5th March 2023

It is Sunday.  I love Sunday for in my mind it is a day of rest when the world stops whirling its nonsense at me.  Radio 3 will play calm and peaceful music interspersed with bird song, might even get frogs soon, as they make their annual pilgrimage to some pond to produce even more frogs.  Little signs will go up on small lanes, 'Frogs crossing' and there will be kind human ushers to help them to cross.

Yesterday I phoned my son in Bath, and there was a crackly noise on the phone, he was outside gardening and raking in the dead material.  I laughed with sheer delight, my children have grown up, Mark has become a gardener at his home and my daughter a walker of fairly long distances - so I did have some effect in their childhoods!

There was a beautiful photo of a purple-red miniature iris this morning that took my fancy, and when the snowdrops die down the next lot of flowers will be on show.  There will be the marsh marigolds, (Nails of Gold who were brought up in colder Northern climes and they will decorate the sides of ponds and streams.  The pale lemon of primroses and the slightly stronger yellow of cowslips.  Little wind anemones will bow their white heads in the woods, and the tiny violet will hide in the grass.  All surprises to look forward to, tantalising us into summer.  The early 'greening' of the willow as they produce their catkins bringing to mind Tolkien's 'Old Willow Man''.

Nature follows the sun, as we do, she is just as eager to blaze forth as we are to see a warmer spring.  Thinking back to when I first saw what I would describe as a vibrant grass verge full of wild flowers was on an old trackway from Langridge to the A46.  In fact at least Roman if not prehistoric.  But the sad fact is the tractor riding up and down this trackway was already crushing this small wilderness into oblivion.

Marsh marigolds

Wood violets

Celandine

Wood spurge

Wind (or wood) anemones

The Idle Flowers by Robert Bridges

Home Alone and more wandering through photos

It is 7.0 clock, everyone has departed the house for their journeys.  Andrew to solve computer programmes, Lillie to College and my daughter to Manchester airport to catch a plane for a long weekend in Switzerland.  Visiting her two aunts and I shall worry about her arriving safely till a message pops up on F/B.  So I will concentrate on Clegyr Boai.  First of all the sensible archaeological interpretation of it, written by me 2005 on TMA.

"This site is an important prehistoric settlement, in the sense that it is always mentioned in books on prehistory. It features in the landscape as a small twin-peaked saddled rocky outcrop, set about a mile back from the sea.

Two periods are archaeologically defined, the later iron age settlement is a rectangular enclosure, measuring 100m x 25 metres. Two, possible third, neolithic houses have been found placed centrally within the ramparts. The area around the settlement site shows evidence of Mesolithic activity, and there is probably continuous occupancy of this area of 4000 years. One of the huts had been burnt which maybe implies ritual burning on abandonment.

Hav'nt explored its interior, due to exhaustion from long walks!, but will do so this year. Also worth noting that the burial tombs of Carn Llidi and Coetan Arthur may belong to these people.

information taken from Geo.Nash and Geo.Children- Neolithic Sites.....Pembs, Cards, Carms."

Rhiannon has written this.  Rhiannon was like Sue in Suffolk who had also once been a librarian, Rhiannon also held the 'golden key' to all those books, old and new, locked up elsewhere and a good friend when I needed information.

Can you believe these folklore stories captured down through the ages?  It must be remembered that probably 99% of the population did not read through the centuries, the monks recorded the stories and maybe because their writings are still to be found, we can give the stories some

credence.

So here are some photos, two of Clegyr Boai, the rest are of the cromlechs on St. David's Head, just three but there is something rather sad about these stone monuments hidden amongst the jumble of rocks.

Clegyr Boia.  Framed by gorse, the saddle between the two peaks.

Another time photographed.

One of the two Carn Llidi cromlechs. See how the capstone rested on the ledge?

The two cromlechs from a distance, the concrete in front must have been from World War 2.  I always find it amazing that it was an archeologist, Grimes I think, that worked out where to site the airfields round this part of Pembrokeshire.

This is the second cromlech, pictured above.  See how it points out to sea?

Coetan Arthur on St.David's Head.  Again pointing but this time to Carn Lidl.  

Coetan Arthur again, set amongst the jumble of rocks it is difficult to find.

Reverend Sabine Baring Gould link to the stories of Clegyr Boia

St. David's Day

Happy St. David's Day:  I have written enough about this revered saint of Wales and his stories.  Wandered around the ruined chapel where he was born to St. Non, so here are a couple of blogs on our hero.  Here and here.  Also a quote from Jan Morris's - The Matter of Wales.

"The holiest Welsh place is Dewisland, Pebidog, a stony protrusion from the coast of Dyfed, which was once a spiritual hub of the whole Celtic world.  Not only does the countryside there seem holy by its very nature, so ascetic but so exciting, all bare rock and heather headland falling to the wild Atlantic sea, but its associations too are intensely sanctified.  Here the Celtic missionaries came and went, on their journeys through the western seas, and here the itinerant Irish preachers landed on their way  to evangelize a pagan Europe.  Everywhere there are the remains of shrines and chapels, - neither the Welsh nor the Normans ever fortified the peninsula, in respect for its sacred meaning; and in the middle of it stands the most venerated structure of all, the cathedral of Dewi Sant, St.David, not only the mother church of Welsh Christianity, but the vortex of all that is holy in Wales".

In the first blog I make mention of the Clegyr Boai story and I will see if there is more history on this pagan rogue.  But whilst seeking his lair, and it does exist, I came across this fine fellow.  No I did not seek him out!

Saint Ailbe

St Elvis  is a 6th century) Celtic saint, who goes under a few names, so lets meet him. Ailbe  Ailfyw, Elfyw, Elfeis, Elvis, Elouis.

If I was to quote the background of his birth you would float in enormous long Welsh words and still not know anything about the lineage.  But suffice it to say that his mother was the daughter of the sister of Saint Non and that he was a great figure in the Irish church.

In the stories that have been written down through the centuries, he evangelised Southern Ireland, founding the see of Emlech and from King Angus of Munster Ailbe obtained the island of Aran for Enda.

If we follow his genealogy a bit further he was the nephew of Non and therefore a cousin of Saint David.

"A church near St. David's called Llanailfyw or St. Elfeis, was dedicated to him.  St.Elvis Farm and St. Elvis Church are near the Preseli hills."

Baring-Gould who was a Victorian priest/archaeologist wrote massively on history and his quote above, has more or less written the  evidence about Ailbe's connection with the area round St. Davids.

One of the stories written about this saint was that he was raised and suckled by a she-wolf and retired to the 'Land of Promise' a mixture of the 'happy other-world" of the Celts and the paradise of Christians. Religion is of course all about myth making, societal order of course, and obviously hierarchy.  

But all that is yesteryear, stories repeated and written down till they begin to twist and twirl into fantasy as the monks wrote them down.

Elvis Farm definitely exists, you must walk along for about a mile down the farm road.  Always walk when the honeysuckle is out and the sweet smell wafts on the breeze. Wild honeysuckle seems to grow all over this part of Wales.  Try not to be run over by the milk lorry as he comes down, you will come across the cows who dedicate their milk for our consumption further on down in the fields.  I remember them coming from the milking parlour, at least 50, in single file they walked and Paul who was with me was too scared to cross them but they were more interested in the green grass than charging him.

You will arrive at the farm stead, a megalithic stone stands at the gate, the farm buildings ahead of you.  One of the farm buildings would be the old church I believe but did not check.  Go through the gate and the double chambered cromlech greets you.  It is surrounded by farm detritus.  Its capstones tumbled, and you can laugh at that 19th century farmer who tried to dynamite it out of existence, for his foolishness.

Was this long driveway quarried or maybe blown up by dynamite?

The double chambered cromlech huddled against the farm buildings

The pointed capstone, featured on so many capstones. Did it signify anything? some say that it is a female stone representing genitalia.

Probably a prehistoric stone and  according to the air surveys of the area there are ground marks showing the extent of the prehistoric settlement.

There is reference to how the farmer blew two stones up here.

Part two - Drowned valleys

Drowned Valleys;  A concept I fell in love with years ago, an Atlanta under the sea maybe, or more prosaically, the sea came further in between two hills.  Whatever, Solva is a drowned valley, once in Medieval times an important port but now just host to holiday yachts and boats.

But if you climb to the top of the cliffs and wander along the narrow ridge of rock between Solva and the next valley, you get a very Welsh feel to this part of the coastline.  So my photos of 2005 will show the little hidden valley next to Solva, with its small river running through down to the sea and the rounded beach.

The narrow rocky ridge between the two valleys

The right hand steep hill is the one to make your way down to this fairly inaccessible boggy valley.  The path goes up on the other side which would take you to St. Elvis Farm.

The air is so clean around here that lichens thrive happily

Always follow the path

We farm on soft soil land but the rocks thrusting through, so often seen in Wales, reminds us of the beginning of the Earth molding itself

At the headland there is an Iron Age fort/settlement.  I think there must be an Iron Age settlement every half mile along this stretch of the coast.

Tortured by the elements.  Hawthorns grow to great age.

Sunday thoughts.

Taking thoughts and collecting memories: Some of the best memories I have were wandering around St.David's Head with Moss.  He was in his element on these holidays which we took by ourselves.  We would stay in a little cottage attached to a farm down a trackway.  That is not to say that taking my beloved Paul there and our American friends at a later stage wasn't wonderful.  But for me wandering along the cliff tops, searching out the cromlechs and using a map instead of some silly hand held phone was bliss.

My probably most favourite area was the Prescelis, it had a beautiful loneliness that made me want to live there.  In fact if my life had not taken the turns and bumps in the road, that is where you would now find me, either in one of those cottages in St. David or somewhere in a village.

I explored that coastline with an intensity marvelling at the flowing lines of the cliffs, the  past industrial history of Porthgain and the Blue Lagoon at Aberridy.  You need to go back again and again to understand a landscape.  The pages unfold, the little cross vicar's wife who tutted at my pronunciation of her church.  The sweep of the sea and beach at Newgale.  A great curve of sand backed by tons of stone so as to not to let the sea flood on to the only road between Haverfordwest and St.Davids, where it would create a lake on the campsite across the road in winter.

But it was Moss's exuberance for life coupled with his sensibility that always found the right way back through heather or gorse that I most relied on. Being a sheep dog he would not go near the sea not even for a paddle, if his ball landed in the water I had to get it.   Wandering round Solva one could walk up to the top of the cliffs and then make a bumpy steep descent into the little secret valley behind, a 'drowned' valley and the cove that lay hidden there.  Keep walking up over the cliffs and you would find a cromlech up there by the farm.  Unfortunately a 19th century farmer had tried to blow it up  with dynamite, also an old chapel hidden amongst the barns.

Moss always waiting for his ball to be thrown

Probably my favourite cromlech.  Difficult to find on St. David's Head. 

Wandering through some woods came across this old well with the key stones giving way.  I wonder if it has fallen yet?

An old ruined chapel on top of the cliffs.

I just love the tangle of greenery around the well.

'The Street' at Aberridy

24th February 2923

Friday, 2th February 2023 the anniversary of the Ukrainian  War which I will not dwell on for the moment.  My mind is trapped in being scared, of what? don't laugh, the optician.  I hate all those outside good people who attend to my physical needs.

I know my sight is going but am not prepared to visit hospitals for treatment, having been through this with Paul when his eyesight was treated.  Getting my family to understand that I am a true scaredy cat over most things has been difficult.  Paul understood it, one of the reasons we did not do Japan, he reckoned the sheer size of all the people there rushing around would overwhelm me.

So when the appointment is over, I shall be able to write maybe, though word blocking seems to be a catching disease all over blogland ;)

But one blog cheered me up this morning, both for its lyrical words and photographs.  Paul Knight and his son undertake walks high up over the moors.  The sight of that boy standing high on a rock looking down into the inverted mist, has his father ever explained the giant shadow that can appear at such times I wonder, made me realise that young life has everything to look forward to.

So here is the link, enjoy.

Impressions

Coming to grips with West Yorkshire.  Well for a start it means train rides and bus rides, especially through large busy towns. That was the first thing that struck upon coming to this part of Yorkshire.  Rows and rows of houses with no back gardens but a small thoroughfare lane behind.  As we travelled from Shipley through Bradford to Halifax (it took a helluva long time) my first impressions of a bus load of students, all from different ethnic countries was such a surprise.  I sat next to a girl playing Arabian music on her phone, she was shy and sweet and tiny.  The students got off the bus at the university and then we went through that part of town, that is a mish-mash of Indian restaurants, barber shops and small supermarkets.  The terraced houses were like rabbit hutches, a picture image of one door and one window repeated endlessly.  People got on and off the bus.  Properly equipped bus by the way for mobile wheelchairs and mothers with push chairs.

This was the second bus, did I say we spent two hours on this single journey! The first bus took us on a tour of suburbia land, way up on the surrounding hills.  The inhabitants allotted living space somewhat larger, tiny patchwork gardens, the front often paved over. Poor bees I thought won't find much up here.  My thinking said, poor people live in the valley bottoms, whereas those that have achieved more move out and up the hills.  Not many live on the moors, mostly farms and many are deserted.

Bradford was a rich town and had beautiful municipal buildings from better times.  We shopped in Halifax, I had a birthday voucher to spend in M&S - black lace knickers and two t-shirts, then we had lunch in an old market place, egg and chips with toast.

All so different from North Yorkshire market towns.

I have said I am not going to travel on a bus for another year, trains it must be.  We did not do Salt Mills, Andrew's new flat, is in a quiet corner overlooking the canal.  You can sit in an armchair and watch the people walk past, even saw someone on a unicycle.  There is a feed for the birds on the balcony rail, and a little flock of sparrows in the brambles below, empty it hungrily through the day.

I have never experienced flat life so am quite excited by the prospect of staying in them.  It was also an experiment to for Andrew to try out the enormous camping bed in the sitting room, they are going camping in April.  He has got rid of his car, joining the family in a no car status and will rent a car for travel, anyway this is also an experiment as well - our carbon ration should be low for the future.

Andrew lives on ' Edgeland' he was somewhat surprised to know that fact!  That land that falls between urban and countryside.  A liminal space, where you find nature hiding in hidden places and land that has the detritus of earlier industrial work.  Wander along the canals or river in this country through town or countryside and their usefulness as waterways, now long gone.

To be cont; coffee break.

19th February 2023

We are off to Shipley today to Andrew's flat and do some sightseeing.  Mention of the Industrial Museum but I fancy wandering round the large cavernous Salt Mill again, we shall see.

Woke up this morning on a dream that I must be Vera of television fame because Aidan was my side-kick.  We were being chased by the police because they had some electronic device located in my car.  Not sure if it was the baby I was pushing in a pram over the bridge they were after but still.  What a weird and wondrous world our dreams think up.

Still perhaps I should stop plodding through the series on ITVX.  What I find now is there is no need to watch television through an evening but to follow one's whim on any You tube video, I can wander from archaeology to mindfulness, from knitting to captured black and white from the past, and at the moment travel around Japan and understand their world.

Yesterday I watched a short film about weaving on one of the Japanese islands, this English lady swished around in a variety of kimonos......

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2007477/

Japan is a fascinating culture, Paul who studied his own craft with such diligence would often explain, the meticulous and patient handwork in which his skill was found.  The thing that is so obvious is that within any culture you use the natural plants and water around you.  He had books of hand made paper that he had collected and  one dream of his was to move to Middle Mill just outside Solva in Wales, to take advantage of the clean little river that flowed through the hamlet, but dreams are just dreams sadly.

There are things that go against the grain of my nature in Japan, the ultra tidy garden but such arrangements are there for meditation and one should not forget the  religious philosophy that underlines their past history.

I see that I have written about papermaking in 2010 and it brings back memories of many a happy day spent wandering round the confines of Solva.

Have you ever felt -  Banausic = not operating on an elevated level - mundane.  Found it in an essay, Grayling had used it.

Doodlings

I am listening to George Butterworth's - Bank of Green Willows.  It reminds me of childhood and being ill in bed with the radio playing besides me.  English pastoral music, a glorious hymn to the beauty of the natural world.  

I have been reading a miscellany of things, George Orwell and his writing career through life, striding after the truth and then recording it.  Often ill, he eventually became recognised as a writer and with the help of friends survived.  Rebecca Solnit wrote of him in her book - Orwell's Roses.  There is a biography on Wikipedia that is both long and well padded out.  And I am glad of that deep need to record those who were thinking people, their thoughts perhaps obsolete today but recording the history of their times.

I have also been reading up about the Pegasus Spyware developed by the Israel's, which you can buy and then disrupt some poor governments election plans.  (I wonder how much it costs;)  The bug can be transferred from someone near to you, or it can come in on a link.  Being targeted is a bit of a worry but then this comes with new technology and the internet.  Did the founder of the internet Tim Berners-Lee ever realise what a catastrophic bomb he unloaded on the world?

Inasmuch as people try to track us and 'bot' us with silly ideas, there are always the champions fighting for cyber-security. Yin and Yang, good and bad, the two forces always fighting somewhere in the background.  Overcoming the small pettiness and ambitions of humans.

15th February 2023

Dear Pat of Weaver of Grass put the question as to how we felt about women and equality in society.  Such an enormous question, given the complexity of being female in a roughly equal division of female and male.

Sometimes women go on the attack, as they have a perfect right to given the things they experience.  What we are fighting at this present moment, is beyond pinched bottoms and wolf whistles, it is equality in the workplace, for women to sail beyond the glass ceiling and fill the CEOs chairs like their male brethren and also, there is hope and optimism here, slowly female barristers, judges, politicians are there  and maybe bringing a different point of view to the table.

 'The Times they are a changing' as Bob Dylan would sing, but it is a slow change and there will be mistakes along the way.  Women and men have very different functions in life, and it is addressing these problems women have to face, such as childcare and homemaking, so treasured from the past that adjustments have to be made.

Judging men from the really bad throwbacks that occasionally emerge is not the option, men are not the problem, but certain men are, and it is these dinosaurs of ignorance, such as the extreme right in America and of course the shameful effect of a religion on some Muslim women that we need to speak out about.  But Western culture should be very wary of telling others how to live their lives!

Still I will not ramble, only to put the following video on, it is Professor Mary Beard interviewing Rebecca Solnit on her book. = 'Recollections of my Non-Existence.'  Also the tale of the mansplaining episode.

Edit: I forgot ;) I have been ill with the dreaded lurgy, whatever it is, in my case a bad cough and cold.  But.......also my ear, there I was standing in Boots the chemist waiting to pick up my daughter's prescription, and the sound just changed to an echoing sound of  a strange noise.  It has got better, though still somewhat deaf in that ear.  Went round saying I had middle ear infection, though truthfully I don't know what that is.  Doctor appointments are almost impossible round here, so should it not get better I will see the pharmacist.  

It perhaps tells you just how bad the NHS is here by the size of the building built a few years back, but now with hardly any doctors in now.

Todmorden medical centre.

2) Now here is a mystery? Banksy is supposed to have painted this as a Valentine, but the council have stepped in real quick and removed the freezer and chair. Was the council ashamed of leaving litter down the alleyway for weeks or did they not understand the significance of the graffiti.

Banksy in Margate

Coffee

Coffee;  A dark ambrosia of joy.  Each morning, I make coffee , it is a ritual.  The rite is for both Paul and me, first the coffee beans tumbling into the coffee grinder, till they become granular, and then the sweeping of this into the filter, hot water and the slowly dribble of the water through the filter.  My coffee pot is a royal blue, the old one which I used with Paul was red but it had an accident. Then I take my Derby coffee mug, a beautiful turquoise with a light gold band on the edge.  Turquoise is my favourite colour, matched with pink, for some unfathomable reason.

I was reminded of this by reading "Beyond the Fields we Know" blog, she had woken up with a migraine and had made herself a thick expresso to knock the headache out.

It reminded me years ago of a Turkish student I had had from the language school, Turkish coffee is something else.  He would make it in some tiny cups for us, he was a lovely gentle giant of a man.  Studying textiles at Manchester university later on.  He bought the coffee cups and a tiny jug to top up the cups back from Turkey.  He once wanted to have a go on my spinning wheel, but without any one in the room watching - chuckle.  

His sister would phone him up, and as I answered the phone she would greet me with 'goodbye', I explained several times that you said 'hello' when greeting someone on the phone but it was so funny at the time.

I had many students to look after, some were easy, others more difficult, creating a lot of stress.  Some from rich parents had been tipped out of English boarding schools straight into language school before going on to university.  Young men who had little knowledge of looking after themselves.  Other were older, doctors or teachers.  I still have photos of some, the Japanese man who wanted to live in Bath, the Swiss who stayed on for a couple of weeks more and constructed a zip line for lego creatures down from the top attic to the garden, me worried sick that my son would fall out of the window.  

Davor who was always near tears if things weren't as he wanted (the school sent me the most difficult students).  I remember that first day he arrived, taking him for a walk up on the downs and he rather truculently saying his previous host family had taken him up there also.  The stirring and then sipping his tea from a spoon, and his face contemplating that little bit of fat rind round his pork chop, apparently his mother always took it off for him (he was 27). 

A phone call from the school would alert me that he was on the way home upset by something.  The funniest moment when he came home one day and I found him in his bedroom weeping into a towel whilst a three old Tom jumping on the bed singing to him 'poor, poor Davos'  Now I suppose today his emotional upset would have triggered a whole host of response from experts but in those olden days we just got on with coping.

Coffee has led me down a memory lane, back to a garden I loved dearly and incidents that still bring a smile.

10th February 2023

 I have been knitting whilst listening to Ellie Griffiths - The Last Remains.  My soup has been simmering on the Aga, and my daughter doing a zoom business meeting and it is now 10.30.  Lillie is at college, Andrew apparently just getting on the train from a company meeting, all this can be tracked on a phone.

Hopefully Ellie Griffiths will grow tired of her characters, as I am slightly, and find another set, though to be honest I believe she already has.  Authors under my belt last month, Anne Cleese and Peter May.

Tomorrow, family get together, Ellie and Tom to celebrate his birthday but no Ben and Matilda just Andrew, who has become family as well.

I have had this cough/cold thingy but seem to be getting better and will go over to the chemist later on to get my blood pressure pills, the only ones I take.  All week I have used my bp machine to check, as the doctor has asked could I go in for medicine check up.  I refused statins last time, I really don't wont to start taking loads of pills and my cholesterol is only a little high.  End of medical report - chuckle.

Why I go down that particular path is because I was watching a YT video of long-life in Japan - The Oldest People in the world - I will put the video down below if anyone is interested.  What is interesting is the fact that they are healthy in their old age and don't think about death, they visualise a future for themselves.  It looks a good life but then one could argue the programme makers have only chosen the best subjects.

Still on the Island of Okinawa, many people live to a hundred, in a fairly healthy state. They encompass a thinking of "Ikigai" a unique sense of purpose.  Not sure I would like to live to such an old age, in this country we always talk about the care system for the old, but what if we changed the thinking and thought about living through old age healthily?

08th February 2023 - Earthquakes

 As small children are pulled from the rubble of the earthquakes in both Turkey and Syria remember that this tragedy as it unfolds will bring enormous sorrow into the lives of these families. It will be a continuing tragedy.  The Red Cross, The Red Crescent and the White Helmets are there alongside skilled rescue parties from many countries in this world who are flying in.  Infrastructure such as roads and airports have been damaged, helicopters will obviously be the best way to fly supplies to stricken areas.

One NGO from Norway, said 'we do not count the dead till the end' it is indeed a useless exercise for numbers will not help.  One image I find haunting, and I will not even go when small children are pulled out alive, was the large group of people standing on a large hill of rubble surrounded by gaping buildings that had shed their interiors of furniture. Spewed the lives out of the people who had once lived there.

So what can we do? money I think is the best answer, Ukraine was one of the first countries to offer help, but as always we need the experts to tell us what is needed. And sadly more refugee camps are on the horizon.

Doctor's Without Borders 

UNICEF 

Syrian American Medical Society

Turkish Red Crescent

The Red Cross

5th February 2023

When looking at my stats this morning I noticed that there were several blogs that were still looked at from years ago.  One was on a visit to London, probably to the British Museum and we had had lunch in a Japanese restaurant, so in good Tasker fashion I will link it here.  The other blog that was listed was about Lastingham Church.  What I think was most remarkable was that I found St.Cedd at Chelmsford Cathedral, here in Lastingham and down by the sea in Essex at St. Peter on the Wall still in its Romans vestments.

Always I write of things that catch my interest, places we had visited. If I follow the link in Lastingham Church, I was writing about 'there be dragons somewhere else, I think these dragons belonged on the font at Avebury and were eating a bishop. Don't worry I am sure he overcame them!

Each day my mind chews over what I have learnt in the day.  Yesterday having found out about Elmet (600 hides of land) between Mercia and Leeds I happened on a couple of documentaries about poverty.  Firstly in America, and then in Europe/Germany.  I also came across Guy Standing explaining as to where we are at in the moment.

I was going to title this blog with "Has everyone turned into a Rachman?" but thought that might be too controversial.  The words I had come across was Rentier Capitalists, this is the regime we are living under now.  All those strikes on the street point to the fact that wages are being pushed down deliberately.  Government is no longer there to look after the population but to line the pockets of those already rich.  That may be a naïve way of looking at it, but it has always seemed to me that large pensions, dividends and second homes cannot actually create a manufacturing background.   God knows what our grandchildren will inherit.  Amen

Edit;  The News statesman came up with a little podcast from Will Dunn - The end of the Ponzi  Scheme on my news last night.

The clock ticks, the page is printed

The name Mytholmroyd means 'a clearing for settlement, where two rivers meet' and is likely to come from the Old English (ge)mthum for 'river mouth' and rodu meaning 'field' or 'clearing'.

Somewhere amongst my books I have Ted Hughes book of poems called 'The Remains of Elmet'.  I have still to find it, but I was reminded of him yesterday when I read a bit of news about a statue being erected in Mytholmroyd of two foxes and a milk churn in honour of his poem 'Milk Churn Joan'.  A lass of folklore myth that was I believe devoured by foxes high on the moors and there is, supposedly a stone commemorating it.  

Hughes widow does not like the idea, the town are in a sense erecting the statue to gain more tourist status.  Apparently Hughes only lived in the town for the first eight years of his life, at 1, Aspinall Street.  You can even stay there as it is a holiday cottage but more 50/60s style.

The book has dark depressing photographs by Fay Godwin, exactly capturing the bleakness of the North.  The artistic interpretation of 'The North' leaves one overawed but at the same time under impressed, and one longs for the chalk downs of Wiltshire or the Cotswold Way.  

You can imagine Hughes curve of mind as he tramped the moors, he is a miserable old bastard at times, what with his hunting and melancholia.  But perhaps that is what we need to leaven the false hope of optimism that occasionally takes a swerving route through the mind.

 

The heading is of course from 'Thought Fox', listening to Hughes recite it and I am with him crossing the dark space not only of the woods but the mind as well.

The kingdom of Elmet intrigues me, one of those small countries that nestled once inside greater Britain, it doesn't exist anymore but a fleeting reference in the history books.

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox,
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.