14th October 2024

 The week that was.  Echoes of a long ago satirical show TWTWTW.  But with our weather forecasting giving us false hurricane winds as well, wasn't there a bit of Deja Vue, did it ricochet through our minds reminding us of the storm of 1987 when Michael Fish's tame forecast came undone and we woke to all those trees brought down. 15th October 1987. 

Then there is the beautiful Auroras or Northern Lights we have all been experiencing.  Photos bounce through my F/B of gorgeous coloured skies, over Stonehenge or Avebury.  If, of course, I had lived through prehistoric times I would be seeing signs of the gods warning us of troubled times in the future maybe.

photo taken from Swindon Advertiser

English music on the radio, or at least music composed by English composers.  When I was a child I was often ill, lying in bed hour after hour with only the radio for company and it seemed around 5  0 clock in the late afternoon someone indulged themselves with 'Lark Ascending' or some Elgar.  I remember being quite disappointed when we went to lunch at some friends at Great Malvern, for this was the place where Elgar had settled.  We walked the hills and drank the water, but it was very suburban.

As for my back ;) well a paracetamol before I get up will take away the pain of actually getting up and once walking around there is not much pain.  So I shall wait for it to heal up.

I have been thinking about love and romance, something we hardly talk about in blogland.  But I am sure it starts at the beginning of all relationships.  The grass ring my first husband wove for me must have disintegrated into brown dust before I got the garnet engagement ring.  I wear a garnet ring today from Paul, I love the dark red of this semi-precious stone.  There are beautiful cloisonne Anglo-Saxon jewels found in the graves of the A/S women.  Nowadays we would not be buried with our treasured belongings but then burial was an acknowledgement of lives well lived.

12th October 2024

 Well I am not sure you will be able to watch this but here goes.  It is a video of the Allendale Folk Festival, I presume up in the wilds of Northumberland.  It is the tale of the wolf killing, though I think the wolf died out long before this wolf was around.  What made me cry though was that at the end Katy, had recorded the theme music from the Detectorists.  A programme many people loved for its gentle humour and the two actors who were such losers, Paul loved it as well.

The actual music was sung by Johnny Flynn

If you can't play it try and find the programme it is very funny with a touch of pathos.  

And you get Kate's Onion soup for colds, my daughter has just gone off to Switzerland with a cold to see her aunt, so I hope she doesn't pass it on.

An edit: Great news!!! a date that needs recording for the family.

An excited call from my daughter in Switzerland this afternoon, Tom, my eldest grandchild has got engaged to Ellie in Copenhagen.  Hopefully there will be a picture of them both.  I never actually thought I would live to see him grown up nor that somewhere in the future I could be a great grandmother.  I know my daughter is over the moon at this coming together.  They were meant for each other and are so sweet together.

So when they will wed I do not know but their  grandfather, who never saw his daughter grown, let alone his grandchildren would perhaps also rejoice.

11th October 2024

Well first of all I must make note of the news from Florida and the Milton Storm - bad but not as bad as forecasted.  Thank goodness for that.  It has been so sad to see the level of devastation left by the first storm Helene and realise that Milton would bring about the same effect.  It was watching an American weather forecaster break down in tears as he thought of the strength of the storm and its potential to destroy and kill that made me despair.

But what I learnt as I watched the scenes unfold was the good generosity of people and the state forces coming to organise the rescuing of people and pet animals, the road building machinery rolling in, to know that as always that the human spirit was still as strong as ever.

Apparently those who believe foolish things, the conspiracy theorists, the alternative reality that seems to haunt some brains have been out in force casting doubt and suspicion on the wretched tragedy of lost homes and lives and the help from the state, but they will be halted.  I have come to see in a country ridden by one man and his stupidity that there are plenty who are sensible and wise, and all I can say to that is Amen!

I am slightly displaced at the moment, or at least my back is, not sure what happened, was it carrying the shopping back yesterday, or mending my spinning wheel, which is low to the ground.

I am quite proud that I have made my wheel work better.  It all started with the string coming off the wheel, and 'The Maiden' coming off the 'Mother of all'.  Just had to write that as the naming of parts makes me giggle. A couple of screws lightly tightened and an extra long piece of string so I could easily manipulate it around the wheel.  Spinning wheels rely on tension from two points and achieving the balance is not always easy but the wheel has worked its magic all through history.

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These people from down the road at Mixenden spent a whole week trying to get a small dog called Rosie out of a 12 inch rocky hole.  Rosie had fallen 15 feet into the hole.  Rock breaking, earth lifting they were determined to rescue the poor pooch, and they did and she is doing well.

The other photo I have collected is of Whitby Abbey's artwork, all apparently done with environmentally friendly pigments.  It does of course represent hands holding on to the roots of a  tree.  It was paid for by The Lottery and the installation land art was made by David Poppa.

The ‘Heritage Tree’ honours the seven inspirational people who have "changed the game across heritage, land and nature” over the last three decades.

Stray news

News items picked up this morning.  Well not exactly, because the following bird was photographed by a friend in South America.  But for such a little scrap of feathers it has a big name, it is called the Tufted Tit-Tyrant, so beware if you go to Peru. 

Tufted Tit-Tyrant

The 'idiot's apostrophe' or Deppenapostroph.   The English often get into trouble as to where to put their apostrophes but  German language doesn't even entertain it.  Be humble, as my English grammar can be wanting I am so happy to see another country lay down contrary rules.

“In the midst of winter,” wrote Albert Camus, “I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”  Taken from Gordon Brown's article 

7th October 2024 - Collecting "Then be Content with Silence"

It is 5.30 this morning and the cat joins in with the music below, which I will listen to throughout the day.  Musical art through Stonehenge.  There is something of Oscar Wilde in Erland Cooper, a composer from Scotland.

'Carve the Rune then be content with Silence' at Stonehenge.

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Also what else have I picked up over the weekend.  Well there is this beautiful rock crystal Roman, perfume bottle perhaps? so small, but so intricate found in the Viking era where it was altered.  Listen to Dr. Martin Goldberg on this small treasure and look at its  design and visualise its journey from Iran to Scotland, to be buried in the Galloway Viking Hoard. To be so tenderly cleaned and analysed, it was also wrapped in a piece of cloth which  gives information about weaving.  So much evidence, so much work.

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And last, but not least, a Grimshaw painting of a nocturnal scene.  It captures the moody sadness of Autumn, the dank cold air as night approaches.  The soul becomes sad on days like this.

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Twilight

6th October 2024 - Wharram Percy

 It is Sunday, the supposedly most peaceful day of the week.  It is a time for going to church, though apparently as a country there are more atheists than Christians.  So peaceful memories.  Wharram Percy DMV (Deserted Medieval Villages).  The most famous in England.  Nestled in the Yorkshire landscape far away from today's modern roads.  It is also the most studied DMV. (Beresford and Hurst).

The day we went the sun shone and the air was quiet and tranquil.  It was a place I had always wanted to visit but too far away in East Yorkshire.  All that remains is a restored farm house - thank English Heritage for that - and a ruined church.  The village itself was up on the plateau above the farmhouse.  It was a typical medieval 'toft and croft' you can see in the picture below the houses fronting the roadway and then the long crofts behind for growing their vegetables and keeping their animals.

There are traces all over England of the great common fields that the people farmed, strips of narrow long fields, in which ploughing and harrowing was a communal activity.  The faint signs of Ridge and furrow can still be seen from the train carriage as you travel through the Midlands to the North.

As an archaeological site it was studied over many years

Warram Percy Deserted Medieval Village

South Manor

House site

The walk back along the narrow pathway and through the fields.

Apologies to those who vote for the wrong party but this made me smile.

20 Years Ago on July 6th, 2002 - the brilliant economist and thinker John Kenneth Galbraith, gave an interview in which he said this perfect bit:

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

After 100 days of mistakes, we need to hear Labour’s underlying philosophy   Will Hutton

7th October 2024 - the marking of a terrible anniversary

 Jonathon Friedland's moving and astute article on that terrible day

I was going to put this up on Monday, but then thought there will be a lot of news on that day.  The above photo is of the six month anniversary of the event, which will go down as one of the most wicked acts of terrorism ever carried out.  

It shocked everyone but the repercussions are resounding round the Middle East, now, this very day, with an intensified war by Israel on other states.  There has been protests all over the world with the continued bombarding of Gaza, a humanitarian appeal for all those civilians caught up in this war as they flee from one place to another.

Friedland paints the two sides of Israel, and also the protestation of other people in the world against Israel.  His views are valid, and I am still not sure in my own mind that Netanyahu has only pursued this war to keep himself in power.  If this was so, then he is a person of the worst order, allowing others to die in the interests of himself.

I can read article after article on the hopeless plight of Palestinian refugees moving between refugee camps, see children with limbs blown off and not see them as the enemy.  Perhaps living in this modern era where everything can be linked back on the net creates a mental nightmare for those outside the war.  A meme of two children, one Israeli, the other Palestinian, goes through the media but it does not answer the problem of war and killing.

Wasn't that 'The Bishop of Llandaff?'

 I wasn't going to write today but something popped up after a discussion. Really to do with our changing viewing habits.  I am not a great television watcher but like to watch the older dramas featured on the BBC and ITVX.

I have just been watching Kate Jackson's (Last Homely House) tour round Heddon Hall's dahlia plants, though no chrysanthemums.  I just love these two species the chrysanthemums reminds me of childhood, their great mops of head in the cool colours of Autumn and that faraway smell.  The dahlias on the other hand have so much more colour and difference, from the single petalled to the quilled or pom-pom.

Well I pay for Kate's special videos, and a couple of others.  I also pay the TV licence though my daughter pays one for the house so I really don't need to.  She thinks I am silly to do this but the radio has been a companion all through my life, I feel that I am supporting this institution and should the Conservatives moan for privatisation - sod that.

But there is another world out there, podcasts for a start, people chattering away in a polite and courteous way to the camera on their computers.  The young less polite but zealous in their fury as to the likes of Trump for instance.

You have to find the middle road, for instance also listened to Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell this morning discussing Argentina's new person in charge and then the Israel/Lebanon wretched news and where it all might lead.  

I have thought that should I have been caught up in any war then I would be a pacifist and go to jail for my belief that killing others is an unconscionable act, and yes, I do know the counter arguments. 

Off again of what I was thinking.....  

What we discussed last night was the pay wall, that is starting to appear more and more.  At first it starts with a coffee and then goes on to a monthly donation.  Some people even put their Amazon wish list on as well.  And sometimes they get what they have asked for.  A drone for instance to the two young people who are living a 'self-sufficient' life on a Scottish Island.  Brave young faces set out to that mythical land where you can grown all you need and be self-sufficient but it never quite pans out as they drive off down to the nearest supermarket.  But I suppose it is an experience ;)

And who is the Bishop of Llandaff? a dahlia I have never owned but would have liked to, it has dark beautiful leaves topped by a fiery red flower.

1st October 2024

 Well my daughter returned yesterday and brought me up to date of their wanderings round the towns.  First of all, Andrew rented another car, but again he was given an expensive model for the price of an ordinary car.  This time he got a blue Alfa Romero (penis extension car for men according to my daughter).  She wasn't terribly impressed because everyone kept looking at them.

Now the 'Wrinkled Stocking' cafe at Holmfirth was explained it was where 'Last of the Summer wine' was made.  A long series that seemed to go on for ever but it started in 1973 and finished in 2010.  It is crude, funny and over the top and there is a short video of Nora and Compo down below.  The wrinkled stockings of course belonged to Nora, heavy weight ugly lisle I think.

They also went to Newcastle and drove round, when I asked did they see any rabbits on the traffic islands my daughter looked at me askance.  But yes it is true several years ago when I went with Tom and Karen's ex-husband to see the university at Newcastle there were definitely little bunny rabbits hiding in the bushes as the cars whizzed round them.  I came a cropper at the entrance to the university, tripping over the pavement edge but it was more of a bruised ego than a bruised knee.

Tom of course did not choose this university, which was lovely, but went up to London to study like the rest of the grandchildren.  Newcastle is renowned for its bridges.

She brought me back some Bakewell tart they also visited this town as well, whether it was from Bakewell I do not know, but it was rather lumpy and did not have the exact measure (which I like) of jam underneath the ground almond level.  Somehow the stodginess of yorkshire pudding (not that one, the edible one) and Bakewell tart can only be found up North.

The other place they went to was Huddersfield, why I don't know but apparently it is not a bad place.  I just can't stand the word Huddersfield, always invokes in my mind the blackened grey of the municipal buildings that are such a feature of these Northern towns, they shout superiority at you reminding you of Victorian charity to the poor.

29th September 2024 - Words

"Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist and anarchist theory as well as the attitudes and methods of Dadaists and Surrealists"    Wiki interpretation.

Debby said something in comments yesterday about having to go and look words up and it struck me was my vague notion of the above word right?  I know this site,' The Smell of Water' well (I love his photos of the North) and have often looked at his photos of urban spaces and the particular and understood him from my own limited well of knowledge.  When of course I go to look up the word I find it further defined into other eccentric groups  and of course since these groups made in the 1950s universities have since moved on can psychography still be valid.  Its value as a word questioned but has it evolved, does it sit behind teachings of various subjects, for instance, archaeology.

I have by definition moved it out into the wider landscapes, here John Billingsley's talks are occasionally about 'The Coffin Paths' when in olden days the trip from the deceased's house would often follow a paved path across the moors to the church burial.  These pathways had an air of mysticism in the present sense.

Archaeologist have also created new pathways of thought patterns, subjectively titling them under such terms as Post Processual.  So that they can analysis evidence.  I see Christopher Tilley is one of its leaders in this country, and I actually like him ;)  But really my gut response to all this fancy labelling, is these people are just trying to dazzle us with their cleverness.

Geoffrey Wainwright and I think Darvill, both men of eminent positions in the archaeological world once did an experiment of acoustics with the stones in the Presceli Hills.  It seems to have disappeared off the net but it was very interesting. 

So I pick my reading carefully but delight in the 'otherness' of interpretation, doesn't mean I believe it but like that multi facaded silver ball that twinkles and shines on the dance floor, that is how I see the information that falls from the sky and you have to admit Psychography has very worthy ancestral roots;)

This and That  2014

Alternative Theories 2007

Silbury Hill 2008

28th September 2024

 They did things a little differently in Pictland

Psychogeography or the Smell of Water has been on his wanderings again.  And come back with these marvellous Hogbank stones from 'Up North' as you might say.  Early medieval with a strong touch of the Scandinavian influence.  If you peruse his blogs he has also been to the Kilmartin Glen, somewhere I shall probably never go to but am glad others do it for me!

I wrote about the Hogbacks at Lythe Church here.  Which is just outside Sandsend, which in turn is but a couple of miles from Whitby.  These early medieval coffin stones tell us of a settled community down by the sea.  The raiders had become part of the landscape.

The Monymusk Reliquary

26th September 2024 - more bits and bobs

Well a couple of photos from many years ago.  Wayland Smithy Long Barrow, you have to walk a mile or so to find it but one magical year I managed to capture it in Autumn.  The copper coloured leaves lay thickly on the ground and my dog Moss sits in a quiet silence willing me to move and start throwing the ball.

I also walked along here a couple of years later at a scattering of someone's ashes, with my friends and my son.  I had made him come along with me because I wanted to show him how I wanted my death to be, quiet and happy.  I remember it rained as we all sat under the trees.  We were a group of megalithic stone lovers, seems strange now but I have chased these old stones put up so long ago by people I can hardly imagine but perhaps best of all they filled my life with stories.

Wayland Smithy long barrow

Moss

2007 Blog

And some music.  Peter Maxwell Davies Scottish music always reminds me of the seas around Scotland.  Farewell to Stromness with its slow gentle tone is so different to Mendelson Fingal's Cave apparently Mendelson was terribly sick on the boat as they came up to the cave but the first bars of his music came to him and when he had landed back on shore demanded a piano to play it.  Another small fact.  J.M.W. Turner painted Fingal's Cave which was then sold to an American.  Who complained!! that it was indistinct.  Turner replied "Indistinctness is my forte" ;)

Fingal's Cave - Island of Staffa (youtube.com)

24th September 2024 - Hare Krishna everyone

Quietly Content;  I am old but still with it - plus one;) Do I ache? well my knees tell me something as I swing them out of bed in the morning but that soon disappears. I have my family around me; - plus 2 but I would be fairly happy to live on my own, with the present state of my body unimpaired.

So yesterday was a day in which being alone excelled.  First I baked bread, then I made the German potato cakes I love, alongside apple puree which compliments them.  Cleared the kitchen table, and laid out my latest quilt, checking the three layers.  There are two ways to attach the three together, one is just laying them one on top of the other, stitching the sides together and then binding them round the edges.  Quilting afterwards, the second way is to put the three layers together, one inside out.  Sew up the three sides and then turn the bottom layer over to its right side.  And yes that last has seen a few failures, my spatial awareness as always 'up the creek'.

My mind is always busy as are my fingers, knitting a jumper whilst listening to an audio book. I also ordered some tops for spinning, there is a huge choice out there in the dyed world.  So many creative people, young and old.

Someone said on a forum when another young person wrote asking if there were any jobs around. She said something that startled me, why don't you start your own business, how many have thought that when looking around for a job.

George Harrison of course

My interest in gardening was also given a spark this morning.  Did you know George Harrison was a gardener, in his youth he bought a huge run down Victorian House with about 30 acres of land, some of which was a terribly over run garden.  This place was called Friar Park near the town of Henley.  This house had been brought by a Sir Frank Crisp in the late nineteenth century, a wealthy lawyer and the gardens had been developed with a huge rockery.  

Rockeries are a thing of the past, they were built to emulate the high mountains slopes of say Switzerland, and many an Alpine plant has died a sad death in an English garden.  But those thrusting Victorians as the botanists sailed round the world capturing new and exotic plants, never let much stand in their way.

Crisp built an enormous rockery, tumbling waterfalls no less and at the top a representation of the Matterhorn mountain.  Imagination is what we lack in today's world, the rich in this country fleeing our shores and taking their ill gotten gains abroad where there is less taxing 😎 bless them!

I'm off track as usual.  To return to gardens, George and his wife Olivia restored this slightly crumbling mansion and its garden over the following years.  George had introduced a couple of goats to eat the wilderness away but of course not only did the goats eat the bad stuff they also ate the good stuff as well.  So there is no record of what Crisp planted.  But it has been brought back to its own glory.

Patthana Gardens

I love gardens but the garden I have been following on F/B belongs to someone in Ireland called Maher, they are the Patthana gardens.  The use of colour and then the soft shadings of gray and that soft yellow of grasses so beloved of this time of year.  His partner is the photographer and obviously captures the gardens in their 'golden hour', morning or evening.

So listen to Hare Krishna and remember when the world was in a slightly more innocent phase or at least was not bedevilled by social media.

Two more photos of happy family on holiday this week!  The restaurant was called "Wrinkled Stocking" and was in Holmfirth I think

21st September 2024 - As the year turns

Politician Bashing:  Fair is fair after all.  First the conservative party with their ability to reduce this country to a  pale ghost of what it could have been.  Their pockets are full - Austerity worked hurrah 😎no need to govern us anymore.  Sit on the sidelines and taunt the government now in office.

The Socialists, (who are not very good socialists by the way) now have the upper hand and have been dressing themselves in finery due to the largesse of a wealthy donor.  But they have promised not to do it again.  Then there is Rachel Reeves throwing out all paintings of men in the state room and only hanging paintings by women or of women.  Well maybe a clever trick but hardly something to get one's ire up.

On the sidelines we have the right wing  Reform Party, up and away, voted in by those who are indignant at various things that have brought this country down!! But probably are those in poverty with no way of getting out.  There are many bleak towns out there with people claiming benefits that just don't pay the bills.

I read yesterday that crime is down and giggled at the prisoners who were released early, moaning about the fact that they had not got the ankle locks which gives their location - very needy.

Home news is much happier, when my daughter messaged Lillie after her first week in London for a chat she was told too busy to talk.  Off to Scout's meeting in London, she also has a job in a bar come coffee place (barista skills are handy) and was also starting Uni that day.  So she seems to have settled in well, her brother and sister are keeping an eye on her but all good so far.

I am glad we are going to renationalise the trains and build more houses by the way and trust the Labour government will keep to its promises.

  As for more pay for train drivers, so a person who has hundreds of lives under his care is not allowed a decent wage - think about it....

My daughter at the moment can spend three hours travelling one way to Manchester because of the disruption of taking a bridge down on the motorway. Her travel  is synchronized  by the rail line with a coach but of course with the burden of heavy traffic the coaches often miss the trains departure from Rochdale.

20th September 2024

I have my computer back, hopefully unsullied by wicked Russians getting into my files.  Actually, statement here, there is nothing worth stealing in them!

What a maelstrom of things popping up in the bottom right-hand corner, most of which was my computer shouting help.  McAfee and Microsoft Edge kept flying through.  Andrew of course sorted it, glad that I had not pressed the button on anything.  Don't press the X or 'ignore' they are all lethal.

We had gnocchi last night and it provoked the following question this morning, is 'gn' old English?  Well consonant clusters are very rare at the beginning of a word in our language but apparently there are about 70 gn words in our vocabulary.

gn- consonant cluster at the head of some words; the -g- formerly was pronounced. Found in words from Old English (gnat, gnaw), in Low German, and Scandinavian as a variant of kn- (gneiss), in Latin and Greek (gnomon, gnostic) and representing sounds in non-Indo-European languages (gnu).

All this because I never know whether to start with the 'n' or 'g'.  The meal was good, mixed with several peppers and tomatoes.  I love the way language forms of itself with the intermingling of different nations.  Dalrymple captures it in his book 'The Golden Road'  Trade by India with the Romans is captured and exchange of goods brings beautiful silver and gold ware to different countries.  religions become modified too suit as emigres settle and take on new ways.

Also been reading Horatio Clare's 'Truant', it seems to cover his drug-taking years.  Lots of dreamy eyed narrative.  The one that made me laugh was the taking of a dog's medicine tablets.  Horatio nicked a couple of these Ketamine tablets but with his friends was not sure how to take them! 

The drug was explained to me by my daughter it is an anti-depressant but has a psychoactive effect on the brain.  My ignorance amazes me sometimes, though I can tell you about skunk, being very strong and addictive and that the  Fentanyl drug has pretty drastic effects on one muscles, and ends up in the 'fentanyl fold' . 

But enough, both books are fascinating, they explain things to me ;(  Is there any political news to pull apart. Farage is 'selling off' his share in the Reform Party, in fact I think today they are having a party meeting.  And he is not going to do surgeries in a local office for fear that he might be attacked like his good friend in America.  We all know that Farage doesn't give a hang about his constituency and will be up and away in America supporting another rogue.

17th September 2024

 Silly news:  Starmer was all gooey eyed over the female Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni and shopping for Armani suits whilst in Italy,  his wife on the other hand had a personal dresser to help with her choice of clothes.  And guess what? Someone else paid for the clothes - rich donors, tut, tut.

In the actual real world there are floods in Niagara and in Europe, Poland seems to be hit very hard. 

Having over the last few days tried to clear my email of surplus stuff, I foolishly subscribed to The New York Times once again, they had been nagging me!  Like a lot of people I do Wordle, but then go on to do the spelling bee. But they only allow me so many points then rush in with a subscription message, so I gave in.  My routine in the morning is to do one 150ish jigsaw, plus the others and not forgetting codewords.   

So my inbox has once again become cluttered with NYT emails, perhaps I ticked too many subjects. As for news from America I will skate over that, though that mud stirring Elon Musk should be put in his place.

James Ravilious A World in Photographs.  His father was of course Eric Ravilious and though James studied painting he liked the camera better.

16th September 2024 - Summoned by Bells

I can't resist it.  I went plodding through my blogs for 'Harvest Festival' blame Sue from Suffolk for that.  I was looking for the baked corn sheaf that was pulled out every year for Harvest Festival, and remembering Christina saying she couldn't remember in which freezer of the villagers it was kept.  But in very cold churches all over the country this traditional act of thanking Our Lord would unwind itself.  As a child saying grace before we started a meal was normal in our schools, not so much probably in the home.

Anyway I stumbled upon John Betjeman poem for Christmas.  Yes it is a bit early but he echoes so much of what I felt as a child when Christmas was on the horizon and we did find the corn sheaf looking immaculate after so much time in the freezer.  The above one though is from somewhere else.

Just as an afterthought and seeing the small mice on the sheaf, there was also another mouse in the church under the wooden font lid, the work of a famous wood carving firm in the area, hiding under the name of 'The Mouseman'

There is also another Betjeman poem in this blog about hungry church mice.  And just to add to the flavour, Jo ringing the bells at the Normanby church, which I believe has now been shut down.

Yesterday

John Atkinson Grimshaw

 The weather information early this morning said there would be strong winds at 11-o-clock. Which is very precise, soon the streets will glitter with rain and the trees become bereft of their leaves, perhaps this painting reminded me as to what too look forward to!  

Grimshaw was born in Leeds and lived in Leeds, in fact the above might be a Leeds park.  And he is seen as a bit of a cheat because he used the method of camera obscura, a lense to project scenes onto the canvas to achieve his paintings, apparently his perspective in his approach to his subject matter was weak.  As his Wiki says he was a painter of "nocturnal scenes in an urban setting".  

What cannot be denied though is the capture of light and the misery of darkening skies and wet slushy leaves under one's feet.  It reminds me of the cold days when you came out of school and had to make the journey home in the gathering gloom.

There is so much art on the net that you would think everyone is becoming an artist.  Craft work as well, in Japan craft is acknowledged under the UNESCO cultural words of 'Intangible Cultural Heritage'.  I just love the word intangible, the object is there but can you understand the work or craft that sits behind it.  All those beautiful Italian religious paintings represent hard work, both intellectually and physically and also of course training over the years.  

They are not just flights of imagination but dedicated hard work. In Japan the art of kintsugi, (joining with gold)  which is repairing broken pottery reminds us that all things have a history we do not need to throw things away. Though of course there is such a lot we would be happy to throw away because of bad design work.

I wanted a decent painting of a tree, or trees, but could not find one.  So as I thumbed through, this character on Lansdown came up. I was tracking Saxon history at the time.

Full of ivy but still standing proud.

Always have an elephant in the room

It wasn't raining.  Taken in Chelmsford

The Imperial Gardens Japan.  Think one tree is a 'cloud' tree

Matilda receiving her award

Rory is always a good interesting talker, especially when I am quilting. ;)

11th September 2024

A day has slipped by.  The 11th September 2019.  Five years since he left this Earth and he is still with me every day.  So to my darling Paul, this is what I wrote .  I could not cope with comments then or now but as he always used to say, he never knew what I was thinking till he read my blog ;).  

so thank you Geoff for reminding me.

10th September 2024

 I have nothing to write about really.  I notice the 'stolen goods' is out of the fridge, probably been thrown away as only Lillie likes steak.  The story is that someone came into the charity shop with no money and went to take some stuff.  She was apprehended, my daughter just tells them to go away and not come back.  But the girl did come back with this piece of expensive meat -'security protected' in exchange for the clothes she wanted.  My daughter found some clothes for free but obviously refused the meat but the girl insisted on leaving it, after all she had no where to cook it.  Is this England I hear you say? Stealing from a charity shop.

Working in a charity shop is good for all the students that volunteer to work there they get to see a different life. 

There are the rogues, there are the poor, and there are those who are always looking for a bargain to sell on and then of course 'ordinary people' who just want some cheaper essential clothing. Charity shops are a game, top designers are hunted for amongst the racks of clothes, football shirts, strange caps.  You may go in on a whim for a jigsaw puzzle but they are essential not only for the money they bring in but for a brief glimpse of the state of the nation.

The heating allowance is cause for concern at the moment, poor Starmer has lost all his brownie points alongside his chancellor who made the decision;  who should have it and who should not?  Well if I was in charge of the country (I know you are all grateful I am not).  But I should soak some of the rich buggers who have helped themselves from the till of the Treasury, I believe a third of the Covid handouts went into the pockets of those contractors who supposedly supplied a lot of the stuff.

Yes I know that is normal!  Simon Jenkins said this morning in an article that they could save the same amount of money from HS2 which still has money to be spent on it.  The Stonehenge Tunnel fiasco has been dealt (hopefully) a last blow and will not be built.  It was not a vanity scheme such as HS2 but its disruption of the countryside and especially the history of the landscape was too  big.