They are back safely - thank goodness

The beginning of the journey



the car loaded to the gunwales on the way back to Whitby - 2200 miles all told

The land rover arrived early saturday morning, they had travelled from Vevey to England without staying overnight in France, so everyone was tired.  Apparently they sat outside our house from 4.30 onwards and then went and found breakfast at McDonalds.  The fridge was temporarily completely filled with chocolate and cheese, my daughter having raided Migros in Switzerland, she has a fascination with supermarkets, Whitby only having the Co-op.

Switzerland is lovely but expensive, you need to earn  quite a few thousand each month to pay the bills; from their flat balcony they watched the house over the road which had an electric lawn mower which came out at 6 every morning and mowed the lawn all by itself, something I've never seen in England, but my son in law was captivated by the country, especially the town of Gruyere, and the children did eat the many dishes of a raclette their great aunts had cooked for them, cooking one's food at the table was a great treat.

And just to add to the weekend my son and his friend showed up from a wedding they had been to in London, and I was given another side of the story about Gadaffi from an African point of view - interesting,  in that what we take for granted in our propaganda is seen very differently in the African states where his money has helped.
They also did a tour of the sushi factory that my daughter's cousin owns, the funniest photo of them all dressed in plastic, even little Lillie who had to have parts of her overalls chopped off.  Sushi was tasted but not I think by the children, though Tom the eldest is always adventurous in food, sushi is of course always a source of topic in this household, and it looks like we maybe be going to Kyoto in November, though sushi is not exactly my favourite but the temples and moss garden are on my list of things to do..

Matilda trying her hand at woodwork

Crashed out whilst watching a video

Cockle Spit - Bradwell on Sea

 poppies

Cockle Spit salt marshes

St.Peter's church; The altar lit up by the sun falling from the window

The grass verges on the Roman road to the church

Cockles piled thickly everywhere on the mudflats

Musings

Whitchurch, near to Solva

19th Century well down the lane from the church

Old settlement above the well

wall through the woods showing old field layout

If I had more time on this earth, I would solve some of the puzzles that irk my curiosity, one of them is the history of the area around Middle Mill, two places come to mind King's Heriot just up the lane, and Whitchurch - the white church, which is also on one of the lanes leading away from the pack horse bridge at the mill.  Welsh history is a self-sufficient tale of small communities, reading as I have been this morning on a survey done on church/chapel attendance on a single day in the 19th century and you will find that chapel attendance was well attended the church not so. The church above was on the pilgrim trail to St.David's Cathedral, and if you were to follow the lane past the church to that small city you would find on your right an old airfield as shown on this map.
 http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html?coords=179900,225500

The photos above show the church, it is supposed to have a cross-stone by the gate but I have never found it, walking down the lane from the church to Middle Mill, there is a small footpath on your right into the woods, just opposite some cottages.  Taking this footpath you come to the rather pretty 19th century well deep in the wood, to your right there is the wall of an old field and above you can trace the outline of an old settlement.  What the old settlement is I can find no information on, Magic Map (Scheduled Ancient Monuments) gives no clue; it could be Iron Age or medieval, but its distinct narrow pattern plus the bank, points to I/A.

But the reason one falls in love with Wales is because so many parts are neglected, overgrown and beautiful, sadly because  there is literally no way of earning a living in the more remote parts. Life had always been hard, the brutal force of Norman castles bears testimony to overlordship, the topography of the land difficult for farming.   Solva and St.Davids rely on tourism, but they are protected from the worst influxes of the tourist trade by the fact that it is a protected National Park along this particular part of the coastline.

But if you wander around the area as I have done for many years, mostly looking for prehistoric stuff, you chance on other stuff.  One of them is old airfields, the defence of the Atlantic coast in WW2, meant that this part of the coastline seems to have a disproportionate amount of airfields.  Brawdy for one, still occupied just outside Solva; the disused airfield that borders Whitchurch and Solva, and another disused airfield out of Upper Solva which lies just above Nine Wells.

The photos below are of somewhere on the Presceli's; parking further along the road from Waldo William's stone,  from here is one of the places you can walk to Carn Meini and the Bluestones.  Several years ago meandering along on a long walk that way I happened to come across the remains of a plane and a dedication to the men who had lost their lives in the crash.  As you can see it must have been one of the planes coming in to land on one of the coast airfields.  70 odd years later, traces still remain, though I have no history of this for the moment, my partner wrote a small article on The Journal entitled Battle of the Prescelis , which shows the interest the War Office had after the Second World War to turn Prescilis into a permanent military training area, similar to Salisbury Plain by Stonehenge, which is ironic given the Bluestone connection.

Refs;  Trevor Bloom - History of Solva

Note; The Heritage Journal is run by a small group of people, ostensibly for prehistoric stones protection, but we have been running other articles as well....

The Trip

Part of the 99 steps down from the abbey

Lillie happy amongst her toys

At least 6 layers of paintings to be scrapped off by my SIL, though I did my bit as well!

Family on the old viaduct

the church of St.Mary, arrived too early to look inside.  It opens at 10

The multitude of roofs and buildings that make Whitby such an exciting place

The Great Trip; or how the machinations of one's family produces spots before the eyes.

Loading the land rover; all the following could be headlined as each separate event took place, for instance packing consisted of 6 large black bags that fit into the carrier strapped onto the roof.

So the children laid out what they thought was needed for the holiday and this was reduced or added to, various technical pieces of wire and recharging equipment for the various game boxes they own, plus of course the three scooters had to be packed as well.  Sleeping bags for the flat in Vevey, a constant reminder to the children that they would eat Sylvia's minestrone soup, they are all very rigid in what they like, so no pulled faces or outright refusals to eat what was put before them..

My son-in-law's bike perched perilously on the top, (he did 3 hours cycling by the lake in Switzerland on sunday morning), completed the loading, various replacements car documents arrived in the post the day before we started off, in all it was a bit nerve wracking.

Currency, a great deal of it, was bought as world markets swayed on the brink of disaster, the children keyed into the currency calculator on the computer just to keep check of their small sums.  Too many euros bought by mistake will have to be used up in petrol across France, Swiss francs got suspended at one time but luckily they were already bought. Ollie the cat delivered to the cattery, the house vacuumed through and then the fitting of children into the car surrounded by bags of 'stuff'.

First part of their journey bought them to our house, and I did literally climb out of the car with those dreaded migrainal wavy lines in front of my eyes, luckily I took a pill before it could take affect. Fish and chips in the newly opened restaurant followed by a walk for the children.  Then the next day they crossed to France and I received texts of their various stops and then their safe arrival in Switzerland....

continuation with photos as soon as Eblogger rights itself..

Waiting for tomorrow

The children have vacuumed the house, the clothes are waiting to be packed and I have a headache, mostly from Lillie screaming I suspect.  7 of us will travel down to Chelmsford tomorrow in the land rover, with the luggage in a carrier on the top and a bicycle atop that.  Currency is bought, even amongst the up and down of swiss francs and euros and falling markets, and this little family will hit Switzerland on Sunday and stay in a flat, luckily I will be left in Chelmsford!

Their great aunts will have a handful on their hands, and I can only hope the children will eat what is put in front of them without screwing their noses up.  The final work in the cottage, and there is a lot of it, will be finished in September, Jason the builder says the scaffolding will go up for the chimney when everyone comes back from holiday, the electrician will do the electrics, and then the final painting, which we will go down to help with, and then carpets and furniture - joy..

Riots have subsided everywhere, though a neighbour apparently ordered his daughter to get back from London. to the relative safety of Whitby yesterday.

And why relative safety?, well because though the looting moved up North and Whitby would hardly be affected being  a very quiet place, we witnessed yesterday an altercation between three youths which was pretty scary, someone got punched on the nose in town and a lot of foul language filled the air.  I suspect though with all the people that have been arrested and going through the courts, there will be less looting come the weekend.

The world is quite a weird place at the moment, if you have green leanings, there is a feeling of 'well I told you so' the greed displayed in our society has brought it all on their own heads but of course it runs through society like the silver thread through a fiver, the bankers, footballers, celebrities and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, took as much as they could get and look where it has got us, its going to be a long hard road to some sort of viability in the system.

Whitby

Grabbing the computerr when it is free can be quite difficult, but 3 members of the family have departed to the business centre to do some work, Lillie being amongst them, Matilda off to the park with her friend and the boys elsewhere in the house.

The weather is gorgeous, Whitby full of tourists, we did Boyse this morning, the shop which sells everything but the kitchen sink, but I bet you could find one if you looked hard enough.  Children love it, trashy toys, even I love it for its cheap wool! Today 2 more scooters were bought for Switzerland, dvds for the car journey, goodness knows how everything is going to fit, I have also cadged a ride back to Chelmsford as well just to add to the capacity of the land rover; my son in law is also debating putting his bike on top of the carrier thing as well.

So general excitement in the house about the big trip abroad, strange pieces of technology have arrived for tolls across France plus satnav maps and sticker for the car in Switzerland, said car has just been to the garage for a new radiator.

The cottage, which I have visited is in a state of 'mess' but boiler and radiators are in, and  the bathroom suite all working.  Piles of stripped wall stuff everywhere, and my son in law, is taking paintwork back to original surfaces which is hard, and I would not have had the courage to do.  Though small this cottage, and three hundred years old, it must have been renovated in the Georgian period,  because the plastering on the front is mock.  The windows are original, the downstairs still has shutter hinges on the outside.  A small cupboard has been found under layers of paint, the only clue, butterfly hinges showing faintly through. Lots of cupboards everwhere, under the stairs, next to the large fireplace in the top bedroom, all fascinating, but the standard of workmanship from the 1970s was botch work, so when it has been done over, at least we shall have added to the housing stock and given it a proper lease of life.  The chimney still waits to be done, flashing is letting water in but once done it should be cosy.

It is situated in a 'yard', so you have to live with neighbours, the outlook for instance is not too good, but it cosy, safe and quiet right in the middle of town, and my SIL has managed somehow to have the keys to two other 'holiday cottages' one of which is sharing the bill on scaffolding. My next door neighbours are quite sweet and helpful, and on the other side is a holiday cottage I think.  Rescued a great grey seagull chick the other day which had become trapped in her entrance, all in all its an exciting period of life...

poems and photos

I seem to have difficulty today in uploading photos, but the river bank is becoming overgrown, tons of pond weed has been skimmed off the river and rots gently in the water meadow field. All sizes of fish are at the edge of the mill water. And then some poetry from Edward Thomas and Robert Frost, an interesting article in the Guardian about 'The Road Not Taken'...
which probably tells us not to take words or ourselves too seriously, poor Thomas took the poem to heart and went off to war to be killed in a few weeks, or perhaps there was another story there...
Off to Whitby tomorrow on a long train journey..
Frost's poem is a favourite of mine, I'm sure he wrote another 'cottage' one too.

The pretty but unwelcome policeman's helmet

teasels

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,
Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,
The lovely visible earth and sky and sea
Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it,
Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash trees
That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches
Shall often visit and make love in and flit:

A garden I need never go beyond,
Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one
Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:
A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond:


For these I ask not, but, neither too late
Nor yet too early, for what men call content,
And also that something may be sent
To be contented with, I ask of Fate.

Edward Thomas

hundreds of little fish

The Chelmer

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping hear
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.




He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.




The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

Robert Frost

Waldo Williams - Two Fields

The only thing I have to say about this plaque, why is it so ugly?

The Bluestone that was brought down from Carn Meyn in 1989 by helicopter is opposite this stone on the other side of the road.


More discreet

'Wall of my childhood, Foel Drigarn, Carn Gyfrwy, Tal Mynydd, My support in all independent thinking'

Again I have written about Waldo elsewhere, he is supposed to be be one of Wales finest language poet, and I suspect his poetry rhythm lies in the Welsh language.  He grew up in the village of, Mynachlog-ddu which lies under the Presili range of hills.  He was a pacificist and was part of the group that fought off the land around the Prescelis hills  being taken over by the government for military exercises, hopefully my other half will write about it elsewhere but it is an interesting facet of history.  It would have been similar to other military land such as Salisbury Plain and Dartmoor, a place for tank training, etc.

Whilst the battle was fought and won, it is interesting to remember that W.F.Grimes in the 1940s, an archaeologists who wrote about this area, and also the prehistory on the downs in Somerset, was employed by the war office to sort out way out airfields for WW2,  Lansdown had one, also Charmy Down which lies on the opposite down to Lansdown outside Bath.  Also, there is an airfield just outside Solva (by Nine Wells) now disused, all of which had prehistoric barrows and cromlechs on them,  The RAF station of Brawdy still remains, though I'm not sure it comes from the second World War.

Somewhere in my photos I have taken photos of the remains of a burnt out plane on the flanks of the Preseli going towards Carn Meyn, from what I can remember 6 men died when the plane came down, strange that bits should still remain from such a long time ago, but a plaque remembers them and a few pieces of burnt out metal are there in this remote part.

Those fields – I’ve walked across them - they are
Extraordinary fields, though inaccessible to the seeker
After transcendence this is no loss for the page
Holds them in view and they extend into the margins
Between field hedges and the nets of the Hunter


In many places and times where time
Is arrested and held captive by a tether
Of stillness long enough to feel chastened by silence.
Sunlight touches a wall on a summer afternoon,
Shadows enclose a moment which passes from forever


To forever: Such blessings are felt to be precious.
But hearing beyond them voices calling in a common
Tongue of work and worship echoing through centuries,
And knowing that they witness this moment
When all is still, so that being alone


Is to be with them, resonates beyond solitude.
Voices heard in the echoes of whistling lapwings
Tremble to life over empty meadows; each hand,
Each tongue unique in the passing of time yet fused
In a moment making one of many things.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_Williams

The Presceli Hills

Foel Drygarn rock with one of the stone cairns behind, and on the skyline an American couple from Seattle.

A walk up to Foel Drygarn, three enormous stone cairns and Iron age settlement, this walk is quite steep.  But from its summit you can get views of the 'bluestones' Carn Meyn and this time I located Carn Alws in the landscape (a chevaux de frise) which we must walk to because it looks so interesting sometime in the future; either a defended hillfort location or a place where you drove your livestock in  in the Iron age, it has upright stones along the entrance lane.

The walk is slightly exhausting up hill, but is not too far, this part of the Prescelis is pure sheep country, and we witnessed the same sheep herding I had witnessed several years ago bringing the sheep down to the farm yard.  The first sign was a sheepdog running on to the road, there really is not much traffic around in this part of the world, so sheepdogs are often found to be asleep on the road or territorially guarding the farm.... a couple of hundred were being rounded up on the higher fields by a tractor blaring out his horn and a couple of nifty dogs, all done at quite a high speed as the sheep were tightly circled and then brought down into the yard - noisy but interesting to watch.

The top of Foel Drygarn is difficult to describe but similar I would think to the Carn Meyn ridge top. Austere and awesome are words that come to mind, the thin crust of greenery broken by the massive rocks that expand upward out of  the earth - prehistory still writ, and the reason why this poor land is sheep country. And why some of us believe that the magical aspect of the bluestones were transported back to Stonehenge from this prehistoric ridgeway.

views from the top

walking up the path with Carn Meyn in the distance

Carn Alw in the misty distance

Gors Fawr small stone circle on the moor below the Preseli Hills

Gors Fawr stone stone circle, Bronze Age and rather small, some blue stone dolerite, dwarfed by sheep and gorse, a very peaceful place and near the road, it also has two stones some two hundred yards away, which may have formed part of an avenue.

New arrivals

This little frog in the bowl we keep for the birds to drink from, suddenly arrived whilst we were away. Whence he came from is a mystery, no ponds around here, I have given him a piece of piping to sit on so that he can presumably eat the gnats and suchlike that lay their larvae in water.  He is now added to the fauna of the garden with the hedgehog who lives under the shed and the squirrel who patiently goes through the bread (looking for sunflower seeds) thrown out for the birds.

Though I don't 'own' any creatures at the moment, do feed a cat occasionally that comes looking for food, and of course the birds, so the garden is getting quite full.

The Avebury megameet, which happens each year, its a gathering of people interested in old prehistoric stones, and for us all to meet up from different parts of the country, though with the price of petrol it is getting more difficult.  Well as I also belong to a Heritage action group, had to take photos of these miscreant sheep rubbing themselves against the stones and producing a 'lanolin line' on the stones.  Still they were no worse than some German cyclists who were climbing the stones but they did  climb down after someone remonstrated with them.... 

St.Non and her chapel

The ruined chapel inside the stone circle

St.Non is the mother of St.David, Wales most important saint, it is said that St.David was born in the centre of a stone circle one wild and stormy night, well myth or legend, this is the place that it happened.

There are stones scattered around in a large circle, though very incomplete, and in the centre a ruined medieval chapel set on this gently sloping ground looking out to sea.

Above the ruined chapel is a retreat house, which can be used by any denomination of religion.  It is not exactly attractive, and must have been built in the 1930s, and alongside a smaller chapel which was finished in 1934 and is dedicated to three saints, St.Non, St.Bridget, and St.Winifred all female celtic saints, or at least, belonging to that time when the Romans had left Britain in the 5th century and the 'British Celtic' church had come into being with slightly different teachings to the 'Roman Catholic' writings.  

At St.Non's it is said that when St.David was born, a spring rose miraculously from the ground, this well is dedicated to 'Our Lady' a catholic dedication.  So a place of mystery and strong religious feelings, the well of course seen as a healing well.  What of course makes the place interesting is the overlay of paganism by christianity.

Winifred or Gwen-Frewi 6th-7th century has an interesting history, she follows in the tradition of young rich female seduced by a prince (Caradog ab Alan), she fled from him but he caught up with before she could reach the safety of the church and sanctuary.  He cut off her head but her uncle St.Beuno restored her head and she became a nun at Gywtherin in Denbighshire.  The 'head' motif is characteristic of the pagan celtic cults.

Bridget/Bride - Ffraid 450 - 525 century - patron saint  of blacksmiths, poets, brewers, cooking and kitchens and healers. She seems a patron of many things, she is of course also acknowledged  in the bay called St.Brides Bay which the chapel looks over, she is more famous as the Irish saint, St.Bridget, second only to St.Patrick, in Wales she was called Ffraid Santes. Bridget of course belongs to the cult of the Celtic Fire Goddess, which kept an 'eternal' fire going at Kildare, and belongs to the festival of St.Imbolc on 2nd February.

Fascinating histories of these Welsh saints can be found in T.D.Breverton's book The Book of Welsh Saints, a book if I was stranded on a Desert Island would be my book of choice!

St.Non's Well with spots of rain

The Retreat

The shrine

The 20th century chapel

http://www.stnonsretreat.org.uk/history.htm

Porthgain and Abereiddi

Abereiddi Blue lagoon, the original slate quarry, the entrance of which was blown up to let the sea in

I have already written about Porthgain and Abereiddi which are roughly a mile apart, so there is not much to add, the first thing you notice about the photos is how bleak this part of the coast is, the stone and slate  that has been hewn away in the quarries tells of back breaking work and what is left now at Abereiddi are the slate houses slowly crumbling away, the round powder house, a safe place for the dynamite to be kept and of course the manager's house set slightly apart higher up the hill.

Today the blue lagoon is used for fun, scuba diving and jumping off rocks, which seemed rather dangerous for the youngsters taking part but they wore hard hats as they swam from rock to rock and then jumped spreadeagled into the deep waters.

Porthgain  stone quarry

Porthgain 'street' the end two cottages belong to an artist and every year that I have been there is an enormous Pyreanean Mountain dog asleep outside.

http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2007/10/porthgain-and-abereiddi-quarries.html

Warriors Dyke - St.Davids Head



Warriors Dyke

Warriors Dyke is a promontory fort, ie it is a small defended settlement built on a long jutting out rock from the mainland.  Both Porth y Rhaw and the above fort are Iron Age, though they could probably have been earlier.  I read somewhere that if you did'nt find a promontory fort every half mile along the Pembrokeshire coastline something must be wrong.

Warriors Dyke was named by Sabine Baring Gould a vicar of the 19th Century, who also wrote hymns, beside  books on antiquities, mostly of Europe.  He excavated here and found the usual bits of pottery, charcoal and faience beads, plus to my joy, spinning whorls.  Sadly any 19th C excavation messes up the site so that any future more valuable excavation has all the evidence destroyed.

Getting there involves a walk from the popular Whitesand beach, up the side of the cliffs and through the gate onto the moor.  You will be faced with a shallow valley to cross with a stream running through it.

To your right is Carn Llidi with its double cromlech, which we did'nt visit this year; the tomb is hidden, or huddles, against the rock face and in front of it is an old WW2 platform, it takes some finding.

But to return to the settlement, fort is not quite the right word, over in the distance on St.Davids Head you will see another cromlech this is Coetan Arthur, again hidden in a jumble of rocks, but its capstone stands clearly against the sky. Coetan Arthur is framed between two outcrops, the westward is the settlement, and you can find it either by taking the path that goes along the cliff edge, or by heading for the outcrops and walking along the top - a much safer option.

Coetan Arthur cromlech

Warriors Dyke -hut stone circle

another one

I photographed five but they are all very similar.

The settlement is defended by three banks of stones, two very small, whilst the inner one is massive, and tumbles down in a dramatic manner.  Go inside and you will find a small grassy enclosure covered in stones.  There are six stone hut circles here, we found five, the stones haphazardly arranged in circles, presumably the huts would have been thatched with the reeds you find in the boggy marsh valley, but trees around the coast are usually non-existent due to storms, only gorse and heather survive the weather and quite a few wild flowers of course. Sabine Gould says the huts were co-joined but in will need another trip to confirm this!



wood sage

Toadflax lots of it around




Devil's bit scabious