3rd February 2025

 

Another photo from Maldon, I think it is a sea holly, a maritime plant, that doesn't love water but a dry hot place near a wall. Same as the Californian poppies that dance at its roots.

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To record the day:  Which is noteworthy in the fact that Andrew will be moving in.  His workplace will be in the large bedroom next door.  Most of his stuff is going into storage but there will be furniture coming soon.  Andrew is a walker, so must walk a couple of times a day, so will do all the small shopping when needed ;) We all have our cooking days, I have three in the week.

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Apart from that, I listened to a tentative morning 'Dawn's Chorus' when a blackbird sung its heart out, presumably because of the slightly warmer temperature.  So Hardy's frail winter's blackbird is going but as we know, even though the light returns the winter cold can last well into April, with even snow in May.

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A wander down a favourite river

Flooding at the Chelmer Mill

The meeting of the rivers

The Chelmer and Blackwater navigational River

1st February 2025

Remember summer? So someone on a blog mentioned the Battle of Maldon in Essex and I remembered a couple of trips there.  Not much to write at the moment but have been watching videos on both Australia and Japan.  What do I learn?  that Australian property is becoming very expensive, similar to Britain.  But that there is in Japan many, many empty houses out in the countryside just left to rot. I wonder with the uptake of working from home if we will not see a greater movement of people around the world?  Would you go to Japan, and do that thing most Britishers adore doing which is 'doing up' a run down property?

Pretty gardens in Maldon

But English silver is not so softly won:

first iron and edge shall make arbitrement

Harsh war-trial, ere we yield tribute'

The Battle of Maldon. 2010

Another visit -2014

The Hippies of Hebden video

I came across the following video last night.  It documents the history as to when the hippies came to Hebden.  One could almost describe it as when the children broke free of the stifling atmosphere of neat homes and subservience to conventional life.  It sprang to life in the 1960s, it birthed the 'boomers' and led to the generation living now.  They are unable to afford the over priced housing and jobs are not so thick on the ground as technology creeps in.

But those hippies looked like they had fun, living in the derelict houses, though squatting is the word used, never forget land ownership is sacred....

Now as the tourists roam the streets of the town in that aimless way tourist have, the talk of drugs and sex is hardly mentioned..  but  both are doing quite well in modern society ;)

Catch the bearded gnome halfway through, you will laugh with him as he shows off his bright green caftan.  Such a lovely character.

 

Sunday

 "in that I’ve chosen no form for the Book of Mind Because everything has no form, and when you’ve finished reading this book you will have had a glimpse of everything, presented in the way that everything comes: in piecemeal bombardments, continuously, rat tat tatting the pure pictureless liquid of Mind essence"  Jack Kerouac.

I have been reading a lot this morning and sorting photos, a Sunday occupation.  Debating whether to find Kerouac's 'Lotus Sutra'.  Apparently K wrote a great deal but died at the age of 47 years old with liver disease.  Caused through alcoholism.  Paul kept a lotus seed which he once showed me, you can plant it over my grave he had said jokingly. But I could never find the seed.

I came across Steve Marx's long essay or talk on the above, see here. I see on his blog that he also writes of Leonard Cohen's term in Buddhism.  They are playing 'Hallelujah' at the moment on the radio, coincidence or not?

I often wonder several hundred years hence whether such hippy people as the Beat people  will transcend to Jesus like figures, worshipped for their insight and seen as great minds. though the sceptics of today's suburbanite minds will mutter it was all down to drugs.  The mind is a frightening place sometimes for many people but it is the social milieu at the moment that weighs so many people down.

I also wonder was it this time of hippies from the 1950s that our questioning of whether Christianity had a right to existence in our own minds.  The questioning went on and people sought other religions to fill in the gap.  But why is there a gap? Is there really a void there, or something we have yet to discover in our own minds.  Questions, questions.

There was a discussion on Radio 4 on Bishop - Mariann Budde's sermon to Trump, and the American preacher refuting her.  you will find it at 27 minutes on this programme.  Also discussion of Kerouac and the 'ceasefire'.  How we all wish for a cease fire and for the Palestinians to rebuild their lives but will it ever happen?

Well the pure pictureless liquid of mind essence, does not exist in my brain which  often has  images floating through it and music flows gently through as well at the moment, distracting in its simplicity - Arvo Part - Spiegel im Spiegel.  So calm it lilts the mind to something that  is not there.

Old Hawthorns. There roots firm in an old stone shed

Stachy plant or Lamb's Ears - frozen

A tangle of hawthorn

Quarries.  I loved the brown toffee coloured stone that made up some Welsh cottages

My romantic grandson who took Ellie to Amsterdam (or was it Copenhagen) to propose

Tom at an earlier age throwing stones into the pond when he had been told again and again not to throw stones.

Summer flowers

 Poet Michael Longley reading his poem "Ceasefire".

24th January 2025

 

The wind buffets the window in sharp gusts.  Storm Eowyn hits our island and there has been the unusual procedure of shutting down shops and stopping trains as well. It will travel over from Northern Ireland, then Scotland and then through the North, covering most of Britain I believe

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And my daughter and Andrew have just set off in a taxi to Manchester airport to fly to Paris.  With the proviso that I might see them back later.   I have a fearful nature about my family travelling.  It stems from many years ago when two policemen stood at the doorway and informed me that my first husband had been seriously injured in a car crash - but there it is.

To more down to earth worries, the recycling lorry hasn't been for two weeks and I notice that cardboard over the road is soaked and lying everywhere but I hope we shall not see roofs being torn off and I think it is eminently sensible to ask people to stay at home.

Weather is almost twice as fierce as it was years ago, we are in a climate change and how it is going to pan out I do not know. Luckily the leaves are off the trees taking some of the weight off them.  Below you will see a statement about the new presidency of the USA and his failure to acknowledge the crisis of what is going on.  Well let see if his new techno buddies might get a conscience about what is happening.  Speaking out is our right.

And even to more mundane things, I have battled with my camera, and almost won.  At least I understand all the numerous symbols, and, shame, shame took me two days to find the button to take a picture but it has been an interesting time to learn, and though I might not use all those symbols preferring the computer to clean up my photos and with the help of Andrew, who ordered the right gadget to transfer photos from my camera to the computer will be ready for the spring

21st January 2025

Yesterday was a bad day but I am not going to say anything, only give the New York Times, opinion article on it. Which is worth a read.

 Opinion | Standing Up to Donald Trump’s Fear Tactics - The New York Times

20th January 2025

 Some days one's mind is filled with images of small things.  Mine has visioned willows and the little violet that grows snuggled deeply in the grass of the church yard.  My weather note at the bottom of this screen says 3 cms of snow in two hours, how do they know? but thumbing through my old blogs on a search of willows and feeling the sadness of times past, I came across these snowy photos of Avebury. A stumpy old willow.  There were other photos of the stones standing bleakly against the stone.  Moss in seventh heaven in the snow.

Bleak sentinels

Avebury

Silvered leaf willow in Essex

a magical if somewhat cold time.

Violets.  I have seen them everywhere on my travels.  Tucked into churchyards, or forgotten bits of grassland.

I think in January we start to look forward to the spring, but that it really gets colder in the following months as the light returns.

I went to a meeting at the Folklore Centre this weekend.  It was about the 'Treasure of Mixenden', which was never found by the way.  It involved about 9 men who gathered together from their town, Bingley, to go and look for some treasure up on the moors.  See here for the writings at Drax Abbey 1531. 

Treasure hunting was frowned upon by the king and the men were punished at York by being chased through the streets.  The tales of folklore is something I know little off.  But stories through the Middle Ages have demons and devils in them.

There has been an unexpected good piece of news over the weekend.  This house, large Edwardian terraced house is not being sold.  It has been decided to 'do it up'.  

Living here for everyone has its advantages.  A train service that runs to all the main towns, shops just across the road and as Andrew says plenty of walking and gym facilities.  Town living is more practical, especially when cars become a bit of a burden on the overcrowded roads of Britain.

So now for coffee, and some music.  It is a radio 3 day today, the news is disheartening.

Bank of Green Willows- George Butterworth

The roles of women?

 Women held keys to land and wealth in Celtic Britain

Skeletons unearthed in Dorset contained DNA evidence that Celtic men moved to live with their wives' families and communities.

Well that was the first thing I read this morning and I pondered on it.  Perfectly feasible, this information had been taken from a dig down in Dorset of the Durotriges tribe.  One has only to think of Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe down on the East coast and Cartimandu, queen of the Brigantes up North, to know that female leaders were accepted.  That leadership went through the mitochondria of the female, passed from mother to daughter is the theory of the archeologists who undertook the dig.

Boudicca was so inflamed by the rape of her two daughters by the Roman leaders of the invasion that she pulled an army together to fight them.  There is one horrible part to the story and it happened in Colchester (Camoludunum). The Celtic tribes were so furious that they attacked the town and murdered without mercy the Romans there.  Boudicca cut the breasts of the Roman matrons and stuffed them into their mouths.  It was a bloody revenge and of course she paid for it and thousands of her followers were killed in subsequent battles.  Her death followed by the taking of poison.  See Tacitus on his media story of the time.

The B/A barrow of the Egtved Girl

The Egtved Girl

So my mind slipped back to the Bronze Age teenage girl, the Egtved Girl from Denmark, in her cord skirt with the sun motif girdled round her waist.  She is also seen as a leader but there again she could have been a religious leader, or priest, if you prefer within her community.  She was buried in a ceremony in a halved tree trunk and a young child at her feet.  Not her child, it could have been a sacrificial killing. There is no DNA evidence to be able to tell.

And to add to my notes another thought.  Bath - Aqua Sulis was also under the influence of females.  Sulis was a goddess, her equivalent Roman God head was Minerva, then there is Diana the hunting goddess down at Shoe lane.  Not forgetting Rosamerta and the three matres at Cirencester.

And the day has hardly begun

Things I have picked up at the beginning of the day.  Firstly, the Side of the Dark Moor  small video on Mankinholes.  Yes you read it right.  Now the young lad has translated it as 'man in hole' which goes back to the Celtic nature of the word. This literal almost modern translation doesn't seem to me to hold water but I love his enthusiasm and especially the bravery of the two men to go out up on the moors in this cold weather.

You will also notice that they start at the Shepherd's Rest Inn which has a good restaurant.  I remember that pub well, when I first moved here, my daughter said we will walk up to it for a meal.  It was a long, long uphill walk but surprisingly I live to tell the tale.  So to get back to the historic tale of Mankinholes there is not much of it left and there is some query as to whether it became a DMV (deserted medieval village) in a nearby field but you will see how difficult it was to live up on the moors,  which was the only area for the farms around here.

The other thing I found on this morning was some auditory music in my profile.  It turns out to be Pete Gabriel and Solsbury Hill, a favourite piece of music for its dancing and song.  Solsbury Hill is just outside of Bath, a steep climb up the lane to the hill fort at the top.

On top of Solsbury Hill, where sadly the eagles do not fly.

This happy music should be played as my ashes are scattered not above but somewhere in a field in North Yorkshire (that is as far as I am going as to destination).

 

15th January 2025

 

At The Other End Of The Telescope By George Bradley the people are very small and shrink, dwarves on the way to netsuke hell bound for a flea circus in full retreat toward sub-atomic particles-- difficult to keep in focus, the figures at that end are nearly indistinguishable, generals at the heads of minute armies differing little from fishwives, emperors the same as eskimos huddled under improvisations of snow-- eskimos, though, now have the advantage, for it seems to be freezing there, a climate which might explain the population's outr? dress, their period costumes of felt and silk and eiderdown, their fur concoctions stuffed with straw held in place with flexible strips of bark, and all to no avail, the midgets forever stamping their match-stick feet, blowing on the numb flagella of their fingers-- but wait, bring a light, clean the lens.

Looking for poetry on eiderdowns.  But the above does not answer what I was looking for.  When I was a child in the evening I would tell stories to my brother.  We had twin beds and I would use my fingers for the characters in the tale.  Now I always used to think the beds were covered by eiderdowns.  This came to mind with my latest patchwork quilt.  I have small squares of squares, matching colours in the squares.  I had hoped to try the 'wash of colour' effect.  It wasn't achieved but now I take great pleasure in its colourful appearance. 

But there are words that capture the imagination in the poem and thought also - miniaturisation.  For instance Netsuke, Paul had a few, a tiny ball that rattled in a larger cup but which you could never get out.  An old fisherman as well, it reminded me of all the miniature ivory bits and pieces my first MIL had in her Chinese cabinet, along with the jade bunch of grapes that is still somewhere in this house.

Could be because I am listening to a story  - The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng, a Malaysian writer.  It is written so quietly, the illness of the lead retired supreme judge and her flight back to the Cameron Highlands of Malaya.  The story is told over three periods of time, the 1980s, the 1950s and then WW2.  Teoh Yun Ling has come back because she wants to make a garden for her sister, who is now dead and was a 'comfort worker' in the war with Japan.  The sense of sadness is apparent, she is also going through the illness of aphasia, which will take her mind and language away.  Also she has to ask a Japanese gardener to draw out the plan for her. I  am somewhat of two  minds on Japanese Gardens.

They are cultivated to the last leaf.  Trees are formed into cloud shapes, rocks in gravelled areas represent stories, flowers are not on show but the moss is perhaps the most beautiful in its soft molding of the earth and is of course one of the earliest plants.

I am bumbling on, must not forget the bread in the oven, and listening out for the Amazon driver who is bringing my new camera today

Japanese culture and religion is based on Animism, the spirit of life that can be found in any form.  Great ropes around old trees shows respect for  them.

And I pick two more words out of the poem - Flea Circus, can it be true.  I am sure I saw a flea circus when I was little and they did exist, so for today's unbelievable video I present a flea circus.

Watchmakers would tie a thin golden thread to the fleas!

12th January 2025

 Ian Hislop - Chief editor of the Private Eye magazine is being applauded for bringing a touch of  'truth' to the subject of the idiot who would be king of the world.  Hislop might even earn a room in my Gormenghast Castle for his service in humour to the nation.  I used to have Andrew's copies of Private Eye, but I haven't seen a copy for a couple of months.  I think he is taking 'Bylines' at the moment, I'm juggling with thoughts of the News Statesman' ' but it is pretty pricey.  Also the Marsh family have brought out a song as well.

I wasn't going to write today but......... Lillie has gone back to London this morning with her father. Whilst here she has been attending the local scouts meetings.  She is a leader and on the board of trustees as well.  Their elderly leader died not so long ago, so perhaps that is why they have taken up one so young.  She also attends the one near her 'halls' in London.  She is very committed.

Matilda has also been keeping in touch.  Firstly I need not knit those black fingerless gloves - yeah! Black wool is almost impossible to see when you knit.

She is going to Switzerland with her mum at the end of March.  They are always travelling my family, Karen and Andrew are off to Paris end of this month.  Perhaps I should renew my passport as well ;)  I fancy a train trip to Settle in Yorkshire, staying for a couple of days.  Not for the town but for the long train ride through the Yorkshire countryside.

Also another birthday present has popped up.  It is a journal. With Mum on its front, apparently I have to write my life history in it, which will be somewhat boring.  Get my old fountain pen back into use.  Funny how tapping out our thoughts on a computer is so much easier though.  I have just been reading a blog on 'cursive' writing as well.  Remember in primary school how you had a thin line and a fat line to do all the well printed handwriting, squiggles were allowed later.

10th January 2025

 The cold continues, my daughter bravely faces her train journey each day in the face of delayed trains and missing train drivers.  But the tree ents have not fallen dead on the tracks of late so that is one blessing.

In one of the articles I put on recently,  George Orwell was mentioned as some sort of instigator for the far right in America.  Well I never knew his outspokenness in a particular time of history would reach down to the American way of life, or that he would be read there even.

Well perhaps people should read or listen to Rebecca Solnit's - Orwell Roses and learn a little more about the man.  I find Solnit a very good writer, though a little sweary on F/b when it comes to the two protagonists ready to take over the world.  I find this rather funny, am I frightened? No is the answer.  

But to get back to Orwell, he was a man of principle............... 2+2=4 principle and as Laura Beers in her book Orwell's Ghosts, here I am quoting,

his core belief was not in free speech, but true speech. That is not the freedom to insist that “two plus two equals five” – no matter how many followers you have. And this subtle but profound difference jars against a more fundamentalist American conception of a sacred right to free speech, consecrated in the first amendment.

Back to that old word 'truth' and how we use it.  The truth of the matter is?  we have lost our way of thinking.  I am always going to believe in the world of science and that we are in the process of climate change  and that we should do something about it.  But I am not going to read every for and against argument that litters the way.  I can see it happening in other parts of the world, the climate is definitely getting worse, it is up to us humans to protect the Earth, not just for ourselves but for every creature that occupies this land we all live upon.  If I see another poor stranded polar bear on an iceberg or a grief stricken Orca carrying her dead calf on her back I shall litter my blog with the awfulness of what other people and animals go through. But I don't.

"I still think the revolution is to make the world safe for poetry, meandering, for the frail and vulnerable, the rare and obscure, the impractical and local and small." ~ Rebecca Solnit

9th January 2025

Wandering Turnip on the latest on the sink hole.  Freezing cold of course, now it is dangerous to take the lanes to the top road.  Which also has been closed overnight.  The woodlands though are still pretty.  I'm not allowed out of the house!

8th January 2024

Keeping up with our news.  Well no meal the other day, though the snow is not deep in the valley, the roads are icy and everyone is still getting into trouble taking the small lanes up to the moors because of the snow and ice. The culvert still remains to be finished, everyone is bellyaching about the fact that the new pipe has to come from Germany when there is a firm that makes pipes right next door to the 'hole in the road'. But really it is all just a brief interlude into the state of the roads in Britain.

I have not much to say, it is cold and I have had one of my 'sort of headaches' which leaves me tired and worn out and my birthday is tomorrow.  Also which is so annoying I have turned into anonymous whenever I try to leave a comment and on some blogs am refused completely. But hey-ho.

The following two links are good on the present situation, I have decided to fit Professor Tim Wilson in one of my Gormenghast Castle's empty rooms for sensible talking on the state of the land.  He describes Musk the man without qualities well.  I am not sure why we should fear such men as Trump and Musk, they are single minds in the hive, there are plenty of other bees working away for a better world;)

America maybe does not understand Britain, especially our humour or sense of irony.  The tongue can destroy just as easily as the gun, we shall see.

And what was the happy moment yesterday?  It was a small robin outside the window eating the food I had left out.  It is normally the crows I see but this little creature must have been after the tiny crumbs.

 Why the American Right Loathes Modern Britain

Elon Musk, the man without qualities, the man without restraint

6th January 2025 - Garn Wynda note

 

When in Wales in the summer wander along the lanes and smell the honeysuckle, it grows wild in the countryside. Yes I am on one of my yearning missions but in the process collecting more information about a particular cromlech.  This one remained long in my memory, the sheer joy of just wandering along a green lane, and also a path to a redundant school 19th century where once children followed the same path to school. And no car has ever reached this school, I wish I could find a photo, it is called Hennen school in Garn Wynda.  I came across something Rhiannon (Modern Antiquarian) had written about the name Gwyndaf which was the saint the church was named after and also the prehistoric burial cromlech seen here in an early blog - Going Back in Time. 

Adding the Welsh Saint who gave his name to the local church and Neolithic burial chamber.  Rhiannon had quoted  from Baring Gould, but on looking the saint up in Breverton's book of Welsh Saints

Saint Gwyndaf Hen born in the 6th century, his tale is not very auspicious but still. When travelling back from Fishguard one day on horseback after an argument with St. Aidan, he had to cross his boundary stream.  A fish suddenly leapt out of the water frightening his horse and Gwyndaf fell and broke his leg.

He cursed the stream so that no fish would ever swim in it again but it still springs from the holy well near the church.

talking of stories made up by the saints, and note some of these Welsh names used for the burial chambers can be different for instance Breverton calls it Carn Wynda or Carreg Samson

Carn = a pile of stones

Garn = a prominence

Llan = means land.  The land round a church for instance.

Carreg = stone

Garn Wynda

Ysgol Henner 1910 - 1915 / Henner School 1910 - 1915 | Ysgol Henner School, Goodwick / Wdig, Llanwnda | Fishguard and Goodwick local history

Ysgol Henner School | Pencaer, Ysgol Henner School | Fishguard and Goodwick local history

North Stoke: Still homesick for Wales

3rd january 2024

 Friday:  It is Andrew's birthday today.    It is my birthday next Wednesday so we will go out to my favourite restaurant, 'Staff of Life' on this coming Sunday, there will be six of us.

Capricorns have a somewhat negative write-up as far as their star (the goat) is concerned.  Coupled with the fact it is soon after Xmas and everyone is broke to buy a second lot of presents.  Our birthdays happen in the midst of winter, the light is beginning to return but snow, ice and rain make it miserable outside.

I am still  researching  cameras, I seem to have settled on a DSLR - digital single-lens  reflex though that means little to me, and it is a toss up between a Canon EOS  2000D or the 4000, it is so complicated and confusing.

Returning to taking photos or even my wobbly videos is still of interest to me, though I have a great backlog of photos to wander through my life. 

Now for some music, I used to love the sound of the organ (played well) in the church but voices are equally pleasing, so for an uplifting experience and a reminder you can always find something happy through the day to listen to.

The voices blended so beautifully, it reminds me of those years at the convent, there is also this Veni,Veni Emmanuel.  One cold December filing down to the icy church to practise again and again the above carol. I got my middle 'catholic' name at this time, though it was lost on a non committed religious me.  Though by the law of the church I was  supposedly excommunicated because my first marriage was in a C of E church, does that still apply I wonder or was it the vicar at the time making the rules up.

The above photo of my confirmation, my then, who I thought of as my brother, besides me to join in the day.  As I look at the photo I see no DNA linking us.  He was the grandson of our Jewish grandfather who brought me up after I had been adopted. Looking at the photo I think it was my biological mother who must have insisted on my Catholic upbringing.

We were together as children and then harshly parted when a divorce occurred in the family.  I also remember it happened around this time, and walking down the stairs at the convent to face my new life with a new stepmother who I disliked intensely.  Funny what music brings up;)

01/01/25

 Top of the morning to you! may the beauty of this world sustain you through this year.  And perhaps reflect on this.......

Yes the flood warning went off in the middle of the night, so on the whole fireworks and WW11 sirens kept the night lively.  But we are into the New Year, Flood Wardens have stood down, and on the Tod forum, people have renewed their moaning about that large hole in the main road.  Cursing the workmen of course, though several people came to their defense and made them hot drinks and snacks.

People make me wonder where their sensibilities have gone.  Things take time to repair, to settle, to resolve as a problem, but moaning is a great pastime. 

Problems interfere with the placid affairs of our lives, some would argue that it makes life more interesting.  Flooding is commonplace in this valley, the meetings of water cause chaos on the road at Callis Bridge but it is a natural phenomena and perhaps those first pioneers who settled at the bottom of a deep narrow valley will be giggling up there somewhere in the clouds.  

So I will leave you with the thrill of what a old siren sounds like and try to remember that it is not to do with today but a long time ago war when people fled to the underground when its sound was heard on the air.  And down in the corner of this large screen, I can see the fateful words 'heavy rain'.