10th June - Hartley

Yesterday I was shopping in Lidl and came across these lovely white spring onions.  There was about six boxes of them.  They glowed with freshness .

They reminded me of a photograph in an old book of mine,  Dorothy Hartley - The Countryman's England, published 1935 and full of fascinating photos of old England between the two wars of course.  Ellen had said how she had imagined England and I can see how the 'pretty' picture of farming, cottages and people, of this country must still be held in people's hearts.  Well we all know what happened to those cottages, nice chunk of expensive property now, though they still might have roses round the door.  But Helen Allingham in the Victorian era would probably have turned in her grave as she wandered around painting bucolic scenes of cottage gardens.

So here is a few of the photos, slightly washed out.  That is not the fault of my camera but of pictures taken years ago.

10th June 2025

 I found a rather bad video at the end of my photos yesterday.  It is of the Asian Candelabra Primula from Jack's Garden.  A plant I am in love with.  A lot of the video has been trimmed because of the wobbliness.  I had forgotten my second trip down into the quarry by myself.  Take your phone was the command issued and off I went happily to video.  It was only at the end of my walk and meeting the family who had come to find me that I had an embarrassing collapse as I reached the very last step, luckily Andrew caught me, and Nicky and I sat in the top garden whilst I recovered.  But even though the video is bad, played loud I can listen to the birds and the wind in the trees.  I am determined to come to an amicable arrangement with my camera as to functioning as a 'seeing eye'.  It make take quite awhile though!

Primula Japonica: Taken From The English Flower Garden written by W.Robinson - 1895.

"One of the handsomest of primroses, and now too common to need description.  It is a good perennial and is not in the least tender.  It is a first rate border plant and in moist shady spots with deep loam it grows as vigorously  as a cabbage, throwing up flower stems of 2 feet or more.  And unfolding tier after tier of its beautiful crimson blossoms for several weeks in succession.  It is supposed to be rabbit proof.......the seed should not be sown in the heat and the seed will remain dormant for awhile unless it is sown immediately after the seed has been taken from the plant.  .....one must also be careful to prevent  or keep down the growth of Moss or Liverwort  in the seed pan" 

I don't expect people to really look at the video but it is there for me for one of those precious memories that we collect through out life. ;)

Words

The Wellow brook at Stoney Littleton

Yesterday I went for a talk at the Folklore Centre, it was about Antiquarian Psychogeography  the application of the mind, also emotional response, as to what you see around you.  Not quite an 'ology' but near.  As an aside I have done two 'ologies' - sociology and archaeology.  So in theory I can group people socially into their class or background or in the case of archaeology, address the history of man through the layered pancake we call history.  So be it.

But I always question words as you well know if you read my blog at all.  And rather than the pretentious word 'psycho' joined on to geography I prefer to use the term 'sense of place'.  It is the way when out walking in an urban setting or out in the open country I feel the world around me.  You will see below that I have tackled my responses to my environment, the phenomenology of things which somehow seems nearer to what sense of place means.

Funnily enough it was Andrew the other day, someone who strides ahead purposefully on his walk without taking a blind bit of notice where he is walking through (yes I nag him to see), said out of nowhere,  yes since I have got that app 'Merlin' I listen to the birds and now need to name them. ;)

Two words have trickled into my mind as I think - Anima Mundi, the World's Soul is perhaps the doctrine that sits behind all this, the everlasting strain of the human minds that seeks to explain the world and our thinking in it.

John Billingsley the lecturer had to turn skillfully on his subject because psychogeography is related to urban understanding and only recently to landscape depiction, so we would find psychography + megalithic as an outlier.

So one of the 'intellectual' (excuse my sarcastic italics) Will Self did it in his London walkabouts.  And a very much more genuine person in the form of 'The Wandering Turnip' did it in his analysis of towns and the breakdown of the closure of shops in the High street.

I of course read my sense of space through the medium of the prehistoric stones and Neolithic long barrows I have visited, Wayland Smithy's barrow lying in peace in the middle of the countryside, or Stoney Littleton Barrow, time and time again.  Places visited by those who are  enthusiastic over the old stones and the sense of times gone by.  And maybe, somewhat sort of magic that radiates from the stone, maybe of course it is just radon!

North Stoke: Phenomenology

North Stoke: Tuesday and retrospective words

North Stoke: This and that 

6th June 2025 - Newcastle

 

rabbits in Newcastle

The day I visited Newcastle;  Flicking through my photos with nothing much to do, I came across an old file, and there was absolute proof that I had seen rabbits in Newcastle.  They lived on those gardened islands surrounded by moving traffic.  I had wondered at the time how they managed to get off the traffic islands but I suppose at night when it was all quiet.

I do not like towns, they frighten me somewhat, there is this ugliness in the form of buildings everywhere with no shape or pattern.  We had gone to Newcastle to see the university for Tom, one of three.  I quite liked it but Tom was to move down to London.

Here I suffered an embarrassing moment much to the amusement of my companions, I tripped over in front of the entrance of the university and truly fell flat on my face, so I well remember Newcastle for both humiliation and rabbits.  Also the last time I have been to Ikea, we bought the table I am typing on at the moment and on the way back from a distance The Angel of the North was spied.  This great rusty figure is somewhat symbolic of man's dominance over the landscape, so thereby scores nowt in my estimation. 

Two towns I would think of being symmetrical in their appearance, Bath which is of course a city and Whitby with all its cottages.  Both have grown out of a pattern of social needs.  Whitby with its fisherman's cottages and Bath with its Georgian exteriors.

3rd June 2025 - Heartjumping

 I have been following a knitting video on Youtube - it.is.a.sarah.  She is so upbeat and has this wonderful saying 'heartjumping moment' A moment of happiness, a moment of recognition? I don't know but she is from the Nederlands and is so enthusiastic about her knitting that it is a pleasure to watch her.

So do you wake up on a high in the morning? looking forward to a new day.  Sometimes the miseries of the world overtake our natural optimism, we fall into the trap of the blackness that is happening around us.  Wars continue unceasingly, as does cruelty.  Yet we are helpless to do anything.  We must recognise the blackness around but also take pleasure in the good.  So on a high this morning I am listening to George Ezra and Pretty Shining People.

Wandering over the blogs, Steve Reed's Shadow and Light brings forth a small insect inspecting a most beautiful rose and Arctic Fox has been studying fungi, which makes me look up the fungi foraging explorations Paul and I used to go on in Essex, finding the weird and wonderful and once going round with an expert and finding a favourite of mine the Amethyst Deceiver, a pale lavender but turning bluer as time goes on.  A couple of blogs on the subject.

The Delicate and Vulnerable World of the Mushroom

Fungi Hunting

Decay in Autumn

But as Gary Snyder says........

Don't ever eat Boletus

If the tube-mouths they are red

Stay away from the amanitas

Or brother you are dead.

A far-flung friendly clan,
   For food, for fun, for poison
        They are a help to man.

1st June 2025

 Wild Folk - Tales from the Stones

I once blew a blast into the Blowing Stone, which rolled a hollow wave of sepulchral sound into the hills. The megalith builders, taking their lesson from the conch-shells of the Eastern Mediterranean, blew into this very stone to summon the gods or, more probably, the goddess of the high places. Another two miles and there is the goddess herself or rather, the celtic descendant of the goddess, stretched in white and in flight across the bald brow of Uffington Hill. The downs lift to 800 feet and by their very godliness of combe and crescent, of jutting ness and plunging spur, ordain the tie beam of White Horse Hill to be one more of the holy places of the chalk. So it was on Windover Hill.... and so it is here where the Celtic town of Uffington is flanked by the galloping horse and a Neolithic workshop on the one side, and the chambered long barrow of Wayland's Smithy with its grove of beeches on the other........

H.J.Massingham - English Downland

Owning the stones again.  There is one magical place in Wiltshire, on the dry chalk land a Neolithic long barrow that has been restored in the 20th century but has the peace and beauty so beloved of our English countryside.

 

 I had Massingham's book, Prophecy of Famine which he wrote with Edward Hyam.  The famine never happened though he worked out the amount of food that each family should eat, measuring prisoner's diets and ours as well.  He lived through the two world wars, so perhaps his book had some significance.

But these words are for Wayland's Smithy a place of stories .

Wayland, should you ride your horse past will shoe it if you leave a coin.   

Moss hoping that my meditation will end and the ball thrown again

A sad occasion.  The scattering of 'Treaclechops' ashes.

I have just found this link on Bensozia's blog (thank you) and will record it here for it gives a picture of Orkney, viewed by Londoner's of course.  Here is the link.  The photos are fabulous. There is talk by Andrew of visiting Orkney next year  and camping there.  I feel rather sad about the fact that these Scottish Isles have become awash with tourists but that is the way of life I suppose.

31st May 2025

I wasn't going to say anything today but then I thought a little praise for my member of parliament - Labour;  Josh Fenton-Glynn for the work he is doing in parliament.  Like many who feel angry and sad the Palestinians are always there in my mind and when will it all end.  So it gives me comfort that somehow the workings of parliament are addressing this terrible happening.  

josh.fentonglynn.mp@parliament.uk	May 29, 2025, 3:32 PM (2 days ago)
to me

Dear Thelma Wilcox, 

I wanted to update those of you who have previously written to me on Gaza as to the action I have been taking to escalate your concerns on this.  

Since being elected, this has been one of the issues that has come into my inbox most frequently, and I have spoken in Parliament often to raise the dire situation in Gaza.  

Just this week I spoke to once again raise the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and call for the escalation of diplomatic measures against the Israeli government, which you can watch here.

I am also writing to Hamish Falconer, Minister for the Middle East, to echo this; asking that the Government use all diplomatic efforts available to bring peace to the region.  

I was also among 75 Labour MPs and peers to write to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to call for the recognition of Palestinian statehood, and to emphasise the need for greater efforts to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict.  

The letter, attached, calls for the Government to use the UN Conference on the Two-State Solution next month as an opportunity to work with France to the recognition of Palestine as a state, as a step towards peace. 

Over recent months, I have repeatedly raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and called for more aid to reach those who need it there. I have also continually raised the dire medical situation, and the urgency with which we need to protect medical facilities and staff, and ensure the supplies needed reach them.  

I will continue to call for a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and a two state solution with a viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel.  

Kind regards, 

Josh

Josh Fenton-Glynn (he/him)
Member of Parliament for Calder Valley
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Also seen yesterday.  I hope that the renewed entry of aid will go towards feeding some of the people in Palestine.  This is such a delicate matter, I have no side to uphold only the need for the people of Palestine to be treated with some respect.

How Israeli settlers profit from stolen Palestinian land – video | Palestinian territories | The Guardian

29th May 2025

Last photos.  These from Ramster Gardens, Chittingford.  We had lunch here and wandered around before getting the train back.  It is  a beautiful garden but rhododendrons and azaleas are not my favourite shrubs.  Having made a spectacular show early on, they then sit around with their dark foliage for the rest of the year.  The trees were beautiful though and the Redwood towered magnificently, though it is only 120 years old, as old as when the garden was planted.

 

Azaleas

Azaleas

Trying to capture the purple iris against pink rhododendron. Failure

The sort of dragon you would want guarding your garden

Village green of Chittingford

Village pond at Chittingford

Impressions:  Let us start with football supporters (on the train) and our expectation of them.  Well they rolled onto the train in their brightly coloured t-shirts.  First thing the carrier bag of tinned beer banged up on the table, and the several men all took out one immediately.  Then they settled their seats and the one opposite me was talking with the teacher in the corner about the coal mining strikes and shut downs that was so devastating to the local communities.  It turned out he had been a mine engineer and knew his stuff.  The sad fact of how it broke up communities, that people stopped speaking to their neighbours, should they be a 'scab' and people moving into villages and no one speaking to them.  Was that Maggie who set the police on the miner's strike?

Chittingford was a pretty little village, my impressions of Chittingford and area, with its olde world houses in the trees, made me think of 'The Shire Land' of Bilbo and kin.  When we went to Hazelmere for an Indian meal and had a wander round the high street, the first thing to notice was the half dozen estate agents and the prices - whoosh.  It told you one fact, selling houses is a good way to make a quick buck.

I was going to write about how many of the women were thin and blonde their children the same but realised that where my mind was taking me was too strong, or at least disturbing but anyone who has read the 'The Midwich Cuckoos' will know where I went.  The thought is of course totally untrue.

28th May 2025

 

 

Arum lily caught in the sun

 

Golden bamboo, twice the size of a person

A gigantic fern, the colouring is so beautiful

And the man himself, who, as his wife Nicky said, when looking for a house, looked at the garden first.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Changing the subject slightly, though not from the trip, after being woken by the cat around 2ish.  I began thinking! and came up with ergot (parasitic on grasses and cereals) and corncockles, both of which are poisonous to humans. All this because as we passed rolling large fields of wheat on the train, with not a weed in sight, and I wondered if the funghi is still around (don't worry, it is all under control)

The Ergot funghi fixated on our crops probably from the beginning of growing such things as wheat, rye and oats.  It went through the Middle Ages with terrible consequences for Ergot poisoning of people.  There seems to be a total breakdown of the physical self and also of the psycho.  In fact, could have been responsible for the behaviour of the Salem Witches, though many dispute that.

All this you can find out through the good offices of Wikipedia, but of course there were rabbit holes to dive down and learn further.  In the middle ages the saint St. Anthony's remains were supposed to cure you if you touched them.  But then I came up on another interesting fact.  This time it was the 'dancing disease',  when one day a woman started dancing outside her house and just went on dancing and slowly more people started dancing and did NOT STOP until they dropped down exhausted, either from a stroke or heart attack, hunger or dehydration.  Saint Vitus is the patron saint here for healing.  I will put the links down below if you want to go further.

Another rabbit hole: You may not have noticed it but I became intrigued by the song 'Chaise Longue' sung by Wet Leg duo.  How did the song develop? And then, came across  another song, which went back to to the 'dancing disease' and featured Bill Nighy as the 'anxiety' of Florence and the Machine.  Enjoy ;)

Ergot 

Dancing Disease of 1518

 

The start

 The Jungle Garden; Caroline Mardon's photos  It is set behind a semi-detached house and a suburban small garden.  Then walk up the sloping path behind and you are suddenly into dinosaur land, tall ferns, exotic plants, enormous Gunnera leaves.  The walk starts at the top of the garden past the Prosecco terrace as it is called.  Which overlooks a crowded Euphorbia stage, their bright yellow heads at their best in spring with the little Welsh poppies running around at their feet, orange flowers, Californian poppies have started opening, this is the hot spot of the quarry garden. 

Then the path winds zig-zag down past the plants and it gets deeper and darker and large plants start to dwarf you.  There is a bank of sedums growing on a steep slope, they are growing in compacted sand, which looks at first like clay but the sun has baked the sand hard, plants can only be put in when it has rained.

I did not have much luck with my camera - I should have read the next paragraph down! Video was completely washed out, actually to be truthful my phone would have been better but I find difficulty in taking things off it to the computer. 

The following photos were of the Asian primulas, or Candelabra primula.  I have always wanted to grow them but they truly need the right ecosystem to grow them in.  I saw them many years ago at an Abbey in Devon, also the blue Himalayan poppy-Meconopsis which is the most glorious blue out. But like the rhododendrons and azaleas we saw on Sunday at the Ramster Gardens they seem to like a more acid soil.  Here in Surrey they have taken off this year, running like ribbons down the bottom of the quarry, hybridising into all the shades of pinkness and red.

Jack's Jungle on Gardener's World

The weather was gorgeous.  I went and sat on the terrace Sunday morning and Jack came down and we spent an hour identifying the birds with a new app called 'Cornell Merlin app'.  My daughter had a kingfisher on her phone, which was different but chaffinches dominated, dunnocks, collared doves and the robin of course.  Also, I heard the cuckoo in the distance but the app did not catch it.