Thursday

Yesterday we went sightseeing with our visitors, and ended up at Rievaulx Abbey.  All change now that Autumn is just around the corner, the big field for parking cars had been gated and two horses grazed within, so we wandered down the lane and went inside the 'slipper' church, no, not the place you leave your shoes, though I believe they do it at Walsingham, and walk the last mile with bare feet but... according to Wikipedia

  "The word 'Slipper' comes from the word 'slipe' (or 'slype'), meaning to slide, to move out of the rest of England into the holy land of Walsingham, and probably has nothing to do with pilgrims actually walking in slippers or even barefoot."

Though here in this PDF, it states that the 'Gate Church' was situated between the gates of the abbey and people changed their shoes here for lighter wear.

Older tractors here, the little hamlet is very pretty

Thatched cottage, with a glimpse of Lillie on the lead

Approaching the church

Austere and plain.

We stopped off to wander round Helmsley, G being very taken with it, wandered into the craft display in the centre, and chattered to a potter, elegant but expensive ware, and then went to find a cup of tea at about five past four.  Tea shops were closing down, at the precise hour you have a cup of tea.  It was almost as if the turning of the season, and less tourists had dictated a retreat at 4 p.m.  We did find a place eventually, after dismissing The Swan Hotel as too expensive at £19 for a cream tea......

Going Slow

The sun is just breaking through the mist, a day to be  spent with people coming to do things.  The antique man is coming to look at the chairs in the garage, the electrician from Whitby to put up an outside lamp.

Afternoon;

A blog started and never finished, but they have both gone clutching half a dozen eggs each! I started to browse other blogs, and came across this 'slow movement', in this instance not slow food, but the slow wardrobe , and immediately became inspired, it was on Tom Holland's blog, a person who teaches darning, and the blog I followed through was to Wovember.

  

Well I do not have a large wardrobe of clothes, I replace when needed, in fact only half a wardrobe, three dresses, a few skirts and jeans. I do however knit, so I have plenty of jumpers, and also spin, which I have just started again.  The wool I am spinning at the moment is blue faced leicester, and my latest knitting project, which I wasn't quite happy with is finished, and I am on to my next piece of knitting.  What I am looking forward to is making a cot blanket for a baby yet to be born in December, LS's first grandchild, and boy is he happy over this event, for he thought he would never become a grandfather....

The sweater spun and knitted, which did not turn out too badly..

Patching and darning could of course become fashionable, remember patching my old tent when I was widowed, and my daughter and I had holidays in it, it looked pretty the blue fly cover patched in Laura Ashley materials....

Sunday - 20th September

Yesterday, a beautiful still day we decided to go for a walk in Keldy Forest, did not quite make it as we stopped off to explore a public footpath into another wood, called Spring Wood.  A mixture of old indigenous trees and then the forestry plantations of pine intermingled all along the road to Hutton-le-Hole.  The land is hilly, and sits on rock, as we wandered round there is evidence of small scale quarrying with old trees seemingly growing out of the rock.  Wild flowers are not to be seen in amongst these acid loving trees, though I did find water mint, at one old overgrown quarry.

soft silver-green downy leaves - mint

a path we did not take

The path we did take took us down a small lane leading to Lingmoor Farm, we did not make it to the farm but turned down a rutted forestry path alongside a dry beck.  No blackberries but a wet and muddy trackway which we wandered along for about half a mile, then turned and came back. Rejoining the small lane and exploring the old bridge over the beck, and I decided there must have been a small hamlet round here at one time.  We had come through a small village called Keldholm - the place by the spring/water meadows, which had at one time a priory.... 

Photos only show the green coolness of the woods, a tangle of scattered twigs and branches....

Ferns and nettle in an old quarry

Yesterday a strange hen wandered into our garden, and spent most of the day round our chicken run. as we do not have any more room in the hutch, we had to find the owner.  Well it wasn't Nigel across the road, he guessed that it probably belonged to Nelson, a recluse.  So in the evening we went in search of Nelson.  We knew he lived in a mobile home on  land that belongs to the pub that runs beside the river.  Discovering a gate in what seemed to be  solid fencing, opening it to be greeted by hens, ducks, geese, and Nelson himself.  He came round to get the hen, apparently he had just bought 50 from one of these terrible battery places.  He sells his eggs, and keeps bees as well.  their hives he keeps up on the moors for the nectar from heather, and also sells the honey on an old table just outside the pub. His lifestyle is different, and yet he was a good person, and very chatty.  Apparently a few years ago, his first mobile home burnt down, killing his small dog, and then he built himself a steel enclosed one.  Whilst we worry about finding homes for all the refugees, it is well to remember that other people also do not have permanent homes, they live on the fringes of our society (not paying council tax as a passing neighbour complained) protected to a greater extent by the people around them - thank goodness ;)

Lingmoor Cave or Excalibur Cave

Friday the 18th September

Anyone who passes Horcum Hole, will know the Saltergate Inn on the bend as you cross the moors.

It stands ugly and unwanted, a 17th century pub with a story about a fire that must always be kept going because of some ugly deed of death and the excise officer buried beneath the fireplace.  It should be pulled down really, the council though (Scarborough) says that it should be refurbished, but the present owner cannot afford it. 

Well we always pass it on our way to Whitby, which we did yesterday, the small building alongside, a cottage, does not look too bad but the inn itself is a mess.

Capturing the journey from the car, I missed out on the Inn, but the bleak feel of the moor stands out against a cloud studded blue sky.  This enormous panorama is very uplifting, the spirit calms down as the eye travels for miles on uninterrupted views.

We go to get rid of stuff at the recycling centre, to visit Sainsbury for all those things the Co-op and Lidl in Pickering do not have and to look in on the cottage.  Whitby not quite so crowded now that the children have gone back to school but bustling in its own particular fashion.

The skies are glorious at this time of year, when I go to put the hens in the evening the sun is just setting behind the trees in the church yard, often everything  is lit up in a warm glow of soft peach, other times the sky streaked in cream and grey clouds.  Two out of three hens will have settled for the night, there is always a third who pops out enquiringly to see if there is any more food on offer, mostly I unceremoniously bundle her back and shut the hatch firmly....

Wednesday and its Sunny!

A tranquil cottage in the village of Rievaulx

It rained in a biblical fashion yesterday, the road outside was flooded, and the cars swooshed through the water sending little silver waves scuttling down the tarmac.  Of course other parts of the world experienced a different flooding as here in Japan. By evening the waters had disappeared, there seems to be a problem with the drains here at the end of the village. when we walked up to the bridge the other day, they had been strengthening the banks of the river, must take a photo!

The town of Pickering floods every now and then, and to stop this a reservoir has been built up on the moors to catch the water as it flows down from the moor, our river Seven has also been included in the catchment area.. The land around here was of course marshy right up to the medieval period, and the strong Scandinavian influence in the names of the villages round here, point to these colonists farming the inferior low lying land.  Though now of course as the grain and straw moves through the village on a daily basis, this land is yielding a rich harvest.  Sadly of course this makes the price of wheat go down, as the farmers are already adding to the remains of a good harvest from last year.

Edit;  LS has been talking to N across the road, apparently, there is a valve in the drain just past the pub, which stops the river back washing into the village, so yesterday the valve blocked the water going down from the village into the river.

Pickering bund flood defences;

Berries on Sunday

By the craggy hillside,

through the mosses bare,

they have planted thorn trees

For pleasure here and there,

Is any man so daring,

As dig them up in spite

He shall find their sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

William Allingham

Hawthorn berries

Going out to feed the hens this morning, I stopped and listened to the chatter of the crows up in the trees, they are very noisy of late.  A sheep wandered by on the other side of the hedge, and I went in and grabbed my camera to take a photo of this large hawthorn bush in the graveyard, wondering if I will see the fieldfares this winter feast upon them.  The collared dove flew down, had I put out her food? no, so she was fed.....

The Woodland Trust has put out a survey for what is happening in Autumn, leaves changing, ripening of berries and how the birds change.  Our swallows seem to have gone for instance. Looking up recipes for cooking hawthorn berries, one is a chutney, the other a jelly.  Reminds me of the quince jelly my first mother-in-law used to make, sweet/sour and a gorgeous colour..

Here is the holly bush behind the fence full of green berries, wonder if there will be any left for xmas?

Then there is the news of another 'escapee', this time a socialist has escaped the binds of 'New Labour', apart from the 'woe and betiders', there are many, including myself who rejoice at this unexpected turn of events.  Go get them Corbyn ;)

Saturday - 12th September

Rievaulx Abbey

When you look at the ruins of this Abbey and remember all the other abbeys that were brought low by Henry V111th it is almost a 'Palmyra' experience, take the following figures and see what a profound effect it must have had on the country..... 

The dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s was one of the most revolutionary events in English history. There were nearly 900 religious houses in England, around 260 for monks, 300 for regular canons, 142 nunneries and 183 friaries; some 12,000 people in total, 4,000 monks, 3,000 canons, 3,000 friars and 2,000 nuns....one adult man in fifty was in religious orders (the total population estimated at the time was 2.75 million).

money needed to fund war, the king's need for a divorce settlement, there were obviously many other reasons, the acts of destruction as the buildings were handed out to the favoured,  but it must have sparked off a revolution of sheer panic in the countryside. Removing lead roofs leading to the decay of the buildings and then the taking of stone to build other houses added to the onslaught.  True the religious houses had got rich over time acquiring wealth from rich patrons, land that was bountiful in its produce, but it must also have been a very stable way of life for the peasantry.

The monks were served by lay brothers in their brown habits, who did the manual labour, but they got tired of being the unpaid worker and slowly over time left the monastic houses.  Which meant the monks had to employ, and pay, local people.

There is little doubt that these great monastic houses, edifices to the power of religion, are stunning in their ruined grandeur, the works of men brought low by greed, or perhaps history moving on, the power of the crown against the church.......

Tanning vats.

Restored colonnade around the  green space of the cloisters

The chapter house

Shrine of Abbot William

This I think is the refectory, but the pillars would have supported the floor above.  You can see the two stages of building in the different stonework.

Outings - Rievaulx Abbey

Just a couple of photos of Rievaulx Abbey which we visited today.  Sitting deep in the valley with  the steep Hambledon hills all around, the ruins are at their most 'picturesque'.  I wonder what it really would have been like in its heyday.  Noisy, smelly, people wandering in and out of the infirmary, pilgrims camped outside.  There would have been animals as well, and all the accompanying noise of the abbey food kitchen, bells ringing.  All happening in this deep secluded valley well away from the towns....

Looking south

surrounded by hills

The later nave

The alter

Thursday 10th September

The swallows are still with us, there is even young in the nests under the eaves of the church.  LS got worried yesterday, as workmen are removing the drainpipes and replacing them with new ones.  How would the nests fare?  Well they seem to be alright, there are three nests on the south side and the swallows are still flying in and out.  They leave, according to the RSPB, in September and October, so our English swallows should be going to South Africa  soon, many will not make it of course... There is the tale of course by Gilbert White, 18th century naturalist, who believed that swallows hibernated under water.

There are three nests under the left hand side of the building.

Our hens  are still laying, though people we have spoken to say their hens have stopped laying, but each day we normally have three eggs, given some away, think our hens because they point of lay are young and vigorous, shall be happy when they lay less!

Yesterday we went to look at a church on the way to Pickering, the church at Middleton, but the church was closed, and so for a time, these photos will have to do., the Scandinavian crosses though inside the church look in very good condition.

What I did manage to capture though was the outside fragmented remains, the lower half of the tower is Saxon and has embedded in its fabric an 8th century cross head..second photo below.....

There has been a church here since Saxon times and the base of the tower is Saxon. On the west wall is a blocked off Saxon doorway with a later oval window at the top. Embedded in the wall above is an 8thC Anglian cross. The top with battlements is later as are the large bell windows......

The 8th Century cross above the west door

South door 13th century

The sun dial above the south door, apparently dated 1782

And a bit of news to keep an eye on.... Doggerland to be repopulated

News time

Yesterday the news 'Stonehenge researchers 'may have found largest Neolithic site'

broke that in the region of Durrington Walls, the supposed 'living' area of the Stonehenge landscape, there are buried 90 large megaliths in a slightly half moon shape under the bank.  Not new news,  this had been noted in 2011, and one wonders if there is something else lying underneath this appearance of a new archaeological wonder the archaeologists wanted to highlight.  When I say living area I mean the place where the people lived,  the area around Stonehenge stone circle is considered the place of the dead. 

There are arbitrary theories, made by different archaeologists, and may have relevance or may not, each theory comes backed by a book but there is never a whole answer.... so a timely poem for this 'great discovery' which is after all just another piece in the jigsaw that is the Stonehenge Landscape project,

                                                  A Game of Henge - Stonehenge

Phillip Gross

A game of Henge, my masters?

The pieces are set. We lost the box

with instructions years ago.

Do you see Hangman? Or

Clock Patience? Building bricks

the gods grew out of? Dominoes?

It's your move. You're in the ring

of the hills, of the stones, of the walls

of your skull. You want to go?

You want out? Good - that's

the game. Whichever way you turn

are doors. Choose. Step through, so...

And whichever world you stumble into

will be different from all the others, only

what they might have been,

you'll never know.

--------------

Friday outings.

Where to start? Perhaps the 'fretting' weather as we approached the moors, fine misty rain and dark clouds gathering over the moors.  You climb up to the moors from the farm lands below, once marshy places full of water, today prime farm land, and then you hit the great dark landscape of pine and larch trees, forestry plantations, dark and forbidding, edged with bracken and heather. A wilderness of cultivated trees, as you pass along the old moor road, old stone gateposts tell you that once even this land was farmed right to the edge of the moor.

We stopped and I gathered some heather, and then drove down to the Wheeldale Beck, no one was there this time, so I walked along by the water, it was raining slightly so LS stayed in the car.  Sheep on either side, did not bother to move as I passed by, the water peat stained brown, rippling along. No mushrooms yet where the trees start, only the ground soaked by rain, puddling everywhere.  I took Moss in my mind along on this walk, a spiritual creature, who took no notice of the sheep or the water, he hated getting wet.

We came to Lastingham, which I have written about before, for lunch at The Blacksmith Inn.  A typical old world pub, tankards hang from the beams above your head, you are respectfully asked to remove muddy boots at the door.  Here you can order great pies, fish and chips, and a whole host of different meals.  We took the easy way out and ordered, me a ploughman and LS a ham sandwich, not exactly an anniversary meal, but we cannot do large meals at lunch time.  The small corner table in this pub is always 'reserved' I think for a single oldish man who we have seen there a couple of times, but he wasn't in today, perhaps it is reserved for a ghost from the past, a place by the fire with all the copper kettles and pans gleaming in the firelight.  The landlord always sits on a stool by the bar, not doing much.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

M.C.Escher - Day and Night You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. Two things chosen today, Mary Oliver's Wild Geese, reminds me that the swallows are returning south soon, and leaving these wintry shores and the comfort of the old church, just like the wild geese in Kerraldune's blog in Canada. The Escher drawing, reminds me of this as well, and the contradictory nature of humans as we go to and fro in our daily lives.  I am sure there is a dissertation out there on the drawing, does it matter? can it not just be seen for its visual message. We are to go out for an anniversary lunch today soon to Lastingham, and maybe a walk by the beck, the weather is cold, why has Autumn dropped by so quickly?

Mino's

Lewis Chess men

British Museum

News in general, there is an impressive story about how the Lewis Chess Men could have been carved by a woman, as  female artwork is so sparse in the medieval period, there is a certain satisfaction thinking that someone who carved these expressive little figurines could have been female!

These stolid, expressive little figurines are star draws in the museums that possess them. Ms Brown aptly calls them “Norse netsuke” (after the little Japanese carvings), shaped with skill and whimsy from what the Icelandic sagas term “fish teeth”: the queens, one hand pressed in alarm or woe to a cheek; the grim kings with braided hair, thrones elaborately detailed with Romanesque loops; the doughty, somewhat ludicrous knights; mitred bishops; and most of all the rooks, several biting their shields, unmistakably representations of Viking “berserks”, the warriors of the Norse god Odin.

Today we have put boxes up into the loft, or what my son-in-law calls, 'Spider City' due to the large dead spiders that occupy this space, the boxes went up mostly empty, but two were full, so we looked at the 'straw' box contents.  Here you will find the 'straw rain coats' or minos worn by Japanese farmers maybe, snow shoes and straw boots.  Strange that people wherever they are in the world always use the materials to hand, and apparently straw does work as the rain runs off the straight stalks.  I wonder if the 'Yeti' myth started from here!

The back

Front

Very scratchy to wear I would have thought, the boots and snow shoes are just as strange.....

boots and a second straw coat

snow shoes

Some links

Whilst we watch the sad unfolding of an enormous migration to Europe and wonder what to do, there are basic things we can do, send money to non-governmental bodies, nag our politicians to do more, discuss the situation rationally amongst the people we know.  The Independent has some of the answers.  Icelandic people have voted above their prime minister, who only wanted to help 50 displaced people, but 11,000 Icelandic people have offered to house some of the refugees.

So we watch, and wonder how it will all play out, as thousands of people flock to Europe for sanctuary, will Cameron at least soften his hard line approach?  Will an influx of a different religious group to a basically Christian/Secular Europe, have an unexpected, maybe even a catastrophic effect on socially peaceful groups?  There are so many questions and so many people to house and feed.....

Germany - Munich Railway station;

Wednesday

If you look at the window closely, you will see the imprint of a bird, LS reckons it is an owl, I think maybe one of the clumsy wood pigeons that lollop around in the garden.  Span of wings either side and the breast feathers in the centre - poor creature.

This morning has been looking for duvet covers on the internet to match the bedroom curtains colour, I fancy Indian material but everything is pricey, all comes down to the fact that LS wants a warm colour, and I have always loved the ochre base which results in warm red/browns and yellows of Indian fabric.

Our swallows are still with us though Bovey Belle's in Wales have flown to warmer climes, so the next season is on its way.  The workmen have erected scaffolding against the church to take down drainpipes, they haven't touched where the swallows nest yet as they are still going in and out.

The hens as regular as ever, produce three eggs a day between them, and I worry about using them all up.  Scotch eggs, madeira cake, scrambled eggs each morning, I have never had so many eggs.   Omelettes of course, with chips.  Ever since I bought that fryer three weeks ago LS has made chips, he is over the moon with the fryer, yesterday we had tempura of various vegetables;  he likes to cook Japanese, which can be either noodle or rice based, though the ingredients are difficult to find out here and it looks like he needs to order over the internet from London.

One of his old friends is a saki wine distributor, he lives in Hawaii, but every year comes over to London to sell his saki to the restaurants, he should be coming up to us in December, that is of course if the weather here in Yorkshire isn't impassable with snow.

We are also to have a small Japanese garden down the side of the house, it is very overcast dull (no sun) and will welcome ferns, though how to get moss to grow is another thing.