15th February 2023

Dear Pat of Weaver of Grass put the question as to how we felt about women and equality in society.  Such an enormous question, given the complexity of being female in a roughly equal division of female and male.

Sometimes women go on the attack, as they have a perfect right to given the things they experience.  What we are fighting at this present moment, is beyond pinched bottoms and wolf whistles, it is equality in the workplace, for women to sail beyond the glass ceiling and fill the CEOs chairs like their male brethren and also, there is hope and optimism here, slowly female barristers, judges, politicians are there  and maybe bringing a different point of view to the table.

 'The Times they are a changing' as Bob Dylan would sing, but it is a slow change and there will be mistakes along the way.  Women and men have very different functions in life, and it is addressing these problems women have to face, such as childcare and homemaking, so treasured from the past that adjustments have to be made.

Judging men from the really bad throwbacks that occasionally emerge is not the option, men are not the problem, but certain men are, and it is these dinosaurs of ignorance, such as the extreme right in America and of course the shameful effect of a religion on some Muslim women that we need to speak out about.  But Western culture should be very wary of telling others how to live their lives!

Still I will not ramble, only to put the following video on, it is Professor Mary Beard interviewing Rebecca Solnit on her book. = 'Recollections of my Non-Existence.'  Also the tale of the mansplaining episode.

Edit: I forgot ;) I have been ill with the dreaded lurgy, whatever it is, in my case a bad cough and cold.  But.......also my ear, there I was standing in Boots the chemist waiting to pick up my daughter's prescription, and the sound just changed to an echoing sound of  a strange noise.  It has got better, though still somewhat deaf in that ear.  Went round saying I had middle ear infection, though truthfully I don't know what that is.  Doctor appointments are almost impossible round here, so should it not get better I will see the pharmacist.  

It perhaps tells you just how bad the NHS is here by the size of the building built a few years back, but now with hardly any doctors in now.

Todmorden medical centre.

2) Now here is a mystery? Banksy is supposed to have painted this as a Valentine, but the council have stepped in real quick and removed the freezer and chair. Was the council ashamed of leaving litter down the alleyway for weeks or did they not understand the significance of the graffiti.

Banksy in Margate

Coffee

Coffee;  A dark ambrosia of joy.  Each morning, I make coffee , it is a ritual.  The rite is for both Paul and me, first the coffee beans tumbling into the coffee grinder, till they become granular, and then the sweeping of this into the filter, hot water and the slowly dribble of the water through the filter.  My coffee pot is a royal blue, the old one which I used with Paul was red but it had an accident. Then I take my Derby coffee mug, a beautiful turquoise with a light gold band on the edge.  Turquoise is my favourite colour, matched with pink, for some unfathomable reason.

I was reminded of this by reading "Beyond the Fields we Know" blog, she had woken up with a migraine and had made herself a thick expresso to knock the headache out.

It reminded me years ago of a Turkish student I had had from the language school, Turkish coffee is something else.  He would make it in some tiny cups for us, he was a lovely gentle giant of a man.  Studying textiles at Manchester university later on.  He bought the coffee cups and a tiny jug to top up the cups back from Turkey.  He once wanted to have a go on my spinning wheel, but without any one in the room watching - chuckle.  

His sister would phone him up, and as I answered the phone she would greet me with 'goodbye', I explained several times that you said 'hello' when greeting someone on the phone but it was so funny at the time.

I had many students to look after, some were easy, others more difficult, creating a lot of stress.  Some from rich parents had been tipped out of English boarding schools straight into language school before going on to university.  Young men who had little knowledge of looking after themselves.  Other were older, doctors or teachers.  I still have photos of some, the Japanese man who wanted to live in Bath, the Swiss who stayed on for a couple of weeks more and constructed a zip line for lego creatures down from the top attic to the garden, me worried sick that my son would fall out of the window.  

Davor who was always near tears if things weren't as he wanted (the school sent me the most difficult students).  I remember that first day he arrived, taking him for a walk up on the downs and he rather truculently saying his previous host family had taken him up there also.  The stirring and then sipping his tea from a spoon, and his face contemplating that little bit of fat rind round his pork chop, apparently his mother always took it off for him (he was 27). 

A phone call from the school would alert me that he was on the way home upset by something.  The funniest moment when he came home one day and I found him in his bedroom weeping into a towel whilst a three old Tom jumping on the bed singing to him 'poor, poor Davos'  Now I suppose today his emotional upset would have triggered a whole host of response from experts but in those olden days we just got on with coping.

Coffee has led me down a memory lane, back to a garden I loved dearly and incidents that still bring a smile.

10th February 2023

 I have been knitting whilst listening to Ellie Griffiths - The Last Remains.  My soup has been simmering on the Aga, and my daughter doing a zoom business meeting and it is now 10.30.  Lillie is at college, Andrew apparently just getting on the train from a company meeting, all this can be tracked on a phone.

Hopefully Ellie Griffiths will grow tired of her characters, as I am slightly, and find another set, though to be honest I believe she already has.  Authors under my belt last month, Anne Cleese and Peter May.

Tomorrow, family get together, Ellie and Tom to celebrate his birthday but no Ben and Matilda just Andrew, who has become family as well.

I have had this cough/cold thingy but seem to be getting better and will go over to the chemist later on to get my blood pressure pills, the only ones I take.  All week I have used my bp machine to check, as the doctor has asked could I go in for medicine check up.  I refused statins last time, I really don't wont to start taking loads of pills and my cholesterol is only a little high.  End of medical report - chuckle.

Why I go down that particular path is because I was watching a YT video of long-life in Japan - The Oldest People in the world - I will put the video down below if anyone is interested.  What is interesting is the fact that they are healthy in their old age and don't think about death, they visualise a future for themselves.  It looks a good life but then one could argue the programme makers have only chosen the best subjects.

Still on the Island of Okinawa, many people live to a hundred, in a fairly healthy state. They encompass a thinking of "Ikigai" a unique sense of purpose.  Not sure I would like to live to such an old age, in this country we always talk about the care system for the old, but what if we changed the thinking and thought about living through old age healthily?

08th February 2023 - Earthquakes

 As small children are pulled from the rubble of the earthquakes in both Turkey and Syria remember that this tragedy as it unfolds will bring enormous sorrow into the lives of these families. It will be a continuing tragedy.  The Red Cross, The Red Crescent and the White Helmets are there alongside skilled rescue parties from many countries in this world who are flying in.  Infrastructure such as roads and airports have been damaged, helicopters will obviously be the best way to fly supplies to stricken areas.

One NGO from Norway, said 'we do not count the dead till the end' it is indeed a useless exercise for numbers will not help.  One image I find haunting, and I will not even go when small children are pulled out alive, was the large group of people standing on a large hill of rubble surrounded by gaping buildings that had shed their interiors of furniture. Spewed the lives out of the people who had once lived there.

So what can we do? money I think is the best answer, Ukraine was one of the first countries to offer help, but as always we need the experts to tell us what is needed. And sadly more refugee camps are on the horizon.

Doctor's Without Borders 

UNICEF 

Syrian American Medical Society

Turkish Red Crescent

The Red Cross

5th February 2023

When looking at my stats this morning I noticed that there were several blogs that were still looked at from years ago.  One was on a visit to London, probably to the British Museum and we had had lunch in a Japanese restaurant, so in good Tasker fashion I will link it here.  The other blog that was listed was about Lastingham Church.  What I think was most remarkable was that I found St.Cedd at Chelmsford Cathedral, here in Lastingham and down by the sea in Essex at St. Peter on the Wall still in its Romans vestments.

Always I write of things that catch my interest, places we had visited. If I follow the link in Lastingham Church, I was writing about 'there be dragons somewhere else, I think these dragons belonged on the font at Avebury and were eating a bishop. Don't worry I am sure he overcame them!

Each day my mind chews over what I have learnt in the day.  Yesterday having found out about Elmet (600 hides of land) between Mercia and Leeds I happened on a couple of documentaries about poverty.  Firstly in America, and then in Europe/Germany.  I also came across Guy Standing explaining as to where we are at in the moment.

I was going to title this blog with "Has everyone turned into a Rachman?" but thought that might be too controversial.  The words I had come across was Rentier Capitalists, this is the regime we are living under now.  All those strikes on the street point to the fact that wages are being pushed down deliberately.  Government is no longer there to look after the population but to line the pockets of those already rich.  That may be a naïve way of looking at it, but it has always seemed to me that large pensions, dividends and second homes cannot actually create a manufacturing background.   God knows what our grandchildren will inherit.  Amen

Edit;  The News statesman came up with a little podcast from Will Dunn - The end of the Ponzi  Scheme on my news last night.

The clock ticks, the page is printed

The name Mytholmroyd means 'a clearing for settlement, where two rivers meet' and is likely to come from the Old English (ge)mthum for 'river mouth' and rodu meaning 'field' or 'clearing'.

Somewhere amongst my books I have Ted Hughes book of poems called 'The Remains of Elmet'.  I have still to find it, but I was reminded of him yesterday when I read a bit of news about a statue being erected in Mytholmroyd of two foxes and a milk churn in honour of his poem 'Milk Churn Joan'.  A lass of folklore myth that was I believe devoured by foxes high on the moors and there is, supposedly a stone commemorating it.  

Hughes widow does not like the idea, the town are in a sense erecting the statue to gain more tourist status.  Apparently Hughes only lived in the town for the first eight years of his life, at 1, Aspinall Street.  You can even stay there as it is a holiday cottage but more 50/60s style.

The book has dark depressing photographs by Fay Godwin, exactly capturing the bleakness of the North.  The artistic interpretation of 'The North' leaves one overawed but at the same time under impressed, and one longs for the chalk downs of Wiltshire or the Cotswold Way.  

You can imagine Hughes curve of mind as he tramped the moors, he is a miserable old bastard at times, what with his hunting and melancholia.  But perhaps that is what we need to leaven the false hope of optimism that occasionally takes a swerving route through the mind.

 

The heading is of course from 'Thought Fox', listening to Hughes recite it and I am with him crossing the dark space not only of the woods but the mind as well.

The kingdom of Elmet intrigues me, one of those small countries that nestled once inside greater Britain, it doesn't exist anymore but a fleeting reference in the history books.

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox,
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

 

3rd February 2023

 Well that was news this morning. Two of the three henges of Thornborough Henges has been handed over to the nation by the two firms that own them. The third henge is in private hands and is not in danger of development.  You may not have heard of the henges, three large bank and ditch henges running in an almost parallel course across the Yorkshire countryside.  Funnily enough they are resident in Rishi Sunak constitution of Ripon, though I hardly think he lives there. But perhaps he can gain from a little of the appreciation of handing back something to the country, after all we sold most everything off!

There was once an intention  of quarrying on the land and an enormous battle ensued, peaceful of course, so English Heritage must be jumping for joy that this 'ritual' site has been saved.

Slowly but surely we reclaim our past prehistory and learn to respect those that have gone before.  It just makes me happy.

An archaeological survey which gives more information about the site.

Imbolc Day - 1st February 2023

Saint Ffraid, bless us on our journey.

Today it  is Imbolc day, St Brigid's Day or even Candlemas Day.  When we turn from the cold 31 days of January  in the hope that the next three months as we turn towards the light and spring will get warmer.

Its Celtic roots lie in Imbolc, to the lactation of ewes.  But although St. Brigid is an Irish saint she is also remembered in Wales.

She is Ffraid, (c.450-c525) Brigid, Bridget, Bride, Mary of the Gaels and is the patron of poets, blacksmiths, brewers, cooking and kitchens, and healers.  A good all rounder of a saint, and with us on a daily basis in the kitchen!

I always knew her from St. Bride's Bay in Pembrokeshire and would often imagine the Irish 'saints' sailing over the Irish sea to teach the heathen Welsh.  Often when you wander along the coast you will also find cromlechs hidden on the cliffs.  They took my fancy as Irish people buried in sight of their homeland across the sea.

There are a large number of dedications to Ffraid in Wales, her cult was popular and seemed to have spread to many corners of Britain.  T.D.Breverton quotes Giraldus Cambrensis the story of the 'fire of Brigid'.  "That a perpetual fire was kept burning at Kildare,.  It was surrounded by a circle of shrubs and no man allowed to approach it'

So the pagan Celtic fire lit on the night of the 1st February slowly evolved into the Christian Candlemas.

Bishop Cormac, in the 9th century, described Ffraid as a "goddess that the bards worshipped, for very great and noble was her perfection, her sister were Brigid, the woman of healing, and Brigid, the smith woman".

Breverton goes on to say that later on Ffraid was associated with the cattle cult and horned cattle and of course sheep eaten at her feasts.

Talking of fires, the Romans kept a perpetual fire going at the temple in Bath, the coal came from Camerton, strange how things fall down through history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6W2UfdNbQ0

30th January 2023

Well I missed the news yesterday but really have nothing to say on the sacking of a person ready to perjure himself on non-existent tax paying.

That was the first sentence of this morning, then a migraine set in.  I hadn't had one for a very long time, and it settled with its usual wearisome headache, forcing my eyes shut.  I do think that as you get older you should be spared migraines, but not so it seems.  Well it is retreating as I said it would around three, think it has something to do with the universe, but I may be wrong!

Yesterday we went a walk, up to the ridge line of the woods, and I learnt sadly, that I am at last beginning to battle against my age.  Hills I can cope at a gentle walk, but the steps of various heights was more than I could tackle.  Andrew, who is a complete gentleman, gave me his arm up the steps and a gentle push now and then, but it was a bit of a shock to my pride.

But though I did not see many birds, I saw the biggest, a solitary heron under the bridge.  Apparently he/she has been living there for a few years and is used to people crossing the bridge and looking down on him.  Such extraordinary creatures, thin and ragged.

It was a mizzly day

Coming to acceptance of my age (79) has been hard, but I am still fairly healthy, probably due to being hardworking when younger.  Walking on the flat is probably the best for me now but I am lucky that I did a lot of travelling and seeing the countryside I love so much, so no regrets.

This blog here -Intake shows the countryside round here, and if you want to skip the writing do, but you will lose a lyrical hymn of Paul Knight's excellent recording of the landscape round Hebden Bridge.  He journeys with his young son over the moors and through the woods down onto the school run. 

There is a strong difference between the narrow valleys and the large open moors with their farms dotted around.  There are quite a few ruined farms that stand alone on the moors, and it seems that once 'Happy Valleys' is finished they may show 'Gallows Pole' of the life round here when once a man declared himself King of the area in the 17th century, should be interesting though it has a horrible bit in which I shall not want to watch.  Here is a short history on the 'coin clippers'

'King Hartley'

 

'Have a lovely day'

 'Have a lovely day' is something my daughter always says as she goes out of the door in the morning.  I pondered on it this morning, some food shopping, knitting and spinning and cooking a meal tonight.  Then I came across the following poem by Mary Oliver this morning.

Well the bees are not out in the garden yet, but quietness is a healing balm to the soul.  I come across Mary Oliver poems  a lot, she must be flavour of the month.

A new book by Peter May - A Winter Grave appears in my email, should I should I not spend some money on Audible to get it?  Yesterday I found 'Vera' on ITV and watched a two hour episode whilst I spun.

Enough entertainment to fill up the day already, so I must get dressed and start!

Edit; It is Burn's night today, how do I know? Because our organic food shop is doing a vegan haggis but can there be such a thing as a vegan haggis? Also someone is murdering  'Green Grows the Rushes' on the radio!

Edit: I just could not resist this photo, which will be briefly shown as I have pinched it.  In China it is the year of the rabbit, but what about a rabbit dressed up for Burns night.  And to top it all I got my calendar fr this morning from Ireland, in the Irish language! 

Green Men and Goddesses

The Green Man at Kilpeck Church

At the moment I am listening to the book called 'Queens of The Wild' by Ronald Hutton.  In it he argues the case that there has not really been a female pagan goddess through the Christian Medieval period.  You know those questions that slip unbidden to the top of your mind.  Was there really an Earth goddess transformed from the prehistoric age to run alongside the Christian medieval framing of sculptures, well that argument has been going on for the last 200 years.

Through Fraser's 'Golden Bough' book to Margaret Murray, folklorist, archaeologist and believer in a witch cult.  Or perhaps even Marijas Gumbita on her Gods and Goddesses.  They follow a pattern that probably led from the past Victoria age when there was a great revival of folklore history in the country, and there were attempted reconstructions of facts that did not exist.

But Professor Ronald Hutton allowed one male into his book and quietly smudged the legends around him.  That is the 'Green Man', an effigy you will find in some churches with writhing foliate coming from his mouth and around his head.  Hutton sees him as decorative, a fluid piece of art, grasped from somewhere, maybe from Indian culture.

Author unknown

There is a Medieval book called the 'Bestiary' showing animals both real and made up, morality storytelling being their function.  The congregation of most Medieval churches were not literate, why not surround them with carvings and images of visually frightening sculptures and art work so as to bring them to heel.

Professor Hutton ends up with a simple message about belief, don't look backward for your belief/spiritual system but forward and create your own.

Environmentalism has experienced a new revolution because of Climate Change, and yes people I believe it is happening, so no arguments there please. But  it has made us look at the natural world around us, Lovelock's Gaia theory took hold at one time, seeing the Earth as female, people hug trees in the hope that the life of a tree will bring them comfort, as does walking in nature of course.

But don't go off the edge of sanity, as this video of females, who stayed but a short while at Hebden Bridge, before moving off To Donegal, and created a cult of simplicity.  Now I shall go and try and find them to see what happened along the way - chuckle.  Thanks to my daughter for this reference, who always says Hebden Bridge is full of old hippies.

 

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/06/review-queens-of-wild-by-ronald-hutton.html

Edit;  Well they lasted 10 years and evolved into play-acting Victorians.  History is a delightful humdrum affair!

Bright Daffodils

 

Daffodils;  They come this time of year in small bunches of tightly sealed buds, and I always say Cornish daffodils and think of the daffodil fields that slope down to the sea in Cornwall.  First name to mind is Derek Tangye and his Minack Chronicles.  That little ramshackle cottage with the cats and donkeys.  There was a time when life was much simpler and Derek and his wife Jeannie took off from London and lived their self-sufficient life.  

So I always welcome the daffodil for the first flower of the year, its unfurling in a vase and bright yellow colour.  You can keep all those other brightly coloured flowers of the supermarket, the daffodil brings hope of Spring.

The reason I snapped this picture, was the 'gurgling' water jug who look like he wants to snap a flower off.  By the jugs side is honey from Cadiz, brought back a couple of weeks ago, and behind you see the Aga in all its splendid warmth.  

Actually it is being kept low, as it is a great guzzler of gas, but we can toast on the hotplates and will probably use the slow oven for casseroles leaving them in all day.

Below is something I grabbed from Rebecca Solnit's book - ''The Mother of all Questions''  Being hopeful is the only thing we have to hold onto in this world, apart from making the changes needed.

My partner likes to quote a line of Michel Foucault: “People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” You do what you can. What you’ve done may do more than you can imagine for generations to come. You plant a seed and a tree grows from it; will there be fruit, shade, habitat for birds, more seeds, a forest, wood to build a cradle or a house? You don’t know. A tree can live much longer than you. So will an idea, and sometimes the changes that result from accepting that new idea about what is true, right, just remake the world. You do what you can do; you do your best; what what you do does is not up to you.

The Mother of all questions - Rebecca Solnit

19th January 2022

I have deleted some of the things I wrote yesterday, everything changes so quickly nowadays. So to families, our royal one has everyone debating the 'book'.  Jeremy Clarkson has been sacked from Amazon for his wretched misogynist comments on Meghan.  So his hopes of generating money from his farm and restaurant, may have just gone up the creek but I am sure he will be back in some other disguise.

I think Tina Brown's article in the Observer clearly lays out for once and all the nonsense of the wretched publication of 'Spare' here.  Her sharply worded article is good.  I mean why is everyone so predicated on an idiot Prince who should have just kept quiet, well there is one thing predictable an idiot public have bought the book and registered the cash till in Harry's bank.

So who is the other family, that is the Marten family, aristocrats who have lost their daughter Constance along the last eight years, a family fallout, or the fact that she has just had a baby, presumably by the man who is accompanying her, Mark Gordon, a man who has been in prison in America for 20 years for raping a woman when he was 14 years old.  Should his 'sin' haunt him for the rest of his life? also he is black, which doesn't help.

Constance's father made a heartfelt appeal to his daughter, it is really the families business, why are there 200 police people dedicated to the search I wonder? All I do know it is click bait and you can bet your bottom dollar in a couple of years it will make a nice fictional story on some TV channel.

I will leave this last paragraph in, just as important but doesn't have all the salacious force of the above.

What was more important news is the effect the Taliban are having in Afghanistan, people need aid as always, the girls banned from education. This downgrading of females to a secondary role is the most horrific act, misogyny does not describe it.  A senseless religious cult dictates the dominance of women by men. 

16th January 2023 - Nettleton Shrub and lectures

 All is doom and gloom in the news and in some blogs.  War rages on one side, economic gloom on the other and it is winter.  The weather is cold here starting at 2 degrees this morning and travelling downward during the day. But the Aga man is coming at 9 to put the new 'whatever' into our white elephant to make it work.  We are in a situation at the moment, when, there is plenty of credit in the energy bill and a fixed contract, so the Aga can be allowed a few days of work!

Yesterday I listened to Ronald Hutton on 'Paganism in Roman Britain' a subject close to my heart, especially on the subject of Bath and to learn that his favourite place was the temple at Nettleton Shrub.  It brought back memories of walking with Moss in the quiet sanctuary of the valley, following the river and rejoicing in the protected wild plants.

There is also a lecture of 'Gods of Prehistoric Britain.  Professor Hutton is a gentle humorous man who knows his subject well so the lectures were pleasing and informative.  I had seen him in Avebury when the pagans met for ceremony, wandering amongst them with a quiet smile on his lips.  I note on Audible that his latest book 'Witches' has been recorded, though nothing could beat his 'Mistletoe and Blood'.  He has that logical frame of reasoning mind that says we don't know anything of what it is like in past history, we can only surmise and quantify from the facts - how it may have been.

Also learning as I tried to knit a mitten that my industrious knitting nature is coming under the threat of not being able to see properly what I am doing. I solved the problem of trying to knit with four needles at once for  knitting in a circle by scraping that plan and knitting in the straight and then sewing up.

Nails of Gold, or Kingcups

The Roman Temple of Nettleton Shrub

Gathering a story - The Pointed Stone in the Icy Nook

Collecting stories is a hobby of mine.  This one years ago conjured up many an idea.  This strangely bowed prehistoric stone caught up in the outside wall of the porch of Corwen church, just begs the story of 'the hag turned into stone'  It has early Celtic dedication of two saints Mael and Sulien.  

Breverton books on Welsh Saints is a revelation on Welsh history, just checking his reading list, and I can only use one word 'voluminous'! Such dedication to his subject.

So I have collected the information as I find it.  Stories are just that, some would argue that many folklore stories came in the nineteenth century and were made up, but many stories about the saints (usually male) were carefully scribed in monastic houses, giving family detail and often the saints were related to the royalty of the many subdivisions of Welsh tribal Celtic areas.

I always think in English terms also of the bickering and war that went on as various lords strove for dominance, nothing much has changed in that respect.

The church at Corwen was dedicated to the saints Mael and Sulien from the 6th century according to my book by Breverton. A quote...

Sulien ap Hywel ab Emyr Llydaw settled at Bardsey with his cousin Cadfan.  Julien shares a joint dedication with Saint Mael at Corwen parish church (formerly known as Llansilien) Llandrillo near Corwen and at Cym near the coast of Northern Flintshire.  There was a Ffynnon Sulien a mile away from Corwen church, and the water used for its baptisms."

Isn't the Welsh language complicated especially to a novice like me, but it is still taught and used in Wales, and long may it be. I came across the first reference to the stone in Google's books, mentioning a book I had  sometime ago by Elizabeth Rees - Landscape of Celtic Saints.

 We fall in love with the romantic past, of course it is embellished along the way till the true tale becomes lost.  The need for the patriach societies we have lived through to honour a man, produces a sense of a superman apart from humanity.  A monk becomes a saint and is lauded for his piety but it is just a part of a thin sliver of a need to gain control over the population - to have one's religion foremost.

Ref: Elizabeth Rees - Celtic Saints in their Landscapes

       T.D.Breverton - The Book of Welsh Saints

       And then there is always Rhiannon, and her folklore on TMA

       https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/4914/carreg_y_big_yn_y_fach_rhewllyd.html

 

13th and a Friday - be careful

But now 'tis Winter, child,

And bitter north winds blow,

The ways are wet and wild,

The land is laid in snow.

Taken from Robert Bridges - The Idle Flowers

Almost getting lazy, though each day I do virtual jigsaws and Wordle of course.  I have listened to Peter May' s 'Lewis' trilogy as I spin.  Must not listen to any more of his books, because I know the way his plotlines work.

It's wilderness charm of bleak crofts and Machair grass is beginning to wear off and the last book in the trilogy was a rather bleak look at the romantic life of the protagonist which got rather boring.  Sometimes one wonders whether the author's personal narrative wandered into the fiction.

 

The Ruralists 1976ish

I see I have 'The Brotherhood of Ruralists' noted for a blog.  I have written here of them some years ago.  They lived and worked in Wellow, well I can't think they all lived in the old redundant Station House.  But Wellow is a pretty village, buried somewhat in the countryside a few miles outside of Bath.

I think my question at the time was why did they not paint the marvellous Neolithic long barrow called Stoney Littleton, not the outside, for that is just a rather  lump on the surface but inside with its beautiful stones, some impregnated with fossils.  Outside of course the great fossil at the entrance.  What did those fossils signify I wonder?

I welcomed the wild flowers that grew on this grassy barrow, marooned amongst fields of 'weedless' wheat, and the tranquility of the open countryside down an old farm track that had once linked two villages together.

Odd fragments of history captured everywhere, in the village an old manor house and newish church, outside the village a prehistoric tomb, faced on the other side of the valley by a Roman villa, each noted in its own right.

Garden paintings  Finding the modern British garden in interwar paintings. 

9th January 2022

Byland Abbey

Many years ago I did an archaeology diploma, I decided to study Wiltshire Abbeys and fell in love with a Victorian gentleman called Harold Brakespear, an architect and archaeologist.  They are such a delight these hardworking nineteenth century people.  No radio, no television, they must have worked diligently writing away at their desks.

I lived in Calne, and just along the road was Stanley Abbey remains, though I never went there.  There was the beautiful Lacock Abbey as well, not forgetting Malmesbury and Bradenstoke.

They are part of a lost landscape, Henry Vlll sold them out to the rich entrepreneurs around his court.   These magnificent buildings were taken apart, and maybe used for building fine houses, or robbed slowly over time to build the small cottages in the area.

Should have Henry done this, it was of course because of his selfish needs to get rid of the Catholic church and a divorce, as he had failed miserably in producing an heir.  But suddenly he drew a curtain over a way of life that was self-sufficient and religious.

Here in Yorkshire there are magnificent ruined Cistercian abbeys, in North Yorkshire we visited Byland (see here) and Rievaulx abbeys.  This summer we went to Bolton Abbey, though I had visited before with my young son and watched him play in the river that ran alongside.

At Castle Acre Priory whilst working there, I would often sit by the dried out channel of the canal, wondering about the boats that had sailed up there with the supplies for the priory.  Stories abound in these places, the round brewery, whose foundations I drew, remind us that people did not drink water but made beer.  If you were to go to Bylands Abbey now, you would see all the necessary workshops, the great kitchens which served the monks, always reminds me of Gormenghast's kitchen with Swelter in charge.   

There was of course two classes of monks, the lay monk who worked out on the granges, harvesting the food, and the 'proper' religious monks who saw to the writing of books and worship.  Also of course, the Infirmary, where the sick would come to be healed.

One of the most 'magical' abbeys is of course Rievaulx, (see here) hidden in a wooded area, you drive down the hill to see the buildings framed at the bottom by the hills.

Rievaulx Abbey

https://archive.org/stream/brakspear-1923-archaeologia-73-24486/Brakspear%201923%20Archaeologia%2073%2024486_djvu.txt

6th January 2022

Nothing to say, busy spinning. Thinking of colour and summer weather and not dank dark days.  So Collin Blanchard's hare amongst the primroses, the deep dark colour of a mallow that always used to thrill me.  The stripey Rosa Mundi and the brash colour of an Essex house in Terling.

So here is a blog about wolves and January....

January - Wolf Monet

Maidens and Mother-of-All

 

taken from here

Not what you think, this is about spinning wheels.  Yesterday the tensions on my Ashford spinning wheel went haywire and it took me over an hour to find the problem, but I did and now it is flying along smoothly.  Mine is a simpler version, and when it arrived was put together by Andrew with the help of Karen, after our disastrous getting a piece stuck in the drive wheel hub.  Thanks to Todmorden Makery it was solved.

You may wonder why do I spin  wool, the answer is I am not sure but wool keeps you warm it takes you back to what I call 'slowness' and it reminds you of all the processes it goes through from sheep to jumper.

What happened yesterday was the tensioning went haywire, and I tracked it down to a little cup hoop where the nylon wire kept jumping off.  The whole point of spinning is the interaction between the big wheel and the bobbin on the flyer wheel.  To spin the fibre, you draft it through your fingers, in I think the 'Z' mode and when you ply you reverse the action into the 'S'.  

My spinning wools are confined to soft natural coloured wools such as Blue faced Leicester sheep, if I want to dye, then the white Merino is what I choose.  I had found some Tussah silk.  Beautifully soft it is slightly inferior to the super white silk being a pleasing creamy colour.  As you can imagine it slips through the fingers like silk and I intend to leave it in its one ply mode and at some stage probably dye it to accompany some other wool.  This seems to be the rage at the moment knitting with two strands of different wool for softness.

Real wool is expensive, try Rowan's for a pattern and their gorgeous wools and it will tot up into a hundred quid but hand craft is something people enjoy.  Note I say people for men enjoy knitting as well.

As you can see from the illustration spinning wheels are quite complicated, they require balance and tension to work properly.  I sit at the window watching the world go by as I spin.

Caught up in the web: an article by A.S.Byatt

Don't rain on my parade!

 Happy New Year Everyone

Could not resist him, Thor the Walrus has landed in Scarborough and stopped the firework display in case it frightened him, though I think he may have left by now after a nap on the causeway. His trip round England is going fine, he has one message, though he hasn't been to Todmorden yet but that is Be Kind in the New Year.