Happy Easter

Cuckoos by Andrew Young

When Coltsfoot withers and begins to wear

Long silver locks instead of golden hair,

And fat red catkins from black poplars fall

And on the ground like caterpillars crawl,

And bracken lifts up slender arms and wrists

And stretches them, unfolding sleepy fists,

The cuckoo in a few well-chosen words

Tell they give Easter eggs to the small bird

Easter Blessings to you all, though mine will come from the Celtic tradition and not the symbolic hanging of Jesus.  Tis the time of year that we should be guilty according to the priests.  

Amongst all the frippery of Easter eggs, bunnies and yellow chicks, we should be sad that the natural world declines, the cuckoos slowly fading into extinction as the birds of the meadow do.  The rich harvest of wild flowers no longer exist in the fields - we have tamed the land but at what cost?

“The oaks stand - quite still - so still that the

 lichen loves them...such solace and solitude

 seventy-nine miles thick cannot be painted...it

 is necessary to stay in it like oaks to know it.

 (1884)”

 
― Jefferies Richard 1848-1887, The Life of the Fields, by Richard Jeffries ..

Richard Jeffries captured the sheer beauty of the Wiltshire Downs and wrote his heart out at the beauty all round him I shall return to his books soon although it is a sad recollection of what there once was.

But enjoy this Easter weekend and I leave a picture of another famous flower of late spring - the tulip, exotically coloured because of the 'mosaic virus' but beautiful.

This and that

Catching up with the past.... Yesterday got an email from the Green Party secretary for the area, I had rejoined last year, basically to support them rather than get involved....It was a friendly email welcoming me and saying that there were regular monthly meetings at a pub in Malton.

It brought back a whole host of memories, I had been in at the beginning of the start of this party and watched it develop (not exactly to my liking).  A name flashed through my mind - Derek Wall - I had met him as a youngster at one of my ex-husband's digs.  Wall was extremely intelligent and very forceful and I was to meet this 'force' as he tried to wrangle leadership and his point of view against the other 'softer' greens.  He was an out and out radical, and has written profusely since those days.  He caused the red/green split in the party and it was this sense of war that put me off the G/P.  Typically very socialist to a point that he slipped over to very extreme views, I remember him coming to a meeting with a few of his friends to dominate the voting of what was being expressed and I realised that politics is a dirty game;)  I'm less naive and innocent now!

On all sides of friends, neighbours and bloggers I note the reservations when Corbyn is being proscribed as the next prime minister, and I also have my doubts, but the very heavy far left socialists are more worrying.

Watching this village I am aware that my views are not necessarily of those around me and the strands of bureaucracy that has to weave through elected committees is more of a hindrance than a way forward.  Nothing can be done unless you physically do it.  One member teaches us that when the cleaning of all the road signage was discussed, it was he that went out with bucket and cloth and did it. The debacle over slowing traffic through the village will never be resolved, the police are still promising to come with a camera, a good year since they promised that.  We will probably never get a much needed pavement, so that people can walk safely from a small caravan site to the pub, and also for the children to stand waiting for their schoolbus.  

Plants once more

Well apparently my new plant is called Eupatorium maculatum Rissenschitum. What a delicious mouthful, then I read up on it and it is a version of 'poke weed' which is not well received by some people in America.  When I found the picture of it......

My first thought it is exactly like Hemp Agrimony, Eupatorium cannabium and of course it is from the same species, a wild plant I used to grow for butterflies. Less flashy I admit but doing the same job and no it has nothing to do with hemp or cannabis, just happens to look alike.

Grigson says 'a plant of no very strong personality or appeal, though mile after mile of roadside will be filled with the raspberry and cream of its flower'.  He has no taste it is a very pretty plant, not seen any in Yorkshire as I have also not seen that  lover of walls  down South the red valerian which decorates the old walls of Weston Park in Bath so beautifully.

Anticipation

Boxing Hares - James Lynch (private collection)

A perfect spring day yesterday as I pottered amongst the weeds.  The following perennials are what I ordered as ground cover.  My friend came round with her wheelbarrow and an enormous plant, a butterfly plant so she told me.  I have planted three buddleia bushes and they are much loved by the butterflies.  Paul nipped over the wall into the graveyard he is raking down a spot for wildflowers in our viewpoint.  When I looked out the window he was talking to the new vicar, who was wandering round with a map looking for a space for a burial coming in the next few days.  

There is something ironically funny about life and death, we had been discussing about our ashes being disposed of over the weekend.  My plan had been to have my ashes scattered at Wheeldale Beck amongst the rocks and trees, and Paul was not sure where he wanted but did not want Lucy's ashes scattered there if she was all alone.  I know, morbid talk but making sensible decisions is useful!

So to the promise of summer and flowers, firstly as I dig am beginning to see worms which were rather rare when we first came.  Some of my roses are blighted by black spot and I spray, not that it seems to make much difference, so I shall use that other weapon of feeding them and making them strong.  The birds are busily nesting, the song thrush is back, the collared doves already have eggs and are fighting off the blackbirds.  Also, my jackdaw is still alive getting round the garden by walking.

The village verges are full of daffodils with little crocuses adding to the colour.  Must admit my ankle is taking a long time to really get better and digging is not easy.

The hares which took my fancy, Easter is on its way, remind me of pulling Lucy out of rabbit burrows yesterday, she just loves a dark hole and hauling her plump form out was not easy.

                                                           Macrrhizum - Album  x 2

perennial geranium Azure Rush

Perennial geranium Joy

Masculatum Beth Chatto

Wlassovianum x wlassovianum

Video of Duloe Stone Circle

Well as it is a busy weekend with family here, I shall put on Roy's video of Duloe Stone Circle for viewing.  A lovely small quartz circle, which of course Jennie you were asking about the one in your neck of the woods yesterday. And if Roy reads this is that Stuart at the beginning?

Here be dragons and wergs (for Aril)

Nykerpole : here be dragons
Nykerpole is a very obscure well. Indeed, it is now not a well at all, but a mediaeval place-name, recorded first in 1272, indicating a well now lost, at Mildenhall near Marlborough. Nevertheless, I include Nykerpole here because, like Puckwell, the place-name recalls a legendary well-dwelling creature.
Mildenhall (pronounced Mine-all) was Roman Cunetio. Two Roman shaft-wells have been found in the area, one of which contained a Saxon burial, the remains of a female skeleton with a knife, pins, buckles and beads. Black Field is the site of the Roman settlement, and Roman ghosts have been seen here (Wiltshire 1984, pp. 25-6). Nickamoor Field lies just west of Black Field beside the River Kennet. A placename of the sixteenth century, Nicapooles Croft, may refer to this very field, or to another associated with it. Centuries have passed, and we will probably never know the exact location of Nykerpole, the nicor-pool of Anglo-Saxon times which gave its name to Nicapooles Croft and Nickamoor Field (Gover 1939, p. 499). The nicor was a great water-dwelling monster of the dragonish or sea-serpent type: two nicras are described in Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of the early eighth century. Nowadays the nicor lingers most notably in the Knucker Holes of Sussex, great deep pools of water in whose bottomless depths lurked the Knucker itself (Simpson 1973, pp. 37-42). But it is clear that, centuries ago, Wiltshire too had its Knucker which perhaps, like its Sussex cousins, would come crawling up out of its pool to terrorise the people of the gentle Kennet valley.
Location: Nicamoor Field is at SU 214 694, Sheet 1186. Footpaths run either side of the River Kennet. 
http://people.bath.ac.uk/liskmj/living-spring/sourcearchive/ns6/ns6kmj1.htm

The strangely named hamlet of Werg was a community of nine dwellings on the River Kennet."One of the many pools on the river, as it wove its way through the water meadows was "Nicker Pool", where it is said the water spirits played. When the climatic conditions are right, the whirling wraiths can still be seen, so that the local name had good cause to be established."

Werg of course is a word that can be transformed into many meanings but given that there were only nine dwellings by this stretch of the river near Mildenhall, one of the meanings is outlaw or criminal, and presumably popular medieval myth has taken up the word and transformed a particular happening of the water spiralling around maybe, a bit like cropcircles, and transformed it into water wraiths, probably the spirits of the poor wretches who lived here.

Taken from this blog which goes back to 2008.  Also the river Cunetio (and yes it is a Celtic name Romanised) or Kennet as it is now called has an interesting past.

Friday 23rd March

 Yesterday a Cornish friend sent a couple of videos of wells by Duloe village, which also has a fabulous stone circle. The local Cornish group were holding a pagan moot there.  That part of the ceremony was not filmed for obvious reasons but as Roy explained the history of the well, my mind slipped back to its magic and the people who are happily devoted to the Celtic traditions, and dowsing by the way.  Never forget the world is made up of many things.

Cornish prehistory lies thick on the ground, saints are everywhere to be found, some would argue that it is 18th/19th century antiquarians who have named these places but St.Keyne Well has a lovely little story which you can find here.

Myths, I have been reading Humphrey Carpenter's analysis of the 'Inklings'  a look at Tolkien and Lewis and their friends and work..............

The Inklings were a gathering of friends – all of them British, male, and Christian, most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University, many of them creative writers and lovers of imaginative literature – who met usually on Thursday evenings in C.S. Lewis’s college rooms in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s for readings and criticism of their own work, and for general conversation. ..........

Lewis had converted to Christianity, but had problems with the whole concept of religion, he saw faith and belief in gods as a necessity but that the Jesus saga had followed the earlier stories, especially Northern pagan of the dying of the god.  In fact religion was founded on mythological stories carried forward.  Well the 'Inklings' had a very satisfying life of discussion and criticism amongst the hallowed portals of Oxford - being intellectual!

The greenery, ferns and moss of this damp secretive well invites you in, it already has the trappings of worship festooned on its shrubs, I remember them well when we visited in April a couple of years ago and it must have been near Easter.

Thursday 22nd March

Today I did the circular walk around the fields, which are muddy of course.  We followed the barn owl as he/she flew from post to post and the solitary heron flew over head.  Spring is a long time coming in the fields but daffodils shoot up everywhere.  Turning to Stephen Moss's Wild Hares & Hummingbirds I come across these few lines from John Clare's nature poem....

I love to see the old heath's withered brake

Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling

Whilst the old heron from the lonely lake

Starts slow and flaps his melancholy wing, 

And oddling crow in idle motion swing

On the half-rotten ash tree's topmost twig,

Well our solitary heron must have been on this stretch of river for years, they are like a relic from prehistory, with their crooked necks and long legs.  But what of our barn owls, not quite that snowy  pristine white you see in glamorous photos, no its feathers are touched with brown.  Two I saw this morning over the fields, and this one gracefully gliding just ahead.

a very long distance fuzzy photo

It is a heron, rudely interrupted by our presence

the barn owl

And the story of the little hare that sought sanctuary, always good as we get near Easter.

The story of Saint Melangell and her little hare. She was the daughter of King Cufwlch and Ethni of Ireland and she fled to Wales to escape a forced marriage. She settled in Pennant at the head of a valley, and whilst one day sitting in a clearing she heard the sound of a hunt, dogs and horses galloping up the valley. This was Prince Brochwael of Powys hunting hares. As she sat a hare came into the clearing and Melangell hid it in the sleeve of her dress to protect it. When it peeped out the dogs fled, and so the Prince gave her the land on which he hunted, and she lived at Pennant for another 37 years and no animal was killed in her sanctuary. Hares were known as wyn bach Melangell or Melangell's little lambs, and to kill a hare was an act of sacrilege.

This story is taken from "The Book of Welsh Saints" T.D. Breverton, and there are other versions of the tale. But at Llanfihangel-y-Pennant near Llangynog  this is probably the site of her foundation, because on the church's medieval rood-screen are little hares.

Tuesday 20th March

                                               

                                                          Happy Equinox everyone;

The day dawned in typical springlike weather, sun, rain and a brief rainbow. Equinox is around the 20/21st of March. Petroc Trelawney on Radio 3 was playing music for sparrows, because I believe it is sparrow day as well!  He mentioned the cherry blossom time in Japan which is slowly moving from South to North, you can see it here.

We also used to have a hot cup of saki when the cherry blossom came out in the garden in Chelmsford.  The ceremony is to pour your companion's cup and he yours and sit under the cherry tree.  We do not have cherry trees in this garden only plum, and the Japanese cherry trees do not produce fruit sadly but there are a small orchard of real cherry trees down the road, neglected but quietly growing and feeding the birds.

The church yard is also turning springlike, the snowdrops are coming to an end, daffodils are appearing here and there, and people have brought fresh flowers, mainly tulips for their loved ones.

Prickly presents

Robin Tanner woodcut - Primroses and Wren

Well I do have something to post today.  A knock on the door, large box from Interflora, and a great prickly cactus emerged.  The funny thing was I had just mentioned buying a cactus to Paul as he had taken one of the cyclamen pot plants for his study - weird.  The cactus was from my daughter, almost at the end of her divorce proceedings and grateful for help.  A milestone to be recorded.

The weather has calmed down though still a cold wind, the birds are still around, especially Jack our injured jackdaw, you would think that I could have thought him a more original name.  This morning when I looked out four hen pheasants sat on the church wall obviously hungry.  Two can just be discerned below.

Hello lamp post what you doin? come to watch your flowers growing

                                                                      Waterloo Sunset

Sometimes those gentle  songs from the past come back, especially on a Sunday morning. As I empty the washing machine, retrieve the bread from the oven, burnished beautifully brown and mash the potatoes for fish cakes the songs fill the empty spaces of my mind.  But 'Feelin Groovy' is a good state of mind to be in!

Cat Stevens I love my dog, dedicated to Lucy who has been an absolute bitch about going out in this weather and has diarrhea, unfortunately!

Saturday

The wind whistles down the chimney, the East wind funnels its way round the house, our Jackdaw trots round the garden looking for food and the hens stare from their run fascinated by the wind and other birds in the garden.  And I am listening to the dance beat in Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Yesterday we went to Thirsk for a visit to my bank, again cold and miserable as we drove from Helmsley to Sutton Bank a fog, with rain and snow left over from the last snow storm.

I find Sutton Bank fascinating, a relict of the Ice Age. This steep cliff slightly reminiscent of the Cheddar Gorge but with only one cliff, steep sided the road takes several zig-zag turns.  Caravans are forbidden to go up it, 74 HGVs got stuck going up last year.

You can just see the road past the house

Quoting - The North York Moors by Mead;

Sutton Bank as one of Yorkshire's great motoring hills.  With its 1-4 gradient and double hairpin bend was once the scene of motor-bike trials.

Great rocks once protruded from the rock face onto the road but these have since disappeared from when the book was written in 1978, and now poured cement highlights where once they were.  He mentions a B/A cairn somewhere on the top looking towards Hood Hill.

There again if you want a really steep hill in the North York Moors, let me introduce you to Rosedale Chimney and Bank, which comes in at 1-33 gradient with zig-zag bends and many a caravan has been caught out on these bends.   We have travelled it once but Paul was a little dubious of using it a second time.

And one last thing Glen Cailliche - Home of the Celtic Gods? is the title.

Hedgehogs

1. Let areas of garden grow wild to mimic hedgehogs’ natural habitat
2. Provide shelter in the colder months through logs piles and compost heaps
3. Use garden chemicals such as slug pellets carefully !!!  don't use them at all.
4. Leave out water and foods such as boiled eggs, chopped nuts and sultanas
5. Consider planting hedgerows to help hedgehogs move between gardens

Fay Vass, Chief Executive of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society said:

We are delighted that the Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss is speaking out on how to help hedgehogs.

With their population falling by a third in urban areas and by half in rural areas since 2000, doing all we can to help Britain’s only spiny mammal is more important now than ever.

Well here I am quoting from a government petition that asked for hedgehogs to be made a protected species. They refused. Yesterday went to a garden club meeting about hedgehogs, and amongst all the statistics of gloom and doom not much help stood out.  We are poisoning the insects and hedgehogs through our farming and gardening methods, plain and simple, we farm every inch of land and suburbanise our gardens, mowing lawns to within one inch of their lives, getting rid of weeds etc.  One fact I read, 30s million hedgehogs in the middle of last century, one million today.  As the speaker said we are probably moving to the sixth extinction in the world.  When I lay it on thick I lay it with a very large trowel ;)

But not all bad news, there are people looking out for hedgehogs, our speaker who lives in York, says that rescued hogs are often placed in the Bishop's walled garden and there are many people willing to give a home to these creatures.  We even have a Pickering rescue centre.  Here in our garden they would so easily wander onto the road under the gates.  We had one last year and C over the road said she had had a house made for hers, but a few bricks and some hay would do, the home has to be dark and snug.

There was a lot of oohs and aahs from the gathered assembly over the 'sweetness' of the hogs but it is sad to see these creatures disappear through illness and road kill, perhaps they need 'reserves' to be protected in.  Toni Bunnell, the speaker did make one interesting point, remember all those insects in summer that plastered our clothes or stuck to the windscreen of the car - where have they gone?

What is Biodiversity

The Scottish Island Uist Hedgehogs

Wednesday

The day arrives with a beautiful sunrise, the birds come down to feed, and my injured wing jackdaw hops merrily about amongst the great yellow beaked crows.  Perhaps I shall call him Jack.

Massive Solar storm Well that sounds dramatic but then newspaper headlines normally are.

The arrival of the solar storm coincides with the formation of 'equinox cracks' in Earth's magnetic field, which form around the equinoxes on March 20 and September 23 every year.

Well that is a fact that I never knew, could it be that the prehistoric stones I take such a delight in were illuminated at times by these green lights altering the behaviour of the neolithic people to take note on their calendars.  Leading on to Stonehenge, which is always in the news on the decision to tunnel a road nearby.  

But there were times when Turner, Piper and Gertrude Hermes painted  these famous stones in quieter times.  Stonehenge is part of the tourist trail now, bordered by a busy road the whole conceptual presence of great sarsen stones has been swept away by modern life and commercialism

Gertrude Hermes

Gertrude Hermes

As for John Piper.....

Tuesday

Indifferent to snow, primulas and crocuses brave the cold.  Of course it has all disappeared, the lawn is a squelchy marsh, the river is flowing higher but the 12/15 feet it rose as the snow melt came down from the moors has undercut the banks, it is now much lower.  Drive through the countryside and there is standing water everywhere, a thoroughly miserable time of the year.  Lucy has to lose weight our vet said yesterday as she administered the vaccination - that will be a whole lot of tantrums!

Watched the mad-eyed Richard Dawkin on the fact that we should follow the American way of voting and demand two-thirds majority vote when such important issues as leaving Europe come up, for me it is a gamble either way and do I not hear the gentle thrum of war as Russia becomes aggressive.  Uneasy times.

Meandering like a drunken river

"There’s nothing clever about stupid high prices for food items, but it’s always good to have something to gawp at. Recently, on a trip round the refurbished Harrods food hall, I spotted Wagyu Kobe fillet A5, imported from Japan, for £62.50 per 100g. Or £625 a kilo. The minimum order is 500g. You do the maths."  Jay Rayner

Food once more;  Kobi beef, cows raised in comfortable byres, only the best food, Saki or beer to imbibe, so that the end results in a very tender fillet steak.  I will not say more, except someone in Wales can do it at a much cheaper rate. And why is he wearing a hard hat, do these poor pampered creatures know their fate?

Well what else have I thought about this morning, a certain reluctance to go out in the rain to feed birds/let chickens out started this blog, which by the way got blown away when I had

written it earlier.  I am without a 'mouse' so probably hit a key that is marked 'disappear immediately'.

The other thing which I wanted to record was the fact that we maybe going to a Tibetan monastery in Scotland to take some books for their library this summer.

The Kagyu Samye Ling temple is splendid but does not hold a light to a good old grey stoned church but the gardens and enclosed land are interesting.  An environmental concern stands behind this monastic way of life and I find such a temple fascinating in the austere landscape of Scotland, but then isn't Tibet a wild and rugged place? 

Tibet is the one place on earth I have always wanted to visit, just to swing those old prayer bells, to stand on those bleak cold plains and drink tsampa tea which is probably quite revolting.

And because my mind is on food this morning, I shall leave a sweet potato in the oven with the bread, apparently, according to Nigella Lawson, you should always keep a roasted s/p in the fridge, mine will go into a soup presumably by roasting it brings the sweetness out.

Consulting Dorothy Hartley on yorkshire pudding; In those olden days the beef was roasted on a spit over an open fire, with the fat dripping down on to the pudding,she gives a slightly different way to preparing it.  Firstly separate the white from the yolk and beat it to a creamy fluffy smoothness you then add the yolks, no mention of milk...

Eggs whipped to snow, with almost as much flour as they will take up well beaten in.  The batter is then thinned down with a little salted water till as thick as good cream. And then presumably you add the yolks.

Sunday

Today is Mother's Day, as I never had an actual mother but stepmothers the event will pass me by! It doesn't worry me, if it had I would have looked for that mother who had to give me up and called me Janet on my birth certificate.  She went on to create a new life and a family for herself.

I have chatted to my two children happy in the knowledge that they and my grandchildren are the forward motion of my life, regretting the past is not a good thing.

And what a lovely day it is outside, the hens are roaming the churchyard, Lucy has been for a walk. All the women (many old) that attended church this morning came away with bunches of flower, wonder if that is down to the new vicar.

Life is quiet, we had a Chinese takeaway last night, the restaurant/pub at Amoerby was overrun by people coming for their takeaways.  Sometimes I find it surprising that there are so many Indian and Chinese restaurants in these small market towns.  How many times have you heard the French say that food is terrible in England, why don't we have French restaurants around I wonder to redress the balance? or are they scared, but what with fish and chips shops we don't do too badly. 

Watched Giles Coren (restaurant critic in The Times) faffing around in a really over the top hotel in Oman I think last night.  Crazy money £12,000 a night for a suite, the views were awe-inspiring though.  Actually beginning to like Coren, he has a funny sense of humour, it must be really hardwork going out to restaurants all the time!

Thursday 8th March

This morning

Thick Russian accents on Today and thick snowflakes fall once more this morning.  Only yesterday I was working in the garden in warm spring sun and then the snow rolls in once more.  As for the Russians and whether they did or did not poison those poor people I leave to when further evidence comes to light.  Paul said is it coincidental that Salisbury is an army town and that Porton Down is very near.  Whatever the nerve gas is it is a foul way of killing people.

when it snows one sleeps!

But to return to things much nearer home, took my car in for an annual service yesterday so it is in tip-top condition, hardly been used these last 6 months but it still starts first time.  Pottered around the garden cutting down the ivy which has been creeping across the long bed, cut all the dry stuff down, made note of where the tulips and bearded irises are coming up.  Remember summer is a'coming!

this and that

Magpie habit of collecting;   The Ice Age Cometh

These are some things I collected on F/B. This winter wonderland, courtesy of Gavin Kelly, is way over West for us but is still in North Yorkshire. Scaleber Force.  I can see the logic of calling it a force, but the word Fosse can also be used for a waterfall in Yorkshire.

This painting by  Canadian artist Emily Carr 1871 -1945 called Red Cedar has the same vitality as the above photo, very feminine tree.

And the last is just an identification chart of spring buds on trees;

Isn't the internet a wonderful world to explore ;) and so colourful.
Okay parts are terrible a friend has led me to a video of a man shocked by the fact that 'Cheddar Man' was black, and has rewritten his history down in the 'white enclave' that is Somerset....

Jottings

Favorite Words; My unconscious creeps in here, could that be blogs? but for the moment I will stick with Gary Snyder

Clearing the mind and sliding in

to that created space

a web of waters streaming over rocks,

air misty but not raining,

seeing this land from a boat on a lake

or a broad slow river,

coasting by.

Yesterday we watched 'Civilisation'  on BBC Iplayer with Simon Scharma, as it started at the beginning chapter of mankind we were into delicately carved goddesses and cave paintings.  It brought back memories of going to the British Museum to see 'Art in the Ice Age. Also Werner Herzog  film Cave of Dreams about the Chauvet  Caves.

The Chauvet horses, you can see them in our Dartmoor ponies still, the first thing I read about these creatures of how they were driven over the cliffs in France for food, and yet the art work captures them with such fondness.

There is total magic in these cave drawings the line of time at least 30,000 years that lies between us and the artists is immense and yet the heart catches the moment in time with ease

So where did the next two links come from, this is 'chain of thought'  Snyder's poem about the three teenagers found by archaeologists started it off, and on hunting through my blog found other people of interest, and other words;)

Under the Hills near the Moravia River

She lay there midst

Mammoth, reindeer, and wolf bones;

Diadem of fox teeth round her brow

Ocher under her hips

26,640 plus or minus 110 years before "now".

Burnt reindeer-pelvis bone bits

in her mouth,

Bones of two men lying by her side,

one each side.

For instance there is Ruth-Fuller-Sasaki, a rich American Lady becoming a Buddhist and then there is this..  the first vow is important to me, I cannot watch an animal death without feeling strong emotions.  Some days transport lorries with sheep, presumably for the slaughter house go by, and my heart sinks.  We kill animals for food, the beautiful drawings on the Chauvet Caves tell us that and to a degree I accept it but not the pain and terror inflicted.

As for the snow it slowly shrinks into a grey death, with watery snow still falling from the sky.

Friday 2nd March

Funny yes, but this big  comedic divide between North and South has produced a rash of funnies in the same way.  One thing I would say is why did not our government come out more forcefully and tell people to just keep off the roads, and just allow all necessary vehicles on the road, the list would not have been long.  Saw a poem praising all the tractors that have been out pulling people out of trouble contrasting our moaning at them when we meet them on the roads normally and have to follow them for miles;)

Feed your birds please;  They are so hungry, they fly towards the house windows when they see the curtains drawn.  The jackdaw with the injured wing is still around taking cover in the old hawthorn branches.  I feed the rest of the jackdaws on the front lawn, where the snow lies quite deep. Blackbirds are always first up in the morning bickering between themselves, the two robins coming close by.  The song thrush/es have returned looking pretty miserable with fluffed up feathers.  The collared doves come noisily in waiting for their seeds.  The smaller birds, tits, sparrows and finches are having problems with the feeders as they swing in the fierce winds.  The blizzards roar through the little copse and the garden is littered with Scotch fir trimmings.

The Carvery was a success last night, everyone turned up, I became treasurer and took the last money paid up for tickets.  The raffle netted £80, and I got 6 eggs from Jo's flock as mine have ceased laying.  The new vicar came as well to introduce himself.  

J said he is not having a chemical/biogradable loo next to his garden which runs alongside the church yard

Have I not told you about this? As church numbers have declined there has been a move towards using the church for other activities.  Firstly, like most churches it is cold, secondly there is no water and thirdly no loo.  Water could be laid on from the road, heat is an ongoing problem but a loo? our outgoing churchwarden had done some research and gone to a small church hidden away in a dale somewhere not too far away.  Bransdale Church, Cockayne..

Isolated in this small very pretty dale, and a must to visit when the weather gets better.

They have invested in a biodegradable loo housed in a 'Red Squirrel' hut, whatever that is.  Unfortunately, walkers and cyclists use it and not being overly careful put the wrong things in the loo rather than the small bin provided.....

I can see the bird table on the front lawn as I type, the two doves have been cooing sweetly to each other, they do say that cold weather brings forth more babies, but the doves are such untidy home makers that their nests often fall apart.