Narrating the day

In the spirit of trying to write something daily, I take some photos and write about them.

The first is Lucy playing her favourite game which is to place her feet on the skirting board and roll from one side to the other.  She does this most evenings. She had one of her 'hysterical' days before this so it was a relief to see her return to normal.

The second is the decision to get rid of the Georgian dolls house and downsize some of my stuff.  I think I will give it to the teacher who took the unmade one.

not for sale!

At the moment I am faced with moving furniture out of the downstair's room which we call a library, this to make into a bedroom for Paul, it will become dangerous for him to walk up and down the stairs.  His illness is permanent and there will be a lot of changes in our lives but he was cheerful at the hospital yesterday.

I find the 'marketplace' on Facebook very good for getting rid of stuff, the desk will go on Friday to someone who lives in Saltburn, price it right (eg hardly any money) and the goods fly off the shelf!

The families on both sides have pulled round, on Paul's side they hardly communicated but now keep in touch by email.  On my side, well my two, are there for me always for which I am permanently grateful.

So as a last photo I shall show four donkeys in Cornwall in a rather muddy cold field but obviously ready for a carrot or two.  And the sad tale of the little sparrow who hurt his wing but managed to fly up to the bird feeder, where he would sit for several minutes meditating on life.  Foolish creature has now disappeared and the moral of the story is meditating can be dangerous when you are a sparrow.

You may disagree

I am returning to politics, so you can look away for the moment.  It was this Chris Patton article that triggered the thought ..... Is Britain Becoming a Failed State, well the old guard are definitely stepping up to the mark and starting to defend our country from the idiots who run it. Sadly it will not be enough.

Last night I watched back to back episodes of the BBC programme 'Broke'.  It outlined the calamitous lives of people who live on the edge of their money and have no fall back.

There was the sad case of a father and son, who lived for a time in tents on the beach, until the winter gales forced them to move.  Surprisingly cheerful to the camera, what hurt  the father was going to a food bank and not being able to buy his own food for both of them, the son was 22 years old, and in a job that only offered temporary hours during the week.

Another case, a business man driving his Mercedes round London for Uber.  Now it seems to me that Uber is a parasite who lives on the backs of people taxi-ing people in their own car, taking a quarter of what they earn. This man rented with his partner in London, no money to buy a house, no pension to talk off, and at 60 years old starting to suffer from medical conditions.

There was the incredible sight of the Ferrari (cheap at £300,000) garage employing cleaners and f******  (there is no other word) arguing about the paltry sum they paid their cleaners, luckily demonstrations outside the showrooms changed the minds of their employer.

All this happens over every part of the country, the middle classes sitting sleekly in their expensive housing snug as a bug but many of the fellow countrymen (and immigrants) falter on the outside.  Was it ever thus? Housing is desperately needed, strict renting laws to protect the vulnerable, and such statements from Rees-Mogg on food banks, need to be understood that Victorian values do not run this country..

“And to have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens, I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are.”

I do not see poverty in the towns round here but I have hardly looked, and in many ways poverty exists in the large towns, which draw people to them for employment.  The problem is of course that the price of everything is high, no more is it a right to have a home over your head, you have to pay the price landlords want with a flimsy contract that could see you out on the streets in a month.

I cannot see an answer, hardly have faith in the Labour Party, so socialism seems to have failed, yet the heart weeps for all those people who have not made the grade, in a country where social justice has been left to voluntary services.  As Patton says we have failed,   the Conservatives have done a bad job.

Updating

Courtesy of 'Evening Press'

Well when you watch 'Countryfile at Castle Howard' on Sunday, remember amongst all the smiles and false bonhomie of the presenters, that is was hell for the people to get there and hell to get out of the car park! I have been warned by several people don't go anywhere near to Castle Howard this weekend, or York, do not travel on the A64.  I actually don't like Countryfile, it has a fairy tale image of the countryside that is not true.  Though I expect the programme is in the corner for the farmers, who are now beginning to wake up to the fact that 'No deal' B........ is not in their best interest.  As someone said, the farmers should not have been so ready to plaster their fields with signs for 'leave'.  A simplistic idea (with no forethought) or information that now ploughs steadily on.

Well enough of that.  Yesterday I got rid of my unfinished kit dolls house to a teacher, who arrived in her people's carrier which had 3 of her 4 children.  She is going to make the dolls house up for a Xmas pressie for her mum, gosh it must be wonderful being young and able to do so much

Why italicised people carrier, they drive me nuts in car parks, always taller that my Picanto Kio, you edge carefully out because they are so tall and long, and immediately have to stop because someone else is coming.  Since taking up driving my ability to put my car straight in car parks always seem to leave the car on the slant.  Our small Co-op has a small difficult car park, and people often get cross in it as they get stuck, occasionally driving into each other bumpers or one of the corners of buildings that it is blessed with.  York Hospital car pack with which I have a close relationship with of late, has what I call the 'round and round' entrance, meaning when I come back to the car I can never find it, and trudge piteously around the levels marking out all the red cars - and there is plenty  of them!  In the naming of cars, mine is called Ogy, which is rather clumsy.
A pretty little white kitten with black markings has appeared in the garden, my first thoughts were that it is feral.  Jo brought the sheep's fleece round yesterday afternoon, and she says the mother with four young had been in her barn as well and definitely feral.  She says we should feed them and then catch them!! Apparently there are feral centres which neutralise their fecundity;) ie. castrate and then you can release them as feral, and feed if you want.  Jennie of Codlins and Cream is probably the expert on that....

Bollocks, can't keep up with the news

My mind goes scudding back to education and wishing this morning that I had taken the O level in Constitutional Law as I listen once more to the debate as to whether they are able to defeat a 'no deal' B*****.   I make no apology for returning to this subject, it plagues us every single minute of news.  There is an American on the radio this morning, saying that all the high hopes Johnson has with making a deal with America, it is unimportant to the American government as a whole, and we are just pissing in the wind.

Further Education; remembered days of going out in the dark and cold to the college at Chippenham.  I did archaeology, sociology and English Lit. at A level, shows how many years ago that was. Passed all three with good grades, even went on to do a teacher training course in Bath, but from which I pulled out as I was expecting Mark.  All education has done for me is widen the world into a rather depressing place.* The ability to read, and understand?  But I must admit along the way that I have enjoyed studying.

Archaeology took me along an interesting path of exploration, from that first moment as a widow looking for somewhere to live, I spied Silbury Hill and then Avebury and so decided at the throw of a coin to settle in Calne, 6 miles from Chippenham.

*That of course is complete nonsense, I have enjoyed the opening of knowledge along the way!
                         -----------------------

This blueness is not deliberate  just won't change to normal colour!

Catching up with this blog a few days later, life is not particularly easy at the moment, and now I see that America is promising all the trade that they have to offer?  That poor  teenager girl lost on holiday has been found dead, and there is trouble in Kashmir.  Always 'down' news.  But Rod and his wife cut the lawn yesterday leaving it neat and tidy and my border of white flowers are set off beautifully.

Golden fields everywhere with great bales of straw, cows out with their young, soon to be taken from them, and the weather 'settled' to one day sunny the next rain.  The refuse dustbin sits on the front for emptying today, and Rod pulled the garden refuse bin out for me as well as it is rather heavy with the wet grass, though it won't be picked up to the following week.

Strange how Autumn has appeared over the horizon, I expect it is to do with the Climate Emergency, that is what the Guardian calls it and it reminds me that I have Monbiot latest missive to read.  Funnily enough I thought I heard him on the radio yesterday, but it was Jack Straw called back from the dead to vent his opinion on the latest news.  Funny isn't it how the old guard are being called on to get us out of this mess, they seem so harmless compared to the new boys on the block.  That Dominic Cummings looks evil (I know he can't help it ;) must read up about him..... and reading in the News Statesman, Stephen Bush who sends daily breakdowns of what is happening to my email box - What Dominic Cummings gets wrong about history.... outlining the fact that the course of history is taken by our emotional response to it.  Whatever variables you lay on the table another set of variables will upset the arrived answer to the future...

It would be perfectly cogent bollocks, is all. There may well be a universe in which a proton breaks down into a positron rather than a neutron: but in both universes, the 311 Conservative MPs would always opt to choose “Boris the winner” over “Johnson the discredited Foreign Secretary” because as with Comey and Osborne, that decision was intimately linked with who they were, their motives, and their desires.

Friday 9th August

Well not much to write about.  It is raining, I should think solidly today.  Drove to Pickering to the organic shop for my wholemeal flour and various nuts, seeds and dried fruit.  Buying organic is expensive but I like the Yorkshire bread flour.  Then on to Lidl, hardly bought anything there except smoked cheese and grapes for Paul.

When I drove down the back lane to Pickering there were great puddles or flooding on the road.  A great farm machine sat forlornly like a beached whale in the field, a round bale of straw, half eaten, still to be regurgitated.  The rest of the bales scattered around the field.  This farmer has been late, our farms have baled their straw and bringing out newfangled machinery onto the fields.  Tractors you can probably walk under if you are like me small.

Yesterday I caught up with Jo over the church wall.  Haven't spoken to her for ages.  She has promised me a fleece from her one remaining blind sheep.  Apparently the farmer who cuts the fleeces of her now long lost sheep, turned up, and now I will have another job to do!

We discussed the weather for tomorrow's barbecue, not looking good, if it had been my choice I would have cancelled.  Another house in the village is going on the market, it will probably be nudging a million, large type manor house with fields for the horses.

The cottage next door to Jo, after being fairly empty for 19 years, has at last acquired a new owner.  Setting up their garden with fancy gates, and lots of workmen to do jobs like a new kitchen.  Think it has been a shock for Jo and her husband, they share a driveway but I am sure all will settle down.

It is surprising how much property has been sold in the village, everyone cashing in on property prices.  Now not being negative, but isn't Britain just running on selling houses, doing them up and antique shows? is anyone making anything in this country of ours?

Another Beatrix Potter painting, you can almost feel her sense of fun.  Big brown slugs are the only creatures I see in the garden.

Monday 5th August

 Reeth, North Yorkshire - Aug 4th 2019 - Volunteer's from local Young Farmers Clubs in North Yorkshire descended on Reeth to restore some of the iconic drystone walls destroyed by flash floods last Tuesday. 

Something to be glad about, young farmers and others be they young or old rebuilding the old stone walls that were hit by the flash floods in the Yorkshire Dales over the weekend.  What do you gather from the photo?  Listen to the news on BBC finding the more terrible aspects of the dam above Whaley Bridge and then look at the practical side as people come out to rebuild the walls. There are also sad photos of a farmer moving his remaining sheep out of the water drenched field and leaving behind the dead drowned sheep.

Beatrix Potter (British author & illustrator) 1866 - 1943
Mouse with Spinning Wheel, 1890
ink and watercolour drawing, mounted on card
12.0 x 7.6 cm. (4.72 x 2.99 in.)

What else caught my eye, well it was this dear little mouse that Beatrix Potter painted spinning away at some flax.. It reminds me that I have not spun for a long time,  recently I have been caught up with my small loom, weaving cotton tea cloths and my knitting of a jumper in Shetland wool.

Yesterday I watched a video of Kaffe Fassett, his colours always seem too bright but as he sat amongst the materials of his craft, he was happy and fulfilled.

Sunday 4th August

I have trouble naming butterflies, but red admirals, tortoiseshells, peacocks, whites and even a little blue ivy butterfly were dancing merrily away in the garden, around the large buddleia.

Creating a garden is the first step in understanding how this old Earth works.  The complexity of chains of relationships binding insects to flowers and bacterias to the soil creating webs of alliance in the dark substrata.  We have upset the balance, by introducing herbicides and pesticides in our gardens and farms and  we now bemoan the shrinking of the insect life, that feeds on and pollinates our food.  Our scientists try to keep ahead of bacterias that change as soon as we produce another so called revolutionary cure for whatever.  We see this in antibiotics as they become useless as our bodies build up a resistance against them.  All I can say is that we learn slowly how to put things back to right.

So a garden is a living being able to respond to the light, air, rain and the mulch of dead matter that covers it in winter.  This Earth has created a myriad creatures, I don't believe in the Gaian theory but I do understand the interrelationship of everything.  We are slowly watching our large mammals disappear, elephants due to poaching, rhinos as well. Also the giraffe is on the danger list, the list goes on.

But on this sunny morning as we wait for the rain and storms to come, and the weatherman colours our area of Yorkshire and Derbyshire with yellow, and the people wait at Whalley Bridge to see if the dam will break, a warning that all is not well with the weather system in this world.

So a few garden photos will have to do, for I cannot create in the written word what is happening so different has it become through the decades I have lived.

Two bantams patrolling the lawn.  They beat up a sparrow that could not fly yesterday - brutes.

Shasta daisies and cosmos. The reason my subconscious mind planted white flower has to do with the white flowered buddleia planted in the middle of this bed.  Weird how ones mind works...

There was even a moth, not sure if it wasn't the hummingbird hawkmoth. But the speed of its wings said yes

Painted lady...

It is like eating little sweets

The last two photos grew quite unexpectedly in empty pots the above looks like some sort of squash, the other two plants look like sunflowers.

Friday 2nd August

Can it get more depressing?  Well my heart goes out to the people of Whaley Bridge as the dam threatens their small town.  The infrastructure of the dam is 19th century, so perhaps was not unexpected given that nature has become more fierce.  As the Yorkshire Dales will no doubt recover, perhaps Yorkshire Day was an unfortunate time to be held.  But no troubles, the tourists are flocking to Britain, Chinese especially, and Japanese, though getting no further than the city of York.  There is a new word 'staycation' which means people who stay in their own country for holidays.  A friend came the other day who is doing three home holidays this year, she takes the train to Glasgow today, then up to Oban to catch the boat that will travel round the Scottish Islands.

Well less depressing, the conservatives have only one majority in government, 'luckily' they are all going off on holiday for I believe 6 weeks, so will not have to worry.  Oops perhaps they should we leave Europe on October 31st!  Especially as there has also been a Liberal win in Wales....

Well the garden bed of roses has gone white, snapdragons, cosmos and the shasta daisies give that effect, but I have no planting for autumn, which must be addressed.  Next year it will be a wild display of dahlias, perhaps the cactus type.  

Butterflies of the coloured types have decorated the buddleia shrubs, a frog sitting quietly under the milk basket on the front doorstep and a little mouse in the recycling box.  Also last night the sound of an owl, and I hoped that my mouse was not its dinner.  Insects galore in the garden, the hover wasp is grateful for the two plantings of fennel.

Yorkshire Day

Rather late in the day but to celebrate Yorkshire Day on August 1st, this arrived in my inbox from Historic England.

https://heritagecalling.com/2019/08/01/conserving-yorkshires-castles/

There are a few castles around here, Helmsley immediately comes to mind and of course Pickering.

  By MortimerCat - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1876940
Pickering Castle

                                                  Barkmatter - Own work  -  Helmsley Castle

Things Happen

Things Happen: A favourite saying of mine as the news pours through in a torrent of uselessness and we are unable to  make the world behave as we would see fit.  But not writing has more to do with the fact that Paul is back in hospital after a relapse.

We talk on the phone several times a day, I go to visit, they are 'feeding him up', which means a nutritional tube down his throat, though he can also eat proper food as well.  This illness hangs like a curtain, twitching to be put aside, and the doctors are all optimistic of course, as is Paul - but it drags down your soul with the worry and the wait.

At home, Lucy went into a three day panic mode, exhausting creature that she is but I have pottered in this hot weather, picking loads of beans, tiny sweet tomatoes, handfuls of sweet peas and not so good potatoes.

Paul has been so sweet, knowing how I also go into panic and worrying mode, the bond is strong, he may come home after the weekend, maybe even the weekend.

He recounted an incident in his ward yesterday, and this will give you some idea of what occasionally can happen in hospitals.  A man was brought in with a wheelchair, he also had three burly security men with him.  He lashed around, foul mouthed and then tried to throw his wheelchair out of the three storey window, luckily they took him away, do they have padded rooms in hospital?

But dwelling too much on ourselves is not good, 'Crossing Continents' yesterday featured a young man from Ghana, Azeteg, he went on a long journey across the Sahara as a migrant with just a hidden camera in his special glasses.  He documented the absolute hell and nightmare of these poor people trying to escape poverty.  It was a harrowing story

Not all doom and gloom I hope,  typically Paul wants the family to arrange the transfer of some of his stuff (see YP shaking his head over that word) so, his valuable papers, silks, books and trays of insect/precious stones handed over to the British Museum.  I had been nagging him to do it for months but still.....

On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

I really don't have much to say this week, so on this hottest day I will just put Carl Sagan up for a quiet thought on our planet, he has quite a way with words.  The heatwave according to a BBC weather man is that the Jet stream has moved blocking in hot air over Europe,  Climate change is probably there as well as Alaska burns.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Edges and territories - the village

Paul asked if I ever get bored during the day and I answered no, because my mind is always bubbling away with some nonsense.  Yesterday I started the long job of cutting back the virginia creepers down the passageway.  This passageway between us and the pub belongs to us it delineates our space, though to be honest we would be happy if the pub owned it.  Actually it was much darker when I first went in, but I have cut myself a window of sunshine.....

Opening the gate, I was greeted by a long black tunnel, the creeper had bent the farm wire netting over and latched itself onto the roof of the pub. Winter time and the whole fence is empty of leaf except for the ivys which are staying.

As I chopped I looked into Harriet's and Lucy's kitchen, and thought what a spick and span place it was with all the white crockery. It is not the cooking kitchen which produces great plates of food, something both Paul and I can't get through but it does it job of feeding the rather large appetites of the people round here.  The girls run it efficiently, and it wise to remember that next door a small inner 'village' lives. 

Sun Inn 1927

The pub is owned by two older people who live in a small modern house attached to the pub, the land backs onto the river and along their small portion hidden out of sight is about four statics, holiday homes mostly. Their territory has  Nelson on one side with his ragbag of birds, sheep and a couple of goats and who lives in a caravan.  The other side is J and R's land, J is very territorial. 

The owners of the pub keep themselves to their own matters, and yet they are part of the community of course.

The death of their grandson meant that he was laid to rest in the graveyard, very near the side window of our house.  There is something beautiful about how the family and friends look after the grave.  Practically every other day people will come and bring flowers, arrange what is there and sit quietly with him.  We have a blind on that window which is pulled down, though Lucy will spy shadows on the blind and bark furiously.

Talking of Lucy, we have just returned from our walk down to the green.  It is 8 o-clock and the Gospel children are off to catch their bus, Geoff and his wife  live in the chapel, he is taking his grandson off to college as well and we wave.  Geoff mows the green and the footpath to the pub.

Joe is trying to get money so that we can grid the surface of the pathway with a rubber membrane.  He is tackling the local council but things move slowly, as always.  Village life is more disconnected than it was a century ago, us 'suburbians' have appeared  as has new housing, there is no village hall and the church has all but closed down.  But people settle into place, social changes go on around us, this is history walking slowly forward.

Tuesday 16th July

The new header is Solva in Wales, a place I visited each year and spent many a happy hour wandering about.  Still miss it, but my wandering days are probably over.  So photos will have to take the place of being there.

So what do I take forward from the last days.

Well there was a large bag of gooseberries kindly given by R when she came to see Paul, also a stack of magazines on 'How things Work', not that Paul does much reading nowadays. So the first photo is a gooseberry crumble, though my favourite is gooseberry fool.  Always forget how SOUR gooseberries are. The next photo are the late variety of strawberries from Pearson in Sinnington, sweet and ripe and very strawberryish.  I heard a man on the farming programme this morning, change the nature of words to describe herbicides and pesticides, we are now to call them plant protection, well we know in whose pocket he is in!

Books;   I am not reading any books, something that nags, so I went to my bookcase and selected three books to read, you will see it is an eclectic choice. There was the 'Secret lives of Cows' or 'Meadowlands' on offer and Mcfarlane has brought out a new book called 'Underland' I think.  But decided on Adam Nicolson though he has not written another book of interest for me,  his book on Sissinghurst might be worthwhile investigating.

I loved 'Sea Room' for its description of the Scottish Isles, their bleakness, the cow that shat on the fisherman as they lifted it off the island on to the boat, and then the rats that occupied the small house that Nicolson would holiday there, often by himself.  

What else, something that makes England come alive, this book takes me round the country I love, the original W.H.Hoskins words are interpreted/clarified by a logical archaeological landscape man, Christopher Taylor.  Also reminds me of another book that will take me round the buildings of England, no, not Pevsener but Alex-Clifton Taylor ' The Pattern of English Building'.

Surprising perhaps but Scotland and Wales do not feature, though they also have indigenous buildings from the materials around.

And then the last book, 'The One Straw Revolution' by Masanobu Fukuoka.  A strange book and man, who found that just actually allowing things to grow without ploughing or killing weeds, that what grew was about the same amount as all the effort we put into industrial farming.  The book was printed in India, therefore has thick creamy pages and is bound by thin twine.

Friday and the day has hardly begun

Some photos today.... the first hour of the morning, from 6 to 7.  I get up early, a clean fresh morning with the sun coming through the copse at the back.  A mug of tea, a slice of toast, a breakfast probably eaten all over our country.  Then the letting out of bantams, feeding of the birds in the garden accompanied by Lucy.  We wander down the rose bed, the doves will follow me down, the roses are past their best, and the insects are still not up.  The oil man arrives at 7 am, we are first on his beat.  Sets me thinking, listening to the news and the fracas that is going on in the Gulf, the man on the news says that the stopping of oil tankers by the Iranians is not unusual, that this latest event is in response to us stopping an Iranian tanker taking oil to Syria.  War games are all about economics.  Further thoughts flit through my mind, are we responding to the fear of no oil? We discuss this over morning tea, how will this country change all our oil/gas boilers, how will we heat our homes?  Actually there are some green answers but they seem clumsy compared to what we have got and inherited.  There again coal fires were replaced by central heating, the human race is ingenious when it comes to solving problems but do we have time ;)

see the pollen beetles

green beans starting

first call of the morning, see the 'orange snake' that sends Lucy scurrying to the safety of a chair

Tuesday 10th July

The verges are so pretty down the country lanes, the creamy colour of meadow sweet, like old lace runs down the hedges.  Occasionally interspersed with the pale blue of the wild cranes bill and then the yellow of ladies bed straw, how sometimes I wish I could stop and photo this summer's crop.  But not many butterflies, I have seen them in singular fashion go through their appointed time of the year but now as the buddleias start to flower hope for more.

The roses tumble to the ground, over-exuberant they flower with no shame. Shasta daisies are beginning to appear, taking over from the wild ox daisy, as are the white snapdragons.  Plenty of insects in the garden, little black beetles hide in the pollen, gangster wasps terrorise the greenfly, bumble bees and honey bees feast.  There are moths to be found in the watering can and the birds have quietened down after the rush of feeding their young.  

Efficient farmers rush by with great loads of grass for silage, and if you are out on the road, you will always be caught behind a tractor at some stage, but there again it is the farmer's land.

Yesterday we called into our local fruit place, here they grow soft fruits, sweet strawberries - delicious.  There are homemade jams, fluffy meringues and light scones to be bought as well. Plants that have seen better days loll around outside, I have given up buying the beds are full and we need rain.

The long fencing down the driveway, between 50-80 feet, is covered with ivy and Virginia creeper, it creeps over the bed in front and reaches out to cover the old roof of the pub next door.  Drastic action is called for, and rather than trim I have suggested a couple of the wisterias must be culled. Two minds over this of course this is where the majority of the nests are to be found.

But the garden has been a triumph this summer, fulfilling what I wanted, which was to encourage insects and birds. Very untidy at some stages, and in desperate need of weeding at the moment but still.....

I forgot ;) we are now living through the fairytale of the boy who said 'the emperor has no clothes'.  A simple truth echoed by Sir Kim over Trump, that also is delicious!

p.s. Eating my scone this morning and P said it looks like, well we had a bit of a struggle to find the word but eventually arrived at the word 'stottie', something you can buy in Whitby as an enormous round roll, but its history is interesting.

A short note - so be happy

Things that happen, not exactly a crisis but the crisis of illness.  I will set it out not just for those that read my blog (thank you) but for my own peace of mind.  Paul has been ill for a couple of months, but yesterday we saw the doctor at the hospital who calmly told us that he was on the mend.  Tests were good, recuperation would take months but from that moment of relapse two sundays ago, when I had to call for an ambulance at midnight things have begun to look up.

As I drove back from the hospital the tension slowly started to unwind so that when we arrived home, tiredness struck like a great veil.  We are both happy for this good news, and Irene, who has looked after my small family of animals also turned up, and she sat there with tears in her eyes, what it is to have good friends.

She told me funny tales of Lucy and the bantams playing up, of how Lucy barked at the people in the churchyard attending a grave.  Lucy believes that the graveyard is part of her domain, and will often bark at it when sitting in her armchair.

Paul my love has always been positive through the many uncomfortable things he has had to endure, his lovely smile giving me courage, and my idiotic banter holding the bond between us.

So although he will never be able to raise a glass of beer to the future, we will raise a 'fortisip' protein drink to the future and whatever it may hold. 

And also grateful thanks to those skilled in their jobs at York Hospital, I have learnt much from the nurses in their response to their patients and their unflinching patience in response to difficult patients.  Somehow sitting in the main reception hall with people passing by I have seen my fellow humans in a better light.  That might sound odd, but if you don't come out of hospital in a more philosophical mood than where else? William in Ward 33, drew for Paul his embossed name and I shall always keep it it as a memoir, not of dark days but of kindness.

Saturday 6th July

Life has been long daily visits to York hospital to be with Paul as he undergoes tests.  Now he is at home, happy to be there, though there is another visit to the hospital on Monday.  That has been the sum of my life this week.  Arranging for Lucy and the bantams to be looked after by my two friends here in the village.

Dear C has been going round in a flustered manner worrying about the upcoming barbeque, that Paul pulled out of some months ago. It is to be held in the pub car park, and Lyn from the other end of the village will arrange the buying of the meat, which she does every year and selling tickets at the 'upper' end of the village. I have a feeling that the two ladies will not coordinate, I have only ever sat in on meetings and handled the monies coming in.  The barbecue is the most friendly get together of the year, last year it was up in the big barn of the Bells.

Things happen in the village, a new face Joe, has taken over the parish council affairs, his two main objections are the speeding through the village and our stance against fracking.  Irene has taken on the role of secretary and when given the book of parish happenings, found that the problem of speeding traffic had been going on since 1950.  This was due to the coaches coming through from the local Flamingo Land up the road.  Never been but was pleased to see that they were sending a black rhino, bred here, back to Africa.

As for fracking, it is a bit like sitting on a bomb waiting for it to go off.  Kirkby Misperton about 4 miles down the road was the site of a fracking drill.  Run by Third Energy, a company that had little money and when Barclays refused to bankroll them, they were sold off to a holding company in Britain - in America.  The whole caboodle of equipment was pulled from the site and residents rejoiced, now they worry once more.

Funnily enough I was going to write about Utamaro, a Japanese artist but I will do that later.  Paul always reads my blog, so my recording of our daily life is important to him!

Cannot praise York Hospital enough, we must never let the NHS disappear under privatisation, it is the one true diamond amongst a sea of empty politicians bickering for prominence and power.  Is anyone governing the country by any chance? 

Tuesday 2nd July

Taking a break from blogging for a bit.

Tangled Woods

Old woods, old photos, this wood was coppiced many years ago, when I saw it a few years back it was neglected, trees fallen, boggy underfoot but of course it was making its own ecosystem.  Well on Gardener's World, the same point was made by 'rewilding' a garden, allowing the natural world to invade the 'kept' garden. 

George Monbiot is all for rewilding our country, allowing the uplands to become wild and less sheep ridden, the beavers to dam rivers and maybe even wolves to roam Scotland, that would definitely bring down the expansive deer population.....

Sometimes I am in two minds about this, the habit of growing flowers in gardens have brought the insects in to live and prosper, what of course we need are more ponds, the old village ponds have long gone.  Frogs and newts disappear and the water insect life is scarce.  We have farmed the land to within an inch of its life, the old meadows of wild flowers are long gone, councils plant wild life verges along the road, and we can only hope insects do not get killed by passing traffic.

We had that sad spectacle of builders and councils netting the trees and hedges so that the birds would not build nests, I am still trying to work out why?

Campanula

Bell flowers, a favourite of mine, I remember walking down a gorge in the Mendips and finding a wild plant and being thrilled.  Up here on the Yorkshire moors you will find the little harebell, nodding their heads furiously in the wind.

Cantebury bells, allow the words to roll around in your head!  I realise I haven't any in the garden but I do have ordinary bell flowers in the front, now beaten down by the rain, as was the lemon rose... captured for the moment.

I am sure this is a 'conglomerate' bellflower that is just coming into flower in the garden

This is a walk round the garden but outside on the verge of the church Keith has tackled the grass and spent leaves of daffodils, but look what he left standing - Orange hawkweed, brightly coloured against the green.  John of 'Going Gently' was talking about 'shedding' which apparently is the terminology of helping in your community.  Well Keith works so hard in our community that I think he deserves a medal.

So what else, a bumper crop of blackberries, my Rosamundi rose is starting to flower...... only two pears on the new tree and a meagre two plums on one of the plums.

The fat little bums of bees are always a welcome sight round the gardens

Stripped Rosamundi, echoing the past

Flowers have a history of their own, we have several wild bell flowers in this country, their shapes echo the bells in the church but the flower bells do not ring, only carry their own folklore along the way.