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"

Poems, paintings and photos: The Brotherhood of the Ruralists 

8th December 2024

A video that must go up as a recollection of the day.

 The Renaissance of  Notre Dame. How many medieval craftsmen have gone through history without their names mentioned.  Well technology has finally caught up in this video you will see the craftsmen who once more brought the cathedral back to its former glory.  I am sure Tom Stephenson will have watched with interest the restoration, and I hope Tom is back soon because we all miss him.

Today I have been making bread having decided that sourdough loaves from the supermarket are expensive (and  has got too many holes in it!).

Dove flours had a sale so I ordered my organic flour from them.  Also, Rye flour, it makes a softer loaf, though the 'rise' is slow.  Bean burgers also, so simple to make and much better than the supermarket concoctions.  After lunch, a Christmas tradition for me, red cabbage with apple, slowly stewed and then put down in the freezer.  

7th December 2024

Just an old blog and a heads up.  Notre Dame cathedral is opening today, apparently there will be queues to go round it.  But if you go to Bensozia's blog he has a a couple of links to the photos.  The interior is fabulously clean and extraordinary in its beauty.  Matilda and her boyfriend have been in Paris for the last few days but probably will not go because of the crowds.  Matilda's birthday is on Tuesday, and I have just been wrestling with an internet birthday card for her.

But it reminded me of a visit in 2010 to Lincoln cathedral.  My photos are not very good and I should have taken more photos of that doorway with its multiple carved pillars. Just a couple of paragraphs I wrote at the time, To be honest I wasn't much taken with Linconshire but it could have been the cold April weather. 

Nothing can compare to Notre Dame of course.  But doesn't it make you stop and think?  These incredibly beautiful buildings were dedicated to the worship of a God.  All that creativity garnered for a religious belief. 

But to return to Lincoln Cathedral, one of the finest Gothic Cathedrals in Europe, it is truly staggering, the whole building carved to within an inch of its life. Countless masons must have chipped and chiselled their lives out here to the greater glory of God, Romanesque friezes of the 'good and glorious', which I somehow managed not to photograph, the tall pillars inside opening up like a forest of trees. The entrance charge was £6 a head, which we did'nt pay, and I find rather scandalous but the outside was just as awe-inspiring as the inside.

Here I make a confession, I did'nt like it, too ornate for my taste, its heavy opulence weighed the mind and soul down, it reminds you of the power of the church to inflict terror on the people around! Somewhere in one of my blogs I have written about the 5th/6th Bestiary of Beasts book that was so copied through church history. Here at Lincoln the beasts whirled and bit their tails round the pillars of the great doorway with great gusto, it is a fairytale world translated into a religious warning of doom and terror.

South door

Tournai Font; "The Lincoln font is typical of its type and consists of a large square bowl on four colonnettes with a heavy central drum support and a massive carved base to suit. The bowl has been split horizontally in antiquity and has been skilfully repaired. The top of the bowl has been carved with leaves and rosettes whilst each side of the bowl is carved with grotesques and lions with foliate tails, possibly to represent the original sin which baptism removes."

Beautiful doorway

The font is hideous, apparently there was a fashion for imitating black marble, so a dark igneous limestone was used then buffed and polished to represent marble.

Wikipedia has a much better set of photos.

5th December 2024

 

I always fancied an E-type Jaguar, slung low to the ground and its long lines echoing a crouched animal..  The above is an 'F' type, not much movement in design though considering it was years ago I fancied such a car and the one above only came out in 2023.

Now of course I could not drive one, my sight would not play along and the roads are full of cars, and probably someone would come along and scratch along its side.

But the other reason? I would not want to be rich and drive round like an idiot.  I would feel terrible rubbing other people's nose in the fact that I was rich and they poor.  So elegant as this gleaming design is, there are many out in the world hunting it.  Maybe it will be caught, boxed up in some discreet trailer and sold in a faraway country.  They have become desirable items to steal.

Austin Healey Sprite

So I bought myself an Austin Healey Sprite (the slightly cheaper version!) and me and the dog, Kim a stropping Labrador would go for rides in the Essex countryside with the hood down.

But marriage and motherhood intervened and when I found I could not fit the 'bump' behind the steering wheel it went, I think mine was cream and because Kim had knocked over some milk in the car always had this faint smell.  

But on looking at the lines of the Sprite and the lines of the Jaguar, I can see why I wanted it.

Edit: for the diary.  The siren has just gone off for flooding.  Only the basement in this house floods so it will probably be fine.  But my daughter getting back home on the train is having problems.  Tree on the line at Mythomroyd so trains to Halifax aren't running.  People getting worried as it is coming home time and water is flooding on roads as well.  Hopefully as the cloud bursts have stopped surface flooding will soon go away.  As for the trains that is in the hand of the gods.

3rd December 2024

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

A poem always to be read in December.  Thomas apparently alluded to religion, we know better now, perhaps though even hope is a foolishness.  Every morning, Mollie having woken me up through the night has one last go at 5 am.  This time she wants me up and moving to address the day and so that she can get her comfortable spot on the bed.  She will snooze all day here until night falls and then she wakes up!!!

Mostly family photos today.  *Ruswarp, a strange name but typical of Yorkshire.  We would walk down from Whitby about a mile and a half along the 'Monk's Trod.  I remember as we walked through the fields, a bull occupied the field.   I said to the children it was not to be feared and as it happened it was not and perfectly amiable.

Originally it was called *Risewarp (Old English hrīs wearp, c. 1146) meaning 'silted land overgrown with brushwood'.

The river Esk at Ruswarp on its way down to Whitby

Moss on the downs

A little god of the house

 

This is a favourite, the grandchildren playing very miniature golf at Ruswarp

The family at Gruyere

and the family by the river in Essex, but no Matilda.

An afterthought

Now something I wasn't going to talk about but I notice John of Going Gently has broached the subject, with the quiet sense he always brings to the chatter. The first debate about Assisted Dying was given an airing last week in Parliament.  We all have our views on it and I am similar and there is no need for me to regale you with my approach.

But, no doubt you will have noticed, I rarely speak of the North Yorkshire village I lived in with Paul the love of my life, above on the left.  It was a happy time cut short.  But it was a memory that haunted me all last week as people chatted on about the proposed bill.  It was suicide.

Walking back with Lucy the spaniel, a swish of brakes and a friend, D from the village skidded to a halt behind me and we got chatting.  Paul had died recently and so out of the blue D said to me had I ever contemplated suicide.  The answer was of course yes, but how to tackle the subject sensitively and not put me on neighbourhood watch;) was difficult.  My answer is of course family, a dreadful legacy to leave behind and therefore the answer was no I had faced it an made a positive decision.  But it brought to mind that in the village of not more than a hundred people there had been two suicides in the last year.

An older man had moved to the village, his wife had died 10 years before but in the few months he lived in the village he had never settled down and sadly committed suicide.

But for me the saddest one was a youngster.  Late teens, early twenties, his grave was positioned on the other side of the church wall outside our dining room window.  The family attended the grave lovingly.  Someone would cut the grass around it, flowers were regularly changed.  But the saddest thing I saw was the younger brother, in the evening, coming to talk to his brother.  His spirit still lived on in the heart of the family.

The young should never resort to suicide, their emotions too quick, flash points that should be recognised.  Whatever brings on thoughts of suicide. feelings of despair, depression or a life seen as not worth living, there should be an intercession from outside.

2007 collecting

A photo a day not a bad concept. But then again. why not half a dozen. So I begin in 2007, when I wrote of these little snails.  I read a Guardian article today about how our human presence may have scarred the Earth but in many ways we have also created a myriad of other animals and insects with our meadows and cleared ground.  It is not all bad news.

"and tonight, indoors, in winter, our bodies are idle, and our minds best at work; which is the great pleasure of the winter-time"  Grigson

December 2007: "When out walking on the Lansdown, I often come across groups of these little snails clinging to stalks or blades of grass. They cluster in the early morning sun, high above the wet turf. There is something vulnerable about them, light enough to cling to grass stalks, they seem a reminder of an ancient past.

I had spied such snails around the Kennet at Silbury. The river was in full flood, and wading through the water on the path I had noticed snails clinging to the blades of grass. At the time I thought it was because they were trying to escape the flood water, and I remembered all the snail shells that had been trapped inside Silbury, generations of them stretching right back to when it had been built.

These small innocous creatures, would also have been round in prehistory to delight the children with the pattern of the shells; perhaps they made necklaces out of them, or chalked on the stone their weird round shapes.

It is a humbling experience when reading all the daft theories that people come up with regarding prehistory, to remember these little shells and their quiet constant presence in the cyclical nature of time."

The Lansdown

Ebbor Gorge in the Mendips

Goth weekend in Whitby

The soul of the world, a pure ethereal spirit which was proclaimed by some ancient philosophers to be diffused throughout all nature


"It is this immense antiquity that gives our land its look of confidence and peace, its power to give both rest and inspiration. When returning from hill or moor one looks down on a village, one's destination, swaddled in trees, and with only the church tower breaking the thin blue layer of evening smoke, the emotion it provokes is as precious as it may be commonplace. Time, that has caressed this place until it lies as comfortably as a favourite cat in an armchair. Caresses also even the least imaginative of beholders"

A favourite author of mine Jaquetta Hawkes.  She describes an England long gone, her book on archaeology was written late in the 20th century.

29th November 2024

Some good news and some reminscences.  I do so like going back over old blogs....

Notre Dame to re-open

Notre Dame.  Like an iced wedding cake.

Well my mind went back to another tower after reading that. William Beckford(1760 to 1844) had built just outside Bath.  This was one of my walks up the hills of Bath with Moss.  Happy memories, early morning, deer still grazing in the field and then the tower with its once garden in Beckford's time then turned into a Victorian Cemetery.  In spring, clusters of yellow primroses and violets in the rough grass. The graves sunken, ankle breaking as you wandered around.

But the good news for Beckford Tower is that it has also been restored and it was finished this year in June.  I hope the cemetery has not been restored it was a glorious reminder of Victorian gravestones.   It was an interesting graveyard, Beckford had a barrow made for his inhumation, here it is.

The money in the family was made on the backs of slaves in the sugar plantations.  Beckford merely inherited it but in the restoration of the tower museum the full story is covered.  He was a rather scandalous figure being bisexual and his daughters did not join him in his solitary grave.

You can find more photos here

Beckford Tower

A happy Moss on a glorious early summer's day

This is one of my favourite photos. Early morning in winter, I have told Moss not to chase the deer about to go into the woods and he obeys. Almost an old 'brown' painting ;)

And something else to bring forward.  Another walk at Kelston Roundhill.  It was done in memory of a young teenager out riding on her horse.  An unexpected asthma attack resulted in her death in a spot just below Kelston Roundhill.  Chris Stringer took a drone shot.

 

26th November 2024

 I am reading Olivia Laing's book 'The Lonely City'.  The city in question being of course New York.  She writes of Edward Hooper, an artist, a realist artist who died in 1968.  

There is an undertone in his work of loneliness, the solitary person, for instance in his 'Morning Light' we have a print of that in the spare room.  It always catches the eye with its empty interior except for the window and bed on which she site contemplating the view, which is sunny outside. Stark realism  Hooper was very tall, but his wife who demanded that she should always be his model was short, and i wonder if he used her as his model.

Morning Light - Edward Hopper

The second painting is 'Nighthawks', apparently Hooper would walk the streets looking for inspiration and yes there is a loneliness about the spectator staring into an empty bar.  It is his most famous painting but not to my taste.  Which rather sadly does not like humans in her paintings.

Am I going to touch the subject of loneliness, no not really.  Everything in life is given meaning till one tires of it.  All I see in his paintings is a yearning to touch what he paints, the subject strong in his mind.  He captures what he wants to show, but to argue that from what we see to what he is thinking about really doesn't matter.  

Virginia Woolf captures the spirit of loneliness. One felt from her writings a very sad person who lived internally, her mind forever recording what she saw in the external world.

"If solitude fertilizes the imagination, loneliness vacuums it of vitality and sands the baseboards of the spirit with the scratchy restlessness of longing — for connection, for communion, for escape. And yet it is out of this restlessness that so many great works of art are born."

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Still I am only at the start of the book and we do know that Olivia Laing went on to find someone she loved in her next book.  Which was nearer to my heart about a garden.  The Garden Against Time. by Olivia Laing

Some thoughts

Farmwashing

"MPs yesterday also quizzed Dom Morrey, commercial director for fresh food at Tesco, about the use of its invented farms, including Rosedene Farms, Suntrail Farms, Redmere Farms, Nightingale Farms, Willow Farms, Woodside Farms, Boswell Farms and Bay Fishmongers."

Well some delving into Lidl's use of farm names.  Now I have always been aware of  the brand name Oaklands on a lot of the fresh vegetable or fruit I buy at Lidl.  But apparently this has been changed to Griffiths Farm.  This family raises the free range eggs sold at Lidl, their goal of 100% free range not quite reached yet though. So again the naming of a farm does not necessarily mean that it was grown on that specific farm.  Farmwashing.

Now according to Lidl news they are in the process of investing 21 billion pounds in  British farms, which is to the good as long as the mega-American style is not employed.

We cannot do without supermarkets, they are easy and convenient but again the profit motif makes them, and not to put a too fine name to it,  screw the farmers on price.  Accordingly passed on to the customers, but take that with a pinch of salt, it goes into profits where others make the killing.

This morning listening to a podcast, the economic lecturer mentioned a journalist who thought that a £90,000 annual salary was not enough for a middle class person.

Yes, well, slightly speechless there.  Greed  once more raises its ugly head.  We have somehow set everyone to be more greedy in the last two or three decades. An unreal situation has appeared - wealth is the goal. 

It seems to me unsolvable, firstly we have a need for supermarkets but they all display a container for donated food for the food banks.  In our societies the rich are pulling away from the poor at a fast rate, Lidl is good in the sense that it keeps the price of food down but doesn't address the problem of a social upheaval where many people find the cost of living too much.

Since my daughter has hauled back a shopping bag on wheels last week, I shall try and go to the very good greengrocer in the outdoor market....

Thanks to Tasker for making me think.

Backing British Farming

24th November 2024

 Well as the storm passes through it is still raining.  I expect everyone got back to their beds last night, there is always a lot of kindness about.  The water came down from the moors and channeled into an angry dragon raced down the rivers to flood the low lying valley bottom.  Of course with the canal close by an awful lot of water had to flood the lower lying street levels.  Unleashed.  The roads were soon cleared though as gully or vacuum  lorries worked away.  One interesting fact the Todmorden park has electronic gates which close on the flood water captured inside. 

Through history, fields next to rivers were often used as water meadows, often flooding in winter and because the park is the largest flat area in the valley it fits this requirement well. But as I peered nervously down into the basement - it is dry.

I did Wordle in two goes this morning, not often do I do that but now and then. I am on my own this weekend, so the worry of flooding is my responsibility? No, but we must have had a power cut because the heating time is buggered up and I have no talent as far as thermostats are concerned.  Luckily now of course we have moved from -3 degrees to 11 degrees.

Coincidentally yesterday after talking about crows.  I came down to the kitchen and saw something whitish on the steps outside.  Opening the door and a crow flew away from the door and landed on the fence.  It was a parcel this young bird was investigating, we stared at each other for some time and then it flew away.

A memory came through, though I didn't capture it on F/B but it was about St. Peter on the Wall.  It was a bleak place but just right for itinerant saints.  I miss talking about them and their 'incontinent' ways.  Yes the monks slept around and had children ;)

And just one more thing to remember.  Kate on 'The Last Homely House' mentioned her month long trip to India and that she had gone around a business that created clothes.  The retail business was call Anukhi.  Well I wore an Anukhi dress for my second wedding.  Bought from a shop in Bath and it still exists almost 40 odd years later.

I can even name most of the people, in the right hand corner, Florine beautifully dressed, they were American. Granny or Lotta sitting next to the bridegroom.  Leni Heaton is behind, they were old friends but occasionally falling out.  Tall Marc at the back, Sushi king in Switzerland, Annabel behind with glasses, she has recently left this world sadly.  As have many of them.  Theo and John, old friends sadly missed.  Some of the archaeological group, we all often went off on weekends in the old college minivan. 

I notice that granny who should be sitting next to me would rather sit with Ron which makes me grin because that is wrong.  She once had me move in a funeral to sit in the 'right place' but obviously I was scared of her;)

23rd November 2024

To start with Beans (Vicia Faba - broad bean) - field beans to be precise.  The other day I was scanning the shelve for a tin of beans to go into a bean stew.  Red kidney, cannelloni and black beans but no butter beans, a favourite.  All similar in taste and then my mind went to Medieval times when people lived off field beans.

Field beans have a history of course, probably used from Neolithic times, 5000 years ago, they were an important part of the diet.  Also energy giving, the saying 'full of beans' stems from this old fashioned bean, sown mainly as a green manure crop now. 

It is a slightly different version of our broad bean, less beans in the pod though but more pods to the plant.  According to this article on the Martock bean from Somerset, the Martock bean is a traditional landrace vegetable having been discovered in the Bath and Wells Bishop's garden.

Podding peas and beans was a job for children when we were young, before the time of frozen peas and a job loved by children as we nibbled the sweet inner skin of the pea pods.  Europe was late to potatoes, making an appearance in the 17th century, so the field bean was a good stand in, it had plenty of carbohydrate to fuel the farm workers. 

We care little for where most of our food comes from, there have been battles over heritage seeds as firms have called for banishment of such seeds, reducing the most precious varieties to safekeeping in storage.  Others have called for all seeds to be kept and protected just in case our modern day wheat seed suddenly falls into  disease.

But to return to that recipe, it was delicious, though that could be put down to the red wine I generously slurped into it.

I miss growing things picking the berries or beans, I haven't had a decent runner bean since I stopped growing them, there is no room here.  

Edit: And if you haven't found that short blog on beans life enhancing!

Try watching two good murder dramas on BBCI player, 'Magpie Murders' and 'Moonflower Murders' The blurb says a story within a story, in actual fact two lines worked together, a past and present storytelling.  Not sure I like the format, it creates some confusion when you read the plots in a book but less so on the screen.  Written by Anthony Horowitz, good traditional murder stories, very BBCish.

21st November 2024

 

Voices from the past on the radio.  John Prescott has died, and those who may respect are a medley of times past.  Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, even Michael Heseltine and Lord Mandelson.  I strive to understand the voice of Prescott from the clips and I also have the same problem with Brown's strong Scottish accent. They talk of provincial mayors, we have them, hurrah.

John Prescott was a man of his time, the era of unions and strikes, but with a desire to make the world better for the working class.  This idea of class often erupts in argument in this household, the children will argue they are working class because they work but as everyone knows to use the term 'working class' is to bring up strong memories of Margaret Thatcher and her use of force against the miners and the printers.  Did she try to beat them down? 

But there was other news that shows the shifting of change within the last months.  There is not enough money to pay the bonuses of the CEO of the water companies - Oh dear, weep!  

Also this morning the Charity Commission has called out the family of 'Captain Tom' who so magnificently in old age walked up and down his driveway and raised thirty-nine million pounds for the NHS.  His book earnings though the family took.  Did they profit on the back of the charity, should they have? They seem to think they were innocent of any crime the Commission thinks otherwise.

Also good new from Australia, the banning of young children under fifteen years old onto social media.  How this is going to be worked out I do not know, heavy fines on such places as Twitter, I refuse to use the term 'X' it has bad connotations.  But the stupidity of much of what you read on the net, with people polarised, sometimes violently verbal, to either left or right is not a good thing.  And then when manipulation comes into play, think Musk here, danger signals begin to blink.

I have fed the black crows this morning for it is cold once more -3 degrees, they sweep down like the harbingers of death they are but they bring back the memory of long ago.  Going to visit my horse at I think Wood Green centre for animals, she had been taken there after an accident.  I drove into the car park and got out of the car, as I did so a black crow swooped from the trees and landed on my shoulder, its claws digging into my bones.  I turned and looked at a large sharp beak, inches away from my eyes and felt really scared.  Obviously he was a tame bird out for food but it was a shock.

  

19th November 2024

Yes we have a light dusting of snow but the trains are still running this cold morning. Lillie in London on the phone to her mum last night, demanded to see outside the window, of course in overheated London snow is rarely found.  

Which brings me to climate change, deniers please turn away now, you don't have to read what I write. I have been watching the footage of the misery and full scale landscape change the hurricane Helene brought on the people of Ashville in North Carolina.  Tons of mud and trees swept down the hill sides, houses sailed along the river, roads disappeared, the tarmac picked up like cardboard by the rushing water.  Bridges disappeared. 

The volunteers came to help, but lives have been shattered, rumours are fueling worry that children might be taken away by  social officers. Water and electricity is slowly being brought in.  The river water is poisonous the cadaver dogs die after drinking it.

People make do, don't they ever? But in as much as the Ashville and surrounding district is in a terrible state, so the same thing has happened in Spain in the Valencia floods.  Cars piled up like toys in narrow streets, 200 odd dead, I think it is similar for Ashville dead.

The weather has suddenly become heavier and wilder, the rain beats down with fury, the icebergs and glaciers breakdown and flow more freely and the scientists warn us that this is definitely climate change.

Natural or manmade make your choice.

Now to something more cheerful, how our young adapt.  Let us introduce 'Wet Leg' theme song on Morris dancing, it is so full of splendid gaiety, Aril will love it (or maybe you won't) .  How myths and magic light up a sometimes very dark world.

   BBC news Morris Dancing

18th November 2024

Small treasures:  I had a sort out over the weekend, and unearthed the following two prints by Em Parkinson, not on blogger anymore I think.  The first is of my beautiful Moss, long gone but always remembered for his sensible character.  The second one is of course the two magpies, a favourite bird of mine, I love their playful nature.

Those are knitting needles

 

The following two large photos I have decided to frame before they deteriorate.  The first is of  course of the great Cove stones at Avebury.  There were originally three stones, these pair are seen as male and female and if you want to read more about them and see some of Stukeley drawings of them then I suggest you go to this very informative page.

The second one is an enormous stone I think situated near the path up to the great run of sarsens at the top.  

You may note that editing has become somewhat difficult with my photos, ran out of cloud space this morning and had to buy more space, and when I try to  bring my photos out of the cloud, my editing is very meagre.

I love the Cove stones, the largest is reckoned to be a hundred tons and may have been standing before they were seen as  sacred stones.  There is probably a third of the stone buried.  At the Stanton Drew circles (again a very large circle with smaller circles inside) there was another grouping of stones near the church which was also called a Cove but now it is thought that these three stones are the remains of a long barrow.

Explanation of Cove Stones: ' A cove is a tightly concentrated group of large standing stones found in Neolithic and Bronze Age England. Coves are square or rectangular in plan and seem to have served as small enclosures within other henge, stone circle or avenue features. They consist of three or four orthostats placed together.'

15th November 2024

 

I love this quote because it is patently untrue.  Was it tongue in cheek I wonder?  I had the volumes of 'Modern Painter' but they were lengthy with words and rather dull.  Poor Ruskin is forever scarred in the public eye with his inability to sleep with his wife.  See I have also done it! He was an art critic first and foremost, living a comfortable life on the earnings of his father's business.  No need for work but a lifetime of writing on art.  Bless his soul, but a lot of it was dull.

I am thumbing through an old blog of mine, 'Poems, Paintings and Photos'.  It is the year 2008, I have gone through a divorce and living with my beloved Paul. I am learning about the joys of the Essex countryside.  It is tranquil and flat, we wander by the river and end up at the Cat's pub,  deep in the country side only open a couple of days a week. Cat paintings adorn the walls, no dogs allowed, there is a resident cat.  A large barn at the side of the pub holds two great steam engines.  This is retiree land, you draw up the portcullis and live in comfortable style in a small village of expensive houses, away from the troubles of the world.

I find an article by Paul Devereux on art he is more interested in the way art has developed, sometimes land based, as humans slowly evolve and those first cave paintings and rock markings start to talk the language.  Firstly it is about hunting and the animals that exist around them, but suddenly hand prints appear, an acknowledgement of their human presence.

In the year of 2008 I chatted to myself, on my voyage of discovery.  Did I find any thing, the answer is probably not, but I walked the Avebury landscape, following in the footsteps of the old ones.  Watched the neopagans come and worship at the Swallowhead Springs. I cannot take on any religion for the fact of the matter is all of them are belief systems concocted by humans.  Mostly to control.

Then because I am idly passing through, the Ruralists appear with their paintings.  Which I had seen at the Victoria Gallery in Bath.  A group of painters drawn together in 1976, similar to the Pre-Raphaelites, but their artwork doesn't please as much.  But they had captured Avebury in some of their paintings and Silbury Hill with owls swooping past.

  

Of course there came another scandal with Graham Ovendon, one of the group, when he served a jail sentence for abusing a child/children.  He painted quite a few children, the judge said at his time of sentencing that Ovendon's work should be destroyed and the Tate immediately took down his paintings but reinstated four abstract paintings in 2015.  Like Ruskin and Lewis Carroll his interest in young nubile female children can be seen in many of his paintings.

Poems, paintings and photos: August 1st Partial eclipse of the Sun

Poems, paintings and photos: The Brotherhood of the Ruralists

14th November 2024

 

Well words jumble in my mind but two words have just come to the fore.  In an article by John Naughton - IA slop and enshittification.  I suppose you could describe it as the manipulation of writing and creating imaginative truth.  I have become aware of my increasing tendency to question all I see in photographs because there are plenty of clever people out there ready to play with Peruvian temples in the jungle and animals that don't exist.  But of course, that is not the only thing turned on its head.  With everyone taking to writing podcasts and blogs - where is the truth going?

Andrew our computer expert in the household says AI is exciting, so does Zuckerberg and Musk, do I want my life dictated to by those two though?  I notice that Microsoft through Bing when asked a question will always show me the nearest thing I can buy in that name and not the actual question I asked.  Google is much better.  My granddaughters should a question arise will consult their phones before anything else.

Musk of course is also under scrutiny for his use of Twitter/X to put forward his 'dreams' of the future, he also can manipulate the actual threads to his way of thinking - scary, yes?

There is a lot of talk about Bishop Welby in the news, he has resigned over the scandal of John Smyth.  Abuse of young children is a scandal, it thrives in secret and perhaps now needs a washing in public. 

My first husband had scars on his back from being whipped in his public school, we do not accept it today but probably from Victorian times it allowed males (and maybe females) to carry out their wretched business.  Whether in posh schools or children's home.  Why we may ask did the wider community of people such as the churches, councils and police see it best to hide these crimes?

It still happens, two Catholic colleges in North Yorkshire have had the same charges brought against them.  The government report only came out last year.

I am only going to stick (mostly) with the BBC for news and The Guardian who has given up on social media.  And I never joined X  but will still keep my F/B account for all the beautiful roses and paintings that go through ;)

Child abuse inquiry: School 'reputations put before victims' - BBC News

12th November 2024

Catching up on the weekend:  It is lovely to have Matilda round we have both decided on Xmas presents, I  want a wooden shawl brooch, and she will get fingerless gloves (and her ration of Xmas money if you are reading this Matilda).  We had a raclette for our meal on Sunday which she wanted and went out to 'Honest John' restaurant yesterday in Tod. Honest John Fielden (1784 to 1849.)  He was a member of parliament and his family were good people (might even say they were socialists ;) in his employment of local people .  

The restaurant was originally a bank, though to be honest it could also have had an earlier life as a chapel.  But it has a a good menu, and I had the halloumi salad.

Afterwards we went to the organic shop that is just down the road.  Firstly I wanted to buy vegetarian pate, been eating a meat one, which though nice I shouldn't buy though Mollie the cat likes it.  Then a wooden nail brush, because not only is it good for nails but scrubbing dirty potatoes as well. 

Nutritional Yeast was also bought, not for me but my daughter.  She had heard it tasted like cheese (it doesn't) and is a poor substitute.  I bought myself an extra 'rainbow mug' because I am always leaving the first one around the house.  

Go to the organic shop and the prices are expensive.  Though I can agree that organic raising of crops can be expensive, their prices go through an awful amount of stuff we can buy and I often wonder if it is justified.

I mentioned to someone yesterday that Paul had gone to Japan after art school at the invitation of a rich American woman called Ruth Fuller-Sasaki.  He had arrived, no money and no where to stay, at Tokyo rail station at midnight and did not know what to do.  Luckily the station master called the police who took him to a hostel.  The start of Paul's 20 year stay in Japan.

But that first year was spent at a temple as a monk before he moved on to a university and a job in conservation. He had this odd little book called the 'Wooden Fish' which had  'four vows'.  The first one rings strongly with me, the second one is more difficult and the last two too religious to be undertaken.

 North Stoke: 'Right Action'

North Stoke: Greensted Church, Essex

Dana Fraser

9th November 2024

 I have been looking through links on Bensozia's blog (thank you so much) page and came across this one on the Brothers Grimms.  I remember having a book on their folktales.  Rather cruel of course the stories, I am still haunted by the girl who had to dance even as her feet bled.  Perhaps that is why as a child I read all the grown-up ghost stories at the library that influenced my taste in prehistoric burial cromlechs but what came out of the article was how the brothers  influenced such writers as C.S.Lewis, Tolkien. Beatrice Potter and George Lucas of Star War fame.  I find the last slightly puzzling but did love the films - childish I know.

"Without the labors of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, there would be no Peter Rabbit, no Middle-earth, no Narnia, and definitely no Star Wars."    

We read history through the narrow focus of our own background and subjectively the German Grimm brothers could be seen as a bit of a catalyst towards the Nazi regime later on.  But never forget we pick up on things through time, the Swastika for instance has been used symbolically throughout the centuries in many religions as a peace loving sign.  The crude and easy way we use words to bring down other people is the fault of the person using it.

Bensozia has also written about his understanding of the most recent event to hit our keyboards, which has left some rejoicing whilst others weeping in despair.  Take your choice on Trump;(  Why Trump Won. This paragraph puts it down to the price of eggs..............

Human Nature. If you want a negative lesson from this election, it would be that most people are selfish, insufficiently moral, generally unthoughtful, and don't give a damn about people not like themselves. The average Trump voter didn't care about his bursting closet of scandals, his rancid rhetoric, or his constant lying, because the price of eggs was too high. 

I am going to pick up on the words 'insufficiently moral' to describe another person who struck me as very similar.  I had watched "The Post Office Scandal" recently and of course Paula Vennells CEO of the PO from 2012 to 2019, who so vehemently denied any knowledge of what had gone on in the terrible campaign against the poor sub-postmasters, many of them driven to financial ruin by a computer system called Horizon that did not work.  But the real crime was the manipulation of the same system secretly by a team of operators who altered the information on the sub-postmasters computers.

I watched her tears as she was questioned by the committee and thought (a profound swearword here) how can she talk this gobbledy goose nonsense that she was unaware of what was happening through her chairmanship.  It was established of course that she did know and she was stripped of her CBE.  She was also a woman of the cloth!!

End of rant hopefully...........

Jacquetta Hawkes

But then Murr can say it so much better