6th August 2025 - Bringing forward

An Ash tree up on the Bath Downs.  Do you have a special tree?  I am hundreds of miles away from my tree.  It has had barbed wire fencing wrapped round it cruelly, the hooks digging into the bark.  I have told this tale often but it is Odin's tree, the great Scandinavian World Yggdrasil tree with all its legend which is an Ash tree, powerful and strong.  Nine leafed twigs, a magic number, though of course there can be 11 or 13 leaves.  Magic just doesn't have to be confined.  But conversely in folklore, if you found an equal number of leaves than you were sure to find your love by night.

Gilbert White (1720 to 1793) talks of shrew-ash (shrews or fairy mice). Shrews apparently ran over the cattle and stiffened their limbs.  The cure was to entomb the little shrew mouse inside the trunk of an ash.  A branch off the tree when stroked over the cattle would then cure them!

I hate to bring sex into the room but Aubrey Burl says this, and he is a great hero of mine.  Well in winter when you look at the buds of the new growth, you will see a large bud with two smaller ones on either side.  This is phallic and was why the Ash tree became sacred to Odin.  Do I believe this? well it is a nice addenda to the story, and talking of stories, have you met the Man in the Tree, a good Celtic tale of nonsense.

A celtic story to tell, this again features Finn, who was walking through a wood one day and happened to spy a man sitting at the top of a tree. A blackbird on his right shoulder, and in his left hand a bronze vessel filled with water, in which swam a skittish trout, and a stag at the bottom of the tree. The man would crack a nut, half of which he ate himself the other half he gave to the blackbird. Then he would take an apple out of the bronze vessel, half of which he ate himself the other half he threw to the stag below. Then he would take a sip of the water in the vessel, as did the stag and the blackbird - they would all drink together.
The followers of Finn asked who this disguised hooded man was. Ann Ross speculates that this 'nurturer of animals' could be attributed to Cernunnos again or the romano-celtic god Vosegus, who has some of the attributes of the man in the tree.

Ash is strong

I haven't got a tree here in Yorkshire that somehow appeals to me, though when I sit in the park at Hebden Bridge, waiting for the hour of my optician appointment I look up to a fir tree with its many branches and feel its age and I wonder can it feel mine.

Trees are a gift, their presence gives us oxygen to breathe, clears the air and most of all calms us with their presence.  A new forest across the Western side of England is to be created so the government says.  It will take in Wiltshire, Gloucester, Mendips and the Cotswold.

2007 -  Winter Poems

2008 - Celtic Gods

4th August 2025

Baby Blue and Baby Pink walking shoes. I spluttered.  Even more so when the price was mentioned.  I have agreed to wear them, and hopefully I won't trip over them.  Andrew ordered them to get me walking again.  "You said you did not want dark shoes" he said......  At least they are not 'naked' shoes I mean who goes out  in undressed shoes?  Is the world getting madder or have they just run out of ideas.

 

Falling in love with a place - Hutton-le-Hole

 

 

The place to be.  How often I see this as I flick through the news.  Well what about Hutton-le-Hole.  It is probably situated in the most beautiful part of the North Yorkshire moors.  Its village neatness framed by the moors. I typed Hutton-le-Hole in the search box and came up with a mix of blogs.  Weaver of Grass, my dear Pat, following me on my journey and time in North Yorkshire.  Do we have to have sad memories all the time I wonder as we get old.  There was my darling Paul, always ready to drive Jev the car to our latest exploration.  I gave him a new lease of life as he left behind his familar place in Chelmsford.

I chatter to myself quite happily on my blog, it is my blog after all and as Virginia Woolf says No need to hurry. No need to sparkle.  No need to be anyone but oneself.

So whenever I worry about what to write and I was definitely more erudite in earlier years I buckle my sword and allow myself to write what flows through the mind, tackling sadness along the way ;)

A Perfect June day -2016

Saturday Walk 2015

An Afternoon drive to Hutton-le-Hole 2015

North Stoke: Wednesday 23rd August - 2017

Douthwaite Dale Amble 2018

A Perfect June Day 2016

31st July 2025 - Rudston Monolith - General jottings

 A favourite blog of mine, though not in blogger land is the Smell of Water.  One portion of Yorkshire is the East section, where a great number of prehistoric sites lay hidden under the surface and he has recently  visited the great Rudston Monolith.

The Rudston monument set amongst the gravestones but still dominating the church

 Rudston monument.  Is it the largest standing stone in England? I think of have read of estimations of a third of the stone underground.

Also I learn from Smell of Water blog. that the underlying ground is limestone and chalk, which creates a similar landscape to the Wiltshire one with its chalk winterbourne rivers.  And that the Gypsey Race starts somewhere near Duggleby Howe, a Neolithic barrow but with a Scandinavian name from later naming by the North influence. 

Duggleby Howe

Valentine's Day

Rudston monument blog

Note: Julian Cope of Modern Antiquarian fame wrote this about the area and it is wise to dwell upon his words.  Yes he is one of the figures from a past post- punk music (never listened) but he is intelligent and used to live at Avebury at one time.

"I am staring at the monolith from below the sacred hill altar.  It is much easier to get a perspective without that huge church against my butt.  From here, the mound dwarfs the church, as it should.

Rudston is an eerie place, built precariously on an ancient past of true psychedelic intensity.  Each village along the Gypsey Race has some tale to tell. But here it pitches in to tell some awesome and unorthodox mystery.  If Avebury is the Great Reconciler, then where are the cursuses?  Rudston and its environment fits well with the Avebury complex:  The chalk, the flint, the vast earth monuments, the disregard for time and perspective, all caught up in these enormous civic monuments".....Julian Cope, The Modern Antiquarian"

Cursuses are enigmatic features of prehistory, a straight trackway across the landscape, were they used for racing (no) or ceremonial walkways, but we will never know.  But they are found all over the country, we even had one by our house in Chelmsford - The Springfield one, running next to the river.

Link: Mike Pitts on 'How to write a book part 3

30th July 2025

Cheddar Gorge from the air.  Borrowed from Wikipedia

Something less heart rending than the last blog, a walk quite a few years back on the Mendips with my good companion Moss.  

The Mendips is the place you can find early Paleolithic people, in the caves with the bones of animals long extinct from now.  Like Sutton Bank, rock cliffs rise out of nowhere, it is spectacular driving through the Mendips you can also end up at the Cheddar Caves, haunt of a witch of course and the place to take young children to see stalagmites and stalactites.  Also of course, if it is still there, the cheese company.

  The interesting thing about going back on old blogs is that the writing and speculation has moved on further and I was interested to read the PDF on incense cups found in these barrows.  I think of them as the Catholic thurible which is waved round during the service, but there again their use might have been completely different.  Below is what I wrote in a catch-up, and there are two articles on the funerary or incense cup as well.

Yellow barrows at the back, the Nine barrows following the ridge behind me and two odd barrows between them I think, though there is an aerial view on this Wiki.

The eight Ashen Hill barrows

The Nine Barrows, two must have disappeared over the ridge.

Barrows are reflections of a culture, long gone now, we can only speculate about the effort that went into digging and then covering these mounds, obviously reverence for the departed but also these people emotional needs, sometimes the remains of flowers are found, alongside a treasured dagger or necklace of beads.

Now here is for me one of the most obvious of barrow cemeteries to be found in the Mendips, there are in actual fact two sets of barrows, the Ashen Barrows (8) and the Nine Barrows following the ridge of a hill, ceremony is obvious, were they following the lines of a track way? Were they showing respect and reverence of the ancestors as they passed?  I find these photographs please me still, the excitement of first glimpsing as I and Moss trudged over the fields, the bullocks to be negotiated, and then the golden grass  crowning the barrows in the distance.

Digventures

(51) Aldbourne and the Enigmatic Funerary Cups of the British Bronze Age

IF

If I ruled the world I would take my UN soldiers into Gaza, confront the Israeli soldiers and take over food distribution without a second thought.  I would ride over the lies of Netanyahu and his right wing friends. I  might even jail the politicians who are holding back from calling the man out for not understanding what the phrase 'right action' means.  They are  there to govern not mouth useless words that do nothing.  And yes I know where all this started on 7th October, it was a most horrible and cruel day, and I am not in any way antisemitic. 

What I see is hatred and genocide.  Anger should be a useful emotion, all over the world, including Israel people, there is  protest against this cruelty, we are to have our hearts broken with children who would be in heaven, where there is food rather than down on this Earth.  FFS what does the Israeli government think the future is going to bring to them, when they face the hatred and anger of the people around their country, the future will be exactly the same as it is now.

War is a game, we as humans end up with too many people on this Earth, so we battle to reduce the numbers, our young sons and daughters pay the price.  The radio chatters behind me, mellifluous voices are talking of the immigrants coming ashore on the boats.  There is a programme coming later about the RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution saving the lives of the 'boat people'.  They do not judge, they save the lives of these people because it is the right thing to do.

I started this blog because I went to get some bread from the freezer down in the basement, I looked down into its packed surface and thought of those Palestinian people fighting for food that is denied them.  We who have plenty need to share with those who have none.  The Palestinian people are not second rate humans they are equal to all of us and should be treated so.

Article

Masochistic Tango and other things

 Another person has hit the buffer of death - Tom Lehrer, at the age of 97 years old he has left this world.  And now Radio3 is interspersing their classical music with his songs.  So let us raise a glass to a sanely simpler time when sarcasm was not frowned upon ;)

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Something else I picked up this morning.  One of Wales most famous poets, R.S.Thomas was written about in The Observer.  (Shock horror you are reading The Observer says Andrew, it is a right wing paper) please note that an occasional article from the Observer pops through my tablet but the paper does not besmirch my computer ;)  Anyways to get back.  I love this Thomas, the other one is Dylan,  he is so moodily miserable he suits my character.  But I have lost his book of poetry.  I have written of him elsewhere though. Thomas was also a favourite of Pat of Weaver fame. I think the following poem is  good  for it reminds me that as a child I went fishing in a Welsh river but it also reminds us when we first meet death.

Song for Gwydion

When I was a child and the soft flesh was forming
Quietly as snow on the bare boughs of bone,
My father brought me trout from the green river
From whose chill lips the water song had flown.

Dull their eyes, the beautiful, blithe garland
Of stipple faded, as light shocked the brain;
They were the first sweet sacrifice I tasted,
A young god, ignorant of the blood's stain.

R.S.Thomas

Also, another favourite.....

The Island,

And God said, I will build a church here

And cause this people to worship me,

And afflict them with poverty and sickness

In return for centuries of hard work

And patience. And its walls shall be hard as

Their hearts, and its window let in the light

Grudgingly, as their minds do, and the priest's words be drowned

By the wind's caterwauling. All this I will do.

Said God, and watch the bitterness in their eyes

Grow, and their lips suppurate with

Their prayers. And their women shall bring forth

On my altars, and I will choose the best

Of them to be thrown back into the sea.

And that was only on one island.

Heads

The Hexham Heads!

Not sure that teddies or soft toys had anything to do with  Albanian dictators but it was an interesting talk.  Albanians seem to tie to the frontage of their houses such soft toys as a good luck symbol which wards off evil.  One fact I did not know is that at some stage in our 20th century history, toy koala bears were made from real koala fur!  

But there was also a small exhibition at the Folklore centre of the Hexham Heads.  Two boys in the 1970s had found two small heads in the garden.  Now you can understand the interest these heads garnered.  Were they Celtic or belonging to some prehistoric era.  No is the answer to that, a person who had previously lived in the house had made three heads from what I think is concrete, because that is where he worked at the time in 1956.  

Of course a folkloric myth took centre stage over the heads and I can't find a sensible picture of them now, with all the woo-woo around them.  

As I have always been fascinated about Celtic culture and the head being an important part of the rituals.  The Gauls were  a warring lot, and liked nothing better than to hang from their horses the heads of their deposed enemies.

There are two temples in Gaulish* France you can see the head cult at Roquerpertuse temple with another temple with the same cult not far away.  Here there are pillars with niches which would have held skulls inside and of course the recording Romans and Greeks also wrote of them.

The bottom two are janiform heads in London

Three heads at Roquepertuse 600 -140 bc

The pillars of the portico with cavities for skulls. 111-11 bc

The two headless figures (why?) are warriors seated in Buddha style. 

Going back to the tale of the Hexham Heads, it seems they went to Anne Ross the writer of that most erudite book - Pagan Celtic Britain for an explanation of the heads, but whilst the heads were in her house strange things happened.  Like a man/wolf ran out of the house.  Do I believe this?  Can't say that I do, she probably made up the story to get some publicity for her work.  If I remember right she wrote a book with an ex policeman about a bog man, the books title -  Life and Death of a Druid Prince, perhaps explains she was going for the more lurid punchline.

It was a definite rabbit hole this morning I have been down 'wishing trees' (I have always talked to the trees;) and coins pushed into trees (and stones) for luck.

* American dictionary translates Gaulish to Goulash.  Struck me as funny.

 And just to end the Japanese Torii gate which 'floats' on water, or seems to, also had coins thrust into its wood which meant it had to be repaired.

Talks

 

Albanian Soft Power: When Teddies fight back

The fall of a communist dictatorship introduced Albanians to capitalism – disastrously. This talk shows how the people updated traditional folkways to deploy consumer-capitalist products for protection.
There is a talk at the Folklore Centre today - Teddies fight back.  One has to admit it is an original take on the subject of communist dictatorship, I hope John Billingsley pulls it off.  I have a teddy bear sitting on a top shelve, he is next to an ugly doll I made.  The bear is there to remind me of a young Tom on Bath Station when his mum refused to carry his bear.  He is in a miserable mood and drags the bear along the ground cross at his mother who is pushing a push chair with loads of stuff hanging from it.

So what is the 'soft power' you ask? It goes by the name of Apotropaic Power.  I presume the bear wards off or is a protective magic, a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences.

I missed this talk last Saturday because of visitors, Icy Sedgwick on Northern Spiritualism - Talking to the Dead in Manchester and Newcastle.  I expect it was 19th century ghosts ;)   I read somewhere that Ozzy Osbourne  ( he has just died) of Black Sabbath fame was also obsessed by a haunted farmhouse in Wales.  Did that influence his music I wonder?The Folklore Centre is hitting a barrier of no money sadly and is only opening on a Saturday at the moment, I wish I knew the cure for magically conjuring up money, but unfortunately I don't.
Not sure this true but it is a funny spoof on the state of our roads...

24th July 2025

I am off to have a hearing test today.  A whole hour of my life finding how bad my hearing is.  I feel like Tony Hancock in that famous speech when he had to give a pint of blood and he said 'a pint, a pint, that's nearly a whole armful' strange what goes through your head isn't it.  Anyway, I find I hear a few words in a different way horse for course for instance, so I have to translate ;)  Lillie is the worst when she fires words out with her back to me.

Hearing Trumpets at St. Mary's Church Whitby

Talking of Lillie, she left for Portugal last night.  She and my daughter stayed in an airport hotel because the plane took off at three and Karen wasn't having her sleep in the airport.  She went suitably loaded for a camping trip.

She is a true camper, bought herself two Swiss army knives last week, though we keep telling her about knives on the street but apparently she can carry one at least.  She has left some room in her knapsack because she has to bring back a tent.  It will be a great adventure for her though.

The Intrepid Traveller

For those who like churches

 The Smell of Water Has been on a church finding trip in East Yorkshire - Seeking the Romanesque in East Yorkshire.  He draws attention to the fact that all three churches were shut and they are no longer places for the public.  Facts and figures show that the Church of England is worth 10B£.  At some stage the Church has to acknowledge that people will not return to the faith and that some sort of future has to be found for these beautiful buildings.

Simon Jenkins in an article in the Guardian proposes a sensible solution.  Give these churches back to the parish councils to open up as venues for other uses.

There are many problems with the buildings, one of course is the coldness in winter and inadequate heating.  Another is loos and water for teas and coffees but such minor problems can be overcome and many churches have been turned into different venues over time.

I suspect that it is mostly down to money and getting people to agree to certain conditions.  The Church of England is sitting on a pretty big chunk of money, there must surely be some relaxation for helping to modify the churches into a public space for the use of the public and not this hopeful approach of how everyone will eventually leave their secular natures behind and once more turn back to Christianity and the church. 

Ivy growing in a church in Essex

St. Marys in Mundon Essex

St Marys is closed and under the care of 'Friends of Friendless Churches.

  Lovely unusual church with it's timber Tudor framing.

22nd July 2025

Rose tea at our favourite Iranian restaurant.  It was good, next to the glass teacup is a lollipop of brown chunks of sugar, you just whisk it into the tea. I had avocado and poached eggs with their strong feta cheese. I almost fancy collecting teapots again!

We went to see 'Some Like it Hot' at the Hebden Picture House, or Cinema of Sanctuary.  It was free with biscuit and tea included, all three of us.  The film just as good as I remembered it.  My daughter pointed out certain things which would not pass of what today we think of as right and wrong but even so it was pure comedy.  Tony Curtis made a very pretty woman, though I must admit the gangster killings were a bit macabre.

Jean has gone back to Calne on the train and Lillie who arrived yesterday from camping over the weekend somewhere near London is now sorting her camping gear for the Portugal jamboree which lasts a fortnight, she flies from Manchester tomorrow.

More plans from Adam the architect, this time for the exterior of the back elevation, he is thinking stone and iron to reflect the North.  I wonder if I have the nerve to ask him does he know Christopher Alexander's work approach.  My son had his books for his computer course which seemed strange at first, but now I see the sense of different approaches to computer algorithms.

Hebden Park

 

20th July 2025

This morning I was just trying to think of how memories occur in the mind.  Often I will say that our minds are like the silver many faceted silver balls that you twirled to at the local dance hall.  Or maybe they are like a heavily scented perfume that drifts through, taunting you with its presence.  Very similar as to what Ted Hughes says in his 'The Thought Fox'

Till, with a sudden hot sharp stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

However a memory comes, it comes with an accumulation of emotions that flash by and you are hopelessly caught in the reel action.  So it was this Sunday morning when they played Spiegel im Spiegel.  The calmest music out, tranquil and slow it tunes down the rush of the day.

Yesterday we  walked to the park,  dogs abounded in every shape and colour all good natured and sweet.  Children played in the playground and Jean and I wandered round to the far edge where once John Fielden lived with his family.  A famous figure in doing good also a politician in the 19th century.

The house no longer stands but is etched out in the ground with a few laid stones.  The walled garden  still exists, planted in true council style - lines of flowers outlined by silver foliage.

Saint Volodymyr of Ukraine there seems to be a religious tie between the town and the Ukrainian people.... I should have pulled that plant aside. The leader of the country now is also called Volodymyr Zelensky, though it can be changed to Vladmir.

Another plaque reads: "60 years of Ukrainian life and culture in Todmorden 1947 to 2007.

The first Ukrainians arrived in Todmorden in 1947 to work in the cotton industry.  They gradually integrated into the local community staging dances and concerts at the Town Hall, Calder College and the Hippodrome."  

The hippodrome is being refurbished at the moment it will take at least a year but they have knocked down a part of it, see below, I think this is where the new cinema will be as part of the theatre.

Operation 'West'

A canal walk

Oxeye daisies in profusion

Stately hogsweed

Safe in their small patch,  narrowboats are having to take refuge from the shallow canals

half 'O' of a bridge to be reflected fully in the water

Pride feature

ragwort

Meadowsweet

Greater Willowherb

Neatly arranged marigold pots

Evening primrose

Edit:  One photo I did not take was of the Tansy plant that appeared along the path, along with Golden Rod, Tansy attracts many insects.  Well there I was watching Vanessa in the new video on the 'Mindful Narrowboat' and  she mentioned the rare Tansy beetle, only to be found in parts of York. But she managed to find the little jewel like beetle much to her delight.  According to the blurb on my computer it can be found elsewhere, as in the watery Fens of East Anglia for instance but I salute the people who keep track of the little creatures who inhabit our island in their small ecosystems.  Tansy photo coming soon!

York was her destination this week, a town that hosts a wealth of history.  Once the centre of the Viking North it is now the haunt of the ever passing tourist down The Shambles and around the castle.