Bags of Common Sense

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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'

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