St. Anne - 1st century saint - July 26th

Saints are those strange creatures that belong in the rote of church festival days, they seem at first glance rather boring, but it is a good idea to look at their background, and see where they actually come from.
St. Anne is a first century saint, she belongs fully in the Celtic tradition, of transferred pagan goddess to christian cult saint. The early 'desert' monks will have taken the stories of the old pagan gods and moulded christian figureheads on them.
St. Anne is also remembered on Tan Hill, in the Pewsey Vale, Tan being corrupted into Anne, and it is here on this hill that up to the 19th century livestock fair was held on her date.
it challenges the assumption that Lugh was always bound up in the Lughnasa festival of August 1st, here we have St.Anne fair being held on a date very near to the harvest festival...
St.Ann may possibly derive from the Celtic goddess Anu, described in Cormac's Glossary as the Mother of the Irish Gods, and Anu's identification as an 'earth mother' is brought out more explicitly in the name of a Kerry mountain 'The Paps of Anu'(Da Chich Anann). There is of course another goddess that vies for attention here, this is Aine, seen also as a fertility goddess, though with a more varied background, and of course the two could be one goddess., with there stories interchangeable in Irish mythology.

Her christian counterpart is seen as the apocryphal mother of the virgin mary. There is an ancient carving at St.Anne's Well at Llanfihangel, the well here used to feature water spouting from her breasts, but her breasts were later smashed off.
There is a St.Anne's Well at Malvern Wells (formerly Welsh territory), and another famous votive well dedicated to her at Trellech in Monmouthshire. Trellech of course has three great megaliths - Harolds Stones, nine wells, and a tumulus, but her most famous shrine is in Buxton, Derbyshire, and many dedications can be found in Brittany.
ref; Book of Welsh Saints - T.D.Breverton.

There is another Anna - 5th to 6th, mother of the great saints Samson, Tydecho and Tathan, and her saints day also falls on the 26th July.

This link.... http://www.wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/tanhill.html talks of a small circle below Tan Hill, and also a White Horse, that no longer exists. When the circle was made is difficult to say, but there is the same pagan theme that seems to exist around the hills and valley of Pewsey, and of course why was a nearby hill called Milk Hill, a winding thread that leads back to the Goddess Aine patron of cattle......

Gold discs

Gold Disc found on Lansdown

Representation of Lansdown disc

Jugs grave gold disc


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Photo of Bathampton Downs as seen from Solsbury Hill, Iron age lynchetts and 'celtic fields' can just about be seen

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/1913/bathampton_down.html

Notes

Letter from Gregory taken to England by Mellitus;
When almighty god has brought you to our most reverend brother Bishop Augustine, tell him what I have decided after long deliberation about the English people, namely that the idol temples (fana idolurum) of that race should by no means be destroyed, but the idols in them. Take holy water and sprinkle it in these shrines, build altars and place relics in the. For if the shrines are well built, it is essential that they should be changed from the worship of devils (cultu daemonum) to the service of the true god. When these people see that their shrines are not destroyed they will be able to banish error from their hearts and be more ready to come to the places thaey are familar with, but now recognizing and worshipping the true god.

Gregory's answer to a letter from Augustine which must have been outlining the English religious customs;

Because they (the English) are in the habit of slaughteringmuch cattle as sacrifices to devils, some solemnity ought to be given in exchange for this. So on the day of the dedication or the festivals of the holy martyrs, whose relics are deposited there, let them make themselves huts from the branches of trees around the churches which have been converted out of shrines, and let them celebrate the solemnity with religious feast.
Do not let them sacrifice animals to the devil, but let them slaughter animals for their own food to the praise of god, and let them give thanks to the giver of things for his bountiful provision.

Martin Biddle Widening Horizons - relationships between Celtic overlap into Roman period and also pagan Anglo-Saxon...

http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/cbaresrep/pdf/013/01305001.pdf

Roman evidence in christian churches have been found in a considerable numer eg....
St.Martin's church Ancaster 1831 record;

Sculpture of Romano -celtic Mother-goddesses in triple form
Was still standing upright, facing south and had been placed on top of a rough stone block at one end of a massive 6 x 4 foot stone slab. At the southern end of the slab was a small, elaborately carved stone altar....
"Reason for singling out a stone would be because it had be venerated in the past, This raises the question of whether churches were ever deliberately positioned in close topographical relation to megalithic monuments, or built from the debris of such structure"
quote from Churches in the landscape; Richard Morris

Evidence, mostly Brittany, some Cornish; Church of St.Michael Awliscombe (pagan stone at the threshold of the west door.

St.Tysilio at Llandysiliogogo ;
In 189o renovators of the church of uncovered a huge stone buried in the nave, they were unable to remove it.

Similar incident in Guernsey, 12 years later when a stone of unusual size was discovered beneath the chancel floor at Catel...

On Bernera in the Hebrides there is a pillar in the church which is said to be part of a stone circle. This is an Ogham stone
The scanty ruins of Kilchattan Church, behind the hotel, date from medieval times. In the kirkyard are some old grave slabs showing knights in armour. One is possibly of Malcolm MacNeill, Laird of Gigha, who died in 1493.
And behind the church, atop the Cnoc A’Charraidh (Hill of the Pillar) is the Ogham Stone dating from the time the island formed part of the kingdom of Dalriada. It carries a carving that reads Fiacal son of Coemgen, and probably marks a burial.

At Midmer Kirk Abd there is a stone circle in the churchyard (Burl 1976)

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=38618


Two large stones which lie in the churchyard at Bolsterstone may be the vestiges of a megalithic structure...
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/8621/dragons_well_bolsterstone.html


Ysbity Cynfyn (C.s.Briggs 1979)

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/119/ysbyty_cynfyn.html


Alton Barnes church: WANHM 68, 71-8;
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getconcise.php?id=5


This Nicker pool belongs to an earlier blog under Mildenhall.......

Nykerpole : here be dragons
Nykerpole is a very obscure well. Indeed, it is now not a well at all, but a mediaeval place-name, recorded first in 1272, indicating a well now lost, at Mildenhall near Marlborough. Nevertheless, I include Nykerpole here because, like Puckwell, the place-name recalls a legendary well-dwelling creature.
Mildenhall (pronounced Mine-all) was Roman Cunetio. Two Roman shaft-wells have been found in the area, one of which contained a Saxon burial, the remains of a female skeleton with a knife, pins, buckles and beads. Black Field is the site of the Roman settlement, and Roman ghosts have been seen here (Wiltshire 1984, pp. 25-6). Nickamoor Field lies just west of Black Field beside the River Kennet. A placename of the sixteenth century, Nicapooles Croft, may refer to this very field, or to another associated with it. Centuries have passed, and we will probably never know the exact location of Nykerpole, the nicor-pool of Anglo-Saxon times which gave its name to Nicapooles Croft and Nickamoor Field (Gover 1939, p. 499). The nicor was a great water-dwelling monster of the dragonish or sea-serpent type: two nicras are described in Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of the early eighth century. Nowadays the nicor lingers most notably in the Knucker Holes of Sussex, great deep pools of water in whose bottomless depths lurked the Knucker itself (Simpson 1973, pp. 37-42). But it is clear that, centuries ago, Wiltshire too had its Knucker which perhaps, like its Sussex cousins, would come crawling up out of its pool to terrorise the people of the gentle Kennet valley.
Location: Nicamoor Field is at SU 214 694, Sheet 1186. Footpaths run either side of the River Kennet.
http://people.bath.ac.uk/liskmj/living-spring/sourcearchive/ns6/ns6kmj1.htm



Berwick Bassett - no church before 1300 VCH il 155

WAM l 1XV11; Few traces of prehistoric activity have been found in the parish. 2 barrows in the N/E corner and a paelolithic axe found;

SU1198 7387 Bowl barrow 500 m N/W of Berwick Bassett camp;

Pewsey group of barrows S/E of Down farm (Roman?)



Winterbourne Bassett 580 SU 0980 7530



Winterbourne monkton Collection of R/B pottery fragments



Church of St.Nicholas; chancel 13th c; wooden tower in 1807 13th c font. Built between 1191 & 1221

St.Marys Church Bartlow

Rare round tower for Essex


There be dragons, St George has disappeared but his horses head can still be faintly seen

Another mythical beast stands below the saint and St.Mary trying to tug the balance used for weighing the souls of men.

5th Century Book of Beasts was the base line from which most of the mythical creatures found in medieval art is copied into our churches, the christian stories have been woven round these myths.

"The Bestiarius, De Bestiis, or Book of Beasts consists of descriptions and tales of animals, birds, fantastic creatures, and stones, real and imaginary, which are imbued with Christian symbolism or moral lessons. The rising of the phoenix from the pyre, for example, is related to Christ's Resurrection"

Taken from the British Library catalogue of books

Walking the dog

Today the weather has decided to be warm and sunny, up on the Downs, the fields have been cut for hay, and all that is left is a green stubble, but around the edges the wild grasses are still there. Interspersed amongst great patches of nettles, their delicate seed heads shine with the early morning light. The finest of them is a mist of brown and purple, even the spider cannot create such an intricate tapestry, taller grasses are golden coloured hanging heavy with their seeded heads. The sky is that incredible blue overhead and three balloons that must have been launched in Victoria Park below are strung out in a line hardly moving in a calm morning.
Walking round near the wood, under the old ash trees, the grasses here are filigreed silver-gray, moon-coloured because of the shade of the trees. There is a quiet peace, even the birds in the grasses, are talking softly amongst themselves.
I come to my ash tree, the one I have often stood by and wondered what to do, the dog will throw himself down in the grass impatient that we are stopping, but touching its branches gives strength, it is old, and new growths have started round its base, their branches curving low to the ground, its roots are embedded in a steep hill, strong against the winter gales. Below is a small valley leading eventually to a cottage tucked under the hill, through these woods you can often see deer as they make their way from one place to another always on the move.
The land is calm, cows pastured below, yet the human world is in another fever, food is short and so is oil, calamity looms in stock markets; what edifices, what pyramids do we build to prove we are the superior species and yet all of it is as nothing compared to the intricacies of the natural world around us, we could shed nine-tenths of our lives here in the west and still not miss much.

Dyes

Safflower
A dye I have'nt used yet, but its supposed to produce good yellows and oranges, mainly grown for oil, it needs to be grown in a warm dry climate such as southern Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mignonette_%28Reseda%29
Dyers Weld
This I have tried from dried plant material, mignonette does grow up on the downs, but there is not much, so I don't pick it. Again a yellow dye, my efforts came out a pale yellow, though used equal weight plant/silk. Alum mordant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_colors_of_Japan
http://www.planetbotanic.ca/fact_sheets/japanese_herbs/kihada.htm
Kihada
Again a yellow dye, the silk came out strongly dyed, in fact the dyewater can probably be used again. Alum mordant used.

Kihada contrasted against natural tussah silk



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithospermum_purpurocaeruleum;
Shikon
the last is a Japanese dye, which dyes purple. The wikipedia information tells me that it is a strong dye, but needs plenty of alum for the mordant. My effort came out a soft creamy pink.
Need to go back on this one.

Gobaishi dye

Another Japanese dye, oak galls, rather black and horrible, when simmered they become soft and snail-like but produce a very dark dye. This time iron mordant was used, and somewhere in the following link, the American student who has been studying dyes and felting in Japan says that she produced a 'heather' colour,. In the dyepot at the moment and a dark grey, but the purple is there.

Gobaishi dye- soft dark purple

http://feltcafe.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html

Some Japanese dyes and mordants

Coate Water

Wandering around this tranquil oasis, searching for the places that Richard Jefferies mentions in his book "Bevis", it suddenly strikes you how much smaller it is than in the book. I had read his other book "After London", in which Coate has become an inland sea, forested, mountains, people living in settlements,a whole adventure story wrapped round this magical place.
But "Bevis" was on a smaller scale, an adventure story about two boys camping in the wild on an island. The island is there though very small; The cliff is there, an old sand quarry, the place where his father taught him to swim because of the sandy beach at this particular spot; the swampy land "and so thick with sedges and grass and rushes that they walked in a forest of green up to their waists"
Its all there but you have to look for it, a magical retracing of a story.
Ducks and swans congregate to be fed under the ugly concrete diving tower, a dear old man with his leaflets for the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust, and his board of the latest threat to Coate Water, it is to be developed in one part, people wandering round with children and dogs, a quiet backwater to the hustle and bustle of the busy roads round Swindon.
An idyllic childhood? perhaps, or maybe he idolised a place he loved so much, when the harsh realities of being grown up and earning a living grated against his sensitive soul and he looked back with happy memories.

Monday, June 23, 2008
House builders submit revised plans

Persimmon Homes and Redrow Homes have submitted a revised planning application to Swindon Borough Council for 1800 houses, 41 hectares of employment land, a university campus etc etc.

It is virtually the same at the application submitted in August 2007 and they still haven't found a university partner.

http://jefferiesland.blogspot.com/

Dyeing experiments

Two type of marigolds pot marigold ( calendula officinalis) and the hybrid 'Art shades'


The pot marigolds have just started to flower, their bright orange/yellow has been used as colourant since the middle ages, it can also be used instead of saffron or sprinkled over salads. But as a natural dye for wool or silk, it will be mordanted with alum, equal weight of flower to silk. First the flower must be soaked in hot water overnight and then gently simmered to release the colour, this done in soft/rain water. The silk will be mordanted, then when the colour is extracted will be simmered in the dyebath, hopefully to produce yellow.
The other plant to be used is dried weld, similar quantities of the rather woody material to the silk. The plant material will be soaked for several days. Again a mordant will be used, but different colours can be expected with using iron or copper sulphate this will produce greens.

Dyeing stuff

Pale green(better in real life) is weld/coppersulphate; yellow is weld/alum

reflections

Flicking idly through my photos I came across this one of West Kennet longbarrow, and was suddenly struck by the uneven line of the ridge of the barrow highlighted by the darkness of the ridge against the sky. There is the old track that was driven across, goodness knows when, it now stands higher than the surrounding field, showing how ploughing reduces the land surface. The rest of the hollows would presumably be because of quarrying of stone I suppose.
What does stand out however is the dramatic placing of the longbarrow on the brow of the hill, facing the Ridgeway, and of course facing the somewhat later? Sanctuary, another circle of stones, preceded by timber circles.

West Kennet Longbarrow from the Sanctuary

The great stones of West Kennet would have come into view to those travelling along the Ridgeway. Bare feet tramping along the chalky track, animals perhaps being herded along, WKLB is almost an engineered feat of dramatic surprise.
And again we have only to turn round from the stance of the person taking the photograph to see Silbury Hill, another engineered feat of dramatic surprise. There is a spatial awareness carried out in the landscape, the focussing of the key elements on the bare downs, East Kennet longbarrow seems to give the same message, as it overlooks the river Kennet at the bottom of the valley.
Waden Hill is of course the place to understand this overlooking both Silbury Hill and WKLB, what we see are 'statements of strong visuality', we may term it territorial but it is also visionary, though these two monuments are separated in time in their construction they both express an underlying creativity.

Silbury from Waden Hill

Twisted Yarns; A.S.Byatt

The Lady of Shalott by Burne-Jones

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces through the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

The Lady of Shalott."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

"We think of our lives - and of stories - as spun threads, extended and knitted or interwoven with others into the fabric of communities, or history, or texts. An intriguing exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, The Fabric of Myth, mixes ancient and modern - Penelope's shroud, unpicked nightly, with enterprising tapestries made in a maximum security prison out of unravelled socks. In an essay in the accompanying catalogue, Kathryn Sullivan Kruger collects words that connect weaving with storytelling: text, texture and textile, the fabric of society, words for disintegration - fraying, frazzling, unravelling, woolgathering, loose ends. A storyteller or a listener can lose the thread. The word "clue", Kruger tells us, derives from the Anglo-Saxon cliwen, meaning ball of yarn. The processes of cloth-making are knitted and knotted into our brains, though our houses no longer have spindles or looms.

The Greeks had the Moirae, the Fates, one to spin the yarn, one to draw out the thread, one to cut it. They are sometimes confused with the Graiae, three grey old women with one eye and one tooth between them, sisters of the Gorgons. There is a beautiful and surprising tapestry from a Henry Moore drawing in this exhibition, depicting the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, as grave swathed figures, with Atropos standing between her sisters, pointing the fatal shears at the life-thread moving between the two. Their faces are solemn and sad, the first two apprehensive, Atropos almost appalled. Milton confused her with the Furies, in "Lycidas", when he wrote: "Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, / And slits the thin-spun life." This is unforgettable partly because of the way those thin-sounding words - "slits", "thin-spun", "life" - mimic the dangerously fine thread.
The Norse, too, had their three Fates - the Norns, who spun the thread of life at the roots of the World Ash, Yggdrasil. They are sometimes young, mature, old, and sometimes three crones. They sing wildly in Wagner's Götterdämmerung, as the plot of the world unravels. Their thread is a golden rope that was once attached to the destroyed World Ash and is now precariously anchored on other trees and sharp rocks. It rips apart; they wind themselves in it, and go under the earth; the Twilight of the Gods has come."

Taken from

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2286840,00
.html

Velazquez - Las Hilanderas 1644-1646

Taken from Wikipedia;.....

The spinning wheel, introduced into from India between the 13th and 14th centuries, improved the hand-spinning method. The spindle was set horizontally in a wheel turned by a foot pedal and produced a single thread. Spinning by hand is still the principal method used in many developing countries."The spinning wheel replaced the earlier method of hand spinning with a spindle The first stage in mechanizing the process was mounting the spindle horizontally so it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The great wheel is an example of this type, where the fiber is held in the left hand and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fiber at a slight angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist The spun yarn was then wound onto the spindle by moving it so as to form a right angle with the spindle. This type of wheel, while known in Europe by the 14th century, was not in general use until later. It ultimately was used there to spin a variety of yarns until the beginning of the 19th century and the mechanization of spinning.

Sun and Colour

One of the problems with taking photos of dyed silks is that the colours do not come true, often appearing much darker on the photograph, but the following are fairly close.

Moss feeling hot on the terrace

Untidy Ashford loom with the early morning sun on recently dyed silk

The five colours - silver is natural 50% alpaca/50% silk; Next comes cream, one in weak henna, the next in henna with dash of chestnut; Greens are chartreuse, the other dash of chartreuse with chestnut.

Knitted cushion cover with handspun/dyed olive merino wool


Early morning sun highlighting the wood

Woven runner

Basket of last dyed colours, probably good sock material

Essex

A place I once lived in a long time ago, it has changed but I had forgotten how pretty it was, with its villages, storied timber houses, pargeter work and old churches. We had moved from Chigwell to Great Dunmow, my grandfather to run a small engineering business. At first we had lived in a rented cottage at Ford End, and then he had bought three old cottages at Shalford Green, and they were turned into one with a great thatched roof, and it was from here that my first marriage took place at the church.
Mostly I remember of this time is the fields alight in the evening as they set the straw alight, a dramatic picture as I drove with my labrador back from a walk somewhere. My pride and joy at the time was a small Austin Healey sprite, with the hood down and Kim sitting in the back with his ears blowing in the wind we would find places to wander in. Dim memories of riding in Hainault Forest on Sue my horse, spooky sometimes in the evening, and getting lost one day and taking a long, long, path that never seemed to end. The horse was also spooked in the gathering gloom by the dark path and in the end she bolted, giving me one of those hair-raising rides as I ducked beneath branches as she fled through the forest.
Visiting such places as Thaxted and Coggeshall and taking photos has reminded me of Alec Clifton-Taylor - The Pattern of English Building Book 1972, and I see he was struck by the view of the Thaxted church and houses for he says..

"At Thaxted in Essex, Newbiggen Street leading northwards from the church has many timber-framed houses, of which all but one, in the usual Essex way, are wholly plastered. The use of colour wash here is spectacular, and one is tempted to add, very un-English. Applied colour has turned into what is, in my view, one of the prettiest streets in the country"


Though there is hardly any colour there today but it is still a pretty view.

The other place I visited was Paycocke's house in Great Coggeshall, a delightfully pink timbered house that fronts the street, here he says of Paycocke's House
"'The appeal of the front here, despite the fascination of its discreetly restored silver-brown wood-carving , is quite seriously comprised by the unattractive bricks introduced about 1905 (before the National Trust took over) for the renewal of the nogging"




Perhaps he was a bit of a pedant, it still looks gloriously decorative.

This is a photograph of the more elaborate pargetting (post restoration) Crown House, Newport.

Sutton Hoo

The greatest of death-fires

wound to the clouds,

roared before the mound;

heads melted away

wound-gates burst open,

the body's loathly cuts,

as blood sprang forth

flame, hungriest of spirits

Swallowed all those whom

battle took.....

Cremation from Beowulf

A visit to Sutton Hoo; One of the greatest Anglo Saxon treasures of this country, an exotic collection of finely wrought gold, great wealth and also a touch of homeliness in the gaming board in the covered boat burial. Elegantly long this boat, translating into the tangible excitement of Beowulf's poetry, a great epic drama of killing a terrible beast - Grendel and its loathsome mother both are locked into the storytelling of this boat. Saxon poetry which I love so much, grinding out its gloom and despair at the folly of man; magnificient thundering words accompanying beautifully made artifacts and fragments of all this are captured in the museum.
What of the site itself, great barrows ride gently on the waves of the land, the excavated barrow that revealed these treasures, has a steepsidedness that stands out. You walk round on a curving path, the day we went the rain came down gently, puddles of water to find a way around., a grey mistyness to the land and the trees that surround the site, appropiately fitting for a time lived years ago.









Reconstruction of the boat burial

Love the way they hang things on the wall


Gaming board


Reconstructed Sutton Hoo barrow

Sheltering umbrella
from the rain

Some of the other barrows

Bartlow Hills Roman Barrows

The barrows are the largest group of Roman barrows in Northern Europe. Think Silbury Mound, high conical mounds sprouting a luscious green growth of plants. Seven originally, though now only three remain.



Set in a wood, approached along a dark and winding path, suddenly the space opens up. shading trees give way to bright sunshine. Their greeting is unexpected, closely hemmed in by trees, suddenly you are confronted by three miniature mountains. Steps up the side of the tallest barrow - 45 feet high. Built of chalk, similar to Silbury, these barrows house rich pagan burials of the late 1st to early 2nd century.
Large wooden chests, cremated burials, food and drink in exotic vessels of bronze, glass and pottery, these were foreign imported goods reflecting the high status of the deceased; concerned more with feasting and sacrifical offerings rather then take all this worldy wealth to the other world. Lamps left to burn, what did that signify? a light for the spirit to see as he departed this world.

Hayfield flowers

Walking this morning up on the racecourse through the mist I wondered how many flowers still remain in the wild grasses of the hay fields that surround the course. The skylark young are finding their wings and the lush grassland still murmurs with birdsong. Yesterday I spied my buzzard sitting on a fence with another alongside him, much darker, I took a photo but this is the time that I wish I could handle a complicated long-lensed camera for close up shot of things far away.
A hayfield is particularly beautiful at this time of year, the grasses are seeding, soft purples, greens and golds, the bronzes of the plaintain and dock flowers standing amongst the graceful fronds of seedheads.
Looking at my handful, there are red and white clovers close to the paths, small white meadow parsley, laces its delicate way through the green of the grasses. Cow parsley, or Queen's Anne Lace, is over now, but the giant hogweed is coming into flower, its purple bracts straining to burst open and its great jagged leaves reminding me of the acanthus. Yellow buttercups, coned flowerheads of the plaintain and the soft reddish pink flower stalks of the docks. Dew from the mist hangs like tiny crystals along the grass seedheads, and there is a tiny white flowered plant, that holds the promise of its opening but never does.

Docks flowering

Plantain flower

Last Flight of the Honeybees

To be read here in the Guardian;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/animalwelfare.environment

The mind always boggles at the figures that come out of America; the world's largest almond 'orchard' - 60 million almond trees - you can drive past 400 miles of them, pristine clean these orchards, no wildflowers hedges, or insects an unearthly silence pervades the air. But wait here come the honeybees transported by lorry, there are 40 billion of them raised on bee farms, they will pollinate this vast acreage. Sadly though they are disappearing, pesticide, herbicides or what, there sudden disappearance has been happening over a few years, France, Germany, England, hives are opened in the spring but there is nothing there, the bees have disappeared.
One thing does of course stand out loud and clear, you cannot treat insects like machines, they are warmblooded creatures who get stressed just as we do, their lifestyle has been grotesquely adjusted to suit our needs, but they are not playing the game for goodness sake say the scientist lets invent something new to save them - perhaps they can genetically adjust them.
Nature is putting a big thumbs down on our meddling with the natural cycle of things, it is impossible for humans to control the vast interconnecting natural world we live in. All bees, and I include bumblebees here(good pollinators as well), need a strong immune system to survive, they need the flowers, shrubs, fruit trees of this earth over a long period of time, monoculture is death to a whole host of living things.
Vast machines that spray everything in sight do not work with nature, they kill it systematically weed by weed, flower by flower and with it goes the vast insect life that once depended on all this. There is no benign god in the sky watching the handiwork of man and applauding his arrogant assumption that humans rule over all. We may sit on top of the pile, but beneath us a great vast web of life that we depend on, this is how our earth has always worked, its just as easy for nature to allow the death of all bees as it is to watch the extinction of humankind, it does'nt really care a s***.
Is there an answer, maybe, a respect for all life, a humble approach to the creatures around us, and the ability to use the vast knowledge we have stored up to achieve the balance on this planet we and everything else so desperately need.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/ A petition to the government for money to fund research in Colony collapse syndrome

Bevis by Richard Jefferies

Yesterday I managed to find a rather good copy of Bevis by Richard Jefferies, illustrated by Shepard it was a 1958 edition. A love of reading means that I will become totally absorbed in a good book and unable to put it down. So it is with this book, I have explored the large inland lake/ sea of Coate with him and his friend Mark, and followed the battle between the two opposing roman sides. It is of course a 'boys own' child books, but nevertheless completely enthralling and of course read by adults.
The first thing to strike me is a somewhat cruel attitude to animals, this, is only to be expected in the 19th century, and especially as Jefferies/Bevis for they are one and the same people, would have struck me as being gentle. But on reflection, especially in his soul-seeking in The Story of My Heart, can we begin to understand the wild exultant heart that beat beneath his somewhat quiet exterior. His imperious nature shines forth in Bevis, Mark, a loyal and loving constant companion is often upbraided in lofty tones. But to return to animals, the first instance is the family spaniel, Pan, middle aged and always hungry he follows the two boys on their expeditions up stream or on the lake, his loyalty is not often rewarded though and he gets many a beating should he chase the animals or scare the fish they are always hunting with their bow and arrows and spears.
The second moment in the book is the donkey that lives in the field and they are never able to catch. One day Mark tired after a long foray in the fields has to go home, Bevis offers the donkey and gets a stable lad to catch the wretched beast. The lad duly does this, and brings the donkey to them, but it is now that Bevis says lets tie up this beast and give him a lesson, which they duly do, tying him to an old oak tree and giving him a truly horrific thrashing - though there is no blood.
Intense people have intense feelings and emotions, so perhaps Jefferies can be forgiven this rash act, did it happen in 'real life' I expect the answer is yes because it is so vividly written and remembered.
The sense of his world, the inner landscape and the outer physical landscape is so strongly written in his books also becomes part of one's own mindset. The experience is so strong that it colours my world as well. Today, the mist in the garden, a green jungle at the moment, flowers heavy with rain, everything so verdantly alive that nature is blending time together again, the past swirling round the present - the liquid note of water as it swirls down the stream on that farm so long ago is echoed in the distance. The thunderstorm that raged before the 'War' of the romans that the boys played, has its echo in last night thunder, when the rains beat down and flooded parts of Somerset. Nature is the same we just don't notice it as much, there is less of everything, less birds, less wildflowers, more noise, more speed, more shallowness, we have become superficial unable to feel the world around us. But perhaps that is only given to the chosen few, poets and writers who express through the written word, with all its form and grace, the dynamic force of life that is nature, and is of course us as well.
There is a room in the Richard Jefferies Museum (the old farmhouse) in which 'Bevis' lies on his bed reading, in the room is a painting of Jefferies and an old grandfather clock which I thought rather odd at the time, but it seems that the clock may have stood on the landing outside the room, as written in the following quote from The Poacher.

"An oaken case six feet high or more, and a vast dial,with a mysterious picture of a full moon and a ship in full sail that somehow indicated the quarters of the year, if you had been imitating Rip Van Winkle and after a sleep of six months wanted to know whether itwas spring or autumn. But only to think that all the while we were puzzling over the moon and the ship and the queer signs on the dial a gun was hidden inside! The case was locked, it is true; but there are ways of opening locks, and we were always handy with tools.

"

Saint David

date of birth variously given between 460 and 520;

He is the great grandson of an illustrious name, Cunedda, "dux Brittaniae" or "Gwledig" (over-king). Tradition says that Cunedda came from the north with 900 troop in the early 5th century and drove the Goidels (the Irish) out of North Wales. He had eleven sons, and one of his grandsons Maelgwn Gwynedd was also a "Gwedlig", and a protagonist in the battle of Camlan between Arthur of South Wales and his Cumbrian/Strathclyde relatives - all conjectural of course.

There are several sources for the site of David's birth, one that he was born on the site of St.Non's chapel within a stone circle and baptised at Porth Clais.

Legend also says that David's father Sant was told by an angel to save some land for him 30 years befor he was born. Also at this time an angel told St.Patrick not to settle on some land at Glyn Rhosyn, as the place was reserved for an unknown boy to be born 30 years later. Apparently Patrick was upset that God preferred an unborn boy to him but God took him to a cliff rock, still known as Eisteddfa Badrig to show him that God wanted him to look after all Ireland instead!

The story goes that David, or Dewi, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he was made a bishop and led the councils of Brefi (in Cardigan) and Caerlon. At Brefi he was recognised as primate of all Wales and replaced Dyfrig and he moved from Caerlon to Menevia (St.David's); this taken from a source of 1098.

(Rhygfarch's Life of St.David)

He was known traditionally as The Waterman as he and his monks were ascetic teetotallers and vegetarians. He is associated with over 50 churches in South Wales, most in the south west, Glastonbury was also claimed to have been founded by David. And another tale tells that soon after Arthur's death, David died in 544 aged 82 and that he was honourably buried by Maelgyn Gwynedd.

February 28th is St.David's Eve and one of the favoured nights for the Cwn Annwn (hounds of Annwn, the Underworld) to take to the skies. They race and howl across the firmament, souls of the damned they hunt for more souls to feed the furnaces of hell. Sometimes they are seen as huge dogs with human head - a pre-christian belief that lasted in rural Wales until the 19th C.

In the Gwaun valley in Pembs. Old St.Davids Day (March 12th) was the time when the wax candle on the table was replaced by a wooden one, signifying that supper could be eaten without candlelight - the end of the winter months.

As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields

And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields

In memory of whom, in each revolving year

The Welshmen, on his day, that sacred herb do wear .

Dragonflies and Damselflies

The secret world of the pond

As with orchid searching so this time of the year,the damselflies and later dragonflies will appear. All the following are from the garden, the red and turquoise damselflies breed in the pond. For those who do not know the life cycle of these creatures, they form 'nymphs'in the pond and sometimes can keep this form for two years or so, when they are ready to metamorphorsis, they climb up the leaves of the yellow flag, and shed their skins to emerge as beautifully painted jewels.The large dragonfly that also haunts the garden is the great green/blue one with golden eyes, he hawks up and down the grass path challenging you and flying within a few inches of your face, they are harmless of course and very beautiful, characters in their own right. I once saw two of these dragonflies fighting, a perceptible noise came from them and they dropped like stones to the ground in the heat of the battle.

Red Damselfly


Emerging green/goldeyed dragon fly



Stray Hawker

Mating blue damselfly

Large dragonfly in the heat of the sun