Gardens and grandchildren

The youngest grand child Lillie always up to mischief is also the star on Matilda's F/B at the moment.  Smeared lipstick, ringlets, dark glasses and a limp flower is her choice of outfit.  Ollie the cat winds round her trying for attention, Ollie is getting on, must be about fifteen years old, has enormous green eyes and will sit and stare at you for minutes on end.  We have never understood this, is he trying to fathom our inner souls or is he just brainless...

Spinning wool takes up time, I have had to put my mind to the cottage recently as it still needs bits and bobs, a chest of drawers and a bedside cupboard should soon be shortly winging its way from Argos, to be taken up and made up when we go up next month sometime.  Micro-wave bought, never use them but you have to have one!  My reluctance to allow it to become a holiday cottage is becoming evident, but it needs to pay its way if only for the utility bills.

My mind is mostly on the coming spring and plants, above my desk two photos stuck in the picture frame,

white foxgloves, ladies mantle, marguerite daisy maybe, cantebury bells, southernwood and rue.  Two of my favourite roses, the stripey Rosa mundi and the York rose I think. I often wonder how the old garden is doing, I planted about thirty fruit and nut trees, built trellises for climbing rose and honeysuckles, but putting them together is not always a good idea.  Sometimes I wish I could start on another large garden but age would catch me out!

The other photo brings back memories of my young son sitting up on the slope at the bottom of the garden stroking Daisy the angora rabbit, or even Tom my oldest grandson now, but when he was young had built a shelter up there, but on crawling inside and sitting down, he sat on a bumble bee's nest, the sight of his face and the bumble bee chasing him still makes me giggle...  This bank was wild still had the remains of the old Victorian rockery garden, and my son and I had made bumble bee nests not that I think there ever worked except one maybe...

This is a rowan tree I planted (for luck) to the side a planted walnut tree that the squirrel would raid the nuts every year when they were still in the green, and I would find them buried in the leaf and compost heaps.

Behind the blue of brunnera in spring, later the honey scented cow parsley would film the little path with white.  Tall spikes of Japanese knotweed, a relic of the old garden, would be cut down, but it never became aggressive.

the old garden

Rosa Mundi  rose, loved  by bees to...

                                          

Nounsley - Sportsmen Arms

Yesterday as the snow started to melt we went out along the country lanes full of large puddles, the fields a tracery of snow and black earth. The sky blue and people walking the lanes with their dogs.  The Sportsmen Arms pub at Nounsley was the place we were heading for.  Nounsley was once a small hamlet with three or four old houses by the pub and a large farm about fifty metres away.  Today strip development of modern houses along the lane has taken place, no church, no shop, the pub being the only centre of the community/
No more alas, closed and fenced off, the windows empty and black, the large area of green where people would eat their lunches on the wooden tables all gone.  We had spent many a sunny afternoon sat there with our drinks children playing on the green, dog walkers passing sometimes with more exotic dogs than a country labrador or spaniel.  Sad and then angry at a world that drives people out of their business, supermarkets and gastro pubs run by large breweries slowly encroaching into every area.  Pubs are closing of course everywhere, but it is the sense of community that is also lost that is so sad.
We went to the Cats pub, always full of the same people who greet you with a friendly smile but even Wally is way past retirement age, he only sells a small brewery beer, and the food is kept simple but good.

The little Terling river behaving itself and not overflowing, the old willows gracefully bending, always stop  by the river here for that moment of calm and introspection, on the other side of the bridge the river is always somewhat choked by the vegetative growth, different land owners I think.

Rain is beating down now, yesterday the news that the river had overflowed at Solva, three foot deep it has affected 60 properties, terrible news for house owners, also on Facebook the Solva Woollen mill has been flooded, all their new work ruined......"Our worst nightmare came true last night as mother nature gave us a taste of her power and the river kept rising. Beating all previous river levels at the Mill it peaked about 1.30 am. The water started coming in at the back of the mill, washing though our gorgeous new shop and flowing out through the weaving shed."

  

Solva Mill - a favourite place

Colour

Experimenting with the new pipits (not sure they are called that) but yesterday with my dye pot to hand I chose emerald/purple/violet acid dyes they turned into  pretty green sea colours, and though I made mistakes and it does not look like space-dyed yarn should, the method has become a bit clearer.  The top photo is dried flowers from a bouquet sometime ago, I love dried flowers the way they fade into different colours, and a good source of inspiration for new colour ways.  The serving dish underneath is an 'onion' pattern with a translucent glaze a favourite piece...

More snow

Snow is on its way again, albeit briefly before rain and then flooding resumes.  I like snow, its pure white brilliance unsullied by human footprints scuffing it away, I like the tracks of the birds in the snow, I loved it in my old garden, and then when it arrived unexpectedly at Avebury whilst we were staying there for a week in a small cottage in 2007.  So as I have my Flickr photos to hand, some photos.  Flickr by the way is good for storage although you have to pay, even when you don't pay for a year or two, pay up and your photos will return....
We got up early to experience the snow at Avebury, bitterly cold and only a couple of photographers around to capture the magic of Avebury in the snow, I found the stones too harshly outlined, but as always loved the trees and the river.  Moss loved snow, he also loved sitting in the Bath garden, from a pup he would sit and contemplate the skies with all its bird life and wait for any cat to put a foot in the garden!  The only birds he could not stand was the grey and white wagtails in the car park at the Braythwaite Arms, a low growl, a tug of the lead and they would have been mincemeat in his eyes, goodness knows why........

This is down by the river, snow etches sharp lines  and almost draws the tree against the skyline

The Cove stones

Moss and the old stone by the green lane

Moss sitting happily in the Bath garden

Seizing the day

Well there it is a banner bright and bold, but today spinning happily away I listened to their protest songs on the following link, I had found them two or three years back, and though occasionally their language can be near the knuckle it has you laughing and maybe dancing too, I see their address is in Glastonbury - where else for protest?  I am so glad to see Bovey Belle back on the internet too, being a worry gut I had imagined the worst, but thank goodness for internet cafes.

The cottage has been wired up too, I suspect mostly for my love who gets fidgety without the 'source' at his fingers.  But fighting with my grandchildren for the loan of THEIR computers is a bit intimidating, also the little one has a habit of remembering passwords, god knows what she would put on my blogs..... We could have done with Jennie earlier this morning with a Welsh email from a 10 year boy beautifully written asking about Pentre Ifan, but in the end found a translation. 

I even ordered some more spinning wool today, it had a 20% reduction for a kilo so it should last me the year, I have a fancy for space dyeing, and having found a method on Youtube. The snow is starting to melt, the hillock on the green in front of the house is a messy brown colour after hoards of children, adults and dogs have sledged and scampered up and down its side.  

I have been trying to work out how to fool the bully of the garden, a blackbird named Fred not to chase away every other bird who alights to feed, the only one who stands up to him is a wood pigeon who has bulk on his side if no brain!  I am cross that my collared doves are too scared to come down, the starlings help themselves to the fatballs, which infuriates Fred - yes I do waste time watching them.

And a song  Bigger, better, brighter

Hoar Frost

At the moment we are all living in a monochrome world of snow and black silhouettes of trees against a grey sky, the snow in Chelmsford is not so deep as in other parts of Britain, the news on the radio grinds on and I worry about the garden birds... but four years back I went on a magical early morning walk with my Moss up on the downs near Bath and the world had crystallised into a magic place, caught on camera that early morning the soft pink of the rising sun illuminating the fairy trees, so perhaps not wishing the cold on people that hoar frost brings in its wake some photos, and a poem by John Clare. 'Hoar' can mean 'aged' or could be taken from hawthorn which is covered in white in spring.

The Hoar Frost Lodges on Every Tree

The hoar frost lodges on every tree

On the round hay stack and the rushy lea

And the boy ere he fothers behind the stack stands

A stamping his feet and a knocking his hands

The shepherd goes tucking his hook in his arm

And makes the dog bark up the sheep to the farm

The ploughman though noisey goes silently now

And rubs off the ryhme with his arm from the plough

Kop kop to his horses he sings and no more

For winter grins keenly and singing is oer

Save just now and then in the midst of the day

When hoar feathered frost is all melted away

Then larks from the thurrows takes sunshine for spring

And mounts oer his head just a minute to sing

And cleaning his plough at the end of the land

He'll hum lovely Jessey and sweet Peggy Band.

This and that

This is the Japanese garden made in honour of the doctor, and his house is  on the right

Idle thoughts...What did I think of Germany? Well let us start with breakfast, self service in the two hotels we stayed in and no kettle in the bedroom for that first cup of tea!!!!!! Yikes did I miss that first civilised cup of tea of the day, to actually add to my woes, the tea bags on offer in the dining room were mostly of the tisane variety with only darjeeling being the black tea..  But the rooms were beautifully warm and clean, and it is not the hotel's fault that we can't speak German and had to resort to CNN for news. Stuttgart was a bit of a scary place, as someone who does not like shopping, the enormous shop lined street we walked down to get to the museums were not interesting in the least, they had not got to the 'Westfield' (the big shopping mall next to the Olympic stadium) stage at least in providing covered shopping malls.  To be quite honest I haven't been to Westfield yet but will undertake it one day if my grand daughter Matilda wants to go, as surely she will.
Everyone was so kind to us in Bietigheim that I can only praise the people, we met a German doctor and his Welsh wife who had relatives in Fishguard, and it was a shock to be asked by him, had we got into The Old Pharmacy restaurant in Solva, this is a restaurant known for its culinary skills, and yes we had last year...
We had two meals out with everyone in German restaurants, and the first thing you notice on the menu, that it is mostly meat with noodles - spatzle (something I shall come back to one day) and a help yourself salad, that is a great deal better than the salads you get in this country.  But neither of us are large meat eaters, so we managed on the salads and found chicken in one of the restaurants. But when we were invited to Regina's house we ate the noodles with fried onions and a salad.  One of the things I liked and would like to do in these dark winter months would be to line the path with little candles as Regina had done for the museum for her 'soiree'.

Just to prove that not all my photos are in monochrome these green bamboos  did stand out

This is the witches lane,  and people had little doll witches in their backyards just to emphasis this 'hexed' place..

Bietigheim

The building with the tower is the Town Hall, and the building behind is the museum.
The weather was cold as you can see from the deserted street

So we are back, the paintings safely delivered, and once more in the museum at Bietigheim.  They had been brought back to this German town by Doctor Erwin Balz a hundred years ago from Japan. They are very proud of his collection at the museum, though I believe there is quite a lot of stuff in Stuttgart as well.  In the town there is a municipal Japanese garden just opposite his house.  The lecture was a great success, we were not sure that anyone would turn up but about 70 people did and listened for the hour and a half as LS talked.  He had an interpreter, and after the lecture a chosen few went back to see one of the paintings unrolled along with the two journalists from local papers.  Lots of questions were asked by the audience as they watched the restoration through the slides, the idea of 'reversibility' that Japanese paintings can always be restored because of the same technique (used for hundreds of years) using the 'aged' paste and water and the removal of the fine tissue papers came across clearly.  So that in a hundred years  they can still be restored once again, though hopefully they will never reach that same crinkled appearance again.

We met the mayor the day before for a cup of coffee with his young family, and the first thing you learn about this German town is how proud they are of their cultural heritage, statues, modern and old abound in the town, the old buildings have been restored traditionally.  Also taxes are quite low and you can park for free in car parks!

So what else, we had a two hour guided tour from Margaret, one of the guides from the museum, and Regina the curator and our host, lovely lady and her husband Franz, took us to the Hochdorf Celtic burial site on sunday.  On tuesday before we went to the airport at Stuttgart, we saw the Celtic exhibition housed in two great museums in Stuttgart.  This is an important Celtic exhibition, loads of Celtic bling, torcs that were so beautifully decorated, great bronze cauldrons and the original Hochdorf  settee and gold bowls and waggon.  I spotted the Gundestrup silver cauldron and the Desborough late Celtic mirror (on loan from the British Museum). Both objects I never thought I would see... No cameras are allowed in the museum, and bags and coats have also to be put away in lockers, but when ever I hear British  historians quibbling about the use of Celtic with a small or large 'c', I shall reply 'nonsense' for there is a definite style of outstanding artwork that follows through from the Hallstatt to the La Tene period.

Photos will be put on Northstoke 2 on Wordpress, because I am sure to have used up my ration on this blog fairly soon....

The Hochdorf Celtic burial on his bronze 'sofa', though I am sure it would have had cushions and animal furs on it when in use

Journeys

Tomorrow afternoon we drive to Stansted and then fly to Stuttgart, or maybe we get stopped at the airport for trying to smuggle paintings out of the country.  We have an email from the museum and there should be a letter in the post specifying why we are taking Japanese paintings to Germany but it has not arrived yet. Yes you can tell I'm nervous my dear daughter worried me further last night with tales of taxes, not carrying liquid and not taking any jewellery.  Apart from the 6 boxes we are also taking back the old boxes and the canvas bag they came in! Clothes are few and far between in the suitcases.  Everything else has been laid on, the lecture at the Town Hall, a tour of the town, and then visiting the museums in Stuttgart to see a Celtic exhibition there.
Yesterday was my birthday, so we went out for dinner at the Fox and Raven, we had been going to go to an Italian restaurant in town but decided to walk down to the pub, it has a nice atmosphere, the old farmhouse still haunts the rooms, food is just about passable, yesterday was pie day, so I had a vegetarian cheese and potato one, the pastry had a certain well cooked hardness to it, LS's fishcakes also had a good long time in the deep fat frying, still we enjoyed the meal...
Lillie sang 'happy birthday' to me over the phone, or at least her version,and I had a thoroughly happy birthday, LS dancing attendance all day.
We should be back on Tuesday, hopefully before the cold weather sets in, and snow makes travelling around impossible, at least the snow will lock up the water in the ground, though the mayor in Whitby says that freezing and thawing of the rocks could make them more unstable and further slides.

Whitby latest

A photo (courtesy of The Mirror) shows the extensive damage to the cliff in front of St.Mary's church, given the dramatic headlines a certain caution needs to be used though: some of the terracing of the soil by the church is remedial, but there is definitely a serious problem and the church does look in a perilous position. Whitby houses are of course built in terraced rows on the sides of the hills that come down to the harbour, there is always an element of danger as cliffs crumble or rocks move, in this case excessive rain caused by climate change lies at the heart of this latest drama.  Forget Bram Stoker and Dracula, a fictional creature living in a dark fantasy world, the bones that are washed down are 18th century upright citizens, and if you ever go to Whitby you will note the very strong religious tone of the town, churches abound everywhere, St.Hild established a strong religious centre here!

As my love has noted the photo is taken from a long distance so that a foreshortening has occurred betwixt the church and the abbey which is some distance away.....

News headline from The Mirror, but if you click there are a whole load of those terrible cookies loading up...

and here and here also

As I contemplate the two enormous suitcases we have to get to Germany via various modes of transport I start to panic, so soothing  poetry to calm the thought of custom men and taxis spring to mind.
The other day we walked by the river, a river that had flooded and reached to the path at some stage, it lapped gently against the saturated banks as we slipped and slithered along the path.
So who do I choose? it must be Ted Hughes for his gloomy view and a reminder of the North York moors, the grouse butts that dot the moors..

Grouse-Butts by Ted Hughes

Where all the lines embrace and lie down,
Roofless hovels of turf, tapped by harebells,
Weather humbler.

In a world bare of men
They are soothing as ruins
Where the stones roam again free.

But inside each one, under sods, nests
Of spent cartridge-cases
Are acrid with life.
Those dead-looking fumaroles are forts.

Monkish cells, communal, strung-out, solitary,
The front line emplacements of a war nearly religious--
Dedicated to the worship
Of costly, beautiful guns.

A religion too arcane
For the grouse who grew up to trust their kingdom
And its practical landmarks.

Some of these grouse butts are beautifully constructed from stone with turf tops, I have written about them and photographed them, and the black grouse that scurry along the narrow heather lined small paths.  Hughes of course grasps the nettle, the senseless slaughter of an innocent creature to show what? prowess may be, don't know all I remember is seeing two young men wearing camouflage astride their camouflaged quad bikes with guns ready to hunt the unsuspecting grouse, the mind grapples with the image of small birds and large humans astride machines.....

Germany Trip

Well this morning the 6 paintings were bought out of storage, ten years they have been hidden, all safe thank goodness, and though I will go on to write about them later, the first photos on the WP blog...

Pottering through the day

The Fieldfare, turdis pilarus, courtesy of Creative Commons

 

 

This bush is already starting to lose all the topmost berries.

There we are, ask for sun, and what do we get, a bright, clear blue sky and this morning if I am not mistaken fieldfares (not many) dining on the red berries.  Their pale breasts gleaming in the sun, this bird can be found in the millions, does not feature on any extinct list and is classified as 'least concern' well that is good news. How did they get there name, well it is Old English or Anglo-Saxon as the following states from its Wiki.

"The Anglo-Saxon word feldefare perhaps meant traveller through the fields. Alternatively, it may be derived from Old English fealu fearh, literally grey piglet."

The blackbirds are also out in full voice this morning, their loud call waking me up, we now have at least 30 odd flock of collared doves that frequent the green, and occasionally grace our maple tree in the back.  Not to be missed are the great flocks of starlings that land with beautifully timed precision together, squabbling and whistling in the back garden at the moment.

 

As a note to my more exuberant self, Geoge Monbiot has one of his rants this morning Annus Horribilis, I shall colour him blue because he is right of course and blue with rage, taken from the Guardian....

 

In the UK in 2012, the vandals were given the keys to the art gallery. Environmental policy is now in the hands of people – such as George Osborne, Owen Paterson, Richard Benyon and Eric Pickles – who have no more feeling for the natural world than the Puritans had for fine art. They are busy defacing the old masters and smashing the ancient sculptures. They have lit a bonfire of environmental regulations(13), hobbled bodies such as Natural England and the Environment Agency and ensured that the countryside becomes even more of an exclusive playground for the ultra-rich, unhampered by effective restraints on the burning of grouse moors, the use of lead shot, the killing of birds of prey and the spraying of pesticides that are wiping out our bees and other invertebrates(14,15).

 

What else though, phoning my daughter last night to wish them a happy new year, she was still in the dining room keeping Lillie company as she got through her soup.  Lillie is always at least half an hour later than anyone else eating her food, she gets deserted in the dining room much to her annoyance when we give up on her chatter and demands that she eats up now... Here lost in her own world she is probably typing out one of her emails to the family full of emoticons and kisses, always dressed up in some form or other she lives in another world to us!

 

 

Happy New Year

A favourite rose

Well a happy New Year to everyone, may the sun shine and we have a marvellous summer to write, wander, craft, draw or  just stare and contemplate at this marvellous world we live in xxx

And then something to shake you alive from Greenpeace ;)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HLy77aAtxg

Artists

Well what passes through your mind in the middle of the night when you can't sleep? Last night it was the Ruralists and their paintings, which I fell in love with about four years ago when I had gone to see an exhibition in Bath.  I wrote at the time, about finding their home in Wellow, wandering along the lane with Moss on a hot sunny day,  at the time I wondered why none of the artists had gone up to Stoney Littleton long barrow to paint it.

Silbury mound and the owl floating in front of it first came to mind, and then I found David Inshaw's Silbury with the river Kennet and the moon and that became a favourite (£250 a print - yikes) so what else floated through?   Ann Arnold's little donkey, looking more like an unicorn, in its small enclosure amongst the trees.  She painted trees spectacularly, they were all fine artists, the may tree comes to mind a sparkling creamy mass that reminds you so much of the English countryside.

David Inshaw the Moon over Silbury Hill

David Inshaw - Owl and Silbury Hill

Past Ghosts

Castle Chillon in a stormy mood, Creative Commons - Pear Biter.

Watching an excellent cartoon Christmas Carol (Dickens) over the holiday period, the part where Christmas past comes to the fore made me remember, the Swiss Christmases I spent long years ago.  Widowed at the early age of 27 with a young daughter, I sort of got adopted by my then husband's family and my daughter and I spent our holidays in Blonay.  Blonay is a village half way up a mountain called Les Pleiades, the town below was Vevey and just along the lake was Lausanne and Montreux where my sister-in-law worked.  My other sister-in-law lived in Hong-Kong as a lecturer.

I must have spent about 14 christmases there, and of course summer holidays.  Con, my father-in-law had retired from Unesco, and in his retirement was faced by two young grand children, my daughter and her cousin Marc to entertain.  He would drive us up into the mountains to wander round a lake or to eat the most delicious meringues sandwiched with cream. 

Ex-pats of course live in Switzerland, though many of the people around us worked for Nestles the chocolate people in Vevey.  Down from Lotta's bungalow in our small lane there was a church 'house' which was used by vicars on holiday from England.

Lotta my mother-in-law was kind, had been very beautiful in her younger days.  She had followed Con round the world living in a whole host of places, in Africa, Mauritius, Haiti, Persia as it was then called, then Paris and America.

From the following photos you will see us all gathered, dressed up for a meal perhaps, Xmas Eve was the celebratory time in the household, midnight mass at Grandpa's church in Territet (he was a church warden) the xmas tree lit with real candles precariously held by snap on holders.

We could see the lake from the garden, and you could watch storms come over the French mountains, whipping the lake up to a frenzy in a very short time, so that the paddle wheel ferry boat would not be able to dock.  Out in the lake is a very small island, English owned, it was given to Queen Victoria in her time and has a small chateau on it.  Across from this on the main land was the famous Chateau Chillon of Bryon fame.

As I wander through the old photos remembering past times, and seeing the faces, some now dead sadly, it draws the nostalgia out of the air, the bright sunny crisp air of Switzerland, great brown cows with heavy bells round their necks up in the summer pastures, fondues, we still have the 'ritual' fondue at Xmas, the strong smell of Gruyere cheese at that pretty town, and on wandering through the net yesterday came across these few words about Con, a wise and gentle person who lived a good life.

"One of the troubles of living with the trappings of power, even though the power is very moderate, is that it quickly goes to the head even among those least likely to be corrupted. I noticed it in myself but I never noticed it in Conrad Opper, even though he had started his career in the colonial services in what was at the time Rhodesia. In Thailand he was greatly appreciated for his gentleness and was very content. In Tehran, where Conrad Opper was head of the UNESCO Mission, I fear that his gentleness was taken for feebleness and he was so unhappy that I fear he was 'walked over.' The day after I arrived there to join him, he was very happy to receive an invitation to move on to New York to serve as UNESCO's liaison officer at the head office of UNICEF, the UN's International Children's Emergency Fund"

front row; Marc, Karen, me; Back Row; friend,  Lotta, Florine, Sylvia, Eugene, Annabel, friend of Marc.

Note our finery, still got that dress!
Con, Lotta, me, Karen, Michael and daughter (Canadian side of the family)
You can tell from the photo that Marc is taking the photo and we are all cross with him..

Post Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Summer thoughts

It cannot get any darker or gloomier than it is at the moment, rain beats at the window and the wind gently howls, so LS said yesterday what was the best megalithic site visited this year and came up with Garnwynda.

Bright sunny day, through Welsh small lanes, parking on the verge, then walking up a cool green path shaded by trees with a stream running down, past a small derelict cottage and then the rocky outcrop on top. Garnwynda sub-megalithic cromlech is hidden against the rock face but once found is marked in the mind.  Not exceptionally beautiful as Pentre Ifan or Carreg Samson cromlechs are though, these are magnificent as is the third of the trio who's name I always forget, except that it has Arthur in it somewhere......

A visit to Jennie's house up the winding lane, just found a couple of photos with us sat round the table in her beautiful kitchen, all in full flow of conversation  And then of course our American friends BuckyE and Loie, who did the great tour of the house, Keith  beating BuckyE (very difficult) as to being more knowledgable  - think it was about wood!  

The sweet smell of honeysuckle

Loie and BuckyE at Pentre Ifan

Foxglove and nettles

Summer light, grass and a Jersey/Guernsey cow?

St.Elvis Cromlech with the long line of cows coming out from milking in the background

Garnwynda with the sea in the foreground

Beautiful Wales and then Solva with its tranquil harbour, there is a familiar noise as something taps the sails of the boats as you walk along the sand when the tide is out.  The Cambrian Inn, good food and Welsh whiskey for those who partook of it (not me).

Probably used up my photograph space by now.....

Happy Christmas

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Wishing everyone who reads my blog, and all those blogs I have been introduced to over the year,

A Merry Christmas and a fascinating and interesting New Year XXX

Taken from Jane Tomlinson's site  and there again if you are childish a Jacquie Lawson card

Spinning and Mozart

And of course Ravilious's painting of the White Horse at Uffington *(no it's not it is the Westbury Horse you idiot; thanks Heather) as you come to that dreaded place Swindon.  Sorry to all that live in Swindon of course!  I remember driving my son to a job interview somewhere near Coate Waters, and he came out and as we drove back along the M4 to Bath, the phone range with a job offer, he quietly and politely turned it down.....

The painting is a favourite because of the quirkiness of the subject matter; Mozart's Clarinet Quintet & Concerto is  playing at the moment, a piece of music that has accompanied me through life and of course I'm spinning,  something that quietens and gentles the soul as does music of course. Also the starlings are joining in with the music, as the music swells so does their chorus...

So we arrived back in Essex yesterday, driving through the rain for 5 hours, the spray of those great liners of the road covering the car, but strangely it was an easy drive for LS. Fields are flooded and the great rivers that we passed are overflowing, lapping at the edges of the banks like an over full bath just about to spill.  The Yorkshire Moors were a dark grey mist of rain and probably the worst bit.

The cottage all clean and tidy, always a wrench to leave, Frasier our next door neighbour, away somewhere in a village, phoned as we drove along.  His Scottish accent normally leaves me puzzling, what the hell is he saying? He has a key to the cottage and is not well, one lung collapsed a few months ago so he has a range of ailments, must of have been a hippy in his day, travelled the world and enjoys conversations with LS about Japan. 

Another very large painting rolls up (via the internet), apparently in Germany and my love says no, its a Chinese scroll which has been Europanised, ie. the silk has been glued (heaven forbid) onto a canvas and so it sits prettily (it is pretty) in its frame 6 foot by 3 foot, to come to England will mean a large crate.  The last painting from this person who lives in Australia was rather beautiful, the gold work and turquoise, must find the photo one day.......

A serene Whitby, though parts of the cliff under the church above has slipped again, not many photos this time, mostly I took rather boring ones of the yards and their entrances.

*Reason, shows I was not looking at the painting properly!! 

Books

Well three books bought recently, the first is 'Boneland' by Alan Garner and the sequel to the trilogy of Moon of Gomrath  and the Weirdstone of Brisingamen.  Had to read these two books before I read Boneland, which surprisingly is aimed at grown-up people.  This of course due to to the fact that Colin has grown up and needs the help of a psychologist who is probably the old witchy person in the first two books.

Did I like it? difficult to say, his characters are very thin and I definitely did not like the  psychologist and Colin has grown up into a 'sauvant' extremely clever scientist but he is a bit 'wet'.  The story is told in what I can only describe as a poetic prose form, short, short sentences and the fact that he is trying to find his twin sister Susan, now locked up in some star galaxy is the theme, perhaps in real life we would see it as a rationalisation of a lost sibling which resides deep in his psyche, still an interesting read, and it is not  Garner's fault that I fall out with his witch/psychologist character....

The second book which I have read through is about the Yards of Whitby, which of course is just history but fascinating all the same, and I shall write about it later, my love picked it up and then reading through it in the book shop (he always reads them in the book shop) found our cottage photo in the book with its date stamp of 1736 so we had to buy it.

The third book just started is Stephen Moss, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds, he writes occasionally in the Guardian in the Country Diary bit.  He lives with his family near Glastonbury in a village called Mark, the hummingbirds by the way is the hawkmoth, to be found occasionally in the south-west, I used to see it in the garden feeding on the soapwort, it acts just like the bird with its long proboscis, it comes to England via France I think and a great thrill to see in motion, has a short stubby body and is not particularly colourful.  Reading the winter months at the moment and he is bemoans the loss of many birds, especially the sky lark, which I used to hear over the downs at Bath racecourse, their lovely song as they rose high in the sky leading you away from their nest in the grass.  One of those moments to remember as well is of course the barn owl floating so silently over the watery meadows of Avalon marshes, saw it on tv once, and we had the same experience just round Avebury one night as an owl floated silently alongside the moving car - magical..
Photos from now on will always be on the Word Press site, when I remember to put them on ...

Settling In

Settling in to Whitby takes time, we came over the moors about 3.30, that time is important as the sun was going in that last moment of glory only cold weather can produce.  The vast moors, dark brown with the withered heather, snow still caught up against the banks, the sun in all its magnificent glory put on a show not to be missed. There is such an enormous space to be filled, clouds chasing across in the wind, the dark mass that proclaims rain is heading for Whitby and then this marvellous peachy coloured light from the sun warming up the heather.  Nature has a magnificence we should be in awe of, it can colour our thoughts with such vibrant images, only Turner could have captured this spectacle, and frail humans would not be able to paint in this icy cold atmosphere.  How the Bronze age people would have interpreted heaven knows.  Passing Horcum Hole, it had a dark pit like spirit of terror...
But then Whitby, cottage was warm, the heating has been sussed, the sun and moon instructions finally worked out by my love.  The router arrived on tuesday for the internet, though in fact the computer started to pick up on wifi beforehand, but of course it was an unprotected connection.  So I can now type, albeit with the computer snuggled into the duvet, because we need a table of some description up in the attic.
Matilda's birthday party was a great success, takeaway fish and chips and large birthday cake, she already had had her big present, so her mum had spent £20 at Boyes and the Pound shop and bought about 15 little 'opening' bits and pieces.  I had bought her a pretty jewelled photo holder, with photos of herself stored in the back, apparently her great grandmother had also done this in her time, plus a jewellery box with odds and ends.
We went up to St.Mary's church to see the Xmas trees, link here for photos, the church is something else, apparently it was built in the 18th century, on a much older Norman church, so that there are still bits of the earlier church caught up in the more modern fabric of the church, its unusual design can be put down to the fact that it was built by shipbuilders and fitters.  At the back of the church, the boxed pews have the name 'maids' and church wardens, and above on some shelves are loaves of bread for charity.  Apparently this tradition kept up today is by the same family who started it all those generations ago.

Journeys

We are off to Whitby tomorrow, the weather seems fine for the weekend so we will make the journey.  The bag full of clean sheets, and towels bulges, and I still have not tackled the problem of a chest of drawers and bedside table for the attic bedroom, problem is it is all money, and then trying to get them up narrow steep stairs, Argos flat pack is perhaps the answer.

Matilda's birthday on monday and LS on the 18th, so one reason to make the journey for the celebrations, perhaps a birthday meal in the Magpie.  Funnily enough I had a card from my next door neighbour in Bath yesterday, who does not like the people who have moved into the old house, and she had been to the Magpie on a visit up North.

Fraser, our next door neighbour at the cottage, phoned up last week when it was snowing to warn us about the snow, apparently the one person occupying the terrace of cottages that had been affected by the landslide was his friend, Whitby is very small. My son-in-law sent a photo of the cottages already being demolished, I presume the council are not hanging round because there are more rows of houses underneath.

Well if all things go right next week, we should have the internet installed there, so maybe I shall be able to write then, traipsing round to my daughter's house for wireless can be a bit of a bind as I join everyone else with their laptops, wireless is a godsend when it works.

We were discussing how towns shape out the other day, Chelmsford for instance is thoroughly modern, takes an age to get there by bus really leaving you reliant on the car.  Both my children do not drive a car, simply because they were brought up in Bath, where buses arrived every 10 minutes (I exaggerate slightly) and you could catch a train to London or Bristol, or Wales travelling through the dreaded leaking tunnel under the Severn Estuary   Bath had a lot of people living in the centre which made it more safe and lively at night and created a more secure atmosphere of restaurants and shops, Chelmsford by contrast is empty of living places in the town centre and suffers accordingly.

Whitby of course, though a bit like Bath because of the tourists, is different, lots of little local shops, locals gossiping happily within them, everyone seems to know one another, and it is very 'Northern'

So back to packing, and which books to choose to take down...
A couple of photos on my Wordpress blog, see Em has been there, thought no-one visited, it needs sorting that blog but I notice the really, really good templates you have to pay for!
Whoops, the car is out, must stop and start packing......