12th January 2025

 Ian Hislop - Chief editor of the Private Eye magazine is being applauded for bringing a touch of  'truth' to the subject of the idiot who would be king of the world.  Hislop might even earn a room in my Gormenghast Castle for his service in humour to the nation.  I used to have Andrew's copies of Private Eye, but I haven't seen a copy for a couple of months.  I think he is taking 'Bylines' at the moment, I'm juggling with thoughts of the News Statesman' ' but it is pretty pricey.  Also the Marsh family have brought out a song as well.

I wasn't going to write today but......... Lillie has gone back to London this morning with her father. Whilst here she has been attending the local scouts meetings.  She is a leader and on the board of trustees as well.  Their elderly leader died not so long ago, so perhaps that is why they have taken up one so young.  She also attends the one near her 'halls' in London.  She is very committed.

Matilda has also been keeping in touch.  Firstly I need not knit those black fingerless gloves - yeah! Black wool is almost impossible to see when you knit.

She is going to Switzerland with her mum at the end of March.  They are always travelling my family, Karen and Andrew are off to Paris end of this month.  Perhaps I should renew my passport as well ;)  I fancy a train trip to Settle in Yorkshire, staying for a couple of days.  Not for the town but for the long train ride through the Yorkshire countryside.

Also another birthday present has popped up.  It is a journal. With Mum on its front, apparently I have to write my life history in it, which will be somewhat boring.  Get my old fountain pen back into use.  Funny how tapping out our thoughts on a computer is so much easier though.  I have just been reading a blog on 'cursive' writing as well.  Remember in primary school how you had a thin line and a fat line to do all the well printed handwriting, squiggles were allowed later.

10th January 2025

 The cold continues, my daughter bravely faces her train journey each day in the face of delayed trains and missing train drivers.  But the tree ents have not fallen dead on the tracks of late so that is one blessing.

In one of the articles I put on recently,  George Orwell was mentioned as some sort of instigator for the far right in America.  Well I never knew his outspokenness in a particular time of history would reach down to the American way of life, or that he would be read there even.

Well perhaps people should read or listen to Rebecca Solnit's - Orwell Roses and learn a little more about the man.  I find Solnit a very good writer, though a little sweary on F/b when it comes to the two protagonists ready to take over the world.  I find this rather funny, am I frightened? No is the answer.  

But to get back to Orwell, he was a man of principle............... 2+2=4 principle and as Laura Beers in her book Orwell's Ghosts, here I am quoting,

his core belief was not in free speech, but true speech. That is not the freedom to insist that “two plus two equals five” – no matter how many followers you have. And this subtle but profound difference jars against a more fundamentalist American conception of a sacred right to free speech, consecrated in the first amendment.

Back to that old word 'truth' and how we use it.  The truth of the matter is?  we have lost our way of thinking.  I am always going to believe in the world of science and that we are in the process of climate change  and that we should do something about it.  But I am not going to read every for and against argument that litters the way.  I can see it happening in other parts of the world, the climate is definitely getting worse, it is up to us humans to protect the Earth, not just for ourselves but for every creature that occupies this land we all live upon.  If I see another poor stranded polar bear on an iceberg or a grief stricken Orca carrying her dead calf on her back I shall litter my blog with the awfulness of what other people and animals go through. But I don't.

"I still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small." ~ Rebecca Solnit

9th January 2025

Wandering Turnip on the latest on the sink hole.  Freezing cold of course, now it is dangerous to take the lanes to the top road.  Which also has been closed overnight.  The woodlands though are still pretty.  I'm not allowed out of the house!

8th January 2024

Keeping up with our news.  Well no meal the other day, though the snow is not deep in the valley, the roads are icy and everyone is still getting into trouble taking the small lanes up to the moors because of the snow and ice. The culvert still remains to be finished, everyone is bellyaching about the fact that the new pipe has to come from Germany when there is a firm that makes pipes right next door to the 'hole in the road'. But really it is all just a brief interlude into the state of the roads in Britain.

I have not much to say, it is cold and I have had one of my 'sort of headaches' which leaves me tired and worn out and my birthday is tomorrow.  Also which is so annoying I have turned into anonymous whenever I try to leave a comment and on some blogs am refused completely. But hey-ho.

The following two links are good on the present situation, I have decided to fit Professor Tim Wilson in one of my Gormenghast Castle's empty rooms for sensible talking on the state of the land.  He describes Musk the man without qualities well.  I am not sure why we should fear such men as Trump and Musk, they are single minds in the hive, there are plenty of other bees working away for a better world;)

America maybe does not understand Britain, especially our humour or sense of irony.  The tongue can destroy just as easily as the gun, we shall see.

And what was the happy moment yesterday?  It was a small robin outside the window eating the food I had left out.  It is normally the crows I see but this little creature must have been after the tiny crumbs.

 Why the American Right Loathes Modern Britain

Elon Musk, the man without qualities, the man without restraint

6th January 2025 - Garn Wynda note

 

When in Wales in the summer wander along the lanes and smell the honeysuckle, it grows wild in the countryside. Yes I am on one of my yearning missions but in the process collecting more information about a particular cromlech.  This one remained long in my memory, the sheer joy of just wandering along a green lane, and also a path to a redundant school 19th century where once children followed the same path to school. And no car has ever reached this school, I wish I could find a photo, it is called Hennen school in Garn Wynda.  I came across something Rhiannon (Modern Antiquarian) had written about the name Gwyndaf which was the saint the church was named after and also the prehistoric burial cromlech seen here in an early blog - Going Back in Time. 

Adding the Welsh Saint who gave his name to the local church and Neolithic burial chamber.  Rhiannon had quoted  from Baring Gould, but on looking the saint up in Breverton's book of Welsh Saints

Saint Gwyndaf Hen born in the 6th century, his tale is not very auspicious but still. When travelling back from Fishguard one day on horseback after an argument with St. Aidan, he had to cross his boundary stream.  A fish suddenly leapt out of the water frightening his horse and Gwyndaf fell and broke his leg.

He cursed the stream so that no fish would ever swim in it again but it still springs from the holy well near the church.

talking of stories made up by the saints, and note some of these Welsh names used for the burial chambers can be different for instance Breverton calls it Carn Wynda or Carreg Samson

Carn = a pile of stones

Garn = a prominence

Llan = means land.  The land round a church for instance.

Carreg = stone

Garn Wynda

Ysgol Henner 1910 - 1915 / Henner School 1910 - 1915 | Ysgol Henner School, Goodwick / Wdig, Llanwnda | Fishguard and Goodwick local history

Ysgol Henner School | Pencaer, Ysgol Henner School | Fishguard and Goodwick local history

North Stoke: Still homesick for Wales

3rd january 2024

 Friday:  It is Andrew's birthday today.    It is my birthday next Wednesday so we will go out to my favourite restaurant, 'Staff of Life' on this coming Sunday, there will be six of us.

Capricorns have a somewhat negative write-up as far as their star (the goat) is concerned.  Coupled with the fact it is soon after Xmas and everyone is broke to buy a second lot of presents.  Our birthdays happen in the midst of winter, the light is beginning to return but snow, ice and rain make it miserable outside.

I am still  researching  cameras, I seem to have settled on a DSLR - digital single-lens  reflex though that means little to me, and it is a toss up between a Canon EOS  2000D or the 4000, it is so complicated and confusing.

Returning to taking photos or even my wobbly videos is still of interest to me, though I have a great backlog of photos to wander through my life. 

Now for some music, I used to love the sound of the organ (played well) in the church but voices are equally pleasing, so for an uplifting experience and a reminder you can always find something happy through the day to listen to.

The voices blended so beautifully, it reminds me of those years at the convent, there is also this Veni,Veni Emmanuel.  One cold December filing down to the icy church to practise again and again the above carol. I got my middle 'catholic' name at this time, though it was lost on a non committed religious me.  Though by the law of the church I was  supposedly excommunicated because my first marriage was in a C of E church, does that still apply I wonder or was it the vicar at the time making the rules up.

The above photo of my confirmation, my then, who I thought of as my brother, besides me to join in the day.  As I look at the photo I see no DNA linking us.  He was the grandson of our Jewish grandfather who brought me up after I had been adopted. Looking at the photo I think it was my biological mother who must have insisted on my Catholic upbringing.

We were together as children and then harshly parted when a divorce occurred in the family.  I also remember it happened around this time, and walking down the stairs at the convent to face my new life with a new stepmother who I disliked intensely.  Funny what music brings up;)

01/01/25

 Top of the morning to you! may the beauty of this world sustain you through this year.  And perhaps reflect on this.......

Yes the flood warning went off in the middle of the night, so on the whole fireworks and WW11 sirens kept the night lively.  But we are into the New Year, Flood Wardens have stood down, and on the Tod forum, people have renewed their moaning about that large hole in the main road.  Cursing the workmen of course, though several people came to their defense and made them hot drinks and snacks.

People make me wonder where their sensibilities have gone.  Things take time to repair, to settle, to resolve as a problem, but moaning is a great pastime. 

Problems interfere with the placid affairs of our lives, some would argue that it makes life more interesting.  Flooding is commonplace in this valley, the meetings of water cause chaos on the road at Callis Bridge but it is a natural phenomena and perhaps those first pioneers who settled at the bottom of a deep narrow valley will be giggling up there somewhere in the clouds.  

So I will leave you with the thrill of what a old siren sounds like and try to remember that it is not to do with today but a long time ago war when people fled to the underground when its sound was heard on the air.  And down in the corner of this large screen, I can see the fateful words 'heavy rain'.

31st December 2024

 How have things happened in the last couple of days?  Well it has been quiet with all the grown-up grandchildren gone, though Lillie is still here.  I wrote about cave paintings the other day and the book I was reading.  It sparked a controversial comment, very long and referenced and it seemed to me not troll like at all.  But written by someone who was young and the pulse of strong opinion coursed through them.  I read the links but at the end of the day deleted the comment, though I have kept a reference for it.

When you get old, strong opinions are watered down and one looks at the world quietly, knowing full well you are not going to be in it for long ;).  I notice there is a definite troll going round, commenting with the repeated word 'die', not upsetting, just childish.

I wake up early, at the behest of my cat, who either wants feeding or her water bowl topped up.  When we have both settled I turn to my tablet for things to look at.  Today Bernie Sanders with a talk about the billionaires taking over the reins of power in America.  Musk of course comes to mind, a stupid man who thinks he can strut the world stage and tell everyone what to do.  I blanched the other day when he wanted to control Wikipedia in some way.  We know that not all fares well in his little world of acquisition. X has lost a lot of contributors. But hey-ho!

I watched a small video on the parlous state of towns in Cornwall, especially Cambourne.  The tents for the homeless part of the graveyard territory.  Ever since mining and fishing has become almost extinct, the place has closed down.  Of course tourism prospers in the pretty villages that edge the sea but it brings its own problems in expensive holiday homes forcing the young out of the county.  Apparently lithium has been found, and a mining firm has already opened last October but it will not go far as giving employment to the many.

Lastly I watched a small local video about the abandoned Rodwell Hill Farm that is up on the moors above Todmorden and the several suicides in the barn over the decades.  Making a life up on the moors must have been very hard, I can even think I hear Catherine calling out 'Heathcliff, Heathcliff' from those dark grey walls of the farmhouse.  Anyway I shall put the link up and no-one has to watch it but it is the part of Todmorden I am not able to reach.

Edit: It is good to go back on old blogs.  This one from 2010 records the day, sometimes I wish that like Tasker I could reprint my old blogs.  But it seems impossible.  Firstly they come out with a background of red when they come forward onto a new page, and should be able to remove the colour the words overlap the sides.

28th December 2024

 "the time Homo sapiens arrived on the scene some 300,000 years ago, we were the ninth homo species, joining habilis, erectus, rudolfensis, heidelbergensis, floresiensis, neanderthalensis, naledi, and luzonensis."

Did you know all that? Married to an archaeology lecturer for 27 years, I did.  We emerged from the Rift Valley in Africa and our Eve was called Lucy, she was at a certain time considered the 'mother of us all'.  When I say certain time I mean that was the thinking at a particular timeline, explanations may have changed but this 'walking upright creature' from more than 3.2 million years ago may have been your forebearer.

What am I talking about, well Andrew gave me a book for Xmas - The Dawn of Everything - A New History of Humanity.  So with the aid of my light round my neck, I read the first chapter this morning with the cat bleating in my ear.

It will be fascinating to read about such things as 'is capitalism a good thing?' do we necessarily need to be governed and policed by the state and most funny of all is our Western Society the good thing it is supposed to be?  Considering we have raped and pillaged across the world in our greed for power and goodies.

That is only the first chapter;) But something has always struck me about the artwork, say 20,000 years ago compared to the dull brown (it's the varnish)  Dutch portraits of the great and the good.  One of the books I once owned was a Victorian album of photos of the treasures you could find at the Uffizi Gallery, amongst them was this Roman boar.  You can find more information about him here and his restoration after a fire.  He reminds me of the great Welsh Celtic Twrch Trywth boar.  

He dates a mere 2000 years back, give or take a decade or two.  

The following female and male bison from the Tuc D'Audoubert Caves 14 thousand years ago. a replica of which lies in the front entrance of the British Museum.

See here

But for me amongst all the prehistoric art, the Chauvet Caves takes some beating, those animals charge out of the rock with a vitality that is untouched by time. A mere 32,000 years ago.

Chauvet Cave

Note: choosing animals to illustrate what I am thinking about. Perfect marble Roman bodies have a different art writing underneath the skill of the craftsman, he works for the vanity of the customer.   Hunted animals of course are food and drawn from long hours sitting out waiting for them to present the perfect target for killing.

26th December 2025 - A lovely Christmas.

A few years back at Chelmsford

All four home.  The usual quibbling amongst them, except of course Tom, who will sit quietly and read through the squabbling of the two girls.  Lillie went on strike over buying a cauliflower for Ben's cauliflower cheese he was going to make so there was stand-off till someone eventually went off to buy it.  They had chicken with all the trimmings, no one likes turkey. Red cabbage, sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnip and of course the cauliflower cheese made by myself as Ben was out in the morning.  Lillie came back with the coffee machine her father had bought her.

She doesn't drink coffee of course, but it is for her friends at Uni.  Both girls are baristas (is that the right word I wonder).  Matilda working in an Iranian restaurant in London and Lillie filling in time at the cafe in Hebden Bridge.

Presents galore for everyone, my daughter had a 'thrift' present giving, though my books looked brand new.  I got the wooden bowl for containing my knitting ball of wool and a light to hang around my neck as I work.  A Celtic shawl pin from Matilda and red candles from Lillie.  Tom brought me an electric blanket, chosen by himself and not Ellie and Ben bought me some red wine.

Tom is starting a new job soon PR in a publishing firm and Matilda still looking for a job in journalism.

They will get cross with me for writing this but I record the family history.  I had meant to give them all napkins (or serviettes maybe) as a matched present, like I had given them all candlesticks last Xmas.  But it suddenly occurred to me yesterday that if I get round to sewing the napkins, I could embroider S.I.D. on them - Sometimes I Despair - which recalls their great grandfather at the dinner table, when the arguments got too heated, throwing his napkin over his head and saying S.I.D. several times so that everyone pipped down but I am not good at embroidery.

One memory came back and it was Ben's Sushi kit.  Paul always used to make sushi but once a client took us to a  very first class Sushi restaurant in London.  The Sushi chef sliced the fish at the bar and you eat as he prepared them, I think I must have eaten some but I was not enamoured.

Farndale in North Yorkshire

Why Farndale? it is because the first daffodils appear, and Weaver also remembered it. Blue skies and spring is on its way;)

Farndale

23rd December 2024

I have  been doing several things.  Firstly I managed to find the episodes of Gormenghast on F/B. It was released in 2000, so not so long ago.  A pretty good production given all the backdrops and the acting was superb and conveyed the vileness of Steerpike beautifully.  Celia Imrie played the magnificent head of state, with her roomful of white cats and Titus himself has yet to prove his character.

I have always seen Gormenghast Castle as the functioning government we have.  The strict adherence to ritual, the foolishness of becoming a Lord or Lady.  The downfall of the two sisters who wished for all the glories of coaches and servants and then their death by starvation has always haunted me.  A strong cast played the various strands very well but the evilness of Steerpike as he plots the death of the people he doesn't like is wickedly good.  

A fairytale or fantasy you might well call it but the personality of the author, Mervyn Peake shines there.  But, did a certain madness lie at the bottom of his strange caricatures that he drew so fluidly.  He is definitely a 'forgotten' person in the world of art.

Peake's health deteriorated through the 1960s and he suffered from dementia and Lewy's Body and he was given electroconvulsive therapy, which I believe today is never used, anyway he died in 1968 at the age of 57 years.

I am also listening to George Orwell's Wigan Pier.  This has been brought on because the 'wandering Turnip' has done a whole series on the Northern towns and had carried the book around with him in Wigan.  He has a name, and now you will see why he uses turnip in his title, it is David Burnip.

He is damn good at what he does, media presentation seems to be falling into the hands of many independent producers who use Youtube as their vehicle of bringing their work to public view.

He is looking at the demise of the high street in many of our Northern towns, and London and the South as well.  Some would see it as catastrophic but we all have to agree that old ways have to be turned into new ways.  All those  comfortable little shops we were so used to have vanished under the enormous pressure of very high business tax and rental, it is just not worth it.  But what we see are rows of empty boarded up shops on many high streets.  It is not because the retail business has left us, you can still buy stuff on line, it is the endless  expenses of running the shops that has brought about this demise.

Of course one could cite an easy answer to the problem, turn all those shops and empty brown spaces into housing but it needs money and where is that to come from? Well answering the question, it has been promised by the late government £208 million* to be precise at the beginning of this year, it will be interesting to see what it has been used on.

It is almost as if  we are going back to Victorian times, the space between the poor and the rich is widening at a fast rate.  Today for instance, we haven't got any crackers, none in the shops.  So online my daughter thumbing through found a box for £700.  Now who is going to buy that? the answer is simple there are plenty of mugs out there willing to do it.  Money sloshes around elsewhere, for instance did you see the Assad's garage? At least 50 high end cars stashed away.

I think I shall stop there, Ben is supposed to be cooking the tea and there is certain disruptions amongst the three!

*That promise of course could have easily been broken by the conservatives, so much white wash but what of the Labour party well according to this BBC article Manchester is still going to receive £100 million.

The bells are ringing for Christmas

 

A card from five years ago

It is almost upon us, and then it will be over.  My card, which I am reusing by the way, features the bottom of the garden in the house we once lived in.  You can see the little stone building in the church yard.  It has a small middle hatch on the frontage which took the coal for the church.  Next to it in the garden is the holly tree.  Each year David and Jo would cut branches off it for the church and as the picture mists over there is the green leaves of the Ceanothus peeping over.  Bees and the Ceonothus's symbiotic togetherness one year in the following video.  Did I say I love bumblebees?  Be warned. Very unsteady hand hold and a lot of grass at the end!

The family have arrived, well at least Ben and Matilda, Tom will come on Xmas Eve.  Ben and Matilda caught the same train but it was two trains coupled together so they sat apart.

I wish everyone a Happy Christmas with family and a good New Year.

Also I wish that wars will come to an end and that the poor people of Ukraine, Syria and Gaza are allowed to renew their countries once more. 

xxx

Sunday Morning listening to carols on Radio 3

I shiver slightly  in front of the computer, Mollie wants the bed so I must get up. Her incessant meowing tells me this.  I have changed the font on my blog, (nanum gothic) the letters are thinner but more rounded.  I wonder if I can thank Eric Gill for this? An interesting person who would  definitely be 'cancel culture' now if all his various sins came to life.  But foolish young people what would you write with?

Have you ever met an 'erotic lawn  roller' for instance? Gill was everything art based and if you read the second link below you will know my interest in the Augustinian Llanthony Priory that is part of the valley in the Black Mountains which he and his family lived.

 Gosh when I plunder past blogs of mine what delicious  things roll up.  Eric Gill lived in Wales, where all sensible people should live if they wish to escape this world.  He lived  in Capel-y-Ffin down a narrow lane.

Well apart from Eric Ravilious who  visited Gill at his Welsh (see James Russell link down below for the work) retreat there was one of the Beat poets - Allen Ginsberg also who made their way down the narrow lanes of this part of Wales  on their way to Hay-on-Wye.  And you will find a poem written by Ginsberg down below. 

Ref: James Russell: Ravilious in Capel-y-Ffin

          North Stoke: Books and memories

       

As Weaver said when I found this meme, that it was her philosophy as well.

Wales Visitation

White fog lifting; falling on mountain-brow

Trees moving in rivers of wind

The clouds arise

as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist

above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed

along a green crag

glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—

Continued: It is long. here

Solstice Greetings

 A Good Solstice for Everyone

Though I have no religion, the changing patterns of the year speak to me.  We are on the threshold of returning with the sun back to spring and then to summer.  The photo above is up on the downs round Bath, the birds, golden plovers.  They had been sleeping on the ground, and as Moss walked quietly beside me I inched up closer to the birds on my knees. trying to keep a low profile.  Of course they flew off.  So remember; 

In the depth of winter

I finally learned

That within me there lay

an invincible summer.

Camus

We should always hope for a better world but we should also remember the beauty of the natural world around us, it is there for the taking.

Meet the freewheeler - Wandering Turnip

 Our road closure, it's priceless 😎  The state of Britain, bloody well selling it off to any passing rich body and then giving the profit to all the investors and leaving the utilities no money to function.  I am not a Labour basher, nor funnily enough Conservative but boy the last ten years!

 

doodling the time away

Today I got Wordle in one. Strange.  The word which I will not give away, just appeared in my mind.  Sometimes I get these precognitions  of the future.  My mind always says before it dismisses them, that the parallel worlds that are beside us has moved further forward than the one I'm travelling through;)

I have made a decision to buy myself a new camera, well maybe a secondhand one as I really don't like using my phone camera.  So I will plod through reviews.  Good cameras are expensive but they come much cheaper when secondhand.... Any suggestions? I have been looking at different options, Sony or Canon.  The mirrorless ones are the in-ones at the moment but DSLRs are similar.  According to Amateur Photography, I have to look for decent video running as well as photos.  I haven't quite given up renewing old ways.  My old cameras were quite good but got lost along the way.

The Cove at Avebury

Bath Abbey

The Kennet in the cold

Friend's garden

Jottings

I have been listening to Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake.  It is the last book in the trilogy of Gormenghast books.  Political satire, it is a weird and wonderful world of sharply defined characters.  Titus meets up with many strange figures, cartoonish one might say as he travels in a different world to Gormenghast, in the end after many adventurers he makes his way back to his homeland.  But  as he approaches the mountain that looks down on Gormenghast, he takes a different track away to begin a new life.

I have somehow fallen in love with all those artistic creators who were born round the cusp of the late 19th century/ early 20th century.  From the writers, poets and artists who lived through a time unsullied by the technological wizardry of today.

I am sure power then was just as corrupt and mean as it is today, but then you could sail innocently through it without knowing about it.  Communism was an unfortunate upstart, but it appealed to some, the right act of spreading the wealth.  Only of course it did not work out that way.

What makes me angry today is the cheap slanging of words from this past era to mow down one's political opposite.  There is no Stasi or Hitlers around, only people, who may dismiss truth as something to jump over.  They are easily recognisable.

the other drama I watched, there are four episodes in the series, was 'Strike'. I had read negative revues about the new series, Strike in the Black ink Heart story that it was too complicated to follow.  Well I found the book (read to me) was difficult so perhaps the watered down television feature ironed out the problems.  It is about gaming and therefore had a lot of names to contend with, but followed the usual criminal plot line.  It is written by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym name of Robert Galbraith, I think she intends to write 10 books in the series.

Edit:  I came across the fact that the Folio Society had commissioned an illustrator - Dave McKean to draw for this expensive trilogy of books - £745 (sharp intake of breath!)

18th December - Paul's Birth Date

A post that refuses to come out on top

17th December 2024

The funny news is the F/B forum.  Disaster has struck Todmorden.  A burst sewage pipe just outside Hebden Bridge has closed the one and only main road between the two towns.  The council have no idea when it will be mended and everyone is pulling their hair out as to what to do.  The trains are still running of course, the buses are taking a longer route via Mytholmroyd.  Everyone else  in a car takes a 'diversion' down from the moors on one particular lane.  Lost cats are found, the cycle path seems to be off the menu and the flooding slight.  All's Well!

The High Bridestones

A scatter of rocks upon the North Yorkshire moors.  No one can read their message today.  Is that a circle? a pathway? or even a burial.  Forgotten stones lie all around.  I contrast it with Piper's strong line and form.

Paintings by John Piper.  I have picked five, two of stones and three of Wales.  They are stark and dramatic but for me capture the strong presence of the material 'feel' of stone.  Wales is built on rock, Jan Morris wrote once that you only had to take a square yard of Wales and you would encompass its whole history.

The following painting of Stonehenge is a long way from Turner's pale mist and of course you do not see it as you wander around it.  Pale grey stone, once lichened but somehow the striking emphasis of the stone is contrasted against a turbulent sky.  Similar to Turner and Constable, a maelstrom sky is the force in which the stones are depicted.

Stonehenge - John Piper

It's a cromlech, sketchily done and too much dark emphasis

The Rise of the River Dovey

I love this painting, the mountains rears vertical from the still, placid lake at its foot.  It reminds me of a Tibetan myth, the god was the mountain and the lake the female.

Footless Crow

Alongtimealone - John Piper

I am not quite sure why I like John Piper.  His work is dark and dramatic and in my mind there is a much softer vision of Wales that I see in its green rounded hills. But one is always aware that underneath it all the rocks hold it up and were the beginnings of a religious nature, along with the sun and moon and maybe even the stars for the Neolithic tribes that established themselves on the higher ground.

Ref: Frances Spalding, long and beautifully illustrated - John Piper, Myfanwy Piper, Lives in Art.

And as an extra just say Myfanwy several times and recognise the beautiful sound of the word.  The 'y' as the 6th vowel/consonant sometimes used.

14th December 2024. (passed the 13th on a Friday with no problem)

 I have just written and sorted out photos for a very nostalgic blog but decided not to publish it till the 18th.  Otherwise I burnt the bread yesterday, you could use the loaf as a brick to build a house it is so strong.

My daughter says the problem is you can never smell burning from an Aga the oven is too sealed up. Apart from cooking disasters life continues apace.  Lillie is back, late last night and will probably go to work today at her old workplace.

Is it really like this in America and do I believe what I read, the answer to the second question is no of course.  But it is something to brood over.   "Know what you stand for and what you think is good"

My son has been blessed with an Amazon gift card from me which was delivered a day after by the Amazon work slave.  I know all this because of the half dozen emails Amazon posts.  Have you not noticed how the drivers fidget on the front doorstep trying to get away quick after the photo call to keep up to speed on their round?  Please do not let the Post Office Mail (is it called Royal Mail anymore?) be sold off to some money drunk happy billionaire to buy it and then force another bunch of people into serfdom.

And, if we have to gossip, I am a bit sick of Prince Andrew and his foolishness in his friendships with Chinese spies, or business people, take your pick.  Just put him in The Tower and then all of that unruly fuss about which royal house he wants will be solved.

During my reading of 'The Ruralists' I came across a good rabbit hole to go down.  It is by Ralph Steadman, his drawings always scares me.  Roald Dahl once wrote a book on the case of the ownership of the Mildenhall Roman Treasure and you can find some of Steadman's illustrations in this blog.

Rabbit Hole by Ralph Steadman

A good Christmas Card down below?  I like the scruffiness of his studio.  Why do not artists get rich when they are alive? But it is rich business men who make the profit on old paintings when they are sold.  Funny that!

Three Kings

18th December 2024

Moments as Christmas draws near and as the Christmas cards come in. It is good to remember the happy times. Today would have been Paul's birthday, he liked an outing for a present.  Once we went down to Stonehenge for the opening of the new centre.  It was bleak and cold, the good and the brave mingled with the pissed off Druid protestors.  Stonehenge is always good for a rave;)

Village barbecue held in the barn, as the weather as usual was wet

This was once my community.  There were three tablefuls of villagers here gathered together at the annual  do.  You had to pay of course, that was my job with C going round collecting in the village.  Each household had to produce a dish I always did a very large bowl of mayonnaise potatoes.

Our village was made up of retirees, suburbanites and local people. We looked after our village.  We had three meetings each year, mostly at our local pub for quiz night, though the barbecue was often in someone's garden and in years gone past, and, as we were reminded each year, the little field next to the church that had become our house.

 

Funnily enough on one side of the house was the church and the other the pub, run beautifully by two young sisters.  We were a close community, Paul thrived in the way we would always come together.  He organised the cleaning of weeds on the pavement that traversed the length of the village.  Cleaned the display board on the village history that someone had so lovingly gathered together and drawn on three enormous sheets of paper.  Which sadly through the winter months would curl up with the damp.

Happy as Larry,' as one would say :)

Why this sudden rush of memories?  Well it was the Xmas cards I received yesterday, detailing the news of the church meeting as to whether it should be closed. Ten Diocesan people (probably  from York) and the village people packed the little (very cold church) to discuss the issue.  Ironic in the sense that the church on Sunday has but half a dozen people if that but on talk of its closure will command a full house. 

At the end of the table is Dr. Peter Smith.  The first person to welcome us to our new home with a small container of tomatoes.  He was not a medical doctor but always insisted on the name.

J rang the church bells at midnight on Christmas Eve, always worrying that she would wake me up.  I would laugh for that was the whole point. J and D have been married for 60 years, they have known each other since childhood in India and have just acquired a new dog this year, I expect she still has the four kittens, grown into cats in their barn.  D was a town crier in Malton down the road and would enter into competitions all over the country.

I was late to the show, so everyone had to assemble once more.  You can see that I am the official photographer for the village!  Goodness knows what we were ringing in.

Yes I miss it all, especially the cold meetings in the church to resolve how to spend the small amount of money the council gave us for the church. 

Well in typical fashion, Rob the gardener who mowed the church yard was taken off the job and a small group from the pub said they would do it.  They failed miserably and only could manage one half.  Rob and his wife looked after many gardens in the village, and mowed our lawn as well.  When I left he did it for free as a parting gift, and I shall always remember that act of kindness.

 

11th December 2024 - The Ruralists.

Stoney Littleton long barrow

Whilst thumbing through my old December blogs for a Xmas card to send to people, I came across David Inshaw's Silbury Hill.  Which led me back into memories of walking down to Stoney Littleton long barrow with Moss in tow.  A long walk down a green lane, which served some cottages and a farm.  Then you would come to a stile, through a couple of fields and then the long barrow in all its glory of wild flowers and stone.  Still telling us that it was the tribal territory of the Ammonite tribe.  Well I may exaggerate there but on the entrance was an ammonite stone and the surrounding district had ammonites dug up from the soil, with some cottages still decorated with them. But I am going off tangent.  At the stile was the most beautiful brook called the Wellow I think,  You could have set Millais's 'Ophelia' into it with its water flowers and damsel flies that shimmered in their turquoise hue above the surface.

But we must go back to the beginning of the walk, you passed the old Wellow railway station, more a stopping off place before the great cull of the railways by Doctor Beeching.  It was an old fashioned verandah place.  It was here that I learnt that an artistic group called 'The Brotherhood of Ruralists' had lived for a time  I had come across their paintings at an exhibition in Bath.

To cut the story short, and in the rabbit holes we all end up in now  I found the following extraordinary video of the group.  The film is fuzzy and old but it captures some of the magic of the 70s and also Somerset.

Also it captures very strongly the personalities of the groups.  Here I must make a point of some of the physicality of the paintings and also draw attention to the much later scandal of Graham Ovendon.  They are artists and paint what they want, time catches up with them and judges. But their work as a group is fascinating.

"Summer with the Ruralists"