Forests and Woods

The papers have been full this week end of the proposed forest sell offs, which the conservative government is proposing.  They will have a fight on their hands because a large amount of people do not believe their rather feeble arguments that privatisation  of the forests is for the good of everyone.   We now  have a public consultation on the subject, which are next to useless, governments still go ahead with plans whatever the public says, but I have a feeling there will have to be a lot of compromise. Both the following articles make pleas for woodland and coppicing, an old tradition that could well be used today to safeguard some of the flora to be found in our old woodlands.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/30/monty-don-woodland-coppice-sustainable

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/30/forest-sell-off-woodland-conservation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jan/31/forests-sell-off-opposition

Ruth Fuller Sasaki

Ryoan-ji rock garden

My partner, who I shall call LS from now on, is a fount of knowledge on many things Japanese, mostly because he lived in Japan as a conservator for 20 years.  Well not exactly all that time, for when he arrived, age 20 and penniless, he became a Zen Buddhist lay monk at the Ryozen-an temple in Kyoto,  I think he found the strictures a bit hard, but his tales from this particular period are interesting.

He lived in a small hut just by the gardens of the temple, very cold and seemingly full of strange large insects such as a 6 inch poisonous centipede (fancy all those little legs scurrying over you at night) and an outside hole in a hut for a loo.  He starved on a diet of peanut butter and apples so I am informed, there was no money for food but the small amount his father sent monthly plus any money made teaching English to Japanese students.

Now this was the decade of the 1960s, when everything was on the move, young people were not only 'hippyish' but were also actively seeking out new religions and beliefs, my own half-brother, who was a so-called drug addict, was occasionally brought back to my grandfathers house to 'dry out' from squats in London, or even at one stage someone had to go to India to bring, or at least to rescue him from I suspect a 'guru' and his menage. My Canadian sister-in-law later on was also to go seeking a guru on some Pacific Island leaving behind her 3 children and husband, so this touched many families.

But I stray from the subject matter of the title, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who intrigued me and was the person who invited LS to be a lay monk after he had written to her.  She was American and in a way was influential behind the movement of Buddhism in America in the 1950s, she had married a Buddhist priest, Sasaki though he died within a year but he was one of the first Japanese masters to teach Buddhism in America a Japanese Rinzai (one of three sects of Zen)  roshi (old teacher, old master); explanations are sometimes necessary! so Sasaki was a teacher of Rinzai.

When Ruth Fuller settled in Kyoto she became a priestess at the large Daitoku-ji temple which had 22 sub-temples, one of which was the Ryozen-an temple, she did not fulfil the role of a priestess however because as she said "because I was a foreigner, a woman, untrained in temple procedures, and because I needed the years left me to carry on the work of spreading Zen to the west."

Daitoku-ji temple

At Ryozen-an, apart from LS, there were other western lay-monks, Gary Snyder for one, and as he is a great hero of mine I was intrigued as to what he was like.  He lived in a small house in the larger precincts of Daitoku-ji, with his then wife, a poet called Joanne Kyger,*  As he was bi-lingual he was, with two other Americans, translating the works of an earlier monk under the leadership of Ruth Fuller, called the "Record of Rinzai".  Now this was in 1961, and apparently Ruth Fuller accused one of the Americans of stealing the text, Snyder resigned in protest, and it looks like he took a trip to India at this point with Joanne, for he wrote a book called "Passage through India", which was reissued in 2007.

 LS did'nt go to Kyoto till 1966, so Gary Snyder must have returned by then and continued his translating at the Ryozen-an temple, apparently he had a large motor bike, on which he would take friends either up the hills or down into town to a coffee shop. Hopefully in November this year we will take a trip to see the temples. Everyone's life moved on, two of LSs friends have moved to Hawai, another back to America to make pots.  His life also sounds interesting, for he built a wooden house at a place called Bizen so that he could make pots and fire them in his kiln.  There is an old news article about Ruth Fuller, which LS found yesterday, she is tall and graceful in her monk robes and rather beautiful.

Like my previous article on the green 'back to the earth' movements written earlier, there was a corresponding, and very much stronger movement in America, a backlash also against the Vietnamese war.

Photos from Wikipedia Creative Commons

* Though apparently he was'nt married to Joanne for long and had remarried a Japanese girl;

http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2009/11/imperial-palace-gardens-kyoto.html

John Seymour and self sufficient communities

A couple of days ago whilst hunting through the news I came across an article on the Brecklands that borders the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, a rather desert like heath landscape you drive though. It has Thetford Forest as part of its territory and of course also Grimes Graves, prehistoric mines. Only of note in the archaeological record is that the scotch pine trees are being cleared from around the mines.

I had known it from years back, when we went to excavate at Castle Acre priory, but it was here that John Seymour lived for several years in a large rented cottage with his then wife and daughters.

He is the great guru of the self-sufficiency movement, and his books are classics. In them you will find the whole armoury of making things, be they baskets, blacksmithing, growing food, killing your produce and farming on a small scale. It is surprising really that he chose to live in this bleak landscape, its fertility quickly drained away through the porous sands, and he did eventually move on to Wales, the home of self-sufficient escapists, still today of course.

It brings to mind Tony Wrench in his roundhouse under the Preseli mountains, a hard life for most of us and still living on borrowed time from the council and eviction. http://www.thatroundhouse.info/index.htm.

Being self-sufficient is hard work, if you want wood you have to find it and chop the logs for winter, growing your own means that there is a limited amount of greenstuff in winter, and unless you are prepared to give your chickens some light in winter – no eggs. Yet living lightly on the Earth is important, that is what the whole green culture is about, it probably only suits a very small number of people but some communities like Tinkers Bubble in Somerset have been going for quite a while. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jz7UXTDkfo

Sally Seymour, John Seymour's first wife illustrated occasionally for his books, and perhaps it is these illustrations that capture the essence of relying on ones own skills, they are packed with information, given a brown overtone to give the impression of 'old worlde', at least that how it seems to me.  She was also a potter, and her daughter lives near to Carn Ingli, running a small printing press with her husband given over to her parent's work.

 Of course this is a favourite part of my world, Preseli Hills with its bleak air and prehistoric sites, and Tony Wrench's roundhouse is not too far from here either.  There was also another settlement being planned in the Pembrokeshire countryside as well a few years back, though whether it got off the ground I never found out.  But I remember giving a lot of my green magazines and books to a young American in Bath, where he lived with his wife.  He had a very gentle manner, and was very appreciative of the books, noting in passing that I had given up on my dreams!

I had advertised them in Freecycle, which is probably another offshoot of green ideas, it means that stuff can be recycled into the community.  My first offering was a bike with tyres that needed fixing, a young man  collected it, and the very next day he came back, tyres had been mended, he had cycled into work that morning and he was as pleased as punch with it.  Books went, but also my very large loom as well, which I did not expect anyone to want, but one saturday a woman turned up with a  spacious estate car and we managed to get it in, she was starting some sort of business, though weaving of course takes up a lot of time.

Sometimes I wonder if it was a green 'stream of consciousness' that flowed through the veins of young people from the 1960s onwards, or perhaps that mind stopping moment, when the spaceship looked back at our earth and photographed that living blue planet, making us all so aware how fragile our Earth was. Yet today we are still plundering its resources with a recklessness that will be our undoing

To close for the moment, the Seymours reminded me of the American couple Scot and Helen Nearing on their land in Vermont, I have only read two books by them, and it is mostly Helen Nearing I remember, as she built built her 100 foot stone wall round her vegetable garden to keep the rabbits at bay, and the book 'Loving and Living the Good Life'.  Scott Nearing chose to die, at about a 100 years old I think, and simply stopped eating, just occasionally drinking some juice now and then,  Helen tended to him throughout this period accepting that he had grown tired of life.  He was a pacifist at the time of Vietnam, and had lost his job as a lecturer of economics because of his views, and I expect was a rather outspoken and grumpy person.

Koans and restoration

Slowly I have been sorting out the furniture for the dollshouse, and all the bits and pieces that have lain about for years, next thing is to restore the broken furniture, and I worked on four chairs this week.

They needed restaining and new covers for the seat, which took an age because I had to cut the cardboard out to fit the inside of the chair whilst leaving enough room for the material. 

My tools are also being expanded as well, I do have a miniature drill, which fits into a miniature lathe so that I can turn table and chair legs, but yesterday at Hobbycraft I notices they had all the little drill bits for buffing and shaping.

Why a koan, well the one below is quoted at me quite a lot when I get anxious about the myriad of things that happen, the Clapping of One Hand, has its message of course is in its title, but the explanatory story below tells more.

Yesterday I woke up thinking of roses, and realised it must be the bleak grey landscape of January, that forces one mind to remember the colour and shapes of roses, and especially their perfume at this time of the year.  The thorns that tangle in your hair and grip your clothes as you tussle with long wands that need to be cut back, and that lovely fresh green smell as you clip.  Still summer is on its way..... 

These are little kit chairs, that you put together, and very fragile, often breaking with time

 The Sound of One Hand

The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

"Wait a while," said Mokurai. "You are too young."

But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.
In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

"You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together," said Mokurai. "Now show me the sound of one hand."

Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. "Ah, I have it!" he proclaimed.

The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

"No, no," said Mokurai. "That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all."

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. "What can the sound of one hand be?" He happened to hear some water dripping. "I have it," imagined Toyo.

When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.

"What is that?" asked Mokurai. "That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again."

In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.

The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. "I could collect no more," he explained later, "so I reached the soundless sound."

Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.

Grandmas loft

Gorgeous photos on spinning which was shown on my weaving forum, must be American I think, the photographer has taken photos of his grandmas loft, a veritable heirloom piece of spinning wheels and wools to be spun....


http://www.flickr.com/photos/stocksphotography/2421551226/in/set-72157609629601114/

Hanningfield Reservoir

Always love the browny-creamy colours in this little pond, reminds me of some Japanese material on Ebay

Its a female woodpecker I was informed

It seems ages since I last wrote something, could be because its winter, or that other hobbies take my time but on Sunday we went for a walk round the reservoir.  It was created in 1957, and covers a small hamlet, though apparently there are no houses still lurking under the water.  Not like the 'drowned' villages and forests round the West coast of Wales.

The mood of the place is grey and brown, leaves rotting, mud and conifer trees.  Ducks and geese congregate at feeding stations and people wander round with camera equipment.

So apart from hundreds of seagulls on the water, the birds most viewed were in front of the visitor centre.  Long tailed tits, chaffinches, yellow tits, a black and white woodpecker all fed at the bird tables, plus of course squirrels.

Of course acquiring a laptop, was supposed to take me away from the computer, it could be put to one side on my desk and I could concentrate on other things  Yesterday we made up a modular small bookcase from Argos, it took 2 hours and was supposed to balance the rather large dollshouse which is in need of some repair, and to hold some of my knitting/weaving books. The bookshelve was put together eventually, though one of the long wooden dowels broke and another had to be made out of a bamboo skewer, then of course there is the inevitable screwing together of pieces so that they face outward instead of inward. 

Barnes Mill

Drowned reedmace

Barnes Mill in winter without the protective covering of green leafed trees at least shows some of the water works that must have made it an impressive working mill in its day. I have never ceased to be fascinated by mills, they have been with us from an early age, and the great turning wheels of the later centuries show a harnessing of water for energy that we could well emulate today.

The river is in full flow, not quite flooding yet, but the water meadows are an essential part of the landscape to capture the run-off from the surrounding land and the Chelmer is well protected by them. There is an excitement about swift flowing water, it ripples softly and yet noisily over the shallow mill races, foaming small white waves curving and twisting to join the mother river. The swans and ducks caught in the currents in the mill pond are swept to the far side, but they are well fed at the mill, and the two creatures are probably resident here.

No water wheel remains and one would expect the original mill to be very different to what it is today, on one old photo there is an old nissan hut just by it called The Cabin.

What else, reading a 2002 account by someone who lives there, wildlife abound, kingfishers, herons and cormorants fish the water, what lurks underneath is a bit scary the great pike can be found here as well, probably feeding on the graylings, and there is the more exotic carp to be found in the mill ponds. If I had a dog I would walk all the river banks for there are kingcup marsh marigolds to be found along the way, an exciting nature walk exploring the flora and fauna.

One of the outflow ponds, see how the water us diverted into two streams around the pond

Barnes Mill pub in the background with the now disused overflowing leat in the water meadows

The Chelmer almost full to tipping point

Barnes Mill, converted now into three dwellings 

There seems to be more than one mill race, several mill ponds of course

http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2009/05/barnes-farm.html

Sunday

Sunday and the weather is glorious, the birds are in full voice anticipating spring - think they might be a bit presumptious there, but they are probably rejoicing that the snow has disappeared.  Yesterday out for my  birthday lunch at the Cats pub, we drove along lanes that were running with water, and the Chelmer was lapping at the road at Paper Mill lock, rain, snow and the runoff from the fields must be the cause.

Everything was gray, dark and muddy; spaniels scampered along in that dirty muddy wet state that shows their true character as water loving muppets!  The following photo shows the bleak greyness of the Essex countryside, yesterday whilst out we went through a very narrow lane with deep banks, and it suddenly reminded me of hollow ways, those old roads stretching back in time that had been worn down by constant use of carts and carriages.

Life is sometimes at a standstill through the winter months, time to knit and spin and think, my cottage (notice the proprietal air) goes on apace, the builder has been to see it and thinks its gorgeous with all its little details, and does'nt think there needs much doing except for the chimney outside and decorating. The surveyors report was long and thorough, and looked worse than what it was, a certain amount of damp being found in the walls, but I think that this is power for the course for 300 year old places.

The holiday letting aspect might be difficult, all to do with fire arrangments but we will see, hopefully it will all be wound up by the end of this month or into the early part of February.

So it is time to read my books 'Wild Garden' by William Robinson and knitting books and magazines, and hopefully go for a walk this afternoon along the river.

Computers

On New Years day, this computer decided to accept my password, and now works - just like that, I'm pleased, though everything I wrote yesterday on my blog got swiped, so I am approaching it with great care!

The following photos are of the gypsy horses, it was difficult to recognise them under their dirty winter coats, I worry over them, but they had been fed hay over the snowy period, and they look quite relaxed. Someone had thrown bread to them (with plastic bags), which they did'nt seem particularly interested in. My partner fell in love with one
dark eyed beauty with a great fringe falling over his eyes, perhaps when we move to the country, we may get one - who knows......
Life is still in holiday mood, sales everywhere before crunch day 4th January when VAT goes up, sales are'nt my scene, most of it is tat. But we might walk down today to our local retail outlet, just to look at Computer World, this marvellous thing called Wireless, from which my computer works,
means that I can pick this one up and work anywhere in the house, visitors can also use my code number as well for their computers. But to get back to what I was saying, Wireless can also pick up printers in other rooms, so we need a 'joining' cable to feed info from one machine to the other - all very clever, I can't quite get my head around invisible beams!
The mill pond photo is to remind me that summer will eventually arrive, this time of the year my mind would be on raising seeds and perusing the Suffolk Herb catalogue...

Summer

Winter

Mill pond

Quietitude

Well I have'nt written for ages, but the words below were a start over the weekend, my main problem is that my new computer will not recognise my North Stoke blog, and to add insult to injury my email server is also not recognised..
So should in the not too distant future my blog come to a halt, I shall start a new one under the name of North Stoke Two (I think).  My old computer still works, albeit slowly, there I was all hyped  up to clear my desk of keyboard and monitor, and fit a smaller laptop, which could be taken off when I wanted to sew or write, and now it is not possible until my son comes down and sorts it all out!

A mass of presents around my make-do xmas tree, not being mean but there was not enough room for a large tree and all of us. So on Xmas Eve morning (4 am to be precise) the family set off from Whitby across the snowy moor road on their trip down to us in Chelmsford. Okay, hot water bottles, blankets, food, crates of presents and more food stacked high in the dependable land rover was the order of the day, and of course the obligatory spade! They were lucky to get away, the snows came in once more, and the long hill through the village of Staithes became impassable, stranded cars being rescued by the coast guard a few hours later.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, and they arrived later on in the morning, and we all went out to lunch at the Fox and Raven, which was full but two glorious log fires in the old farmhouse is a sight for sore eyes. The children played with the games I had bought most of the afternoon, though there was a drama next door.

At least for the house, for the people had gone off to Thailand for several weeks; a great bang on our front door and an off duty policeman said that it was flooded next door, and boy was it flooded!

The water tank in the roof had given way, it looked as if it was raining on all the windows inside, and the ceilings had collapsed to add to the chaos. Fire engine came to turn off the water, though we did'nt see it, police came and sorted relatives addresses, and so we are now in touch with our next door neighbour in Thailand. Moral of the story; Turn off the water, leave some heating on in your house when you go away in winter, and do leave a key and contact number for panicking neighbours!
continued......
Well it was dramatic, he still has'nt come back from Thailand yet, though there are emails now and then.
I see we have a new format on the blogs, which looks elegant.... Christmas went off with a bang, they travelled back yesterday, the weather is warming up and we now have grey skies and fog.  We played games of the boxed kind, though 'Family Fortunes' was a bit difficult for me.  Children got what they wanted, computer for the eldest, phone for Ben, and Matilda and Lillie, got smaller presents, because they had already received their big ones.  Lillie acquired a set of fairy wings from Hobbycraft, she also nobbled a jumper and bag from my sewing bench, which was meant for another. But a good christmas all told......

                                                      The Fairy or Madame Pompadour

The Darkling Thrush a poem by Thomas Hardy

Snow, upon snow.. amid the bleak mid winter carol has been going through my head lately, no prizes for guessing why. People are getting tired of all this snow, out in the countryside according to Farming Today radio this morning, the task of feeding outlying animals, and getting food into the villages is a hard job. Oil is at a premium, let alone getting the tankers to the farm, or to BBs house stuck up high on a hill. People lie around airport terminals waiting for their planes to take off, travel comes to a standstill as road and railway lines freeze up over night.
We are safe, near to shops, our heating mended after one week of no heating, and there is always an open fire in the sitting room. Doubt if my family will make it down, and I don't want them to venture out onto dangerous roads, Xmas can always be postponed to the following week.
Not sure its chaos, the English do so love a drama, and snow is fulfilling that role superbly, perhaps what we need is an extended holiday period, so that people can fly abroad over a longer time, and the festival days can be spread.
My thoughts have been with the birds, out in the cold every night, the doves look miserable, but the starlings still come to the table happily as do the little fighting sparrows.
Anyway it reminded me of my favourite author and poet - Thomas Hardy and his poem to that little old thrush who sang on a cold and miserable evening such as we are experiencing now........



I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy unlimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware

Snow again - and a return to warmer days maybe?

=

The snow arrived all of a sudden whilst we were out in the car picking up logs, it was the usual 'whiteout' the roads covered in minutes. The countryside suddenly transformed itself into a winter wonderland, though everyone was driving very carefully on the roads, and as we turned down into the road where we live, a car had slid into another one, denting it badly. We were supposed to go out for a birthday meal, but I doubt the car will be taken out of the garage again, so it is either walking to the Fox and Raven or fish and chips!

This morning, I received a long email from one of my old internet miniaturist friends who lives in London, and cares passionately for cats. Or at least the stray ones, she makes miniatures of shops, greengrocer and florist come to mind though her tiny little nut fairy house filled with furniture (no bigger than a pansy flower) was something else. Years ago, when we all made miniatures, we would exchange stuff, and Claire made delicious little cakes out of clay of course.

My other friend in Wales, Gwen who lived near to Carew Castle, in a very romantic setting by the great tidal mill there, also made miniature shops in clocks (the insides taken out of course).

It made me look at my album on the site, two of my efforts are below, both destroyed now.

The one is of the chapel at Farleigh Hungerford, the guide there had told me of the story that someone had bet that she could'nt stay the night in the crypt there. Well the crypt was down a flight of stairs outside, and had three little stone coffins of children from probably the 15th or 16 th century. She had taken up the bet, and locked herself up behind the iron grille door. No, nothing terrible happened but she did say that she was visited by a little (ghost) girl who said she was very cold and wanted her cloak......

The other is of a long hall, which my oldest grandchild used to play, mostly stringing up the dolls to hang from the hooks I made, and then skewering them with the sword, grisly child that he was; all gone now though they took an age to make.

Anyway one of my new year resolutions, is to get back to miniature making when the weather gets warmer and I can cut wood outside...

Wittering

A painting that hangs in a gallery in Bath; Geese coming down to drink

Geese photos are in tribute to that marvellous tv programme 'Edwardian Farm', last night a gander was introduced to see off the fox, who had mauled one of the female geese - which survived luckily...

Life is busy, christmas beckons, cards are almost done, and so are presents, the next thing is to go out into the countryside to collect ivy my favourite xmas decoration. Yesterday we bought my present, which happens to be a teapot and cups and saucers, for what I call the traditional ritual cup of tea in the afternoon, which is never served too well by the mugs we drink out of on a daily basis. Leaving all my china in the move was not exactly a wise thing to do, as it can be exceedingly expensive to buy afresh, but the pretty turquoise teapot chosen in the end will do.

Next week before the advent of xmas it is of course the winter solstice, when the balance between dark and light starts tipping the other way. It's the pagan festival day of old, though I'm not quite sure how they knew it would happen.

At the local reservoir, on a hot and sunny summer afternoon

Snow ready to come back again on friday with strong Arctic north winds blowing straight down the length of Britain, its a bit surprising all this snow before the 25th, it was always the harsh cold of January and February that one remembers.

The survey report came through on the cottage by email, which was slightly depressing, though at 30 pages long was excellent. He had practically examined every nut and bolt of the place, though not the back wall and its roof, due to snow.

Analysising his findings, I find a couple of things are essential, the chimney stack has to be overhauled, there is slight water ingress into the attic bedroom, the house has readings of damp, which of course is not unusal for its age, but it might be wise to put in gas central heating to contend with the dampness and it has a bressumer beam, which is rather thrilling though not quite sure what sort of beam it is..

Hopefully jobs will pick up after the festive season, and my son will find one, though he is still engrossed in his projects on the computer, which may be coming to fruition next year, there is a 'mmm' in my soul as to the outcome. There was rather a worrying programme on Channel 4 news last night about the expensive use of a particular type of insulin, analogue as opposed to the humalin types. I suspect he is on the analogue one as a type 1 diabetic, as it is supposed to respond more quickly to hypos and keep weight down, though to tell the truth he could put more weight on. The good news last week is that his annual blood glucose check up for two years now has been almost perfect, but I would dearly love to see some sort of stem cell cure for diabetics, promised by my doctor 12 years ago and still not on the horizon.

Insulin of course means a life and death issue for people like my son who have type 1 diabetes, its not something my mind always faces up to, but he is sensible and has far more nerve than me. His trip to Ghana for a year was a brave choice though he went with friends but that moment in time was a worrying one for me. Seeing them set off in a car for the airport was a strange moment of whether I would see him alive again; that I waved goodbye outside the chemist, where I had been waiting for his large supply of insulin (late delivery) to take to Africa. It arrived, and I handed it over, still worrying that they would keep it cool on the plane, and not knowing until a couple of years later that he had had a massive hypo on landing at Accra.

So my christmas present to him if possible, would not be the sweater I have bought him but a cure for his diabetes and not the daily regime of needles and testing he must always go through....

Edwardian Farm review; http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/TV-review-Edwardian-Farm.6661953.jp

Getting up early

Getting up early and listening to the radio, as I made a cup of tea this morning, I listened to someone on the radio talking about democracy, and the fact that in essence democracy does'nt work. That the system we have is probably the best, founded as it is on hundreds of years of smoothing out the edges. That our form of government, with the house of lords and the royal family appearing in the formalisation of our laws and 'motions passed' is in essence the best.

Well earlier on this week watching the student riots in London, the charging of the crowds by policemen on horseback and riot armour dressed police against young people, I wasn't so sure though; and when Charles and Camilla got attacked, it made me look at the royal family with a slightly quizzical eye.

For a start it was a complete foolishness to take them through this part of London where everyone was protesting, and also it was a complete foolishness of the couple to be seen in an expensive car dressed to the nines when we are all told that austerity is to be part of the next few years of life for most people, and that we were slinging round the necks of our young people, high bills of maybe £50,000 for university costs to be paid off in the future. Given that these young people also have to find jobs, probably pay off mortgages for a greater part of their lives, would they even want to start on this life of debt!

I find it very demoralising sometimes this line between rich and poor, it was poor Camilla necklace that started this trend of thought, large emeralds in a setting of diamonds hung round her neck and outside angry youngsters, who would have heavy debts hung round their necks in the future, the juxtaposition was too close and uncomfortable.

Well the next programme was about walking, something I used to do early in the morning when I walked Moss. Getting up on Sunday, and wandering about the downs is something I miss. Seeing the moon still in the sky on cold winter mornings and the sun coming over the horizon in a fiery glow. Watching the little muntjac make its way home into the woods, and also the deer as they browsed along the edge of the woods.

Walking is a meditation, our minds become cleared of all those small nagging problems and fears, we are part of the greater world, unimportant in the great scheme of things. Sometimes i think it is the time when nature flows through us, welcoming us to the minutae of its abundant life. The skylark soaring up into a tangle of clouds in spring as you venture too near its young hidden in the grass, we are offered the grace of its beautiful song. A single blade of grass, is a work of art, yet their are billions around, insects climbing solemnly to the top of a blade and balancing precariously there.

The form and shape of trees, the music of the wind blowing through their branches, different as the seasons progress, I miss the old ash trees that grew up on the downs, though the beautiful willows here are good enough compensation, I cannot get over their silvery-blue leaves and their fissured bark.

Their are two landscapes that I love, the first is Wales, not always pretty, but still retaining a wildness that is different. The other is Somerset, full of hills and downs, and woods. Yorkshire moors I have still to come to terms with, their bleak bareness is so different and its just a tad colder up North - 3 degrees to be precise, though if you were to move further north it would be another 3 degrees! Essex landscape is also beautiful in its rivers and fields, but it is bounded on all sides by roads which I hate.....

But the one thing I meant to write about was the cutting down of the thorn bush under Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury. Now Glastonbury is supposed to be a magical place, it is the 'mecca' of alternative views and paganism, though in reality it has a very christian background, with the great ruined abbey there and its story of King Arthur and Guinevere.

So who committed the crime? well I can't answer that one, there are dark mutterings on the local paper, only that someone took an axe to it, leaving quite a lot of stump still standing. Funnily enough a sprig had been cut the day before to grace the table of the Queen on Christmas day, so whether that had anything to do with it I'm not sure.

The story goes that Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus and a merchant, came to Britain and on coming to Glastonbury stuck his stick into the ground, and from thence miraculously a tree grew, and it is from this tree, over the centuries, many slips and cuttings have been taken to preserve the symbolic 'magic' of it. Its magic by the way is that it flowers on Christmas day, it doesn't of course, maybe sometimes 10 days later. But it is a hawthorn tree from a 'foreign' country that flowers at its proper season, like so many of the firs that we find in this country.

Its not such a calamity clones of the tree are apparently to be found elsewhere. The puritans or the roundheads in the 17th century also cut the tree down that was standing then, they did'nt believe that Xmas should be a time of festivity!

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Holy-Thorn-desecrated/article-2989272-detail/article.html

4 Trains and a bus

Snow on the moors; Creative Commons with acknowledgments to Colin May

7.3o start on a very cold morning, the bus took us round very snowy villages, and then up onto the moor, which was very beautiful. I suspect the temperature in the bus was -10 degrees if not more, the snow on the North Yorks moor was deep, blown by the wind, indeed sculpted by the wind, snowdrifts were everywhere, plus that lynchet/wave like affect as the wind ripples over the snow. Everywhere glistened silver with the frost, and as we plunged into Dalby Forest, it stood 2 to 3 foot deep down the tracks, completely impassable. The other road to Pickering had been opened the day before, to get supplies through, as towns and villages were running empty.

Whitby being by the sea was'nt as affected as much and had this rather tenuous link with Scarborough, even so shelves were beginning to run on empty.

A long wait for the Scarborough train, which took us through a magical country of snowy frosted trees, past the ruins of Kirkham Abbey, to arrive and wait for a further 20 minutes outside York station as a train had 'failed' on the platform. Eventually it was moved, and then another wait for the London train, which turned up fairly quickly but only because it was a very late early train, all trains from the north were coming in on one platform, hours late!

Travelling through a snowy countryside with frozen ponds and streams, suddenly changed into a green frozen landscape; the 'ribbon' of arctic cold weather twisted its way all round Britain.

London it had of course melted, so tube from Kings Cross to Liverpool street was easy, as was the Chelmsford train; a long journey though of about 8 hours.

Outside the cottage

one of the many snowfalls treacherous for cars though

Whitby Abbey in the distance

Pottery Cottage 1712 AD, two years till its 300 years old!

Beautiful skies, all this cold weather has created lovely cloud banks

Footnote; Well it seems I got out of Whitby just in time as more snow fell next day, and the road became impassable according to this BBC news item sent by my daughter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-11942535. Its quite difficult to convey the state of the weather, but heavy falls of snow, combined with sleet and hail, does build up a surface on the roads that no amount of gritting can contend with, luckily it happened in daylight on the Scarborough road whereas a similar happening in Scotland left hundreds of motorists stranded overnight. The same of course happened with the trains, York is a main line station, trains from London to Edinburgh, and all the northern cities pass through this station, that they were reduced to one platform shows just how serious it was up north.

Sunday

Sunday, and my daughter sits in front of me with the most enormous piles of clean washing, which is being sorted for ironing, Lillie is 'helping' sorting the socks. A rainy sleet is making the snow disappear but it is treacherous out with black ice.

Is the country in chaos because of the bad weather, maybe, but tv shows the lorries back on the roads albeit driving very slowly, so though there will be short term shortages of food, supplies are being delivered. The co-op ran out of meat yesterday and the shelves apparently looking a little bit empty. This because people from the villages come in and stock up for the week.

But they did'nt run out of chocolate cake at Sherlocks this afternoon, the children gorged, to be quite honest this fudgy cake is horrible, I suppose Black Forest gateau must have been its inspiration.

The salt miners down the road (or somewhere on the moors?) have been working flat out to mine the street salt, so its not all gloom and doom as the papers would have us see. Tomorrow I shall try and get home(joy no more non stop Fireman Sam with those terrible Welsh accents on tv) The rather nice woman who drove me to Whitby in her American jeep, in fact owns two famous fish and chip shops in Whitby plus a restaurant; think there might be a bit of competition with the Magpie restaurant for awards but if we are heading for a recession, fish and chips are the business to be in!

Friday

Today has been glorious, bluest of skies and crisp white snow, a new fall last night. Children are off school and have been tobogganing in the front garden, though Lillie has come in crying, that it is too cold, too white and too tiring. Late afternoon clouds are creeping in, soft beigy-greys, the birds sit in the tree outside, seemingly unconcerned as they clean their feathers. A thrush plucks a berry from the garden next door.
So can I get back to London next week? for the first part of the journey, its either a two hour bus ride across the moors, hopefully the road to Pickering is open now, but there was talk on the radio this lunchtime of the town of Malton not getting supplies through. Or, an hours' journey back to Scarborough, and then another dicey hour to York on the train. The York train, or at least the Edinburgh train, seems to be keeping to timetable, but the south east trains are having problems.
When we were in town today, we saw 'Jesus' the tramp standing in a doorway talking to himself. Apparently he is well looked after by the restaurants, and collects a daily amount of money from the bank each day for the days wants.He does have a similarityto Jesus, as he is quite a young man, and had a blue and white cloth draped round him. One wonders at the crime rate in Whitby but I am informed (not sure how reliably) that the police run the druggies out of town, and there is hardly any burglaries because everyone knows each other!
Tomorrow is the 'big shop' at the co-op, so I will buy a saturday paper and see how the rest of the world is coping.
No photos till I get home, and hopefully the gas man will have been today to mend the boiler/heating which has gone haywire, seems to me that if we are to make ready for colder winters, then decent boilers and pipes that don't freeze would be of some help. Of course if the snow stays to xmas, there will be no vegetables or sprouts to put on the table.......

So Britain is stranded under bitterly cold weather and snow, here in Whitby the roads alternately appear and disappear under snow, cars skid on the corner just outside the house. I have seen only one car with chains on the tyres. I should be stoic but that does not come easily, plus I have a wretched bug, caught from the youngest Lillie, luckily she is recovering and seems her usual bouncy self today.

Well I seem to have struck lucky with cottage searching. Walking around the half dozen I marked soon reduced the field to two, the others had a variety of faults, mostly to do with long dark alleyways reducing the light into the cottages.

Tiny is the word, these 18th century fisherman cottages are very small, but at last after all these years of wanting an old fashioned cottage, I seem to be in the process of acquiring one.. true it doesnt have any acres to go with it just a couple of flower pots maybe!

Dependent on the surveyor's report, it should be finalised fairly quickly, basically it is going to be a holiday let anyway but we can use it when its not in use. The selling points were most of the original beams, cupboard doors and the quaint stair door with latch that sold it, plus a warm atmosphere and secluded yard, not forgeting the fireplace -and it was a great deal warmer than this draughty old victorian terrace house.

Houses are very subjective, atmosphere plays a great deal, one had been 'done up', two shower rooms and a whole set of kitchen stuff I did'nt like including the tiles, sad because it was pretty outside. Another had a bad feel to it, not that I believe in ghosts but something 'other' was trogging round the bedrooms I'm sure...

Chelmsford news is not too good either, the heating has gone and the gas people are inundated with calls, so they may come out tomorrow, and of course the snow has hit the London area quite badly. They were talking of people, sleeping on the trains at King Cross which is the station I come back through, (if I ever get back) apparently it was warm though in the carriages.

Snow and Whitby

Decision made I decided to go to Whitby yesterday (saturday) even though the forecast looked forbidding but my love accompanied me to Kings Cross through the welter of trains/coach/tube stations and we arrived at Kings Cross just in time to catch delayed Edinburgh 11 o clock train. Travelling through the snowy countryside it did'nt seem too bad and very pretty. Catching the Scarborough train (this is a long journey) was different though. Travelling through the valleys and the sky went dark and suddenly there were blizzards of snow, a white-out. Twice this happened, and it was worrying that the road to Whitby, which the was the next part of the journey, would be closed. Luckily I happened to be sitting next to a person who lived in Whitby and she offered a lift in her jeep, and we got to Whitby safely over the moors


Next thing of course was to go to The Show which went on for about three hours, in which Matilda was making several appearances it took place at the Pavilion theatre, overlooking the sea, thick snow by now and the waves creaming against the sand; 80% of children and audience turned up, Matilda graceful and pretty, she has only been in dance a short time but she is pretty good....



Sunday and the roads over the moors were closed, cars slipped and slithered up the hill outside never quite making it to the top but the snowy look of Whitby is very pretty, especially at night when it is lit up, the lights shining on the harbour.

No photos for the moment, typing on a netbook is obviously more difficult than a nice large keyboard, and today (monday) the weather is also not too good, the wind has picked up in the night, blowing the snow off the roofs, hail as well as snow. Not a good time to go house hunting, my favourite cottage seems off limit, as it is near to a couple of nightclubs but there are half a dozen others to fret about!

Heywood Sumner

Heywood Sumner is a little known artist, illustrator and naturalist working around the beginning of the 20th century, (dates 1853 -1940) he dismissed the pre-raphaelite style and followed in the footsteps of the Arts and Crafts movement. I came across him years ago when I ordered his book from the library which was called Cuckoo Hill or Gornley. It was a handwritten book, illustrated with pictures of the area around his house of his beloved New Forest. The first thing that strikes you about his trees is that they are unusual, a lot of pine, maybe scotch pine, beech, etc. This is because the New Forest occupies a type of sandy heathland, the trees are in his watercolours, the soft greeness everywhere, gentle hummocks; he doesn't paint in a classical style, and his figures and horses can be terrible but there is a warmth and love for the natural world.

He also illustrated Cranbourne Chase, so that there are archaeological drawings as well, mostly black and white in true Arts and Craft style. He even managed to paint barrows, which I consider a great achievement because they often look slightly peculiar.

He built, or had built his house at Gornley, and it is still there today being used as a care home, medium sized and unpretentious, I suspect that his great love for its surroundings would have made for a pleasant life, being able to wander and sketch at will.

Cottages and frost

I could say that nothing has happened this week for me, but that is not quite true, for I have been finger tapping on the Internet looking for a small cottage in Whitby. Its rather exciting this exploration, looking into these small houses and trying to create mental pictures. Whitby is so medieval, narrow streets, narrow alleyways and tiny poky cottages that may have housed a large fishing family in its time but have now become holiday homes so that modern double beds seem to overwhelm tiny beamed rooms. Most of Whitby is tiered rows of houses up the hills that surround the harbour; a choice of medieval, Georgian, Victorian and modern.

Last night they were talking of Captain Cook and his ship sailing to Australia and the inevitable consequences of colonialism that destroyed the indigenous population.

A replica of the Endeavour (but only 40% of the original size)

Well Captain Cook started work in Whitby when he was young and went to work on ships trading out of Whitby to London and the local museum has a large display of his life and work, the famous ship Endeavour on which he sailed was built in Whitby and up till two years ago a replica of the ship was moored alongside the quay.

Cook sailed round the world both north and south poles, and it brings me to something else.

Rime - frost, especially formed from cloud or fog;

A few days ago I read about the etymology of the word frost on a beautiful photogenic website called The Fields we Know, and so I did some delving as well. Words were a common theme last week, Mornings Minion had also written about fascinating descriptive weather words. What had struck me was the word rime something we find used in poetry and 19th century literature, but which also is a term used for frost. It's Old English - hrim and if you were Saxon you would say hrim-ceald - icy cold, or hrim-giecel - icicle and hrimrig - rimy. So what puzzled me about the word, it was so similar to rhyme which means 'identity of sound between words or the endings of words.' So we have rhyme - rime; which is medieval or OE, and greek ryuthmos.

Leading on to another similar word but spoken differently, is rhythm - 'measured flow of words and phrases in verse or prose'. Must be modern but I always have trouble with the spelling of both.

A snowy, frosty December last year, the water was dark and crystal clear, reflecting the trees so that there seemed another world underneath the water. The river and its bank and trees, had turned into a fairy land, greys figure prominently against the white with a hint of black, and the twisted shapes of odd branches brings a tone of witches.....

Tuesday and frost

Tuesday and a glorious morning, true cold, with the leaves outlined in frost, and the grass on the green a crystallised icing only broken by footsteps. A collared dove and a noisy blackbird are chasing the magpie out of the tree above as I pass by - robber of nests, though not at this time of the year - the magpie just chuckles and zooms off elsewhere.


The hedge shrub with its leaves outlinedby thick beadings of ice, the sun bringing out the red hue of the stems, bright red berries elsewhere in the hedge and the chattering of the sparrows as they fuss about on the branches.

The thick leaves of the hydrangea in the shelter of the fence have just been touched by old Jack Frost, there pinkness still caught at the tail end of Autumn tells me that they should have had a few more tea leaves this year!

North Stoke miscellaneous

At one stage in my life my blog got deleted, and certain things I had written got lost, but not quite so, some I had printed. One such essay was about the area that lay under the village of North Stoke, the reason I had started the blog, old history still caught in old maps, churches and landscape.

Well something has been niggling over the last few days, stones lost, probably prehistoric in origin which had been used in all probability to provide hardcore for the road to Bitton from Bath years ago; they were there still in an old 1889 map of the area in the field called Mickle Mead, mickle stems from the Old Saxon word micel/micle meaning great. This particular meadow (mead) was adjacent to Holm Mead, another A/S word for water/ocean/sea (land arising from water). In this instance the meadow is adjacent to the river Avon.

The Boyd River, Bitton Barrow and Wick Burial Mound

This little river seems to have started in Dodington (Glos), and made its way across country encountering the M4 on the way, under which it got culverted, it then came through the villages of Hinton and Doynton till it reached the village of Wick and it then ran "in the exceptionally beautiful valley of the River Boyd, the rocks that line the sides of a deep nearly a mile in length, rising in some places to 200 feet, a bright sparkly substance found on these rocks is known locally as 'Bristol diamonds' taken from a 1914 source.

This now is Wick quarry, still being quarried and still an unspoilt 'glen' in some places. If you were to follow the river further on through the flat fields, the Wick Burial mound can be seen, two rather forlorn stones standing there; this burial mound is situated about a kilometre away from the river, and is near to the so-called 'Grandmother Rocks', perhaps marking the site of an old quarry or an outcrop of rocks that no longer exists.

And then of course the river empties out into the larger Avon, by the barrow at Bitton. If we have a confluence of rivers then we also have a confluence of history, for it is here at Bitton that an old roman road goes through (Via Julia) from Bath on its way to a roman port, and that the church of St.Mary in Bitton close to the road is supposedly sited on top of a Roman temple.

Lost Stones;
Things or at least an important part of its prehistoric history has got 'lost' at this barrow, stones for a start, they are there on a 19th century map, 7 in Holm Mead and 6 further along in Mickle Mead. In both fields on the map they trail the hedgerows, perhaps in Mickle Mead they curve down to the river. This is what makes this place something special in the past, the barrow is very close to the church, a site which has not only had a christian religion, but also a pagan roman temple, which maybe goes back to a native shrine, similar to the one at Bath - Aqua Sulis, or even the Silbury roman settlement.

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/38003/bitton.html which shows the closeness of the Bitton barrow to the church of St.Mary...

The following photos are of St.Martins church at Northstoke, note the yews around the church and what is not shown in the photo the stream tumbling down on to the lane by the side of the steps. The second photo shows a 'hollow way' old road, that was probably a Roman road from Northstoke down to Bitton.