Sunday Morning listening to carols on Radio 3

I shiver slightly  in front of the computer, Mollie wants the bed so I must get up. Her incessant meowing tells me this.  I have changed the font on my blog, (nanum gothic) the letters are thinner but more rounded.  I wonder if I can thank Eric Gill for this? An interesting person who would  definitely be 'cancel culture' now if all his various sins came to life.  But foolish young people what would you write with?

Have you ever met an 'erotic lawn  roller' for instance? Gill was everything art based and if you read the second link below you will know my interest in the Augustinian Llanthony Priory that is part of the valley in the Black Mountains which he and his family lived.

 Gosh when I plunder past blogs of mine what delicious  things roll up.  Eric Gill lived in Wales, where all sensible people should live if they wish to escape this world.  He lived  in Capel-y-Ffin down a narrow lane.

Well apart from Eric Ravilious who  visited Gill at his Welsh (see James Russell link down below for the work) retreat there was one of the Beat poets - Allen Ginsberg also who made their way down the narrow lanes of this part of Wales  on their way to Hay-on-Wye.  And you will find a poem written by Ginsberg down below. 

Ref: James Russell: Ravilious in Capel-y-Ffin

          North Stoke: Books and memories

       

Wales Visitation

White fog lifting; falling on mountain-brow

Trees moving in rivers of wind

The clouds arise

as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist

above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed

along a green crag

glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine—

Continued: It is long. here

Solstice Greetings

 A Good Solstice for Everyone

Though I have no religion, the changing patterns of the year speak to me.  We are on the threshold of returning with the sun back to spring and then to summer.  The photo above is up on the downs round Bath, the birds, golden plovers.  They had been sleeping on the ground, and as Moss walked quietly beside me I inched up closer to the birds on my knees. trying to keep a low profile.  Of course they flew off.  So remember; 

In the depth of winter

I finally learned

That within me there lay

an invincible summer.

Camus

We should always hope for a better world but we should also remember the beauty of the natural world around us, it is there for the taking.

Meet the freewheeler - Wandering Turnip

 Our road closure, it's priceless 😎  The state of Britain, bloody well selling it off to any passing rich body and then giving the profit to all the investors and leaving the utilities no money to function.  I am not a Labour basher, nor funnily enough Conservative but boy the last ten years!

 

doodling the time away

Today I got Wordle in one. Strange.  The word which I will not give away, just appeared in my mind.  Sometimes I get these precognitions  of the future.  My mind always says before it dismisses them, that the parallel worlds that are beside us has moved further forward than the one I'm travelling through;)

I have made a decision to buy myself a new camera, well maybe a secondhand one as I really don't like using my phone camera.  So I will plod through reviews.  Good cameras are expensive but they come much cheaper when secondhand.... Any suggestions? I have been looking at different options, Sony or Canon.  The mirrorless ones are the in-ones at the moment but DSLRs are similar.  According to Amateur Photography, I have to look for decent video running as well as photos.  I haven't quite given up renewing old ways.  My old cameras were quite good but got lost along the way.

The Cove at Avebury

Bath Abbey

The Kennet in the cold

Friend's garden

Jottings

I have been listening to Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake.  It is the last book in the trilogy of Gormenghast books.  Political satire, it is a weird and wonderful world of sharply defined characters.  Titus meets up with many strange figures, cartoonish one might say as he travels in a different world to Gormenghast, in the end after many adventurers he makes his way back to his homeland.  But  as he approaches the mountain that looks down on Gormenghast, he takes a different track away to begin a new life.

I have somehow fallen in love with all those artistic creators who were born round the cusp of the late 19th century/ early 20th century.  From the writers, poets and artists who lived through a time unsullied by the technological wizardry of today.

I am sure power then was just as corrupt and mean as it is today, but then you could sail innocently through it without knowing about it.  Communism was an unfortunate upstart, but it appealed to some, the right act of spreading the wealth.  Only of course it did not work out that way.

What makes me angry today is the cheap slanging of words from this past era to mow down one's political opposite.  There is no Stasi or Hitlers around, only people, who may dismiss truth as something to jump over.  They are easily recognisable.

the other drama I watched, there are four episodes in the series, was 'Strike'. I had read negative revues about the new series, Strike in the Black ink Heart story that it was too complicated to follow.  Well I found the book (read to me) was difficult so perhaps the watered down television feature ironed out the problems.  It is about gaming and therefore had a lot of names to contend with, but followed the usual criminal plot line.  It is written by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym name of Robert Galbraith, I think she intends to write 10 books in the series.

Edit:  I came across the fact that the Folio Society had commissioned an illustrator - Dave McKean to draw for this expensive trilogy of books - £745 (sharp intake of breath!)

18th December - Paul's Birth Date

A post that refuses to come out on top

17th December 2024

The funny news is the F/B forum.  Disaster has struck Todmorden.  A burst sewage pipe just outside Hebden Bridge has closed the one and only main road between the two towns.  The council have no idea when it will be mended and everyone is pulling their hair out as to what to do.  The trains are still running of course, the buses are taking a longer route via Mytholmroyd.  Everyone else  in a car takes a 'diversion' down from the moors on one particular lane.  Lost cats are found, the cycle path seems to be off the menu and the flooding slight.  All's Well!

The High Bridestones

A scatter of rocks upon the North Yorkshire moors.  No one can read their message today.  Is that a circle? a pathway? or even a burial.  Forgotten stones lie all around.  I contrast it with Piper's strong line and form.

Paintings by John Piper.  I have picked five, two of stones and three of Wales.  They are stark and dramatic but for me capture the strong presence of the material 'feel' of stone.  Wales is built on rock, Jan Morris wrote once that you only had to take a square yard of Wales and you would encompass its whole history.

The following painting of Stonehenge is a long way from Turner's pale mist and of course you do not see it as you wander around it.  Pale grey stone, once lichened but somehow the striking emphasis of the stone is contrasted against a turbulent sky.  Similar to Turner and Constable, a maelstrom sky is the force in which the stones are depicted.

Stonehenge - John Piper

It's a cromlech, sketchily done and too much dark emphasis

The Rise of the River Dovey

I love this painting, the mountains rears vertical from the still, placid lake at its foot.  It reminds me of a Tibetan myth, the god was the mountain and the lake the female.

Footless Crow

Alongtimealone - John Piper

I am not quite sure why I like John Piper.  His work is dark and dramatic and in my mind there is a much softer vision of Wales that I see in its green rounded hills. But one is always aware that underneath it all the rocks hold it up and were the beginnings of a religious nature, along with the sun and moon and maybe even the stars for the Neolithic tribes that established themselves on the higher ground.

Ref: Frances Spalding, long and beautifully illustrated - John Piper, Myfanwy Piper, Lives in Art.

And as an extra just say Myfanwy several times and recognise the beautiful sound of the word.  The 'y' as the 6th vowel/consonant sometimes used.

14th December 2024. (passed the 13th on a Friday with no problem)

 I have just written and sorted out photos for a very nostalgic blog but decided not to publish it till the 18th.  Otherwise I burnt the bread yesterday, you could use the loaf as a brick to build a house it is so strong.

My daughter says the problem is you can never smell burning from an Aga the oven is too sealed up. Apart from cooking disasters life continues apace.  Lillie is back, late last night and will probably go to work today at her old workplace.

Is it really like this in America and do I believe what I read, the answer to the second question is no of course.  But it is something to brood over.   "Know what you stand for and what you think is good"

My son has been blessed with an Amazon gift card from me which was delivered a day after by the Amazon work slave.  I know all this because of the half dozen emails Amazon posts.  Have you not noticed how the drivers fidget on the front doorstep trying to get away quick after the photo call to keep up to speed on their round?  Please do not let the Post Office Mail (is it called Royal Mail anymore?) be sold off to some money drunk happy billionaire to buy it and then force another bunch of people into serfdom.

And, if we have to gossip, I am a bit sick of Prince Andrew and his foolishness in his friendships with Chinese spies, or business people, take your pick.  Just put him in The Tower and then all of that unruly fuss about which royal house he wants will be solved.

During my reading of 'The Ruralists' I came across a good rabbit hole to go down.  It is by Ralph Steadman, his drawings always scares me.  Roald Dahl once wrote a book on the case of the ownership of the Mildenhall Roman Treasure and you can find some of Steadman's illustrations in this blog.

Rabbit Hole by Ralph Steadman

A good Christmas Card down below?  I like the scruffiness of his studio.  Why do not artists get rich when they are alive? But it is rich business men who make the profit on old paintings when they are sold.  Funny that!

Three Kings

18th December 2024

Moments as Christmas draws near and as the Christmas cards come in. It is good to remember the happy times. Today would have been Paul's birthday, he liked an outing for a present.  Once we went down to Stonehenge for the opening of the new centre.  It was bleak and cold, the good and the brave mingled with the pissed off Druid protestors.  Stonehenge is always good for a rave;)

Village barbecue held in the barn, as the weather as usual was wet

This was once my community.  There were three tablefuls of villagers here gathered together at the annual  do.  You had to pay of course, that was my job with C going round collecting in the village.  Each household had to produce a dish I always did a very large bowl of mayonnaise potatoes.

Our village was made up of retirees, suburbanites and local people. We looked after our village.  We had three meetings each year, mostly at our local pub for quiz night, though the barbecue was often in someone's garden and in years gone past, and, as we were reminded each year, the little field next to the church that had become our house.

 

Funnily enough on one side of the house was the church and the other the pub, run beautifully by two young sisters.  We were a close community, Paul thrived in the way we would always come together.  He organised the cleaning of weeds on the pavement that traversed the length of the village.  Cleaned the display board on the village history that someone had so lovingly gathered together and drawn on three enormous sheets of paper.  Which sadly through the winter months would curl up with the damp.

Happy as Larry,' as one would say :)

Why this sudden rush of memories?  Well it was the Xmas cards I received yesterday, detailing the news of the church meeting as to whether it should be closed. Ten Diocesan people (probably  from York) and the village people packed the little (very cold church) to discuss the issue.  Ironic in the sense that the church on Sunday has but half a dozen people if that but on talk of its closure will command a full house. 

At the end of the table is Dr. Peter Smith.  The first person to welcome us to our new home with a small container of tomatoes.  He was not a medical doctor but always insisted on the name.

J rang the church bells at midnight on Christmas Eve, always worrying that she would wake me up.  I would laugh for that was the whole point. J and D have been married for 60 years, they have known each other since childhood in India and have just acquired a new dog this year, I expect she still has the four kittens, grown into cats in their barn.  D was a town crier in Malton down the road and would enter into competitions all over the country.

I was late to the show, so everyone had to assemble once more.  You can see that I am the official photographer for the village!  Goodness knows what we were ringing in.

Yes I miss it all, especially the cold meetings in the church to resolve how to spend the small amount of money the council gave us for the church. 

Well in typical fashion, Rob the gardener who mowed the church yard was taken off the job and a small group from the pub said they would do it.  They failed miserably and only could manage one half.  Rob and his wife looked after many gardens in the village, and mowed our lawn as well.  When I left he did it for free as a parting gift, and I shall always remember that act of kindness.

 

11th December 2024 - The Ruralists.

Stoney Littleton long barrow

Whilst thumbing through my old December blogs for a Xmas card to send to people, I came across David Inshaw's Silbury Hill.  Which led me back into memories of walking down to Stoney Littleton long barrow with Moss in tow.  A long walk down a green lane, which served some cottages and a farm.  Then you would come to a stile, through a couple of fields and then the long barrow in all its glory of wild flowers and stone.  Still telling us that it was the tribal territory of the Ammonite tribe.  Well I may exaggerate there but on the entrance was an ammonite stone and the surrounding district had ammonites dug up from the soil, with some cottages still decorated with them. But I am going off tangent.  At the stile was the most beautiful brook called the Wellow I think,  You could have set Millais's 'Ophelia' into it with its water flowers and damsel flies that shimmered in their turquoise hue above the surface.

But we must go back to the beginning of the walk, you passed the old Wellow railway station, more a stopping off place before the great cull of the railways by Doctor Beeching.  It was an old fashioned verandah place.  It was here that I learnt that an artistic group called 'The Brotherhood of Ruralists' had lived for a time  I had come across their paintings at an exhibition in Bath.

To cut the story short, and in the rabbit holes we all end up in now  I found the following extraordinary video of the group.  The film is fuzzy and old but it captures some of the magic of the 70s and also Somerset.

Also it captures very strongly the personalities of the groups.  Here I must make a point of some of the physicality of the paintings and also draw attention to the much later scandal of Graham Ovendon.  They are artists and paint what they want, time catches up with them and judges. But their work as a group is fascinating.

"Summer with the Ruralists"

8th December 2024

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

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

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

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

7th December 2024

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

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

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

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

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

South door

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

Beautiful doorway

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

Wikipedia has a much better set of photos.

5th December 2024

 

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

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

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

Austin Healey Sprite

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

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

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

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

3rd December 2024

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy

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

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

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

The river Esk at Ruswarp on its way down to Whitby

Moss on the downs

A little god of the house

 

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

The family at Gruyere

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

An afterthought

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

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

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

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

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

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

2007 collecting

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lansdown

Ebbor Gorge in the Mendips

Goth weekend in Whitby

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


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

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

29th November 2024

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

Notre Dame to re-open

Notre Dame.  Like an iced wedding cake.

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

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

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

You can find more photos here

Beckford Tower

A happy Moss on a glorious early summer's day

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

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