Moving

For various reasons I plan to move this blog to a new wite: www.14sd.net Please click on to see more up-to-date entries. Thanks, Tony

Kites at Mottisfont

Mottisfont Abbey is a National Trust property about 5 miles from Romsey, Hampshire. It was a great place to meet two friends with whom our main contact has been Christmas cards and letters while they lived outside the UK for many years. The tea shop did good trade as we sat and swapped stories of the years.

The house itself focuses on the 1930s and early 1940s as the woman who gave it to the NT used to entertain writers and artists of her time, the artists being persuaded to leave paintings and drawings which now hang in various rooms. The upper floor of the house has been opened as a gallery. The timeless original illustrations of various Winnie the Pooh books being the current exhibit.

One small space, though, was given to a display of kites by John Browning. John uses leaves and other natural items to build the most beautiful and fantastical kites. I was taken by this one which looks more like a nature-based decorative piece than a kite.

Each kite is given that name only after John has flown it. He gets his creation aloft, hands the string to a companion, then photographs the new kite.

John's long years as an industrial chemist help him devise new methods of turning leaves into the gauze-like skeletons he uses in his new designs.

Did you know that stinging nettles can provide a useful fibre to be spun into string?

Dover Lane Again

Take the A27 from Arundel to Worthing, before Hammerpot turn left into Dover Lane. Drive slowly to reach a car park in a copse. Walk north, find the bridleway through woods and descend into the gallops.
A mile long, soft surfaced, uphill, muscle building gallop for racehorses trained nearby. One day it would be wonderful to see them, but on this the fourth or fifth visit none appeared.
After the long gentle ascent, a five-way intersection of bridleway and footpath. A panorama, north to the South Downs Way from Kithurst Hill to the descent into Houghton. West, the far side of the Arun valley. East - Harrow Hill and Blackpatch Hill north of Patching and Long Furlong.
Up the hill where ewes and this year's lambs graze or doze, many black-faced, some speckled - reminiscent of Jacob's dealings with Laban in the Bible's book of Genesis.
Then along the side of a steep drop overlooking Lower Barpham, a big farm, perhaps, with Sussex flint walls and red brick, converted barn and stables in the lee of the hill.
Through extensive woods, from Michelgrove Park to Angmering Park.
Last week sun, today low cloud. Last week the promise of bluebell carpets, today bluebell carpets.

I love knowing places intimately, seeing where I have been before on other walks, admiring afresh familiar sights. The bible, in Genesis, starts with Adam who worked the soil and God who took walks with Adam. Maybe that's where it all starts.

Legitimate Hate?

This week, the week after Easter 2013, we Brits learn that the Greater Manchester police will now log as hate crimes attacks against Goths - not the ancient tribe that caused problems for the Roman Empire, but usually intelligent and creative people who like to dress in black, with long sweeping coats as seen in my town.
Is it a hate crime in the world of English-language usage to want the elimination of nouns turned into verbs with no spelling or audible alteration?
A lever, I taught in Physics lessons decades ago, allows a mechanical advantage to be used when applying a force to one end of an inflexible rod which lies over a fulcrum that is nearer the other end of the rod than where you apply your force. Think about it...

Now, one can lever something, so the noun doubles as a verb. That leads to another noun - leverage - which is what is gained by using a lever.
In the world of finance, leverage has become a verb. One can leverage a situation to get a bigger advantage by leveraging whatever financiers leverage.
I hate that verb.
It is clumsy, totally non-euphonious and spreading like ivy over a beautiful tree trunk.
Today I came across a couple of articles in the New York Times, whose web site I visit occasionally. Two article discuss the verbing of nouns and the nouning of verbs.
If you have a shred of sympathy for my particular hatred, Henry Hitchings' articles are "a good read." A prejudice shared is a prejudice enjoyed.

New Year's Day

Most of UK has been rained on so much so long that the ground is waterlogged. Forgetting this, wife and I decided to take on a 6.5 mile walk from the village of Steyning, West Sussex, to enjoy a bright, dry day with a light wind. Being hardy folk, we took sandwiches for lunch, part one taken on the bank of the River Adur that meets the English Channel at Shoreham by Sea.

Part two was in a field under an incredibly blue sky with only the bare boundary trees indicating it was mid-winter. In this little nook, sheltered from the wind, it felt really warm.

 It was a surprise to see so much of the river plain flooded. This sign post pointed us away from the river bank, while on the other bank two women walked their dog. Beyond that, acres of fields under water.

Is there anything quite so lovely as a tree? Even this one in the middle of cultivated field, young growth sprouting light green, is beautiful with nary a leaf to see.

And the 6.5 miles mentioned on the locally-produced guide turned out to be 7.8 miles.

Boxing Day / St Stephen's Day

Winter, wet, cold, dark - at least it was on Boxing Day - 26 December 2012 if you don't use British day names - though not so cold. After a fabulously relaxing Christmas Day with Alun and Carol in Newcastle Upon Tyne, we went for an afternoon walk along the Northumbrian coast, driving north to Craster first.


View Larger Map

The sky was heavy, with a band of light showing through over the North Sea, which was so calm the pattern of dark and light was reflected on the water.

The shoreline at full tide comprises large rocks and boulders. Instead of the usual breaking of waves on sand or shingle, the water ebbed and flowed through these rocks making a low groaning sound.

The pathway became pretty muddy and wife and I had not brought walking boots, so our town shoes soon collected mud enough to start a farm with.

You can see how much like a farming couple we looked at this stage. Also, in the background the outline of Dunstanburgh Castle, brilliantly located to keep out whomever was the problem in those days. Seaward are high cliffs, landward steep slopes to make access a challenge for attachers.

Amazing that an iPhone can take pictures like this.

Edinburgh

Marian and I just made a trip north to celebrate my oldest son's ordination as priest in the Church of England and my 70th birthday. They happened in reverse order, but for various reasons we were able to celebrate both on 1st July in Newcastle Upon Tyne, a city with fine restaurants, hotels and one of the biggest music stores I have seen for a long time. It sells instruments of many kinds, sheet music and recorded music, too.
After our family time, our youngest son and his family had holidayed in Scotland the week before, Marian and I took the train to Edinburgh for a short break, a gift from my sons. Last December we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary and with so many zeroes around this break was their kind gift.
As Welsh people, we know about rain; we now know that Edinburgh does rain pretty well, too. Not since being in a tropical downpour have I got so wet so quickly when walking the last 400 yards to our B&B.
The morning we left, there had been more rain, leaving the small car park behind the B&B mostly submerged and the bowling green over the wall unplayable.

Morning Dew

6.45 AM, Hillbarn Golf Course, West Sussex: The morning is bright, the sun having risen over the hill beyond. I stop near a green on this lovely course, sparkling under a heavy dew.
On the green are the footmarks of a couple of players, onto and off the green. One set approaches the hole, to remove the flag probably. Then two other sets lead to the start of two delicate curves, each ending at the hole. Successful putts for the two players in their early morning game, at least on this hole.
The dew will be gone now, three hours later, under the warm sun. The imprint of those minutes might remain in the players' memory, but like much of our lives it's temporary and ephemeral.
What does really count, or last? And in whose memory?

Brecon

Since Easter, more or less, it has rained most of the time apart from two weeks in May. To our surprise Marian and I had chosen those weeks for our annual pilgrimage/holiday near Brecon. The evening we arrived the gentlest rain kissed us welcome and our last day was pretty wet. Between the sun shone fit to bust.

Within the national park lie both the Black Mountain (to the west) and the Black Mountains (to the east.) Looking at the ordnance survey map I saw what might be a gentle walk to a lake, Llyn Y Fan Fach.  It was an easy trek up a track built by the local water company to the lake, which is a natural one but which has been formalised into a dam. The dam wall was a good place to snooze after lunch.

Then Marian and I walked up the slope to which my feet are pointing to gaze down the steep cliffs scoured out by an ice-age glacier to the lake below.

The view was glorious, sweeping over the far Usk valley and the Usk reservoir, where we'd brewed some tea while watching a couple of local men reel in rainbow trout, perhaps bedazzled by the sunshine, more than I could count.

To the east lay Pen Y Fan, the highest peak in South Wales and our goal for another day.

Another Warm Stream

As the early morning coach drove north up the A23 from Brighton snow lay over the South Downs. Even Worthing had been dusted the night before. My destination, Vancouver, lies on the Northern Pacific, south of the Gulf of Alaska, sounded pretty cold in February.
My host told me of the stream of warm ocean water from Hawaii (the Pineapple Stream?) that keeps this part of western Canada's coast pretty free of winter snow. It was a surprise to find Vancouver warmer than Worthing despite the best efforts of Britain's Gulf Stream.
Another surprise was a display of totem poles in Stanley Park and to learn that these artefacts were used to record real or mythical events, they were not used for worship by the tribes who carved them.
Vancouver's house prices are sky high, one reason being the easy investment in property by newly-rich Chinese people, whose steady influence already has led to airport and other signage appearing in a couple of Chinese languages.