25th April 2025

Where the beck crosses the lane at Wheeldale

A favourite place.  Over the moors past the old prehistoric stones that marked the lane from olden times as when  the snow was thick on the ground and only the stones would tell the road across.  I photographed those stones, and once found harebells growing by the side of one.  Such fragile, delicate flowers in the rough atmosphere of the moors.  If you were to walk along the Beck side you would eventually come upon Rowan trees.  The birds many years ago must have scattered the seeds and over time the trees had grown.  Rowan is a magical tree, given to protecting the house and the farming practices of milking and making butter and cream.  It protected you against the dead arising.  It also has been call 'quicken' translated as lively -  as the tree endowed with life.

Funny news this morning, A famous painting had been thrown away.  It was by Andy Warhol.  It was somewhere in Holland and belonged to a batch of 'Queen' paintings.  It does not particularly worry me, as there are other Warhol paintings out there and he has never been a favourite of mine.  And as for the prices quoted of these paintings I will say nowt.

We have just passed the of JMW Turner's 250 year anniversary and I am quite happy to stick with the knowledge that he was a marvellous painter with no equal.  I once almost bought a print of a ravine by him.  It was in the 70s and the £50 was a mite too much for me but I always regret it.

It also reminded me of two prints I had left behind which were of George Morland.  Both prints of horses, he was called a pot boiler.  Which is a negative term that implies his work was inferior only produced for his daily bread.  It is funny in what you want to put on the walls of one's house.  Obviously if I was rich enough I would put Turner and Constable on my walls with perhaps a smattering of Morland in the guest bedroom!

George Morland.  Bucolic scene or a scene of sad poverty.

 

23rd April 2025

An Edith Pritchett cartoon for Private Eye

Well the soap box again.  I sign a lot of stuff as you can well imagine, no apologies there but this morning I was informed by email that 'Wild Justice' had raised the 100,000 signatures for their Ban to stop Driven  Grouse Shooting.  That means it goes before parliament for discussion

On the North Yorkshire moors there are grouse butts, in which our fine shooting gentleman and probably a few women stand behind whilst the poor hapless birds are driven towards them for killing.  And as an aside the moors are burnt of the old heather for that reason as well.

Killing birds is a pastime for some, a holiday experience for others.  A shocking figure, there are 50 million pheasants raised in this country.  You probably think they are indigenous, they are not but they are a pleasant sight in the countryside.  37 million of the birds survive but of course probably die quickly, they are an ecological imbalance.

There are times when out on a walk we used to find hidden in the woods an enclosure where the birds were reared before release for the annual kill.

Grouse stay close to my heart as occasionally you would spy them up on the moor and one experience never to be forgotten was a grouse with a little trail of baby grouse crossing the old lane off the moors at Wheeldale.  And of course Ted Hughes catches the mood beautifully  in his poem.

Grouse Butts

Where all the lines embrace and lie down,

Roofless hovels of turf, tapped by harebells,

Weather humbler.

In a world bare of men

They are soothing as ruins

Where the stones roam again free.

But inside each one, under sods, nests

Of spent cartridge cases

Are acrid with life.

Those dead looking fumaroles are forts.

Monkish cells, communal, strung out, solitary,

The front-line emplacements of a war nearly religious -

Dedicated to the worship

Of costly, beautiful guns.

A religion too arcane

For the grouse who grew up to trust their kingdom

And its practical landmarks.

Wild Life Petition

There is also an interesting blog on why Private Eye refused to use the cartoon a second and third time.

22nd April 2025

Nature writing is a love of mine,  McFarlane is the leading author as far as I was concerned.  But I have just found another writer, not in the same vein, but in that vein of discovering all the truths that may lie at our feet.  So the above is what I shall listen to in the future but the book I am listening to at the moment 'North Road' by Rob Cowen is the current one.  He begins, and I am only at the beginning with an archaeological dig at or near Catterick, and coincidentally the archaeologist in charge is Steve Sherlock. 

 I have Sherlock's book on the Anglo Saxon  cemetery at Street House, Loftus.  Sherlock uncovered a burial ground that had been used over a long period of time, from the Neolithic to the Saxon period.  He had found a 7th century 'bed burial' of a royal A/Saxon princess, so pagan rather than Christian.  Beautiful jewelry was found in the graves of the women, telling us that sophisticated taste existed.  Never dismiss the people of history as ignorant or lacking in vanity.  Their lives were probably more difficult than ours but they groomed their hair and wove their cloth, and probably experimented in their kitchens!

Street House jewelry

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But as usual I have deviated from my subject which is about the 'Great North Road'.  The Romans had built a road called Ermine Street from South to North.

 The road was later called The Old North Road, we have probably all once travelled sections of it.  I recognise Grantham, Retford and Melton Mowbray, when we travelled up from Chelmsford to Whitby  The road originally followed the route from London to Newcastle but in the 18th century it went further to Edinburgh.

In Rob Cowen's book he traces some of his relatives from Doncaster moving down to London to start a business there and doing quite well out of it.  I think it was a string of fish and chip shops.  They were friends with Richard Burton, which is neither here nor there but interesting all the same.

Well it brought up memories when my family moved down South from the Black Country to London in 1957.  It had all come about because my grandfather who was chief engineer at the Villiers company, motorbike engine makers had been given the job of running a similar company in London call J.A.Prestwich.  Both firms though went down pretty quickly.  Leaving him to start his own small company in Great Dunmow but that is another story.

It suddenly occurred to me that we had travelled back and forth on the newly opened M1 though my memory says that parts of it were unfinished.  The old Rover car we had, we always had Rovers, had been hit in the back by a lorry but being the sturdy beast it was had taken the blow and just moved forward on its suspension.  A write off.

There is a poem out there somewhere, which traced the footsteps of a calf as it wandered through a wood haphazardly.  The path became a trackway, then a lane, then a road and finally ended up as a motorway.  The Romans of course built straight from horizon to horizon.

 

20th April 2025

 I have been delving:)  Firstly, Pace Egg. A Northern traditional Easter play, I suppose you would call it a mummer's play.  I suppose before the chocolate Easter egg was invented it was just decorated real eggs.  Did you know that you can dye the eggshells almost gold with onion skins, a thought worth keeping.  I think the ceremony took place up at Heptonstall, the players are supposed to get eggs from the watchers.

The other thing of note was a small video of Sagar Bakery, which is the other half of the Folklore Centre.  The owner has a bakery shop in Hebden Bridge but has moved his baking facilities up to Tod.  I often see him and he greets me with a cheerful smile,  The video goes through what is after all his workshop, the machines used for bread and cakes and the Folklore Centre of course benefits from all his baking.  It has been a few months in the making of this transformation of what I believe was a newspaper's office.  It is a very welcoming atmosphere and I shall make the effort to have coffee there more often.  Andrew has said we should go there for lunch one day.  I hope it all works, there is always good turnout at the talks but the location is slightly off the well worn track.

Hope everyone is having a good Easter, there was a fascinating half hour controversial religious talk this morning.  Questioning the rise of immigrants and Sharia Law in this country.  There are some who blog who seem to extort hatred against the Asian (black people have been assimilated don't you know.  Well mostly) population, and all the rest.  Yes it is a troubled matter, why? because so many of these people are hardworking and take on the work us so called 'British people' are loath to do. Our post office is run by a lovely Asian family, and they receive some racist hatred talk in the public arena but they serve the community well.  Trouble is we like to have a go at something that is strange, we stamp on insects without thought and it is the same with our human compatriots.  But remember our valiant NHS would not be able to run were it not for people from other countries working in it.  

But what to do with the young unskilled contingency that are from other countries I do not know and yet I hope an answer can be found.  A thought came to mind whilst writing that.  All these charities that go abroad to sink wells for water, to teach people how to grow food in difficult climates, maybe some futures lie their.  And there is a hell of lot of rebuilding of houses and infrastructure across the world, think Gaza for instance. 

So as  another Easter passes in a muddle of religiosity and crap commercialism, not forgetting the folklore myths of old, I would say that we are living through terrible but interesting times.

World Heritage Day

18th April is World Heritage Day.  Something close to Paul's heart, as a conservationist, is the destruction of archaeological sites.  He was always angry about the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001 and wrote quite a lot about them on his blog.  They lay along the Silk Road and were blown up by the Islamic Taliban.  It would be impossible to put the pieces together again.  So on this day I mark out the futility of war and especially religious wars.

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For a favourite bird. A/F mentioned the curlew he had heard up on the moors yesterday, they are here, their bubbling joyous voices sounding over the grass land.  The video is four minutes long and there are plenty of videos of the curlew' songs that are much shorter, but the one below was recorded at Hadrian's Wall.

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And as its Easter, the little Scottish girl musing on eggs, rabbits and Jesus.

16th April 2025

Cuckoos by Andrew Young

When Coltsfoot withers and begins to wear

Long silver locks instead of golden hair,

And fat red catkins from black poplars fall

And on the ground like caterpillars crawl,

And bracken lifts up slender arms and wrists

And stretches them, unfolding sleepy fists,

The cuckoo in a few well-chosen words

Tell they give Easter eggs to the small bird

 I want to drop quiet happy photos onto the page but the news and a very noisy machine outside stops me,  We all know they are fighting back in America against the horror regime of three, well the latest is Harvard, it is on Bensozia's blog.  A strongly worded letter back against the interference  of government into the workings of the university.. you can find it here.

The other thing that came to my notice is the trio of Rory Stewart, Alistair Campbell  and Anthony Scaramucci discussing the excessive amount of trolling that takes place when they podcast.  There are factories of troll people out there, whether they are Chinese, Russian or even our Western lot.  Forget your own little puny nasties, when you have them by the thousand you become quite nonchalant about them and even don't read the nonsense.  "How we trolled the Trollers"

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But  I shall once more bring my cuckoo story to the fore as its nonsense always pleases me.  And as the cuckoo slowly disappears from our landscape, once more record its migration to these shores from Africa is it? to wickedly lay their egg in a poor small foster bird's nest.  Who raise these large changeling birds with strict duty as a mother.  An old blog here will tell you of the cuckoo, who had to make it the Celtic cross at Nevern Church on Easter day, but when he arrived tired, dropped dead.

The only other thing I have been listening to is Jon and Vangelis - I'll Find My Way Home.  I had it played at Paul's service and it will be played at my demise!

'Top of the Pops' on Thursday night when husband out lecturing, children danced to the music.

14th April2025 - Ancestors

 Do you remember the trio of Ronnie Corbet, Ronnie Barker and John Cleese in the brilliant 'class' sketch, you should find it here.  Well I have been finding things out about my background.  I am dismissed by my grand daughter as a person without family background because I am illegitimate and got adopted at birth. My childhood is of little importance here but I eventually was allowed information on my birth mother when I was very much older.

Her maiden name was Colclough, Oh I said that means I am related to the family that brought out Colclough china.  But in my usual skeptical mode, I feel that family trees just spread and spread.  So when I was made to have a DNA test it turned out that I was 77% English, the rest being European 11%,  9% Irish, Scottish and Welsh, and a bit of Baltic tossed into the mix.  The revelation came that the 77% came from the Midlands, and West Midlands -  Staffordshire where I was originally born. 

Now as words always intrigue me I wanted to know the breakdown of Colclough.  Clough is a deep ravine and Col apparently comes from coal, denoting a dark swarthy man.  Although Col could come to mean cold.  There is a mention of a Colclough/Cowclough, Whitworth up here in Lancaster and according to the Wiki this is where it originated.  Well blow me down Whitworth is just up the road, so have I returned to the place of my ancestors?  Alright I know I don't take things seriously.  But.................

On looking the surname up, I find that my very 'Englishness' is derived from Anglo/Saxon inheritance but that from 1690 there were a bagatelle of Colclough baronets, all who served as members of parliament.  And not only that  but six of them had the first name of 'Caesar'.  Now that is intriguing and worth some thought.  Are we seeing a lazy form of naming, or were all these sons expected to be men of statue in the eyes of the public.  Why Caesar? early conqueror of Britain, though he sailed away without his wishes fulfilled.

13th april 2025

 Let us start with yesterday morning. Email from Andrew 'Amazon parcel by dustbin'.  So I collect it and put it in his work room, then notice the cat has been sick in the room.  Clean up.  Breakfast and a return to computer, I happily go through my routine.  Then notice 9.12. on the clock.  I am supposed to have a Covid injection at 9.14  but it is just across the road so no worry.

Efficiency is the name of the game at our medical centre, I join a short queue and within a couple of minutes I am ushered into the room with a nurse.  Doctor comes in administers needle - all over.  I ask the nurse why is it happening so quickly and she says, it is because they have 14 rooms running at the same time.  At last the white elephant of a medical centre is learning to use all its facilities.  Not to forget of course that this is facilitated by the computer which holds all our records and is easily accessed for information.

The meeting in the afternoon was good.  He was a young lad but with the facts at his fingertips, the only problem I had was he spoke too quickly.  Holly, the person who organises the Folklore Centre, had arranged the restaurant bit of the room in chairs and settees round tables to make it more comfortable, a novel experience but the only problem there, with people getting up to get drinks there was hardly any passing space and it became like a maze to thread your way through.

The subject matter was about weaving, the stories and goddesses who whirled around this essential craft that has clothed all of us.  He followed the course of making one stitch after another from the early vertical looms of the Bronze Age with their holed weight stones still strung out on the ground in many an archaeological dig.  To the nalbinding technique that was used in Europe, a single knitting needle that made the fishing nets.

Knitting, this 'granny' occupation is making a comeback of course with the younger crowd as well.  In the eternal search for our own welfare and long lived lives, well knitting brings a calmness to the soul.  Maybe! but give me a difficult pattern and I get very frustrated.

11th April 2025 - I love sinking into obscurity

 Going Gently says he loves writing and it gives me the moment to say I love writing as well.  Though what to write is often a mystery.  But for instance I managed Wordle in three today, and yesterday in two.  I normally use one of two words sweat or swear.  They both have the common e and a, also s and r.  Of course when the Wordle represents another word with completely different letters. I may be stuck but somehow 6 tries is just enough to reveal a couple of letters.

Turning to the history of religion, Ironpolis has been visiting the 'Rood - Ruthwell Cross. An Anglo-Saxon cross from the 8th century it tells the story from the gallows side of the hanging of Christ.  But in 1640 there was a Scottish Reformation and all pagan symbolism was destroyed.  The Ruthwell Cross escaped and was buried by the priest at Ruthwell in the ground and then rescued in the 19th century.

There is an Anglo-Saxon poem called 'The Dream of the Rood' you can find it here.  A/S poetry is a favourite of mine, the richness of the language always stops me in my tracks....  Here a parable about the sparrow that flew through the hall....

It seems to me thus, dearest king, that this present life of men on earth, in comparison to the time that is unknown to us, [is] as if you were sitting at your dinner tables with your noblemen, warmed in the hall, and it rained and it snowed and it hailed and one sparrow came from outside and quickly flew through the hall and it came in through one door and went out through the other. Lo! During the time that he was inside, he was not touched by the storm of the winter. But that is the blink of an eye and the least amount of time, but he immediately comes from winter into winter again. So then this life of men appears for a short amount of time; what came before or what follows after, we do not know. Therefore, if this new lore brings anything more certain and more wise, it is worthy of that that we follow it.’

The South door of  Kilpeck Church. Taken from Wikipedia

The other thing that caught my eye was the above beautiful medieval doorway.  The church has many carvings. eighty-one gargoyles outside, dragons inside.  The carvings are put down to a school of craftsmen.  Never visited, and probably never will. Also of course a Sheela-na-Gig, which if you don't know is a rather nasty carving of a naked female exposing her private parts.  Sheela-na-gigs appear quite frequently on old churches, their symbolism has no explanation, except as a warning about wicked women, nuff said about the wicked men though! but..... there used to be a male figure, Anglo/Saxon stone.  It had been used in the church high up the back wall at Abson Church a couple of miles from Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire.  The land belonged to the abbots and there is a story about Pucklechurch to be found here .  

Our friends lived at Pucklechurch and I shall always remember the story of when they were invited to the manor house for an evening meal and smoked 'pot'.

On the home front, daughter and Andrew off to Italy for a couple of weeks, think they are ending up in Naples, we will see.  I shall be going to a meeting tomorrow about the stories of Weaving, spinsters, goddesses.  All a bit fey but whatever.

Also my Singapore readers have disappeared thank goodness.  I reckon they have learnt the words of 'Hands of Canada' and get totally bored by my other writing.  Which is perhaps where I started from at the beginning of this blog.

9th April 2025

 I started with Bowles wallflower, something I always believed was cultivated by the Reverend Bowles of Bremhill (near Calne) and then went through the rabbit hole as names from that part of my life trickled through.  It started with the plaque the Reverend had written (he was a poet, but mocked unkindly by the great names of the time, including Byron) his short verse on Maud Heath's Causeway outside Chippenham, a pathway constructed high above the muddy path as you made your way to Chippenham Market.

Then the mention of Langley Burrell a village further down the road. Here my then husband had excavated a medieval kiln, I remember I found a medieval jug, almost intact and having to extract it very carefully from the soil.  Around the kiln was a cobbled surface and I used to dream of the traffic of horses and people.  At this stage I wasn't married to Dr. R. Wilcox - yes that was the name that popped up as I went through the Google tunnel.  

He wasn't very good at writing reports so I cannot find one on that excavation but I note that another quickfire excavation we did was at The Golddiggers Club in Chippenham (it must have been in the carpark), though the land is now being built over for elderly homes.  Here we had uncovered large post holes.  Hopefully it was to be a Saxon Hall, where King Alfred The Great had fled from Chippenham down into the marshes of Somerset to burn the cakes.

"Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In January 878, the Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe".

Wessex illustration

I had excavated one of the holes on a hot Saturday afternoon and was disappointed only to find a piece of pottery at the bottom.  But of course large post holes could mean a Saxon Hall and I notice that another excavation has been undertaken to find further evidence, 30 large post holes must surely point to Saxon. And the story of Alfred the Great must be true because it can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle!

  After this at Easter, Alfred with a small band,

 raised a fortress at Athelney, and from it warred on the host,

with the men from that part of Somerset which was nearest to it.

Then in the seventh week after Easter,

He rode to Egbryht's stone on the east of Selwood

And there came to meet him all the men of Somerset

And the men of Wiltshire, and the men of that part of Hampshire

which was on this side of the sea; and they rejoiced on seeing him

And on the following day he went from that camp to Iley.

and one night after that to Ethandune

And there he fought against all the host and put it to flight,

and rode after it as far as the fortress [at Chippenham]

and laid siege to it for fourteeen nights

History does truly lie under our feet, it is layered like a cake, you scrape off horizontally and record vertically.  Most of our finds went to the Chippenham Museum and one of Ron's students Mike Stone became curator there, but moved eventually to a London museum to be head curator there.

We were a small group of friends with Ron as our mentor and most weekends we would take the old college bus and either do a small excavation or go on trips to Wales or 'Up North'. To visit castles or even one of my favourite places which is Llanthony Priory or Tretowers Court, all within a day's driving.  Sometimes I think because Britain is such a small country, the land absorbs the layers of history, it is like a book just turn the pages and something will always appear.

8th April 2025

I am slightly nervous about blogging, I have had thousands of visits to the last blog, okay it was topical but it was only recorded because it was such a historical eye-opener.  A terrible one I must admit, as if some Ghengis Khan had come charging from the middle of nowhere.  The world is still reverberating but of course it will eventually die down.  Trump could go, the billionaires put in their place and Vance given a minor government job.  And the mess they have created sorted out.

So some gentle photos.  This church, of which I have no name but is in Essex, we visited years ago on a very hot day.  I love the old wood in the porch, a tranquil reminder of times past.  Look at the church corner, the buttress and see the thin red tiles (were they Roman?) to sharpen the edge.  The dead straight path through the wheat field led to an old house and at the back there were chickens scratching around in the dirt.  Happy, contented little creatures.

 

A couple of the blocks I have been making, I love the colours how they contrast or compliment each other, the creativity of all these materials.  Painted out then copied to be printed, how far we have come in technical cleverness.

What else?  The book I am reading, though it expects full concentration.  John Meaden the author has studied Northern history with a fine toothcomb, yet this period the so called Dark Ages when Northumbria was two smaller tribal areas,  Bernicia and Deira.  From the Humber to maybe the Forth the warrior kings fought over territory.  It was written down by the monks, so as a truth there are many wrong copying of books.   Bede, Nennius, Gilda and Geoffrey of Monmouth through the ages wrote the history down.  And today's scholars like Peter Hunter Blair (though he probably isn't around anymore) and Marsden try to marry the facts together with the dates.  And of course the slightly mythical, magical thinking so sons came in 3s and 9s to give the kings credence.

"This is what democracy looks like"

 Well America has responded with a definite thumbs down to their new government yesterday.  Did you see New York?  In my heart such nonsense that came from the evil three would soon be shown for the empty  greediness of corruption.  I don't know where America goes from here but the battle is on and I think democracy will win. 

And a few photos of other parts of the country who are also protesting, taken from Rebecca Solnit site.

Millions protest Trump/Musk across the USA and worldwide. Hands Off! demonstrations in every city. - YouTube

4th April 2025

 

I have been listening Katty Kay and Scaramucci, you can find them here.  I find their partnership on their podcasts as an intelligent discussion on the woes of America.  It is like living in a parallel world, and it was summoned up by one comment in the podcast - I wouldn't be surprised at this point if Trump declares himself a god and marries a horse.  As of course the Irish high Kings in Dark Age Ireland were supposed to do at Tara I believe (and I think they mated!)

The ridiculous and surreal has pranced onto the world stage.  Has anyone read  H. G. Wells- War of the World.  There are two groups of people the Eloi and the Morlocks.  The Eloi are pretty small blonde haired people living on the surface of the Earth, the Morlocks on the other hand are dark creatures living in the dark subterranean caves below.  Sadly the Morlocks keep the Eloi for food, and they tend to their needs and the Eloi who are not very bright  live uncomplicated lives, not understanding what is happening..........

The other thing I caught last night was the Wandering Turnip in Hawarth of all places, marvelling about the small shops open up the hill to The Rectory, home of the three Bronte girls.  He also went up on the moors, to find the supposed farmhouse where Cathy lived in "Wuthering Heights".  Bit daft, and it was a rather ugly old ruined building but interesting all the same.  Sometimes I see England as a whole theme land of past history.

3rd April 2025

Heptonstall Weaver's cottage

I mentioned yesterday to A/F that they were doing another film up on the moors, this time 'Wuthering Heights', the lead is an Australian actress called Margot Robbie.  She seems less of a Cathy then say Kate Bush's wild Cathy but on the coming film photos her blonde hair has changed to brunette. 

But it brought back to mind the fact that the wild, bleak nature of these grey towns rounds here and the moors 'up top' are attracting a lot of filming.  'Happy Valley' was a popular television drama, now finished.

The grave of David and Grace Hartley (King) taken from Geograph - Nigel Lloyd

But the one that never quite got the fame it deserved was the drama called Gallows Pole about the clipping of coins in the 18th century.  And the famous 'King Hartley' who lived up on a farm on the moors.  There is a very good video from Caldervale Council, recounting the story of 'The Turvin Golden Daughters' I will put it below.  Which explains the history of this  dramatic time in English history.  It sends the mind whirling why on earth did all these people, chisel tiny pieces of gold off the coins that changed hands.

And a smiling face from Glampuss as I like to call her.  Just off to take her train back to London, moaning about gloves as usual.  Will I ever be forgiven for not knitting that devilishly hard black mohair?

 North Stoke: 22/02/2022 Palindrome Day

North Stoke: 30th January 2023

North Stoke: Clipped and counterfeited

1st April 2024

Yes, I know a big red and white hand has appeared in the right column.  It is not my battle you will say, neither is the Ukraine flag underneath.  But if you click (probably double click) you will get the songs that strike me as being part of the news to date.  I should also have a Gaza song, but like Ukraine that is too painful to contemplate.  So I will let them rest at the side for the time being.

  

I believe the visual imaging of how the world is working at the moment, spreads the word profitably.  Trump and his sidekicks have to go, we have to shout out - The king has no clothes on - "The Emperor's new clothes "if you are wondering, but they don't fit how the people of this world want to live!  And there I will finish and go on to the things that interest me. Two thing, both happening down in Cornwall,

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The first is  a modern day labyrinth created on Bodmin Moor near to Collisford Lake, and there is I believe somewhere else in Cornwall,  a similar carving of a labyrinth carved on a rock.  Not a maze, but did I not read somewhere that it is an old pagan prehistoric symbol of a woman's uterus - but I don't believe that.  Man made marks on the surface of The Earth, the photos of the Bodmin Moor labyrinth can be found down below in the link - a very messy adverts link though.

Rocky Valley carving, date of carving unknown

The world's 'biggest living labyrinth' that spans 183ft is near pretty UK lake

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King Arthur's Hall: 2024 news: Bodmin Moor King Arthur site five times older than thought - researchers - BBC News  2024 news

Archaeology News

I am so pleased that it has been identified as prehistoric an earlier visit in 2013 writes of us walking there.  More visits to this rather wonderful site.  The earlier version of this site that it was probably medieval and not prehistoric,  it was the 'squareness' that fooled the archaeologists into thinking it was a pound for animals.

The time of the flowers

This morning when I woke up I thought of the little wild white wind or wood anemone.  It is strange how the mind unconsciously remembers the time of the flowers. Well I know it will be flowering up at Langridge near Bath and also in Blake Wood near Chelmsford, so I wish them well in their sanctuaries.  I turned to Richard Jeffries writing.  He came from Swindon, not exactly the town you would expect to have such a fine 19th century writer but there you are.

The tiny windflower jostles amicably with the violet

One needs to get away from the constant throb of stupidity in the news. Perhaps even get on one's bandwagon and yell about the terrible encroachment by Man on the natural environment.  For instance in  Jeffries  writing on the countryside, you will see the great amount of insects that once 'plagued' the countryside but in truth fed the birds that we see disappearing from our view.

Did you know that the bright green of our fields so beloved by the farmer to feed his herds, relies on nitrogen and the nitrogen will slowly work outwards destroying the wild as it goes.  Our rivers are so polluted by farm waste and sewage that the abundant water life ceases to exist.  I don't really worry about people being able to swim in the rivers and lakes but I do worry about the fish that once lived in clean waters.  An earlier blog.........................

"This photo shows the delicate wood (or wind) anemone with its finely dissected leaves, it nestles amongst dog mercury, a woodland plant which is supposedly an indicator of old woods. But it is the white starry anemone that is the subject. Apparently, according to Marjorie Blamey (The Illustrated Flora) there is a yellow one as well. It belongs to the somewhat larger family of pasque flowers, monkshoods and that dainty elegant flower of the garden - larkspur.

Grigson has many local names for the anemone, bread and cheese and cider, candlemas cap, chimney smocks, drops of snow, Moll o' the woods, moon-flower and so it goes on..

Its actual name of anemone is borrowed from the Greek legend of Anemone Coronia, because the flowers nod and shake in the wind, and the Greeks called it Daughter of the Wind.

And to pasque flowers, they have become garden flowers because of their beauty, pasque of course since it blooms at Easter, William Turner gives an apt description...

The firste of these Passe flowers hath many small leaves finely cut or jagged, like those of carrots; among which rise up naked stalkes, rough and hairie; whereupon do grow beautiful flowers bell fashion, of a bright delaid purple; in the bottom whereof groweth a tuft of yellow thrums (stamens) and in the middle of the thrums thrusteth foorth a small purple pointell; when the whole flower is past there succeedeth an head or knoppe, compact of many graie hairie lockes, and in the solid parts of the knops lieth the seede flat and hoarie, every seede having his own small haire hanging from it'  .

A concise description of a flower that I have never been able to grow, though it has acquired the name of Dane's Blood or Dane's Flower, (unusual beauty deserves unusual origins says Grigson)
But it did grow on the Devil's Dyke and Fleam Dyke which were associated with the Danes."

It is quite an exciting time of the year, the small Pasque flower (for Easter) is making an appearance and also the Snakeshead Fritillaria flower, a rather exotic flower and though cultivated now, the one place you can see it in the wild is North Meadow near Cricklade in Gloucester.

Fritillary

Matilda recovers well, came down this morning to make coffee and found the two girls bickering in usual fashion.  Did the Lucozade Matilda demanded do the job? though apparently rather than making you feel better it is now an energy drink ;) well I suppose it is the same.  Who would have thought the Lucozade bottle which stood by my bedside as a child and probably every other sick child bedside would make it to this time in history.

29th March 2025 - humour

 Humour:  Like the thread of silver that used to run through our old pound notes, so has humour run through the blogs lately.  So I set a very forgetful mind to work out who made me laugh - it was a mixed bag!

Remember 'The tub of Lard' that was 1993, when Roy Hattersley the politician did not appear on 'Have I got news for you'.  They substituted a tub of lard for Hattersley, it was original and funny as they addressed the tube of lard quite seriously.  

Ian Hislop and Paul Merton always have on the tips of their tongues a funny remark, my two favourites by the way.  Ian Hislop latest was recently, when asked to talk about the latest crisis with America.  He said, and here I am paraphrasing,  it will be four years of glorious fun, there maybe a few nuclear bombs involved - but hey-ho.

Spike Milligan's rather droll outlook on life is captured brilliantly on his gravestone "I told you I was ill".

My one and only joke which is so pathetic.  

There were two dogs who lived in Rome, one was a Catholic dog the other a Protestant dog.  One Friday wandering together through the streets the Protestant dog cocked his leg against the Vatican.  The Catholic dog looked at him furiously, 'if it wasn't Friday I would bite your balls of for that'.

Now most people won't know why.  But of course you don't eat meat on Friday just fish by Catholic command, silly but it always made me laugh.

Home news: the Swiss trip is off, Matilda was sick all night, apparently Nora virus is doing the rounds through her friends so the trip is cancelled much to my daughter's relief.  Funnily enough she and Andrew went to listen to an older comedian at a club on Thursday night.  She didn't find him very funny, but if I remember will look his name up.  She was cross with him because he picked on them in the front row.  

Andrew's laugh is always enormous, he laughs at most things. But is funny how humour and laughter helps the human heart to relax.  One more, when the bet was on that Liz Truss leadership would not outlive the life of a lettuce.  Guess who won? the lettuce of course. It was an Iceberg lettuce, spiteful of course but humour can also be cutting.