Sunday 12th April 2026

 

"Today" by Mary Oliver

Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather.

I hardly move though really I’m traveling

a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

I do so like Mary Oliver's poetry, it somehow grabs the truth of the moment. I share the same feelings towards nature as she does and when people look at me suspiciously as I tell them to enjoy the natural world and become part of it, I know just where she is coming from.

But this blog is about a list of who I listen to, and perhaps the people who direct my thoughts as to how the world works. Let us start with.....

 

Professor Tim Wilson  Sitting in front of his brightly patchwork curtains and often equally dressed as brightly, he gives his opinion every day in true professorship style. He led me early this morning to.....

The News Agent fronted by Emily Maitus, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall.

The Rest is Politics US with Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci.  The 'Mooch' messes around of course and he is a crypto currency person but his take on Trump is needlepoint..

The Rest is Politic UK Fronted firstly by Rory Stewart, a bit of a gloom and doom disaster person, think he knows everything about the Middle East but entertaining. His partner is Alistair Campbell. Tony Blair's second in command at one stage in our earlier history.

Heather Cox Richardson,  Also like this American lady for her daily interpretations of what is happening in America.  She is a cool, calm and collected, historian.

Owen Jones.  He is definitely a radicalised left bending person.  I love his eagerness and sheer brimming energy as he talks.  You can find him in the Guardian as well.

Novara Media  The three presenters I see most of are Michael Walker, Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar.  Young, lively and very intelligent.

There are others but I am tired of finding links and names at the moment.  But the above does illustrate how the media is taking an individual path of its own to describe the world events that are happening around us at the moment.

11th April 2026

 Well new post what shall I write on your immaculate surface today?  Well it is the weekend, I don't feel too good because of the curry I ate last night.  We are having visitors.  Today it will be Adam the architect down from London for the day to discuss the finalised plans for the house disruption ;) I have said what I want in the kitchen, no dishwasher and my painted with flowers cupboard which is one piece of furniture I kept.  I bought it in Whitby, and I still regret selling the little cottage there, though Whitby is not the place to grow old in.

Sunday will be Andrew's aunt and partner visiting, she is interested in back to back houses, apparently we have some in Tod.  We have a ginnel at the back, which just means a narrow passageway between the houses.  It is very bumpy and potholed and through the asphalt the old cobbling pokes through.  On the main road there are a few upmarket old houses and commercial buildings.  It is the spread from the centre of town as the town expanded into the countryside through the Victorian times.  The old Folklore Centre is one of them.  It has now closed down, as has the cafe there but sited next to the  Hippodrome, which is run by a charity, the Folklore Centre will one day take its place as an upmarket cafe I suspect, its housing value improved.

The Edwardian Hippodrome is built in red brick, obviously rather tasteless probably they didn't have planning officers around.  Still there is a certain splendour inside.

Thank you Ian Grundy

Todmorden is a very tight little town in so much as many of the people who live here were born and bred and there is a slightly snooty air about incomers.  The incomers are of course coming, as Hebden Bridge gets filled up with everyone buying houses. These London people  are now working in the big cities around here.  There is a feeling of a new awakening happening.  Another page is being turned.

Still there are always the moaners who sit in the chat boxes of the town and complain of everything that comes to mind.  Lost dogs and cats are always a feature, as also the sheep who get into trouble when they wander down into the valley.

Must not forget that I have had TWO letters from 'my friend' Nigel Farage, obviously targeting the old for their vote.  That is the name of the game for Reform, buy the votes, there is some sort of scam going on in which you can win an amount of money. But come on! Sorry, I chucked the letter away, and the recycling lorry has just been around, or I would have been more explicit.  But I bet Farage is smooching up to Trump somewhere.  

9th April 2026

 SEARCH AND KILL MISSION ON 90 METRE SEA CLIFFS IN NORTH WALES.  Well you would read that article wouldn't you.  No it is not a manhunt, the climbers, rather bravely, have been sent out to destroy a foreign invasion of the wild wicked purple rhododendrons.  But don't go near typing in those headlines or you will become overcome by a plethora of advertisements and the story will have little to say for itself.

Now for a start I don't like rhododendrons, they flower early than afterwards sit around with their dark green leave like a spoilt child for the rest of the year.  These purple plants harbour disease and spread like wildfire through our woods destroying all the native species.  At least that is what The Woodland Trust says.

So if you see these sprawling giant bushes in your local woods, beware.

Rhododendron Ponticum

The other news this morning in my email is Palantir, a data based system which the NHS is going to use to record all the detail of our, presumably, medical history.  This data collection is seen as dangerous and probably is.  Like the whole network we subscribe to perhaps we have to introduce a policing of the net, I mean I wonder if it has an Ombudsman yet.

Matilda went back to London yesterday evening, she had been working all day on her very expensive laptop, apparently having a phone in your laptop ups the price considerably. Life is a learning experience. She was somewhat surprised that I was scared to go on trains because I could not flash my phone at the ticket collector.  Lucien went back the day before, he is a lovely lad and they make a pretty couple.  

Hanami - The Beauty of Letting Go

 Normally I would write this in March but I will give the link to an older blog.  When the blossoms come out in Japan in Spring everyone goes and enjoys them.  Picnics are held under the trees, it is of course a very short time before all the blossoms are scattered on the ground.

My late partner Paul also celebrated it as well, in the garden at Chelmsford he had planted two cherry blossom trees and on a sunny day when they were in full bloom he would warm up some sake wine and we would pour each other a drink, part of the ceremony.  Here is the link.

7th April 2026 - Protests

 Well today is easy, Debby and her protests in America with her husband Tim.

 it is the protests against the many things that make people take to the streets.  But it also can be comedy, singing and dancing.  The government might create new laws to stop embarrassing protests, for example to protect the wicked killing and genocide that is carried out in Palestine by the IDF that is a truth and cannot be denied, truth to history will record it.  It will record the 7th October as well when so many Israeli people were murdered in horrendous fashion.  It could be the 'Nokings' protests in America.  It could be against the capitalists need for more and more money on the backs of their workers but protest exists for a good reason.

The following video down below features 'Seize the Day' group.  They wrote fun songs, probably from about 1996 against the problems they saw that arose in society.  The group started there somewhat unique songs at the new Newbury bypass which was to cut a swathe through prime landscape in 1996.  There is a very poor video of how heavy handed force was used against the rather naive young protestors - Wild Horses of Newbury.

I have watched many a road protest online, The Hill of Tara in Ireland, Newbury bypass and the A46 Bath Bypass.  We will eventually but slowly come out of the car age. At the moment of course because there will be a shortage of petrol and diesel from the disruptions of the war against Iran.  A war that is seriously showing us that war is never the answer as the American government flounders under a mad dictator.

The protests in London have shown us much older people protesting, let us call them the elders (for the name pensioners rather gets up my nose;).  But also of course a wide selection of protesters now take to the streets - and the conservative minded amongst us bloody loathe it but freedom of expression should be felt by both sides.

A few years back there was protests against fracking which seems to have died down.  Our village in Normanby was near to a site but the people in the village that would be affected covered their village with signs saying 'no fracking' and it seemed to have worked.

Time for cheerful eating of chocolate eggs.

 A Happy Easter everyone

St. Peter on the Wall altar

I had to think of a theme and my mind rested on perhaps an early Celtic church and then this church in Bradwell (I think it is Bradwell-on-the Sea) a Celtic church taking over a Roman building.  Yes that is how old it is,  Not far away is a Christian community started after the last war in 1946 and the community is called Othona.  This building is of course not very far from the Bradwell Nuclear site.  You can see the  blogs I have written here.

As an atheist, though sometimes I see myself nearer to an agnostic, I have visited many churches from cathedrals to small old churches hardly used and wondered why faith has taken such a strong hold on the human heart and how religion often creates more trouble than it is worth.  See our history this very day!

So Happy eating of Easter eggs, I have a sophisticated Ferrero Rocher one and a good day to everyone. 

xxx

I forgot....been listening to Paul Kingsnorth - The Experience of Beauty.  A pagan turned Catholic for goodness sake, just like Tolkien and C.S. Lewis who both took up Catholicism. Ah, just thought they both wrote beautiful fantasy that explains it.

Matilda and Lucien

4th April 2026

 "And we forgot how beautiful the Earth is."  It must be difficult to find the right words as you spin away from Earth in Artemis towards the moon.  Looking back at our planet with all its trouble and woe.  The search for a lone American in the deserts of Iran catches the heart.  The smug faced bastard in the White House, sorry but there is no other way to describe him, is insulting leaders of other countries.  This misogynist person, thinks he is 'king of the world' but no he has just pulled America down into a third rate country whilst he snuffles in the straw for yet more gold.  Yes it is almost like a fairy story.  We meet Rumplestiltskin again, only he has fattened up over time into a pathetic figure shambling around on foot as well as verbally.  Crypto currency here I come, I'm sure I will get rich.

The last time I truly saw the moon in its full glory was at Avebury at midnight.   Standing by the Cove stones on a crisp cold January night with Paul.  Standing there marvelling at the dark shapes I could see on the white surface of the moon.

The Cove, another enigmatic grouping of stones.  There were originally three stones.

Random thoughts.

 

Light of the World  -  William Holman Hunt.

No I haven't gone all religious but it was Yorkshire puddings of a depiction of a 'white' lookalike Scandinavian painting of Jesus Christ that caught my eye and I remembered when I was young and in love with the Pre-Raphaelites (love affair long gone;).  Now I tend to think of this group and their paintings as rather pretty-pretty and just a poster to stick on the wall.  In actual fact William Hunt made three of these paintings because it was so popular in the Victorian age.

It depicts Jesus knocking on an old door with no handle and it represents our obstinate minds refusing to accept god.  By the way there is a handle on the other side of the door.  The cloak is luxurious, the vegetation realistic but the lamp is out of time, they would have burnt their candles in a different vessel.  The crown of thorns both doubles as a crown and as a gold crown of thorns.

But Jesus is definitely a 'white' person, the painting is a fantasy.  Though Hunt visited the Holy Land several times he did not capture the people of Bethlehem in his rendition.  In today's world, lets call it woke! it would be spied immediately and an uproar of racism would begin - well in my world anyway but how many white Gods have been sold to us down the ages I wonder.  I spotted the anomaly when I was about 7 years old at Sunday school.  I opened the little booklet given for prayers and noticed an illustration of hundreds of people worshipping Jesus but there was no other ethnic people amongst them.  I did ask but no one had the right answer!  So in a way we are groomed to believe in the fantasy world of religion, luckily today as we become more secular we leave behind such foolishness. 

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The next happening was on the drive home from the birthday party.  We called in a service station for food.  This one was in Gloucester and boasted a Farm Shop.  Now I consider a farm shop as selling local goods and things that are in season.  This one was an enormous palace of nearly everything. Expensive crisps made out of broccoli, it even curbed my daughter from spending when she picked up tomato sauce at £8.  But at the back was a counter which seemed to be dedicated to Scotch eggs, yes different scotch eggs.  So we all ordered our own specialty, mine vegetarian and the other two something Italian I think but instead of an egg in the middle there was shredded mozzarella.  Unfortunately the packages got mixed up and I had the foreign one and had eaten it all before the mistake was  found.

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And lastly. April Fools.  The Juliasauras is real, so apologies Jabblog for doubting, should be on show today at the Colchester Museum.  Also another interesting A/F was the rubber war boats that we are going to use.  It was a bit ridiculous but the moral of the article was, don't just read the headlines but read the article as well.

1957 - April Fool

 

Still a killer.  The spaghetti tree.

30th March 2026

Our trip included a visit to the 'Nature in Art' Exhibition which just down the road from the Travel Lodge we were staying in.  It was a mixture of art work and photos and was host to many overseas artists and photographic work.   The rather good abstract paintings below had been turned into B/W by my camera as well.

Occasionally my phone camera goes into B/W

Some stunning fire surrounds in this Georgian House.  Notice it has a 'broken pediment, a feature that always intrigues me for some reason.

 I notice there are a lot of paintings around that are abstract in their design and have come to the conclusion, that this is design work for our modern interior designers, so very similar to the Georgian era when what you put on the wall reflected your status.  In todays world though a colour matching scheme.

In the natural garden, there was bright yellow in all the shrubs, forsythia, mock orange and mahonia echoed in the daffodils.  Also, I even saw fields of yellow rape seed flowers.  Goodness know how all this was surviving in the Artic cold weather we were experiencing.

Why did I take this photo? Because that white flower is Sweet Rocket.

Andrew obviously goes Hawaiian when he surveys his domain but the whole event was of course in honour of an old friend and many,many years ago neighbour - J.  Who was 90 years old last weekend.  We travelled in style in a Mercedes, Andrew drove beautifully and I was able to see the computer system running on the car - so different from the old days ;) but I do miss the old beautiful maps that we struggled with in a strong wind.  

This is one of the sons, he was a slim dark haired teenager when I last saw him babysitting my daughter.  Time definitely catches up with you.
 

We did drive past Lacock Abbey but did not have time to stop and walk about

The hotel which was hosting several functions

The party which was in its way very touching as people met up

And one story.  I had been warned that the person who eventually bought my house the last time wanted to talk to me.  I was slightly worried about this, but I need not have.  He gave me a long talk of what he had done to the house, had some trouble with the kitchen floor.  Now this dated back to when I left the house.  This house was a new build, but the builder of the estate of bungalows had carelessly built my semi-detached on top of an old well causing a crack to appear in the back wall.  It was mended under the 10 year builder guarantee but Keith muttered about chucking stuff down the well and then putting a piece of corrugated iron over the well to hide the hole, was how the job was done.  Anyway he loved the house and with his wife they were happy there.  But like me he loved animals and kept horses down at a Bremhill stables.  He showed Welsh cobs and had won first in show with them.

When I asked him did he keep his horses to the end  he said yes right to the very end.  He reckoned it was the price of a second mortgage each month £600/£700 a month.

27th March 2026

 Packed and ready to go early this evening, we shall dine on pizzas. Also have a bit of a migraine but hey-ho. So a few photos and a poem by Auden, because all things come to an end, and I mean Trump not myself by the way;)

Whitby and its new slab of marble

Solva woods, probably an old path to Middle Mill

Hole of Horcum

A place I never managed to walk to. Carn Alw (Fort of Echoes) Iron Age fort with a Chevaux de frise in the Prescelli hills.  I am not sure I took this photo so feeling guilty.  But I could have taken it from Foel Drygarn fort with its three large barrows

The 199 steps in Whitby

"The laws of Icarus is something Trump has to face."  Hits the spot precisely.  An interview between Alistar Cambell and Jon Stewart.

Musée des Beaux Arts

By W. H. Auden

December 1938

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, 

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.