Pottering

"Let's all agree to hunker down at home as much as possible, wash our hands religiously, avoid crowded spaces, stop hoarding medical equipment, and ask that our government be proactive with testing and truthful and transparent about the numbers. And let's do all of the above without calling any of it "panic." At this point, it's not panic, but practicality."

I would not actually refer to what is happening but a disturbing account by an Italian doctor of what it is actually like in an Italian hospital taken over by this virus made me think.  The truth of the matter is they don't have the necessary equipment to treat all the people coming into hospital, it turns into chaos and overworked and tired brave doctors and nurses cannot keep up with the demand.  If the same should happen here, our hospitals won't cope either.

So lets pray we all act sensibly and stop flitting around demanding our rights and foolishly stocking up on loo paper.

Me I shall buy enough food for my little animal community, and still shop at the Co-op on a weekly basis who are all taking it quite sanguinely.

Spring flowers are coming up as they should, storms come and go.  Also strangely enough there are a lot of spiders coming out of the woodwork, at least a two inch one gave me a scare in the loo this morning.  Also been watching one of those TED lectures on longevity, not that I want to live for a long time.  But apparently there is a 'Blue Zone longevity' one in Sardinia, another in the Japanese island of Okinawa.  It seems a mostly plant based diet and moving around naturally, also being social - not difficult at all!

Do love those little gold laced primroses.

Peace on Monday

A drive through Gillamoor, down or up, to Farndale, or Low Mill.  It is hardly a village more like a hamlet. I have read that you go through some of the wildest moors landscape, and I see from the map that there are plenty of cairns up on the moors  But for me it was up and down the dale, trying desperately not to drive over the steep side as a large lorry hove into view.

You may not of heard about the Farndale daffodils but there is a walk to a mill along the River Dove (the dark river) which is called the 'Daffodil Walk' and is very popular when they flower.  My acceptance of daffodils as a wild flower is somewhat limited, we cover our verges with them at this time of the year, Wordsworth has a lot to answer for!  They still weren't out at Farndale, just green leaves protecting pale lemon buds.

But Lucy and I loved our walk of a couple of hours, the trees are still bare but the sound of the water by the river was calming. The sun was out, only a few people around walking, and the trees an architectural delight.  We did not get to High Mill but perhaps next week, we will make it.  There was one problem, a dozen or so gates along the path needing to be opened and shut, echoing the field patterns of stone walls.  
As there were two mills on the river here, it would be interesting to see the history of the place.  Difficult to get to over the moors what were the mills used for?

Etymology from Wikipedia

Sources disagree on the origin of the name Farndale, although it is a combination of two parts "Farn" and "Dale".

There a four possible origins for "Farn" all of which do describe the dale. It may be derived from the Celtic "Faren" meaning beautiful; alternatively it could be derived from the Scandinavian "FæN" meaning sheep or possibly from Old English "Fearn" meaning fern or ferny place^[or from the Gaelic "Feàrna" which means alder tree of which there are many in Farndale.

While Dale probably means Valley either derived from Scandinavion "Dalr" or Anglian "Dæl" although it could be derived from the Gaelic "Dail" meaning level field by a river.

The name of the River Dove which Flows though Farndale is almost definitely from either the Old British "Dubo" meaning Black or from the Gaelic "Dubh" also meaning black, hence Black (or Dark) River.

Stories or folk tales wander down from the past, this misshapen trunk  could easily become a writhing witch

Kelston Round Hill

A walk.  In 1995 a girl called Sarah Louise Gray was riding her horse along the Cotswold Way when something happened and she died, apparently from a heart condition.  The stone below commemorates the spot.  There is something intangibly sad on coming across this stone, it is miles from any road and is on the path that eventually leads to Bath.  She was only 17 years old and a fine grave in Haycombe cemetery marks her place of rest, there is a small horse statue at the foot of the grave as well.  She was a much loved daughter.

I would see the stone as I walked to Kelston Round Hill, a place, you will see it in the video below, a copse on the top of the hill, a permissive path leads to it.

the track down from Bath racecourse

Looking West towards Bristol

looking towards Bath

The wayfaring tree

The video - A Film for Sarah, has a haunting musical track, and by the use of a drone captures the magic of Kelston Round Hill, for some a place of pilgrimage to remember those lost.  A friend who kept hounds, would take their ashes up there and nail a small plaque to a tree to remember the times when the dogs ran freely over the fields.

Kelston could mean the Place of the Celts (If you want to be a little fanciful) for there is a barrow cemetery, or what is left of it to the East and an Iron Age settlement as well.

https://northstoke.blogspot.com/2019/06/walks-i-miss-on-sunday.html

Saturday and links

Each day becomes like groundhog day, we relive a potential disaster which has not quite happened yet.  I am gobsmacked at the size of the cruise ships, who dreamt them up? Did the greed of how much money you could make from cruising our plastic stricken seas with tourists add to the debacle.  Has the feeling of risk gone out of the window as we cosy up in the confined space of a luxury cruise ship, all beyond my understanding.  Not even given it a name this virus, everyone knows what it is.  I wonder how they coped in the 'Black Death' plague years from 1200 when between 30% and 60% of the population expired.

Alright I won't go on, the weather has been beautiful, sun and no wind, taken Lucy around the long walk through the fields, which she enjoys. The new farmer has put a new gate at the end of the walk, and I am grateful.  You have to open three farm gates, and as anyone who has walked out in the country knows, these gates migrate downwards, so apart from having to hold them up as you unlock the catch, there is a third hindrance in the shape of a smaller catch on the hook.  Wild garlic thrusts its green spears up and dog mercury with its unobtrusive flowers is also to be found.

Like a bird of spring, Rod was in the church yard mowing the grass, he does ours as well, and is rather worried that it will rain next week, that is why he is starting early, no petrol for my lawn, good thing I got some cash out yesterday  for when he eventually comes.

A friend has offered to lend me a new book out by Helen Lewis about feminism, "Difficult Women" a review is here in the Guardian.  The argument being that it is only by being difficult that women have managed to gain the ground they have.  Helen Lewis worked for the NewStatesman and I miss her weekly articles.   But they have  fine writers, Harry Lambert's Who's in Charge inside No 10 gives a long run down on the 'mavericks' that are part of the team that run our country at the moment.  Not as scary as you might think, Johnson (if he has the balls that is) can always sack Cummings, but theory led government is a bit worrying.

Also a good article on Greta Thunberg and her absolute sincerity in what she says,  written by Martin Fletcher,  Greta Against the World.  She is undermined by some world leaders, no I am not going to write about  the clown that is in charge of America.  Instead, in the spirit of this blog, I will add a video of Greta in Bristol this week.  I note from research, that the Daily Mail has it in for her, could it be that she is young, female and articulate?

A channel 4 news clip of 8 minutes, I record this fact because I think channel 4 news is excellent, but funnily enough, all the newspaper quotes that I heard on Radio 4 this morning (Saturday) were from the Guardian.  Is there a revolt going on in this country in the media?

Thursday 5th March

The day has dawned, frost and mist, a beautiful combination. Visits from friends yesterday both morning and afternoon and the village lies quietly.  Except for the birds, hey its spring they are telling each other as they bicker over nest sites, steal from others, the copse is getting very noisy.  Henry the pheasant struts his stuff as he walks through the church yard.

Below is a video (37 minutes) of the Coronavirus in Beijing, taken by a French journalist.  Such efficiency by the state, I am not sure what to make of it all, empty streets, controllers everywhere, status cards issued in different colours but the people are cared for, at least in the video.

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/095527-000-A/coronavirus-the-beijing-quarantine-diaries/?xtor=EREC-19

Tuesday 3rd March

"God I can't keep my feathers straight in this wind."  The funeral horses up at St.Mary, Whitby.  They get boxed up so they don't have to climb the steep hill, in the olden days it was donkeys of course who took the dead to the church along the coffin way, 

Gosh we live in exciting times.  The supermarket delivery vans dash by on the road, the fear is setting in already, stay fortress like in your own homes and don't meet the public.  Well I shall have to go out today, if only to get Lucy's special food, Harrington's cooked meals. Then of course fresh vegetables and fruit, the supermarkets are already gearing themselves for the basic supplies to be on the shelves rather than the fancy stuff according to the Guardian this morning.

I have had a visit from my daughter, long awaited but the flooding in her home town has kept her away.  She is like a dose of sunshine through the house, none stop chatter as we cover every subject under the sun.

She works in Manchester as the manager of an animal charity shop, loves her job but has trouble with the trains.  All the new trains up North do not have enough drivers to drive them.  Yes I know, why the hell could they not have trained them at the same time as the trains were rolling off the assembly lines.  This is England. She tells of people rushing from one side of the station to the other as trains are changed, as scarce drivers lope across from one train to another   and you have to loop round on different trains to get to your destination.

We discussed the homelessness that you find on the streets of Manchester which she sees every morning.  There is nothing much more the ordinary people can do she says it is up to the government to build more accommodation, plenty of kitchen places going round feeding the homeless, people giving money, clothes such as scarves and gloves, and the medics tending to those who have collapsed because of 'spice' the drug in fashion. The hostels are scary places for some, drunken fighting, drug abuse and it is better to sleep out on the pavement.  Patel we will never have an ideal society, so accept the basic humanity of all those people in the country who help others, not forgetting the Sikhs and Muslims whose philosophy/religion of helping others is also out there feeding those that live on the streets.

Yesterday, a clip of news showed a very large carrot field with all the carrots ruined by the flooding, the farmer dug one up, snapped it in two and it was all squelchy inside.  Several hundred thousands pounds worth of carrots rotten, the question is? Is monoculture the wisest thing in the midst of climate chaos?  To think the humble carrot has become a victim ;)

There is a little story to be told of these happier photos.  Note my daughter is wearing scruffy jeans, for which she paid £90 in their scruffyiness of slits and marks.  Paul horrified at this, but a couple of years later walked round in his worn jeans saying that they were an expensive purchase and 'designer' jeans.

Sunday Thoughts

Coming across Joanna Macy again after years of not reading about Deep Ecology/Deep Green philosophies of such people was something I had forgotten about.  Yet looking round what she was talking about in 'The Great Turning' is happening.  That slow recognition is happening in society now, such movements as Extinction Rebellion are creating the maelstrom of thought that is needed to protect the Earth.  

Threatened with the destruction of the world because of climate change people are beginning to think.  Surely that is a miracle in my own lifetime.  I will not  be pessimistic, though in our Western world we are still too preoccupied with wealth but around the world people are adjusting their care of the land.  Whether it is planting trees or changing their farming methods there is a slow ground swell of action.

Macy is a storyteller, listen to The Battle of Shambhala, we are assaulted on all sides by the trivia of news, we all fall foul of it, but it is soon gone.  Put good stories in your head, stop contemplating your navel for a start, look outward and remember that everything is intrinsically interwoven down to the smallest insect.

Saturday and the sun is shining though the wind is bitter

The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you are worrying about whether you're hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares?  The main thing is that you're showing up, that you are here and that you're finding even more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.  Joanna Macy.

Fascinating article also on this painter and her mother - Poppy Melia

My Resurgence magazine came through the post yesterday.  Full of hope and optimism for the future, and of course art and poetry.  What with Greta Thunberg in Bristol yesterday there are faint glimmerings on the horizon, the best thing is to stop worrying about pandemics, we definitely haven't reached one yet.

Brigitt Strawbridge Howard's book - Dancing with Bees, a Journey back to Nature looks tempting though I have been an advocate of bumblebees for years, and have rescued them early morning, cold from the night before.  Just a dab of liquidy honey on cotton wool will revive the bee. I have photographed their beautiful behinds as they fall asleep in foxgloves and counted their numbers in the garden.  As for flowers have planted many.  It is good to start early for them for they don't mind the cold weather, pulmonary or lungwort in early spring, coinciding with the blossom of early fruit trees.

Mistle thrushes in Leeds

Already nesting, can it be warm inside the traffic lights?

https://vimeo.com/394145577?fbclid=IwAR3sU1zevny_Kv--IXOfJMC5q12VTJADTHKUlmnss7l__mERnmAsBwV6cCI

Mundon Church - old blog 3

Today I went out  for the first time.  My bruised face is slowly starting to recede and shopping was becoming a necessity..  I will continue  churches for the time being.  Again an Essex church, stranded in the middle of nowhere, but by a farm, a settlement that had died out because of the plague.  Yesterday I read a chapter up on bricks, in the Pattern of English Building by Clifton-Taylor.  It would seem only the big star houses and abbeys were able to use them.  Funnily enough there is no written evidence as such about them from the time, but Taylor thinks it started in the 12th century, with probably immigrant Flemish.  They would quarry the clay near the site and make the bricks which were very narrow.  One of the patterns of brickwork is of course the geometrical designs you see in Wayneflete's Tower in Surrey below.  18th century design, uniform colour of bricks was not achieved (fortunately) till the Age of the Industrial Revolution.

Before it all becomes boring on the subject of bricks, this garden also has an old brick wall bounding the church yard.  It crumbles occasionally, is differently coloured, has patches of white due to the salts in the clay?  But is similar to the pub next door, which would give the brick an age in which it was made.

By Jonathan Foyle, built.org.uk, Attribution, 

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Mundon Church  and an update

This was the second place we visited yesterday, the little village of Mundon lies just outside Maldon, and I had espied this church a few months back on my map, isolated and lying low in the landscape it intrigued me. Deserted medieval village was my first thought, and probably near to the mark, as the settlement was deserted due to the plague. This is a Tudor church, built on the foundations of a Norman church, and probably Saxon beginnings given its proximity to water and it being on the St.Peter's Way pilgrimage route to St.Peter's church on the Dengie Marsh.

It will be some while before I gather my thoughts on this church, it is redundant and derelict but has been taken under the wing by Friends of Friendless Churches, yes such an organisation does exist.

The church itself was built in the moat of the old manor there, and because it was set on marshy ground, great cracks started to appear and I think it was roofless by the 18th century. It was due for demolition in the 1970s but then rescued to a point, there is still plenty of work to carried out. It is totally unusual having an apsidal entrance of timber posts and plaster to the west front entrance. The grave yard is very neglected, and the church sits next to a large farmhouse (probably the site of the old manor). The wooden south porch is also rotting to pieces though there is some fine carvings.

Paul was very taken with the place, and yet I had a feeling of unease, you can't go into the church (too dangerous), but perhaps the white skeletons of dead trees in a field towards the estuary helped give me the impression of an unhealthy place, that and of course an imagination that tends to run rife. The fields in which these enormous oak trees stood was grazed by alpacas to add to the unreal effect the place had on me. Actually the trees are relict petrified oaks, and were recorded in the Domesday book, a history on Mundon Hall farm and its enterprises can be found here http://www.springstep-dairy.co.uk/farm.htm .

27th February - to knit

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/086117-005-A/pullover-island/

Some light relief in the form of a video (50 minutes) of knitting in Iceland.  The video is by an European site called Arte, and is rather enchanting.  Knitting by men is fairly rare, though I remember a Bishop who knitted in quite a professional way.  It is put forward as a relaxing hobby, a bit like meditation, the counting of stitches and the mind concentrated on the pattern and producing even stitches.  Some might add it to the 'slow movement' and not just the hobby of elder women, who have got nothing better to do with their time.

What I love about these videos is the life it shows in countries far away and as a knitter the whole process from sheep to jumper.  What comes out is aren't tourists a bit like sheep themselves, wanting to buy a 'local' jumper.  What happens of course is that hand knitting is taken over by machine knitting to keep up with the market and something is lost along the way.

Old Blog 2 - Fairstead Church, Terling

I can almost feel almost feel the heat of the day in this blog, the yellow of the rapeseed through the countryside, I think we must have visited three times, for I have written three blogs.  Look at the flint work, when you don't have stone then flint coursing becomes a work of art.  Reused Roman tiles at the corner, and again you will find pudding stone at the base of the tower.  What always strikes me about these old churches is the reuse of materials.  Today we make bricks of uniform size and then construct uniform houses in a 'style'.  Not that I am mocking but weren't those early builders truly the recyclers and sustainable advocates of natural resources?

2011

Today we are off to Fairstead church, just south of Terling, and I have spent the last half hour trying to find where the Roman villa is near to the church, no luck, though there is mention of it in the literature, but it is not on Pastscape.  We have already been once in 2010, and the photos definitely show that the building had reused Roman tile, etc. Strengthening the corners or quoins is of course usually done with stone, but Essex is practically 'stoneless', though the conglomerated 'puddingstone' can be found.
This is one of the earliest churches in Essex, a Saxon foundation in the area, Fairstead means simply a fair place.

The quoins are of Roman and Coggeshall brick

Puddlestone in the foundations, something you see at Broomfield church and others.  Now is this a 'pagan  signature' or a builder's design.  Re-use of Roman tiles is very evident alongside the flint that has been used for the walls.

See how this door  is patched over the centuries

A path through the rapeseed, and the site of the Roman villa that was

Hens scratching in an old orchard

 They were cleaned again by Mr Rowse in 1966. The oldest paintings, which are above the chancel arch, (early 13^th century) represent the Passion of Christ. Those on the south wall depict St Christopher and a scene believed by some to represent the Shepherds and the Angel and by others the miracle of Longinus. There is, at the west end, a curious grotesque head in a horn-like headdress.

http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-115361-parish-church-of-st-mary-the-virgin-fair

Earlier blog from 2011

Crusader's tomb

Description of the wall paintings

Old Blogs

Just typing in 'Yews' in my search on this blog has uncovered several blogs.  So perhaps one a day at the moment.  St. Boltoph's Church - Puddingstone.

I remember the day well, it was hot, and I marvelled at the Essex countryside for being so rural.  Today, given television programmes, we would think of Essex as a human personality, featuring gypsy weddings, and Essex Girls, it's attractive countryside forgotten.  Another memory it plucked was the wretched hate rendered verbiage on a website against my gentle Paul. Probably some of it was drug induced, but it upset him and never forgave anyone who took part in it. It meant at the time I could not speak of him or show photos, sad is it not that the internet has also produced the real nasty side of people as well.  But that hot day as we wandered round the church yard was a happy memory.

A trip out to the Rodings today to checkout a stone in Beauchamp Roding. The church sits all alone in the centre of some fields, we passed barley on one side and broad beans on the other. Following a small, almost dried out brook, but the meadowsweet was just about to come out into flower. The church setting is very tranquil it sits at the highest point of the ridge, and that is not very high in Essex!. Its Norman, details below, and in dire need of repair, the ivy growing on the outside wall is also growing inside through a great crack that is separating the nave from the chancel.

Great yew trees round the edge, with at least two badger setts at opposite ends of the graveyard, plus the ground is riddled with rabbit holes. A ditch runs all round the church, giving it the appearance of a moated grange, I don't know. There are plenty of moats round this area of Chipping Ongar, an early medieval form of defence maybe, or to keep animals at bay from straying from the common land.

We had gone to see if the stone that resides in the grave yard was prehistoric, it is again difficult to tell, it is indeed partly puddlestone, and the theory has been put forward that it is part of the Puddlestone Trail which would have carried Neolithic axes from Grimes Grave in Norfolk to Stonehenge and that area.

Could well be that there is a Saxon origin here, Greensted church is a few miles away, the stone standing on a trackway, but there is no archaeological record at SEAX.

Perfectly simple and beautiful

Meadowsweet in a rather dry brook up to the church

The Puddingstone in the grave yard

Badger hole under old yew tree

St.Botolph's Church and its bank

Clearer view

The ancient parish church of ST. BOTOLPH stands on rising ground, the churchyard being completely surrounded by fields. The dedication suggests that there was a church at Beauchamp Roding before the Norman Conquest. The building consists of nave, chancel, west tower, and south porch. The walls are of flint rubble mixed with freestone. The nave is built on an 11th- or 12th-century plan but the present structure probably dates from the 14th century. In the 15th century the tower was added and the chancel rebuilt. The porch dates from 1870.

Botwulf of Thorney (also called Botolph, Botulph or Botulf; d. c. 680) was an 

English saint  of travellers and the various aspects of farming...

Reflecting on the fate of these out of the way churches, decline in church attendance and you know that St.Botolph's will eventually fall into decay and ruin, there is really not enough money out there to repair all the churches that are slowly dying of neglect.  What is the answer, sell them on as family dwelling places, its a bit spooky having a garden full of grave stones, there is no answer for isolated churches.  Mundon church is being repaired by Friends of Friendless churches but their grants are a small drop in the ocean.  Fairfield church which we visited recently has the same air of closure, St.Peter on the Wall has been restored for its link with the Roman forts, and Great Canfield will also be looked after for its pagan depictions on its doorway and painted surfaces inside.

The book I'm reading at the moment is about John Piper the painter, he lived through the last century and lived a busy and fruitful life.  One of his interests were churches, some of his stained glasswork is beautiful see Coventry Cathedral, but he went round with his friends such as John Betjman and Geoffrey Grigson studying and sketching the churches and belonged strangely enough to the Friends of Friendless churches, a bit like an earlier favourite painter of mine, William Morris who was against Victorian restoration of churches.

So is the stone prehistoric in the church yard? I think yes, given that we have seen stones at Alphamstone Church and Ingatestone Church, there is often a direct association of pagan 'rememberance' at some churches, not all of course.  Bartlow Church with its 'v' shaped paths, one leading up to the church, the other leading round the church to the great Romano-British barrows behind with their native Iron Age chiefs buried in state.  There are fragments of the past, some strongly Saxon, Broomfield church with its rich warrior Saxon grave has pudding stone in its fabric, and so many churches we have seen have roman tile as well.  These Roman villas would still have been extant when the Saxons invaded. They chose to ignore such building material and built in wood such as Greensted church, so there is very little remaining of Saxon churches, but it is still there in the later wonderful timber, lathe and plaster storied cottages to be found round Essex.

Ivy growing inside the church

view of the Essex countryside from the church

Badger sett under the yew tree

Interior