Painter -Atkinson Grimshaw

 John Atkinson Grimshaw - 1836 to 1893

Reflections on the Thames - John Atkinson Grimshaw

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

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

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

Moonlit scene near Leeds - John Atkinson Grimshaw

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

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

Shipping on the Clyde

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

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

Keeping family history going

 Family:  What to write about, a reminder of family history for the children maybe.  The photo below must have been taken about twelve years ago, a family day out trip to Gruyere.  I'm not there of course, although I will be going to Switzerland in September - a last visit.  It is a family rite to pose in this square on a visit.

This is a photo just under 50 years ago, me, my daughter and Con the great grandfather of my grandchildren

Growing up

I always loved the bright red geraniums that adorned the window boxes.  Switzerland is a pretty place, with its dark wooden houses and cows with bells around their necks.  Looking at the neck bands that two of the children are wearing and I realise they have been to Marc's factory, my daughter's cousin, purveyor of Sushi, the factory of which is somewhere around Gruyere.  There is a photo  of all the children in white coats (Lillie's was cut down) and net hair hats stuck to a kitchen cupboard.

The weird thing is of course Switzerland is land locked and the only fish I have seen is the poor trout in fish tanks outside restaurants waiting to be eaten.  Their great grandfather wrote a poem which ends with the memory of fish and chips or fillet de perche

A rainy evening in Vevey,
Fills me with intense dismay,
The faded splendours of Montreux
Leave me feeling rather blue;
And if we must stick to verity,
I don't go overboard on Territet.
And, I must say,
Whoever got hooked on La Tour de Peilz?
For Corsier, Blonay, Chebres and Corseaux,
I'm unequally unmoved or even more so;
If there's a place I'd rather not be on
Its the top of the tower of the Chateau de Chillon.
In Southend they would'nt have the cheek to serve,
That cupper tea we got at Villeneuve
We got fish and chips just beside the church
But you have to ask for fillet de perche.
So..... you just ask your mother why we're here,
When we might have been on Wigan Pier.

Coming back to write this for the GC and I am listening to the news on the radio, Iran, which was always Persia in our family, is coming to an 'agreement' with Trump.  Persia was often spoke of with great affection by the Opper family, they were there in the time of the Shah.  Annabel, my sister-in-law bought back a Persian rug as a wedding gift for Nick and me.

North Stoke: A handful of photos 

Just been informed that Lillie has caught the 6 o clock train from London and will be back soon and that Tanaker is coming for the weekend.  I haven't introduced Tanaker yet but he is one of the three 'adopted' children Andrew and his ex-wife fostered.  Tanaker of course is also coming from London probably for football at Leeds, I don't know.

Life is full of pleasant surprises, Andrew has just bought a book in on Atkinson Grimshaw.  An artist who failed the art critics but is definitely in need of a revival.

16th June 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Hockney

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

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

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

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

North Stoke: Salts Mill

Cathedral of Industry

One Bag of Peruvian Wool

North Stoke: 25th August 2025

Roman York

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

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

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

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

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

11th June 2026

Just puts the giggle into the day

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

Bucky and Loie at Pentre Ifan

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

Tiny but perfect 

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

  

9th June 2026

 

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

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

The Town Plan 

Proposed alteration of Bramsche Square.  Architect's drawing

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

Sunday

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Friends fear Meghan not to be trusted with kitchen knife

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

This is a favourite. 

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

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

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Drifting

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

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

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

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

Sensible Voices

The Hijacking of the Henry Nowak case

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

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

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

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

Cawthorn Camps

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pottering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coate Water

North Stoke: Bevis by Richard Jefferies

 North Stoke: Christmas Reading 2007

North Stoke: 4th December 2021

Words

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

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

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

Turmoil: State of extreme confusion and agitation or commotion.

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

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

27th May 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

TBC

Jungle Garden again

 A few favourites.

Yellow Laburnum tree accentuated by the sun

Jungle tree/palm?

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

 

The yellow/orange of Californian poppy against pale purple alliums

Dining out in a pizza place

Plants ready for planting

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

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

New ferns at the base of the central new shed.

 

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

Hostas giant sized and still unravaged by snails

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

It's Too Darn Hot, to write words

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

 

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

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

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

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

Hidden poem by Wordsworth’s niece published | OurDailyRead

Bones of our wild forefathers

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

Emmeline Fisher

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

20th May 2026 - links

 Some links:  When there was no handy paper or vellum to write on around, people drew on rocks.  Patiently picking at the rock till their truth was revealed.  I wonder what it says about the human race? A need to be remembered or a need to create.    The Smell of Water – Dark and True and Tender is the North

When AI went wrong.  There is a reasonable fear about the introduction of this many headed monster, and a rather succinct, but very long, essay notes the fact that American students are beginning to see that AI is not going to find them jobs in the future.  So in some colleges when the subject is brought up, especially at the point when they receive their degrees they boo loudly the speakers who are in favour of IA.  There is a funny video at the end of this link, when AI forgets a host of student names and there is a great flap on the stage as they rearrange for those forgotten.  They go on  to name the students who have obtained their degrees successfully, in the usual manner of a queue.

Superintelligent AI: An Extinction Risk to Humanity | ControlAI  Well interestingly enough that link doesn't go back to the original article in my email, but I shall leave it there.  Perhaps AI is worrying about itself ;)

We are in that political stage at the moment when upstarts (Streeting and Burnham) are trying to pull down the present incumbent of our government, the Prime Minister, Starmer,  A helpful Labour MP has stepped down in his constituency of Makerfield to allow Manchester's mayor Andy Burnham to stand. This by the way leaves the Green Party in a quandary, if they field a candidate, would it break up the vote allowing Reform Party to get in. 

 Brave men, it could mean the ending of careers, should Burnham stop in his successful role as Mayor of Manchester to throw his hat in the ring for Prime minister? Alistair Stewart soothes one's brow ;) Burnham, Streeting & the Fight to Be Prime Minister, and who would want the job anyway ??

My algorithms read me as a person who love golden retrievers and their funny ways, so in actual fact somewhere in the future the golden dog might be ruling us with their gentle, kind ways, you never know.

Gandalph the Great

Rewilding

 Illegal plants in Ireland;  As we have almost passed the season of the wild bluebell in the woods.  It is interesting to note that the Spanish bluebell is declared illegal in Ireland because of the damage it could do if the plant interbreeds with our wild and beautiful bluebell.  I once saw these cultivated plants thrown quite casually in the woods in garden rubbish.  This, of course, is how the problem takes place.  I am not quite sure whether we have the same rule in England.  The other illegal plants that should not be on sale and were  mentioned were Cherry Laurel, rhododendron ponticum and Hottentot fig, out of a list of 34 species.

I have been watching Rewilding programmes, and it is quite fascinating to see how animals, and plants of course, change the nature of their environment and there are people out there, luckily with enough money to devote their land to experimenting with rewilding.  We often interfere with how the rivers and streams run in our country, culverting them into long straight ditches or dykes.  A beaver will teach you differently as they busily work away on building their dams.  Something similar happens when you allow water from a hill to make its own way down, creating winding pathways of water.  It is this gentle flow, especially through the land at the bottom that slows the carrying away of the pesticides in the rivers that we throw on the land.

One of the schemes that I have followed over the years is the Langholm Moor Initiative in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland.  This moor was put on the market and the local people from the town of Langholm decided to buy it.  This was a tremendous effort on their part, 5000 acres, now I believe 10,000 acres, at several million pounds.  But they raised the money  and the land now belongs to the community.  And such things as the large plantations of evergreen timber planted by the Forestry are being cut down.

We were in this area a few years back, going to see the Buddhist temple Samye Linge that lies in the valley there.  There were two stone circles we wanted to see and Paul was taking some books to give to the monks.  Even now my heart quickens at the thought of the lush countryside in this Southern part of Scotland, I even fancied living there but truly it was a long way to the towns.  And sadly I am not religious either ;) but as I have followed the Samye Linge social media it is surprising to see how many people attend the courses there and of course the influence it has on the people around who may have moved to the area because of the Buddhist temple.