This is the Place

 This is going to be a bitty blog post.  Random thoughts brought together.  We live in hope, or so Rebecca Solnit would want for us. The first thought has been nagging at the back of my brain the last few days.  We live next door to an Asian family, when I moved in a couple of years ago (or longer) the little boy came up to me and said "hello, I am your neighbour", whenever their cricket ball thumps my window and I feel cross I remember that.  

There is a small Muslim community in Tod, I see the men going to prayer many days.  The Singh community and the Muslim community help when there is a flooding crisis in the town they bring in food and help to clear the  houses of water. Surely very neighbourly.

I think up North they have a very different attitude to people of other religions.  Yes I know the terrible thing that happened in Manchester when another fanatical Muslim person attacked at the Jewish synagogue, it was terrible but it was one crazily stupid terrorist.  He was shot dead by the police and a vigil was held for the two Jewish men who had died at this moment in time.

Tony Walsh wrote a poem, it was given out at the last time time in 2022, at the concert in Manchester Arena when another terrorist bomber killed 22 people, mostly youngsters 'This is the Place' you can find it in the highlighted link.

We have Andy Burnham as the mayor of Manchester now and listening to him speaking on the religious programme this morning, he said he was a lapsed Catholic.  Same as me, though actually it was the young child in me at Sunday school, who asked the pertinent question as I looked down at my prayer book.  So, if that bearded man is God of us all, why do Chinese and all those other people on the planet not believe in him? That thought scuppered my religious beginnings from an early age.

But one thing I am fairly sure about is that Jesus's teachings were right to love one's neighbour.  And so today, I fervently hope that the hostages will be released in Palestine tomorrow and that some kind of peace will be arrived at,  And that terrible broken place of Palestine will one day be rebuilt.

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As usual blowing their own Northern trumpets!!!

This is the place in the North West of England

It’s ace, it’s the best and the songs that we sing

From the stands, from our bands set the whole planet shaking

Our inventions are legends! There’s nowt we can’t make and

10th October 2025

 Is Google trying to take over my own searches, or is this some diabolical plot to take over my blog.  Foolishness aside, I am getting tired of all the changes that happen on my computer.  There has been a 'shock' of emails about if I had Window 11.  Could not find out myself but Andrew found that I was indeed programmed by Window 11.  Microsoft and Dell have since gone quiet, but I notice subtle changes in the programming.

Also, this makes me cross, instead of allowing me entry into sites, I have to show my pin number.  And horrors of horror, why should I have Bing and is it MSN news page that pops up from my left hand side?

And weirdly The Guardian isn't allowed on the sodding Bing site. End of small rant.

I should go on to a news revue but all I can do is wait for the release of the hostages without any thing terrible happening but also grateful that the Palestinian news has reached a small plateau of discussion.

Amy at Whitby

 Yes it is the storm at Whitby.  I do get homesick for Whitby, though I know it is not my hometown.  But walking down to the quay early morning and watching the waves break across the pier gives you an awareness of the sea.  I still have that childish notion that the sea is going to tip over into space as our planet whizzes around.

I am frightened of the sea but it's beauty as a storm roars through needs to be contemplated with awe.

You will see the piers and then two fisherman walk along even as the waves tower above and think how foolish they are.  I remember in another storm how idiotic people were wandering along the stone jetties, and some had even been trapped in a safety hole in the wall.  Firemen and Lifeguard men had to come and rescue them and  guide them to safety.

I have almost been drowned in the sea, as children we were allowed to go off ourselves down to the beach, and one embarrassing time I had a ring round my tummy in the water. When somehow the ring managed to find the equal weight of my body and I turned and turned and turned head over heels in the water.  Luckily someone saw me and I was rescued.

Safe Harbour

Lobster pots

The constant force of the sea wears away the coastline, and this also happens in Whitby. the little small black mark, St Mary's church to the right of the Abbey ruins is perilously near to the cliffs and already the graves are beginning to tumble down.

Here is Paul's tale on the subject.

6th October 2025

 

The Co-Op: To be found in Todmorden, now it is 'The Kindness Cafe' and where we had lunch yesterday.  It was very full and Matilda's and my food was very late, the other two had eaten up their meals.  It is part of the kindness charity that lays at the work of many people who volunteer in Todmorden.  For £8 you can get, a vegan breakfast meal, or a vegetarian meal, or a carnivore's meal of sausages.  This of course is the only way to go to cater for the wide variety of tastes.

"fair exchange, just price, and the right to charity."

The Co-op started down North as people came together and questioned the right of the mill owner to his wealth and why wasn't it spread more widely. It came because a movement had formed called Owenism and the people who spread this gospel called Owenites  The movement came into being in Rochdale under the many co-operatives forming, in about 1844, spreading out to the large towns such as Huddersfield and Manchester.  Owen built a rural community next to his works, this was an experiment in an Utopian vision. The town of Saltaire is very much an example of this, built by Titus Salt for the great mill factory he had established and then with housing built for the mill workers and managers.

Listening to Zak Polanski of the Green Party and his talk on the media exchange and one cannot but feel he is carrying on the tradition as he rails against the wealthy (and about time).  The right to charity has of course been replaced by the social network that provides help too many people.  Also I notice that the old hot potato, Universal Basic Income for everyone, has been pulled out of the dusty cupboard of Green Socialism.

The Co-op as a supermarket is more expensive than either Aldi or Lidl but it can be found in most towns Up North.  Not in Tod but in Hebden Bridge, and are they being snobbish? (or perhaps loyal to the traditions of the area) to only allow the Co-op supermarket in the town.

After the wedding a couple of weeks ago, the flowers had to be cleared off the tables for the next wedding event, so we brought ours home and some of them dried as well, a good memory of the wedding.

4th October 2025

Thursday Evening:  The wind is picking up outside, a medium type storm, heavy rain and its glitter on the road.  We need peace, people are starting to agitate, against so many things.  A memory that flashed through my F/B page yesterday from 11 years back.

The green tunnel of trees you drive through before reaching Blakes Wood.

 

Sweet chestnut

One doesn't have to name the marvellous family of fungi whose long tendrils writhe around in the soil, feeding the trees maybe but when that damp, slightly warm air of Autumn comes along.  They appear, amongst the fallen leaves, twigs and branches they cling to.  An Autumn feast? An Autumn Death? Take your pick.

 

3rd October 2025

To start with a new discovery, there is a Radio 3U (unwind) programme that I switch on every morning with its calming music it sets the day.  At the moment I am listening to Erland Cooper who I discovered a few weeks ago.  Here he is at Stonehenge being very artistic I'm afraid but I'm sure he will grow up one day.  He uses the violin a bit like another composer, John Tavener, not the 15th century John Taverner (notice subtle change of surname.)  But there again, I see the 'artistic temperament' is on show again.  Perhaps Hadley Freeman had it right ;) ;)

The modern Tavener creates religious music as did the old Taverner, it must appeal to some sort of ex Catholic faith that lingers in my soul. Listening I realise it is that moment when the bow is drawn across the violin it still makes a shiver go down my spine as we plunge into the music.

Family wise, well for a few days it has just been me and Andrew at home, Karen went off to Vevey to see her aunt and came back yesterday afternoon.  At the weekend Andrew's son will be down.  Andrew had been plotting a big walk but with Storm Amy? on the horizon it might be cancelled, then on Saturday afternoon they go to Leeds for the football match.  Matilda will also be down to have her hair done.  It's cheaper coming back to Tod then hairdressers in London.

Yesterday patched up the pocket of some linen shorts Andrew had bought from one of the second hand sites for their trip to Genoa.  Hopefully that holiday goes off safely the whole world is in the stages of unrest.  My sewing ability is hampered by my eyesight, yet I can still thread a needle but knitting is getting a bit difficult.  I hate dropping stitches and then having to pick them up but it keeps me focused.

Lucy The sun worshipper, now just dust in Normanby. She has nicked Paul's foot cushion out of his study and now sits at the back door catching the sun.

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A nature campaigner has died.  Doctor Jane Goodall and her lifetime work with chimpanzees is a person who was often on our radio.  She asked us to acknowledge 'the others' in this world.  The animals,  that cannot speak out for themselves.  Luckily there are people who work to save many creatures from the devastating harm we do to the elephants, lions,  orangutans and the many creatures who are sold in the exotic animal market.  We are kind to our domestic dogs and cats, well most anyway, but we should be aware that that watch on your wrist or that computer you are reading this now has had components that may have come from some far distant land and messed up the ecosystem for good.  

It is a never ending fight to protect the equal rights of these animals, we have driven many to the edge of extinction it is up to us to redress the balance.  People like Doctor Jane Goodall is of course a superb example of what to do, she dedicated her whole life to the job.

Jane Goodall's last interview

1st October 2025

A Japanese moss garden.  Formal gardens in Japan have a simplicity about them but they are sculptured into a final form of beauty.  Think of the 'cloud' trees manicured to perfection.  So it is not my kind of garden, but this moss garden with its islands of greenery standing out from the moss is peaceful.  Nature in Japan is more recognised in a ritual or religious sense.  And yes I haven't been to Japan but for a time I have been watching and learning about the culture.

 

So today I shall write about how our thoughts are always hijacked by current news when in all truth that wretched news has been on the history pages for most of man kinds stay upon this Earth.  But when all is said and done humans can still be kind.

To start with the following little ivory carving of 13,000 years ago of two deer swimming.  Someone had recognised their beauty and I think their vulnerability and patiently carved this little token.

Swimming Reindeer. Wiki Johnbod

The Swimming Reindeer is a 13,000-year-old Magdalenien sculpture of two swimming reindeer conserved in the British Museum. The sculpture was made in what is now modern-day France by an unknown sculptor who carved the artwork from the tip of a mammoth tusk. The sculpture was found in two pieces in 1866, but it was not until 1904 that Abbe Henri Breuil realised that the two pieces fit together to form a single artwork of two reindeer swimming nose-to-tail.  Wiki entry

In a video I saw the other day on Rhode Island were people trying to save a little saltmarsh sparrow from extinction.  Climate change is making the water rise higher in the saltmarshes, and the little fledgings in their nests drown.  A sort of submersible platform was made for the tiny nests so that the nest sat on the platform and rose with the water.  The video is here.

In an attempt to slow the melting of ice in the Artic, artificial floes have been made, presumably to back bounce the sun warming the ice.  But these can also be used for the polar bears as well who rely on ice floes to hunt and move around.

And lastly there is the Japanese story of a monk who sacrificed himself to feed a hungry tiger and her family.  The story is here.  The Asuka Temple 

 

Many years ago I found a book, or at least requested it from the Bath library because it was too expensive to buy.  It was the top book written by Alistair Whittle.  Just the sort of title I would lust over;).  In it I found fascinating facts about Silbury Hill and the plants that were discovered under the hill on the land surface.  I copied them out into a blog.  But yesterday on looking for the book I found that it had been copied onto the web for free.  And it gladdened my heart to see useful information on the net.

  

Steve Marshall's book is just as interesting, Avebury comes alive again for me as he methodically rounds up the many, many prehistoric sites and gives easy writing on them.  One of the things I had been interested in was the Palisaded Enclosures not too far from West Kennet Long barrow.  Trump could have learnt a thing or two from these 20 foot tall oak trunks placed almost touching each other, with pig bones (an offering maybe) in the holes they were placed in.  There is no signs of course of the timber only the skim of evidence in the soil.  But they were massive long walls, there curvature probably meaning defensive and yet a meeting place for the building of Avebury, which would need a lot of labour.

Durrington Neolithic settlement near to Stonehenge may have had a similar function.  The function being the construction of a religious centre.  Though the many pig bones on site at the Palisaded Enclosures could be put down to feasting or long stay as people came in from the surrounding areas to build.

A not so good photo of Marshall's photo of the plants that were there 5000 years ago not so different from the plants we see today and so reassuring in their ordinariness.

"Humour about something that is deadly serious"

Recording daily events.

I am in a continual state of learning, so when this meme came through I had to think of why do we let uninformed people tell us their version of stuff  which may have importance in a lot of other peoples lives. 

The following essay in the New York Times explains that Autism has alway existed, We haven't always called it Autism .

Autism has never meant a lot to me, firstly Autism has probably always been there but it had been given a name over many years of research  The article says there may be a hundred types of Autism, caused by genetic inheritance, but  Trump and Kennedy blatant arrival on the scene with their interpretation has harmed the work done over time. 

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Rebecca Solnit's   in reply to the above.

Funnily enough I was reading Murr's latest funny essay on her web site and one of the commentators mentioned this as Murr lives in Portland, except it is not funny is it?

26th September 2025

 I start with a rose, I may not have a garden anymore but I can dream.  This striped rose is called Rosa Mundi and is an old rose, I had it in both of my gardens.  There are plenty of modern styled striped roses now.  But Rosa Mundi is a sport of the Rosa Gallica from Southern France, hence the name Gallica = Gaul.

It's legend goes back to a lady called Rosamund and here you will find a pretty story of her and this most precious rose, ancestor to many other roses.

"It is believed to be named was named after Rosamund Clifford (1150-1176), the longtime mistress of King Henry II. It is documented, that Rosamund, often referred to as “Rosamund the Fair, ” shared a loving relationship with the king from 1166-1176. King Henry and Rosamund’s family buried her at the Godstow Nunnery near Oxford with an endowment so that the nuns could place Rosa Mundi flowers at the tomb on the anniversary of her death"  Taken from here

The house was awake early this morning.  First of all the cat Mollie demanding that I should get up at 5.30 and put on the radiator for her because she was cold.  Then Andrew rushing out for a quick walk in the dark to settle his nerves, he has a deadline about 12 o clock this morning.  Lillie also up early to go back to London for the start of her term.  Though in actual fact she went back to London last Sunday to pick up the key to her room in a new flat, the usual overpriced accommodation you get in London.  She had come back on Monday for the funeral of a scout's leader.

So what have I been doing amongst all this?  Well listening to a podcast from Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart about how Charlie Kirk is to be the new martyred Christ of the Christian Nationalists.  Luckily our bishops are coming out against this, as did the American Pope the other day.  So the battle of words surge, some completely idiotic for sure.  Dwell on roses till times turn more sane.

Edit:  There was a fire overnight in an old building, a shop with a flat above.  15 fire engines attended and it has shut down the one main road that goes through the town.  There will be a lot of cursing in the morning traffic!

25th September 2025

I have been listening to people.  First of all the Pope Leo XIV an American Pope no less who has been trying to bring Trump to heel.  I have noticed through the weeks that there has been an emphasis on Jesus Christ and his storytelling, turn the other cheek, overthrow the moneymakers, help others that  has flowed through the eco vision of the net.

I would recommend the book Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit.  Rather than read his sombre books and frighten yourself enough to hide under the bed.  Read this book and learn about Orwell in real life, though he was indeed a 'grumpy pants' type of person, which could easily have been down to his illness.  The making of a garden was just as important to him.   He made two gardens one at Wallington and the other on the Scottish island of Jura.

In the video below Rebecca Solnit and Margaret Atwood discuss the book.

One wonders how Orwell became such a well  known figure when the things he wrote about were so near the knuckle, his allegorical books Nineteen Eighty four  and Animal Farm have almost monopolised our thinking on authoritarianism and fascism that perhaps judgment from past thinking colours our thinking in the present day.  But as Jablog's blog on the Aspidistra plant immediately reminded me the other day of his book Keep the Aspidistra Flying.  Then of course another question arose in my mind, why did the Victorians so love the Aspidistra plant, was it because of our habit forming and imitating ways of each other.  Perhaps because the plant was hardy enough to put up with dark smoky atmospheres and live forever!

 He can talk the talk, rather impressed by him, Zac Polanski.

23rd September 2025

American humour  Sent to me by another human being, who will remain anon.  Talking of privacy, which you don't really expect too much of in a blog I had 13000 visits yesterday.  Well I really don't seek popularity, so maybe I will scoot to somewhere less visible.  Checking my stats data.  Wow, 58,000  from America.  Well good day to you I hope you are all friendly, you might even be AI rounding up opinions, not sure that is going to do any good for the overall tension in the world.  Italy on strike over Gaza, rightly so, Syria in the middle of a terrible drought with people unable afford the flour to make bread.  Ukraine being slowly bombed by Russian Putin and America in the grip of I don't even know how to describe it, perhaps chaos is the best word.

Just to let you know that the jungle garden is becoming more jungly by the minute but the weather has turned very cold.

Boring Granny ;)

But the masons leave

for the lime-pits of time, with flowers, chaff, ashes,

Their plans are spattered with blood, lost,

And the golden plumb-line of sun says; the world is leaning,

Bedded in a base where the fingers

Of ancient waters touch the foundation.

But feel the walls; the glow stays on your hands.

Ivan Lilac 1996 from the House of the Builders

Yes that's me according to grandchildren, but I enjoy being boring!

On my Megalithic news this morning came a book written by Steve Marshall - 'Exploring Avebury' and hunting around on the net produced this very interesting video.  I watched it spellbound for the hour it took to run, knowing all these places I had roamed with my old dog Moss.  I know this area so well it is as if it is engraved on my soul.  The years I wandered around by myself to the time when I wandered around with Paul.  That moment in January when it snowed whilst we were staying at Teacher's Cottage and got up early in the cold and dark and walked around the stones before anyone else was there.

Marshall was lucky he spent several years in a cottage at Yatesbury, a village a couple of miles from Avebury, and where Julian Cope used to live.

Firstly Windmill Hill because it was one of the first signs of humans living in the area, on this dry chalk land.
 

Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure.  Later ditched Bronze Age barrow.

The crack willow where the Swallowhead spring joins the river Kennett. A sacred place to the new druids

Unfortunately the messy offerings of today rather let the Swallow head springs down

The river winding its way past Avebury

The Cove at Avebury

Avebury stones with the Red Lion in the distance.  Meeting place for friends and relatives.

Ridiculous hat and not the shoes for muddy walking

The river in flood

The stones in the snow.  The lecture filled a lot of information in about the fate of the stones over the centuries.

The great closing down facade of the West Kennet Long Barrow

19th September 2025

this morning as I listened to the news they announced music at The Park without saying where it was.  Well it is at Hylands just a few miles out of Chelmsford.  An old estate of several hundred acres.  We would often go for a walk there, through the Victorian gardens often to see the magnificent wisteria.  From 2011 I wrote this about the park.....

Hyland House

Hyland House fell into disuse in the 1950's and was at one time to be pulled down and the grounds turned into a golf course. Luckily there was enough protest later on for it to be saved, and with the help of lottery money has been restored. So instead of being a place for a handful of people to chase a little white ball around, it has become a place for the public to enter freely, walk their dogs, children, picnic under the trees and generally a place of leisure. Stable block has a restaurant, full of people eating out in the courtyard, with their dogs parked safely under the tables and a secondhand book shop. Plus of course 'events' we went for the craft fair, but really there was only people selling food.

Humphrey Repton drew up the plans for the landscape garden in the 18th century, he did'nt actually undertake any work just handed out one of his little 'red books' with sketches inside. But was the first person to use the term landscape gardener, and he followed on in the footsteps of Capability Brown.

We wandered round the gardens had picnics in the ground and gave thanks to the people who had saved this space.  I am not sure but I think it belonged to the council though of course it must have had a charity to run it.

 

I adore wisteria, it is flamboyant and showy. There is an explanation of how it came to England here.

And about 17 seconds of the World Garden.  I am terrible at videoing, not sure that I am capturing the scene and far too fast as I scroll round, there was a huge totem pole in this part of the garden.

The One World Garden