Friday 25th January

Turdus Pilaris - Fieldfare @

                                            By Adam Kumiszcza - Own work, CC BY

I saw a flock of these fieldfares yesterday as I took Lucy for her walk.  I keep seeing large what I thought of as thrushes in the church yard, but they are probably fieldfares and obviously feasting on the last of the berries and fallen apples around here.  Though I would like to think that the solitary bird I keep seeing around the garden is the mistle thrush, because we did have one once.  Well this weekend is to be the bird count for the country.   What do we have in the garden, a resident pheasant, several wood pigeons, collared doves, lots of sparrows, than most of the different types of blue tits, the little wren (on the up) and of course blackbirds.  Apparently some blackbirds come from France, migrating back and forth, you can tell by the colour of the beaks..........  Not forgetting the crows and jackdaws.

People moan about January, as if if should be stripped from the calendar, but there is an air of expectancy; it gets lighter, and though the weather is so changeable.  Yesterday hard frozen ground with a smattering of snow, today the weather has warmed up and puddles grace the roads.

John Simpson said on the radio this morning, all you ever hear about is talk of Brexit and backstop, never anything about climate change and the cliff we will be dangling over in 12 years time. And of course in Davos they are still flying around mouthing hot air as usual....

Thursday 24th January

The following blog I wrote about four years ago, what sparked it? Talk of the heron on the 'tweet' programmes this morning.  I have always loved herons, rigidly still and quiet as they fish by a river or pond, endlessly patient they are the dinosaurs of the bird world.  I remember my son looking out of his bedroom window - "there's a big pigeon in the pond mum" of course it was a heron fishing for the last goldfish!

So why do i bring this blog up, it was Paul yesterday, he needs something to do, he has no time for his old work as a a conservator of old Japanese paintings, it did his knees in but there are still echoes round the house of it.  The spray for water as he applied the papers to the work, the great stack of papers he has amassed still in the study.  He talks of blogging but wordpress now charges, so he says.  So I shall nag for a few days and perhaps find the blogs.

The  painting below is about 6 feet wide, and is not exactly a painting but a screen that would have been in a temple at the front to ward off evil.  It is on the wall in our sitting room and is extraordinarily serene. As you can see it is sprinkled with gold and depicts two carp swimming over the bridge.

"Fishy traditions - Goldfish

"Goldfish was introduced into Japan via China in the sixteenth century where they were popular and kept only by the aristocracy and samurai. The Japanese set up breeding programs and eventually developed their unique strains of goldfish. "

Keeping my mind working, well trying to at least!  Why goldfish, well a couple of years ago, I had a  print that needed framing and so we went to the framers in town.  He offered to do it for nothing if LS would restore for him  a modern Japanese scroll of goldfish.  To be honest I did not like it at the time, yet the goldfish swam with great gusto across the paper and I grew to like it.  Occasionally my job is to take photos of what was happening in the studio, a record to send to the client.
If you look at the number of smaller goldfish you will see that there are nine  all told with the larger fish, a lucky number in China. Giving a present with a depiction of goldfish means that you are wishing the receiver of your gift good luck or prosperity, or even good business.  Also there are eight gold fish and one black, this is to give positive energies and push away negative energies within the houshold

The thing of course about most of Japanese art work is it's symbolic nature, dragons (and the dragon is supposed to have changed from a fish) and carp which are the larger species of goldfish all have their tales to tell.

"The dragon carp symbolizes high ambitions, wealth and success. The Golden Carp is known for its legendary courage to swim against rapid currents and is therefore a symbol of perseverance, achievement and career success. According to some the carp turns into the revered Celestial Dragon when it makes a final leap across the Dragon gate. Keeping this symbol brings literary and scholastic luck to students and excellent career luck to working people."

I love the idea of the Golden Carp leaping across the currents so similar to our own salmon as they come back for breeding, and probably why the Celtic fish would also be revered as they came back to our rivers.  I was forever restocking our pond with goldfish as the local heron would come to feast on these captive creatures.  When we are on our travels I see these great grey birds  in the sky occasionally, their necks hunched as they flap their  wings slowly, they always seem incredibly thin and rather raggedy like old men standing in the water waiting for a hapless fish to swim along.

Tuesday 22nd January - time is flying

Well I have nothing to say this morning, only to mention the following poet, someone said something about him on the radio.  I remembered the poems we would have to learn each week as a child, this was probably one of them, and what painting would I put with it it? Carl Larsson came to mind, always wanted to miniaturise one of his paintings, all charming but so kitsch though......

Off to Castle Howard Nursery centre, to ponder whether we need a covered seat in the garden, the trouble is....................... where to put it, every time I approach the front garden to dig a hole or suggest something Paul pipes up the pipes, the pipes, I imagine them all wriggling along under the lawn daring me to dig!

The Listeners

BY WALTER DE LA MARE

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door; 

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor: 

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head: 

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. 

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill 

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still. 

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then 

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men: 

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   

   That goes down to the empty hall, 

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   

   By the lonely Traveller’s call. 

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   

   Their stillness answering his cry, 

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; 

For he suddenly smote on the door, even   

   Louder, and lifted his head:— 

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   

   That I kept my word,’ he said. 

Never the least stir made the listeners,   

   Though every word he spake 

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   

   From the one man left awake: 

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   

   And the sound of iron on stone, 

And how the silence surged softly backward,   

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.


And something to write about tomorrow  My daughter's town

Sunday 20th January

Sunday, still misty and grey but not cold.  Yesterday I ordered four books from the secondhand dealers that Amazon hosts.  Amazon always tries to get you onto 'Prime' and you need devious skills to avoid it.  Two were fiction books, Phil Rickman and Peter May 'Shetland' series.  The other two was Fiona MacCarthy's Eric Gill and an 'Arts and Craft' book.

Shetland and the Orkney Islands are becoming the 'in' places to visit.  Their lonely windswept beauty to be sold to tourists. Sad. But I suppose it means more money for the islanders, many of whom are incomers, trying to avoid a crowded life;)  If you ever want Shetland wool from these islands then go to Jamieson and Smith, as a knitter I have used their wool, the shades for fair isles are extensive and they have fabulous 2 ply wool for knitting shawls that should pass through a wedding ring.
I have probably read the Gill book through the library but I would like a copy, though a man successful in his world, I think he was a pervert if I remember rightly.  I loved the area in which he lived Llanthony, the old priory ruins and the slightly deserted grey miserable air of the countryside around, the Ewyas Valley, Landscapism blog on my right is doing a dissertation on the area around Llanthony, the granges and farms that still echo in the landscape.

As it is Sunday, something funny to end with.

Saturday and snow

Before it all melts away, the drip from the trees this morning said that the snow would not stay long.

 a light feathering of snow

.

Nigel's sheep this morning

Bamboo and southernwood gently collapse

Mary Oliver

Sadly a rare  poet died yesterday

IN OUR WOODS,SOMETIMES A RARE MUSIC
Every spring

I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.
Then, by the end of morning,
he's gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.

From A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver. Copyright 2012 by Mary Oliver. Excerpted with permission of Penguin Group.

No wonder I remember Tania!

Well Pat stirred a childhood memory this morning when she asked if I had been to Wightwick Manor, no I had not, but it struck a chord.  My friend Tania Hodgetts had lived in a windmill near to the manor, with her mother, Sheila Hodgetts who was a children's author.  She wrote 'Toby Twirl' books, very similar to Rupert the Bear books, from which I gather she got her inspiration.

It suddenly occurred to me that Tania had come to tea in January for there was snow on the ground which led to my accident.  She could have come for a birthday tea, we lived in this late Victorian House at the time, probably my most favourite house and garden of my childhood.  It is now a care home, the lawn to the side has been built on, and the large garden at the back I cannot see.

It is still called 'Woodthorn' though

And it was here that Tania came, in the afternoon we had taken the sledge down to the tennis courts, there was an icy path ideal for sledging.  Unfortunately at the bottom there was the tennis hut, which I tobaggoned into at great speed, stopping the jolt with my left arm.  Agony ensued, and we went home, I rang my grandfather at work but he did not come back.  So when he eventually did turn up and we had sat down to tea, taken Tania home, and then we went to the hospital and it was discovered that I had fractured my elbow, two bones in my arm, and fingers, no wonder I was in agony!

Being left handed had consequences on my writing and any work I did, and after I had had a silver plate screwed into my elbow it took a couple of years to right itself.
When I look at that house now I think how ugly it looks, but the window on the left was the morning room;) the one on the right was the sitting room, then the pantry at the back and the corridor to the dining room (only used on a Sunday).
The kitchen was the heart of the house, the old black fireplace come cooker the warmest place in the house.  This led out to the scullery, dishes were washed here, there was a modern cooker and an enormous fridge.  The back door led to a small yard with several brick buildings for coal etc and an outside loo.  Down the steps past the monkey tree, turn left past the rose garden and then the rest of the garden unfolded itself, large fruit trees lined another two lawns and an old summerhouse which was the children's headquarters and the sand pit almost at the end of the garden fronting a beautiful central bed of flowers. This is where my love of flowers come from!

Wightwick House, I believe it has some Pre-Raphaelite paintings or glass there

https://www.expressandstar.com/video/2008/03/18/living-the-high-life-in-a-windmill/

Wednesday and hens

A chicken update: Why?  well there are a lot of headless chickens running around in parliament at the moment, we are at impasse over Brexit, there is  really nothing to say.

About three weeks ago Phoebe our last bossy hen died, I think with the same symptons as the other two.  Leaving me with two bantams, Lady Jane and Fay.

Now my first three hens had not been vaccinated, but the two bantams had, and I paid a good price for them, but obviously it is worth it for health reasons.  They are vaccinated against Newcastle Disease, Marek's disease, and infectious bronchitis.

So who became top chicken out of the two? Well it turns out to be mad little Lady Jane, she has strode forward chasing Fay around, and two days ago took her small self to sleep in the coop with Fay, she has always at night gone into the box to sleep by herself.  It will be interesting to see what will happen when another two are added to the flock how the pecking order will arrange itself.

I notice quite a lot of bloggers keep chickens, and I think we keep them for the fun they provide, at last in life when we have slowed down we can stand and watch.  And of course be hypocrites and eat bought chicken!

I came across photos of my original chickens in Bath, they got finished off by one of those city foxes......

My very first two, Hetty and Harriet

Hetty and Harriet being jungle hens

Bought in Yorkshire and now part of the Universe

Fay and Lady Jane

I came across this whilst flicking through.  This is the coke house for the church that you often see from our house view.  Note the coal hatchway, just the right size for the pony and cart which delivered.  Paul found out that this small building had an earlier life, it was a 'lock-up' for the local drunk or thief.  You can see the results of flooding on the bottom four courses of stone.  What has happened is that as cars drive through they throw up spray water which washes the mortar from the stones.

Monday - following the memories

This was a 'Sunday' walk, you can see over the beautiful Somerset country side the Cotswolds coming to an end here in the valley behind Moss.  The track ahead, had longevity stretching back in time, the land just here had been quarried, but behind the camera the battle between Royalists and roundheads had been fought, and also along the ridge as you made your way through the fields. Detail of the battle of Lansdown.

In fact the trackway further on is an old Saxon boundary mark now marking Gloucester and Somerset, the track had followed the line of the two bronze age barrows further on. You begin to understand the fluidity of history, one thing leads to another, bronze age barrows mark the delineation lines between modern Gloucester and Somerset.

The verges of this track were covered in wild flowers, but already the heavier wider tractors were beginning to take their toil of them.  Below the sweet smell of elderflower, fluffy and creamy but turning to a much stronger smell as it aged.

 quoting myself here........

A walk down the old trackway in this parish of Langridge, will reveal a treasure of wild flowers on the verges, vetches tangle with yellow archangel, bluebells will replace primroses, the white gleam of stitchwort; the stoney path slopes gently down curving on its way, later on the white of elderflower will catch the eye, the sweet scent on a warm day reminding you of elderflower champagne.  

Orchids

You came to a field of the barrows through  a small lych gate, there was no road for miles and someone must have loved this field, for it still kept its wild flowers.  In the field early in spring would be primroses and then cowslips, orchids and the beautiful ethereal ladies smock set down amongst the grasses.  Further on a badger den, still used, though they had not migrated to the barrows.

Deer out in the early morning

langridge Barrows

Langridge barrows

ST 7323 7044 and ST 7328 7045. Two round barrows excavated in 1909 by H H Winwood, G Grey and T S Bush. The first contained much burnt material, animal bones and potsherds, but apparently no human bones. There were numerous flints including eight scrapers and two borers. The second barrow had an unaccompanied primary cremation. A number of flints, including one borer, were found in the material of the mound. (1)

ST 7323 7045, ST 7325 7044. Two barrows, the westerly has been truncated and is 0.9m high, the easterly, 1.7m high, is partially overlaid by a dump of extraneous material, possibly from the other barrow. Surveyed at 1:2500. (2)  Pastscape overview

Walks with Moss - when the sun shone

I read this morning that as you age time goes quicker because the brain is not processing as much as a younger brain. 

So I thought to clear some of my photos that accumulate in my files, a waste of time for as deleted I came across things I wanted to keep so added as much as I substracted!  There was this long file from years ago, when Moss, that gorgeous collie on the top and myself, wandered at will over the landscape, my brain caught up with its magical aspects, the old prehistoric stones on the Wiltshire downlands churning out a magic and a need to know!

Well let us stop at the pond in my old garden for a while, and discover the magic of damselflies mating, I would sit and watch the nymphs unfurl at a later date, wings damp then dry.  My son and I dug that pond, the first day leaving the black membrane in the hole, we came back next morning to find two newts curled up inside waiting for the water.  Looking now at that green water and for a moment you begin to understand the vibrant life that is our planet, I could tell you of the spring when the frogs came down the bank to mate and cover the water with tadpoles.  The second pond we dug, larger and shallow, but so pretty, till one day Moss chased a cat through it, and of course it developed holes and the water disappeared.  Or the time in the cold of winter, little Tom fell in, he was fascinated by the pond, though I had planted a great bank of reeds round it.

To be continued............

Wednesday 9th January

Well I have been reading Susan Cooper, a first time experience, as her The Dark is Rising is aimed at children, but by now you will have noticed that I love all literature.  She takes us from Cornwall to Wales and in her storytelling wends all the threads of ancient myths in the forces of good and evil.  Even as I write this I remember C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, the children taking on adult roles.  Lewis took religion as his motif, Cooper uses stone circles, mountains and water in Wales.  Perhaps evoking the tale of the magic lake of Lynn Cerrig Bach in which Iron Age votive offerings were found.
The presence of lakes at the foot of mountains is a strong dynamic force, the mountain can be male and evil, the water female and good.
So to go with the mystical, Neill Burnell beautiful photographs of Wistman Woods on Dartmoor.  He has caught the mossy verdant nature of these stunted trees, the mist arising through the trees and rocks.  Perhaps Britain hundreds of years ago would have looked like this when you rode through forest or wood, now Wistman Wood is solitary in its splendour. Old oak trees twisted and gnarled, this photo from Wiki does not do it full justice you must look at Burnell's photographs to grasp the 'evilness' of twisted branches to understand how the mind works when confronted with such natural splendour.

"The name of Wistman's Wood may derive from the dialect word 'wisht' meaning 'eerie/uncanny', or ‘pixie-led/haunted’.The legendary Wild Hunt in Devon is particularly associated with Wistman's Wood – the hellhounds of which are known as Yeth (Heath) or Wisht Hounds in the Devonshire dialect."


The Green Man

Tuesday 8th January

We went out to lunch today, a birthday treat, which is tomorrow but I am going to the gardening club in the afternoon.

The Moors Inn was chosen at Appleton le Moor, and we lunched well, I had halibut on crushed potatoes (poor potatoes) and Paul had one of the starters with an enormous salad.  It was delicious.

We sat by a roaring fire with Lucy under the table and the atmosphere quiet.  Typical old pub, beams and old blackened oven over the fire.

taken from the Moors Inn site.

Appleton is but a few miles from our village, one of these villages that has a wide open road with large verges think it must have been a drover's road.  There is moor, though most of the land is turned to farm land but the sheep still wander around the road as you will see from the following photos.

The sheep wander around without thought, a bit like the pheasants, so slow driving is essential.

Vigilamus - We are Watching

What is it? It is called 'Google Assistant'.  A great deal of fun for the girls over the weekend.  It was Paul's Xmas present from my daughter but of course we could not make it work on our basic phones.  So it was left to Lillie to load it from their Apple phone this weekend.  They played music quizzes and other general knowledge games.  But walk into the room tell it to play 'Classic' radio it will.  IT doesn't understand sometimes what you are talking about, but ask it questions and it resorts to Wiki.

Do we need it? probably not, a clever technological gizmo, is it better than Siria or Alexia, that I do not know.  Paul is a bit wary of all this technology coming into the house, do they have 'ears'? are they eavesdropping on our conversations? calculating what we are going to buy next.  Of course if you are really up to date, you have a system in your house that connects to this voice technology, but our television will still be switched on manually!

And of course, though tv adverts tell us that when kids spill the cornflakes you just tell Siria you need more, it hardly goes down to the shop to get them;)

How did the dogs get on? Lucy bullies Teddy the whippet very quietly turning him into a nervous wreck.  A curl of the lip, a low growl and Teddy will be upstairs in a shot unsure of what to do.

The Listening Ear

Fylingsdale on the North York Moors. It is a radar base and is also part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System

And something else, spalted wood..... this was in our latest batch of logs, beautiful, I think oak logs, they burn fiercely and clean.  Thank you Jennie for giving me the clue, it is a virus that attacks living or dead trees, sad but it makes good woodworking material.

Friday 4th January

When will we learn, see the Guardian article on how the British mythical company for ferrying goods across the Channel wrote it's terms  taken from a Pizza site!  Did Grayling actually check anything?

Enough, surely the good people of this country will take note and vote for 'no politicians', especially conservatives to run the show.

So what has happened this week of note, nothing much, went to a mulled wine and mincemeat gathering at a friends house, and then last night I went to Jo and David's cottage for tea and a game of the Beetle Drive.

Beetle drives were very popular as Church fund-raising events, especially amongst Non-conformist churches, and the tradition continues to the present. These are often accompanied by a Pie and Pea Supper, particularly in the North East of England

Well, the tea was good and so was the game, it has been years since I played any game and drawing bits of the beetle was a new experience, I won as well.  Which reminded me of going to my first WI meeting and winning the prizes there and getting some funny looks;)

Their cottage is a delight.  The walls are plastered with paintings and David's prowess as a Town Crier for which they go all round the country for events.  Do I think it will work, well first of all getting people to events is sometimes difficult, and the game very old fashioned. But it just might!

The family comes down again tomorrow for the weekend, two grand daughters this time and I shall do a traditional roast with Yorkshire pudding as it always goes down well with the children, one of whom will be an adult this year...

Wednesday 2nd January 2019

I came across this wonderful video of Bartlow Mounds this morning, Iron Age burial mounds in the Roman period in Essex.  The two guys made me laugh, it was like being transported back to the duo of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, but after I had got over that, I realised that the chap talking was intellectually superior to many of the archaeologists we find today, and he wasn't even an archaeologist.  The video is 25 minutes long and probably not of interest too many, but I liked his concluding analysis of the reason for such lavish burial mounds they are the biggest in the country.  Simply put the hierarchical nature of society, through the Iron, Bronze and Neolithic has put us where we are today with the terrible class system, that some still adhere to.

But I also wrote of this place and for sheer sunshine on the day, and photos of this typical Essex village see this blog, and wonder at the 'Pyramids of Essex;

And now to find the classic 'class' sketch of Moor and Cook, this time in a 'Gourmet' mood, Giles Coren eat your heart out.  It is a bit fuzzy and the language is going south, but if you ask what made my sense of humour, it was this pair.

Tuesday 1st January 2019

New Years Eve;

It was quiet.  But I got up at 12 midnight to the sound of bells ringing in the church, Jo and David had braved the cold and rang them joyously for 5 minutes.  This was followed by fireworks next door for another 5 minutes and I just hoped the two little bantams managed to hold onto their hearts. By the way I have ordered two more from Bedale, not yet born probably ;)

Paul was sitting by a blazing log fire downstairs when I came down, he is an owl to my lark nature.  Now it is morning, Lucy is still snoring away downstairs and when I came into the kitchen noticed that the calender had been changed for 2019.  The Japanese proverb on it says "Life begins the day you start a garden" how apt as always my thoughts turn to what to grow in the New Year.

We discussed, quite seriously yesterday, food to be stored 'in case', even Paul has been, or at least feels, 'shafted' by the government and has no confidence whatsoever!

We must have all watched in amazement and sheer disbelief, money awarded (is it a shell company?) for transporting goods across the Channel, a company that owns no boats and will use a harbour that needs dredging, all this with only three months to go...... And then there is Javid flying home from his holidays (poor Lad) to  sort out the few dozen immigrants making it to our shores.  When literally millions roam around homeless in other countries.

I may come back to write but light is returning to this small corner and I need to go and reassure Fay and Lady Gray that their peaceful world still exists.

Happy New Year

May the New Year bring Happiness, joy and humour.  Music to calm the nerves through the tumultous world we live in.  Greensleeves played on the flute and harp.  

And the artist I would pick today is Elizabeth Blackadder for her paintings of flowers.  The blue meconopsis, such a fragile flower, reminds me of an Abbey garden visited in Devon.  Acid soil must have reigned in this garden amongst the rhododendrons and other shrubs, but the candelabra primroses (and I shall find the name eventually in my head!) Bulleyna and the blue of the poppy will leave a forever memory ;)