5th January 2024

 I am reading a book at the moment. Horatio Clare's - Running for the Hills.  It tells a simple tale of how his parents bought a farm in South Wales in the 1970s.  The story rests on his memories from childhood and his mother's diaries.  A pretty young journalist, she falls in love with this 70 odd acres of land with a farmhouse set below the mountain and sheep to tend.  

The marriage soon breaks up, the father goes back to London to work as a journalist and the mother decides to stay on the farm and raise the two boys Alexander and Horatio.  Yes a name to think on, but she did tell them tales of daring-do, so perhaps she is forgiven by her children for giving them unusual names.

The flight back to a sustainable life: Yes, we have all done it and I am rather glad that I did not end up on a Welsh farm, hauling bloodied lambs from their mother's backside. But his mother was made of sturdier stuff and manages to run the farm with occasional help from the people around.

The boys had an idyllic upbringing in the countryside, though some things are made of nightmares.  Predation on the sheep by foxes or crows, the 'fly-strike maggots' are just a couple of things to deal with.  No television or radio (because the mountain behind the farmhouse cut out signal) is perhaps a good thing for expanding one's thinking from the daily routine of news.

I am still reading the book but have also acquired another book of his called 'Heavy Light' The blurb says this of him....

"After a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act, from hypomania in the alps, to a complete breakdown and a locked ward in Wakefield, this is a gripping account of how the mind loses touch with reality, how we fall apart and how we may heal"

Apparently Clare now lives in Hebden Bridge with his family, he has worked for the BBC, and has had a radio programme on Radio 3 about walking through Greenland which I must find.  Thanks to Sara of Sussex for mentioning him.  Another rabbit hole to be explored.

For Tom Stephenson:  Don't know if you would be interested but this came in my email this morning.  A long but fascinating article by Mike Williams on 'John Wood's Moon Temple' on the Lansdown, he seems to work for Bathscape.  

Sayings

“In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself." - Arthur Schopenhaur 

I like solitude, though as a person I am supposed to crave human companionship but though I enjoy having people around me those moments of being alone with soft music playing on the radio brings peace and quiet.  It is like listening to the blackbird at the moment, chattering his heart out and greeting the day.

That is why I like the above quotation, we are blessed with active minds, some might say overactive but it is like carrying an enormous book in one's head.  The older one grows* there is more accumulated, so that brief pictures pass through the mind, and luckily they are happy memories mostly. 

Today Sutton Bank, overlooking the Gormire Pool.  Where once a monk turned into the devil and sent a young man and his horse over the cliff edge to the pool below. 

Gormire Lake from Sutton Bank - copyright Michael Hutchinson Geo.

On this particular journey of the mind, I asked the question did William Wordsworth write about solitude, for he and his sister Dorothy walked this area from Thirsk, through Helmsley, Kirbymoorside and other places, when they were on their way to his sister's friend Mary and the marriage between Mary and William. Interesting information can be found here on Dorothy's diary keeping.

Then there is the following poem by Margaret Atwood.  Clear in its simplicity, yet laughing gently at the fact of getting old and the young not knowing what a 'polaroid' photo was.  Those of us who had one bitterly regret the fading of these photos but does it really matter?

*As for age, next week I turn a decade, 80 years old to be precise.  In fairly good health with my family around me, who reckon I should live to a 100 - God forbid!

Margaret Atwood reading  her poem 'Dearly'

1st January 2024 - Grandpa's book

 I 'disappeared' my blog last night.  Why? well I seemed to have had an awful lot of visitors the last few days and I wondered if they were bots. Bad ones of course, sometime I imagine there are a villainous group of people out there, stalking my profile and trying to investigate my world.

Well it worked.  This morning there was just one visit not the couple of thousand before.  Sorry to all those genuine readers of blogs, I am not sure why anyone reads my blog, it is purely my own thoughts on subjects.

So we are now in the New Year, clean and pure for the first few hours, then realisation of the suffering in the world breaks through, should we be guilty of our good lives I wonder?

Lillie is down with the flu, and I hope my daughter will make it to Paris this week without having caught it.  The Euro channel flooding won't help, and as there are about 30,000 people stranded by the first mishap, all later people waiting to get on planes and through the tunnel will also be delayed.

Flu at this time of the year is common, I can remember going to Switzerland one Xmas and the whole family had it and we all stayed in our separate bedrooms being ill, including the Canadian side.

One of the things I must record down is that grandpa's book has been written down on the internet.  We have all had copies but it was never published.  It was only the sad event of Hob's illness when his children came over to be by his bedside that his son worked on it and put it on the web.  So the link is here -  New Lamps for Old - C. J. Opper.

He was an Education Officer in Africa in the writing of this book, and it of course written in the style of the 1930s but fascinating.  A small nugget.

"Nelson Mandela was rusticated for a time to the Farms school for some unremembered misdemeanour, and during that period, the school glowed with his vitality and became a nest of songsters."

It is so much easier to read it when you can just thumb through the pages.

So though I may moan about bots, there is a lot going for the technological age we are living through at the moment. I think politically change will take place in this year it seems in this country that people are taking matters into their own hands. Will Hutton wrote a good article in the Guardian about the absolute foolishness of building an economy on the wealth of our homes and pensions. Apparently similar is happening in Australia, where young people cannot afford not only to buy a house but even to rent because of house prices. Oh dear aren't we experiencing the same?

Conrad Opper and his granddaughter Karen

Hope:  Nelson Mandela taught me this: hope survives wherever people come together | Gordon Brown | The Guardiane

Life is good for Baby boomers

31st December 2023 - Good bye to the year

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙤𝙦𝙞𝙣𝙜’𝙨 𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙚𝙨.

Soon we will enter a new year with the world in a turmoil.  Listening to the religious radio this morning and the emphasis is on hope.  Never give up for a better world, something I agree with.  Less of me more of us is I think the mantra. Such words as compassion and kindness to each other.

Well the skies have really opened up, the continuous drizzle of rain, whether it is heavy or light greets the opening of the door each morning.  But yesterday I came face to face with a little wren on the fence, we were both astonished by the meeting, I left the bread on the windowsill for him, though I know the little wren would much prefer some tiny insect.  Also every morning I hear a small single dawn chorus from what I think is a blackbird.  Innocence has hope.

“Gʀᴇᴇɴ Cʀᴀɴᴇ ᴀɴᴅ Wɪsᴛᴇʀɪᴀ”

Kᴏɴᴏ Bᴀɪʀᴇɪ

The Aga man made an unexpected call yesterday, we are so grateful to him, it was dust in the ignition light.  Apparently gas has dust in it. So now we have warmth in the kitchen and the simple pleasure of cooking on a stove that is somewhat rigid in its temperature controls.  

It reminded me of something that has been bothering my mind for a few days, 'magic dust and polar bears' I just couldn't remember the author, then like a streak of lightening it came - Phillip Pullman and His Dark Materials.  A story line that never quite made it to famous but I always loved the idea of companion soul animals.

So I wish everyone a Good New Year, may some of the strife that is happening at the moment be ended in a peaceful manner.

Tanigami Konan, Peonies

Art is one of the better things of mankind, we strive to create beauty, whether in painting, writing or music, we are blessed with such skills around us.

29th December 2023 - miscellany

A present from Andrew - A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - J.R. Clark, is a big book to dip into but fascination with words is my downfall.  I love the look of Saxon language, okay they were interlopers, filling the space the Romans left behind, but I think they brought with them some sort of order.  Their rule laid the foundations of some of our laws, twelve good jury men?

I have collected their poetry, though I think of it as a narrative ballad.  'The Ruin' which is supposed to be about Bath and how it had slipped into decay after the Romans left.  'The  Seafarer' and 'The Lament of Deor' Bleak and powerful is the only way to describe these poems. Also, the Maldon Battle which I wrote about here.

Weird = wyrd = fate, chance, fortune, phenomenon.  

Wyrde = speech, conversation, ordinance

Woruld = World = age, men, humanity, way of life, long period time, cycle, eternity.

There are many words that begin with world such as Woruldfreond = friend in this world.  In actual fact there is a conceptual element to the language in putting the words together.  Perhaps worulddyrmou = earthly wretchedness, speaks of our present time.

I am Wergian (tired) but on looking for Werg, a village near Marlsborough on the route of the River Kennett I see that it is but a stem for wergild = compensation, value of a man's life.

The following verse from 'The Ruin' is a translation for we will never understand how language is used in its lifetime. 

 Curious is this stonework! The Fates destroyed it;
 The torn buildings falter; moulder the works of giants.                        
The roofs are tipped down, the turrets turn over,                        
The barred gate is broken, white lies on mortar                        
The frost, and open stands the arching, cumber of lumber                       
Eaten under with age. Earth has the Lord-Builders.

Yesterday I read that the 'r' is being dropped in the North of England, in the county of Lancashire, see here, They call it a Rhotic R. But it is just language rolling over and adjusting to a more modern tone.

North Stoke: Lansdown Saxon History

Collecting chalk

 

The path to Wayland Smith long barrow

Listen to this poem by Jeremy Hooker - Landscape of the Daylight Moon.

The other day I collected what I had written around the Christmas holidays from the start of this blog, so this poem comes from 2007 and was mentioned in this blog - Christmas Reading. 

As I listened to the poet reading the poem, I also remembered the chalk downs of Wiltshire, somewhere in this blog I had captured the chalk objects from Windmill Hill, here it is, fertility or what?  A record carved in chalk of what mattered years ago.  Read Aubrey Burl on the subject and he will tell you that the people who carved such things were soon dead by 25 years old, the women often with their unborn baby still in situ.  Sex in the City still had to be written, sorry I always see the weird side of life.  The truth is always slightly tacky.  

But Jeremy Hooker wrote of the chalk lands, of the Uffington White horse, gleaming on his hillside also of course is the Wilmington Man, and the Cerne Abbas giant, with his balls and erection.  The arguments fall round these two giant chalk representations as to dating.  Could they have come from earlier times, Saxon for instance or were they crafted in the 17th or 18th centuries caricatures of political nonentities.

A journey through art, poetry and archaeology, Paul Nash with his moons, Hooker with his poetry and that wonderful feeling of excitement for me as the landscape revealed its secrets as I walked upon it.

And then there is this Meditation on chalk.....

Other writings:

North Stoke: Chalk; A poem by Jeremy Hooker

A Carol for Boxing Day

 Christmas Day:  Went beautifully.  My daughter has spent most of Christmas Eve day wrapping presents, so that on the day we had a gold carrier bag each of about six presents to unwrap, plus everyone elses as well.

The news is rattling behind me, unimportant and important, but we are not allowed to be serious, or perhaps, be more honest on just exactly how we feel on the state of the world on our blogs.  Well perhaps I will state one thing and that is I believe there should be a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine, the sadness of watching an area being pummelled into the ground is heartbreaking.  Perhaps one other war should be spoken about, Putin throwing all those Russian young lives into death must be breaking a great many parent's hearts,  Ukraine is another victim of war, when will we learn? It is also happening in Sudan, the killing of one people by another.  And there I will finish.  Though I am pleased that there was many in the religious world that spoke out over the Christmas period against what is happening in the world.  To return to brighter things. 

350 tractors went tooting and showing off their coloured lights on Xmas Eve through Tod, and all I could wonder is where the hell the farmers who owned all these tractors managed to farm in these steep sided valleys.  We wined and dined at lunchtime.  And luckily the Aga played ball up till then but then decided to turn itself off so it means we need another visit from the Aga man.  Three of the young ones sat on the floor for a long time trying to get the flame to ignite but no go.

I am grateful for my family, it was marvellous to watch their interaction, I bought for each of them a candleholder, with candle of course.  Maybe to meditate in the future and think of each other.  Funnily enough I remembered that their grandfather, my first husband had a birthday on the 25th December.  Also it was the first time we had met, when my stepmother had invited friends over for a Xmas drink and Nick had been staying with them.  It was two weeks later when Nick wrote to my parents if he could take me out.  A formality which probably gave the children a giggle.

Today is Saint Stephens day, he was the first martyr for Christianity apparently so  the carol Good King Wenceslas is right for this day.

22nd December 2023

When the heart turns back towards summer.  Can it be that every time I have opened the back door it has been raining?  I watch the rain drops splash into the puddles over the road. The swish of the tyres as cars turn into the old people's flats and wonder if I should seriously think about applying for one as maybe I don't won't to face up to another town.

Actually this England could donate its rainfall to the Panama Canal, which is experiencing less rainfall.  Could be climate change or it could be the El Nino effect, you have your choice, those who believe in the climate change or the natural result of El Nino.  Whichever ways, there are cargo ships stuck in the seas around the canal, which has reduced its number of ships passing through.  Why? well the lake that tops up the canal when the locks are emptied is also losing water at a fast rate and as it also has to serve the population around this area - who wins.

It means of course all those essential, and not so essential stuff, is being delayed unless the boats takes a much longer route. Perhaps we won't have so much from China, which maybe not a bad thing.  And we shall learn to mend, reduce and just simply not have a new computer, phone or car.  Perhaps the end of the Western world as we know it! (in parenthesis) Just popped that in, a new word a day doesn't go amiss.

I have the tune to go perfectly with the mood.  Christina Rossetti got it right.  So to that 'heavy rain' lurking malignantly in the corner of my computer, this is what Christmas is all about.

Counting blessings: 

And note. We have just passed the Solstice and the light will begin to lengthen, also the volcanic eruptions have decided to calm down in Iceland - not all bad.

The sun rather mistily came up as well at Stonehenge.  7000 people went to see this Solstice happening.

Christmas Greetings

A Merry Christmas to you all XXX

Anton Pieck ( Dutch painter, artist and graphic artist) 1895 - 1987 Reis van de Koningen (Journey of the Kings),

And who are the three kings? Jasper, Balthazar and Melchior.

A favourite early carol. And if you go on to the next video, a man in a funny hat will explain all to you. Mind you, he is American! so take with a pinch of salt.

But if he doesn't turn up, try this.

Traditional meals

Christmas Meal;  This morning I was making my vegetarian stuffing, gravy and red cabbage for the meal on the day. It will all go into the freezer, alongside the chicken.  Turkey is not eaten.  The thought escaped this is what I would call now a 'peasant' meal. 

All the bits and bobs that go with the bird.  Do people make onion sauce and bread sauce I wonder? Skewering the onion with cloves to flavour the milk.  Well I haven't, no one would eat such things in this household.  Xmas pudding, Xmas cake is off the menu as well, as is mince pies though we got half dozen for the brandy butter and cream.  The young just simply turn their noses up at it. 

I turned to Margery Hartley's compendium of 'Food in England' but she makes no specific mention of Christmas and doesn't like turkey anyway.

We bought goose fat and brandy butter plus 'pigs in blankets' yesterday, small trimmings but not the tiny sausages I remember as a child.  Do people put rashers of bacon across the bird when cooking, a charred deliciousness. Our poor chicken gets a lemon stuffed up its backside.

The grown-up children will eat the carbohydrates such as potatoes and Yorkshire puddings but will turn their noses up at roasted parsnips and sprouts.  I still like Xmas pudding with cream and brandy sauce but it will be too much anyway.  Perhaps next week an apple crumble, still the best thing since sliced bread.....

They say that the first turkey in England was eaten by Henry V111 in the 16th century.  I shall never forgive that king for killing a swan, one of a pair that swam upon his lake, just to give pain to the other swan. The turkey is on the whole an ugly bird with that great red wattle.  As a child on holiday in Wales I would bring the turkeys in, in the evening, getting them out of the tree in which they were roosting.

Roll on Christmas

 Did I ever think as I grew older that the State of Britain would become so miserable?  Each and every day there is news that food banks can't keep up with demand.  Tents on the high streets.  Luckily the government proposal for the councils to clear them fell on deaf ears, and that the shop keeper throwing water over a homeless man was sufficiently humiliated.

So roll out the charity once more, we are heading back to Victorian England.  With people forced from rented homes by Article 21, which has still not been rescinded by the government - why not?  People who cannot afford the higher mortgage rates are suddenly finding themselves homeless - thank god we have got Travel Lodges sited round the country.  That was sarcasm of course......

O dear I forgot, Rwanda and the boat people, which is really doing the government's heads in and their main topic of conversation. 

Many people will of course have a marvellous Christmas, they have managed to slip by the destitution that may face the next generations.

Funnily enough I don't think there is a conspiracy theory out there, something, like the great swell of a wave, the rich are closing ranks, and such people as Baroness Michelle Mone having made their money from scamming the latest pandemic, are now arguing their innocence, having spirited their winnings to off shore islands.

Rant over because it will do no good ;)

Simon Jenkin's article

A Birth Day - Bartlow Roman Barrows

It would have been Paul's birthday today

2008 visit

17th December 2023

Today it is summer gardens.  This one in Kirkbymoorside.  Houses backed onto the main road, but behind the houses stretched long gardens.  This garden was visited on an Open Garden Day and it was very hot. 

This is what I call a lifetime garden, evolving and maturing over the years and there did not seem to be a weed in sight.  Though at the bottom of the garden there was a small wild garden. 

a smattering of would be Xmas cards

Cards have been arriving, so I must look for those non-existent addresses for cards, which I never write down in the address book, so if family is reading this a pretty address book would be really appreciated.  I have a birthday on the 9th January so I tend to fall slightly flat on that date.

It is good to hear that Jo's four cats in their barn are still happily ensconced even though D won't let them come into the house and that they have finally settled on a dog after two and half years of looking.  

I do miss the village and my friends there, but once Paul had gone and I could not live in  an empty house, I had to move and now live quite happily with my family.

So looking for a suitable photo through the masses of albums I have managed to accumulate, except for the early ones.  These reside on an old large external hard drive and I am scared of  putting it on this computer.  Sadness is mixed with quiet happiness and a realisation of a full and happy life.

A Japanese bodhisattva for compassion

Roses - a complete form

chrysanthemums and a good Harvest festival

Lucy for indulgent laziness

The pagan Rudston monolith struts its defiance against the church

Avebury

14th December 2023 - Was there a saga in the fall of the Xmas tree?

Carrot Top by Thelwell

The slightly surreal this morning: The Xmas tree fell down in the night, so Lillie informed me at 6.30 this morning.  My mind immediately saw fat fairies tumbling the tree.  Not sure if I am being woke or anti-woke  there but fairies don't really exist do they?  It reminded me of when my daughter was young and a piece of music came on the radio, which I saw as fat fairies dancing.  Follow through on my thinking and a Thelwellian image came to mind, I do love plump little Shetland ponies.

There seems more political humour around today and not that fun poking gentle humour that would make you laugh out loud.  Xmas presents always included Giles cartoons, with grumpy, witchy old grandma sitting in the corner glowering evilly on all the festivities. Is that me now I wonder, still I have a better dress sense than her!

Poetry: trying to be serious.  I have read a lot over my lifetime, some poems I have loved, others not understood.  A poem reflects the time you live in, and may not be understood a couple of hundred years later.  I am not really into Keats for instance and the storyline of St. Eve is too complicated but this morning when I was running through my blogs I came across Bensozia writing on Taliesin.

Taliesin, maybe a particular person or he may indeed be several, his writing is like riddles, going back to a Celtic age of intricate design, so why not their language as well.  From the 6th century his writings were interpreted in different ways, added to, woven into other myths, till the real Taliesin somehow got lost in a swirling river of other people's thoughts.

12th December 2023

Before I go to do some shopping I must write something.  My saints have rather fallen by the wayside.  I am stuck on Gilda, maybe the first historian to record history in this country.  But he was in such a bad temper about those British kings I am not sure he deserves a place. 

History I suppose should be about facts and not one's own individual interpretation of it.  Also what has struck me on reading the 'Lives of the Celtic Saints' is the fact these early ones were really part of the upper echelons of society.  Their fathers taking on several wives and having lots of children.  So people what do you do with too many offspring?  Just farm them out to the nearest monastic house and set them preaching along the highways and byways.  It saves the territory for the eldest son to be heir.

The landed gentry still do it!  Unfortunately, large private parks and houses are expensive to keep up, so the National Trust stepped in. 

Will there always be such easy solutions in this war torn world, as I type they are talking death by starvation in Palestine on the radio.  It happens elsewhere of course we just do not note it down in our consciousness.

Ukraine is being forgotten, dire warnings from the Ukrainian side that should we fail to deliver the weapons of war to fight the Russians, we too will be standing at the gate of war.  What, or who do you believe?  I note that the BBC uses the word 'Verified' whenever it gives out news. For which I think we should be grateful.

So, having been woken up by Mollie once more in the middle of the night, for food.  My mind wandered and I thought of the language students I had looked after many years ago.  They came from Brazil, the Arab States, Europe.  I heard how it was to live behind the Berlin Wall, or live an isolated life in Siberia.  The Japanese girls, there were quite a few.  Sometimes sad in a strange country, the three I took to Ikea one weekend, who were overawed by everything they saw.  And next weekend got a taxi to go back to the Ikea in Bristol.

The ones who wanted to stay, and the loft room that became the overspill for many of them.  That loft room had a life of its own, my daughter was there with small Tom at one stage after a breakdown in a relationship.  My son and his two friends when coming back from a year in Ghana shared the room till eventually my then husband threw them out, two at least of course.

So I shall get out that big box of photographs and see if I can copy them on to this computer.

"I haven't got my head in the sand, it is just that the world has turned darker".

Summer garden from long ago

This poem is what Greenpeace put up to remember the poet Benjamin Zephaniah after his sudden departure from this Earth.  I have just been listening to 'Desert Island Discs' and the music he chose, he was a Rastafarian, something of which I know little of, except for the dreadlocks, but his choice was mostly for the words.  Funnily enough the one record he did choose as his favourite was 'Take Five' by Dave Brubeck.  I think it is the only jazz music that I really like! I came to it early and whenever I hear it on the radio, I stop, and listen.

But in one of the interviews on radio 4 he mentioned that he had a Corkscrew Willow tree, which grew quickly and had almost covered his shed in the garden.

Well that brought back a memory of my friends Roy and Sybil and their tiny cottage and long garden.  Sybil, a very good friend who I would visit often gave me  cuttings of a willow and the Corkscrew willow.  Just put them in a jar of water and they sprouted roots and so into the garden they went.  They grew like Jack's beanstalk and I was delighted with them. Zephaniah mentioned that the tree only lives for a short time, which in fact mine did, but he reckoned his had lasted a long time. 

But it brought back happy memories of sitting in Sybil's garden having lunch or tea.  The day when we buried her German hound under the bench.  She had sat at the top of the stairs in the cottage, nursing the old dog whilst he slipped away and the burying of him in the garden was a fitting thing to do.

Summer garden

8th December 2023 - To Witter

My daughter and granddaughter left the house at 6.40 am this morning to catch the bus because the trains in this corner of England are on strike today.  Consulting her phone Lillie says, the traffic is already beginning to stack up along the road to Rochdale.  This is because a sinkhole has appeared in the road.  Living in narrow valleys served by only one road going through them, traffic jams happen.

The infrastructure in this country is bad, I was going to use the word appalling which is probably a better word, but it has sadly gone down under the present government - money not spent.  Though here I must add, that locals get their knickers in a twist over every delay by traffic lights for the mending of the road.  We are a small country - full stop.

Natural disaster is bad, but the word natural is exactly that, so flood warnings are in place where rivers run high.  Water companies instead of spending money on cleaning water, they would rather pay out big dividends to shareholders, are dumping our sewage into rivers and the sea, rather than treating the sewage.

Yesterday on the news people in West London had to sit miserably in cold, dark trains that were not moving for several hours, all because of an electricity failure.  Sometimes December is just a rotten month for some of us.  

Pat's 'imagery' blog came to mind when I saw a baby crying its heart out in the dark carriage.  Everyone's face was lit up by their phones as they stared down avidly into its contents.  Suddenly I remembered a similar time when coming home from London to Essex, the train broke down in the snow.  We had been to see a show and had had left my baby daughter in the hands of a competent babysitter.  I paniced full time imagining the babysitter going home and leaving Karen alone in the house.  Of course she didn't but the parallel between that time and this - no mobile phones in the olden days to reassure us.

My daughter works in the 'Northern Quarter' of Manchester, a sort of 'in' sophisticated place to be in, home to night clubs and restaurants.  Well just down the street from her shop Chanel Metier d'Art put on a show, it was of course blocked off so that the public could not see what was going on but the celebrities were there in full force.  Lots of security.

But the tale here was of Hugh Grant and his wife and of their generosity to a plumber in Manchester, who avails his service for free to people who cannot afford to get work done.  Grant gave £20,000 to the plumber. 

Now whether that was out of the goodness of his heart or a ploy to get noticed heaven knows! But this article from the BBC gives a good idea of the happenings.  The organisers built a roof over the street, someone said it looked like a glass house.  Who says Manchester is not a bright and upcoming city of the future?

Edit, here is the video of it.  Very 1960s. Short skirts, long jackets.

6th December 2023

 

Why did I buy this??

I am knitting hats at the moment, engrossed in the rather lovely wool of John Arbon, rather pricy but muted colours I love. The world whirls round and there is nothing I can do to make it better, except sign umpteen

things.

The heating went a few days ago, of course it did, what would you but expect at this time of year.  We can pump up the pressure every day for a couple of hours hot water and the plumber will be here next Monday, so no great deal.

I should be doing another saint, but my heart isn't in it today.   Outside I hear the sound of birds as dusk starts to fall, reminding me that we circle in real time and one day the Earth will return to our warmer spring.

Back to the 'Witch' book being read out aloud, did not realise that the whole witchy thing is experienced in every country, especially such places as Africa.  The tortures used to get you to own up to being a witch (should I use the term wizard for male I wonder) are the usual nasty things.  Damned if you are and damned if you are not.  

I heard an intriguing thought the other day.  In fact calling people with the term sorcerer or witch, is a way of getting rid of them.  So your next door neighbour maybe has land you covet, or a wife.  So denounce them as having caused the illness in your cows, or some bad luck with your crops.  For women over 40 years old and past the menopausal stage they were not good for anything.  This of course also applies to old people as well. 

When women became a singleton in the olden days, they became  just an extra mouth to feed.  This was emphasised by the more modern pagan witches who are always in touch with their inner beings, this is put down to misogyny of course.  The eskimos practised something like this, leaving the old to die in the snow.  Don't worry, it happened ages ago.

4th December 2023 'F'

Today is 'F'  Though the name I pick is known by a more popular name.  It is Ffraid, better known as Bridget (Sant y Brid) of Irish fame and of course keeper of the everlasting flame.  Her dates are c.450-c.525.  She founded the first abbey of nuns at Kildare in Ireland.  But in Wales she was known as Ffraid Santes, also interestingly, Bride's Bay that encircles so much of the coast line I love in Pembrokeshire, is named because of the links between Ireland and Wales.

Breverton say of Ffraid that probably because of the large dedications to this saint in Wales is because she replaced the Celtic Goddess of fire at earlier times.  Therefore the legend (or truth) of the perpetual fire at Kildare was kept burning for a thousand years may have some significance.  It is said (a lovely turn of phrase) that Brighde, is the Celtic mother-goddess.  She is invoked at the pagan festival of Imbolc on the 1st February at lambing time.

The fire-festival was called Brigantia, a tribe Up North was also called Brigantes and  probably covered the same area as Yorkshire, though on reading the etymology on the name, it could have had a different meaning.

The story goes that whilst talking to a dying pagan, she took the rushes from on his floor and wove a cross, these Saint Bridget crosses we still have today.  They protect the home from evil and want.

I have been listening to 'Witch' on BBC Sounds, a modern discussion of how today's witches live in our society.  No, no witchy hats or sexual cavorting round fires, they operate just as ordinary females.  Perhaps their role as midwives and healers did become the focus of misogyny and then the dreadful purge of supposed evil witchery.  I notice Professor Ronald Hutton has written a book on the subject, and it is on Audible.  So I shall listen to it, it is long, he is a very erudite writer.

I am at the moment listening to Wendell Berry, I always think of him as an American pioneer, he is an environmentalist, writer and poet and also a farmer.  The book is called 'A Place on Earth'.  So often quoted the following......................

I shall have to stop, Mollie has worked out how to leap from the settee to the desk, and paws on keyboard leave long lines of double dutch.

'E' or an approximation of it.

 

Wuffing Kingdom of East Anglia and Beyond:

No not madness when I am supposed to be writing of 'E' and start with Wuffing, but what a word I just could not leave it and it is of course Anglo-Saxon.  And one of its Kings was Saint Edmund died 870.  His body said to lie at Bury Abbey, which was founded by an Anglican martyr king Sigeberht.  Edmund was done to death in a pretty miserable way by the Danes which you can see in the mural above, which just happens to be in Pickering church North Yorkshire.  Along with several other wall paintings.  I think they had been covered over with white wash but were restored.  The martyrdom of Saint Catherine painting (think Catherine wheel fireworks and flinch) is also there.

Edmund's expression seems to say 'oh dear' but the cruelty is there to be seen. You can find the original photo here, pretty bad photos but I have seemed to have cleaned the above photo on this computer.  Technology always on the move to be better!

Of course 'E' encompasses the Easter debacle, a movable date today between March 22 and April 25.  But was debated and strongly fought over by the Roman and Celtic church.

Humour

 I am a sucker for a funny cartoon, or the memes that appear every where. Yesterday a cartoon with a man sitting at his desk with a zoom meeting going on his computer, and the cat on its back taped to the floor to stop hthe cat doing the 'computer walk'.  Childish but then isn't most humour?  We have entered a constricted age of humour, somehow their are 'police wordsters' around pulling at every thing we say.  Perhaps it is just the young putting their elders in place, perhaps it was wrong to laugh at some things, I definitely did not laugh at some of the comedians around.

But now we have to be on the ball, and watch what we say, or there is likely someone will find, one small error in what you think of as funny.    Readjust the brain! Can I though at this late stage?  I loved the political satire on 'Have I Got News for You', it goes back to the 1960s "That Was the Week that Was" but does it actually get us anywhere?

I had an email yesterday from a friend in America with a link to a funny article, here it is if you want it - 19 Old Cold Words to get you Through Winter.  Thank you Bucky.

Anyways, on this first day of winter according to the present calendar of dates (the church messed around with it a couple of times).  Let us welcome the snow, we are apparently going to be engulfed in a storm of snow over the weekend.  It did snow yesterday, rather sparingly, and already in the East on the coast, the roads round Whitby and Scarborough are getting snow bound by Fylingsdale.  But closer to home, Sheffield seems to be the coldest town with minus degrees through the day.  We have a slight smattering of snow on the ground.  I am not going out.

Guess which ex-prime minister this was?