4th March 2025

The Ides of March

"A warming trend" in the weather that is good to hear.  Isn't it funny how things creep into the weather language but I shall welcome a warming trend and try to prise Mollie the cat off the electric radiator which she demands to be put on every day so that she can sleep snugly and warmly under it.

yesterday Andrew cooked tea, a delicious vodka pasta, the vodka seems to disappear by the way.  We listened to a Leonard Cohen playlist and it reminded me of the records of his.  Cohen could not sing, that gruff voice was made for poetry and that of course what his songs are about.  It reminded of another couple of records I had, again not sure if Melanie could sing but she was original.

What do I do during the day?  Well I sew patchwork, small squares into larger ones matching the colours, or even jarring the colours, it is simple and does not require enormous amounts of concentration.  

Am I worrying about the evolving situation, the answer is no only that talk of appeasement is wrong.  I do not want Europe to be handed on a plate to Russia as they creep over Ukraine .  But neither do I want another war, so I would play the game softly, softly.  

There are so many things buzzing around at the moment and America is making one great whirlpool in the life of the world.  Will there be change? Yes of course, what we see now is the cut and thrust of business.  Growth as always is the call to duty.  But luckily old values still hold strong in Europe and Starmer is playing the game quietly.  As I read the other day, there are seven billion people in the world, we can easily stop buying cars, clothes and eating foul McDonald's stuff, there is swift punishment out there for those who overstep the line (as Musk has done).

So I am going to grow older gracefully, watch my grandchildren evolve into good citizens and not panic about things I cannot change.

Another eleven days and it will be 'The Ides of March' interesting!

Dear old Lucy which I came across this morning

1st March 2025 - White Rabbit, White Rabbit, White Rabbit!

 

What happened yesterday in the Oval office of the White House was a disgusting theatre show of two bullies in the school yard.  Zelensky was set upon without mercy by two arrogant men who are scheming and maneuvering for their own benefit.  Forget about all those young men killed in war between the Russians and the Ukrainians - they are dispensable, disposable? against the need to grab mineral wealth that lies in Ukrainian territory.

So I also will keep the Ukrainian flag at the side of my blog as a sign of my support and I hope Britain and Europe will keep to their promises of support for the country.

Things may change but right and wrong does not.  The moral code of the three men - The Orange One, Muskrat and Vile Vance has been bleached out of their souls!

And now to something gentler, the River Ter in Essex.  Small gentle river winding between willows, often clogged by fallen trees and over exuberant water plants and very occasionally had fish in it.

I am deserted once again this weekend, Andrew up to Devon to visit his grandchildren, my daughter to London to visit the two girls.

No I did not go down the stairs backwards this morning saying 'White Rabbit' the March Hare is not going to get me yet...

If you do click on the River Ter, remember to click the photo so that they have a black frame.  When I go back to old blogs, there is a sense of sadness, not only for Paul but for Pat who often commented on my blog but there again with Paul we pottered along in our retirement experiencing a new life with each other and the magic of the natural world gives much joy.

Brief Interlude

Artist - Anne Cotterill

So what did I see yesterday when I went and posted a letter but the first signs of spring.

Crinkled leaves, pale lemon buds = wild primroses.  They arrive tucked into woods amongst the trees, the old leaves of last year still strewn untidily around. I am wearing a jumper I knitted in the same soft yellow colour and it always brightens my day.  Always loved primroses, they come in various shapes and sizes, from the Alpines to our own cold weather loving wild primrose.  Gertrude Jekyll described them thus,

 "the Primrose garden in season a river of gold and silver flowering through a copse of silver stemmed young birch for a hundred yards or more" 
and to read on.... the primroses were the celebrated Munstead Strain developed by crossing the variety Golden Plover with a very pale, almost white polyanthus found in a cottage garden" .

25th February 2025

 Before I launch myself into a jigsaw, wordle, spelling bee and codewords  I will put down some of the references that have passed by in the last couple of days.

Firstly, Jolly's down Milsom Street in Bath.  This departmental store so noticeable as you walked down Milsom Street, owned by 'The House of Fraser' and very classy to boot, hardly went in there myself, is to close and manifest itself in another version. It is one of the oldest department stores in Europe.

Temple Mill Works

Secondly,  the redundant flax mill Temple Works in Leeds has had a grant of ten million pounds for conversion into the British Library northern outpost.  It has an Egyptian Revival frontage and one wonders at these Victorian owners of old why they spent so much money on grandiose schemes.  But it is good that it is being saved.  One of these Northern mills traits are enormous spaces which housed the looms.  Drafty old halls are probably quite amenable to shelves of books.

Todmorden town hall

Lastly, whilst contemplating the fate of Northern Victorian buildings my mind went back to the town hall in Todmorden.  A very classic 'Roman' facade this building has.  To my eye it sits rather sadly at a roundabout of roads, though central, it has no gathering open space for the people of Todmorden but has a very fine assembly room.

Then of course the politics that flow at the moment.  I had subscribed to Robert Reich on Substack, but then other things started coming through, such as an article by 'Old Goats'.  Most of what I read tends to flow away from me but I did find one name mentioned that always fills me with crossness.

Bradenstoke Abbey

Yes, William Randolph Hurst, one of the 'great' names of America.  Well he nicked parts of our buildings, mainly Bradenstoke Abbey in Wiltshire and then left all the stones to rot in a barn.  I think he took them to build a hotel, doesn't he remind you of someone?  Well he also dabbled in films such as this....de ja vue??

The essay it came in though was from the 'Old Goats' on Substack.....

23rd February 2024 - Lina Ghotmeh

 

Lina Ghotmeh with Nicholas Cullinan in the Western Range of the British Museum 

Lina Ghotmeh Lebanese born architect has won the contract to alter/renew the British Museum.  I learnt that this morning when in my emails Mike Pitt's latest blog came through.  Mike Pitt is the editor of 'British Archaeology' and a writer of  good archaeological books.  Many years ago when he ran the cafe at Avebury with his partner he was also a friend of Pauls.  There were parties apparently in the big old house, next to the loos, I believe, where before Avebury became Avebury to the neo-pagans, people gathered.

But that is but tittle-tattle, what do you notice first of all?  she is female and it still surprises me that a woman can be an architect - it should not of course.  In fact 31% is the figure, almost a third so not really bad.  Her mother who was also an architect had four children therefore was more occupied with her family than her work.  But Lina did not start out in architecture, she was interested in many things, biology and archaeology to name but two.  Studying in Paris though she got a degree in architecture and Paris is where she operates from.  Her work, like so many architects reflects designs of the world around her, whether it be geology or the natural.  Stone Garden in Beirut is extraordinary and she has also done some work in this country in the construction of 'The Serpentine Pavilion' in 2023.  Which seems to be renewed every so often.

Serpentine Pavilion

So here is Mike Pitt's Digging Deeper link  I hope she achieves her goal along with her team.

And just a thought. "A museum of the world, for the world" Neil Macgregor.

There is always trouble brewing at museums about how they acquired their artefacts, and shouldn't they give back some of them to the countries they came from.  But a central gathering of history is just as important for knowledge.

My favourite museum happens to be Wells Museum, a miscellany of stuff;)

British Museum Western Range Competition - Lina Ghotmeh Architecture on Vimeo

22nd February 2025

 

Ubud Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Bali

These creatures are probably wiser than those who are governing us at the moment, the photo appeared as I switched on this morning.  I have been bereft of words lately but slowly I recover from this virus cold thing and when I can stop falling asleep during the day I shall be up and away.......

Yesterday I sorted my room so that I can fit another small table in to house my sewing machine.  I like patchworking but with only one table to work on which contains a large computer, it is difficult to cut and arrange the pieces with the sewing machine there.

It has also been a week of getting used to another person around the place, Andrew.  He fits in quite well!  Though I think ordering pizzas on his night to cook is a cool way of getting out of cooking but there again he does work.

A couple of memes to follow and a video of Ian Hislop turning his wicked tongue to pulling down the clowns, and here I mean Musk and Trump, over the years.  We will survive such wretched characters mark my words ;)

 

20th February 2025

Idly thumbing through a small book by Virginia Woolf, it is a chapter from 'A Room of One's Own', the chapter is called 'Liberty'.  Woolf writes on how women through the ages belonged, I can think of no better word, to men.  The middle class woman was earmarked, often from a baby, to marry into her equivalence.  No matter that she may have wanted different her life was set in stone by men.  Woolf muses on the fact that what would have happened if Shakespeare had had a sister, what would have happened to her? She imagines her going up to London and presenting herself at a theatre because she wanted to be an actress.  Being laughed out of the circle of men who only looked upon her as a 'piece of flesh'. She is rescued by a theatre manager, but hey babe, she gets pregnant by him and has a child.  So what does she do?  Yes, she kills herself, because she loses respect in the eyes of the people around her.

Enough of that.  I have been musing on what to wear to the wedding of my first grandchild to get married.  This marriage will take place in August of this year and the two young people are already preparing for it.  What present shall I buy for them, or perhaps money.  I remember the wedding list we prepared in my first marriage to Tom's grandfather.  There was a teamaker.  It produced after a lot of grumbling percolating noises a hideous cup of stewed tea, and you had to go and get the milk out of the fridge anyway.  There was a china dinner set, ivy leafed round the edges, towels and a silver tea service, which meant I had to clean it, till eventually it went to the back of the cupboard.

So I went to 'Seasalt' for a dress, there is a simple pretty blue one that took my fancy, but I shall need to shorten the hem - is it too early?  No hat, small people look silly in hats.  A cardigan rather than a jacket, I hate the idea of dressing up just for the day.  But...............did I ever expect to see my grandchildren married?? especially in this day when we live with our partners without the legal code of marriage.  So it is a good time still to be alive and experiencing the life events we all go through.

Ordinariness

Six years ago this Ukranian children's choir recorded this.  I am  wondering where they are all now, and how they feel about their future which is still being threatened by Russia. Gamely, or perhaps the better word is interferingly, the man of the moment, the one who is dictating how he would like the world run is having words with his Russian counterpart.  Unfortunately he is fighting real men in Ukraine!

The lyrics to the song - Something Just Like This

"I've been reading books of old, the legends and the myths
Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts
Spider-Man's control and Batman with his fists
And clearly, I don't see myself upon that list

But she said, "Where d'you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?
I'm not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts
Some superhero, some fairy tale bliss
Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss"

Classic FM

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Natural Sacred Landscape link.

Sacred Landscape 2007  ?

15th February 2025

 The house is in a bit of a turmoil - it is being sorted and Andrews bits and pieces fitted in.  I am still ill with this wretched cold/flu/unknown bug which is about to decimate the world? who knows.  It will get worse if we have to get builders in when Adam has done his architectural plans, then we shall have to go into a holiday cottage.

Just received two overdue birthday presents from Andrew and Tom.  Tom's is a book on folklore and Andrew's a framed photo of the three females he has to put up with.  Good thing though it is not my night to cook, not till Tuesday.

I was a bit sad as we looked at the jumble of stuff in the attic room, it will still keep half its jumble but the other half of the room will have the double bed and wardrobe for all the stray grandchildren that come and go. Some of my stuff has gone into storage and I think so has the small Edwardian nursing chair which always gave me  pleasure when I looked at it..  The chinoiserie style chair which I have clung to over many years, broken on one side and completely useless except as decoration is still up there.

It's Pangolin Day today, we are eating them too fast poor creatures, it breaks your heart.  Not in this country but in others.  Did you see that wonderful piece of video of the whale swallowing a man, luckily the man got spat out again fairly unharmed, so Jonah I believe you got swallowed by that whale but as for divine intervention well that was just a story, the whale just found you inedible!

14th February 2025

 

Happy Valentine's day everyone

xxx

A small political note

 Well for those always ready to slam the EU as a waste of space, a joint statement has been made by the countries of the EU to stand by Ukraine.

I know Ellen is always worried about what is to happen in America under the 'leadership' of her country.  Well there really is a backlash when you try to take over the world....

The Moderate Voice: The British View of Trump

10th February 2025

There is the hard news full of fear and fright and then there is the soft news.  Today it is the Charlcombe Lane Toads that provide the happy news.  It is their spring time of massing once more at the ponds to follow the annual ritual of mating.  Volunteers go up to the lane and help the toads and frogs also across the lane to safety from passing cars and once more this little haven of protection fulfils its duty to the natural world.  The lane is closed down for 6 weeks.

My son and I dug two ponds in the Bath garden many years ago. The first one was smallish and it was hard work, we left the rubber sheeting inside the dug out pond folded over.  Next morning I came down and flicked the sheeting over and there inside were two newts waiting for the water.  The valley had at one time had a stream running through and somehow the newts must have understood the meaning of the hole we had dug.

This pond gave great pleasure, frogs came down to mate and we had tadpoles swimming around, until, tiny as your thumb, small frogs would appear in the grass.  It is not all sweetness and light though, occasionally one would find a drowned female frog, the instance of rape in the frog world was wretched, as males piled onto the poor female.

A mating of blue damselflies

Damselflies and dragonflies clung to the iris leaves in the summer, and once the miracle of rebirth, as a chrysalis hanging on, slowly gave birth to a dragonfly as I sat there on the stones we had surrounded the pond with.  The second pond was larger and wider, also shallow and the goldfish had young in it, though of course the heron was a visitor to the ponds in search of a tasty snack.

Golden eyed dragonfly emerging

Creating a garden for the many creatures that should be allowed to occupy it. 2008

8th February 2025

How can the heart be sad and happy at the same time I wonder.  Listen to Erland Cooper's music-folded Landscape.  He was born in Orkney so his music has all the pathos and yet the beauty of these empty landscapes.  Voices intermingle with the music, songs break in and this young lad stands solemn and still.

Today another three Israeli hostages have been released, thin and gaunt they arrive to the rapturous joy of their relatives and also the Palestinian prisoners released fold into the arms of their relatives.

Cruelty exists side by side with compassion, two opposites and yet one needs the other.

Which in turn reminds me of another composer of the 20th century.  John Tavener and 'The Protecting Veil'. Religious music at its best.

 

7th February 2025

Being ill, though not for long.  A sort of flu developed from a bad cough, though my daughter says it might have been the vaccination for pneumonia I had a couple of days ago.  I am glad I was vaccinated, the virus injected is dead and it is just supposed to stimulate the immune system.

So there is not much happening at the moment, tomorrow Andrew's friend, who is an architect comes down from London to discuss the changes to the house and to see if the basement can be turned into living quarters.  Andrew's friend was part of the team that restored Bradford's Odeon cinema for the year 2025 of the City of Culture for Bradford.

So life is quiet, except for Mollie, who is such a demanding little madam of a cat, demanding that the electric radiator be put on, or food produced at a moments notice.

So I have been looking back at old blogs, and came across Bartlow Mounds, on the border between Cambridge and Essex counties.  A favourite dragon in the church at Bartlow.  An old blog to remind me of the magic of the place.

Community Wealth in Viking Age.

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The Fight back:  USaid has started proceedings,   Whoever let Musk anywhere near power should really be frightened of allowing this mad megalomanic to bring such catastrophic action to what is happening.

3rd February 2025

 

Another photo from Maldon, I think it is a sea holly, a maritime plant, that doesn't love water but a dry hot place near a wall. Same as the Californian poppies that dance at its roots.

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To record the day:  Which is noteworthy in the fact that Andrew will be moving in.  His workplace will be in the large bedroom next door.  Most of his stuff is going into storage but there will be furniture coming soon.  Andrew is a walker, so must walk a couple of times a day, so will do all the small shopping when needed ;) We all have our cooking days, I have three in the week.

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Apart from that, I listened to a tentative morning 'Dawn's Chorus' when a blackbird sung its heart out, presumably because of the slightly warmer temperature.  So Hardy's frail winter's blackbird is going but as we know, even though the light returns the winter cold can last well into April, with even snow in May.

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A wander down a favourite river

Flooding at the Chelmer Mill

The meeting of the rivers

The Chelmer and Blackwater navigational River

1st February 2025

Remember summer? So someone on a blog mentioned the Battle of Maldon in Essex and I remembered a couple of trips there.  Not much to write at the moment but have been watching videos on both Australia and Japan.  What do I learn?  that Australian property is becoming very expensive, similar to Britain.  But that there is in Japan many, many empty houses out in the countryside just left to rot. I wonder with the uptake of working from home if we will not see a greater movement of people around the world?  Would you go to Japan, and do that thing most Britishers adore doing which is 'doing up' a run down property?

Pretty gardens in Maldon

But English silver is not so softly won:

first iron and edge shall make arbitrement

Harsh war-trial, ere we yield tribute'

The Battle of Maldon. 2010

Another visit -2014

And pray... what will you tell them when they ask you why?

 

Stonehenge Festival

Civil disobedience:  What does it mean?  Above the photo taken from Andy Worthington site shows a festival at Stonehenge many years ago.  Something you would never see now, if anyone remembers the 'Battle of the Beanfield' the police soon put an end to that.

Now as part of belonging to a group called Heritage Action years ago I followed the news on various causes.  For instance the 'Hill of Tara'.  A motorway was built below this prehistoric site and the road protestors moved in.  Here they lived in tunnels beneath the surface to keep away from security guards and police but of course in the end lost out.

Yesterday I noticed in the news that an elderly pensioner - Gaie Delap was to be left in prison for a longer time, just because the wrist bracelet for keeping tabs on her was not a good fit.  She was a climate protester, and had been protesting on behalf of "Just Stop Oil".  She was as different  from a dreadlocks young lad as chalk is to cheese.  Should she be in prison? the law of the land says she should but the authorities are running a dangerous risk should she die in prison.

Outlawing climate protest has become a legal and frightening threat against a number of people who feel that we need to take action.

  

Another road protest was at Newbury in 1996.  The BBC have put together a good account of this  you can see quite plainly the use of force against the protestors, they had no chance in the film below.  It is a sentimental viewpoint of the two horses charging down to confront all the people but it makes the story more real and the absolute sadness of watching trees being taken down for the onlookers.

And lastly in 1994.  Solsbury Hill, as the youngsters took to the trees to stop the improvement of the A46, you can see from the link below the photographs of this fight, and by the way a "motorway on stilts' was not built on the water meadows at Bathampton".

All this came to mind when I put the Hippies of Hebden blog post up.  It suddenly occurred had there been any protest up North that had had any significance.  The train service called the HS2, of course never made it up North but was their protest along the way I wondered as trees and properties were brought down.

 

Solsbury Hill - a book about road protest by Adrian Arbib with  excellent photos

Solsbury Hill and the middle class

England what has become of you? 

Edit:

And sometimes the protestors win.  It is useful to have a dog tagging along though.................... news today on the Rosebank case

I suspect Gaie Delap will be pleased at the outcome

The Hippies of Hebden video

I came across the following video last night.  It documents the history as to when the hippies came to Hebden.  One could almost describe it as when the children broke free of the stifling atmosphere of neat homes and subservience to conventional life.  It sprang to life in the 1960s, it birthed the 'boomers' and led to the generation living now.  They are unable to afford the over priced housing and jobs are not so thick on the ground as technology creeps in.

But those hippies looked like they had fun, living in the derelict houses, though squatting is the word used, never forget land ownership is sacred....

Now as the tourists roam the streets of the town in that aimless way tourist have, the talk of drugs and sex is hardly mentioned..  but  both are doing quite well in modern society ;)

Catch the bearded gnome halfway through, you will laugh with him as he shows off his bright green caftan.  Such a lovely character.

 

Sunday

 "in that I’ve chosen no form for the Book of Mind Because everything has no form, and when you’ve finished reading this book you will have had a glimpse of everything, presented in the way that everything comes: in piecemeal bombardments, continuously, rat tat tatting the pure pictureless liquid of Mind essence"  Jack Kerouac.

I have been reading a lot this morning and sorting photos, a Sunday occupation.  Debating whether to find Kerouac's 'Lotus Sutra'.  Apparently K wrote a great deal but died at the age of 47 years old with liver disease.  Caused through alcoholism.  Paul kept a lotus seed which he once showed me, you can plant it over my grave he had said jokingly. But I could never find the seed.

I came across Steve Marx's long essay or talk on the above, see here. I see on his blog that he also writes of Leonard Cohen's term in Buddhism.  They are playing 'Hallelujah' at the moment on the radio, coincidence or not?

I often wonder several hundred years hence whether such hippy people as the Beat people  will transcend to Jesus like figures, worshipped for their insight and seen as great minds. though the sceptics of today's suburbanite minds will mutter it was all down to drugs.  The mind is a frightening place sometimes for many people but it is the social milieu at the moment that weighs so many people down.

I also wonder was it this time of hippies from the 1950s that our questioning of whether Christianity had a right to existence in our own minds.  The questioning went on and people sought other religions to fill in the gap.  But why is there a gap? Is there really a void there, or something we have yet to discover in our own minds.  Questions, questions.

There was a discussion on Radio 4 on Bishop - Mariann Budde's sermon to Trump, and the American preacher refuting her.  you will find it at 27 minutes on this programme.  Also discussion of Kerouac and the 'ceasefire'.  How we all wish for a cease fire and for the Palestinians to rebuild their lives but will it ever happen?

Well the pure pictureless liquid of mind essence, does not exist in my brain which  often has  images floating through it and music flows gently through as well at the moment, distracting in its simplicity - Arvo Part - Spiegel im Spiegel.  So calm it lilts the mind to something that  is not there.

Old Hawthorns. There roots firm in an old stone shed

Stachy plant or Lamb's Ears - frozen

A tangle of hawthorn

Quarries.  I loved the brown toffee coloured stone that made up some Welsh cottages

My romantic grandson who took Ellie to Amsterdam (or was it Copenhagen) to propose

Tom at an earlier age throwing stones into the pond when he had been told again and again not to throw stones.

Summer flowers

 Poet Michael Longley reading his poem "Ceasefire".

24th January 2025

 

The wind buffets the window in sharp gusts.  Storm Eowyn hits our island and there has been the unusual procedure of shutting down shops and stopping trains as well. It will travel over from Northern Ireland, then Scotland and then through the North, covering most of Britain I believe

.

And my daughter and Andrew have just set off in a taxi to Manchester airport to fly to Paris.  With the proviso that I might see them back later.   I have a fearful nature about my family travelling.  It stems from many years ago when two policemen stood at the doorway and informed me that my first husband had been seriously injured in a car crash - but there it is.

To more down to earth worries, the recycling lorry hasn't been for two weeks and I notice that cardboard over the road is soaked and lying everywhere but I hope we shall not see roofs being torn off and I think it is eminently sensible to ask people to stay at home.

Weather is almost twice as fierce as it was years ago, we are in a climate change and how it is going to pan out I do not know. Luckily the leaves are off the trees taking some of the weight off them.  Below you will see a statement about the new presidency of the USA and his failure to acknowledge the crisis of what is going on.  Well let see if his new techno buddies might get a conscience about what is happening.  Speaking out is our right.

And even to more mundane things, I have battled with my camera, and almost won.  At least I understand all the numerous symbols, and, shame, shame took me two days to find the button to take a picture but it has been an interesting time to learn, and though I might not use all those symbols preferring the computer to clean up my photos and with the help of Andrew, who ordered the right gadget to transfer photos from my camera to the computer will be ready for the spring

21st January 2025

Yesterday was a bad day but I am not going to say anything, only give the New York Times, opinion article on it. Which is worth a read.

 Opinion | Standing Up to Donald Trump’s Fear Tactics - The New York Times

20th January 2025

 Some days one's mind is filled with images of small things.  Mine has visioned willows and the little violet that grows snuggled deeply in the grass of the church yard.  My weather note at the bottom of this screen says 3 cms of snow in two hours, how do they know? but thumbing through my old blogs on a search of willows and feeling the sadness of times past, I came across these snowy photos of Avebury. A stumpy old willow.  There were other photos of the stones standing bleakly against the stone.  Moss in seventh heaven in the snow.

Bleak sentinels

Avebury

Silvered leaf willow in Essex

a magical if somewhat cold time.

Violets.  I have seen them everywhere on my travels.  Tucked into churchyards, or forgotten bits of grassland.

I think in January we start to look forward to the spring, but that it really gets colder in the following months as the light returns.

I went to a meeting at the Folklore Centre this weekend.  It was about the 'Treasure of Mixenden', which was never found by the way.  It involved about 9 men who gathered together from their town, Bingley, to go and look for some treasure up on the moors.  See here for the writings at Drax Abbey 1531. 

Treasure hunting was frowned upon by the king and the men were punished at York by being chased through the streets.  The tales of folklore is something I know little off.  But stories through the Middle Ages have demons and devils in them.

There has been an unexpected good piece of news over the weekend.  This house, large Edwardian terraced house is not being sold.  It has been decided to 'do it up'.  

Living here for everyone has its advantages.  A train service that runs to all the main towns, shops just across the road and as Andrew says plenty of walking and gym facilities.  Town living is more practical, especially when cars become a bit of a burden on the overcrowded roads of Britain.

So now for coffee, and some music.  It is a radio 3 day today, the news is disheartening.

Bank of Green Willows- George Butterworth

The roles of women?

 Women held keys to land and wealth in Celtic Britain

Skeletons unearthed in Dorset contained DNA evidence that Celtic men moved to live with their wives' families and communities.

Well that was the first thing I read this morning and I pondered on it.  Perfectly feasible, this information had been taken from a dig down in Dorset of the Durotriges tribe.  One has only to think of Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe down on the East coast and Cartimandu, queen of the Brigantes up North, to know that female leaders were accepted.  That leadership went through the mitochondria of the female, passed from mother to daughter is the theory of the archeologists who undertook the dig.

Boudicca was so inflamed by the rape of her two daughters by the Roman leaders of the invasion that she pulled an army together to fight them.  There is one horrible part to the story and it happened in Colchester (Camoludunum). The Celtic tribes were so furious that they attacked the town and murdered without mercy the Romans there.  Boudicca cut the breasts of the Roman matrons and stuffed them into their mouths.  It was a bloody revenge and of course she paid for it and thousands of her followers were killed in subsequent battles.  Her death followed by the taking of poison.  See Tacitus on his media story of the time.

The B/A barrow of the Egtved Girl

The Egtved Girl

So my mind slipped back to the Bronze Age teenage girl, the Egtved Girl from Denmark, in her cord skirt with the sun motif girdled round her waist.  She is also seen as a leader but there again she could have been a religious leader, or priest, if you prefer within her community.  She was buried in a ceremony in a halved tree trunk and a young child at her feet.  Not her child, it could have been a sacrificial killing. There is no DNA evidence to be able to tell.

And to add to my notes another thought.  Bath - Aqua Sulis was also under the influence of females.  Sulis was a goddess, her equivalent Roman God head was Minerva, then there is Diana the hunting goddess down at Shoe lane.  Not forgetting Rosamerta and the three matres at Cirencester.