anno domini

'Come; see the oxen kneel'

2007-12-22T18:16:00.000Z

O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in præsepio.
Beata virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt
portare Dominum Christum, Alleluia!

O great mystery and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord
lying in their manger.
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy
to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
"Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
"Come; see the oxen kneel,"

In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so

Thomas Hardy

Happy Christmas!

Winter in the garden

2007-12-21T16:58:00.000Z

I think that the garden is just as pretty in its frosted winter clothing as it is in the summer!

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;

But like of each thing that in season grows.

- William Shakespeare ('Love's Labour's Lost')

Countdown to Christmas

2007-12-17T17:45:00.000Z

Haven't blogged much recently - been preoccupied with other things. So I've taken the easy way out and posted some photos!

Christmas at the Garden Centre:

Pots with Todd Crag in the background

Frosted plants

The entry to 'Winter Wonderland'

Poinsettias

Decorations

Here is John Betjeman's take on Christmas preparations:

And how, in fact, do we prepare

The great day that waits us there -

For the twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means

An interchange of hunting scenes

On coloured cards, And I remember

Last year I sent out twenty yards,

Laid end to end, of Christmas cards

To people that I scarcely know -

They'd sent a card to me, and so

I had to send one back. Oh dear!

Is this a form of Christmas cheer?

Or is it, which is less surprising,

My pride gone in for advertising?

The only cards that really count

Are that extremely small amount

From real friends who keep in touch

And are not rich but love us much

Some ways indeed are very odd

By which we hail the birth of God.

We raise the price of things in shops,

We give plain boxes fancy tops

And lines which traders cannot sell

Thus parcell'd go extremely well

We dole out bribes we call a present

To those to whom we must be pleasant

For business reasons. Our defence is

These bribes are charged against expenses

And bring relief in Income Tax

Enough of these unworthy cracks!

'The time draws near the birth of Christ'.

A present that cannot be priced

Given two thousand years ago

Yet if God had not given so

He still would be a distant stranger

And not the Baby in the manger.

from 'Advent 1955'

Lads in their hundreds....

2007-11-11T16:40:00.000Z

image: Fairground Heritage Trust

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

from 'A Shropshire Lad' A. E. Housman

A walk for the Sunday Papers

2007-07-29T17:13:00.000+01:00

Off to get the papers -

down the road, past the cottages:

Along the Lane, and across the end of the Green:

Enjoy the plants peeping over the high walls:

Along the road to the newsagent's on the corner:

and into the newsagent's shop to buy the papers:

Back past the Green:

Along the road that slopes down from the Green to our little fell:

Through the gap in the stone walls - a type of stile known as a 'Fat Man's Agony':

Down through Prickly Fell:

Back down the road - admiring the campanulas en route :

Home again - and the pleasing prospect of an afternoon with the Sunday Papers:

A Tale of Two Tubs

2007-07-15T18:17:00.000+01:00

I bought two packs of runner beans (the labels did not indicate the variety) and planted them - 8 in the larger black tub (left) and 5 in the green tub on the right.

The difference is their growth is remarkable; I think I placed new compost in the black tub and used last year's compost in the green. But I didn't think it would make this much difference!

Weird?!

Compare & Contrast

2007-07-02T21:35:00.000+01:00

I came across an old wedding photo the other day and thought that it was interesting to compare it with one from my son's recent wedding:

April 2007

This old photo (below) is the wedding party for the marriage of my husband’s grandparents in London, 1899. Sadly no one thought to write the names of the participants on the back, so we only know the names of the bride and groom (pictured centre left).

Little did they know what lay ahead.

Tragically the bride and groom were both killed, many years later in the second World War: in a particularly heavy bombing raid (16th April, 1941) during the London blitz, the family home was bombed. (My husband’s father was blinded, but husband (then aged 5) and his mother were protected by a wardrobe which tipped over and sheltered them from falling debris.)

The members of the party all look rather severe - probably because of the long exposure time for photography in those days.

Bags of Common Sense

2007-06-29T14:44:00.000+01:00

I have noticed all the fuss in the press about this designer bag on sale at Sainsbury's for around £5 - some stores reported that they had sold out of the bags within an hour. The bag was then reported to be selling on eBay for up to £200

How about a little common sense.

This bag is supplied by our local Booths supermarket. It is made of jute and is said to be ‘climate neutral', and comes with a useful insert should you wish to use it for carrying bottles. And all for £2.49. I think it beats the designer version hollow!

Good old Booths! (n.b. no apostrophe these days!)

More here: http://www.booths-supermarkets.co.uk/assets/news/20070427_Bags.html

A garden in June

2007-06-20T21:49:00.000+01:00

Some pictures of my garden:

Geranium 'Johnson's Blue' with the white philadelphus peeping through

A bee visits

Carpet rose

Weigela

'Masquerade' rose

Welsh Poppy

This is a self-seeding poppy. I dead-head it every other day, cutting off the stems which have finished flowering. Then it throws out more and more flowers right until the first frosts. A modest but worthwhile little plant.

The Flat-Cart

2007-06-09T08:45:00.000+01:00

Allonby - a Cottage by the Sea. 4

The Flat-Cart

‘I’m going down to Edderside with the flat-cart.’ Mrs. Tomlinson shouted. ‘You kids want to come along?’

Mrs. Tomlinson was a Londoner who spent her summers at Allonby helping out at the riding school, booking and saddling up and taking the rides. I never once saw her wearing anything other than her rust-coloured jodhpurs, green tweed riding jacket and black velveteen riding hat. We marvelled at her exotic London accent. ‘Eow, come on,’ she’d yell when we moaned about the rain ‘It’s only gonna be a sheower’ (We imitated those London vowels gleefully.) She was always accompanied by her dog, Pindy, a black Scottie who usually rode in the basket of his owner’s ‘sit-up-and-beg’ bicycle

A ride on the flat-cart! The others were not to be told twice. My sister ran to the cottage and informed our mother that we were going. I, as ever, had doubts. The flat-cart was another danger to me. It was indeed flat, but it sloped downwards front to back. It had no sides, and there was nothing for passengers to hold on to. I had ridden on it once of twice before, but just for short distances, and I had felt very insecure. It seemed to me that one stayed on the thing by some strange form of gravity which I did not trust.

But I was swept along by the enthusiasm of the others - they couldn’t wait. Mrs. Tomlinson patted Jimmy Mac, the trotter (he could trot very fast without breaking into a canter) and threw her dog, Pindy, onto the cart where he settled down happily. We all scrambled aboard. Mrs. Tomlinson took the reins, her legs dangling over the side. A couple of the others sat along the sides legs dangling in imitation. I sat as near to the middle of the cart as I could, crouching with my legs tucked under me, trying to find a fingerhold, but found I had to real purchase anywhere.

Mrs. T. shook the reins and clucked at Jimmy Mac who set off, soon breaking into his customary trot.

We were on the road now, and Jimmy Mac’s hooves sound sharp and staccato , like bullet shots. The others chatted excitedly. We were soon clear of the village, and the safety of home was receding fast. Edderside was only about 3 miles out of the village, but everything familiar had been left behind and the countryside was alien.

Every so often the cart would lurch a little and I would feel myself slipping towards the back. I clung on, praying we would get there. Eventually we reached the farmhouse, where Mrs. T. went about her business (I don’t remember what it was). The others were fired up with the joy of their adventure, laughing and shouting. My throat was dry, but I pretended to join in. Then, as Mrs. T. reappeared I realised my torment was to begin again.

Once again I clung on. The dusk was gathering now, the blue-grey sky cool and threatening. I crouched and dug my nails into one of the gaps between the slats of the cart, picking up a splinter or two. I hoped fervently that I would get back alive. Didn’t the others appreciate the danger? Didn't they realise that we could slither off this swaying fairground-ride and dash our skulls to pieces on the tarmac? They were still prattling on merrily, completely unconcerned , legs swinging nonchalantly and arms waving excitedly. But I was in a state of fear, slipping a milimeter further towards the edge at every trotting step.. I could see the road flashing by through the cracks between the slats. I slid a little further down the cart. I could see how the back dipped with the weight of us all and almost scraped the ground . Just get me home, I prayed , Get me home

Of course, we all got back to the village safely. And I see myself on this photograph, kneeling happily on the flat-cart, looking blissfully confident. Nobody knew how filled with a myriad of fears I was - fear of the horses, fear of riding, fear of being too far from home, fear of falling off the flat-cart…

But there I am - grinning happily. If they only knew.

Jimmy Mac and the Flat-Cart.

Back row, l to r: Me, sister Pat, Dot with 'Pindy'
Front row: Elaine with 'Chummy', Jackie, Isa

Ambleside - 2

2007-06-04T08:31:00.000+01:00

Some more photos of Ambleside, taken on Wednesday.

The House on the Bridge - built around 300 years ago this has been described as a Garden House, a Summer House and an apple store. It is built over the Stock Ghyll, some have said to avoid land tax. Stock Ghyll ran between the gardens of the old Ambleside Hall (no longer there) and its orchard. It is said that at one time a family with 6 children lived in the two rooms!

The old mill wheel

Garden alongside Stock Ghyll

The Apple Pie Eating House

Old cottages in Ambleside:

cottages in Peggy Hill

Ambleside - 1

2007-06-01T20:15:00.000+01:00

A visit to my favourite Garden Centre, at Ambleside:

View from the cafe

Wisteria-clad dovecote

Snarker Pike with rosa rugose in the foreground

Todd Crag - with escallonia

'The Girlhood of Anno Domini'

2007-05-23T17:40:00.000+01:00

A Cottage by the Sea. 3 - 'The Girlhood of Anno Domini'

Mr. Parsons was a grey-bearded dignified, but vague-looking ex-teacher. Nobody really knew him well. This was less than ten years after the war, and it was rumoured that he was ‘shell-shocked‘. We gathered that that meant mad - or 'screwy' as we would have said then.

He lived alone in a bungalow at the southern end of the village. Mr. Parsons was a driver of sorts; the extensive greens that ran the length of Allonby - and beyond - provided him with a road-free route into the centre. His pre-war Austin bounced over the springy rough grass from his home all the way to the square, and the handful of shops. He had ‘L’ plates on the whole time; and so, for his whole life, all his shopping and any social life he had, were carried out without the need for him to suffer the trauma of a driving-test.

One day, we met him as he was sitting in the shelter, a strange (usually deserted) open-sided building in the middle of the green. He started to talk to us about the tides, and how they were pulled by the moon. (This was real proof to us that Mr. Parsons was indeed mad) He gestured extravagantly as we gathered round him, in a scene reminiscent of the ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’.

Uneasy about this wild talk, we escaped as soon as we decently could.

We went home and told Mum about the weird things Mr. Parsons had told us.
‘Oh yes, that's true,' said Mum, sweeping sand from the paving into a neat pile. 'that's absolutely true; the sea is pulled by the moon's gravity' . We were flabbergasted.

But we had a new respect for Mr. Parsons.

'The Boyhood of Raleigh' Millais

An Unforgettable Day

2007-04-25T14:42:00.000+01:00

My elder son was married on Easter Day in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. The weather was kind to us. For the previous week it had been chilly in Cumbria, and I was concerned about the female participants in flimsy summer outfits: I needn't have worried - the sun shone all day. Here are a few photos:

Man and Wife

Leaving the Chapel

Young guests playing 'tag' around the Great Court Fountain (taken from the Hall)

Bride and Groom at the Wedding Breakfast in the 17th Century Great Hall - presided over by Henry VIII (a copy of the Holbein original)
The first dance

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen each other in all labour, to minister to each other in all sorrow,to share with each other in all gladness,to be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories?
after George Eliot

A lone bridesmaid wanders across twilit Great Court - the end of a wonderful day!

Wearing White for Eastertide

2007-04-19T08:53:00.000+01:00

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide,

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
A.E.Housman

Spring in my Cumbrian garden. Not cherry, but amelanchier - and in a few fleeting days the blossom will be gone; already it is littering the lawn with its confetti.

And under the tree, self-seeding forget-me-nots revel in their profusion.

An Easter Story

2007-04-04T22:40:00.000+01:00

The Arrest of Christ. Fra Angelico

When they were small, my two sons attended a Church of England primary school, so were familiar with stories from the Bible. One day near Easter, I found them acting out a story they had heard at school. I gathered that it was a scene from the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, as it involved a lot of jumping on and off the sofa shouting, and waving ‘swords’ (plastic rulers)

I feel the message had been lost somewhere along the line, as after a while I heard the youngest wail,

‘That's it. I'm not going to be Jesus any more’ (He threw down his 'sword')

‘I want to be a goody’

Happy Easter!

'Time-honoured Lancaster'

2007-03-30T16:49:00.000+01:00

I visited Lancaster today, and came across this horseshoe set into the pavement. It represents the place where John of Gaunt’s horse was said to have shed a shoe.

‘Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster’ (opening line of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’)

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (called after his birthplace, Ghent) was born in 1340, and was the third surviving son of King Edward III (He died in 1399)

Although Shakespeare has one of the witches in ‘Macbeth’ telling Banquo, ‘Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none’ - this could just as easily apply to John of Gaunt. His son was Henry 1V, his grandson Henry V and his great-grandson Henry VI. His illegitimate descendants (who became legitimate after his marriage to his former mistress Katherine Swynford) were known as the Beauforts, and one of them, Margaret, married Edmund Tudor; their son became Henry VII - and so the descent carried on, to Henry VIII and beyond!

John of Gaunt's Gateway at Lancaster Castle

(pity about the caravan!)

John of Gaunt is fortunate to have these famous words (about his country) put into his mouth by Shakespeare (in ‘Richard II’)

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

John of Gaunt - at Lancaster Castle

Late Winter or Early Spring?

2007-03-20T17:07:00.000Z

Some photos taken yesterday:

Snow-capped Langdale Pikes above Windermere

Todd Crag from Ambleside

Daffodils, heathers and (left) corkscrew hazel (corylus avellana 'contorta')

Daffodils

2007-03-19T20:54:00.001Z

Dora's field, Rydal. photo: Tony Richards

'....all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze '

From a Georgian Farmhouse- 3

‘I fancy a drift of daffodils at the near end of the orchard’, said Mum.

Her friend Margaret, who ran the Bellgarth Nurseries in Carlise gave her a large selection of daffodil and narcissus bulbs.

‘I’ll get Old Ernie to plant them on Saturday,’ said Mum (There were two Ernies - Ernie the Blacksmith, and Old Ernie who came to do the garden.)

Old Ernie was a gardener of the ‘Municipal’ type; he liked things ‘just so’. Mum’s front borders were planted with neat and even rows of alternating allysum and lobelia, with scarlet salvias lined up behind them. Patriotic and oh so formal.

‘Mmm…something a bit less...well... regimented would be nice,’ murmured Mum. But Old Ernie was in charge.

Mum explained what she wanted for the daffs, and Old Ernie planted them.

‘Oh, no!’ said Mum when the green blades pushed through the orchard grass in the Spring. ‘O, no! Just look at my daffs,’

There they stood, in three immaculately straight lines along the edge of the orchard lawn - like serried ranks of soldiers on parade.

It took Mum several years of surreptitious planting to soften the rows of Old Ernie’s planting scheme. And the result was never quite the ‘drift’ that she had envisaged - but the flowers were pretty all the same.

‘and then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils’
Wordsworth.

Dog About Town

2007-03-13T09:04:00.000Z

Spotted this young Dog About Town outside our local supermarket.

A Dog's Life

2007-03-07T08:25:00.000Z

A Cottage by the Sea - 2. 'A dog's life'

We are cycling hell-for-leather down a country road. Energetically. Not the usual slow meander. But as though our lives depended on it. My mother, my sister, a couple of our friends and me. We don’t speak. Our heads are down. We grip the handlebars tightly with grim determination.

We do not notice the scenery. But we are aware we are riding along strange roads which we have never seen before. Alien villages are passed through without us even noting their names. The buildings look different, almost sinister; the road cold and hostile. The sky is overcast, although it is quite warm. Subdued. To match our mood.

Bru and me

Bruno (also known as Bru or Bruey) was our only pet dog. Afterwards we had a string of border collies, but they were working dogs. (although they inevitably came to be treated as members of the household) But Bru was our childhood pet - our very own. Bru was a little character. My mother would open the door for him in the morning and he would scamper out to visit the neighbours (we were allowed to let dogs off the lead then). And so Bru would have several extra snacks a day. When he had distemper, my mother sewed him into an old ‘liberty bodice’ and he trotted around happily, unaware of the mirth he provoked in onlookers.

He was part of the regular decampment to Allonby. And that summer as usual he ‘ran wild’ around the village.

One day as we were eating our lunch, the window suddenly darkened and the rangy shape of Old Joe from next door blocked the light. He was knocking at the window and mouthing something. ‘It’s Bruno. Bruno.‘ Mum jumped up, ready to fend off the impending bad news. ‘Oh dear,‘ she said. She opened the door. ‘Bruno’s been run over’ said Joe, gesturing towards the road. ‘He was chasing a cat,‘ he said ‘ran straight over the bridge and into the road looking neither right nor left'

Mum tried to prevent us from hearing this, or from seeing anything, but it was too late. ‘What’s happened to Bru?‘ We peered out of the window, then ran to the door just in time to see Lenny Jackson, the idolised riding instructor pick our little Bru up by the tail - a shocking and undignified sight - and place him in a sack.

After lunch, my mother took us all on our strenuous, supposedly diverting cycle ride.
And later that afternoon, Lenny buried Bru in the sand behind The Hill.

The village seemed to be a foreign place that day as we struggled to come to terms with the first bereavement we had encountered. The world would never again be a wholly pleasant place.

Mum and Bru at Allonby

Change of Address

2007-03-05T22:40:00.000Z

I have changed my address to one more in keeping with the name of my blog.

Hope you have found me!

Regards,

anno domini

Borough Market, Southwark

2007-03-04T11:37:00.000Z

Visited Borough Market in Southwark, London last weekend. The medieval market was originally a wholesale fruit and vegetable outlet, and moved to its present site beneath the railway tracks in 1756. Now it sells gourmet foods from all over Britian and Europe.

Let them eat cake

Cheeses piled high.

I read recently that the more brightly coloured fruit and vegetables were full of antioxidents. This seems a good place to start shopping for your healthy diet.

Famous for fifteen minutes

2007-02-26T16:08:00.000Z

Ah, the fleeting nature of fame!

Spotted this in Tower Bridge Road, London at the weekend. (I could have done without the American spelling of 'cancelled' - but perhaps I'm too fussy!)

Help - I've been tagged!

2007-02-20T20:43:00.000Z

I’ve been tagged by Jonathan to choose my favourite French films. Help! I can’t really remember any, as I’m not really a film buff; I’m happy to watch a film once, and that’s that.

As for French films - well I remember the usual stuff, ‘Jean de Florette’, 'The Red Balloon ' etc.
However, one I particularly remember is ‘Blanche’ : this was directed by a Pole, Walerian Borowczyk, (1971) but I suppose it counts as it was filmed in French, in France.

It was an atmospheric tale set in a 13th century court, where the King’s young wife was seduced by the wrong man. The outcome was pretty savage; her lover being drawn behind horses until he was a ‘bleeding piece of earth’ and Blanche herself suffering the dreadful fate of being bricked up. So not what you’d call a jolly film!

But it was filmed beautifully; slowly, the camera allowed to linger. The period setting was meticulously realized, and the music, played on original instruments was authentic and moving. I like that fact that many foreign films are so static and unrushed, refusing to bow to the Hollywood requirement to dash about hither and thither at great head-spinning speed. After all, life is not a series of ‘edited highlights’.

I have no problem with subtitles - in fact if a film is dubbed, I won’t watch it. Dubbing drains all the atmosphere from a film; the sound of the language -whether you understand it or not - is essential to the ‘spirit of place‘
So - not a list I’m afraid, but the best I can do!

Spot the Dog

2007-02-20T13:43:00.000Z

As though to prove its rural credentials, where other publications might run a ‘Spot the Ball’ competition (which for those unfamiliar with the idea is a photograph of a football game where the ball has been removed; the competitors have to gauge from the position and the demeanour of the players, where the ball is likely to be) our local newspaper, the Westmorland Gazette runs a weekly ‘Spot the Dog’ competition.

Here we have a rural scene of a sheepdog herding a flock of sheep - and yes, the dog has been removed from the photo.the competitors mark with a cross the place where they estimate the dog should be. It is actually quite good fun. A knowledge of the behaviour of sheep is an advantage.

This week's competition photo is at the top of this page; go on, have a go - spot the dog!

Here is the newspaper’s cartoonist Colin Shelbourn’s spin on the topic:

8 August 2003
Major national news: Britain has a hot summer.
Even the Lake District gets a bit hot.

Due to the weather,
this week's ‘Spot The Dog’ competition
has been replaced with ‘Spot The Camel.’

A Cottage by the Sea

2007-02-06T16:53:00.000Z

A Cottage by the Sea. 1. '3 The Hill'

Some time in the late 1940s my Grandfather bought a small cottage at the seaside. It was in a long, straggling, faded village called Allonby on the Solway coast. The village had been a popular bathing resort in the Victorian era and still had some elegant building, one known as The Baths, and a Reading Room donated by the local Quakers.

Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins visited the village in the1850s when they were touring, ostensibly researching for their joint story ‘The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices’ (which eventually appeared in 5 parts in Household Words in 1857)
Their characters arrive at the village:

' 'A watering-place,' retorted Thomas Idle, with the pardonable sharpness of an invalid, 'can't be five gentlemen in straw hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy's legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy's body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are you talking about?'

'Allonby, gentlemen,' said the most comfortable of landladies as she opened one door of the carriage;

'Allonby, gentlemen,' said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened the other. '

The cottage’s address was 3 The Hill - but if it was indeed a hill it must have been only 2 or 3 inches above the surrounding terrain. This was no picture-postcard 'second-home', more a ramshackle make-do-and-mend sort of place.

We were part of a higgledy-piggledy block of back-to-back houses in the middle of a grassy area only a matter of yards from the beach. (the small white block on the left at the top of the picture, between the beck and the beach) They were literally ‘back-to-back’ as number 3 had neither windows nor a door at the rear. We faced onto the green where the Beck ran the length of the village crossed by several white-painted bridges.

On the corner of the block was the Riding School (presided over by Lenny - the heart-throb of many a small girl) - a hanging-out spot for my sister and most of the other visiting children. (I was reluctant as I was afraid of horses!)

The layout of our little house was difficult; the second bedroom led off the first. The ‘bathroom’ had no bath, just a kitchen-style deep enamel sink together with a loo behind a partition. In a recess in the wall was a pile of ancient ‘Tit-Bits’ magazines (left behind by the previous owner) the like of which we had never seen before , and which we children found very amusing. The kitchen was no more than an under-stairs cupboard which had two electric rings on a shelf.

In spite of these limitations we happily spent many weekends, Easter fortnights and long, lazy summer holidays there for several years.

The Idle Apprentices again:

‘The brook crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public expense. ‘

Old postcard. The Hill is on the far left

'There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine views - on fine days - of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from…’

A Winter's Day

2007-01-28T22:05:00.000Z

Withering and keen the winter comes

While comfort flyes to close shut rooms

And sees the snow in feathers pass

Winnowing by the window glass...

from 'The Shepherd's Calendar' John Clare

But Winter hasn't really come, or at least it paid a fleeting visit last Monday but declined to stay.

I took these pictures of snow over Ambleside, just to prove to myself that we have managed a couple of wintry days, so far.

Off by heart

2007-01-17T22:11:00.000Z

Scenes from Boarding School Life - 4

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet in form as palpable
As this which now I draw

At school we had a system of black-marks (called ‘untidies’) which were meted out by senior girls who inspected common-rooms and cloakrooms daily just before tea. At the end of tea a senior would read out the list of miscreants - and their misdemeanours: a scarf left on the cloakroom floor, a writing-case left on the common-room table, a hockey-boot - not put away in a cloakroom locker.

These were to be reported to Group-leaders next lunchtime. (we had Groups rather than Houses - they had the embarrassingly twee names, Balmoral, Buckingham, Sandringham and Windsor.)

I usually managed two or three Untidies each term.

Oh dear, yet another. I mounted the stairs to the mezzanine where the mysterious pine-clad prefects’ study was, to report to a Buckingham Group Leader - we weren’t allowed to ask for specific people; one took pot luck This time I got the severest prefect, Carol M.

‘I’ve come to report an Untidy’ . I stood on the steps, trying to catch a glimpse of the inner sanctum.

‘Again? Which Shakespeare play are you studying in class? Macbeth? Right, bring your book to me after games..

Later I returned with ‘Macbeth’

She leafed through the book.

‘Right. I want you to learn this short passage off by heart. From ‘Is this a dagger…’ to ‘…this which now I draw’. By Wednesday.’

On Wednesday I made my way to the Study. …art thou not fatal vision.. bounded up the stairs ..or art thou but a dagger of the mind…and knocked on the door…the heat-oppressed brain..

I confronted Carol M. and handed her the book, opened at the marked page.
I took a deep breath:

‘IsthisadaggerwhichIseebeforemethehandletowardsmyhandcomeletmeclutchtheeIhavetheenotandyetIseetheestill.’

I closed my eyes to block out any distractions , and carried on, heady with my own success. I could see the end in sight:

‘…orartthoubutadaggerofthemindafalsecreationproceedingfromtheheat-oppressedbrain…proceedingfromtheheat-oppressedbrain….theheat-oppressed brain..’

But nothing more proceeded from my heat-oppressed brain. Nothing. Time seemed to stand still. I hardly knew where I was any more.

‘You may have another day - come back tomorrow.’

My brain melted with gratitude. I almost liked Carol M. now; after all, if she had chosen to she could have given me a completely new passage to learn.

I started down the stairs.

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain. I see thee yet in form as palpable as that which now I….I'd got it. I'd got it.

I turned to go back, but the Study door was firmly closed. But I knew that tomorrow I would be OK.

I remember those words 50 years later. And the many other poems and prose passages that I learnt ‘off by heart’ . I enjoy letting those words swim around in my head.

And I am grateful for that civilised ‘punishment’.

Post-Christmas Slump, or 'The cure for this ill'

2007-01-12T16:37:00.000Z

This is the time of year when I unaccountably slide downwards into a mildly negative mood. Perhaps it is because the (excessive) purposefulness of Christmas preparations has gone, and there is nothing yet to replace it.

This morning was overcast, dull, windy, drizzly and utterly gloomy weather-wise. Could I stand going into town - again? During this nothing-will-please-me-today-no-matter-what mood, the several usually pleasant routes into town all seemed uninviting.

What was needed was Action!

‘The cure for this ill
is not to sit still
Or frowst with a book by the fire;
But to take a large hoe
And a shovel also
And dig till you gently perspire’

(not Kipling’s best - but nevertheless wise advice)

In this weather, digging was not an option, so we decided on a vigorous walk. We drove the 9 miles to Windermere, and parked in the village of Bowness. This is perhaps more a small town than a village and in the Summer it can be as crowded as Blackpool. Nevertheless, its situation reminds me faintly of those little towns on the Swiss lakes - an English spin on Vevey.

Today there were only a few locals and hardy visitors around. We had our coffee and a slice of the best lemon meringue pie in Cumbria at ‘Bowness Kitchen’ then did a circuit of Helm Road and Biskey Howe Road, a loop which takes you up to the Biskey Howe viewpoint - a huge reward for minimal effort. (although it doesn’t feel like that for the first quarter of a mile - it’s a bit of a stagger whichever end of the loop you start from)

A pile of twigs in a garden: Biskey Howe Road. I like the range of winter colours:

And above, a mysterious gate leads - where?

The path up to the viewpoint

The rocky outcrop looks like a mountain range from this angle

The viewpoint summit, with a misty Windermere, looking north towards Ambleside:

The summit looking south, towards Newby Bridge:

We rejoin the road...

... down to the village

And back to Bowness and human company again. And although it was raining by now - that typical Lake District rain which is blown in all directions at once, and an umbrella is a liability - our mood was lifted, the endorphins were released, and the ill most definitely cured!

Twelfth Night

2007-01-07T15:37:00.000Z

There is some disagreement as to whether Twelfth Night is the 5th January - the eve of Twelfth Day, or on the 6th January - the evening of the Twelfth Day. Either way it has come and gone.

So, all the Christmas decorations are down; the tree dismantled, the wreath taken from the front door, the cards read once more then placed into the recylcing box. Why is it such a mournful task?
I'm relieved in one way - they all seem so irrelevant once the Day itself is over. But is it sad because perhaps Christmas once again has not quite lived up to expectations? Am I trying in vain to recapture the magic I felt as a child?

Dad took this photo of my sister and I sitting in front of the fire in our basket chairs c.1952, and accidentally superimposed another picture of us singing carols. But the result was rather nice.

17th Century Twelfth Night merriment.
Now Christmas is past,
Twelfth Night is the last
To the Old Year adieu,
Great joy to the new

'On Christmas Day in the Morning'

2007-01-02T13:17:00.000Z

The weather this Christmas has been unseasonably mild. We still had a few brave roses nodding doubtfully, and little sprigs of campanula poscharskyana still clinging to life in the front tubs.

I lit the fire on Christmas Day, not because we needed it, but just because Christmas without a fire seems all wrong. So we sat round feeling uncomfortably warm!

Francis Kilvert, a young curate lodging at Ashbrook House, Clyro, during the 19th century, was not so lucky.

Rev. Francis Kilvert

This is his diary entry for Christmas Day 1870:

'Sunday, Christmas Day

As I lay awake praying in the early morning I thought I heard a sound of distant bells. It was an intense frost.

I sat down in my bath upon a sheet of thick ice which broke in the middle into large pieces whilst sharp points and jagged edges stuck all round the sides of the tub like chevaux de frise, [spiked defensive structures] not particularly comforting to the naked thighs and loins, for the keen ice cut like broken glass. The ice water stung and scorched like fire. I had to collect the floating pieces of ice and pile them on a chair before I could use the sponge in my hands for it was a mass of ice.

The morning was most brilliant. Walked to the Sunday School with Gibbins and the road sparkled with millions of rainbows, the seven colours gleaming in every glittering point of hoar frost. The Church was very cold in spite of two roaring stove fires.'

Read more about Francis Kilvert and his Diary here: http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/guest_authors/Francis%20Kilvert

anno domini 2007

2006-12-31T20:26:00.000Z

My Christmas - Breughel's Census

Back online! Just in time for the New Year.

Received my new package including a 'livebox' to make our computers wireless. Rather daunting to connect - I could have had it done by my ISP's technician for £65 - but with both my sons home for Christmas, I was saved that expense!

This has been probably our last traditional 'family Christmas' (Mum, Dad & 'the boys') as our eldest is getting married at Easter. So being wirelessly connected 'the boys' (aged 25 & 24) spent most of the time playing a 2-player sci-fi game, 'Red Alert' - one on my desktop and one on my laptop, to the accompaniment of wall-to-wall Simpsons on TV. (Rather touchingly, though, they play these games as a team, both on the same side rather than against each other).

I wonder - if we'd had a daughter, would I get to watch 'Private Life of a Christmas Masterpiece: Breughel's Census at Bethlehem' or perhaps 'Giselle' or 'Cosi fan tutte' ? But, being outnumbered by males 3 to 1, no chance.

So - back to the Blog; but how on earth does one blog? I've forgotten. I was just beginning to get a bit more fluent, and now must start from scratch again. Help!

Their Christmas - 'Red Alert'

Off the Air

2006-12-01T10:46:00.000Z

Dear Readers,

Sorry, I am Netless at the moment.

My ISP (v21) was taken over by Biscit and for some reason NetServices disconnected all v21 customers without any warning whatsoever!
So now I must wait for NetServices to 'release my MAC' - a migration code without which one cannot sign on with another server!

So - I can only access the net occasionally at my local library.

Hope to resume normal services as soon as possible.

Regards,
anno domini

11th November

2006-11-11T09:29:00.000Z

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them: no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

This lad - a neighbour of my grandmother in Carlisle - joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was known in the neigbourhood as ‘Little Isaac’ . He was wounded in 1918, and repatriated. He died, aged 21, on 9th November, two days before the end of the 1st World War.

A couple of days later, my mother, who was a small child at the time, remembers seeing the coffin being passed out of the front ground-floor window of the small terrace house where Isaac’s family lived, en route to his funeral. As this was happening, the church bells rang out to mark the Armistice.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes,
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Anthem for Doomed Youth. Wilfred Owen

These sentimental postcards were produced during the First World War for soldiers and their girlfriends. (But I suppose they had much to be sentimental about)

'Nobody reads my Blog'

2006-11-08T20:59:00.000Z

No time to blog this week - so I'm cheating a bit:

T-shirt for despairing bloggers from: http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?affid=-1&productID=483

Mug, cushion and sweatshirt ('Everything you do can and will be used as blog material')

from www.cafepress.com/buy/blogging

Gunpowder , Treason & Plot

2006-11-05T09:40:00.000Z

Remember, remember

the fifth of November -

Gunpowder treason and Plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

In the early '70s I bought this old prayerbook in a junk shop in Fleet Road, near South End Green, Hampstead. It was printed in Cambridge in 1766 during the reign of George III. (On the endpapers of the book are various handwritten names and snippets from previous owners - but that's another story)

Frontispiece. Book of Common Prayer, 1766

The book includes a form of prayer - long since dropped - to be used on the 5th of November as a thanksgiving for the deliverance of King James from the gunpowder plot.

The service includes this contemporary prayer - strange to think that the sentiments expressed were 'politically correct' at the time!

Almighty God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy,

in the miraculous and gracious deliverances of thy Church,

and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States,

professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies, and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof:

We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance

of our gracious Sovereign King James the First, the Queen,

the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility,

Clergy and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament,

by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter,
in a most barbarous and savage manner,

beyond the examples of former ages....

There is also this prayer thanking God for the arrival of William of Orange in 1688 (also on 5th November):

..God...didst likewise upon this Day wonderfully conduct thy servant King William

and bring him safely unto England , to preserve us from the attempts of our enemies

to bereave us of our Religion and Laws...

It is hard to imagine such prayers being uttered in churches today.

Read about the Gunpowder Plot here:

http://www.gunpowderplot.parliament.uk/

The Plotters:

The Outcome:

Hanged, drawn & quartered

Bonfire Night

2006-11-04T15:48:00.000Z

When I was around 6, we still lived in the town. One Bonfire night, Dad was working late, so on that dark, clear evening Mum and Auntie Gwen lit the fireworks for my sister and I. We oohed and aahed at the pretty showers of Roman Candles, felt the frisson of danger at a ‘Volcano’ and held fizzing sparklers aloft. Bangers were outlawed - we were gentle creatures then - but we agreed to just one Jumping Jack which we watched from a safe distance as it darted about in its random path.

At the bottom of the box lay a rocket. A small benign-looking affair.
‘No, Mum - too scary,’ we chorused.
But, egged on by the giggling Gwen, Mum stood the rocket in a milk bottle and lit the touch paper.
‘Quick, back to the house,’ We retreated to watch from behind the French-window. Swoosh. Silence. Then the crash and tinkle of broken glass.

Lights went on in the bedroom of the H’s house that our garden backed on to, and we could see the jagged hole in one of the panes.

‘Right - shut the window,’ Mum gasped, ‘Put the lights out.’

Hands to mouths, we stood shivering in the dark. We waited for the Knock on the Door.
When it came, Mum snapped back into Sensible Grown-up Mode. Patting her hair and straightening her dress, she put on a brave face and switching on the hall light, went to answer the door.

The next day Dad arranged for a glazier to fix the H’s window and neighbourly harmony was restored.

But I had learnt something about grown-ups.: Mum had been as scared as a naughty child. And for a moment had been prepared to take the ‘dishonest’ path, and to pretend that it was not our fault.

I’m glad she thought better of it!

When the Saints go marching in

2006-11-01T13:27:00.000Z

Hard on the heels of All Hallows’ Eve comes All Saints’ Day
We have some interesting, though fairly obscure, British saints.

Here are the fun bits of a few of them:

St. Kentigern - the patron saint of the church in my home village. He is known in Scotland as Mungo . Kentigern’s mother was Tenew, an unmarried Scottish woman who is said to have had an affair with her cousin. The penalty for such behaviour (only for the woman, of course!) was that she be flung off a nearby hill. Somehow, the poor lady survived the fall, and she was then cast adrift in a coracle - an almost circular primitive little boat - which floated off and landed at Culross. Here a saintly monk, Serf, found her and took care of her and of her baby son. The boy was educated by Serf, and became a religious leader himself, and later a Bishop. He travelled around Scotland, Cumbria (Northern England) and to Wales.
A fuller version of the life of Kentigern/Mungo is here:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/plaza/aaj50/mungo.htm
St. Kentigern’s church in my home village in Cumbria can be seen here:
http://www.visitcumbria.com/churches/irthington.htm

St. Swithun (or Swithin)

Swithun became Bishop of Winchester in 852 AD. He built many churches and when he died he was buried at Winchester. Later his body was removed to a more splendid golden shrine in the cathedral; this move, on 15th July, was delayed by inclement weather, so arose the weather rhyme that the weather on the festival would prevail for 40 days:

"St. Swithun's day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain;
St. Swithun's day, if thou be fair,
For forty days 'twill rain na mair."

More about Swithun here: http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/swithun.html

St. Frideswide (c.665-735) It is thought that Frideswide was born in Oxford.

When she heard that a persistant suitor was planning to carry her off, Frideswide who had by now made a vow of celibacy, fled to the river Thames where she found a boat. She drifted to a ’place of controversial location’ (thought to be Bampton or Frilsham). There she lived in a deserted pig-stye. Through her prayers, a fountain sprang up providing her with the means to live undetected in the forest for several years.
More here: http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/frideswide.html

There are many many more less well-known British saints - a surprisingly full list is to be found here: http://www.britannia.com/bios/saints/

Hallowe'en

2006-10-31T09:10:00.000Z

Scenes from Boarding School Life - 3

One day in the Autumn term, some of us rebelled during a hockey practice at the freezing cold Bottom Pitch. . For some reason, after shivering for half an hour doing dull little exercises, practising bullying off in pairs, etc. someone suggested we should protest by marching around the edge of the pitch . We were generally fairly well-behaved, but somehow I was seduced by the excitement of it, and egged on by others, I joined the protest.

We held our hockey-sticks over our shoulders like rifles, and marched round singing ‘When the saints go marching in’. Eventually, the teacher shouted to us loudly enough, and we stopped. I felt rather sheepish at the time.

Later that afternoon we were summoned to the head mistresses’ study (in Victorian fashion we had two headmistresses, known by us as B. & G - the initials of their surnames)

‘Because of your disgraceful behaviour, when the others go up to the Hall tonight, you will remain in your Common-room. You will miss the Hallowe'en Party,’ said B. The party was one of the two highlights of the Autumn term, almost as exciting as the Christmas party. We had made masks to wear (and to be judged) at the party too; I had put a lot of work into mine ; what a waste of effort.

Most of the occupants of the Common-room were heady with excitement on the evening of October 31st. . But for the hockey-pitch miscreants the place was cast in gloom. Then the others all trooped out, masks in hands, twittering like swallows on telephone lines. We few stood around in the huge empty room, making the occasional self pitying and self-justifying remark . No one could settle to anything.

Then after about half-an-hour, the door opened and B & G appeared. Oh no, not another ‘blowing up’
'Now then, girls - we hope that you have realised that your behaviour on the games pitch was totally unacceptable, and that you will never defy a mistress again.' G. said - she was always the more severe of the two.
'But as you have all worked on your masks, you may show them to us,' said B.

Pathetically grateful, we took our masks from our lockers and held them up for inspection. Unaccountably, I now think, I had made my mask in the shape of the school badge, with the words, ‘Trouth & Honour, Fredom and Courtesie’ - a description of the Knight from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. (We, no doubt, would have preferred the Prioress‘s motto, ‘Amor Vincit Omnia‘)

'It is always a pleasure to see the School Motto,' said B. I glowed with pride. (I imagine that they had a laugh about that afterwards.)

Then B. said, 'As you have doubtless learnt your lesson - you may all now go up to the Hall, and join the Party'

With an enormous surge of euphoria, we wended our way from one end of the school to the Hall at other - and to the best Hallowe’en Party ever.

Petty Cash (or 'A Warning to Office Workers')

2006-10-29T18:09:00.000Z

I came across this risque card among my late father's papers. It is politically incorrect by today's standards, (but that is partly why I like it). It dates from around the 1940s I think. (The money is pounds, shillings and pence.)

To Bin or not to Bin

2006-10-26T20:24:00.000+01:00

The Perfect Utility Room - not mine!

I can’t stand the utility room any longer. It is a total mess. So I will forego my trip to town this morning and sort the thing out. I’ll take everything off the two shelves, sort them out radically, chuck masses of stuff out, and have one of those highly organised rooms you see in magazines - all white baskets in neat rows.

I’ve put everything in heaps on the kitchen table with the overflow on the worktops. Mmmm, the shower-room handtowels and bathmats will have to stay; so I refold them into their neat little pile and put them back on the shelf - almost where they were before.

All these candles - goodness, they’ve been there for 3 or 4 years! - that‘s because I never use them. Never. But, wait a minute - never? - I’ll probably use them this Christmas. I flap around them with a duster. And put them back. A little further along the shelf.

And this Hallowe'en pottery lantern? Well, maybe one year when the boys are here..? (They haven't been here at Hallowe'en for going on for 7 years). Shame to throw it out, though. Keep.

All these used padded envelopes. Dozens of them. Just can’t bear to throw them out. I can stick labels over those messy addresses, can’t I, and reuse them? You always need a padded envelope, don’t you. The trouble is, they’re gaining on me. I give up the struggle to rationalize this. Back on the shelf.

Two ancient exercise books. Full of sums in a childish hand. I was helping my son with subtraction. It is irrelevant, now. Into the bin. No, I can’t - it would be like throwing my little boy into the bin, wouldn’t it. (Even though my little boy is now a 25year old Chartered Accountant- so my help must have worked, then?). Mmm - I’m sure that spare paper will come in handy - keep them.

I spend all morning on this, and at the end of it I have one small carrier bag of stuff to go into the bin.

And the utility room looks very much the same as it did in the beginning.

Yes - this is the ‘after’ picture - I didn’t think of taking a ‘before’ version - but take it from me , you wouldn't notice the difference.

I should have gone to town after all

Don't Mention the War!

2006-10-24T08:51:00.000+01:00

Change of Blog Title

Dear Readers,

You will see that I am changing my Blog title. I think potential readers might be misled into thinking that 'All Quiet etc.' is something to do with warfare (sorry to disappoint!)

Regards,
anno domini

Rabbit Pie?

2006-10-22T20:19:00.000+01:00

I’ve just come across this postcard, which I bought some years ago in the market at La Baule
The caption says she is a ‘Jeune Fille de Quimperle’
But it is the rear of the PC which fascinates me. It was posted in Pont-Croix, Finisterre in Brittany on 25th February 1906

As you can probably make out, it is addressed to Madame Vailhen at 3 place de la Republique, Nantes, and a rough translation is:

Saturday evening.
I’m putting a rabbit on the train to gare d’Orleans. I think you’ll have it by Monday. Ant. [Antoine, Antoinette?] will be able to collect it. It is wrapped length-ways in 2 cloths.
Kind regards to Rue St. Jacques. Kisses [?] to the place de la Republique. L.

I love reading old letters and postcards - trying to get a feel for the past and to envisage the writers and recipients. What were these people’s lives like, and what became of them.

Who was L., I wonder, and was Madame Vailhen pleased with the gift? (and was it fresh when she took delivery of it!)

Did she enjoy her rabbit pie?

Spot the Boffin

2006-10-20T19:32:00.000+01:00

Scenes from Boarding School Life - 2

I was reminded by the News that 17th October was the 50th anniversary of the opening of Britain’s first Nuclear Power Station at Calder Hall in Cumbria (or Cumberland as it was then)

I was there!

The whole school attended the event; I believe we actually went in coaches - a rare novelty (is that tautology?) as we would often traipse along the Cinder Track on Sunday walks, from the village almost to the boundary wire of the power station (known to us just as 'Sellafield')

We didn't have as good a view as this!

Opening of Calder Hall 1956

...and our view..

It was the school's misfortune that the power station was built virtually on its doorstep - well, about a mile away further up the coast. This was to have a detrimental effect on school numbers, and a nuclear accident in 1957 hastened the school’s demise.

The village expanded considerably during the late 50s, estates being built to house the ‘Boffins’.

The word Boffin summoned up a picture of a mythical being, something akin to a Hobbit (which is probably why there is a family so named in Tolkien's books)

Presumably these boffins were hard at work in their labs whenever we ventured out to the village to play hockey at Bottom Pitch (which we shared with the local team), and they must have been tucked away in their little boffinish houses when we processed along the road to Church on a Sunday. (Boffins surely would be sceptics, wouldn‘t they?)

Because all the time I was there I don’t think I ever saw one; I was sure that I would recognise one if I did.

No, I never once saw a Boffin.

One Day in History?

2006-10-17T15:29:00.000+01:00

The National Trust (together with 'History Matters') has invited us each to write a 'One Day in History' Blog - the idea being to build a picture of an 'ordinary day' for the national record. Have a go here: www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page96.asp

Why does this happen on the most boring day for months? I don't imagine they would want entries that are this ordinary:

Went to town. Had Coffee.

Tried to buy some Christmas gifts (must get them early to catch the ‘last posting date’ for surface mail to the USA). Failed .

Tried to persuade myself to start clearing up the garden ready for winter. Failed .

Intended to screw up my courage to plan menus for impending visit of step-son, wife & 3 children. Failed .

Cleaned our bedroom. Succeeded at that, anyway

Attempted to write a contribution to the ‘One Day in History Blog’. Failed .

Do these people really want to know the embarrassing truth about my day?

Now, if The Day were to be tomorrow, well that could be a different matter all together: I might very well decide to go bungee-jumping, or white-water rafting on the River Kent.

Or perhaps someone will ring my doorbell and tell me that I’ve won the mid-week lottery - in spite of me having no ticket. (Come to think of it, perhaps I should forego the activities mentioned above - I’d hate to be out when he calls)

Tomorrow - anything could happen.

Not Walking in the Lake District - a heretic's tale

2006-10-14T15:01:00.000+01:00

I was brought to believe that Walking in the Lake District was the thing to do, it was almost a tenet of faith in and around Carlisle.

Most of the people in our small social circle Walked. The capital letter is deliberate - this was not just a casual stroll to the local post-office, this was a fully kitted out walk involving rucksacks, heavy boots (or stout shoes at least) , waterproofs, animal-wool (to prevent blistered heels) Kendal Mint Cake - to keep the children’s spirits up - sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and a thermos flask of something or other, and either a Baddeley guidebook or a Bartholomew’s Half Inch Map of the area.

As young women, my mother and her friends (clad in the tweed skirts that were thought appropriate then) had regularly taken the Fellwalkers’ Bus which operated from Carlisle each Saturday (one week to Seatoller, the next week to Keswick) which would drop off the walkers and pick them up again at say, 6pm.

A few years on and my parents would go off in the car. Once or twice they climbed Great Gable to attended the Armistice Service at the Memorial to members of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club killed in the Great War. It was quite an experience to be on the summit as small groups of walkers emerged from the November mist just before 11 o’clock for the solemn and touching commemoration.
( more here: http://www.frcc.co.uk/rock/history/gablememorial/gablememorial1.htm.

Climbing Catbells c.1950

My sister and I were taken on smaller challenges, to climb Catbells, to walk along the road to Watendlath - where Vivian, a local eccentric, opened a gate near the car park for a small remuneration. (Vivian had a tame jay which hopped around his feet.) - and to clamber on the Bowder Stone

www.visitcumbria.com/kes/bowder.htm

Years later when I was living in London, a walking holiday in the Lakes was the most wonderful escape ever! Arriving at Longthwaite Youth Hostel in Borrowdale, with the neat lines of discarded boots in the porch (‘No boots inside the hostel’ a golden rule) was bliss - London was so impossibly remote; I no longer believed it existed.

But that was then. Now I am back in the North, living on the edge of a quiet little town and it is so easy to get to Windermere, Ambleside and to Keswick, that somehow one doesn’t have the strong drive to go. It is all here on my door-step;I can go any time.

And lovely though the surrounding landscape is, I must confess a heresy: nowadays I prefer town walks and townscapes : the magnificent sweep of Grey Street, Newcastle, dipping down to the Quayside with its breathtaking bridgescape, the endless joys of Georgian Bath, the college courts of Cambridge and winter sunsets over King's Parade, the Minster and the houses and gardens of the Close,seen from the City Walls at York, the views over Kendal from Low Fellside.

I no longer want remoteness. Now I flee to the town.

Sods' Lawn

2006-10-10T09:25:00.000+01:00

Because of rain you are unable to mow the lawn . You go away for several days. It rains heavily while you are away, and the grass shoots up.

You get back. The lawn already resembles a young hay field , but you can’t cut it because of course you have several more days of rain The grass ripples like a field of corn.

At last a dry day dawns. You clatter through the garage, down the steps and into the back garden carrying the mower awkwardly and trying not to trip over yourself. You unwind the lead taking several minutes to untangle the mischievous knots which have appeared, even though you wound the thing so carefully last time you put it away.

Same thing with the extension lead. Then you plug the mower lead into the extension lead, and clamber up the steps to thread it through the utility-room window to plug it in, (so that you can close the door on it to keep out next-doors’ cat.) You fiddle around plugging in and testing the circuit-breaker. Right - ready to go.

Nothing. Only a small bang, and a puff of smoke. The mower has mysteriously broken itself while you were away. (It was fine last time you cut the grass).

Back inside, having left a trail of soggy footprints all over the newly-washed kitchen floor, you flip through the Argos catalogue and select the perfect replacement. You dash into town to buy it, hoping to get back and have at least one of the lawns done before that black cloud releases its spite.

Out of stock. (In commercial terms the gardening season has ended, and they need all that space for Christmas stuff) Frustrated and resentful, you downright refuse to buy a much more expensive machine ( which anyway can’t be bought ‘in store’, so will take a week to be delivered.)

Empty-handed, you return home as the rain starts again. You have missed your Window of Opportunity.

O well. Turn on the computer, write your blog and avoid looking at the garden.

A nice word:

This word sounds as though it describes how you feel after the above episode - but it doesn’t.

crepuscular adj 1)a. of twilight, b,dim. 2) zoological - appearing or active in twilight.
From the Latin crepusculum twilight, dusk

Nostalgia

2006-10-06T19:23:00.000+01:00

There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore: -
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more

(Wordsworth)

nostalgia - noun from the Greek : nostos return [home] + algos pain

so: a longing to return to a place or time

Prompted by a visit from a former boyfriend, (together with his wife and family) I began to consider the nature of nostalgia. (The ‘boyfriend’ of course was no more a boy than I am a girl, it being 30 years since we last saw each other, and I’m afraid I find him as irritating now as I did at the end of our relationship!)

But it brought back many nostalgic feelings from my life in London, where I worked at that time as a Housekeeper at a District Nurses’ Home round the corner from the British Museum. I still look on the Bloomsbury area as ‘my London’.

Surrounded as I was then by all the glories of London, what I loved most were the smaller, almost trivial things:

Not so much the mighty British Museum, but close by the Georgian terrace house bearing a brass plaque saying ‘Registered Office - London Symphony Orchestra’ - that really thrilled me - occasionally one would see a musician going in carrying perhaps a violin or an oddly-shaped French-horn case - wow, the big time!

Then again, a friend and I relishing the huge treat of Hot Chocolate and thickly sliced toast at the small ‘Monaco’ café in Great Russell Street.

I smile at the memory of the aforementioned boyfriend and I competing to play a Scarlatti sonata the fastest, on his rather honky-tonk piano.

Or exploring the City of London alone, looking for Dickensian associations: Cornhill - this was where Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit went down a slide ‘at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve…’

Self (left) and friend at Monument in the City c.1967. Eating again!

My flatmate and I again in a café, Jackson’s in Marchmont Street (now alas altered out of all recognition) having cottage cheese and pineapple open sandwiches - thought to be rather chic at the time! Perched on stools at the window, we look across to the window opposite and see our café’s name reflected - after that our favourite place is ‘Snoskcaj’.

Visits to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall - and waiting at the end for Colin Davis’s autograph - swoon !- (and another time, Jack Brymer’s). The flip side of these trips to Kensington, after I had moved to Belsize Park, was having to get the late-night-pukers bus back, which went through Camden Town just as the pubs were emptying! Rather spoilt the magical atmosphere which still hovered around my head after the concert.

And another adventure which one could rarely afford - visiting the newly opened Pizza Express in Coptic Street (only the second branch to open, I think). It was so novel eating in a white-tiled former dairy, with bare marble-topped tables, and on Tuesdays (or was it Saturdays) a student string-quartet serenading us with Haydn and Mozart.

All those things make me smile, but the sadness I sometimes feel is not a mourning for the places, or even for the people - they all still exist .

But I mourn for my young self. She has gone for ever.

A Visit to Bath

2006-10-03T22:11:00.000+01:00

Shopfront in Bath, Somerset

I've been away for 5 days to Somerset, so haven't had time to post my blog,

so here are some photos:

ITV crew filming Jane Austen's 'Persuasion' at the Pump Room:

Two views of the Roman Baths

The Royal Crescent

'The Best Days of your Life?'

2006-09-28T19:22:00.000+01:00

‘And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.’
Shakespeare - ‘Seven ages of man’

Scenes from Boarding School Life -1

I didn’t have far to ‘creep’ as I was at a girls’ boarding school on a fairly bleak stretch of the Cumberland coast.

I hurried down the stairs on my first morning in this strange new place, to find my trunk and start my unpacking. (For our first night we brought just an overnight case).

I was accosted by girl with a pinched eager face, and a sleek dark Richard the Third haircut. ‘Ah,’ she said, giving me a searching look, ‘a new girl, eh? What’s your name’. I told her.

. ‘Mmmmm’, she considered, her head on one side.

Then she nodded decisively. ‘We’ll call you ‘Pug’’. I shrank . ‘Because you look like one’.

She turned and joined her group of fellow dog-spotters.

I had never really thought about my looks, and it had certainly never occurred to me that I might look like a rather ugly dog.

Thus I was both welcomed and excluded - all in one go.

Who? Me?

School Expressions:

Antediluvian adjective before the Biblical flood, so - ancient, out-of-date

from the Latin: ante- before; deluvium deluge

This word was very much in vogue at my school during the late 1950s; ideas were 'antediluvian', clothes were 'antedeluvian' . "Did you see old Cookie's hairstyle - its sooo antediloooooovian!"

Unto the hills

2006-09-27T18:02:00.000+01:00

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help.

(Psalm 121)

Langdale Pikes by Henry Jutsum

An imaginative design

We have a new ‘Piazza’ outside our supermarket. As a tribute to Alfred Wainwright (former Treasurer at the town hall, and writer of the famous guidebooks) seats with slate backs of an imaginative design have been placed there. Each one bears a copy of a page from the guidebooks, together with one of Wainwright’s distinctive line-drawings:

Some yards away are the imprints of Wainwright’s ‘walking boots’:

When you stand in the ‘footprints’ and look up at the slate seats, you can see that the the top edges merge to present an outline view of the Langdale Pikes (one of Wainwright’s favourite scenes)

(sorry that the outline is a bit fuzzy - amateur photographer at work!)

William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy were fond of the Langdales, too. In Dorothy’s diary, written when they were living at Dove Cottage, Grasmere she mentions them several times:

‘1800. August 30th We looked at Rydale [sic] which was soft, cheerful and beautiful. We then went to peep into Langdale. The Pikes were very grand’

December 4th Coleridge came in just as we finished dinner. Pork from the Simpsons. Sara and I walked round the 2 lakes - a very fine morning. C. ate nothing, to cure his boils. We walked after tea by moonlight to look at Langdale covered with snow, the Pikes not grand, but the [Coniston]Old Man very impressive. Cold and slippery, but exceedingly pleasant. Sat up till half-past one…

‘1801 November 30th Clear and frosty without wind. William went before to look at Langdale. We saw the Pikes and then came home’

The Glory of the Garden

2006-09-24T19:39:00.000+01:00

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made

By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their working lives

At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hand and pray

For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!
(Kipling)

We are having an Indian Summer at the moment up here in Cumbria. The warmth is keeping the flowers blooming and the bees busy, and the lawn is demanding to be cut - again. The nursery is still selling the remnants of colourful annuals as well as perenniels for autumn planting.

This must be one of the most scenic garden-centres in the north:

A pleasant word:

fescue FES'kew
noun fine-leaved grass, valuable for pasture & fodder.
from the Latin: fescuta - a stalk, straw.

The Village Blacksmith

2006-09-21T16:20:00.000+01:00

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

(Longfellow)

Tales from a Cumbrian Farmhouse - 2

'Support the Private Trader'

By the 60s horse-shoeing was no longer the most significant part of the smith’s trade.
Ernie, our local blacksmith, whose forge was in the next village a mile away, spent a large part of his time making and mending farm equipment. Dad believed in supporting the private traders (being one himself) and this included local tradesmen, too; any carpentry or building work was carried out by people from the village.

Ernie persuaded Dad that what he needed was ‘yen o’ thae thistle-cutters’ which duly appeared; it was a small trailer with a flat metal plate, under which were 4 rotating blades Then came a compact muck-spreader, both machines small enough to be towed by the Land-Rover.

Next Dad fancied an iron railing to replace the old fence at the near end of the orchard

Dad, - who was anxious to seem a true countryman - and Ernie sat in the morning-room having countryman-style conversations over a glass of Forest Brown Ale - (Dad was a tea-totaller really, but was happy to make the sacrifice for his country friends.)

I know that Dad envisaged a no-nonsense simple affair, in keeping with the farmyard, so he asked Ernie,

‘Now, Ernie - I need an iron railing for the orchard’

Three minutes pause

‘O, aye. I can do that fer yer alright’

Three minutes pause.

‘Right. That’s champion! ’

Men of few words.

So Ernie fashioned the railing in his forge, and eventually brought it down and placed it in position. Dad was at work, and later Mum rang him up.

‘Ernie’s finished the railings’, she said

‘O fine - how does it look?’

‘Wait and see,’ said Mum.

Ernie, who saw wrought-iron work as an escape from the more utilitarian tasks, had taken the opportunity to let his creative side flourish. He had fashioned an ornate panel with more curls than Shirley Temple :

Of course to Ernie, Dad said, ‘Oh, Grand. That’s grand, Ernie’

To us he said, ‘O heck, It makes the place look like a bloody dolls’ house’

An interesting word:

Atramentous \At'ra'MEN'tus\ adjective: of or pertaining to ink; inky; black, like ink; as 'atramental galls', 'atramentous spots'. (from the Latin atramentum - 'black liquid, ink')

The Border City

2006-09-20T18:34:00.000+01:00

Old Town Hall with Guildhall on left and Carlisle Cross in foreground

(a pillar with a lion bearing the city motto 'Be Just & Fear Not')

Visited my hometown today - Carlisle, 'The Border City', aka 'Canny auld Carlisle'. It has changed hands between the English and the Scots countless times, and at one time was part of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde.

There are not too many ancient houses in the town, as it was the centre of border strife for centuries and the earlier wooden houses were repeatedly burnt down by marauding Scots. It certainly wasn't too quiet on the Northern front in those days! However, the fine Cathedral and sturdy castle remain.

According to Prof. M. Creighton, writing in 1889:

'It is the only town on English soil which bears a purely British name [from Caer Lywelydd via Caerluel and Carliel to Carlisle]; and the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest'

Richard III (as Duke of Gloucester) was Captain of the Castle, and some of his prisoners (c.1480) left this graffiti : (more time-consuming to execute and much more durable than modern stuff!)

Mary, Queen of Scots was a prisoner there briefly, as was the Border Reiver, Kinmont Willie (Armstrong) who was 'sprung' from the castle by members of his clan.

Read more about the Border Reivers here: www.borderreivers.co.uk

A Carlisle saying:

'Eee - you'll have me up London Road!'

The old mental hospital used to be a few miles out of town on the London Road. Now, of course, it has been converted into Luxury Housing! To say that 'you'll have me up London Road' is equivalent to saying, 'you'll drive me mad/round the bend'! Tho' I suppose if you say the former to a young person now, they'd probably reply, 'Eh?'

Season of Mists

2006-09-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all f ruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells…

(Keats)

For 27 years my family lived in a Georgian farmhouse in Cumbria (which was then called Cumberland ) a few miles from the border with Scotland

Tales from a Cumbrian Farmhouse (1)

My mother decides that this is the day to harvest the plums from the fan-trained trees growing against the byre wall.

This afternoon she will pick the plums and make them into jam. Steamed jam pudding cooked with home-made plum jam is Dad’s favourite. But first she must go into town (seven miles away) to meet ‘the girls’ for coffee and to buy several bags of sugar for the jam.

She drives into town in our ‘second’ car - which is actually a Land Rover. This is not the fashionable four-by-four of today, but a grey-coloured heavy-duty farm vehicle. It has a cab at the front and an open back suitable for carrying bales of hay for feeding the cattle; we are always rather embarrassed to be seen in town with this rough and ready vehicle. She has her coffee, promises the ‘girls’ a pot of jam each, buys her sugar and drives back.

She prepares the kitchen for jam-making, rinsing out the jam-pan, and getting out a bowl for the plums, then changes her mind; it’s a particularly good crop this year - a larger vessel will be needed. She sings to herself, excited at the thought of the line of jam pots which will grace the pantry shelf later today.

First she must pick the plums
to make the jam
that goes in the pudding
that Dad likes

She bustles out to the front garden, and approches the trees. She looks at them, puzzled.

Something is wrong. This-morning the branches were heavy with purple-red fruits. Now - there is just green. She looks closer. Every plum - except for one or two small unripe ones near the top - has gone, neatly plucked from it’s stem.

She gasps, ’Oh’ out loud. ’Oh, no. Surely not?’ She is shaking now, her hand to her mouth in disbelief.

She goes in and collapses onto a ladder-backed kitchen chair. Mum is not a weeper, but if she was, she would weep now.

There was a boy of around 14 in the village, who often went up ‘our hill’ - and came down with his pockets stuffed either with pears from the tree halfway up, or in the winter with kindling. Dad good-humouredly called him ‘Whip-it-Quick’

We never did find out for certain who pinched the plums. But we had our suspicions.
So, Whip-it-Quick - if by the remotest chance you are reading this - well...you know who you are.
And, by the way, you owe me ten and a half pounds of plums.

Our dog, Rap, showing on the left the fan-trained
plum trees, bare this time due to heavy pruning!

A lovely word:
tatterdemalion \tat-uhr-dih--MAY-lee-uhn\,
noun:. A person dressed in tattered or ragged clothing; a ragamuffin.
adjective: Tattered; ragged.

The Olympic Spirit

2006-09-15T18:12:00.000+01:00

‘ The river glideth at his own sweet will' (Wordsworth)

I walk back from town by the riverside route today. In a calm and sedate manner this time.

There are several ways to and from town.

On the way in at one point one has the choice of cutting through a road which slopes downhill before joining the main road again and feels as though it is a shortcut, or carrying straight on and joining the main road at the end.

Just for the sake of argument, I once ‘measured’ these two choices with my pedometer. One day I took the ‘short cut’ setting the counter from the moment I turned into the sloping road, and stopping it at the end of the route next to the dental surgery. 406 steps.

The following day I counted the other route - the ‘longer way’ - counting from where the sloping road turns off, until I arrived again at the dental surgery. 406 steps. Spooky.

I’m sure most days the sum would differ by say 10 to 30 steps depending on where I choose to cross the road, and at what angle etc. But at least I proved to myself that the sloping road is not a shortcut after all.

However, armed with this piece of priceless knowledge, I occasionally play a little game.
Today, shortly before the junction with the sloping road, I am aware of stalking footsteps. I up my pace to a rather uncomfortable march. Faster than usual. No, she is still there. Will she overtake, or not. I begin to feel self-conscious. That 'does my bum look big in this' moment. She is my Rival. Go one, overtake. Then, just before the junction, she does. Though I make it quite difficult by refusing to slacken the pace. It seems to take ages for her to pass me, and we walk parallel for an embarrasingly long time. Although I want her to pass me, I still feel slightly resentful.

She takes the 'short route' and turns into the sloping road.

Then I decide to play the game. I carry straight on. She probably thinks I am going the ‘long way’. But I know better. I’ll race her. I find myself getting a little out of breath, more from my anxiety to win than from the exertion. And I cheat. I do a spot of Scouts' Pace, 10 steps walking ,10 steps running. Then I break into an ungainly jog. I get to the main road and can see the dental surgery ahead. No sign of the Rival yet. The traffic slows slightly at the junction, and I do a death-defying canter across the road at the longest angle that I can without being mown down by a four-by-four.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see my Rival. She is only now crossing the county hall car park. But I am now opposite the dental surgery, and she is not yet there. I try to look nonchalant and change my stride to a saunter. Made it.

I wonder if she is aware that I Have Won? I don’t suppose she has even noticed me.

I walk on, with a satisfied smile. Such childish pleasures!

Saturday, Sunday, Sconeday...

2006-09-12T16:22:00.000+01:00

Supermarket shopping day today. (Monday)

I find myself feeling relieved that the school-holidays are over and that there probably won’t be a queue at the checkout this morning. As an ex-primary-school teacher I can’t believe that I’ve become one of those miserable people who moan about the school holidays! I’m not really - only when it comes to supermarket queues!

And after the shopping, our usual visit to the garden-centre for coffee and one of their perfect freshly-baked fluffy-on-the-inside-crispy-on-the-outside fruit scones. My weekly high-carb-high-fat treat. Ahh, Saturday, Sunday, Sconeday….

* * * * * * * * * * * *

An elderly man dithers before the ‘savoury biscuits’ shelf. He takes a packet of Rice Cakes down. He hesitates, peering at the label, holding it close to his nose. An assistant, in her checked uniform jacket hovers a few feet away, watching and waiting. She takes a replacement packet of Rice Cakes from her stacked trolley, anxious for her turn.

Reconsidering, the man puts the biscuits back on the shelf and slowly selects another brand from a lower shelf, bending with difficulty. The assistant tuts, and returns her packet of Rice Cakes to her trolley. She watches intently.

The man, changes his mind again, and eventually decides that his original choice was the correct one. He shuffles stiffly away, the trolley his Zimmer-frame, satisfied with his purchase.

I await my turn, as the woman, sighing, restacks the self, rejigging the packets and lining them up neatly at the front of the shelf (‘facing up’ I think this is called).
I approach the shelf and apologetically take down my chosen Dutch Crispbakes.
I walk away quickly, aware that I have ruined her nice neat display.

* * * * * * * * *

A friend up from London remarked that our local supermarket chain was ‘very upmarket - rather like Waitrose’. I gather that to be compared favourably with Waitrose is the ultimate accolade.