24th February 2026

 As today is a migraine day, I shall have my own photography day.

This is Lillie's birthday cake, constructed with lots of chocolate and Maltesers.  She is a better cook now!

This is Byland Abbey of the Cistercian order.  Hidden in the country and difficult to find.  We asked a village postman and he gave directions and then raced off after us in the post van because he thought we might go to the old Byland Abbey - sweet. Chosen because of the blue sky, it was incredibly hot and the Rose window.

Probably a favourite flower the foxglove.  I always wanted a pale yellow one, but I think this is a verdant plant ready to turn pink.

 
The beck at Murk Mire a favourite walk

A rabbit hole impossible to go down when you are  a rather plump spaniel.  But the badger and fox hole had possibilities and several times I have sat on the ground hauling Lucy's plump behind out.

An abundant crab apple tree and below, the bank where the rabbits lived.  The badger lived at the beginning of the bank, (badgers eat rabbit) and the fox hole was over by the river.  Predators had the perfect pantry!

Swallets or meres?

 Monday Morning:  Andrew (at 7.0 clock) has gone swimming.  The new rage in the household, not me of course but it is the new exercise.  Andrew is a great walker as well, and my daughter is getting there ;)

Well I found this video online (Map Reading Company) about how to walk up hill and down by this guide.  In actual fact I had come across another video of his about a Yorkshire field and he had given a talk about the history of the field and how it had accumulated its bumps and hillocks.  And to be honest after reading about Shake holes, potholes and coal mining holes I am not sure I want to put a foot on much of the Yorkshire landscape.  And the wisest words - do not go on the uplands of Yorkshire in the dark, or you may fall down a hole.

Well I have decided I am too old to do much walking so I will just write about it.  The first thing I noticed in this second video was different words to describe the naming of place.  How a word would take on an Anglo-Saxon meaning, then later a Viking sub word would be added and then the word would meld into what we call medieval.  Though I still do not understand how the word 'goblin' formed itself from Robin.

But I squeaked slightly when he described a clay dewpond as a 'mere'.  These ponds along the trackway he was walking were made for the cattle driven down from Scotland to the markets in Yorkshire and further South.

Interesting fact;  The dogs who would drive these animals, when their job was finished would be sent back home by themselves to Scotland and the inns and drinking houses would feed them as they passed through.

Local names are fascinating and in my part of the country which was Wiltshire/Somerset, the sink holes or shafts you found were called 'swallets' and were seen by the people of the Iron Age as portals into the underworld. (I wrote so much about this in 2008 that I will give just one link.  And finish with one of my bad videos....

20th February 2026 - Pandora's Box

 

1901 - Art Nouveau classic, Todmorden

It has a pretty facade this cafe, we went to lunch there yesterday.  It sells an all day breakfast menu, in vegan, vegetarian and meat style.  It is called 'The Kindness Cafe' and was pretty full when we were there.  I had a half of an avocado in my vegan mix, which I felt rather strange about, especially as I like a french dressing on my avocado. But vegetarian sausages, tofu scrambled eggs (not bad), hash browns, tomatoes and mushrooms were on my plate.  It seemed a meeting place for people who were working on their laptops.

I have written about the Co-op role in Britain before here. but there is a good, but far too expensive book, on the architectural history of the Co-op written by Lynn Pearson.  One of the things you notice "Up North" are very large buildings from the nineteenth century in the cities and towns.  All built by people who believed in sharing - gives you grounds for thought!

What Else? I watched the last episodes of Mackenzie Crook's 'False Prophets'.

Full of pathos and gentle funny comedy of the characters and those 'prophets' grotesque, but lots of lovely twists and turns and the 'hero' Pearce Quigley brilliant.  What is a homunculus? I don't know but they are scary.  See Guardian revue here.

And so to the latest news, well radio RU3, quiet music to accompany your day will be my choice.  We settled kingship when Charles 1st was executed and royalty became part of the state's function, alongside the Protestant church and Parliament.  This whole business of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being arrested will dominate the news for years to come.  Lets hope that American law will also consider making some arrests of those named in the Epstein files.  It is a bit like that mysterious black box that appeared in the film 2001 - Space Odyssey.  The secrets are flying out.

Just look at his face. Is he looking into the future I wonder?

Britain's 10 best Co-op buildings - Lynn Pearson

A video on colour

How many colours?  Enjoy the video

If you spin wool than probably you have also tried dyeing the wool with plant materials.  I spent several years doing it.   You need to work outside because it is messy.  You learn along the way, how plants behave.  The above video introduces you to the Japanese way of thinking about colour and it is very restful.

There is a thrill when you dye with indigo, it changes colour from a greenish hue to a beautiful blue as the air oxygenates the wool.  A brief moment of magic..

Mostly you will get soft greens, yellows.

Paul, being a collector of all things Japanese, had  glass topped cases of natural dyes both plant and mineral, you can see them here.

  My mother-in-law years ago gave me a Chinese silk piano cloth, beautifully embroidered with a great dragon and flowers, but it had lost all its colour.  Is now a cream background in which the embroidery shows up as a soft dove grey.  The colour bleached out by time.

18th February 2026

 

Theodore Rousseau 1812-1867.  Romantic Landscapes

Someone I stumbled on today.  Theodore Rousseau somewhat reminded me of another English artist,  Heywood Sumner who painted the New Forest in the colours, not just of the vegetation but the geological colouring that is part of the whole. Capturing an essence is I suppose how you would call it. I love paintings of trees, here we have lichen, moss and rock as well, a French landscape presumably. I often find that in landscape paintings figures  are of  a poor quality but it doesn't really worry me trees speak their own magic.

What else?  I have been exploring the young political writers of today, and how well they speak.  Though Ash Sarker left me giggling.  When asked about Tony Blair and the Peace Plan, she said, "Well I suppose Satan was unavailable at the time" tis the wicked tongue that wins the day for me.  Owen Jones, Guardian journalist, in his slightly excitable way also is very quick with his words and his damnation of whatever is happening in the news.

I have been worrying over the fact that the BBC in its news hardly covers what I read of the world happenings on YouTube.  At first you jump to the conclusion that things are being kept from you.  But Andrew said, probably not, it is not a downward spiral from the top BBC  echelon but upwards from the journalists who are scared of the consequence of being scrutinised and sued.  @47 was already to take the BBC on.

16th February 2025

I have not put anything on my blog today.  So a song from Florence and the Machine, with Bill Nighy jogging along as her 'anxiety'.  A song which I rather like.

Lillie has just gone back to London, and Tanaker, Andrew's son also went back.  He had come to see a gig in Manchester and was going back to London to serve at a bar in an event where Florence was singing.  He has two jobs in London, and Lillie also works as a barista over the weekend.  The young have to work very hard just to keep going and the bills paid.

Apart from that it has been quiet 😎

 

Edit: And then it changed about midnight when Andrew knocked at my door, my daughter had collapsed and the paramedics were taking her to hospital.

  

Today the 16th.  She has just come home, travelled back on the train in her pyjamas.  Because? the one and only road in the valley is again shut because of a hole in the road.  So travelling over the 'tops' or moors takes much longer.  She is fine, it was probably due to stress and maybe a very severe migraine and not a stroke.  So Bill Nighy you can come and represent my anxiety as well......

 Precognition: The world is a weird old place, full of inconsistencies.  I thought about Paul's son, Aethan the other night.  We don't keep in touch but suddenly his name popped into my head in the night and then when I put out my last blog yesterday his name was there as well.  So the final straw came as I went to Instagram and found he had made a mark on the one and only photo I had managed to upload.  Coincidence or what?

Paul had two sons from his Japanese ex-wife, Michiko, both children born in Kyoto, Japan.  Ken and Aethan, they both live in London now, Ken works for a newspaper and Aethan teaches I believe, and  works in galleries and obviously paints as well.  His work can be found here. And it is quite impressive, it is abstract but the colours are beautiful.

Paul so loved his little grandson Leo that it is sad he will not see him grow up. And Leo may even be a third generation artist in the family, and follow in his uncle Aethan's and grandfather's  footsteps.

The last time i heard from Aethan was when I asked him what had happened to Paul's beloved old car, Jev  a Honda kept immaculately clean (except when the mice happened to build a nest in the engine) and well serviced.  Apparently Aethan now has it for running around in London and will keep it.

Short sharp little memories ;)

How do you want your painting hung?

This link has more paintings?

Post Christmas 2013 rejigs

This is a 2012 blog, picked out because of a somewhat more busy life at that time than I lead today.  The links have gone sadly, but even today I remember the 'wow' moment of watching Herzog's film about the Chauvet Caves and you can see another blog here on the British Museum Exhibition in 2013 March blog.

Note: many of the links below will not work.

Well a rather smudgy photo of the fire, first of the year as the weather has been so warm, but I found something on the dial of my camera that takes the 'real' warm glow.   Lovely quiet christmas, we had visitors yesterday and will today, my partner's sons and the oldest, Athen showed us all his artwork in his studio and some that has appeared at galleries - proud dad ;) - on the computer. Friends in America are debating whether to come over for the Ice Age Exhibition at the BM in March, they will probably stay with us for some of the time so Sea-Henge, Sutton Hoo and hopefully Bartlow Roman Mounds will be on the menu.

A visit to Germany early January is also to be looked forward to, to take back some scrolls, old and new boxes to a museum there.  These scrolls have been round for 10 years waiting to go back, but apparently it is some sort of anniversary of the person who gave them to the museum and LS is to lecture on them.

So a happy but busy start to the New Year, and I still haven't got my old photos out to get nostalgic about. 

Forgot to get cat food, but luckily 'Skinny' was not around yesterday, though her friend, much plumper and sleeker was, this cat I call 'Buttermilk', a yellow tabby, who is well fed though greedy and I have to stand guard between the two of them.

Edit;  A parcel came this morning from Japan but was not opened till coffee time, inside were two gifts. LS's head of the Japanese conservation studio, Usami Shokakudo  had died in October, he was in his 80s and LS had sent flowers.  These giftsbelow were in reply to the flowers, the card accompanying very beautiful.  To understand the formality and ritual of Japan, all of this can be found in the wrapping and giving.  All shop assistants are taught to wrap properly, only three small pieces of cellotape are used, elegant points and paper that tells you the nature of the gift.  As you will see the pattern of yellow and white on the paper reflects death, in earlier days the tie would have been straw. A wrapping cloth was one gift and green tea sweets the other, accompanied by the letter from the son telling us  that eight generations of the family had worked in the studio, LS was deeply touched, he misses this old life.....

As an addenda:  Paul kept in the studio a photograph of the place in which he worked.  It was the day  when the Emperor and Empress of Japan came to visit.  I have just been reading about how our monarchy may be failing because of the Epstein business.  Of course the whole business of Andrew has been manipulated, discretely? by the palace advisors.  They held back on Andrew for so long, probably in the beginning because of the Queen's protection of him, that it became to late to throw him out and strip him of his titles and now mud clings to the royal family.

Links

I quite like the links Bensozia (r/h bar) puts on his blog once a week, so is here is some of my reading this week.  

Firstly, Rebecca Solnit in 'Meditations in an Emergency', she records the good, the optimistic and sadly the bad happenings which gathers in the news on what is happening in the USA.  There are many, many good people fighting the terrible government regime in the country, this caught my eye....Vance will go down in history as the only person ever told to f*ck off by two popes in one season. Me, always childish, but there is a strong movement in America to defeat ICE and get the Constitution recognised again for what it is. Here is her very long essay.

I have got this next link under Super Bowl and Bad Bunny, which obviously I did not watch, but Cody Dahler, who is a comedian and script writer makes very funny small videos of political happenings. So as this is the latest video here it is.

This is Richard Murphy, a real political guru, he is videoing most days keeping up to date as to what is happening in our government.  Here he argues that Keir Starmer is a hollow person and presumably has no deep convictions.  Believe that or not but Starmer seems to still be holding on to his job as our prime minister for the time being anyway. The YouTube video

And lastly for the moment at least, is the news that the Green Party is making their headquarters in Denton and Gorton in Greater Manchester, the constituency in which a by-election is taking place.  And which, of course, the Greens hope to win over the Reform Party.  She is definitely a spunky lady that Hannah Spencer and I am going to disagree with the scornful people - I think she, a plumber, has a chance of winning!  The Video

Many years ago, Arundhati Roy said, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

I was going to write about daffodils and maybe Cornwall but on looking at the Cornwall photo folders, the weather seemed all grey and miserable. Perhaps another day.

10th February 2025

Mollie

 A sad note:  Mollie my little cat has just departed this world.  She was about 22 years old and became ill about two days ago.  Obviously she went down rapidly.  Last night she managed to walk and get under the bed, a sure sign that the end was nigh.  So this morning as we debated what was best, for instance, taking her to the vet to be put down, or letting her die in the quiet of her home.

We decided on getting a box to put her in and take her to the vet.  But as my daughter moved the bed aside and picked her up, there was hardly any movement from Mollie.  Karen, my daughter took her on her lap and stroked her for a time and then Mollie seemed to slip away and was gone.

She is now in the basement, and the plan is to take to the vets tomorrow for cremation.  Thank goodness for a marvellous daughter because I was very upset at this stage.

I have had a relationship with this little skinny cat for about 2/3 years, the RSPCA called her a 'golden oldie' and her independent but demanding nature has coloured our existence together, mostly because she slept all day and was awake at night demanding food.  So I have never had a good night's sleep for a long time but I adjusted and flicked through my tablet till sleep claimed me and I am sure my dreams were corrupted by what my unconscious mind heard from the radio.

So little one I will miss you terribly and life will be a lot quieter without you.  And no, I shall never own another animal.

7th February 2026

 

The Callanish Stones found on The Isle of Lewis in Scotland

The Spherical Temple: A place I have never been to and which I probably never will visit but which is so much more grander than old Stonehenge, down South.  This is a pattern of stones which we will probably never understand.  They stand grouped like tall sentinels having a discussion.  You could almost give them human form.  The grey-blue sky shoots away from them, there is a visionary face marked out in the sky.  Late Neolithic you can find their history in this Wiki.  A circle with four stone avenues leading to it but with many more circles in the area.

I missed the Iguana news about culling them in Florida but this morning listened to the farming news about electronically collaring cows in the open so that they could be kept in a specified area.  A mild shock said those who wanted it for their animals.  As a walker and with dogs at one time I feel for those poor animals who have no knowledge of what the small electric shock you get from electric fencing is.

My two dogs Sukie and Moss were so horrified by accidentally touching them that I remember old Sukie just taking off and running for about half a mile, terrified by the experience.  Her reaction to the hot air balloons we would meet while up on the Bath downs was also very similar.

Moss on the other hand when he once touched an electrified fence refused to go anywhere near them and would give them at least a quarter of a mile space.  We would join up at a later stage of the walk,  Having once witnessed an angry cow chasing a man and his dog from her calf I can well see the point of electric fencing but to saddle an animal with an electronic collar is cruel.

Champagne Socialist or Dark Prince

 What did you wake up to on the radio this morning?  Well the Conservative party are using an old fashioned term to question as to why Mandelson, I think we would all agree he has been stripped of his knighthood, managed to get the top position of ambassador to the US.  The question the Conservatives are asking is a 'humble address'.  We always love our medieval past don't you know.  So I may use the term popinjay  to describe our flash dude Mandelson.  The only thing I can remember him for is the expensive wallpaper scandal ;), what a small mind I have. Which happened by the way in 1998 - Undisclosed Home Loan.  Just to balance the books,  the Johnson's arriving at number 10 also put some dreadful wall paper on the walls as well,  Court room gossip and all that,  I think the interior designer they employed went a little over the top.

There will be such a rollicking in Parliament today as Mandelson bad deeds are revealed.  But wait that other figure that has figured in the news lately.  Andrew, he has also lost his title, was last seen riding a horse round Windsor castle before he scooted off in a range rover (or maybe it was a humble Kia) this week.  His wife, Sarah Ferguson is squeaking poverty, though she has a property in London worth a couple of million.

Apologies for bringing the above newspaper onto my blog but it made me realise how every drop of supposed scandal is extracted every day.  Also, someone said yesterday, we  should really be concentrating on the women Epstein humiliated in such a gross way.  And perhaps take a deeper look at how our 'betters' are conducting their lives.

A humble address is a formal communication from the British Parliament to the monarch, typically used to request the production of documents or information from government departments. It is a rarely used parliamentary procedure that allows members of the House of Commons or House of Lords to petition the monarch for information, which is understood to be binding on the House. This procedure is often invoked during significant events, such as the King's Speech, where the House debates the contents of the speech and requests the monarch to direct the government to produce relevant documents.

I forgot:  What makes me a good critic?  I bought my daughter a book, which arrived yesterday but I haven't seen yet on 'English Interiors - slightly eccentric of course.....  But it reminded me of coffee book tables and Laura Ashley.

Anne Pettifor on Substack