Cooking: Tartiflette, a delicious word but we haven't tried the recipe yet, probably because we haven't found the Reblochon cheese. It is pinned to the fridge with a magnet, the other recipe I tried on Sunday, chicken thighs on Ouzo pasta with tomatoes. As a vegetarian not eating the chicken but found the added fat of those creatures not to my liking. Yesterday was macoroni cheese a favourite of my granddaughter. Today I have been instructed to try out a new recipe, which seems to have a lot of ingredients but basically is another type of puff pastry tart decorated with asparagus.
We have returned to rain, dripping outside but at least it is warm. The leaves grow at an amazing pace, one minute I am looking at thinly veiled branches the next their skeleton shapes have been covered. Summer is so eager to make a showing.
Combing through my memory bank on the internet are bluebells, washing the ground blue amongst old coppiced trees. What makes bluebells beautiful is the wash of colour that floats through the shaded area of woods but in bright sunlight becomes much paler. In this blog in Blake's Wood is the sound of a cuckoo as well.
So to photos.........
 |
Coppicing   |
The solemnity of eating out at a pub on Sunday livened up by a pagan show, Morris dancing....the English at play. The black and white person is a badger.
"Morris dancing is an ancient seasonal pagan ritual male custom associated with the bringing of luck, the fertility and regeneration of the soil and the promotion of the cycle of the seasons...... In the dances there'll be much jingling of bells."
Okay I have found a Youtube video, taken by me some time ago from Gnat Bottomed Towers blog. The title is 'Billy Had a ten foot willy' but then the month of May is all about fertility. Note also, that it is not just men who do Morris dancing.
I am ashamed to say that I laughed when I saw a Morris Dancer accidentally whack his mate on the head with a big stick in the middle of a dance here once. The show went on...
ReplyDeleteWell I hope the laugh wasn't heard Tom though it does seem a dangerous dance at times.
DeleteA large paatch of bluebells has arrived uninvited (or sneaked in by my gardener) to my garden. Roday is drizzly and the blue is so intense it almost hurts. Yesterday in bright sunshine I barely noticed them/
ReplyDeleteThey are very persistent, bluebells, Pat, they used to appear through the lawn as well. All indicators of old woodland.
DeleteThe Morris dancing would have been great fun to see. It's lovely to see bluebells in your woods. We don't have them in the wild here.
ReplyDeleteIt is all jingly bells and slapping sticks to music. It is very good but I am not sure how old the custom is.
ReplyDeleteI always look forward to the bluebells blooming in the woods here! They are such a beautiful sight to see!
ReplyDeleteBlue bells are treated like treasure in this country Ellen. I think it is to do with seeing off the back of winter.
DeleteA blue blush of bluebells in a stretch of hillside oak woodland delighted me on my way to and from the dentist last week. They are such a beautiful flower en masse, and I am happy to see them colouring the verges on the way into town too.
ReplyDeleteI would love to get to Bromyard when the Folk Festival is on as it is thick with Morris Dancers through the town then (drove through once).
"My Uncle Willie" - remember that song from my childhood!
Making up different words, especially 'rude' words, to songs we knew was one thing children did Jennie. Delighting in the naughty word. I think there was two older men, one on the piano, the other singing all the rude harmless words he knew. They have Folk festivals at Whitby as well not just Goth do's.
ReplyDeleteThe scent of a blue bell wood is heavenly, beautiful photographs.
ReplyDelete