Well for all of you sports lovers out there, congratulations on the latest football win. What else, Wimbledon and cycling all dominating the television at the moment. I am not sporty and it all passes me by with a lot of grumbles on my part.
My friends left me yesterday with the admonishment to watch the football, I DID NOT, just turned the radio on at 10 pm and got the result. They had kindly offered to drive me into Malton to the bank to pay the cheque in for the car, which was generous to a fault, both the cheque and my friends, who will get my shopping in the following days before departure to the wilds of Calder valley.
When do you start panicking and when do you stop? Access to the internet is an absolute. Mostly everything is under control, one thing that worries me are apps on the phone. For instance when travelling by train, you can have your ticket on the phone. My phone not only demands a password any time but also finger recognition, not as easy as you may think putting your finger in proper recognition form.
Keep losing the internet on this computer but not on other devices ;(. This morning I noticed Tasker is recounting his Icelandic Saga when he visited with friends many years ago. It reminded me of William Morris's visit and his poem, which you will find below, rather laborious but Morris brought back a little Icelandic pony for his children and it pulled the lawn mower as one of its jobs in life. Such small details gather in my magpie mind sadly!
Lo from our loitering ship a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed rocks down the side of the firth on the east guard a weary wide lea,
And black slope the hillsides above, striped adown with their desolate green:
And a peak rises up on the west from the meeting of cloud and of sea,
Foursquare from base unto point like the building of Gods that have been,
The last of that waste of the mountains all cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and grey,
And bright with the dawn that began just now at the ending of day.
Ah! what came we forth for to see that our hearts are so hot with desire?
Is it enough for our rest, the sight of this desolate strand,
And the mountain-waste voiceless as death but for winds that may sleep not nor tire?
Why do we long to wend forth through the length and breadth of a land,
Dreadful with grinding of ice, and record of scarce hidden fire,
But that there 'mid the grey grassy dales sore scarred by the ruining streams
Lives the tale of the Northland of old and the undying glory of dreams?
O land, as some cave by the sea where the treasures of old have been laid,
The sword it may be of a king whose name was the turning of fight;
Or the staff of some wise of the world that many things made and unmade,
Or the ring of a woman maybe whose woe is grown wealth and delight.
No wheat and no wine grows above it, no orchard for blossom and shade;
The few ships that sail by its blackness but deem it the mouth of a grave;
Yet sure when the world shall awaken, this too shall be mighty to save. ...
What a lovely picture that creates of the Icelandic pony pulling the lawn mower. Love William Morris designs, have curtains to prove it! My husband still has a William Morris fabric waistcoat (which sadly does not fit) made by the late Peter Bellamy. Peter Bellamy and The Young Tradition formed his early interest in Folk Music which has been a life long passion. However after a trip to France in the eighties French traditional music became his main passion and we have the hurdy gurdies to prove it. One car goes another arrives. Have just replaced a lovely but unreliable Rav4 for a Nissan Qashqai which is not so old and is safer for an old lady!! Jan Bx.
ReplyDeleteAnd I see Peter Bellamy was still making music up to four years ago, I am listening to him at the moment;) I collected Morris's books, they were all an arty bunch. Except I did not like Dante Rossetti but still keep Christine Rossetti's Goblin book. I remember the 60s and the clothes we wore, velvet jackets, short skirts not together of course. It was all a growing up time!
DeleteOh would that were so Thelma. Peter Bellamy took his own life in 1991. His music, of course lives on.
DeleteLoved the sixties clothes, Biba, loons, cheesecloth et al. Goblins remind me of Arthur Rackham's wonderful illustrations. Good memories of a more optimistic time (but probably just less well informed)! Jan Bx.
Yes Jan it was lovely to live in a simple naïve time.
DeleteWilliam Morris and Iceland... There's a whole area to look into there!
ReplyDeleteAs for sport, most of it (football, tennis) leaves me cold. I roll my eyes when people enthuse or when it comes on the telly. But then the Tour de France starts. Someone only has to say the three words for me to come out in goosepimples. I'm glued to the telly for three weeks. I even get an inkling of what the tennis and footie fans might feel.
I have never watched the Tour de France, though saw something of the cycle race that went through the Yorkshire Dales not so long ago. Well perhaps a couple of years ago. As for Morris and the Icelandic sagas there is quite a lot written about his enthusiasm for the 'heroic' men in them.
DeleteThe last time the farmer and I went to the US we flew over Iceland - it looked spectacular and we saw a glacier where it flowed into the sea. It made me want to go but I never shall now. So have to live with 'it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive
ReplyDeleteCarruthers goes on all the time about Le Tour and this time he has got me hooked and I am loving it. I can't cope with the football excitement but, like you switched on to see who had won - as soon as I heard the cheering I knew. I must say as a nation it will have done us all good.
Yes I suppose as a nation Pat we are all cheered up by this, I do hope it does not disappoint on Sunday though on the final round of the English team. As for travel, I do believe we can travel in the mind and television nowadays has such good documentaries we don't need to get on a plane.
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ReplyDeleteThank you for the mention. Iceland does capture the imagination, and Morris's poem is rich in mythology, but sometimes the truth is even richer. One thing that has always fascinated me since I heard about it on the radio as a child, is the island of Surtsey just to the south of Iceland, which only formed as recently as 1963 from an undersea volcanic eruption, yet within about 30 years became inhabited by plants, seabirds and insects.
ReplyDeleteWas there not a volcanic eruption about 10 years ago, and the planes could not fly. It is a very 'alive' country Iceland. I have been listening to MacFarlane's Underland and he is fascinated by ice and the great glaciers.
DeleteMaybe ask someone to remove the password and fingerprint recognition from your phone.
ReplyDeleteI removed mine.
Phones should be a help not a hindrance.
I can probably do that myself Anne, I shall remove one but not the other I think.
DeleteIt's terrible when the internet goes down - and yet also terrible that I am so dependent. I know I ought to just accept it, but instead I rant and go into town to get a signal - to be fair, it is for work too.
ReplyDeleteWe have a local service, and they are not too bad but it seems to happen when other people go on to the internet in the village.
DeleteIf England do eventually win the football, Boris Johnson will be insufferable.
ReplyDeleteWell I would have thought he had reached his limit on being insufferable, just needs Marcus Rashford to tackle him....
DeleteNow I'd love to see that!
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