The River Bank

Mallows and Meadowsweet

Hawker dragonfly

Demoiselle

Mill Garden

The yellow water lilies

wormwood

Dabchick walking on water

Meadowsweet

The Chelmer in a sleepy mood on a hot sunny afternoon, insect life quietly vibrating in the still air. Butterflies feed on the thistle flowers, iridiscent demoiselles jet round the water in pairs, their furry wings reminding you of thick eyelashes. Clear blue damselflies are also to be seen, slender as matchsticks but just as beautiful.

Green lily pads lie on the surface of the water, some still submerged below in the clear water, the small yellow flower stands proudly above the water, this is not the slightly exotic nymphae white water lily but a lesser cousin, shoals of little fish, minnows or sticklebacks? swim in co-ordinated balletic movement breaking the surface of the water as they flash to and fro. A large perch skulks under the trailing tresses of the willow, slowly he emerges tail powering him through the rushes then back again to the shelter of the bank.

A froth of meadowsweet, faintly scented, hugs the water edge and the pink mallow with its darker veins intermingles with the meadowsweet and tangle of grasses.

All around the sap of life is strong, two dabchicks sit on a green crust of algae, whilst their mother swims round protectively. One performs the miracle of walking on water, his solemn stance caught on camera.

Down the path to the water meadow, the gypsy horses have been fenced away from the leat that runs to the mill. Mostly they are piebald, or 'painted' horses, the foals lie in the long grass and their mothers stand protectively over them. There is nothing quite like horses in summer to express the bounty of nature, their bellies are rounded and sleek from the rich grasses they munch on so reflectively, they exude a feeling of wellbeing and tranquillity, their coats softly shining in the sun.

Later on in the afternoon thunderstorms break up the heat of the day, louring dark skies, the crack and rumble of the thunder and quick sparks of the lightening, nature has decided to put on another show; the river must be exploding in showers of raindrops sparkling and dancing on the water but we are not there to see it....

Buddha fields; A term found in Gary Snyder's 'The Practice of the Wild' and a concept that has been going round in my mind for a couple of days, but the above walk can be viewed through this fine lense; so what is he talking, lets quote to start with;

"To show how totally and uniquely at home each life form must be in its own unique 'buddha-field. " Snyder takes his writing from an early 13th century sutra written by Dorgen Kigen, simply Mountains and Waters Sutra. So we can view through this same prism the insects and plant life by this quiet Essex river, its there but first you must understand and remove from your mind the western rational thought that forms and creates eco-systems of the world around you. True everything in life depends on something else for its food and existence but at the same time it is entire unto itself. Each creature lives in its own perfect circular world, the little circles of other lives overlap, the cycles of food and warmth brought on by a revolving world also plays a part. We see things as species, related to each other forming families of evolutionary criteria, and this may be so, but each life cycle knows nothing of this, only its own particular niche.

Here Synder describes a buddha field in a poem about Dall sheep..

.......cloud tatters, lavender artic light

on sedate wild sheep grazing

tundra greens, held in the web of clan,

and kin by bleats and smells to te slow

rotation of their Order living

half in the sky- damp wind up from the

whole North Slope and a taste of the icepack,

the primus roaring now,

here, have some tea....

These sheeps "playing, napping, eating, butting, circling, sitting, dozing in their high smoothed out beds on ledges at the cliff edge of life and death". Are our horses in the field completely at home in the sun with their young there is no past and present just the now of being.

Mangoes and Elephants

The last few days we have been enjoying a box of deliciously sweet mangoes, but humans are'nt the only ones to enjoy mangoes, this link arrived in my email yesterday from friends in America..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1065865/Pictured-Elephants-march-hotel-lobby-built-migration-trail.html

Ramblings

Well the Solstice weekend has passed, and as I take it on myself to do the job of news watching, what comes out of the events both at Stonehenge and Avebury, is that they were peaceful affairs, 35,000 at Stonehenge and approximately 1000 at Avebury, though the rubbish left behind at Stonehenge was appalling. In both events Druids welcomed in the rising sun, and there was a festival spirit... tents tightly packed at Avebury, but everyone seems to have got in, a man was found dead in the graveyard causes unknown, but if it had been drugs there was a corresponding news item in one of the northern towns that three people had died from drugs that had other things added. The swifts nesting in West Kennet longbarrow were unpertubed by the arrival of so many and presumably went on looking after their young, a nice balance betwixt nature and humanity.

We had gone up to London on Sunday to have a sushi, for me a first time experience, a small Japanese restaurant with a tall round faced chef behind the counter at which we sat. In front, was the raw ingredients he would craft together to make the individual portions he would reach over and place on our wooden platters.. In front of us was squid, octopus, mackerel, salmon, bass and tuna, and probably a few more. It was a fascinating experience, a ginger pickle to clean the mouth and a white net of finely grated mouli.

London by night was also a new experience, the restaurant was under one of these expensive hotels, and when we had sat in the foyer waiting for our friends, people-watching (a favourite game of mine) was engrossing. A Jewish wedding party was taking place and the girls arrived in beautiful evening wear, but when we went through the courtyard, where many of the guests had been smoking and then throwing their stubs to the floor, I was rather horrified to see a maid sweeping the butts up with pan and brush. The rich can pay to have their rubbish cleared away pronto, but at Stonehenge something else was happening with the rubbish - laziness, an inability to clear up by the young and probably older people, it does somewhat prove that a discipline is lacking in peoples lives when they can't be bothered to clean up after themselves.

What else, a marvellous drive through London to our station, London on a Sunday night is fairly peaceful, the older buildings look imposing and very grand, opulence reeks on the street with sleek cars parked discreetly. Old pubs with people sitting outside, skyscraper office blocks, tall, tall buildings that make a statement, though what sort of statement, given Charles intervention with the Chelsea Barracks and the architects in a furore, heaven knows! Something that Bath is going through, with the proposed new development on the river, not to mention the equally large development at Southgate that has been going on the last few months.

The Alder tree

Alnus Glutinosa

The fruit of the alder tree is used for dyeing, and watching the dye being applied to silk to create a soft brown or antique effect, sent me to my books to learn how it had been used in the past. I had tried it on wool, but with not much success, though with different mordants you can get yellow or green.

Grigson says "Catkins, twigs and bark give a black dye" which was a poor man's dye according to Gerard. As a wood it was used for clogs and sabots, because of its qualities of keeping warm because it is a poor conductor of heat.
Grigson first paragraph describes a tree that puts you in mind of mangroves in a jungle, apparently it has little folklore or myth.....

"Not much emotion has gathered around the Alder, perhaps because it was a tree of swamp and marsh and impenetratable valley moors, which needed the exorcism of natural history. Yet once enjoyed, an alder swamp along a Cornish stream for example, remains perennially and primevally enchanting - the trees alive and dead, moss bearded and lichen bearded, the soil and the water like coal slack and blacksmith's water, in between the tussocks of sedge"

You can almost hear the water gurgling round your wellingtons in that beautifully described paragraph, as you stumble over old roots and tussocks of grass. It probably would have grown in the valley where Bath is situated, a swampy marsh, with steam rising from the hot springs as their flowing waters disappeared into the marshy land around.

I could turn to Culpeper and give its virtues as a herbal remedy, but the best advice is don't,

"for the fresh green bark taken inwardly provides strong vomiting, pains in the stomach and gripings in the belly" but a decoction was taken in spring as a purge, to consume the phlegmatic quality the winter had left!

The common word alder is supposed to come from the Anglo-Saxon word alor or aler, which derives from an old German word elo or elawer (reddish brown), and according to Grigson the Irish used to have a superstitious fear of this wood that turned from white when felled to an orange/red. It is was also used as the base of Venice, in the sense that the wood piles that Venice rests on were made of alder, similarly water pipes and wooden pumps were made of this wood.

Its colouring reminds me of the old yew at Alton Barnes, which has the most beautiful pink/cream centre and must have been a marvellous wood to make things from.

The beautiful heartwood of the Yew at Alton Barnes

http://thelmawilcox.blogspot.com/2008/07/dragons-and-yews.html

Langridge

A beautiful June morning and a last walk to a favourite spot, though to be honest it was also to check on whether the orchids had appeared in their usual places. The start of the walk is by Sir Bevill's monument and here there is a patch of rough ground that hosts orchids and a variety of wildflowers, one of which I had'nt seen before a yellow bladder like flower, similar to white campion, but that shall be named another day.
Over the great stone stiles that mark this part of the Cotswold Way and down the stone path, probably used since prehistoric times as it leads from the Langridge/Lansdown to Charmy Down and Solsbury Hill. The grasses are in full flower, and this is the one time of the year when I suffer hayfever, as they puff their tiny powdered seeds into the air.
A three quarter moon, softly white in the bluest of skies battles against the sun, day of course wins as we approach the longest day of the year. Brown hedge butterflies dance around and moths also, there is an insect, black with red spots, a bit like a moth but is'nt. The birds in the hedges are muted in their talk, creamy heads of elderflower, dog roses are going over and being swamped by the long tendrils of old mans beard - the hedge is a thick mat of hawthorn with the occasional tree and at the moment goosegrass clings tenaciously as well.
Buttercups everywhere, pink campion, cow and field parsley are coming to an end, and the thuggish hogweed thrusts its white head above the grasses. What else, the pea vetch tendrils can just be seen, and silver weed, already losing its silvered edge of spring.
Down into the fields where the orchids are, white and red clover, the white clover flower is beautiful, more cream with a dark purple centre. The gate leads to a field that is not touched by fertilisers, it overlooks St.Catherine's valley with Freezing Hill opposite. Earlier there would have been ladies smock scattered through here, but today the flowering grasses, delicate shades of grey,brown and fawn, shot through with the darker brown/red hues of the flowers of plantains and dock.
The orchids are almost finished, but a few remain to be photographed, the grass is too long to go the badger's lair and the Langridge Barrows but they are both safe in this field, and not in need of human intrusion
Sight and sound, the naming of flower, birdsong and smell of course, elderflower, and the echoes of the strong scent of ransoms in the woods.....

Trefoil with my mysterious insect

Orchids in the Langridge field

St.Catherine's Valley

Looking down towards the A4 with Solsbury Hill/ Charmy down in the distance , this is where the Cotswolds come to a halt.

Mossy tumbled down walling

Orchid in the rough ground

Traces of old quarrying, could be from any time, including the Roman

Packing and sorting

My blog has been neglected but for a good reason, packing books, albums, loom with wools, my old windsor chair that accompanies me through life, my favourite desk, old bear this morning stuffed into the box with pictures. Photographs have been sorted and reduced, seem to have done a lot over the years, correspondence to be sorted, never did get round to filing. My radio and computer the last to be packed, favorite creuset pan plus others...

Letters have dropped out of cookery books from language students I used to host, and 'granny' type letters from my long dead ex-mother-in-law, Lotta, in Switzerland to my daughter, her elegant crest of L bringing a sharp pang of memory of the marvellous scenery and trips we took, Sunday lunches out in the garden with friends.
A friend to visit yesterday, and to sit in their pretty garden on the bench I bought them years ago because their lightweight seats always used to tumble people out. I shall be back of course for there is much else to do, but there is also a new life awaiting with someone who has become the other half of myself, and who is such an extraordinary person..
So I have been unable to write anything, because all my books are packed, though occasionally my fingers itch to write and explore an idea. The season is advancing, dawn chorus in the morning still, but the birds have had their young, plenty of bumble bees around and insects galore, bats have made an appearance here, and the fox suns himself in the afternoon down in the field. But my beans and courgettes are growing in another place now and I grow homesick for the 'golden fields' of Essex.

Gordon Brown is still with us as I write, but the disarray of the labour government was both disastrous and eye-opening at the same time. We came face to face with the reality that some of our politicians are greedy and corrupt, and it will never be the same again. They'll cobble something together of course because the politicians reflect our own society.

But perhaps there is a small ray of hope elsewhere with the new president of America....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02Ao9jyq5Vk

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight

Water mills

Water mills have always been a source of fascination from the great tidal mill at Carew Castle to the medieval water mills. Medieval abbeys have a wealth of information of how water was used in the self-sufficient environment of these establishments. Drains serving the kitchen and abbey buildings were a great feature,and at Castle Acre priory in Norfolk I spent summers excavating and drawing the medieval brewery, kilns and circular malthouse etc and the canal that lay alongside them, so in a way I got to understand the role of water in this part of the world.
So wandering along rivers in Essex and coming once again to these mills and their great water wheels set me thinking. First of all I learnt that there was a total of about 6000 mills recorded in the Domesday book, but that the Anglo-Saxon wheel was horizontal rather than vertical, though there was a period in their history when they were horizontal. Mills have been excavated from the 7th century, one at old 'Windsor' had three large parallel leats diverted from the Thames, though this it had a horizontal wheel above an earlier vertical mill (the horizontal was called a Greek or Norse mill) and these mills were normally without gears.
An example at Tamworth of a horizontal mill, excavated in 197l, showed a leat being diverted from the River Anker, which filled a millpond. From this a chute directed water onto a wooden paddled horizontal wheel, which caused it to rotate clockwise. The wheel was pivotted on a steel bearing, was set in a plank, which could be raised or lowered from the mill house above (mill dated by dendrochronolgy to 955 ad).
Of course with the event of the Norman Conquest, and the feudal system, the small Saxon mills were not terribly practical to large scale use needed by the Norman overlords for economic gain, and so the introduction of the more expensive vertical wheel came into being, the monastic houses would also adopt them as well, the monks coming from their mother houses in France would bring about this innovation in rural Saxon England.
So those rather magnificent mills I have seen in the last few days as we have wandered by rivers have dates well back into past history, one can almost summise that any medieval mill will have been founded on a Saxon mill.
In Chelmsford there is probably about five mills to be found in this rather watery enclave, the Springfield Cursus perhaps pointing the way to its valuable location in the landscape, subsequent settlements taking advantage of the power of water.

ref; medieval mills;

Moulsham Mill (craft centre)
Barnes Mill (by Fox and Raven)
Sandford Mill
Riverside Inn Mill (still has wheel in 17th C building)
Bishop's Hall mill (now disappeared)?
Patching Mill?

Lavenham - Suffolk

The Guild Hall

The Swan Hotel

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.

Market Square

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.

Coggeshall Grange Barn

The interior is indeed cathedral like, and in the medieval period would have been wattle and daub between the timber posts, though nowadays after its restoration in 1985 it is weather boarded. Inside enormous solid posts down the centre, the wood has almost become petrified stone, and you can well imagine that these great tithe barns had their pedigree in the Anglo-Saxon mead halls of old.
Compulsorily bought in the 1980's by the council because it was falling into wrack and ruin, £200,000 was spent restoring it. The river runs behind, and a big old farmhouse in front. Inside the barn there are two great 18th/19th wagons at one end, and at the other a threshing machine.

Coggeshall Abbey

Essex is a very pretty county, having been used to 'stone' country in the south west, the timber framed houses always come as a bit of a revelation. Discovering that the Springfield Mill and farm had at one time been rented by the Cistercian monks at Coggeshall Abbey, yesterday we decided to visited this pretty little town.
First of all stopping off at the great tithe barn but it was shut in the morning, I had spied on the map that the buildings of the abbey were still there to some extent, and so after some mulling over the map we decided to walk down the little gravelled lane opposite the track leading down to the tithe barn.
Hidden secrets lay down this unmarked lane, and one must respect people's wish to keep their homes secret, but there was a public footpath marked, and it is one of the green walking ways route of Essex.
We passed elegantly expensive horses liveried out in some fields, hardly any cows or sheep in arable Essex, just horses everywhere. Then on the left a small chapel stood in a field, St.Peter ad Vincula, the 12th century gate house to the abbey, restored in the 19th century from its previous use as a barn. We were walking down the track taken by the monks and the workers all those years ago from the old barn and entering the claustral buildings of the abbey. Though to be truthful you would be hard pressed to find them, but rounding the corner of this (private driveway), a deep pink timber and plaster house, decorated at the moment with a cloud of the palest mauve wistaria. In the front garden a great cascade of yellow from the laburnum bush, a tiny frightened baby rabbit in the grass, and the dormitory of the abbey still attached to the old house, with an arch to the ambulatory underneath, in the literature nothing mentions it as a cloister walk.
There is a great yard of old timbered barns and stables, and just past the house, a small brick house with a chimney,this was the guest house of the abbey. Walking further on and you come to the Blackwater river, or at least probably the culverted leat for the mill pond and the mill itself, another timbered house astride the waters of the mill. The house itself was elegantly framed in a green sea of trees, willows trailing their slender branches in the water, and a deep pink horse chestnut reflecting its own pretty blooms back at it itself. Round here also would have been the great fish ponds of the abbey, and more horses scattered in buttercup thick fields.

The Elizabethan house hiding parts of the Abbey


Buildings behind the house

Part of the dorter attached to the house, the doorway leads to what would have been the ambulatory

The Abbey Mill


The Hospitum or Guest house; Image LS

Restored 12th century door


12th c Gatehouse chapel to abbey, used as a barn to the 19th century when it was then restored. Dedicated to St.Peter ad Vincula

Notes;
Coggeshall Abbey was founded in 1140 by the Savignac foundation but had quickly passed to the Cistercian order by 1147. The Cistercian order is interesting, if only for the fact that they are the original self sufficency monks, working and doing manual labour themselves on the land. Of course their noble aims of a self sufficient life eventually came to naught as they grew wealthy on their farming skills. Though on reading the Coggeshall Abbey's history online, the greatest crime all through their reign at the abbey and one which was part of the charges brought against them at the Dissolution was that they charged too low a rent to their tenants....

1370 - Alienation of land - Inquisition at Chelmsford, Brentwood and Rayleigh .....Abbot Roger had granted a parcel of the Manor at Kewton Hall in Springfield.

It seems that in 1408 a licence to require a rent in Springfield and Sandon was required for the maintenance of a monk. (presumably these two mills were part of the rent)

Of the abbey church and the conventual buildings, all that survives now are foundations and buried remains, except for parts of the eastern wing of the claustral range, the guesthouse and the abbot's lodgings, which still stand. The farm's timber-framed outbuildings date mainly to the late 16th to early 17th century. Despite being post-Dissolution they are still fine examples of their kind and have been listed.

The earthworks of the abbey's fish ponds still survive, and adjacent land includes an area of former water meadows which has recently been restored. The abbey precinct and surviving remains are designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Further note; One of the corridors in the abbey was found to have painted stone lines probably very similar to the Great Canfield Church...

Also of note is the narrowness of the abbey buildings, which brings to mind the earlier 654 AD chapel at Bradwell - St. Peter on the Wall...



Coggeshall Abbey mill from the 12th century...
CORN MILL (Dated 1840AD)STEAM MILL (Dated 1833AD to 1960AD)TEXTILE MILL (Dated 1733AD to 1766AD)SILK MILL (Dated 1820AD to 1820AD)WEAVING MILL (Dated 1733AD)MILLSTONE (Dated 1540AD to 1900AD)WATERMILL (Dated 1733AD to 1833AD)THROWING MILL (Dated 1820AD)

Barnes Farm

The Chelmer, though here it forms part of the Chelmer and Blackwater navigation canal


One of the features of Chelmsford is the River Chelmer, it snakes through the town and it is perhaps one of the reasons for the Springfield cursus and the Roman history of the town. But of course there are other histories buried under the surburban housing you see today and just to explore one facet brings a whole host of fascinating detail to life.

The river winds and curves through an old parish called Springfield, across great water meadows, home at the moment to a group of horses, they must be all mares as six young foals have appeared, fertile May bringing forth new life. Overlooking this pleasant pastoral scene is the pub called the Fox and Raven which is an old building, late 16th century timbered place with a Georgian 18th century stucco front.

18th Century facade of the pub

But this rather charming building was'nt always a pub, in its earlier days it was a farm, Barnes Farm to be precise.

Walking on Sunday we happened to go down a little lane behind the pub, and eventually came to a public footpath that led us directly to the Chelmer - Springfield locks, and even a greater surprise a large weatherboarded mill, now turned to residential use. This mill had a large mill pond in front, and as you walked by the towpath down towards the pub, the leat which must have been created in the medieval period to fill the mill pond was evident.

                                                          Barnes Mill House

Looking up the history of the mill on the web, I learnt that it had at some time, or at least the manor, had belonged to Coggeshall Abbey in the medieval period, some 20 miles away. But that is another facet to be written about later.

Interior shot of old reused timbers in the Fox and Raven

The pub or Barnes Farm overlooking the leat to the mill, and the water meadows.

Barnes Farm hidden behind its Georgian exterior also has a large range of barns to the side, this of course have also been converted, this time into a restaurant, but the thought that two centuries ago this was once a working farmhouse next door to a busy mill is a nostalgic reminder of past history. The Mill at one time came into the possession of the Marriage family, millers from the 17th century, and still a working company, their history online uncovers the history of all the mills in the Chelmsford area, and a small nugget from the Cropping Book about Brick Barns farm gives a sense of the hardwork of a small farm...

Take one field, Redricks, on one farm, Brick Barns. From 1878 to 1891 it was sown with wheat, clover, wheat, barley, mangold, wheat, beans, wheat, mangold, wheat, trifolium, wheat, barley and beans. It needs little imagination to people that field through the seasons and the years; the ploughman and his horses in a cold and foggy dawn, the boys who cleared stones through winter holidays, the men and women with hoes, and bent backs, the hay-makers and the harvesters and the band of gleaners, the farmer and his family working through the year beside them.

Water lily pads

The week that was

Blog of the 'Quiet Road' its just a small rant on the iniquities that our 'Honourable friends' in the House of Commons are getting up to. Are we coming apart at the seams?

http://numero57.net/

Saturday; Wat Tyler eat your heart out that you are'nt around to lead the incandescent population on the Houses of Parliament. The Guardian takes great delight in pulling apart the scandal that has erupted round our politicians, from a gory cartoon of guillotined MPs (or should that be in lower case). Take for instance the mumblings of one...

"It is catastrophically bad for politics, but it is disproportionately catastrophically bad for us," was the verdict of one cabinet minister as he returned to his constituency in mourning to mark the week in which the last vestiges of a form of parliamentary democracy died. The initial postmortem is death by suicide.

Will our world recover, I expect so, decisive action to weed out fraudulent use of 'expenses', deselection, a new leader may be? thank god it could be Alan Johnston and not Hazel Blears, though some of us would prefer Vince Cable (he's clean).
Right action, moral and ethical codes, you must be joking, though it would be lovely to see some philosophical discussion take place on what has gone on, the shoddy betrayal of a socialist government, who let the markets and bankers rip, then were to be found with their own hands in the public purse. It will make a great historical book one day, when it is all written down in the future but it is like living through a comedy farce, and the end when the final curtain comes down is unpredictable.
Best photo appeared in the Money's section of the Guardian...Live like a MP - Get a Moat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/gallery/2009/may/12/moats-property-house-prices?picture=347246380

The Protest at Tara

Another part of my life.... This letter came through my email this morning, and though it may seem strange too many, I would like to introduce a 'protestor'. Now what is your perception of them? young, dirty, unemployed, a dog at heel, and a jumble of heroic idealism - a potent live bomb on two legs, that is how the police see them, note the batons, headgear and shields worn to protect us. Protestors can also be lyrical, genuine and stout hearted... read on and forget your prejudices....



Hello Friends,

I was devastated, my friend and constant companion for the last 5 years, Bonnie Dog, a friend to many of you, was murdered by a psychopathic trucker neighbour.

It was all very sad and wrong. A great loss… but she had completed her mission.. she had opened my heart.

I have had many beautiful texts and emails from people whose hearts she also touched.

I smiled in court on Wednesday when the video evidence was shown - Bonnie Dog was guarding the gates to Blundlestown, (or was it Lismullen?) at the second battle of Soldiers Hill….

She loved Tara .. it had miraculously transformed her from a scared angry frightened dog to a happy, healing dog.

I traveled on the same journey on along with her, she was a 4 legged anam cara (soulfriend) who came to learn and teach the same lesson.

Even dear Robert fell for her charms… I can still hear him saying ‘that is was the most attention he had received from a female for a long time!’(from Bonnie) Ha!


Animals can teach amazing lessons… horses, dogs and even cats. Loyal, faithful, honest and very perceptive.

I really think they are a higher species than us humans!…

They live in the NOW… no grudges, no ulterior motives.. they just experience life in all it’s fun and fullness.

I was in the valley of the White Mare.. on Rath Lugh for Bealtine… and could have wept all the hours I was there… the broken divided sacred valley, the sadness was overwhelming…

But after the 8 Tara cases were dismissed on Monday we all arrived in the valley, in the sun, on Rath Lugh, together in unity. Amazing healing took place, deep wounds and divisions were healed, arguments were forgotten and forgiven. It was beautiful to see and experience, the land responded, the trees even looked vividly greener to me, the energy surged skyward. Hope restored.

60 SIAC workers charged towards Rath Lugh in 25 cars fueled by Mark Cleary’s wounded pride… and they saw the 2 new born babies, 2 prams, love of the land and a powerful healing energy on the Mound of the Sages;

They beat a hasty retreat without a word, or even a verbal or physical assault !

Their twisted darkness just can not exist in the Light of truth .

Our Love of the land, of truth and integrity, can and will overcome and triumph over the corruption, lies and the money worshiping soulless and new slavery.

It was beautiful sight to see… their hi-vis hardhat, hardheart ‘SWAT ‘ team deflected by our unity and re-connection with the land.
We, the people, have the power, if only we realised it and claimed it! They are rightly running scared.
Their darkness, lies, corruption, treason and destruction can not exist in the light of truth and justice.
So let us demand it. Strike with hunger in our heart for it.
I have only just begun to understand and feel and believe in Tara , as the spiritual heart of this beautiful land and it’s aspect in this battle …
I have known it in my head… but only just now begun to feel it in my heart.
The battle has only just begun… the fat lady has not sung yet… don’t give up, bathe your wounds, heal and return to this battle.
Justice was delivered on Monday and Wednesday … all were freed from the legal chains of bail conditions.
So let us renew our fight! Pick up our weapons of truth and justice and engage in victorious battle!
A battle worth the fight, a battle we can win, it is ours for the taking.
I can see the armies of unemployed, FAS courses… digging up the tarmac in the valley! Local employment! sustainability ; )
On Wednesday we took the powerful symbolic Vigil flame to the Lismullen henge and held a ritual, in unity, lead by the group, and the land.
We called upon Truth and Justice: the indestructible infallible sword of truth, and the scales of justice that will call all to account for their actions.
We then took the flame up to the Lia Fail and sent out the energy of the fire, a flame of hope, faith, truth, justice and purification across the land…
Fianna Gael /Fail & Co. have failed us, raped this sacred land, but let us join with the Fianna buried in Collierstown, remember our ancestors and join their fight to defend this beautiful land from those who are trying to destroy it.
It was a late Bealtine fire festival… but I now I think I understand what Bealtine is:

The end of darkness, new hope, growth, sheding the old, fertility and rebirth.

I feel that the reverberations are echoing across the land… even to beautiful Glengad.. see http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92319

Reclaim your land, your heritage, your birthright and sovereignty from the thieves, developers and money grabbers.

I have just this minute received an email saying :

“that no cause is helpless if it is just.

John W. Scoville said that, and he was right.

Do not let a Just Cause go unassisted by you. Do what you can.

Never think that what you can do is not enough.

Every little bit helps. To do nothing is what hurts.


So please follow your heart and intuition, defeat is not an option… if Tara is not kept sacred as it has been for millennia, what is next?
Make a stand for you and for your children.

Be on the Vigil for the film show this Saturday,

Come celebrate and party in here in Leitrim next Saturday,

Go to Rossport.. demand the return of our billions of euro national resources and birthrights.

So Pixies, Poets, Pacifists and Warriors,
Artists, Anarchists, Estate Agents and Accountants,
Fianna Gaels/Fails, Labour, Greens and even Gormleys.
This is a call to arms, to all.


See you on The Hill!

If you can’t get there demand action from your TD, write to the papers, visit you local SIAC site,

just do your ‘thing’, do something!



Jonathan,

(and Shadow, the Puppy)

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“We have pledged ourselves to the dead generations who have preserved intact for us this glorious heritage that we, too, will strive to be faithful to the end, and pass on this tradition unblemished.”
Eamon de Valera

Blakes Wood

Saturday, a sunny day after the cold winds of this week, serendipity took us to Little Baddow village which happened to have an open garden day, instead a walk through Blake's Wood with all the bluebells, just having reached their peak and about to go over was our preferred choice. Laced amongst the bluebells was stitchwort at the path edge, and the smell of freshly cut wood added to the faint perfume of bluebells. Also, and I have'nt heard one for a few years back in Somerset, a cuckoo in the distance. Back to the village, and to the pub of course, which was completely full of people with bags of plants they must have bought from the gardens, another surprise, Morris Dancers,traditonal May activities. They danced beautifully, short and long sticks, plus the hankerchief dance. They were accompanied by a person dressed as a badger.


and to quote...


"Morris dancing is an ancient seasonal pagan ritual male custom associated with the bringing of luck, the fertility and regeneration of the soil and the promotion of the cycle of the seasons...... In the dances there'll be much jingling of bells and stick-clashing to frighten away the evil spirits and high capers will encourage Mother Earth to ensure the crops grow tall in the coming harvest"
Well the countryside certainly looks in a fertile mood this May, the blossoms cascading everywhere and the bright yellow of rape seed flower assaults the eye at every turn. Apparently rapeseed oil is now fashionable... Brightly coloured male pheasants are strutting their stuff down lanes with their dowdy females lurking in the hedges.

Blakes Wood - exposed sheet of bluebells after trees have been cut down

Little Baddow Church over the fields

Blakes Wood

Mayflower Morris dancers