The Tony Blair Institute for global change.  I suppose his emergence brings back memories of another catastrophic war in Iraqi but don't worry he will get rid of Zero commitments. Can it be because some of the countries that support him are oil companies?  His worth: roundabout $60 million.  Smiles to herself.

To roil:  Means to stir up or agitate.  Liquid for instance, the sea in a harbour.  14th century: Middle English "roil" = to roam/rove about.

Turmoil: State of extreme confusion and agitation or commotion.

Moil: to work or toil hard, to be in continuous agitation.  Middle English from Moilen.

But then the unimportant people to the likes of the Blairite contingency strive to balance the world of nature, by using drones to find the nests of curlews in the fields, which are already being harvested for hay and to warn the farmers who are very helpful as well in protecting the nests.  Small beginnings but welcome.

27th May 2026

 A few words to remind myself about Jack's garden, is anything different from last year? Well many of the flowers were still to come out, my cheap camera did not pick up what my eyes saw.  The Prosecco Terrace was boiling hot but the sheer brilliant orangeness of the Californian Poppy was something to behold.  That it had been blended with a purple allium was masterly.

New additions: An enormous mechanical wheel barrow, desperately needed for all those winding paths up and down hill.  The new shed in the centre was to lock away tools as there had been some stealing.  The only way down to the quarry is through the house, and there is a gate into the allotments as well, which must have been the way.  The quarry garden itself has on one side the allotments, the next side around there is a council owned field, probably for dog walking.  This is where the fir trees have been cut down because of a beetle.

I forgot the third side, here at the bottom of the quarry a brook trickles through, this is the boundary line, and so the wooded area on the other side belongs to other houses.  Plenty of frog spawn but no toads according to Jack in the brook.

That reminds me of a small story.  On the train going down to Chittingfold, we were all sat on the train and Lillie screamed. She had been 'attacked' by a beetle.  My daughter flicked it off her and it landed on the table on the other side.  The woman rescued it, kept it on her finger for a while and then it went into her sushi box for transport to a safer place when we got off the train.  Such drama over a poor little beetle, but given the story of the destruction of firs by beetles perhaps we are given to over-acting about them.

Our train from Leeds had of course many fans from both Middlesborough and Hull on it, but a couple of train policemen marched up and down with gentle smiles on their faces and nothing happened.  When we got to King's Cross the shock of heat and so many people was almost too much.  The people were almost like a flower garden in themselves.  Shocks of orange (fans) amongst the crowd and the women swishing along in long dresses.  London is a cultural hotspot, happily soaking up a hot sun, though yesterday, here in Tod, ambulance sirens sounded throughout the day, probably because of the heat.

Coming back on the train, and a young girl came and sat in the fourth seat round the table.  She was bubbling with talk and it all came out.  Just back from Sri Lanka, where she had been for six months teaching English, she was home to see her mum in Wakefield.  She had it all planned, travelling to age 35 years old, she would then settle down into a job.  She had already done nannying in Canada, and you could see that she felt the world was her oyster (is that the right saying?).  She was the good side of our young, optimistic and full of life, not dragged down by the weariness of it all.

TBC

Jungle Garden again

 A few favourites.

Yellow Laburnum tree accentuated by the sun

Jungle tree/palm?

I am fascinated by ferns.  Love the 'crozier' unfurling of bracken as well.

 

The yellow/orange of Californian poppy against pale purple alliums

Dining out in a pizza place

Plants ready for planting

Large Rock Rose - Cistus.  The bees adored it and there was a few butterflies as well

I think this is quaking grass. Down the path to the dark undergrowth of the large Gunnera, not a place I have been to. 

New ferns at the base of the central new shed.

 

This photo is here because the fir trees behind those trees at the top have been cut down because of a ravaging beetle attack. As it is North there maybe problems in the environment of the quarry when cold North-East winds bear down.

Hostas giant sized and still unravaged by snails

Probably my favourite fern.  This giant fern has subtle bronze shading which my camera fails to pick up. 
  Photos show up in the black background if you click on the photos.

It's Too Darn Hot, to write words

"Or the eagle glance Of science, could call back thy history lost"

 

I have written so much about Silbury, that this enigmatic monument too goodness knows what, remains inside me as a teller (or should that be the tiller?) of my life.  It was the place that I stopped at on my way to settle in Wales and decided to stop at the town of Calne and buy a house there instead.  I studied archaeology, married the lecturer and made journey's from Bath to walk my dog there.  But always taking in the prehistoric landscape that lay so closely underfoot.  Avebury stones, East and West Kennet long barrows, the Ridgeway with its round barrows, some of them Roman.  I marvelled at lives that had gone before me.  Then of course I met Paul there outside the Red Lion pub, I suppose it was a date.  He said something cheeky about the sun hat I was wearing. 

The hat, which at this very moment, I have been searching for to take on our trip to Surrey.  We are having a hot Bank Holiday  this weekend.  So a train journey down to London, poor Andrew had to travel to London for a meeting yesterday but will be back tonight to do the same journey again.  We are also meeting Lillie in London who is also coming but she will be camping out in the garden.

But as I went through the blogs I have written about Silbury I came across a poem, written by 12 year old Emmeline Fisher, she was the second cousin of Wordsworth.  It was found inside Silbury 150 years later.  I remember at the time when Silbury was being restored by the firm Skanska, the villagers in Avebury wanted to put into the hill a similar time capsule.  But it was refused by the archaeologists because it could have caused damage in the future.

As a note, Druidism was rife in the Victorian age, it covered all the prehistoric archaeological stuff with plenty of fanciful stories. The Roman writers, including Tacitus, have a lot to answer for when they subdued the natives of this country;)

Hidden poem by Wordsworth’s niece published | OurDailyRead

Bones of our wild forefathers

O forgive,
If now we pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent Day!
Hark, as we move,
Runs no stern whisper through the narrow vault?
Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale,
With backward beckoning arm?
No, all is still.
O that it were not!
O that sound or sign,
Vision, or legend, or the eagle glance
Of science, could call back thy history lost,
Green Pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed Time!
O that the winds which kiss thy flowery turf
Could utter how they first beheld thee rise;
When in his toil the jealous Savage paused,
Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair,
And scanned the growing hill with reverent gaze,
-Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe**
To join the chant prolonged o'er warriors cold
. -Or how the Druid's mystic robe they swelled;
Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing
The solemn sacrificial ashes bore,
To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn,
Or where the peasant treads the Churchward***path

Emmeline Fisher

Edit. There is actually another poem written by an American girl in the 19th century in similar vein about Avebury.  Her ancestor was Oliver Cope, a tailor of Awbury (as it was then called).  Oliver Cope was a dissenter who took his family in the 17th Century to America  they settled and a dynasty was born.  I have written about it here.  The girl was called Mary S, Cope, the date 1886.