27/02/2022

My two last blogs have things that do not dwell on world happenings.  Today should be about rivers, but I will just push you gently towards the news, which has a glimmer of hope in it.  Never would I have thought that the economy might save the day.  China is definitely not on the side of annexation of Ukraine, and what with the economic powers of closing down banks and the transfer of money by Swift, certain signs are showing the world pulling together to defeat Putin, (is it just the mad leanings for power of the man?). 

The Ukraine soldiers are being joined by the people in the defence of the country, they are taking up arms to save themselves.  As one Ukraine said to the Russians, 'fuck you, do you want a tow back to Russia' he was talking to the driver of a tank.  Another Ukraine stepped in front of a tank to stop it, place your trust in the power of social media to convey these images to the Russian people and hope they can stop him before he gets even crosser.

So read my Guardian news here and a couple of photos of the River Kennett, which is a winterbourne river.

Dreams and trees

What to make of them.  They provide a blog post of course.  I dreamt last night of trees, especially a large old tree.  The life of an oak, three hundred to grow, three hundred to live and then three hundred years to die.  All very romantic.  Sad thing is we are losing trees in these wretched storms, they will be replaced of course by saplings but  will never come to fruition in our short lives.

There is a book called 'Remarkable Old Trees', it features very old yews in church yards, hollowed out by time and Wordsworth yew trees in Borrowdale.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,

Which to this day stands single, in the midst

Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:

The Borrowdale Yews.  Courtesy of The Independent

Are dreams visitations though?  I  had a couple of dreams many years ago of events that happened in the future,  one was about my first husband, a couple of weeks before he died and then of my son, before he developed diabetes type 1. Maybe we just join up the dots, but both dreams were benign and comforting, with a message of not to worry.

It foreshadows the question whether there is anything to be had in the after life, or that parallel worlds exist running alongside each other, I shall never know, only wonder at that which is inexplicable. 

                                      ---------------                           

 

I remember when I walked in Bath, there was an old beech wood I took Moss to,  I found it rather creepy and the ground was clear of any vegetation, there was an old beech tree felled by a storm.  Its plate of earth and roots were upended and I had read somewhere that the roots were the same circumference as the top of the tree. I never liked that wood because of the singular growth of one species, it did not nourish the plants. But another tree high up on the hill in a little copse, called Kelston Round Hill,  a tree had again fallen over but this time in the earth clinging to the roots was a mass of stones, probably uncovering an early Bronze Age barrow, for there was a barrow field not far away.

Trees have a symbolic nature think of  'cloutie' trees.  In earlier times a place to take an offering for a cure of whatever ailment you were suffering.  The willow tree near Silbury alongside the Kennet River holds a mishmash of offerings, and the occasional religious letter of warning against paganism (don't giggle).  Also the rowan tree has magical powers, and grows all over the North York moors.  I think this is because it produces so many berries and the birds drop them around the moors.  There is a group just along the beck on Murk Mire moor, and there are a couple of small brass plaques tied to the tree in memory of someone.

A favourite, along the beck

Gnarled by age.  Murk mire moor.

Bath, old tree covered in ivy

Crab apple full of fruit

A cool avenue in hot weather

A mill somewhere in Wales

Wherever the farmer can't get to, the hawthorn will set down its roots

Photographs 1 - a record

 Today is a sombre day, there is no way to escape the news, although my daughter will shout out 'turn it off' if there is talk about war.  So I shall not add to it.  But take a journey through my photos and remember all the bees and butterflies I chased.  The stones I trudged over fields to find, the dogs who accompanied me.  The flowers I took such a delight in cultivating and say with a certain contentment I am happy for what has gone.  Also of course my family, the grandchildren growing up, my sweet love Paul, his ashes scattered in the place he loved.

Roses planted by the side of lavender, mock orange, plain white daisies and Alchemilla

22/02/2022 Palindrome Day

 

Canadian geese were not too keen on Franklin and my favourite barge has gone from here.
Though there was a rather pretty blue one in the act of sinking.

I finished Gallows Pole last night, though finished is not the right word for I skimmed much of it and only ended up reading the last few pages.  I knew the fate of King David Hartley the coiner and his hanging at Tyburn in 1770 wasn't pleasant.  Neither was the telling of the tale, a brutish, violent time, though Benjamin Myers, the author, did win the Roger Deakin Award for his descriptive way with  the landscape.  When the weather gets better I shall go and find it.  There are plenty of paths that go through the woods to the houses that dot the steep slopes.

His gravestone with also his wife Grace's name inscribed on it, and I think his son, are in Heptonstall cemetery.  The clipping of coins which set the establishment or at least the government to hunt out and imprison those that forged the clipped coin was savage.

I expect some would like to see the rogues that mess around with money in today's modern society locked up in prison as they take the cash in handouts from the government - but hush we must not upset that barrel of apples!

It sets the mind a roving, for King David Hartley wanted to annexe this part of the country under the rule of himself.  The great mills were being built, the weavers forced out of their homes with their weaving lofts left empty.  Starvation was part of the pattern as well, Hartley spread the money around so that people could have food, clothes and some entertainment.  A deep valley could easily be controlled at either end and the moors safeguarded.  It reminds me that Britain was very territorial in its beginnings and through the supposed Dark Ages.  The rogues such as Robin Hood, if he existed, set up their own laws against the so called laws of king and henchman.  Sometimes I see Andy Burnham in a similar role, trying to break free from the London lot. ;)

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/people/the-gallows-pole-shane-meadows-making-first-bbc-period-drama-on-rise-and-fall-of-yorkshires-infamous-cragg-vale-coiners-3242338

Storm Franklin 2l/02/22

"Up to thee our kid" I picked that out of our Tod chat.  Apart from scary little videos of the river rushing down, the words were from someone whose barge had come free and gone  downstream.  He had asked for help and a strong rope and people had responded.  Another barge yesterday evening had caused several vehicles with flashing lights and sirens wailing, must have been ambulances summoned to rescue. It seemed that the family had been overcome by monoxide poisoning on the boat and an air ambulance came in as well.

First time I had heard the flood warning as well yesterday, the old wartime siren is scary.  But there is a general togetherness in the town, people offer help and no we don't seem to be flooded, though I haven't looked down in the cellar.  One striking video taken from a railway bridge shows the waters tumbling and raging and then further along a 100 yards on, the train slowly appears crossing on a raised ramp.  It goes very slowly its carriages one by one in a stately procession and then it seems too reverse back.  Trains have been out of service for many days and I think this third storm has not helped.

The wind has howled and buffeted the windows, finding out all those little cracks in an old house.  My bedroom door mysteriously flies open in the night, I know it is only another strong gust but thoughts of ghosts slip by....

Naming storms: Interestingly someone was arguing on the radio that because the Met office is so on top of the weather systems, storms can become recognised individually.  Climate change is bringing on its heels much rougher weather and battening down in the future must be accepted.

thoughts on 'memoirs'

 I am listening to such a sad book at the moment 'The Wild Silence - Memoir by Ray Winn.  She is coming to terms with death, of her mother, than I suppose of Moth, her husband.  'The Salt Path', her first book of their trek round the Cornish coast  was widely acclaimed.  That first walk when they were homeless and Moth was ill but somehow managed to improve on this journey was a triumph of courage.

Anyone who has sat with a dying person will know her grief as she sits besides her mother.  The hospital atmosphere, the kind nurses, the doctors who always takes so long to turn up and tell you anything. The food tube, inserted for nourishment, they are horrors not only for the person who has to suffer them but for the relatives.  I expect over the last two years many have observed this, sadly from afar.

Well going through the news early this morning came across two writers  Margaret Attwood interviewed by Hadley Freeman Playing With Fire.  I have never watched or read the 'Handmaid's Tale' dystopian writing scares me.  Attwood is a woman of stern views, you might call her one of the 'elders' of female dissent, and like  J.K.Rowling has the courage to speak out against the extreme feminist movements.

The other book I read about was Amy Liptrot - The Instant,  A Memoir.  You can read an abstract here  So here once again you can read a memoir, this one actually taken from her diaries.  A modern woman? Always seeking, but you will be pleased to know she has settled down with a partner and two children,  And no I will not be reading her books!

Another book I came across this morning.  I was talking to Andrew and he described a friend who carved on avocado stones, and I said I remember the little carved Japanese Netsukes Paul had collected. Well I went in search of the word, (I have always forgotten words so it is not a sign of old age ;) And came on the story of 'The Hare With Amber Eyes' you can read about it here.  Here is a photo of this little carved creature that sparked such an interesting story.  The Nazis stealing of valuable art work is well known through the second world war and it reminded me that we have in this house a badly done painting of the large house confiscated in Austria from my first mother-in-law relatives.  She eventually got the land back.

18th February 2022

Kirkdale Cave - Hyena Mandible

I started reading 'Ancestors' by Professor Alice Robert yesterday.  The first burial of the seven she describes was 'The Red Lady of Paviland.  In actual fact it was a male skeleton they found in the cave on the Gower in Wales. To be more precise half a skeleton with the skull missing.  But it wasn't that story that intrigued me.  Alice Robert had talked about a similar cave not far from where I used to live.  The Kirkdale Cave situated between Pickering and Helmsley.  We never visited it but walked very near through a forested area, along a track with old Lucy.  Who we always had to keep an eye on or she would slip down into a culvert for the dried out beck there, (she loved dark places and holes) Paul always panicked we might lose her.

"Account of an assemblage of fossil teeth and bones of elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bear, tiger, and hyaena, and sixteen other animals; discovered in a cave at Kirkdale, Yorkshire, in the year 1821: with a comparative view of five similar caverns in various parts of England, and others on the Continent.", by William Buckland, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol.112 (1822), pp.171-236.

The Kirkdale cave was full of the bones of extinct animals and hyenas as above. And was excavated by a Victorian vicar called Buckland.  The whole drama of who or what created our Earth was played out vividly in the Victorian age and Buckland had his views changed from the Bronze Age myths of Noah and the flood,  Adam and Eve, not forgetting the seven days when God created the world, to a realisation that the Earth had a very long history of coming into being.  The geologists at the time were beginning to understand the stratification of rocks and  the Ice Ages.  Darwin started to change the thinking.

It is not so long ago of course and we have come on in leaps and bounds trying to understand the world around us.  Only yesterday I learnt of an enormous black hole that moves around in space and is enormous compared to our Sun.  Scary but it is billions of light years away.

It made me think that area of North Yorkshire, The Pickering Vale has a long history of human settlement, there is also the Mesolithic Star Carr site as well.

Not far from here in Kirkdale proper, though there is no village is the old Anglo/Saxon minister which we visited several times with a history stretching back to the Saxons in its stones. Written about here.

What I have read this early morning

 Firstly the terrible crime committed against post office workers when they were prosecuted by the Post Office over the fact that the computer programme that recorded their takings went horribly wrong and accused them of taking large amounts of money out of the till.  It was the programme that had gone  wrong but many ended up in prison.  There was compensation, hurrah, hurrah, but unfortunately lawyer's fees gobbled a lot of it up.  The Post Office itself refused for a long time to actually acknowledge that it was the fault of the computer programme and not their employees.  Shades of The Ragged Trousered-Philanthropist here methinks.

Brexit, am I on the same page as Heseltine and Adonis? I know they keep filling my inbox with emails, but strange bedfellows.

Meta as in Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg said in his presentation that he had chosen the name Meta in part because it “reflects the full breadth of what we do and the future we want to help build”. But he also said he had chosen it as in Greek it means 'beyond'.

Words;  Zuckerberg found the word because it carried in its meaning the 'beyond'.  Funny isn't it his beyond is different to mine.  Mine is caught up in a spiritually different world, whereas his word is describing a future digital expansion.  Actually I like Google's company name better - Alphabet, it reminds me that we hunt and research on the internet, and every word is made up by the alphabet.

Wordle was difficult yesterday, I got it on the fourth, but given I only had 'A' 'K' when 'C' arrived on the third  - caulk just jumped in, not boasting of course.  The New York Times offers at 75 p a week all its games, still thinking about it.  Should I also get another paper online such as The Times I wonder to broaden my outlook.  But then I could be reading all day!!  Also The Guardian has its roots in Manchester of course.

And as there often Good News to be found - not all is lost at Portmeirion in North Wales.

16th February 2022

The family comes and goes.  My daughter came back yesterday evening with Lillie, they had been to Manchester to look at prom dresses.  They collapsed in my bedroom and I heard the news from London.  Girl friend break up for grandson, but both grandchildren working quite happily there. Ben who has two jobs, one working for Conran and the other 'dressing' videos seems settled in the big city.  K said she had just managed to catch the last train out of Piccadilly, there had been a major incident on the line and trains had stopped.

She told of a little house opposite the one they were staying in.  Painted in red/blue/white, with apparently little British sayings that appeared each day.  The friends they stayed with keep quiet about the outlandish nationalism that is over the road - where are you going my beautiful country?

The storm has arrived the wind growls down the Aga chimney, rain beats down. They are talking on the radio about how there is just not enough staff for the NHS, doctors, nurses and all the other staff that are needed. 

The crisis experienced in the NHS, is echoed in trains and buses that don't run on time, at the moment due to people off working because of Covid.

I could go on about Climate change, but my daughter will say you are being miserable again mother, but with the strained relationships at the moment between Russia and Europe/America, it is as if this weather echoes the dark moments of the human race.

Some experts do not see  extinction as a problem, this will apparently be the sixth and will just change our Earth into something different.  The loss of our flora and fauna will be very sad, we are already seeing it as birds disappear, will we hear a cuckoo this spring I wonder.

Jan Morris talks of Federalisation... Some of us view Europe as our neighbours and would dearly love to get back to the relationship we had with them. And yes I know all about Brussels, but leaving has left us all in such a muddle.

Federalism is a mixed or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system, dividing the powers between the two.

She sees it

15th February 2022

I am listening to Jan Morris's 'In My Mind's Eye (A Thought Diary).  She breaks down a thought a day and the gentle voice of the narrator suits the words well. Morris is now dead, but she kept her Welsh cottage all through her life I think, a pleasant enough place to retire to.

We balance on an edge today, talk of stopping war over  Ukraine territory.  Politicians uttering sanction warnings against Putin.  Funny isn't it, when you are a leader it is your name in front of the news, you carry all the hopes of the world for a brief time.  Putin sits there smug that he has the world's attention, we all wait for the other shoe to drop!  I am hopeful that it won't and that negotiations will clear the air of a very sombre act.

What struck me as funny last week,  "One Dick down, another Dick to follow".  I won't spell it out for you.  Cressida Dick stepped down because of Sadiq's criticism, weirdly enough there was not much sympathy for her.  She has sat as the Met chief for too long I think, and yet there have been wretched stories about the police for many years.

Misogyny is a crime in itself, how to punish it though?  We are all often guilty of saying the wrong thing without thinking but the language employed to describe women, gender and race can be appalling.  By the way the female term is misandry, (ingrained prejudice against men). 

Can it be with the onset of digital communication, that we reveal the truth of what we think.  Hate is definitely a part of the human character, but thankfully good nearly always trumps bad.  Second thoughts, see I have mentioned an idiot unwittingly - Trump - I am just hoping before 2024 comes round that this scoundrel will get his just rewards, I mean even his accountants are withdrawing support and questioning the figures in his accounts today.

Enough wittering on, I hear rain outside, it hasn't stopped for days, so the sound of rain in the Bulguk Temple for relaxation.

Quick soup

 Bealtaine Cottage video on a quick soup.  Something I make myself, it doesn't really matter what vegetables go in, I try for a sweetish flavour, so carrots and sweet potatoes are good.  You note it is vegan, and she adds a vegan cheese for the end.  I still haven't bought any, as there is always cheese to finish off in the fridge.  We have half dozen each of raclette and fondue cheeses as well!

13th February 2022

 Blogging sometimes becomes tiresome.  Tom came down on Wednesday for a late birthday meal (takeaway Indian), and then my daughter emptied all the different curry dishes into a plastic container, which Andrew forgot to take, so another job for me to recycle.  Friday the washing machine in its dance threw the box of Teddy's biscuits to the ground, I went to pick it up and it tumbled down the stairs into the black hole of Calcutta, or the cellars.  It has several rooms, one with hooks from the ceiling, it is also home to the various things that run this house, including a dehumidifier and pump, heating and electrics so various noises come up.  My daughter is the only one to venture down, I refuse to go because of the electric cable that runs up the stairs.

Household wise I am in charge of the house and cooking, dog, youngest grandchild, and parcels, which come through the door at an unholy rate, half of which I miss!  My daughter is in London visiting Matilda and Ben, and meeting up with Andrew to meet his friends.  They took an early morning walk this morning, and questions came back about Ruskin in Brunswick Square and Effie his wife.  Why must the poor man be remembered for not being able to sleep with his wife.  When he wrote continuously in a fine vein.  I just said in my text message - that his mum hadn't taught him about fannys but I think I got the wrong end;)

Well I haven't touched on the serious issue of what we might call 'war'.  Do I believe it will happen? There is a lot of shield bashing at the moment, as Putin wants to establish his territories, whilst Europe diplomatically tries to talk him down.  I will say nothing of Biden's tactic, which are slightly inflaming but only criticise him on taking the Afghanistan money to give to the 9/11 survivors.  Fine he is happy to see people starve in that wretched thing call politics.

This struck a note with my daughter.

A meditation on old stones

Pentre Ifan 

 “In their lichened,

faceted faces we see our lineaments; in their

solitariness, our loneliness, or our need to be

alone; in their gregariousness, our

congregational temper; in their alignment,

our deviousness; in their poised mass, our

fragility; in their rootedness, our

deracination; in their age, our ephemerality;

and in their naked outfacing of time and the

elements, a valuable lesson in patient dissent”

Written by Jan Morris on stones.

------

 Standing stones in Dyfed by John Piper

Wandering in the Shadow of an old Sacred Hill  North Yorkshire moors

Crofting in the Shetlands

Memories

Moss long gone but a faithful companion always remembered.  Here drawn by Em Parkinson.

Moss: A memory came up once again on F/B.  My friend said I remember when Moss ate the  Zwartbles.  Not a word for Wordle, which I only obtained at the sixth go  this morning.    Zwartbles are a breed of sheep that come from New Zealand and we had collected a couple of fleeces from the car park of St. Edwards School in Bath, the sheep must have belonged to one of the teachers.  We took them home and laid them out on the patio and Moss of course became interested. They eventually ended up being thrown away as to messy and dirty too spin.

Moss was the one who took me out on walks, accompanied me all round the different archaeological sites I visited whilst on holiday.  He was a sensible intelligent sheep dog and once over his wild teenager years settled down into an insistent ball catcher. 

I had answered a paper advertisement (remember those?) and drove out into the middle of the countryside to a cottage. No one at  home, but a little pen of delightful puppies by the front door.  She eventually came home, I parted with £50 and my small beautiful merle Moss came home.

We traversed St. David's Head together and all around that area, he always chose the right path through bracken or gorse and I was never afraid with him at my side.  I remember him biting the bum of a man at St. Non's chapel because Moss thought he was protecting me.  Rather red faced I offered an apology to the man, but he said, it was alright, the dog was only protecting me.

The walk from Solva to Middle Mill.  I wonder if it was an old waterway or even a sunken lane.  It had a 'witchy' air to it

Moss sits at rest, there are two cromlechs here on Carn Lidl.  Only to be found if you see the lookout concrete platform from WW2.  It was an archeologist called Grimes who sited the temporary airfields used during the war both in this area and Bath.

Carreg Samson Cromlech was behind us here as we looked out onto this island.

Preseli mountains, just below us and something I missed was the horseshoe ring of stones called Bedd Arthur.  See Here

Saint David's Camp, looking though the fallen defence walls back to Carn Llidl

We wandered over the Preseli mountains without a care, unafraid of the horses let loose, the only thing that had really frightened Moss in Bath was an electric fence, put up to keep the cows with their calves out of the way of people walking on the public footpath at the racecourse.  He would not go any near an electric fence, leaving me and taking a quarter mile detour till we met up again.

And lastly, but not the only one, the beautiful chunky cromlech called Carreg Samson.  See how the capstone balances delicately on the tips of the uprights and just feel a little humility when we refer laughingly to the Flintstones of prehistoric times....

Chelmer in flood

When the river overflows.  These photos appeared on my F/B page this morning.  8 years ago is the date.  The camera or the atmosphere was very clear and it captures one of those moody days we all experience.  I have lost many of my photos from this period due to them being on an old computer, so was delighted by their appearance.

The old mill, now split up into several houses, was not far from our house in Chelmsford, yes it is the Chelmer Navigational River, a rather lovely ecosystem that has seemed to stay clear of urbanisation and heavy farming.  We often walked this part of the river, and if we continued over the water meadows would arrive at the pub, whose name escapes me at the moment.

 

Dead Cats

Political!!! Sorry but it struck a note this morning. Johnson on how to run the country....

“The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’; in other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”

Kagyu Samye Ling Buddhist Temple building

 Yesterday I watched a video on the building of the Kagyu Samye Ling temple in the wilds of Scotland. This started in 1967 and finished in 2017.  An enormous undertaking considering quite a lot of the work was done by volunteers.

It reminded me of how the Cistercian monks came to the wilds of Yorkshire and built their monasteries.  Slowly the great buildings came to be built over the years. They were built on religion and good will, the land around was farmed broken up into granges, there were dormitories for the monks and lay brothers, An infirmary, a warming room, great kitchens to feed the poor.  Bake houses and breweries, almost a self -contained unit.

So when watching this photographic record of this Tibetan Buddhist inspired dream, accept quietly the force of belief.

When we visited about three years ago with books for the library, we wandered around with  Lucy, (she always set off the alarm if left in the car).  It is truly a magnificent undertaking, slightly awe-inspiring, the temple lavishly decorated.  Paul had said that I must enter the temple by myself to gather my own experience.  So taking off my shoes I went in.  It is truly over decorated, garish maybe, the liberal use of gilding strikes you first.  Paintings on the wall, I was used to these coming to the studio, always to my eyes outlandish and weird.  There was a man sitting cross-legged on the throne, at first I thought he was a statue, he never moved, I became aware of his presence and it left me slightly embarrassed.  But he was unaware of my presence.

The monastic atmosphere had left a deep impression on my thoughts, too late to enter as a nun and I would be very cold without my hair! But this temple in the outback of Scotland is a tribute to the vision of one man and then the enthusiastic support of creative volunteers, money was not at the bottom of the scheme only creativity and love.

Should you want to follow the journey, maybe start 9 minutes in after the long line of Rinpoche people acknowledged that have been involved through the decades. 

There is a lesson here in the building of this complex, it is the lesson of community and social togetherness.  It decries this modern world of 'grab and take', useless fashion, and cheap food.  It is what we should be trying to achieve not lost in the swirl of nonsensical modernism and media.

Falling on their swords

 

Munira Mirza, Dan Rosenfield, Martin Reynolds and Jack Doyle courtesy of The Guardian

 I questioned the word honour this morning and wondered if we will ever get back to decent behaviour. Falling on their swords, the first tranche to go above.  I suspect the female of the group is the only one who behaved in an honourable fashion.  Munira Mirza wrote a letter to Johnson, after his infamous attack on Keir Starmer offering her resignation.  Why does Johnson when his back is against the wall always resort to lies and innuendo? Silly question, it is like watching a wounded animal die by the thrusts of a thousand cuts but still the man won't resign.

We are expecting parcels the next few days, did not realise that Alexa is wired into Amazon and can tell you when they are to be delivered.  The television arrived eventually it had been delivered down the road. The next batch of stuff is large and will need me to be vigilant for their arrival.  

I have ordered two books as well, one on vintage knitting and the other by Professor Alice Robert - Ancestors.  This one on seven prehistoric burials of note.  I am obviously fascinated by burial rites and this one happened to float through;)

Alice Roberts is a great expert on bones, and has a high television profile and to be honest I am not quite sure I like her so it will be interesting to see how she writes.

------------------------

Andy Burnham.  Someone to watch

Edgelands

Wabi-sabi "If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi " nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."  

But you can still be happy wandering through life.  Yesterday I hunted through my blog for the photo of meadowsweet and came upon another blog called Queen of the Meadows. It was about a walk round the River Chelmer in Essex.  I had called the land 'wasteland' because it was neither farmed or used but the newby word nowadays is of course 'edgeland'.  Well this edgeland is probably more to do with water meadows of old.  The times when rivers flood and cover the land and now of course with climate change we are having problems with.

Essex has a reputation, if we are not talking about Essex girls then it is Gypsy weddings, though here I need a smack on the wrist because it should be Romany people!

It was a hot summer's day, the sort of day when tarmac melts in the heat, I was worried about the Romany ponies not having much grass and happy that Paul had decided to come on a walk and we pottered round these back lanes.  Peaceful and timeless.  Contentment is not easily found but we found it with each other.

So tap on this link and wander through the wild flowers.

02/02.2022 Almost all the '2's

 It is quiet here, Radio 3 plays in the background.  Nothing much to write.  Lillie after having her vaccination jab on Monday, had a high temperature yesterday and was sent home from school.  Today she is perfectly alright.

Careering through Nature put the bright little aconite on their blog and I remembered how I had captured a single one at Sinnington church.  Looking it up and the church reminds me of the strong Saxon and Scandinavian influence round that area of York.  Whilst here in West Yorkshire I am still looking.  Checked on the prehistory yesterday, the only circle I came up with is a couple of miles from Hebden Bridge, Blackheath Circle or 'The Frying Pan'.  Situated on a golf course.

You can find the information on the Northern Antiquarian site here, and that is all I will say about that site;)

Interestingly they found amongst the burials 'incense cups' a quite common find with urn and barrow burials.  Whether they were used like the Catholic thurible is still not known.  Perhaps the burning of herbs for the dead to alleviate the smells.  Urn burials contain the charcoaled remains of the dead.

Here is a photo found in another blog of a Wiltshire incense/grape cup from Upton Lovell.

Obviously it was a common part of the service and left in the graves all over the country and is symbolic of something, I find it strange that a Western faith also used the same method of cleansing the air. But I have read of flowers being left on early Neanderthal graves.  Meadowsweet being one of the wild flowers used.  What they are not is oil lamps of course.

I love meadowsweet and  always looked out for it as we drove in the car.  It lined the damp ditches alongside the lanes, it's feathery lightness a reminder of summer, for which of course we are all waiting;)

Meet the father, Stanley

 And then ask why  Boris Johnson is as he is!!!

I can spell it ;) Pinocchio.  I am really pissed off this morning, the Wordle game has been brought up by the New York Times.  Hopeless at crosswords but I could always suss out the word every day.

Quote: ‘It might be an idea to laminate Boris Johnson’s briefing papers to save them getting ruined with wine spills.’  John Crace of course.