Thursday 18th June

The day to shop.  Brush the cobwebs from my car, faithful creature's engine always responds, entice Lucy into the car with cheese and we are off across the newly gritted roads.  I haven't bought petrol the last 10 weeks and the tank is still half full. What an adventure!

Our world still in chaos over the virus, there is a sort of will we, won't we attitude.  Will children go back to school, some shops will open but with different rules. Restaurants and pub have different problems.  The assistants in the Co-op glare at us early shoppers we make life difficult for them coming in early, the aisles have trolleys full of stuff waiting to be stacked.

Talked to friend over the church wall, a cottage recently sold, has been put on the market, with a few lies along the way, at an extraordinary price.  Greed where is the end of it?  Surely all those people upmarketing houses to make a profit will come to the end of a line.  

A friend has just pushed some coffee filters through the door, and tears prick at the thoughtfulness of remembering my moan about lack of them, though now I order from Ebay for all those difficult things that have seemingly disappeared.

Photos from 2017

The complicated beauty of honeysuckle, Nigel wants to take cuttings to grow through his hedge, it always reminds me of the wild honeysuckle in Solva

Can you see the mouse?  Mouseman has been here at our church.

Byland Abbey - Cistercian

 

The elegant capitals in the museum

York in 2017

Keeping a blogger/diary .

Wednesday 17th June

Feeling sorry for the pigeons, though they are out there reproducing themselves in the wider world, but it must be bad flying into Whitby and no tourists to attack for their chips.

Today has dawned sunny, and they have been tarmacing the road outside, though it took a while for the penny to drop that the funny machines that kept passing  back and forth were actually laying the stuff.

I stood talking to Nigel on the pavement after they had finished we were both going dog walking, and the little stones thrown up pinged us.  Nigel hasn't been to the shops for the 12 weeks of lockdown, his wife is ill, so a neighbour has done their shopping.  They have no internet and he likes to use cash but he will be one of a dying breed of person as our world restructures itself into a cashless society.  He complains how difficult he finds computers but that hurdle has to be over come eventually.

The village was fairly busy, two sets of walkers went through, the people from the cottage across the road were out walking their dog.  Life has slowly picked up, the motor bikes are coming through but no coaches and caravans.  My delivery did not come though, due to road closure, so fingers crossed Lucy is quiet tonight because I have no calming pills.  I also bought her some joint pills as well, and have decided to stop her  pet insurance in a month on her 13th birthday.

When I have an early lunch I watch 'Life on Benefits' trying to work out in my mind my reactions. As people age and they find it more difficult to find a job they have to go through the misery of social security.  Now it seems to me there are not enough jobs around in all of our towns and cities and therefore welfare becomes imperative we should support them but by how much?  Private landlords can be greedy, the cost of living pricey.  Many people are furloughed at the moment but when that finishes there will be more money to find as some of these people find they have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.  Does 'Basic Income' work or do we have to go back to a more socialistic state in which we become overseen by big brother.  And as if on time Daily Mash has just posted the following......

"Do blue passports double as ration books?"  Funnily enough they were just saying on the radio this morning that stock items are the one thing that are in short supply.  Such things as flour, rice and pasta, it is not that we are hoarding they are having problems with supply - Brexit is also adding to our woes.  I could not understand the total condemnation of chlorinated chicken from America until it was spelled out to me.  The poor creatures live in their own filth until death, the chlorination is about washing them clean.

Things collected along the way

As I clear out the words and sayings in my 'photos' on the computer there is some I keep.  Carl Sagan is one, dead long ago but his words drift down through the years.  Arundhati Roy is another. Messages of hope, the march of the drum maybe extolling us to do better.The things that make you laugh for another time.

  

Yorkshire Tea defence of Black Lives Matter.

“Please don’t buy our tea again. We’re taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism”

Carl Sagan. Is it happening?

You have to believe in better things and not be cynical

The cat just debating whether he is there or not..


 A virtual artist friend has just put one of her posters on Facebook to cheer people up after the troubles in London yesterday, the far right can surely show the worst of human nature.  Jane Tomlinson paints almost non-stop, and is probably the only person who has painted the 'Shipping Forecast' coast line.
And probably the only thing that has cheered me up today!

Saturday 13th June

Well once you could do a whole number of things, but then darkness descended in the form of a virus and life came to a standstill.

What am I talking about, well firstly the loss of my Word facility on my computer, the words have dots following them everywhere.  Then the printer started to play up (this is a long story), it needed ink, but lo and behold, there is no ink out there in computer land.   Hey says HP have you heard of 'instant ink'. Sounds interesting, but unfortunately the make of printer in the study is no longer listed all I wanted to do was write a letter for goodness sake.  Shuffled round in the drawer of my desk and found old fountain pen, soaked it in hot water to make it work again.  Letter written.  

What conclusions have I drawn from this long exercise? I hate built in obsolescence, will not buy a new printer but wait  till W.H.Smith opens in Malton to see if they have the ink, will also practice diligently with my writing to  improve my neatness!

Happy birthday Lillie

It is Lillie's birthday today, she is 14.  I see from the photo that it is Xmas, that is how long I have not seen her.  She has grown into a capable young girl and I miss that young child who could be so obstinate and loved chocolate cake with such a passion.

Happier times, Lillie with the famous 'loser' sign and her furry boots worn all summer.

Friday 12th June

I would recommend anyone interested in art too watch this video on the restoration of this marvellous set of paintings by the brother's Hubert and Jan Van Dyke.   Digitisation plays an important part in the analysis, close up the art of painting is a miracle of realism, its messages still to be understood.

"After eight years of restoration, one of the greatest works of art ever made looks once again as its creators intended. The monumental tableau that is the Ghent Altarpiece, also known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, captures the viewer with its intense realism and complicated symbolism. A full immersion into this revolutionary work that looked forward to the modern world."

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/088444-000-A/secrets-of-the-ghent-altarpiece/

What else: Looking at lockdown, as its news dominates the airways.  Well Rod and his wife came to mow the lawns yesterday.  I pay him in cash £25 but now have no pound coins or fivers.  As I shop once a week using contactless card and the cash machine only gives me high denominations. He does not use bank transfer, though the window cleaner does, it means the transfer of money on the front doorstep.  I put my money in the milk bottle basket and he places the fiver carefully on the step with a stone on top.  Then I noticed him wiping down the gates with a cloth, bless him but where will it end?  My two cotton face masks arrived as well yesterday, I decided that plastic would be too hot, so a soft grey with white stars material is my fashion accessory.  Though to be honest I have never seen anyone wearing them in the town.

Harriet is doing a leek and chicken pie with vegetables and chips for £7.95 at the pub, so plenty of people will be ordering that, she now opens three times a week.

My runner beans are flowering, courgettes and salad already eaten, and the tomatoes beginning to fruit - not so cold against the warm south facing wall.

Thursday 11th June

Peonies: A great froufrou of petals, so easily shed by this heavy headed flower.  Paul planted it and this is the first year it has  had so many flowers, that rain over winter and then dry sunny late spring certainly did something for the plants.  But it stands on the windowsill that overlooks the graveyard and the grave of a young 27 year old  man, who killed himself.  His younger brother, I think, often comes and sits on the grass underneath the window and talks quite animatedly to the grave.  He did yesterday evening.  Of course I know where he is coming from do not I carry on an endless conversation with Paul in my mind, we are not mad just reaching out.

Jo phoned yesterday and we chattered for about an hour on the genealogy of the various feral cats and kittens that are in the village.  She has four of the kittens in her barn which she feeds but had found a black cat unable to move and had taken it to the vet, it was put down sadly though it was carrying kittens.  Such is the life of a feral cat.   She wanted to find out if it was my kitten, but Green Eyes had been in the back garden all morning (yes she has got her feet under the table) sitting under the bird feeder waiting for a miracle, a bird to fly by her.

  

The above was written yesterday, today dawns a bit brighter than yesterday's continual rain but I was happy to see it, marigold seedlings planted and some cosmos to go in today.  

I quite like the surrealistic aspect of life at the moment, statues to fall left, right and centre.  Feel like putting in my order, the whale bones displayed on the cliff at Whitby.  Slaughtered probably in their thousands through the Victorian times, why should we display their bones?  Also calls for the Captain Cooke statue to come down in Whitby, he was instrumental in the killing of Maori folk in New Zealand. It becomes ridiculous when people don't know their history and just take on a street cause.  It is changing history, but history changes itself anyway, we have to make way for different culture views but we should also keep the history we are trying to throw away.

I did my weekly shop this morning, spacing myself at 7 o clock with the men coming in for their daily rations, and a lady (she was a bit snooty) who was shopping for nine NHS officials refreshments.

Co-op can be a bit boring as far as originality is concerned but their coffee beans are in now, only plain flower but I have some baking powder.  Parcels arrive through the door, already I need to send off for some more coffee filters.  Mark sends me books, Lebanese cook book arrived yesterday, a couple of Aldous Huxley, some fictional and others on 'how to succeed'.  Yes at this end of my life my son thinks I should be more aspirational? Also, this is the time of year when a batch of birthdays come through.  Do I have cards? a few thank goodness. When will we shop properly again I wonder.

Tuesday 9th June - The moral compass

The world and its problems dissolve around us how do we react?  When I am in doubt my mind turns to Con my first father-in-law long gone but he had a gentle presence.  What would he have done? Paul had the same quiet wisdom and I loved him dearly for that.  Was it righteousness, not sure, but it was a combination of choosing between right and wrong and then speaking out.

Con ordering two American couples out of the house in Blonay.  There they were sipping their whiskey and laughing about the bombing strikes on Vietnam, and he just stood up and asked them to leave the house, I had never met anyone put words into action - they went quietly enough, utterly astonished ;) friendships lost but respect gained.

Now we live through a whole load of moral and ethical questions, not only in our own lives but on the broader stage, we argue politics from a left and right bias.  The only optimistic note is that we learn from each other.

Treatment of our fellow human beings is being called into question, as well it should. The small act of throwing a statue into the harbour at Bristol is not really important, though Pritti Patel says it is a shocking illegal act - so be it.  We have black politicians, black newscasters and journalists, also doctors and lawyers - they are there out in the community, so some have made it through the 'glass ceiling'.  But others haven't, they live in the poorer districts, commit crime, just as others in the community, but discussion on black people is loaded against them with statistical evidence that clever dick sociology professors earn their living by

.

My son's best friend is black, they have been friends since university, Ephraim would argue the toss on any subject, occasionally we called him racist - yes it can come from the other side as well!  My son never sees different races, his friends through life have been people from different backgrounds, that is how it should be, Con would have approved.

There is a certain naivety in my writing, I can never condemn easily, but the Black Movement I see at the moment brings hope, I trust it will go somewhere. As Banksy puts it......

“People of colour are being failed by the system. The white system. Like a broken pipe flooding the apartment of the people living downstairs. The faulty system is making their life a misery, but it’s not their job to fix it. They can’t, no one will let them in the apartment upstairs."  We have to open the door. 

Bristol is a lively place, for many years I have watched the hot-air balloons rise from the city and then come over Bath Race course, a safe place to live.

  Hollow by Vanessa Kisuule

You came down easy in the end.
The righteous wrench of two ropes in a grand plié.

Briefly, you flew, corkscrewed, then met the ground
With the clang of toy guns, loose change, chains, a rain of cheers.

Standing ovation on the platform of your neck.
Punk Ballet. Act 1.
There is more to come.

And who carved you?
They took such care with that stately pose and propped chin.

Wise and virtuous, the plaque assured us.
Victors wish history odourless and static.
But history is a sneaky mistress.

Moves like smoke, Colston,
Like saliva in a hungry mouth.

This is your rightful home,
Here, in the pit of chaos with the rest of us.

Take your twisted glory and feed it to the tadpoles.
Kids will write raps to that syncopated splash.

I think of you lying in the harbour
With the horrors you hosted.
There is no poem more succinct than that.

But still you are permanent.
You who perfected the ratio.
Blood to sugar to money to bricks.

Each bougie building we flaunt haunted by bones.
Children learn and titans sing
Under the stubborn rust of your name.

But the air is gently throbbing with newness.
Can you feel it?

Colston, I can’t get the sound of you from my head.

Countless times I passed that plinth,
Its heavy threat of metal and marble.

But as you landed, a piece of you fell off, broke away,
And inside, nothing but air.

This whole time, you were hollow.

Monday 8th June

The toppling of Edward Colston's statue into Bristol's quayside has become a point in history.  Slave trader and benefactor in Bristol city, his downfall was at last achieved as he is toppled into the water.  Black people in Bristol will rejoice as this symbol of oppression is at last getting the justice he deserves - true he is only a statue but the authorities are wary of making a big song and dance about it.  Now will all the other memorials to Colston caught in naming civic buildings follow suit I wonder.  The young always bring about the revolution ;)

During Colston's involvement with the Royal African company (1680 to 1692), it is estimated that the company transported around 84,000 African men, women and children, who had been traded as slaves in West Africa, of whom 19,000 died on their journey to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. Due to the conditions on many of the vessels, the extended journeys affected the ship's crew mortality rates which were often similar and sometimes greater than the mortality rates amongst the slaves.The slaves were sold to planters for cheap labour on their tobacco, and, increasingly, sugar plantations who considered Africans would be more suited to the conditions than their own countrymen, as the climate resembled the climate of their homeland in West Africa. Enslaved Africans were also much less expensive to maintain than indentured servants or paid wage labourers from Britain.  Wiki entrance

Another house Tyntesfield also comes to mind as part of the inheritance of our country built on the labour of slaves.................

Edward Colston was part of of the 17th century slave traders but the above house, seven miles from Bristol  was built at a later date, the gorgeous Tyntesfield House, Victorian Gothic a later design.  It has had a romantic history for it fell into disrepair and was only rescued by the National Trust a few years ago but again the money used to build it was from the collection of guano (bird shit) by African and Chinese slaves.

"Tyntesfield was built on the tortured lives of African and Chinese slaves. But you would never know it from your visit. It’s time the National Trust started presenting the real stories of its premises, not a sanitised, dumbed-down, bland experience".  Interesting review on Trip Advisor. As an aside, the National Trust made a perfectly reasonable answer, the notice on slave history was in another room.

News item, notice what the police say.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/08/edward-colston-statue-history-slave-trader-bristol-protest

Miscellany on Sunday

Today is Sunday, a damp and drizzly day, a time to contemplate the world outside.  First of all as I wash up and watch the birds at the bird feeder, a greater spotted woodpecker flies in (music - she wears red feathers and a hula-hula skirt) actually he is a male feeding on the nuts.  Here comes the chaffinch, then my little feathery balls of tree sparrows, the coal tits make an appearance and so do blue tits. 

Taken from The Woodland Trust

I watched the kitten yesterday evening sleeping quietly by the honeysuckle, is she lonely I wonder, her sleepiness shows a confidence in my presence, she will often doze off as I fill her bowl with biscuits and I wonder what will happen to her in the future.

I talked to a friend over the church wall, sad news the dreaded C has invaded the person who so kindly helped me make up the single bed in the downstairs room for Paul and in which I sleep now.  He is unrecognisable she says, such things haunt the mind all day.  Gossip is not always happy, and we contemplate the new world we have arrived via the virus.

Yes music was on my mind yesterday, I thought of Bob Dylan's  - It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall but then decided it was too miserable for 'Desert Island Discs' but I love the poetic words even though they are beginning to reflect the world we live in now.  My next thought went to Leonard Cohen and 'You want it Darker', again too near  the grave to be happy.  So another favourite and a bit more cheerful  Ra-Ra Rasputin, I love music you can dance to and the words always make me laugh. As for classical, putting Mozart to one side for the moment, English music still holds its charm, Ralph Vaughan William 'The Lark Ascending' can still catch the heart. Sea music by Peter Maxwell Davies, and then there's a composer that dances at the back of my brain, high church music in a discordant tone, a bit like Davies is doing at the moment.......

I was going to take the above paragraph out but it takes me on an enticing adventure into music and will leave it, just to jog my memory. Roses are beginning to emerge, Rosa Mundi with its stripey petals, Compassion's pink blooms are beginning to unfold, and is that a Graham Thomas yellow rose or did it die last year and I have another named rose?

I note a certain grumbling about the status of George Floyd, he is a criminal they say.  Yes, maybe, but this movement has just made him a symbol of a truth that so called Anglo-Saxons have been hiding under the bed for years, we are ever so slightly racist ;) Like women had to get through the 'glass ceiling' years ago, we now have to as some one put it so beautifully yesterday  about black people.  We do not want to be on the menu anymore, we want to sit at the table.....................

Warning; Political - rubber bullets hurt

America is breaking down, when they shoot at the journalists they shoot at truth and reporting.  Politics may not figure in the things you want to know each day.  But it is serious.  A president who just shoots his mouth off has now become a dangerous force to be reckoned with.  I trust that my government will have nothing to do with him and will speak out against what is happening in the USA.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH8Zw8gjAEU

The above video is a BBC news clip, the Guardian has also something to say  Says much more than myself but that was because I was so angry this morning.  Yes protesting out on the street is a firework ready to go off, looters are not to be accepted by the law abiding.  Black people though have the unalienable rights to call for justice and equal recognition and our journalists have the right to free speech and recording of the events that happen.  End of rant..........

The final version of the Declaration of Independence declares: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Friday 5th June - rain has fallen

We're playing 8 records chosen as favourite pieces of music as featured in 'Desert Island Discs' on Going Gently blog and Radio 4 today.  I have never got to the eight I would choose, but two so far would be from my favourite classical to John Peel's favourite 'Teenage Kicks'.  John  Peel the background music from the 60s  on radio 1, I can still here his voice.  The classical is Mozart's Clarinet music, it swoops and glides with such intensity.  Perhaps Schubert's 'The Trout' as well, I love the images of sparkling water dancing in the sunlight, it reminds me of childhood and a Welsh farm and tickling for trout.

On F/B the black image has appeared again and again, a call for the racism and hate to stop.  We all pay lip service to it, that of course is not right we do not all there are some ready to hurt black people and bring them down and we have witnessed such an act recently.  Technology brings us the music I am playing at the moment but it was a phone that brought  those harrowing 8 minutes and 46 seconds a man died at the brutal treatment of a police officer.  It was noted all round the world, another nail in the coffin of the human race.  Anger is riding a wave, will things be different though amongst all the other woes of the world.  The BBC showed the memorial service on its news last night, the whole time of the act.  It gave you pause to think, to wander round the faces of those who were grieving, there was pride and anguish, as there always is when a family has to face the death of a loved one.  It should never have happened but it has sparked a wave of knowledge and sympathy and we should be glad of that.

Only a poem this morning

Joanne left this poem in comments a few days ago, (thank you) so I thought to record it here as we are in bumblebee prime time.  Naomi shihab Nye is a poet I have never come across before, so in the space of two weeks I have been introduced to two new poets, Brian Bilston is the other, I will put him up later on in the week.

A friend from long ago said on F/B that perhaps one day we would meet up at the stones. That part of my life seems to have vanished, though I will still drag up a photo or two but to be honest Yorkshire does not hold such a delightful palette of prehistoric stone circles and stones as Wiltshire.  Avebury, Stonehenge, and Stanton Drew stone circles.  Stoney Littleton, Wayland Smithy and West Kennet Barrow cannot be found round here.

Silbury Hill 

GIRLS, GIRLS

When the boys are alone,
they wash the dishes with facecloths.

When a honeybee is alone — rare, very rare —
it tastes the sweetness
it lives inside all the time.

What pollen are we gathering, anyway?
Bees take naps, too.
Maybe honeybees taste pollen side by side
pretending they’re alone.
Maybe the concept of “alone” means nothing
in a hive.

A bumblebee is not a honeybee.
It only pretends to be.

The cell phone in your pocket
buzzes against your leg.
It’s not a honeybee, though. It’s just a
mining bee, or leaf-cutter, or
carpenter.

You’re stung by messages from people far away.
You can’t make anyone well.
You can’t stop a war.
What good are you?

Bees drink from thousands of flowers,
spitting up nectar
so you may have honey
in your tea.

Maybe you don’t want to think about it
so much.
Pass the honey please.

During winter, bees lock legs
and beat wings fast to stay warm.
Fifty thousand bees can live in
a single hive.
Clover honey is most popular
and clover is a weed.
All the worker bees are female.
Why is that no surprise?

-Naomi Shihab Nye, from Honeybee

It's a sorry state of affairs

Wednesday 3rd June

Today's news.  Jeremy the snail who had a  left spiralled shell and who died three years ago, and left a family of 52 other snails.  Well it was all an accident being born with a left spiral and not a right according to a scientist today who has been studying the case of left against right..  Well join the clan Jeremy I'm left handed as well, and manage quite happily, (except for scissors).  Such frivolous news makes the day a bit less full of more dramatic things.  But suddenly in the deep recesses of my brain I remember at nursery school being made to use my right hand for drawing, it did not work.  One other thing I would ask of the snails and slugs, I know the rain today will be a welcome relief for all of you but don't climb up the bags and eat my bean plants please.  I don't use slug pellets because of all the other creatures in the garden.

It is raining, joy of joys and I must go to Bata to get animal food.  Also the 'rape' of Yorkshire beauty spots will be called to a halt, and rubbish tipping will stop.  Something is wrong, people need the great outdoors but they don't know how to look after it, perhaps self mocking signs might help ;) I could put forth the theory that the human race is stupid but then I might get lynched, but double parking down narrow lanes how did you get out early?  And how does a picnic result in tons of rubbish, okay middle class sensibilities would be seen out with a wicker basket with all the accoutrements bound down inside, with elegant food to boot but forget them.  The contents of a supermarket sprawled along the grass or on the beach really is too much, just think it out more.

End of rant.  One further point, when I walk the dog, I will pick up the empty cans and sweet packets people so kindly throw out of their car windows as they go by, but I can't do it most of the times because I need rubber gloves to pick up the stuff now and forget to take them with me.

And not forgetting the next Unwanted insect from foreign parts, on the list the murderous Asian Hornet that feasts I believe on the leg muscles of our beautiful honeybee.  If sighted, report!

Another angle

Went for a walk round the church yard, to visit Margaret Wood's grave.

Looking over the garden wall at Lucy waiting patiently at the gate

Louisa Margaret Wood July 1915 till August 2011

East end of church

decorative carving

Penny has dropped, she has seen me, after wildly waving my arms and yelling.  I know what Lucy is thinking - "mad cow

 why is she there?"

Why these photographs, well every now and then I think of  Margaret Wood, her life in the village and how it had changed over the years.  She was  brought up in this village, born and died and never married.  Her old ramshackle cottage sold to a builder, who promptly pulled it down and built two smart houses in its place. Life goes on but what we leave behind in the way of history is sad, the land on which it stood now has another three homes on it - 5 in all.

All morning the farm traffic has piled past with tractors pulling large trailers of silage, the farms have grown big over the years she lived here, when in all probability the hay was cut with scythes when she was young.

And a couple of 'stolen' photos of a lady who was very much part of  village life.

With her brother John, she was 4 years

Slightly blurry  photo of award at Buckingham Palace, I should think for selling poppies

Go to Google Earth, and you can still see the cottage hidden behind trees before it was pulled down.  The two new houses were named after the two of the trees in the garden.  She was a bit of a celebrity in the village I think, in the end she lived in a caravan in her garden and people looked after her.  Someone told me that as the cottage fell into disrepair and the roof developed a big hole, the bedroom floor collapsed under the weight of a bucketful of money.  All gone now, papers destroyed by the builder, just one life lived in one place, I wonder what she gossiped about?  She left her money to the church, no flowers on her grave to remember her though.  Grave yards can be a sad place but they are also a place where people gather their thoughts and remember their loved ones but she has no one to remember her.  Another Eleanor Rigby?  No because she lived in the quiet safety of her village.

The old Willow cottage. I can see an old beech tree which must have been replaced by a young beech tree, which has since died.

This would have been the back garden of the cottage, (jungle growth) the brick wall similar to ours. 

The brick wall has vanished now and a hawthorn hedge has replaced it, a bone of contention in the village. 

The World has changed

So where to begin, there is good and bad news as always.  George Floyd killed by a white police officer.  The injustice has sparked race riots and protest all over America.  The television is lit up by marching protesters, fires and cars overturned, with a few peaceful people trying to stop this flow of anger.  Peace be with them and perhaps one day we will look on everyone as equal.

Our country has exploded outward after lockdown has been declared partly open, the great experiment begins.

Sometimes news only lights up the bad and violent, for instance my view of Turkey has always been somewhat clouded by the anti-Turkish news not only about its president but by the need of Turkey to join Europe, the Muslim influence, as in the black presence in America.  Then Nigel Slater comes along and with courtesy and gentle manners opens up  the country that is both kind and hardworking.  Food, that essential we must think about every day is his gift, a generous manner and a willingness to praise everything so different.

So does one good thing cancel another, not quite it just rights the world into a more navigable place.  The ceanothus's blueness is alive with little bumble bees their yellow pollen sacks full, and they are indeed nesting above in the old coke house, not far too fly then.  The blue of the ceanthus highlighting the colour of the roses and the mock orange's white flower is beginning to show.

Yesterday, I made an order to Holland and Barrett for dried fruit, one thing that seems to have dried up on the shelves. I eat dried fruit in lieu of chocolate trying to keep my weight down.  But some of it is for baking into a simple tea bread.  Notice that all their expensive Manuka honey is half price but went for Australian honey, even at half price Manuka is expensive.  Is it really a magic bullet of healthiness;)