7th August 2024 - Holidays

 Lillie has gone to Whitby for the week with her friends, she is 18 years old now not the little girl here sorting her books.  But it is good to look back at photos.  I will look up the blogs I have written on Whitby, a town my daughter moved to probably in 2006, and put them down below.  Whitby has such a history it is almost impossible to grasp the full historical feel of the town.  It attracts most of the North to its fun-loving aspects, fish and chips, cheap junk and penny machines, it just throbs with life.

Photos capture its magic, and a fuzzy blurred video captures the silliness of the interpretations we put on our history.  The video always brings tears to my eyes as the reduced replica of the 'Bark Endeavour' ship surrounded by its little flotilla of modern ships buzz round it like bees as it sails into harbour. 

My daughter and I have mixed responses to the town but Lillie like me is drawn back to it, it was the place she was born.

Whitby harbour

A look at Whitby

Whitby

Goth Week in Whitby

Neighbours

Wearing humanity

light as a feather

from the back

of a peace dove,

repainting the town the colour of love. 

That snatched piece of poetry by Harry Gallagher came from F/B, it is part of a longer poem. Just thought you would like to know.  Up North it can be quiet and people are neighbours.

5th August 2024 - short note

Well on trying to work out the Roman burials around Bath, I went off-piste down another rabbit hole, but all to do with the Lansdown and getting muddled over saints.

It starts with a pub called the Brathwayte, just by a golf course and Bath Racecourse.  Across the road from the pub is a farmhouse that still has parts of Lawrence Chapel in its front facade.  Also not so far from here a well called St. Alpege Well.

Chapel Farmhouse, Lansdown

Here for a start is a sketch found in Bath in Times of the timbered roof of the hall in 1895.  On the other side of the Brathwayte are two large untidy mounds in a small plot, they are presumed to be Bronze Age barrows.  Behind the pub is Lansdown Downs, with other barrows scattered across the land there, badly depleted, though because of farming.  I wrote about something dug up by some work on the racecourse here.  A shaft of a worked pillar had emerged and I told the driver he should report it to Bath Archaeology officer, whether he did or not I do not know, though I also emailed but got no reply.

But apart from St. Lawrence (AD 225 to 258) there was also a St. Alpege well in the neighbourhood.  Alphege was much more interesting as he had been born in the village of Weston below the downs.  He had an illustrious career in the work of the church but met a terrible death which you can find in the Wiki below.

Ælfheah of Canterbury - Wikipedia

Ælfheah (c. 953 – 19 April 1012), more commonly known today as Alphege, was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester, later Archbishop of Canterbury. He became an anchorite before being elected abbot of Bath Abbey.

He was stoned to death by the Vikings at Greenwich, though his Viking friend tried to stop the killing.  The Viking was called Thorkell the Tall, his intervention came to nothing, having offered everything he had, except for his ship and the wretched Alpege was finished off by an axe blow to his head by another Viking.  But Thorkull changed sides because of the brutality, and went  over to Cnut's side.

More information here on St.Alphege from 2008

Where was the rain yesterday?

 Walking lightly on the news:  Southport is of course out there and the riots initiated by the EDL (English Defence League) who like a good riot on a sunny day.

Someone described them as being too old to be football hooligans so they have moved their aggression to the racist right.  As you may know of me, labels do not sit easily in my writing.  For instance where is my political leanings, well probably liberal but to the left and socialism but that label does not brand me. But from that viewpoint I can speak out, without hatred, about how I feel about what is happening around us.

Quite a few towns and cities have been effected by the rioting, the police out there trying to bring some law and order to the situation, and also there is an opposing force to the far right EDL and they are also on the streets chanting 'anti-Nazi slogans. See how slogans fit in so easily but in truth they have no legitimacy in fact.

What gets hurt, beside the people, is the businesses, private properties, the mosques and vehicles.  Do you know the people of Southport were out there the next day, after the shocking news of the attack on the little children and were clearing the debris off the streets.  Builders were mending, for free,  the brick garden walls, also the mosque damage.

Most people in this country are not rampant idiots, they are the people who actually run this country.  Whether in the police force, councils, churches or mosques, people gather together quietly and help each other.

Asian communities are part of the life blood of the Northern cities, they run shops, businesses, Uber drivers and live compatibly beside us.  I can hear the voices rising already, "What about the boat people?".  Truthfully I do not know the answer to that one.  I suspect leaving those that have arrived in this country in limbo land is the political answer.  Hoping they will go away, a somewhat childish response.

My daughter is a manager in an RSPCA charity shop, she is in the fashionable part of Manchester, so I asked her what it was like.  Well the buses and trams seemed to have disappeared and there were drunk men around but the shop had the same number of customers as usual for a Saturday.  There is also a 'gathering' at the end of the road. A local business sells out maybe 500 t-shirts in the street, and the company arrive to the large crowd that is waiting on the corner and the t-shirts sold, that went as normal.  The young do things differently!

If it had rained yesterday, the whole thing would probably have been called off.  Also the Labour Party really had nothing to do with it, Starmer in his prosecuting role is already talking about 24 hour courts.  Unfortunately the prisons are full, someone forgot to build more prisons under the last regime. mmm

4th August 2024

Up on  Lansdown above the city of Bath.

"Also of course, the ghost stories someone told me of the 'Roundhead' soldier that marched down the path one evening, a Civil War escapee from the battle  at Langridge.  I have traced the 17th century banks and ditches of this war, stopped in solemn silence to read  on the notice board of one Royalist friend fighting and seeing his old friend a Roundhead killed.  My ghost, I kid you not, was he real? was spied early one foggy Sunday morning a Scottish man complete with kilt and hat walking along the path, Moss went berserk as first the hat appeared and then the kilted man walked into view through the fog and he strolled by with a pleasant 'good morning'!  

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Maybe he was just out for an early stroll I will never know but at 6 in the morning and no dog? And Moss had never shown such fear before.

I went to another meeting at the Folklore Centre, this time about the Legends and Folklore of Todmorden and the lecturer John Billingsley mentioned a story which brought the above to mind.

In his story he had been walking up on the moors along the road and had just come to a stack of rocks, they are rather ugly rocks around here, fashioned by the ice ages, they are rounded and bold but of course attract their own legends.  An expensive Land Rover pulled up by Billingsley and out got a middle-aged man who strolled over to him. He then asked Billingsley if he had seen a small pack of hounds running around.  A strange request in the middle of nowhere, the man then blew on a hunting horn but nothing happened.  Off he went and Billingsley heard the hunting horn across on the other side of the valley later.  A couple of days later he heard of a deer that was found dead, after an apparent fall from some stones.  The deer's head had been decapitated.  So had the hounds chased the deer till it fell from the rocks and who was it that had taken the head?  As a trophy to hang on the wall, though it would need some sort of taxidermist work.  And why did the man in an expensive car not have a horse ;)

A folklore tale to take forward, and perhaps embellish through the years.  For those of us who recall our Celtic tales, visions of red eared white hounds, the Hounds of Annwen running through the sky will immediately colour our thoughts.

So the premise through the talk was how and why such stories came into existence, did we story the landscape to give it a meaning.  Did a 'happening' in the village become so unexpected that it was told through the ages.

One of the other things he talked about was the 'brocken  spectre', which is created by a misty morning and the sun shining directly behind a person and casting a long shadow in the mist, pretty scary if you don't know anything about the phenomenon.

A Brocken Spectre on the Isle of Skye taken from The Scotsman

An edit

Bang! I have spent the last hour trying to remember the name of the system I bought to play music on, tapes and the radio.  Silver coloured long line it had that wonderful slow rising lid, like the slow shutting drawers that you now see on kitchen cupboards. It was of course Bang and Olufsen. Something like this.

I had spent two months working at Castle Acre Priory excavation, probably drawing and came back and spent my whole earnings on this sound system.  My son was able to take it back to the shop in Bath, after many years use, and get an up to date record player for his records in exchange. I was sad to see it go but I don't think it worked. 

I still love its line, smooth and sleek it looked grown-up!

Reflections

 

 

I shall never get to Machu Picchu, but I really don't want to go, that it exists is enough.  It is another civilisation that has lost its way and become a relic of its own past.  Empty of its inhabitants, tourists flock to wonder at its magic amongst the mountains.  Not understanding the message it is giving out "this too will pass".

Chauvet Cave in France some of the earliest cave drawings

Being in a reflective mood is not good but we are slowly, whether we like it or not, seeing Western civilisation float away.  The good things of course are captured either in music or paintings, the written past.  The individual undertaking to create is always there.  From those early cave paintings of animals we can but quietly try to make our brain wonder at the intelligence of prehistoric man, but forgetting we are no more than that person, just with a dash of technology added.

Now for my rant moment! Who the hell thought A1 into the world, can I believe anything I see on the computer anymore?  That person are they real or a composite figure.  I read about cookery books being written by this robotic nature, plagiarism writ large of the recipes, and auto word correction, slightly gone astray.

And now for my music choice, years ago I loved Gregorian chant, so as I have been writing I been listening to the music below.  One criticism, the bird tweeting along must surely be an artificial add on, and it annoys the gentle tranquility of the music.

Should you ever get the chance, Werner Herzog's film of the Chauvet Cave must be seen.  We saw it at the British Museum and it was breath taking, France is a truly beautiful place with it rivers and limestone escarpments.  I remember at one point there was the skull of a bear laid on a flat rock, almost a religious symbol in the eeriness of the cave.  Of course no one is allowed into the caves, even our breath destroys the surfaces and so the film is a remarkable tribute to the past.

Some not very good captured film.

Our visit in March 2013

31st July 2024

 News turns from good to bad and then the terrible heart rendering news of the children attacked in Southport, three beautiful children dead and  eight others and also two adults are critically injured in hospital.  What sparked the attack we shall of course find out later, but it provoked an attack from the far right, whose disgusting morality only wants to sow discord in the country and who lead a rampage through the town.

We can weep for all the children killed in war, whether Israeli or Palestinian and those killed by the foolishness of young men who believe that death equals justice in their minds.  You can add  this morning to the injured toll 39 policemen and three police dogs.  The far right are mindless thugs.

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And on to quieter things. My daughter's visit up to Birmingham for a wedding also included a visit to a neighbour in Calne.  The town is but 6 miles from Avebury, it was the town I settled in as a young widow with a small three year old daughter and large labrador called Kim.  Our neighbour Jean with her three boys lived next door, and so my daughter was always in her house.  Sadly one of the boys died when he was 18 but the other two still live near.

Calne was a 'bacon' town, the poor pigs brought there to be slaughtered and it had a large factory right in the centre.  This has now gone and there is plenty of recreational space now, a couple of photos from her phone and I have just discovered a couple of my photos from my phone in the 'cloud'.

Me obviously trying to work out the back to front element of  photo taking

The town of Mytholmroyd below

Waiting for the train at Todmorden

Calne.  Changed somewhat

Calne.  Andrew and Jean

Calne. Old part

T

One of the pig Heads from  Harris's bacon factory Calne 

Jean will be coming down for a visit in September, she was a great traveller and still a walker though several years older than me but I would point out that the countryside round Calne is much flatter than here.

Calne's homeless pig heads

28th July 2024

 

Courtesy of Mark Anderson - Geograph -  Milk Churn Joan stone

Joan was eaten by foxes as she made her way over the moors delivering milk.  Not often you get to write that, though being eaten by foxes is a bit implausible.  But that was the stone we were heading for yesterday across Midgely Moor.  Well we did not make it but we did make it to the moor.

It is almost impossible for me to walk on rough ground but we did make it part of the way, heather and fern and the twittering of birds, which I didn't see but heard flying overhead.

The journey started with taking a train to Mytholmroyd, a small town along the line, the town lies like so many towns in these narrow valleys along the line of the rivers. Steep sided hills covered in trees and then the moors at the top.  I have been intrigued by the word Mytholmroyd, translated it roughly means the meeting of two rivers settlement with a dash of Norse. We were to meet Andrew with the rented car, more of that later.  Karen and I walked down from the station, we had half an hour to kill, and stopped almost immediately by a little cafe on the bridge.  My daughter can never go past a cafe with homemade cakes.

Duly refreshed and cakes packed neatly in boxes for afternoon tea, Andrew arrived in a swish BMW.  Though in fact he had only asked for a basic automatic car.  But they didn't have one, so we travelled in comfort.

Midgeley the village we were going to was but 5 minutes away, high up just under the moors.  I kept seeing the 'Fairy' rose in the gardens we passed, tiny rosettes of a pale pink.  The roads had become narrow as we climbed and we took a left instead of a right and Andrew had to turn the car around in a very tight space with a very long rocky drop on the left hand side.  Modern superior cars;) can do this, little burpings tells you when you are too near a wall.

I was fascinated by the computer set-up in the car, for a start you just press a button to start the car, the co-pilot 'she' doesn't argue back either.  The computer skills are very helpful in navigating but had certain problems finding Crow Hill, though I had bought an old fashioned map with me and we eventually went up the right farm track.

Andrew told a funny story about his mother.  She had refused to let his father buy a car with a reversing gadget because she thought it would speak out like the vans - 'keep clear, keep clear'.

We had to be back in Tod to pick up Tom from the station by 12.45 and head on to the 'Staff of Life' for lunch.  We had the nook in the restaurant and I had mushroom stroganoff, and picked out the tofu it had come with.  Tofu is like bland blancmange, with almost the same texture and I have never liked it.  But the mushrooms in a deep velvety sauce of red wine, chips and garlic bread dipped in was delicious.

So it was a good day out with plenty of adventures, I think I have managed to learn how to say Mytholmroyd.  Which is a pretty little town, and obviously the place to go to start a walk up on the moors.  But sadly not for me.

27th July 2024

Just found the above, it probably states how I feel. Monitoring our politician Josh on F/B today, and he has written a great deal of the people he has met and discussed issues with, and also how parliament works.  Showing the long corridor which everyone has to go down to vote, they only have 8 minutes to do the run.  He is like a child in a toyshop delighted with all he sees.  I wish him well.

Andrew is already calculating the trip up to Midgeley Moor, it is just above Hebden Bridge not far to go, I wanted to see Miller's Grave, a rather large desecrated Bronze Age barrow but with an attached story of it being Miller's Grave.

Here is the story:  Taken from Paul Bennet's Northern Antiquarian.  I think it was found in the 1869 book by Watson - The History of Halifax.

“About ninety years ago,” he wrote, “that is, towards the end of the eighteenth century – one Lee, a miller, committed suicide in Mayroyd Mill near Hebden Bridge. The jury at the inquest held on the occasion returned a verdict of felo-de-se, and the body was buried at Four Lane Ends, the Rough, in Midgley. The fact, however, of the body of one who had laid violent hands upon himself, lying in unconsecrated ground at a point where the highways met, and at a spot which the inhabitants passed early and late, oppressed the people of the neighbourhood with an irresistible dread. Persons going to market and passing from village to village, feared and avoided the unhallowed spot, until the feeling increased to one of insupportable terror; and, in the night time, a multitude collected with torches to disinter the body. This was speedily effected and violence was even offered to the dead. A man named Mark Sutcliffe, and others, who attempted to prevent the exhumation, were stoned* by the mob, and the body was hurried to the cairn on Midgley Moor, where it was hastily interred. Here however, it was not allowed to rest; the isolation of the body, though buried in a lonely spot, was yet apart from the common cemetery where the dead lie together in their special domain; and this invested the surrounding district with a superstitious awe difficult to describe. The body was still too near the haunts of the living; and, to the perturbed imagination of the inhabitants, the unquiet ghost of the suicide constantly brooded over the hills. As this was not to be endured, the body was at last removed from the cairn, and finally buried in the churchyard of St. Thomas a’ Beckett’s, Heptonstall. Although the interment of Lee, at the cairn, has conferred upon the spot the name of the Miller’s Grave, it cannot be doubted that the large quantity of heavy stones which we find heaped together at this place…was piled up in distant times…”

It interestingly denotes the fear of suicides and how being buried at cross roads or special trees was the fate of the person who took his own life.  It also paints the picture of how death was looked upon and the poor remains of the man eventually moved from pillar to post ended up in the church at Heptonstall.  You can find photos of the rather untidy graveyard at Heptonstall here.       

Also of course Sylvia Plath buried far from her homeland.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Men explaining things to me

 Right, a title straight out of Rebecca Solnit's book.  A tongue in cheek start to the day.  But I hate arguments and having to argue a point,  always seems so pointless.

So, who are the men talking to me? Well it has to be Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart, two affable good friends.  If you want to be specific they sit on either side of the political spectrum in this country, though joined in the middle on their thinking.  You can see their rather long talk on 'The Rise of Kamala Harris' in the video down below.  Just love the opening frame with the dog asleep on the bed, it sets the tone of gentle information and a discussion held between two friends. Very British.

The frenzy of reporting does one's head in, so I listen to podcasts, Professor Tim Wilson is also another person I listen to.  His pet hate is Nigel Farage and I also can't bear Nigel's grinning beer swilling face either,  So prejudices are already beginning to show - tut, tut.

Another person who has explained things to me is Andrew. My camera broke down a couple of weeks ago and I said to myself I'm nearer to the grave so do I need a new one? the answer was no, use your phone instead.  Unfortunately I was not able to transfer photos.  It was explained last night, everything is up in 'The Cloud'.  I have my own little white cloud in that blue sky with all my junk on it.

So we found them, and indeed there are an awful lot of photos up there but I shall have to pay a very reasonable storage figure monthly.  But in usual computer style Google is playing up about that.  One problem down and another follows in its wake.  Anyway I have decided to start on a new project.  It was gz's rather moving memorial to her partner Pirate and I thought perhaps I should record some of the things about Paul, so those will go up in Pages. 

Busy Saturday coming up, Andrew has rented a car for the weekend for a wedding up in the Midlands, so Saturday, in the morning I get a trip up to the moors, and then we go out to lunch at 'The Staff of Life' and if I have enough energy there is a talk at the Folklore Centre.

Also got a train ticket for August, we will all go up to Chiddington in Surrey to Andrew's parents and I will be able to see his father's garden.

Old Blog - frozen in time

Lavenham - The Guild Hall

Fifteen years ago.  When Paul and I became partners he lived in a house in Chelmsford, or at least near Chelmsford in Essex, so we had plenty of time to explore the area. His house fronted onto a great green and was very pleasant, his studio was attached but Paul was already thinking of retiring. Occasionally a scroll would turn up and I remember a very large painting arriving from Australia, it needed some work and dating, and then sent on to Europe for sale.  But on the whole, he just did some work for his patron now and then. 

We went to Lavenham in Suffolk on a day trip, I remember it was a cold day.  Lavenham had been one of the richest towns in England because of the medieval wool trade but then a series of happenings had almost shut down the trade in wool and Lavenham remained for evermore frozen in a time frame of beautiful timbered houses.  Such houses can be found in the villages around carefully conserved by loving owners.  Often the plaster work painted in bright colours.  My favourite house was painted a soft pink which was the exact shade of the blossoms on the horse chestnut tree in the garden.

I shall copy a quote on the colouring of these houses, made by Alex Clifton Taylor - The Pattern of English Buildings (a book which would also come with me to a desert island!) Most houses were painted with a white lime wash or whitewash as it is more familiarly known, which can of course be coloured.  Ox blood anyone?

"Brighter colours need to be handled with discrimination in the vaporous and often misty atmosphere of Britain, then that in the crisp, sparkling of the Mediterranean.  There is, nevertheless plenty of colour wash to be seen in this country, much of it so succulent that one finds oneself turning out half the contents of the larder in order to describe it.  There are tomato-red, raspberry and cream pink, strawberry ice pink, peachy pink, salmon pink.  We meet orange and apricot, lemon yellow, lime, butter yellow, biscuit and cream. Apple and olive round off this gastronomic galaxy"

 So in the tradition of posting old blogs here goes.

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This week has been one of visiting places, mills, rivers, a Cistercian abbey and now Lavenham medieval town in Suffolk, said to be the most perfectly preserved medieval town in England. But first, one small memory that was funny.

The starlings have been producing their young, fledglings balance on fences, trees and rooftops. But the other day as I sat in the garden and watched a small flock eat the bread, six little ones decided to have a bath all by themselves, they perched round the shallow bowl, three little ones with their claws tight on the rim whilst two splashed about in the water, a small one running back and forward too scared to jump up. Harassing their parents for food, they will all soon be grown, two flew up to the fence, one promptly falling over the other side, he immediately flew back looking slightly puzzled.

Back to Suffolk and a fifty mile drive through the countryside. Its weird how England changes with the counties, Essex is redbrick and plaster/timber houses, Suffolk has a cream/brown brick which to be honest I don't like, but the houses are again plaster/timber. There is a different feel to the towns one passes through and Lavenham though beautiful left me with a slight feeling of unease. I think it has something to do with the present situation in the country, as the greed is revealed. LS summed it up perfectly when he said that Lavenham is like an extinct mammoth, it got taken out of the system of being rich so quickly that it was preserved in its present state, there had been no money to redo it in the following centuries.

It is classic medieval, Shakespearean but without the smells and carts rumbling through the streets. The rich swishing around in funny hats and ermine decked cloaks, the poor in their dirty brown sackcloth. It is a place of tourism, small gift shops, and a rather nice tapestry shop (expensive) and places to eat, with the magnificent Swan Hotel hosting a wedding party this day.The market place was extraordinary, dominated by the great Guild hall, traditionally limewashed to protect it from the ravages of the weather. The National Trust do this every five years.

Houses lean crookedly one way or another, their neighbours holding them up,painted all the colours of the rainbow but in a much deeper hue, there is orange and pink, but the grey white is perhaps the softest on the eye. De Vere house (history not checked yet) but I think he is the leading dignitary of this time, was a glorious marriage of dark intricate timber, and the dark rose pink of the zig-zagged brick infill.

A very beautiful town with lots of quaint buildings, wealth built on wool, and of course the labouring class backs.
Coffee at a small B&B cottage, front room was the cafe bit with a tiny, kitchen in the corner, and a vast menu of various sandwiches, toasted and plain, with jacket potatoes, etc. What was so funny was the very warm helpful, quite elderly couple who ran it, getting into a muddle with all the orders, eventually everthing was toasted to order and extra free coffees for those who had been waiting. The piece de resistance is when they opened the door leading into the house and their dog came out to greet everyone in a friendly manner. But the cat came out too, a great Bagpuss of a tabby stalked around and refused to go back when she was lifted, clinging to a chair with a certain amount of outrage.

The market place

De Vere's house in  Lavenham, read somewhere was used in one of the Harry Potter's films

The first floor jetties over the ground floor, contents of piss pot could be thrown down easily.

And talking about jetties, 'The Jetty' television drama with Jenna Coleman as the main star, did the penny finally drop when you realised that the story was being told in two different time eras, when Ember was young and the present time? I hate it when I am stupid ;)

Thaxted in Essex, the second  timbered house is a place that Dick Turpin lived in.

22nd July 2024

Well there has been a change.  The butterfly wings have fluttered, and a whole new ball game has emerged (love mixing metaphors). I listened to Rory and Alistair in the night, they were chatting with their American equivalence Anthony Scaramucci and Katty Kay. I am not going to discuss the politics, they belong to the American people, but can only wish that they have a quiet election in which the best person wins,  and of course in my book it can only be the Democrats.  Trump may shout the loudest but if Kamala Harris can get her prosecuting skills together, the better person may win.  

Down below is a rather good Rupert Soskin and Michael Bott of 'Standing with Stones' video.  It is about the Rollright Stones, apparently, according to Soskin, the third most visited stone circle after Avebury and Stonehenge.  He explores, lightly, the myths that are woven round these stones, and can you put them into the rubbish bin of history?  No they make fascinating stories.  Facts are good but long dead kings and giants make for a more exciting read.

The Rollrights have very deeply pock marked surfaces and are indeed very strangely shaped.  Apparently during the Victorian era, people took bits of the stone for some reason, the stones are made of Jurassic Oolitic Limestone.

 

Stone Soup

Yesterday I cooked for tea an old favourite. a sort of puff pastry wrap around a mixed filling of vegetables and my daughter said what is in it then and it reminded me of the tale years ago of a German student teacher had told me.  The story goes thus, a group  of weary travellers had arrived in a village and had nothing to eat.  So they took out their cooking pot filled it with water and dropped a stone in it. As it heated on the fire they told the villagers that it would be a very good soup but that it just needed a few 'extras'.  So the villagers brought vegetables and then chicken, pork, and other things, the stone was removed, and it turned into a delicious soup that everyone ate.

I think I had been discussing with the teacher how I started soups, she said a potato, I said an onion. She was into the Bach Remedies, I wonder if they still exist. She was taking all the little bottles of magic back to Germany, worrying of course that she would get them past customs.

I have been consulting my fairy books about names, our Folklore centre is looking for a name to call the tea cafe that will run in the building, I have thought of Spriggan and Boggart Holes, the temptation of the wicked creatures of the nether world. 

I had planned to give these books to the centre, along with Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'.  A strange book for a prim Victorian girl to write with its hidden undercurrents of repressed sexual feelings.

At the moment I am listening 'The Book of Trespass' by Nick Hayes, a historical gathering of facts about how land occupancy came into being.  So it starts with the Kilder Pass and bumps gently along till we get to the land enclosures of the 18th century.

19th July 2024

 I wake up to bright sun and warmth, has summer decided to make an appearance?  I am becoming a recluse, the sun hurts my eyes, ever since they have been lasered they play up.  My large computer screen is a blessing and the computer itself can even read out the articles for me.

Growing old is something you have to come to terms with and I sink quite happily into acceptance.  As I sift back through the score of memories that was my past life, I realise a need to be more forward looking.  Positivity in this raging world of dissent, when someone invented the internet he opened up a Pandora's box of discord.  But then that is how history has unfolded. 

Slave neck chains

For instance thinking about the slavery issue and the large houses that had been built on the backs of those slaves, I remembered the late Iron Age slave chains found in the Welsh lake of Llyn Cerrig Bach in Anglesey. Why were they thrown into the lake, as offerings amongst other offerings?  They point towards a darker history, the Romans taking captured tribes as slaves.  Caracatus, taken in chains to Rome and his speech before the Roman emperor Claudius, recorded by Tacitus.

"If the degree of my nobility and fortune had been matched by moderation in success, I would have come to this City as a friend rather than a captive, nor would you have disdained to receive with a treaty of peace one sprung from brilliant ancestors and commanding a great many nations. But my present lot, disfiguring as it is for me, is magnificent for you. I had horses, men, arms, and wealth: what wonder if I was unwilling to lose them? If you wish to command everyone, does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery? If I were now being handed over as one who had surrendered immediately, neither my fortune nor your glory would have achieved brilliance. It is also true that in my case any reprisal will be followed by oblivion. On the other hand, if you preserve me safe and sound, I shall be an eternal example of your clemency.

He was given clemency. but had been  betrayed by another British royal queen Cartimandua.

I came to an abrupt end there.  But picking up again, the house is full of Lillie going camping for a few days, water guns scattered around for her small flock, camping gear everywhere, she is a big spender.  But my daughter comes home tonight after her sortie to London to see Matilda's award celebrations.  Matilda in the long line of ex-students had to be different in her hat and gown, was the only one to go short skirted and long legged across the stage but we are all proud of her.

And now a takeaway for everyone, my usual mild curry pasanda is what I have ordered.

15th July 2024 - Castle Howard

 It has been a sad weekend.  Weaver's farewell and other blog friends unhappiness.  Also, memories brought back from the past.  I wrote two blogs, one will not be uploaded but the other, which is political in nature, will appear.

I have been haunted by a journey that I took every day whilst Paul was in hospital.  It was about 30 miles to York Hospital, through the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside.  It went over the Howardian Hills past Castle Howard.  Down the narrow carriage roads that took you to the 'big' house.  

Now here is a confession Paul and I never went into the house but we visited the garden centre there for plants obviously but it was also a favourite place of Lucys.  There was a small garden centre shop with the usual expensive fripperies to buy but it also had a doggy part, with low shelves for them to sniff along.  To her delight Lucy could choose a toy or some snack and once a soft furry bed, which she slept in on the way back home but thereafter never touched again.

Our large old houses produce a mixed response from me, they lived off the backs of slavery, moved entire villages so that they could build their great estates.  The houses were sumptuous though I must admit I found most of the furniture and silverware ugly but they have arrived through history as a reminder of past lives.  See the National Trust for the controversy over this.

But you will see below a marvellous video by a young interior decorator of the inside of the house.  It is magnificent, a work of art.  He has the pleasure of remodelling some of the rooms and clearly loves the place.

14th July 2024 Political in nature

 A few days ago Andrew said why don't you write about austerity, and I thought well it has all been said before, what is the point.  The problem really comes from a different angle.  I think the word might be complacency of those that have grown comfortable from good jobs and now sit in their retirement in well furnished paid for houses.

The idyllic picture of 'pretty' England, little villages, cosy cottages, roses round the door, a dream many aspire to.  We are indeed a country, rich in beautiful buildings and a countryside to die for but it does not answer the needs of our young and those yet to be in the future.

Our infrastructure is appalling, no one has integrated a modern travel system, or built affordable houses.  Authorities are frightened to use the 'green belt' to build on so now we have youngsters being ripped off by greedy landlords.  This of course is happening in other places in the world.  The trouble is we can't live off each other like parasites, and  expecting our houses to fund the future retirement. We need regularity control in rent and occupancy, not the 'free range economy' that seems to be operating at the moment.

When I actually look at the social life around me in this town, I see people volunteering, helping others and a general and good attitude, and I am thankful for good people.  But when I look at government I see chaos, it is as simple as that.  Someone on the radio mentioned 'cross party' politics, hopefully we may see more of this.  

And perhaps rather than the aggressive nature of a two party system we should be looking at people who govern without needing to run the other side down.  We need experts that is for sure, other countries seem to handle things better, for instance in Denmark.

How to Manage the Far right an interview with Danish retired Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.  And as an afterthought she  married into the Kinnock family. 

Also if you want a view on how to begin,Channel 4 series on "Skint" The Truth about the British Economy

411 Labour members of parliament.  I am not going to bet any money on them that they succeed, but it would be good to see some inroads into the problem Britain faces.

11th July 2024

 More humdrum news:  This morning I walked down the canal path to Lidl, there was a young man playing the violin outside the entrance to the supermarket.  But before I tell that incident, I must make a small list of the wild flowers that edged the canal.  Oxeye daisies in abundance, meadowsweet, fireweed and toadflax, not forgetting the ubiquitous yellow flowers I can never name. Someone had picked all the gooseberries.

I decided to give the violinist some money, having just bought a first class stamp for £1.35 for a birthday card for my son, (yikes) I realised a pound would not do, so gave him a two pound coin, and he gave me a happy smile, he only had two contributions in the violin case. I should at this point go into a long diatribe about the awful austerity that we live under, half hidden I might remind you but still there. But I won't.  Also had a nice comment on my blog, thanking me for being me, which I thought was sweet, so my day has begun well.

I have decided to adopt Josh Fenton-Glynn as a second son, though he will never be aware of it;). I watched him take the oath in parliament yesterday solemn faced and Andrew sent me a photo of Josh with his old teacher hugging him somewhere in the bowels of parliament.

Edit; Apparently his science teacher who has also won a seat in parliament!

Unfortunately it was on X which I have never joined so I wasn't able to comment.  Andrew by the way had Covid last week and has kept away because my daughter is going up to London next week for Matilda's graduation ceremony and didn't want to catch it.  He is clear now.

Mark my son is in his 40s and it is his birthday in a few days time, I am useless at dates, so I sent him three cook books Rukmini Iyer - The Roasting Tin, etc.  I cooked one of her recipes last night, pearl barley with leeks and tomatoes.  She has an easy one dish format, carbohydrates - rice, orzo, pearl barley, potatoes, then the protein in some form of cheese and then vegetables.