Circular walk or 'Edgeland'

Snowdrops growing in a little copse

the copse

Old weeping willow by the river, already colouring up for spring

Sandford Lock

First walk for ages mostly to see if the snowdrops were up along the lane, must have been planted years ago for the plants to have spread so much. This lane is a back lane that potters along the river, we had driven along part of it a couple of weeks ago, and had stopped because of flooding, as a council lorry splashed through two feet of water, we had to reverse all the way back.

There is a lot of land on the outskirts of Chelmsford, below the river's level and also plenty of water meadows, which seem to be coming under threat of development of houses, rather stupid given the increased rain fall. The developer has already put 'private land do not trespass' along a much used path, but someone has put up a pole with a 'no digger sign' on it, let battle commence!  Anyway we met the most gorgeous collie pup along the path, frisking away with great delight.....

Summer Green

Just a photo of the little River Solva outside the Solva Woollen mill to remind me that the world will eventually turn green.  The lush verdant green hues of Wales, is for me a poem written in the landscape. 

Goodness knows what the line is across, but the brown clear sparkling water makes a pleasant sound.

Time catches at my heel at the moment, things to do etc, but as I was just preparing a lamb stew Jan Morris's The Matter of Wales book came to my mind, a lovely evocative description of its history and people... so to take the first paragraph;

"To look at the nature of Wales is deceptive.  Within its small expanse the style of terrain changes so often, the mountainous countryside is so constantly corrugated, this way and that, by ridges, valleys, lakes and passes, the sea appears so often, and so unexpectedly, at the ends of vistas or around the flanks of hills - the scene in short is so cunningly variegated that it sometimes seems not natural at all, but like some elegantly conceived parkland or domain"

My paperback book is yellowing with age, it says inside 1986, the sub title Epic Views of a Small Country and I shall read it once again, but for those of us who love those bleak grey chapels, soft hills and clear tumbling waters Wales has an indefinable magic,

Being Anonymous - Banksy

Yesterday I was looking at this Paul Nash water colour painting of Silbury Mound and trying to work out Nash's perspective, and coming to the conclusion that it was slightly out of kilter.  The small house against Silbury does not exist, did it exist in 1935 probably not. The steps were intriguing as well, given the now condemnation of anyone climbing this hill, that it should have steps at all.  Further research revealed that this painting went on the market in 2004, the reserve price being around £5000, but it in actual fact sold for £33,000 not a bad price for a painting that seems quickly made, though attractive in its own right.

But today another item is going on sale in America, this is a Banksy graffiti painting called 'Slave Labour' on the side of a wall in North London, LS.' article gives the details.  We discussed it this morning agreeing that the morality of taking this artwork from its original place, and where it was making a Banksy statement was very wrong, Banksy states that it was  no longer part of his work as it has been moved out of context, thereby anyone who buys it will not have his authority.  Good socialist that he is and part of the Bristolian street artists, though now famous all over the world for his artwork, it will be interesting to see what happens at the sale...... Funnily enough a little rat has been drawn at the site where (with some difficulty one would think) the block of concrete was removed, and 'Why' has been written......

Edit; Withdrawn from auction at the last moment, wonder why?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/feb/23/banksy-missing-mural-auction-stopped

So the 'get rich quick merchants' have been stopped in their tracks for the time being, and the question where does street art reside maybe is that it is returned to the street where its social comment is part of what Banksy is saying to the public at large, the artwork is not there for private gain - the context is the art and the message.  Still legal problems of ownership rights, between the person who owns the wall, and Banksy who paints anonymously will prove an intriguing conundrum in the future and hopefully there can be only one winner....

Spinning thoughts

 

 

 

Spiegel im Spiegel, plays its slightly monotonous tune on my laptop, but it is soothing and as I spin, thoughts drifting everywhere, it at least relaxes the mind.  Images of skylarks rising from the grass, the golden plovers flight one early morning, swooping as they dive in formation the soft shush of their wings overhead.  What else, deer caught in the early warm orange glow of sunrise, standing still by the woods, listening and debating flight.  The old green lane, where I used to imagine the Saxon family lived, the bowl of hills lined with hanging woods, broken tarmac in places, where once military traffic had gone up in the 2nd World War to the planes which temporarily  took off from the old bronze age barrow cemetery on the Lansdown as they defended Bristol and Bath.

But cease, talk of war is not on the menu, I prefer to return to the ash trees that line the green lanes and the downs in this part of Somerset.  Have you ever seen a 'parliament' of crows, once I saw one it must have been summer, and they lined the white fencing of the race course, chattering away to themselves.......

 

 

Here is Monty at the start of our walk, some sort of hound, I used to walk round with his owner Alison, chattering away.  Monty was not terribly intelligent, Alison said of  him that two brain cells floated around in his brain

and occasionally collided giving rise to a thought!.  When snow lay on the ground, he would gather snowballs on his feet and mither about it, till in the end he would sit down and refuse to walk till they were removed.  He also chased the deer, one day he went off and we all searched most of the morning for him, Alison frantic because she adored him.  But as I was searching around the woods above in the first photo, he turned up through an old gate in the field, completely whacked and exhausted and pleased to see me, so all was well.  In the photo above you can see the sun rising next to Beckford's Tower, soon the old Victorian cemetery with its sunken graves will be full of violets and primroses, not something I see much in this part of Essex.

 

Birds and cats

Yesterday someone put a beautiful photo of a nightjar on F/B, I can only describe it as a living colour range of grey- browns to blend in with the branches they hide themselves upon. We don't have many in this country and they are mostly down south, described as crepuscular, they inhabit that time of dusk and are rare. Today friends have put the first photos of siskins arriving in their garden in Oxfordshire and there is always Em's marvellous photos of birds (and now lichen) on Dartmoor. 

So what do we have in our small garden? I treated the birds to a bird table this week, as I am getting a bit tired of standing on garden chairs to hang bird feeders from the tree.  Most days I see the tail of our gormless wood pigeon sticking out gobbling up the seed, the ring doves have been down and so of course have the starlings in their squabbling community. Blackbirds are getting much noiser as they anticipate spring, and the robbing magpie is keeping a close eye as well should any nests be in evidence.

My two daytime cats, Skinny and Buttermilk, sit on the garden chairs and probably frighten off many other birds.  I have learnt a little about these two, they belong in a house up the road and she must go out to work all day that is why they have set up 'another' territorial home in our garden.  A letter pinned to her hedge, thanked the person whoever was feeding them and said they did have a cat flap, but said the lighter tabby can only eat biscuits, so that is what they get at lunchtimes from me.

Is spring here? we shall see, the flowers are beginning to appear.

As for the news all week about horsemeat in foods, strangely my heart has been with the slaughtered horses, probably a culling has taken place in Ireland and Romania as the economic recession has hit, as I don't buy processed food I cannot feel any indignation only the fact that I WILL NEVER BELIEVE the labelling on packaged food anymore. 

In fact I have been eating quite a lot yellow/orange food this week, homemade butternut squash soup, carrot soup, polenta which I had a yearning for plus sweetcorn.  Must be their bright springlike colours;)

 

 

 

Miscellaneous

Dogger Bank or Dogger land;  Yesterday I read in the Whitby Gazette that there is a proposed wind farm to be situated on this shallow part of the North Sea.  Now the Shipping Forecast in the early morning is a joy as we make our way round this coastal island of ours, the names ring out like a song, and Dogger land: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea  is of course a book detailing the archaeological and environmental nature of this piece of sunken land that once joined us to Europe.
This off-shore wind turbine farm is to be one of the biggest wind farms in the world with apparently 2000 turbines, though it presumably has to go through more vigourous soundings out before work starts in 2014/2015.
So Whitby is happy, with an eye on future jobs and it may be the port for all the comings and goings for the whole infrastructure that will accompany the setting up of turbines in the sea. Why so large is one question to ask, what about shipping and what about the fact that this is a highly prolific fishing area?  Basically I do not have a beef about wind turbines, we need energy and they are one form, do believe though that small is beautiful and this is hardly so, we shall see how it all pans out.
http://www.royalhaskoning.co.uk/en-gb/Publication/Documents/projects/dogger-bank-offshore-wind-farm-EIA.pdf

Yesterday my books arrived from Waterstones, switching custom from Amazon the last few months has not been easy, but until they pay their taxes Amazon is off my list....
Jackie Morris's Dragon book is to be a 'collectible', always wanted to collect the Victorian children's books years ago but they were always a bit too expensive... P.D.James is a favourite, love detective stories, and her 'Death Comes to Pemberley' her sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has been well reviewed.  As for Nan Shepherd, she is being classed alongside Robert Macfarlane for wilderness writing, so another must.....

 

A small dragon or the great crested newt

Creative Commons photo

Lovely story this morning, one single newt has held up construction at a new police building in Durham, and he is not even awake but sleeps to May when he will wake up and face the world.

See this story

 

The Natural England body are responsible for this ruling as we all know that the Great Crested Newt is officially protected by the state.  Could they please ask the newts to produce more so that we can protect the great swathe of countryside to be destroyed by the new rail link HS2.  Apart from the fact that arriving 'up North' may get you there faster by half an hour or so, but can you imagine the cost of all these high speed trains, they will only be for the elite, perhaps less first class carriages and more second classes might be in order.....

 

The pond in the old Bath garden, was a delight in spring, one had to get over the early fling of frogs marching down to the pond and then almost drowning the poor female frog as they mated and then the cannibalism of the tadpoles but enough survived for the next year, tiny baby froglets hiding in the flowerbeds.  But come May, turquoise and red damselflies, the skins of the 'nymphs' after emergence from the water caught on the reeds, the soft noses of the common newts as they flowed quietly through the water, a pond is a place to dream by and watch the emergence of its creatures..... roll on summer...

 

 

Alfred is next!

Checking the news, as I do every morning in the news feed, and most of it has been about them bones of Richard the third, please may he rest in peace now! The funniest line came from the DailyMash,

"THE skeleton of Laurence Olivier is to portray the modern-day Richard III in a new play." and

THE skeleton of Richard III has vowed to re-boot the Wars of the Roses and slaughter his rivals to the throne.

Mike Pitts excellent review   

Such juvenile black humour does tend to make me giggle, but of course there is another king coming up fast behind him and that is Alfred the Great buried in Winchester, maybe St.Bartholomew Church, now he is an interesting person and I look forward to the real bones of this king being found, up to date the skeletons found look to be mostly monks.

And so to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Alfred the Great's great battle against the Danish army..

After this at Easter, Alfred with a small band,

 raised a fortress at Athelney, and from it warred on the host,

with the men from that part of Somerset which was nearest to it.

Then in the seventh week after Easter,

He rode to Egbryht's stone on the east of Selwood

And there came to meet him all the men of Somerset

And the men of Wiltshire, and the men of that part of Hampshire

which was on this side of the sea; and they rejoiced on seeing him

And on the following day he went from that camp to Iley.

and one night after that to Ethandune

And there he fought against all the host and put it to flight,

and rode after it as far as the fortress [at Chippenham]

and laid seige to it for fourteeen nights

 

Many years ago in the car park of the Gold Diggers nightclub in Chippenham I with several others excavated to try to find this fortress, I excavated an enormous post hole all day but sadly only a piece of flint came up.  Whether it was this fortress/royal residence heaven knows....

 

things you pick up along the way to add to the magpie miscellany below and of course my favourite dragons, see link below....

 

 

Dragons/wyrms

 

The origin of the word wyvern or wyrm is interesting, being associated with the Latin vipera, Old Germanic wipera, Middle English wyvere, and Nordic orm, all referring to a poisonous serpent. The word dragon derives from the ancient Greek drakon and the Latin draco meaning a large serpent.  Or now I know why Kath has a little red dragon floating across her screen...

taken from

The Celtic Hochdorf burial mound 500BC

Some things come to mind and have to be written down, this time, probably for most people boring history!  Some time ago I watched as people on a forum argued against restoration of stones at Avebury.  Restoration was wrong, reconstructing the past was even more so, well to a point I disagreed with vehemently held views,  all history has been 'discovered' through the ages, at what point do we take history to become 'finished' 



The reconstructed mound



 Well take the Hochdorf burial mound above, this is a reconstruction of the mound that was obliterated by the plough, it stood in a snow covered landscape  giving an example of how it was once.  The stone on the top, may even have been one of these sandstone figures here, acclaiming a strong king or even warrior.

Although the mound had disappeared the burial still lay underneath and was discovered in 1978, the high lord with all his worldly goods, a great chariot, the beautiful couch he was laid out on, gold plates and the great cauldron from which the drink mead was distributed at banquets, also woven cloth and the gold on his slippers and body, including brooches and arm rings. 

All this lay under the great crush of soil, stone and the timbers that had destroyed the burial chamber.  The couch on which he had laid was crushed to pieces, and yet it was patiently restored over the years to its former glory, and this can be seen in the Stuttgart Museum. 

But this is just  the beginning, the archaeological work, the restoration of all the objects took many, many years, but the replica housed in the Celtic Museum at Hochdorf not only points to a great pride in its own prehistory but the fact that the three parishes that made up this council chose to build and fund the reconstruction, and then build a museum to house all the findings.

The couch was made up of large bronze sheets and then hammered into the required shape, the decoration of wagons and sword dancing were all punched in by different tools, the little supporting figurines even had wheels on them for rolling the couch.

As for the chariot, tools at first had to be made for the reconstruction of this iron-clad vehicle, the preserved metal was fitted which took many years and then new iron used to complete the task.  The under frame of the chariot was made of wood, and no part of this had  survived, but other fragments point to the use of ash and maple.  The wheel rims had been formed from a single piece of wood, a great technical achievement.  The body of the chariot was made from elm, with springy poles of elm for the floor.

The appendix at the back of my catalogue pays tribute to all the many people who have worked on this Celtic burial, experimental archaeology has given many answers as to the 'how and why'.

So to my initial question should we reconstruct, the answer in this case was definitely yes, the reconstruction has valuable education for all those schoolchildren who must visit the museum, and of course adults.  For me, it put together lots of answers that had been floating about in my head, to be honest, seeing the Gundestrup Cauldron at the Stuttgart Museum was something I never thought I would see, it's imagery so profound introducing you into a culture, not barbaric as so often as the Celts are seen but a lively introduction into another culture.......

                        The large arch that is the height of the mound, going over the museum

To Play

Lately it has been all spinning and knitting, I had contemplated making a quilt but could not find a pattern in my mind to make.  So this from Ann Miles blog intrigues me, just sitting and making things in a journal, collecting the things I love, poetry art, needlework a blend of those things that make up a 'magpie' mind. Dragging out my commonplace books, poetry I've collected, the children as well when they first wrote their first few lines.

So where to start, well there is plenty of  Japanese papers to choose from, two baskets full of materials, the only other things I need is some watercolours, my computer can be used for imaging.  Facebook introduces you to lots of art work, also designers and ideas, and Pininterest to the gorgeous, though what I can only describe as very  OTT........

I have been following Ravilious online and then this popped up this morning, David Inshaw's painting of a Bonfire, one of the Ruralist's painters.....Why do they appeal these early 20th century artist, Paul Nash, John Piper, the Brotherhood of Ruralist and Ravilious, the answer came as I looked at the hardcover of Geoffrey Grigson's The Shell Country Alphabet, (From Apple Trees to Stone Circles, How to Understand the British Countryside) the simple drawing of the countryside before its rape by motorways and the continuous passage of cars. Was it a gentler time? cannot answer that but Wordsworth's words, gives an apt description of why we so love the country we live in....

Not in Utopia - subterranean fields -

Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world

Of all of us, - the place where, in the end,

We find our happiness, or not at all.

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