Rain falling on Bulguk Temple in South Korea

The large carp picture that sits above the fire box

Bulguk Temple

The gentle fall of rain, and black tiled rooftops surrounded by misty trees.  Such an alien temple to our grey churches. Still with the grey weather outside and several grey collared doves in the maple tree, greyness is the order of the day.  A video sent to my love for his blog, (best viewed full screen) so I nicked it and will play it several times today if only for the music that reminds me of wind chimes in the garden.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9U6PP-B1QMc#!

These are Japanese tiles very similar to the Korean tiles in the video.
Chrysanthemums motifs for the emperor and lotus flowers

This is the fire-box they are kept in, lead-lined it would sit under the table to keep you warm

Not all is Doom and Gloom

Technological madness

Telephones, those old fashioned things that used to sit in the corner - one per house! No in this house we have a phone in every room divided between business and private lines, so I never know which phone to pick up.  Then of course we have mobile phones each and everyone one of us, with enormously complicated   large numbers.

Today, one phone revealed in the kitchen (the one that wasn't working) that my daughter had left a message, fish my mobile out from the bottom of my bag, battery dead, recharging as I write.  Use spare mobile to phone her only to end up waking my grandson (at 10 a.m) at uni, yes I had forgotten that the family had swapped all their phones as they upgrade to better ones, ones you can speak into for text messaging....

P explains (once more) the system, look out for the little yellow marker on the phones, and the answering phone system which also confuses me......

We also have another technological crisis looming on the horizon, the cottage is going to get broad band by the end of this month, but at the same time we are upgrading BT broad band in this house (this was a fatal mistake to do at the same time) cos we don't know where the little package with cables that arrived  yesterday goes!

The tv is now accepting the dongle for internet transmission, one success to date but we now wait for the upgrade.... Life in our modern society is too complicated, especially packing fragile birthday presents this morning which is taking ages but that is another rant...

Elizabeth Blackadder

Sometime you wake up in the morning with a name in your head, today it was the Scottish painter, Elizabeth Blackadder, I had seen, a few year ago, paintings of her flowers in the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath.  Delicate and light, the fragility of flowers are captured against  the white background. She travelled extensively and there is a lovely Youtube film of her in her studio in 2011.

Little Giddings - T.S.Elliot

The following few lines are taken from Elliot's - Four Quartets, and we found them taped to the kneeling chair in front of the altar at Lastingham church.  Bleak of course, like a heavy hand christianity takes hold of Elliot's words and forces you to think on death, a good subject of course down in a crypt.  Still the church sitting proud on its mound was reminded by the pub opposite that there is also cheerful optimism in the human race as well.

If you came this way,

Taking any route, starting from anywhere,

At any time or at any season,

It would always be the same: you would have to put off

Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,

They can tell you, being dead: the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Here, the intersection of the timeless moment

Is England and nowhere. Never and always

Taken from Allspirit it gets gloomier of course.  And for an explanation as to where Eliot was coming from this Wiki will explain

E.M.Forster criticised the poem
"Of course there's pain on and off through each individual's life... You can't shirk it and so on. But why should it be endorsed by the schoolmaster and sanctified by the priest until the fire and the rose are one when so much of it is caused by disease and bullies"

Skinny cat

Because of the work that is done in the studio, delicate Japanese scrolls, animals are not allowed in the house because of hairs, but it doesn't mean I cannot feed 'Skinny' cat, when she comes calling.  Slender but fed elsewhere, I think her owner must be out all day because lunch time Skinny will occasionally be found asleep on a garden chair and wake up hungry.  She is very timid, raises a paw should I try to stroke her; we have known each other for a couple of years and when she is hungry stands by the kitchen door  her coat has a good gloss on it though, she has acquired a friend, large pale tigerish tabby cat better fed by the looks of him....

Pansies on this cold morning, woke to a frost on the green, and these pansies hanging their heavy heads covered in dew.

As for bird watching, well a gathering of about 16 collared doves on the green yesterday, P saw two crows sending off a cat, no wonder I occasionally see a cat racing across the green, it must be dangerous territory.

Dreams

We have been hearing over the news about migratory birds falling from the sky, clinging to the anoraks of the fishermen in their boats, if you look at the news this has been happening quite often, no explanation except that they are weak through hunger on their long flights.  Well our robins and blackbirds seem to have arrived safely back on this east coast.  For the last few days I have been woken by the gentle song of the robin, probably ensconced in the red berry tree I wrote about the other day, and then there are three blackbirds in the garden this morning, one taking a bath!

I woke up on a dream that my angora rabbits were starving in their hutches, so in the dream I went down the garden to feed them, but they seemed chirpy and someone had put a plateful of chicken, for my vegetarian friends? for them taking up a lot of space in the hutch.  Weird, but it reminded me of the fox that would come to the garden in the afternoon and sleep in the flowerbed below their hutches.  Now my rabbits had runs on the lawn and there was often a rabbit out in the garden - not good.  He was a friendly urban fox, I have a photo of him on the lawn with my son, my son's hand and the inquisitive nose of the fox almost meeting.  The gardens were large and part of a valley, so plenty of space for badgers to come roaming and foxes to live. A friend lived in Weston Park and would feed foxes on his terrace, so no wonder they were tame.

Now I know our friendly fox only had one thought in mind and that was to get a rabbit, and one day he almost succeeded, but he picked on a stroppy, very furry female called Bracken, whose yells brought me outside and she was saved.

Apparently according to the local paper the other week, we only have about 1500 dreams a year, I don't believe that but still who counts?

As for badgers, one dark night about midnight was woken by the terrible squawking of the hens, so barefoot with the dog went to investigate as I stood at the top of the terrace a terrified hen ran past me followed by the ghostly white figure of a badger in the torchlight, even the dog was dumbstruck with awe not knowing what this creature was.  Now badgers are carnivores, but luckily after a few minutes he disappeared leaving me to spend the next hour finding a terrified hen, she went into silent mode and it took ages to find her, probable taught her not to sleep in the nesting boxes, which the badger had managed to dislodge the top off.

So why this prowl back into the past, not sure perhaps because wildlife action seems to happen more in our urban places then the sterile countryside we so often visit, perhaps because reading the latest edition of Resurgence it said we should be more proactive in our efforts to save our dwindling wild life, cute pictures of gorgeous tigers down to a couple of hundred demanding money for them to be saved may be one way but it really needs more action on our part.

Reading Stephen Moss and Paul Evans articles, both marvellous naturalist writers in the Guardian, and Moss says;

"But we must all share the blame; consumers who demand cheaper food at any cost; successive governments of all political colours, which seem to regard wildlife as a bolt-on extra; and apathetic city-dwellers, who accept the countryside lobby's warped logic that only people who actually live in rural Britain should be allowed a say over its future"

Those bright green,' nitrogenous', fields we rest our eyes on are only really sterile deserts for the shrews, field mice that our beautiful owls feed on, our hedgehogs are in fast decline, as for badgers who knows their fate, only that there are many that fight for their survival against the latest need to eradicate them.  And when that latest claim for buzzards to be culled because of feeding on the millions  of young pheasants that are bred for shooting my crossness knew no bounds.

This is a photo nicked from F/B, from Under the Cat's Paw site, it just puts the giggle into the day!

He has won

It's 7.0 clock, we have been up since four so we already know that Obama has won thank goodness, and I expect the rest of the world is happy to as the vote put out by the BBC came back resoundingly in Obama's favour.  Listened to his speech half an hour ago and he seemed to be modest and reassuring, thanking everyone who had worked so hard for him.  Romney's speech at about six was unceremoniously cut off by radio 4 and we had 5 minutes of religion, so what happened to the shipping forecast then?

On Facebook the news that Japanese fisherman have killed the pod of dolphins in The Cove, except for two which will be kept confined, was very sad news, how dare they kill such intelligent creatures.

Most days I sign something against cruelty to animals, yesterday dogs kept for meat in the Philipines, very badly treated, the pictures are heartbreaking.

There are arguments for and against Facebook, but there is plenty for all, Ravilious, Jackie Morris, other artists flow through my news, and cat photos which often make me laugh, the secret is a neutral tone, don't get on your high horse as there is always someone out there ready to jump on you!

Resolutions; 1) To record the birds out on the green and in the garden, not a terribly impressive list but I love them all, whether they be starlings, collared doves or the great crows. We also have a hedgehog under the shed, noticed droppings all summer but when P went down to the shops the other day found a baby hedgehog on the pavement, and as it was only about 50 feet from the house we presumed it was ours, so I picked it up and put it by the shed where it dived under quite happily.

This is the very full berry tree outside the house.

Second resolution is to make a small xmas room box for Lillie, took me ages to tidy the dollshouse yesterday.....

Meetings

Family have departed, (and have arrived home safely in Whitby) the house sinks quietly back into itself, until we see them again.  They all grow so quickly, Tom arrives on the train Friday evening, the others have arrived a couple of hours earlier.  Grab my camera for the reunion between Tom and Lillie, she comes scampering down the stairs rushing through the sitting room and throws herself at him.  Her slave, she adores him and has missed ordering him around, big hugs all round she clambering all over him in her excitement. But he seems to have has already grown in confidence at uni and answers all the many, many questions fired at him by his mother, seems to be settling in well.

They all go go shopping the next day, we stay behind, shopping is not my favourite pastime, they have a family lunch at their favourite restaurant and then in the afternoon take Tom to the station.  As they walk back Lillie starts to cry as she realises Tom has once more disappeared, "we are not a family anymore" she says and of course sets her mother off in tears as well, but he will be back for the xmas hols......

In the evening when we are playing with the dolls house I tell her the tale of Tom aged about five tying up the Victorian dolls with a chain and stabbing them with the spear she has found, and it brings back memories of my miniature work and the 'Farleigh Hungerford' hall i had created in which he had hung the dolls! She of course plays the same game, with the witch doll, the dolls house is once more in a mess and will take a couple of hours to sort tomorrow, think I will buy her a room box to play with.  My spinning wheel has been spun within an inch of its life, so that the string falls off and it will need realigning.....

Shopping she has brought herself a large Enid Blyton - Brer Rabbit stories, Matilda has bought the hoodie she wanted, Ben buys himself some sport shoes.  Each child is very special, Lillie being the youngest hogs the limelight for the time being. Fireworks have been going off the last two nights, though it has rained very heavily through the day, and snow in the West country, apparently it is the remains of the Sandy storm which has wreaked such havoc in America.

The journey home.

Tiny Houses

Halloween

Flicking through my Welsh Saint's book for stories on this ;

Halloween is of course the popular name for All Hallow's Eve, and is a night of superstition and ghost stories,  so the Welsh  have the same traditions as in other parts of the country, and of course a great feast which we sometimes forget about.

The reapers supper in Carmarthenshire usually had whipod - rice,bread, raisins currants and treacle.

In Anglesey the feast consisted  of potatoes, turnips and oatcakes.  In Carmathenshire, writing in 1760 "the contents of a brewing pan of beef and mutton, with arage and potatoes, and pottage, and pudding of wheaten flour, about 20 gallons of light ale and about 20 gallons of beer"

In Montgomeryshire on Nos Galan Gaeaf, a mash was made of nine ingredients (3 times 3 is a lucky number); leeks, potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, peas, fresh milk, salt and pepper.  A wedding ring was hidden in the mash (bit like a sixpenny bit in the xmas cake) and young maidens would dig in with wooden spoons anxious to learn their fate.

In Carmarthenshire the ceremony was also a feature around 9 ingredients, this time a pancake called stymp naw rhyw which was made by 9 girls, who ate a piece each.

Apple bobbing was popular, and wassailing was also carried out, with punch being drunk from 'puzzle jugs'

This tale I find funny;  In the Vale of Glamorganshire, spirits roamed the churchyards at night, and the bravest villager would don his coat and vest inside out, reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards as he walked around the church a number of times.  Then he would walk up to the church porch and place his finger in the keyhole to prevent spirits from escaping!  It was also believed that apparitions of those about to die could also be seen through the keyhole.

And the tale of trick or treating? Well in other parts of Wales, youths would dress up in girls' clothes and vice-versa and groups of young people would wander from house to house in the dark chanting verses and soliciting gifts of fruit and nuts..In other areas men would dress up in sheepskins and blacked their faces and were given gifts of nuts, apple and beer.  These groups were known as the

gwrachod  (hags, or witches) and were meant to bring good tidings and expel bad spirits from the household.

And as the celtic 'old year' disappears, on this last night it was a tradition for a local Ladi Wen (ghost of the white lady) too appear, but then in North Wales it was more often the terrible Hwch Ddu Gwta (tailess black sow - another celtic tradition).  Bonfires were lit on hillsides, apples and potatoes were roasted and the watchers would dance and leap through the flames for good luck in the forthcoming year.  Stones were thrown into the fire, and as the flames died down, everyone would rush home to escape the clutches of the great black pig.  If you found your stone in the morning in the fire then luck would follow, if not misfortune would follow...

Tales told from T.D.Breverton - The Book of Welsh Saints.

And wishing we were in Whitby so that we could experience St.Mary's churchyard this night, a tale told in the Guardian;

If you like spectacular ghosts, they don't come better than the phantom hearse of Whitby. They say that when a Whitby sailor was buried in St Mary's churchyard, a large hearse with four jet-black horses would appear beside the grave at night, ready to take him away. A group of ghostly mourners would appear from the coach and remove the body from its grave. The spectral coach, lit by burning torches and driven by a headless phantom coachman shrouded in a black cloak, would then gallop away at speed and plummet over the cliffs into the sea.

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/wild-hunt-at-halloween.html

Bits and bobs

Something I miss - the sea

Things that keep me occupied; patchwork, a quilt, which ground to a halt because I was not sure how to finish it off, in the end I decided to mess up the green stripe edging (my original idea) and introduce strips of the bright red poppy material I have.  So yesterday and today I will be tacking the three layers together.

My knitting is supposed to turn out as a shawl cardigan but i have problems with the pattern, the wool was brought from my favourite wool shop in Whitby, it's called Bobbins, an old chapel with various, normally very expensive, yarns hanging round the narrow passageway that you perambulate around.  They do the traditional fisherman's sweaters in dark navy with the cabling and patterns as well.  It took me a long time to choose the wool, and I kept noticing my love stood at one counter all the time, paying for my purchase went over to see what he was up to, well he was measuring the egg timers, turning them over and calculating with his watch - yes, well, he did actually buy one in the end much to the amusement of the people working there.

This weekend the family comes from Whitby, mostly to see how Tom is getting on in uni, they stay a couple of nights and Tom is coming through London with a friend to Chelmsford.  He seems to be getting on well, joined the rugby club, been 'initiated' (don't ask, you get stripped down) and looks gaunt according to my daughter, so plenty of feeding in the Xmas holidays is what is needed.

Touching on Time;  So the clocks go back once more, how many clocks does a household have? we have quite a few, the most accurate one had to wait a few hours for the satellite that changes it to go overhead, but the rest still lie in various different modes, yesterday as i sewed the old  clock behind me had stopped an hour behind, it just hates being messed around with, the small clock that resides by the fireplace was an hour ahead - totally confusing.  We even have Japanese time in the kitchen which is a few hours ahead (or behind).  



St.Mary's Church- Lastingham

Holiest of places in the North? Perhaps, but this was a church I wanted to see and to quote Bede

in the haunts where dragons once dwelt shall be pasture, with reeds and rushes, and he wishes the fruits of good works to spring up where formerly lived only wild beasts, or men who lived like beasts; Isaiah.

This the place that Cedd chose to build a monastic house early in the 7th century, Cedd, one of four brothers at the Lindisfarne monastic community, left the Lindisfarne community  and in 664 on a visit to Lastingham he was to die of the plague and was buried here. Cedd is of course the patron saint at Chelmsford and I have already written about the church he founded at Othona.  This Norman church stands on high ground and the early Anglo-Saxon church is somewhere below its foundations. Strange church, very Norman, rounded apse, and exceptionally well built.

The crypt was where all the Saxon and Scandinavian carved stones were kept, and was not too scary, the little altar down there being very similar to the one at Bradwell on Sea's Othona chapel.  Photos did not come out too well, but the crypt was well lit and and rather beautiful pillars,  and it is the only crypt in England to have an apse, together with a chancel, nave and side aisles.
In the guide book is the head of an 8th century dragon head, which was part of the Abbot's chair and which is now in York Museum so we did not see it, but loving dragons as one does, it is well to mention that apart from the St.George's dragon at Pickering church, there is also a lovely dragon on the wall there swallowing the sinners as they march into hell. Dragons depicted in church stone engravings never cease to fascinate, cos we know they don't exist but there they are!
There be dragons

Sheep in the church yard

The crypt

Entwinned snakes

Crude engraving of a sword

Carved stones

Danish and Saxon influence

Early 8th Century Sculpture.

The death of the ash tree - Heart Rot

George Monbiot has written on the new threat to our ash trees, having lost so many of our elms to another kind of bug, it would be terrible to lose more trees to what I suppose we might call globalisation, plants and goods from one country to another, in this case saplings from Denmark, where the disease has affected 90% of the ash trees.  Below is a photo of an ash tree up on the downs round Bath.  They grow on the steep hillsides, forming woods along the edge of the downs.

Monbiot talks of the legend of the Scandinavian legend of Odin and the Yggdrasil Tree, so I will not expand on that story, though it appears in this country to.  Geoffrey Grigson gives the many stories that accompanies the ash tree in this country.  It was rated as good a wood as oak  as the 'most toughest and elastic' of timber for making a variety of things.  It had 'healing power', pollarded ash trees were cleft and the young child passed through to heal them of their affliction, a bit like the holed prehistoric stone in Cornwall. 'ash tree, ash tree pray buy these warts from me..

The ashen spear 'Ash, baneful weapon in the hand of a warrior' carries its magic on into ash walking sticks, bringing with it its essence of strength and sacredness. 

Ash tree caught by early morning sun

I loved the old ash trees up on the downs, one cruelly struck by lightening, apparently lightening strikes the ash so remember 'avoid an Ash, it courts the flash', don't stand under one of them in a thunderstorm.  One experiment I carried out with the trees was to count the leaflets that form a twig, mostly it is supposed to to be nine, four on either side and a singleton at the tip but you will often find eleven or thirteen leaves. 

Of course nine is a magic number, Odin hung from the Yggdrasil Tree for nine days and Aubrey Burl has something to say about in his book on Stone Circles (which I no longer own), but it is a tree that comes late to leaf, I'm sure there is a little rhythm about it somewhere...

As always for reference; Geoffrey Grigson, The Englishman's Flora

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/dean-hill.html

http://northstoke.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/weston-history.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/oct/25/ash-dieback-cameron

http://ashtag.org/

Fog and kingfisher

the water creeps up the shallow banks

Old willow slowly dying into winter

Woke up to a foggy morning and LS being very  miserable with the onset of autumn, dark mornings and then early dark evenings shorten the day even further. The turning of the seasons is so dramatic, it seems slow at first then the darkness arrives and we become cooped up bereft of natural light.

 

Well this morning we went for a walk down by the river, hedgerows and grass are garlanded with spider webs, they tremble on the wind thickly strung with beads of rain or dew. Probably one of the most beautiful natural constructions of nature.  There are mushrooms in the grass,a rich brown domed cap, and a pale creamy shaggy one.

 

The river is high, the muddy brown water swirling away at quite a pace, it is almost as high as the muddy path along which we slip.  The 'race' of the water is caused by the water being diverted round the mill and then flowing back into the river lower down, we stand on the bridge, the ducks are gossiping loudly to themselves on the bank.  Then suddenly a flash of blue from under the bridge and a kingfisher flies swiftly down the river.  I suddenly realise that the splashes I have heard must have been this blob of tropical colour fishing in the river and there I was thinking it had been fish jumping for insects. The person at my side is happy, the sighting of a kingfisher has coloured his day that lovely iridiscent blue or is it green, we watch it too swift for photographing skimming from side to side on the water.

  

Always waiting for the ball to be thrown

It's Sunday, and I miss my  old Moss for a Sunday walk, tears will not bring him back but his solid companionable presence seems to lurk in the shadows.....

Saponaria officinalis or soapwort

Autumn has arrived, each night it rains, and the garden becomes more bedraggled, the cosmos hangs on in there, the geraniums and pansies still producing flowers. Yesterday my love asked how do you make soap, and looking through my John Seymour, Self -Sufficiency book Seymour has the recipe, well we do not really need it nowadays, the process is too complicated and it is much cheaper to buy at your local supermarket. 

But it did bring back the memory of the soapwort I grew in a narrow bed under the house, its root system means that it happily expands itself and needs keeping in check, but its pretty rather untidy habit did attract humming-bird hawkmoths so it was a welcome addition to the garden.

It is not called soapwort for nothing Grigson says and I quote

"Crush a handful or two of leaves and bring them to the boil in water.  Strain off the liquid and it will make an appreciable lather" he goes on to say that it will give you a dry, comfortless, slightly stinging wash.

He goes on to contemplate whether this plant was used by the early medieval fullers as one time it was called Foam Dock, it was used to wash the sheep in Switzerland and also for linen, and taken to New England where it kept the old West Country name of Bouncing Bett......

The dunes at Holme Next to the Sea

A berberis shrub used along the wooden pathway to keep visitors and dogs off  the sand dunes presumably

Harebells amongst the marram grass

The eroded beach and dunes

Cawthorn Roman Camps

I am not going to write much about these three large camps, Pastscape below has a detailed discussion about them.  It is said that they might be 'practise' camps, (how to build a camp in three goes;), they are pretty formidable and on the sign posts are declared as having to subdue the fierce British tribes that lived in this part of world.  Alternatively, they could be part of a line of camps to the coast from York.  Recent excavations showed Grubenhaus in their interiors showing later medieval use as well, though water is pretty absent on top of this ridge and they would have to gone down into the valley but perhaps there were wells dug.

Easy enough to find, four miles out of Pickering along a narrow lane, turn off to the right and you head into woods that surround the camps, it is a place to walk the dogs and we met a few of them.  The camps are delineated by deep ditches and banks, the lines further marked by the dark brown of heather.  One thing I noted is the absence of sheep, a photo on the gate of badly mauled sheep being hoisted into a jeep tells the tale, dogs had been attacking them.

The view over the valley from the ridge

Pastscape

North Yorkshire Moors

‘Sitting among the heather,

‘Suddenly I saw

‘That all the moor was alive!

Browsing through the blogs I came upon a poem by Kathleen Raine - Heirloom, and thought how apt it was.  The first impression of the moors is the dead brown colour of the heather that greets the eye, yet always my heart skips a beat when first I see these great rolling moors, interspersed with green valleys.  Feel the pulse of the moor and it beats faintly, the tumble of rocks that fill the becks, untidy grey giants in the peat brown musical waters. Sheep stand forlorn amongst the heather, or crowd the road side verges for that useful mouthful of scarce green grass. No pheasants, they are down in the lush green valleys, filling the tiny lanes with their foolish young dicing with death as they stand uncertain in the path of oncoming cars.  No, the moor has  dark grouse with a flash of red, quietly adapted to a life of eating the tender shoots of heather. 

You can tell from the following photos that trees are sparse, they follow the line of the becks clustering, protected from the winds that sweep over these plains, forest planting around Pickering is ugly the dark green monotonous march of the evergreen firs, but the decidous trees below already have that soft touch of autumn colour, lighting up the landscape.

Perhaps there is a large restless spirit that protects this stubbornly impractical large piece of land, hostile to all but sheep and grouse, even walking is restricted to the few public paths, unless you want to wander in the footsteps of a sheep path, not knowing where they will lead.

 

 

The burning of heather on the moors

These two trees stand guard at the water's edge, their bark is smudged with white which must be some sort of mold or mildew in this damp climate.

When we came from Lastingham we took a more westerly route over the moors and passed, in the midst of the most barren stretch of the moor, a pub called The Lion, it reminded you of Jamaica Inn on Dartmoor, I think it is on Blakey Ridge.


The whole poem


'Since she saw the living skein
Of which the world is woven,'