For those readers that do not see me on FaceBook, or hear from me via Yahoo group posts, you may like to know that I have started a new blog venture - Into The Woods - mostly featuring walks through nearby woodlands, but also exploring woods and forests in fantasy, psychology, religion, myth...
I hope you find the time to look in there at some point and join me on one of my walks!
Nuthatch
Its a VERY hungry time for the garden birds...we've had snow non stop for 24 hours, so I am glad that I topped up supplies of birdseed and peanuts yesterday before the snow started. Now each day the garden visitors get multiseeded bread, grated cheese, peanuts and wild bird seed - on the table, in the feeders and on the ground. Water is replenished and the cats are locked in!
I was lucky enough to get these shots by just hiding behind a pergola post - the birds are so desperate that they did a good job of ignoring me in an effort to stoke up on as much energy as they could before early nightfall again. They sure need to keep warm at the moment. Only amateur shots, though - methinks I'd just love to take a wildlife photography course and learn to do it properly.
Blue-tit
Getting ready to attack the peanuts!
Such skill in dealing with a seed held by the foot
Long-tailed Tit - one of a family of five that mobs the bird table each day. Not easy to see in this photograph, they have a delicate pink colouring on their undersides
A Pied Wagtail - one of the ground-feeders
'Birdies stay out THERE...pussycats stay in HERE...by nice WARM radiator'
The inglenook fireplace in my little sitting room - goodbye for another year, Christmas garland
Does it seem strange to you that i am uploading images of Christmas decorating just as it is time for them to all come down? Well, that is what I am doing today - taking down the trimmings - but that is what has made me also post these pictures. I find this a very poignant time of the year - packing away Christmas has always been emotional for me. When the boys were small, it meant packing away the happy time of watching their faces glow with excitement for days before The Day - and a few hours on The Day when parcels were opened.
When my Mother was still alive, I packed away the memory of her dear face with her grandchildren (I unpack that memory on a regular basis, it doesn't really go back in the boxes before 12th Night)
Then there are other memories, of other Christmases since then...strange, disjointed Christmases when nothing seemed to fit...and now I am packing away this Christmas - the happiest I have had for many years, with family, contentment and peace dwelling together in one place for a short space of time. Putting away the memories - the family treasure that no money can buy...so forgive me if I linger a little and enjoy the material effects around which the human hearts are intertwined.
Goodbye, Swedish elves and Nutcracker soldier
Goodbye, reindeer stockings and snowmen coasters!
Slumber peacefully through the summertime, olive-wood Nativity from Bethlehem...originally belonging to Mother-in-Law. Passing on to her descendants...
Snuggle up together, tree ornaments.
Much loved items, collected over 25 years...a pewter oak and acorn sprig from King Henry VIII's Hampton Court...a toleware goose, handpainted by a friend....a miniature mask from Venice...a loo-roll Santa made by Tiny Tim. Memories are indeed made of these.
Can you believe the lovely gifts I have received for my birthday today? My family home with me yesterday - and now, today, just look how Mother Nature has gift-wrapped my garden. This was taken at 3.45 on the shortest day during an afternoon of unexpectedly heavy snowfall (with the most enormous snowflakes I have ever seen!) The birch tree looks as if it had been especially frosted just for me!
Another long gap from me posting here, and belated thanks to all of you who have left messages since my last message. I will write to you all during the holiday period - but for now I just wish you a Peaceful Christmas and a very Happy New Year.
I've not been very good at posting the promised photographs of my church-crawl, have I? I will get there, I promise...just rather a lot of domestic 'stuff' needing to be done at the moment which has held up longer leisure sessions at the computer. This morning's 'domestic stuff' is taking place in the kitchen - which really does need a filtering of all the knick-knackery around. I need to make at least ONE surface clear - even I realise that!
But before I do any packing away - here is just one corner of the kitchen, not prettied up or tidied up - so you can still see the recycled plastic tubs in the image below - but you can get some idea of the things that take up perhaps too much space here - my excuse is that they all keep me company!
Here are some of the the egg-cups which I collect - and the brassware, the hen egg-holders, the jugs - and of course, the cookery books. What keeps you company in your own kitchen? I'd love to hear about it!
Rood screen, Carhampton
I've been editing a whole load of photographs from the main church-crawl that I did when on holiday in Somerset a few weeks ago - but life and its distractions have slowed me down. So here's just a taste of some of the interesting works of art that I saw when I was out and about in some of our greatest hidden art galleries here in the UK - our parish churches. Please be patient with me, and I'll have more to show you over the weekend.
November 1st, All Saints Day - and in Mexico, the day on which Los Angelitos, the souls of little children are honoured. So today, I want to honour an Angelito in my own family...one I never knew, and only heard about in fragments - but one who's death, I know, affected my mother until her own dying day.
I don't even know her proper name - Mam always referred to her as 'Little Esther' - my interpretation of the name, but it could quite easily have been Hester or even, I suppose, Hesta - its something I need to speak about to the sisters who still survive, one more thing on the list of family history research to be carried out.
But today I will call her Esther, and I will honour her as an aunt who I never had the chance to know, and an emblem of all those who make faint but indelible marks on our own histories. For in writing about her, I also write about some components of the past which have made me who I am.
Esther was only two years old when she died - in around 1922 from my mothers recollections. Mam found it profoundly difficult to speak about her, and when she did, it was always with a deep sadness in her voice. The only fragments that I retain were her memories that "She was playing hide-and-seek under the tablecloth in the morning - by the evening, she was dead...of meningitis". In the days before antibiotics, this was even more lethal and rapid an infection than it remains today - though it is still an illness which strikes fear into the hearts of any parent.
(Image from Horsefield Funerals)
Mam also remembered that "we had the black horses for her...the carriage with the glass sides and the horses with black feathers on their heads". This indeed must have meant that a very special effort had been made to pay for a more costly funeral than might otherwise have been held for an older member of the family, in a family where money was more than tight. As the hearse-horses hooves clattered on the (still existing) cobbles outside the back entrance to Mam's old home, waiting to collect its tiny burden, it must have made quite an impact on the mind of my mother, still then only a child herself.
As I write this, I realise there are still so many things I do not know - or only half remember from my mother's telling. No photographs of her exist, that I know of...and where is she buried? I have a recollection of being told that she was placed in the plot which later held my grandmother (her mother), grandfather, and her brother - my uncle. Four in a grave, where only three was the 'official' limit? Yet again, I seem to remember Mam saying that 'officialdom' turned a blind eye to the fact - but we will never know.
And indeed, the death of this two year old did, I believe, make me partially who I am - for as the years went by, I could see the profound affect that her death had on my mother, who was acutely sensitive to the way that small children were treated. Even before my own children were born, hearing the most mildly rebuking word to any little child would cause her extreme pain - and when my own boys were born, 'little Esther' would often be on her lips - especially when the boys were around the age that she was when she died - and especially when boisterous two year old boys needed to be (gently - I assure you!) themselves rebuked, simply to be taught where boundaries lie.
So today, I remember Little Esther - but I also notice myself. I notice how much I have written - about other parts of the story, the facts, but also the opinions...and then cut, and edited, and removed, and how I am still sensitive to my Mother's words and feelings. Feelings which, in turn were shaped by the very existence of her sister....and which in turn also shaped me....all for the sake of sensibilities of others who may read this, sensibilities which could still be wounded by the fuller telling of the tale. A later telling will be different - but all tellings are, in some way, true.
Little Esther is gone...but her memory...and its impact, still filter down through the generations. So many people touch our lives....and make us who we are - the fact that we may never have met them, in many ways, makes no difference.
Addendum: New additions to the marvellous Free BMD (Births, Marriages and Deaths) site mean that for the first time, only minutes ago, I discovered this information.
DEATHS - June 1929 - Silcox, Esther M - 2 (yrs old) Newport Mon
Studium into Punctum.
Blessed be, Little Angelito Esther.
Salvage yard, Dunster
The third day of five in Somerset, a day upon which I met The Truly Amazing Skateboarding Dog! I kid you not, gentle readers - There I was, quietly wandering around a salvage yard, imagining what the dear old fireplaces must have looked like in their heydays, still installed in Edwardian houses, polished up with love and care, instead of here, gently rusting away until someone came to rescue them.
Heard a barking and a rushing, and feared the worst. A German Shepherd hurtling towards me - was I in a forbidden part of the yard? Did he think I was an intruder? Then I saw why he was approaching so fast...the blessed beast was skateboarding!!!
It was obviously his toy, and the fuss and noise were merely meant to tell me to get out of the way as he stepped on one corner, did an excellent three point turn, and sped off in another direction. The things you see in a salvage yard!!!
This was a day in the medieval market town of Dunster, and yes, you have guessed it, it was raining. The most moist day of all the week, and myself considerably under the weather, so not so many photos to choose from...but here are a few images of how I spent my time.
Back to the salvage yard. O Happy Day when I have the chance to wander around a place like this. I am sure there are good homes waiting for all these items, but it is such fun to just see them in their 'raw' state and hope that they are soon taken away, cleaned up and installed somewhere to enhance a house or garden. Old stone sinks, a wrought iron fire-basket, several eel-traps, a dove-cote, coal hods, an ancient washing machine -(the barrel shaped item) and a trio of windows that would grace any renovation once they had been cleaned up and painted. All the items somewhat overpriced, I thought...but if you are looking for just exactly one of those items, who is to say what the 'right' price really is, apart from what you are prepared to pay for it?
Took refuge in Dunster church during the worst of the downpours - where I discovered this very grand Luttrell tomb -look at trouble taken to show the detailing of the woman's petticoats...
and a 'Memento Mori' triptych, bearing all the reminders of time and
mortality - the sand-timers, the skull and crossed-bones, and the
cherubic little ascending souls, carved somewhat naievely into the
black slate slab.
Lunch in the cosy old kitchens of the 15th century Lutrell Arms, just visible on the right, behind the old Yarn Market here in the centre of Dunster,
and then back to Porlock, to visit the church of St Dubricius with its distinctive truncated tower. Inside, the early 15th Century tomb of Lord Harington - who fought with Henry the Fifth in France, and his Lady, her hair coiffured in an elegant embroidered head-dress, her head upon a pillow supported by two angels.
It was only a short walk back from the church to the apartment, passing another 15th century building, the Ship Inn, at the bottom of the notorious 1 in 4 Porlock Hill, before I was able to get warm and dry again.
I feel I have hurried you through this blog-post in rather the same way that I hurried through the day in Dunster...but once again, wasn't it worth braving the weather for all the interesting things I managed to see?
An old stone cottage on the edge of the village
Click on this extra large image to experience being right in amongst these magnificent beech tree roots
The track along the top of the earthworks surrounding the village and stone circles
Leaves falling just enough to start to see the underlying framework of branches..one of the benefits of autumn and winter
Autumn tree colour amongst the inner stone circle - the parish church in the background. Christianity once again following in the path of Pagan ancestors.
Late afternoon and dusk ensues - a welcoming glow from some of the windows
The sun falls behind the old cottages and the church...time to wander home again.
The West Lyn at Lynmouth
The second day of my visit to Somerset and the rain settled in with intention. But were we downhearted? NO! .....autumnal rain here in England is all part of the weather systems that give us our beautiful English gardens, so I try not to complain - though it has to be admitted that lots of things look better in the sun. But I know you don't mind - you all have your rain-hats and wellies on - so off we go! This time, our second outing - to Lynmouth and Lynton on the North Devon coast.
Lynmouth, just over the county border in Devon, is sadly remembered here for the terrible flood which wrought havoc on the little coastal town on the night of 15th August 1952, when the innocent stream in the picture turned into a raging flood overnight, as rainwater collected from Exmoor and poured in a torrent down the ravine, carrying large boulders from the gorge, demolishing many of the buildings below in the main street and taking with it the lives of 34 people.
The disaster is now remembered in Lynmouth in the Flood Memorial Hall, with evocative photographs taken on the morning after, a list of those who lost their lives, and some touching artefacts collected from the devastated buildings. Around the corner from the Memorial Hall, a monument to an earlier period, in the Cliff Railway, completed in 1890, with two carriages operated by the simple and very green expedient of water power...reservoir tanks under each of the two carriages filling and emptying with water to produce a counterbalance system, differentially weighting each carrage, so that the weight of the one at the top causes it to descend, and at the same time, the weight of the descending carriage pulls the empty one below back up to the top via connecting cables. It's quite an experience to sit on the rising carriage and hear the cables rumbling away beneath you as you ascend what feels like a sheer cliff wall!
On reaching the top, the drizzly rain below turned into heavy downpour rain up in the clouds...and in a situation like that, the next sign was a sight for sore eyes...a booksale running almost permanently in the Town Hall...can you guess where I spent the next half hour?
Also there, a small display in the main entrance of the content of a Victorian trunk that had been discovered some time ago, filled with delicate needlework - click on the image to see it all in greater detail
and of course, no visit complete for me without a look around the local church - this one St Mary's, Lynton - notice the very unusual beaten copper altar frontal and the surprising, life sized image of Mary
The reredos paintings were also of very high quality...
Back down on the cliff railway - you can see here just how vertiginous the view is from the top, and also the tiny carriage just arriving at the bottom station below. Can you see the beach through the mist?
Nothing brighter at the bottom - the beach still bleak and windswept - but, "making lemonade when handed lemons", I also saw an inviting beach full of rock pools and covered with shining pebbles and shells in so many gorgeous colours and shapes. I am a total five year old as soon as I arrive on this sort of beach and could poke around in the nooks and crannies for hours...not sure if the young gull being blown about felt quite the same way about the place, though - but what amazing camouflage.
Leaving Lynmouth, past the 14th Century Rising Sun Hotel and back to the car, across windswept Exmoor...
and back to Porlock...calling in at the church in the tiny village of Exford, up on the Moor, which is, nevertheless blessed with a spectacular rood screen of a kind typical of Somerset churches, with beautiful carved tracery arches supporting a four foot wide platform on the top - the site, in pre-Reformation times of the Holy Rood.
Finally back, cold and wet, to the apartment, for very, very welcome hot tomato soup - but also the memory of a happy and interesting excursion. I'll leave you with the jollity of a clay sculpture by J. Dean, on show in the old Methodist Hall, now turned into an Art Gallery. Who would not be cheered up by seeing this on a cold and dreary day?
More tomorrow!
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