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 Winter Solstice:  A rather ethereal walk in the fog to Standingstones Rigg, through an eerie fir forest.  The stone seems to be near  Fylingsdale moor, home to the 'listening ear' that dominates the landscape.

Winter Solstice – Standingstones Rigg – The Smell of Water

This is a favourite long  barrow Stoney Littleton.  The sun shines through the entrance to hit the back wall on Solstice.  The barrow is angled on an upward slope, so that the sun shines down into the barrow as it tips the hill.  It's greatest treasure though is the large ammonite stone at its entrance. I often came here to escape life and find peace.  My Solstice place by the way.

Stoney Littleton Chambered Cairn : The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map:

The family are here. Matilda complaining on that 'hell hole' of a train but we would be lost without the trains.  And as Australian Andrew, for which many thanks, gave me a link to our railway station in Todmorden, I delved deeper.  There is through part of the Caldervale four viaducts to take the railway over rivers and canals, the one just outside Todmorden is called Gauxholme Viaduct.  And we have a fairly rare bridge that dominates the town just by the market.

The Ammonite stone at Stoney Littleton

going nowhere

 I write in a somewhat pensive mood, I can hear the birds singing outside and the mind rushes to Thomas Hardy's poem.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

At breakfast I listened to carols sung in a sombre tone, 'Snow on Snow making me smile, because the weather forecast predicted snow for Christmas day.

We have a magnificent Xmas tree, bought from our friendly Asian store, Lidl had run out by the weekend.  Yesterday, which was Solstice day, the great turning of the year or at least the sun and I wondered if our prehistoric ancestors knew the exact date (if indeed there is one;).  These stone monuments, written like clocks upon the Earth.  Did the sun rise between the stones at the Stonehenge Sunrise before the thousands of people who had come to witness the event.

I turned to the Modern Antiquarian but there was no mention of Solstice, the young men, since grown into middle-age, who had hunted down the stones so ferociously were not giving in to the silly soft romance of the caboodle of Neodruidism.  Shame, an added spark to life never comes amiss.

There had been a role call of old members, and we had come forward somewhat reluctantly,  I am no longer a stone seeker, too old but still interested.  The Flintstones somewhat marred the seriousness of prehistoric people, and yet the development of the human race was the exploration of the world around them by these first homo sapiens and of course the Neanderthals'.  I am not saying there was direct lineage but some of us definitely have a smattering of Neanderthals in us.  Gosh I am pottering but it is cheering me up.

A Merry Christmas - Carl Larsson influenced

 

Wishing Everyone a Happy Christmas and a Good New Year

Love Thelma xxx

How music sounds in our house.  From the peaceful to the loud!

Tipping point

Sunlight

 Mystery and magic at The Manor, Hemingford Grey | Rosemary and Pork Belly

For those who love the 'Green Howe' books by Lucy Boston, the above links you to the house in which most of the storytelling happened.  Boston as a child was passing it on the River Ouse and noticed it.  When she became an adult she bought the house.  Dividing her time between winter and summer.  In summer she spent time in the garden and in winter she quilted and  wrote.

The temperature inches up in the household as Christmas approaches.  Yesterday the kitchen table was piled high with incoming parcels, because.... Matilda's and Bens' parcels are arriving as well.  Does no one go to the shops these days? I have notices pinned to front and back doors, on one 'knock loudly' and the other just put parcels through the door.  It works until a signature or a famous pose on the doorstep is required ;)

There is a certain frenetic air about the build-up towards Xmas, what films will the family be watching over the holiday? mine is 'Legally Blonde'.  There is no slot for the fortnightly food delivery from Morrisons which means of course that shopping will have to be carried home the next few days.

Tomorrow is roughly around Solstice day, when for a brief moment in time the sun seems to stop before it twirls away towards a future of warmth and light, remember to be happy for this. Below is a photo of Golden Plover flying off into the sky and my recollection of that time in my Solstice blog of last year.

So  look forward to the New Year with hope.  There are battles to fight as always but don't be dismayed and remember that all things are at the mercy of good and bad.  And do you know, often good normally triumphs in the end.  So let the force be with you!

A bit scary for Matilda

Picking up memories

 

A tidy room with the sun shining through.  Yes I miss it, especially when cards come through the post telling me of the happenings of the village.  There is a clash of curtains here, the large ugly curtains from the old house on the front window, and the ones overlooking the grave yard a softer green.  This one made beautifully by someone over the road in Normanby because Matilda was scared of being by all those dead people ;)

A green uncontrolled wild space in the Mendips.  Here I came across a wild bellflower, fittingly called campanula  within the rocky spaces of the narrow footpath through the gorge.

This church has two symbolic paths for me. Notice it has a round tower, one of a handful in Essex. The church door to the right leads to Christianity, there is a medieval wall painting inside of a dragon to scare the life out of you.  But the left handed path leads you to three of the largest Roman tumuli in Europe, Bartlow Barrows.  We visited several times marvelling at the height of the barrows, inner sanctums of Roman life.  As always, the untouched land of the barrows was covered in wild flowers.

Lucy.  Plump, knows her own mind, and what is good for her.  Which is of course sleep in the most comfortable places and no walks.  She loved her home too much. She has a bloody paw, not sure if she had to have an operation for something, I remember Moss tore his dew claw off.  An appendage that is useless.

Teasels.  When the seed is produced the teasel heads will be the food of gods for goldfinch.  But I came across an interesting fact today, written in 'The Country Diary' of the Guardian.  Apparently it was seen as a special healing kind of bird in the medieval period and can be found occasionally in paintings.  Why? because the little goldfinches' red face came about because it plucked the thorns out of Christ's thorn crown.

 

What other nonsense have I picked up today.  Well apparently Mark Carney, the current prime minister of Canada, is in a slight bother for using 's' instead of 'z' in writing his documents.  I know exactly how he feels.  I refuse to drop my 'u' in colour...

And the real reason for recording these memories is that it is Paul's birth date today, as also my daughter remembers.  And as he always said " I never know what you are thinking till have I read your blog";)

the Salt Path: 'confession letter' and thefts that broke a family

16th December 2025

 

North Stoke: Abbot Illtud

I picked up on this whilst swaning through my blogs.  I used to love the stories of the Celtic monks/saints as they performed magical acts.  They must have wandered the countryside preaching their version of Christianity.  Stopping at places and banging their 'bangu' a bell, to draw the natives in.  Sometimes they must have slept in the old cromlechs, a rock roof over their heads.

A solitary existence sometimes, taking to their boats and sailing round the coastline, so that we find evidence of them in Ireland, West Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.  They lived on the edge of society, joining the pagan world with the Catholic rule that came from Rome.

I have often wondered why so many men took to this way of life but I expect a surplus of males when not involved in territorial war had to find another way of life.  These young men took to the roads or the few monastic houses that were being set up, for a livelihood.

Now religion is once again crashing through our perception of the world.  The shooting of innocent lives at Bondi beach in Australia at the beginning of a Jewish religious festival and the consequent deaths hang heavily in the air.

Hatred rules this act, two Muslim terrorists, hate filled, took guns, and shot at will, until a brave Muslim man intervened and took down one of the terrorists.  I brood on the act whilst listening to the birds outside at 7.30 in the morning.  It is still dark but the blackbird and little blue tits? sing away as if Spring was on the way.  Joyous in their song but sadly wrong time for spring.

Trump is going on a colonists march, he has South America in his sight. FFS if there is a god please let him bring the Monty Python foot down on all these stupid machinations that are coming out of America. 

I think I shall return to reading gardening books, Christopher Lloyd or maybe Gertrude Jekyll, they lived in their serene world uninterrupted by world affairs.

Jam and Jerusalem rose

12th December 2025

New Book: Life in an English Village – Inexpensive Progress

I once lived in Essex very near to Great Bardfield.  You would think that Essex is the home of showy youngsters according to what you see on television but in actual it fact has many beautiful villages.

So this book interests me it is the time of many painters in the war years.  Some would say an idyllic period of the quiet simple agricultural landscape before the first World War, and then also the hiatus between the wars.  As a paperback it is expensive and I notice it has been out for two years, the nudge comes from 'Inexpensive Progress' which I subscribe to.

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Yesterday I had a panic attack, they do not happen often but suddenly they arrive.  It had been simple enough I had sent an Amazon digital sum of money to my son for Xmas.  He is in his forties but unfortunately has type 1 diabetes which I worry about.  So yesterday I sent an email to him to see that it had arrived, no reply.  Fair enough he is working on his computer said I.  but when late afternoon no reply, I started phoning, again no reply.  Then I began to imagine him unconscious on the floor.  Well the story goes on from there and then yes, the phone rang, 'what's the matter mum?'  The phone is upstairs and I am making lasagne downstairs.  All explained and me feeling foolish - they are still children in our minds for goodness sake and the watch on his wrist keeps him informed of his levels.

The Xmas tree is up, my daughter and Andrew have done their work parties, off for the weekend down to Chiddingfold* and Lillie back for the holiday.  The next door neighbour came in the other night and was told of the upcoming renovations.  The geese have just flown over, it almost feels springlike.

Jack's Jungle Garden in Chiddingfold

Christmas will soon be here.

 I just love this carol but only listen to it at Xmas.  This version, and yes I do know the Steely Eyespan version.  When I see that stupid person and his followers in America, it reminds me that he will never, ever achieve the pomp and ceremony of the  English themselves as seen in the above video.  True it is pompous - speak only in Latin because we are the intelligentsia.  But the carol has such grace and the poor boar's head reminds us of wild boar in the woods hunted by medieval royalty and the peasants slain should they venture into those self-same woods.  

We still have the woods and some boar in the Forest of Dean and yesterday a lone wild Beaver was found  in Norfolk.  Hurrah the beavers are escaping from different parts of England.  So does that really make him a 'wild' beaver, considering he may have escaped from a reserve?

And now for something  very different - Fascinating Ida

Thanks to Jablog for reminding me of  my favourite carol.

  

9th December 2025

 Yesterday I listened to a zoom meeting of the Woman' Green Party.  Not quite sure why they send me emails, because I haven't paid a subscription to the GP recently.  Strangely enough it was about voting for word change in a series of documents.  For instance......

"If the latter does not identify as a woman or as gender variant is not a woman, a member of the Equality & Diversity Committee who does identify as is a woman or as gender variant can participate in Committee work as a representative. "

Or as Grandpa Opper would say SID, SID, which stands for "sometimes I despair" when the family got too aerated at the dining table.  This was after he had thrown a napkin over his head.  Surprisingly everyone quietened down.

Well that is the GP for you, every comma and word outlined and brooded over but.... by jove they have got on to the main thoroughfare of British politics so they will have to move forward at a much quicker pace.  But then aren't the British public voting for personalities and quick time promises? I think the media put politician heads under good and bad, Farage and Starmer bad, Polanski good.  He definitely deserves star rating, but then aren't some of Starmer's good policies coming through as well?  I shall subscribe to the GP, our Andrew has, even watched an induction course as he has offered to help them with their campaign.

7th December 2025 - Intangible Cultural Heritage

"Titled Creativity in Conflict and Confinement, it launches this week at the Imperial War Museum London, and explores the role of craft during war, conflict and incarceration through a series of designs created by Liberty’s in-house studio, each developed with Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who serves as the project’s ambassador."

Taken from a Guardian article

Do you remember the imprisonment of Nazain Zagharu-Ratcliffe in an Iranian prison for trumped up charges but in fact as a hostage for  our government refusal to pay a debt.  2016, is the time when she was detained in Tehran  and taken to prison, it caused a lot of controversy. Her husband Richard campaigned endlessly for her and probably his constant attention to the plight of his wife in jail brought about her release six years later.  Apparently it has been turned into a television drama. 

But Nazain has also collaborated with the Imperial War Museum through Liberty's.  It is about craft in war, men and women confined to prison, whether prisoner camps or prisons.  Liberty prints are pretty and are used in patchwork quilts, though the materials are quite expensive.

Nazain made her young daughter clothes whilst she was in an Iranian prison and the three materials she designed are on show.  It struck me as a rather touching way of alleviating her grim experience.

I would like to introduce you a concept which has always struck me as a  sensible way of keeping traditions going on.... Intangible Cultural Heritage, I think it came into being in 2003 by way of Unesco, though the idea of that had been round a long time.  I remember Paul sending me photos of traditional crafts still being worked by artisans in Japan and presumably paid for by the state.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH), made up of all immaterial manifestations of culture, represents the variety of living heritage of humanity as well as the most important vehicle of cultural diversity. The main ‘constitutive factors’ of ICH are represented by the ‘self-identification’ of this heritage as an essential element of the cultural identity of its creators and bearers; by its constant recreation in response to the historical and social evolution of the communities and groups concerned; by its connection with the cultural identity of these communities and groups; by its authenticity; and by its indissoluble relationship with human rights. The international community has recently become conscious that ICH needs and deserves international safeguarding, triggering a legal process which culminated with the adoption in 2003 of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. "

North Stoke: Bietigheim

6th December 2025

I am not keeping up with writing my blog.  Expect it is because of winter.  We had a visitor this week, well two actually but the little one won't make it to our world till March next year.  Anyway Mary, who is Andrew's child went down with a bug a couple of days ago and we all worried a bit about the babe but Mary went off yesterday  safely.  Today Lillie is coming down from London, basically to bring some of her stuff back for Xmas and also a sleepover tonight.

Matilda is off to Paris with Lucien this weekend for her birthday.  She had just won a voucher for Air B&B but too late to cover accommodation this time round. 

And my phone has just pinged with a message from my daughter.  She wants a link to my Xmas present, I have decided on a yarn Swift, it is a bit like the inside of an umbrella.  The art of knitting is very fashionable at the moment and there is a lor of wool out there being sold as hanks.  A swift helps you unwind the hanks.  Easier than winding from your feet;)

A knitting book for babies should be coming soon!  Also thought I would try out some Japanese cooking.  I have Miso soup quite a lot, chopping the vegetables is soothing and the cooking only takes five minutes and no fat used.  I eat noodles and the various sauces have to be learnt as well.  I do not like Japanese dumplings or their jellified sweets but love bamboo shoots and I am now growing beansprouts all the time.  I use mung beans for sprouting. Very easy to grow in winter.

Actually it is quite hard to get into Japanese cuisine when we eat so much in the way of dairy food.  The cheese that is eaten in this household is far too much.  Also I noticed on a vlog someone making butter out of cream - because it was cheaper.

Politically keeping an eye on Zack Polanski.  He got a real drumming from Rory Stewart on economics and I have definitely gone off Rory, middle-aged twat.  Trouble is I worry about how the Green Party are going to figure in the bright light of publicity.  For instance is there only one speaker for the party, where are the 'promises' written down?  As always like sheep we follow the man with the best promises such as Farage, which we know of course will never be kept and he is in it for the money, following his hero across the water.  Not sure if the latest truth about his racialism at school will knock him off the voting ballot, we will see.

 National Trust launches fundraiser to help buy land around Cerne Giant | Dorset | The Guardian

2nd December 2025

 

The Village how I miss it.  I see last year I gathered together my memories so I shall do it again this year.  Yesterday the first Xmas email from a friend telling me the happenings of the year.  Who had died, dear C had gone, she had a permanent illness that eventually took her this year.  I remember taking her to hospital appointments in Scarborough and trying to find a dog for her.  We never did, luckily her daughter came down to look after her.

Someone else has died but I cannot remember his face.  J and D are still going strong, their rescue dog has since died but now they have another rescue dog and the cats are still with them, probably in the barn for D would not have them in the house.

Living next door to the church we saw the burials and the occasional wedding.  I always remember the boy who committed suicide on the other side of our house, which was The Sun pub.   The lad was buried near the wall that separated us from  the graveyard and the grave was tended with such tender love by the family.  You would have cried to see his brother, cross legged on the ground talking to him many an evening.

Though many people were incomers it was a tight knit community, meeting together several times a year, either for quizzes, barbeques and Xmas event.  It was also a community losing its church because hardly anyone went to the services and our vicar had three churches to attend.

18th December 2024

Daily happenings:  I had lunch with Jon Stewart today, true he was a few thousand miles away but he always makes me laugh.

Rebecca Solnit  Solidarity Stitches Us Together.

December 1st 2025

I have to record this.  Batman came to visit today.  Well not the real one but the man from the council with his drone to discover if we had bats in the attic.  Of course it had been pointed out to the council that there were two bedrooms in the roof space, so no one was sleeping with bats floating mysteriously about.  

The funny bit was how Andrew came and said Bat man is around, he has a drone to go round outside. The visions in my head went overtime.  When I went to the shops ten minutes later the poor bat man was standing outside the gate with a fallen drone.  Failed miserably that drone had and sulked on the tarmac.  The drone had failed to go above 10 feet, could be because we had a security ceiling? but from who? the Council, the government.  All intriguing but we definitely have no bats ;)