Generally, I upload images of beauty to this site – things that have stopped me in my tracks – like watching a sunset through summer-grass…

or a Buzzard sat atop a telegraph pole who’s enjoying the same sunset as me…

But the countryside after sunset – has a darker side – where unspeakable cruelties to wild animals go on largely unchecked under the cover of nightfall.

As someone who often walks out at night – it’s a horrible truth that I’ve too often heard the audible writhings of a wild animal that’s been trapped by a noose around its neck – that’s too faraway on foot to rescue. It’s a searing sound that carries for miles on a still night – whilst the silence that ensues the hopeless struggle is deafening.

So it came as no real surprise to me – to discover that the perpetrators of such acts of animal cruelty – would think nothing of dumping the bodies of four beautiful, healthy young foxes on the grass verge of the main thoroughfare into our village for all to see——like they’re proud of it, yet they don’t leave their names and addresses; insensitive, filthy fly-tippers that they are. 

What a needless waste of four young lives – and a complete WASTE OF LIFE of those that did this.

A wide-open treasure chest.  Moonrise over ‘Crow Point’ beach near Braunton.

I always think I’m a castaway whenever I step out onto the sandy vastness that is ‘Crow Point’ beach——even though just over the other side of the Torridge estuary, all the home-lights of Bideford and Appledore twinkle as fireflies on a warm Summer night; it’s a magical place to Be after sunset. 

We had ALL the beach all to ‘ourselves’ which is a rare treat nowadays.

My takeaway memories of ‘Crow Point’ on Tuesday, 29th. May 2018 are of soft whisperings from the dunes – of Marram grass, and Curlew calls – and a constant, low-level effervesant fizzing from the millions of ‘Sand Fleas’ that were everywhere.

Nearly the end of the day.

Such curious——prehistoric creatures, hopping round in seemingly mad circles, waiting for the next tide to come in; are we not all just little ‘Sand Hoppers’ at the end of the day?

No man – or Sand Flea is an island – we all share this wonderful Earth together.

“Hello little fellow!” To catch a ‘Sand Hopper’ is no mean feat! They are like the jumpiest, jumping beans Ever!

But to hold one is to “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand…” from a poem by William Blake. Once caught the little fellow curled up and pretended he was fast asleep – and then I let him go…

I was doubly delighted to find a ‘new’ stone too – to add to my collection. I’ve got too many stones already! Heart-shaped stones, a stone with a hole through it called a ‘Hag Stone’ – even a ‘Lucky Seven Stone’ – to name but a few, but never before have I stumbled upon ‘a stone within a stone’ like this one – or these two! 

The stone in the middle is stuck fast – however did it get in there one wonders and goes on wondering…

Whilst turning it over and over in my hand as well as in my head…  

I have ‘concluded’ for the time being at least, that it has been in ‘there’ since the beginning of Time – it is perhaps another ‘Hag Stone’ in the making – or was! How many million years has it taken for the power of the sea to channel out the gaps, that infinitesimally – are still not quite wide enough to set the inner stone free? There is no way that the middle can come out of the hole – or ‘Whole’ – and why would I want it to anyway, when it’s a curio that came to me – a washed-up treasure to be treasured, just as it IS for the rest of Time.

Another Sunset – or ‘just’ a half-embedded scallop shell waiting to be freed by the next high tide?  Until my next ‘Crow Point’ treasure hunt – “Goodbye”.

Some earlier posts about the remote beauty of ‘Crow Point’ beach…

Crow Point: a special place.

Return to Crow Point.

Making sense of it.

On Wednesday 30th May 2018 – I went in search of Flora Thompson’s final resting place. I had little idea as to exactly where her book-shaped headstone was, other than it was somewhere through these gates…

Entrance to ‘Longcross Cemetery’ – Dartmouth, Devon.

It was earlier this year, that the screen adaptation of Flora Thompson’s ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ saw us through five long weeks of an Internet blackout! Most evenings we’d settle down to watch a couple episodes – sometimes three in a go – until we’d watched all four series back to back.  Since watching the credits roll at the end of the last episode of the last series – I’d been meaning to visit Flora’s grave to simply say ‘thank you’ for preserving the past so vividly. Even if in the name of entertainment, the BBC’s adaptation of ‘Lark Rise’ is a ‘no smells’ embroidered tapestry of her reality. The larger-than-life cast of characters are All equally memorable, although ‘Queenie’, ‘Dorcas’ and ‘Thomas’ stole the show for me. 

Flora’s legacy.

A thick blanket of sea mist only enhanced our visit to the sepulchral quarter of Dartmouth; perfect weather conditions for aimfully wandering around the cemetery in search of our Oxfordshire heroine – who was everywhere…

On the way out, I happened to spy a beautiful, bejeweled spider’s web clinging to the craggy edifice of the tallest tree in the cemetery. It just somehow magically caught my eye even though it was way above eye level… 

Immediately I remembered Flora’s parting passage from ‘Lark Rise’ – “As she went on her way, gossamer threads, spun from bush to bush, barricaded her pathway, and as she broke through one after another of these fairy barricades she thought, ‘They’re trying to bind and keep me’. But the threads which were to bind her to her native county were more enduring than gossamer. They were spun of love and kinship and cherished memories.”

We finished our homage to Flora – with an evening meal on Brixham seafront; Brixham the place, where Flora passed from this World to the Next…

‘Waiting for a tug on the line’.  View through a car windscreen – as our ‘Simply Fish’ takeaway supper went down a treat!

Flora died aged seventy from a heart attack – in 1947. Her final resting place is situated at the far end of a suitably maintained row of War Graves… 

In contrast, Flora’s quiet plot nestles in it’s own shaded corner facing inward to the encroaching hedge – where Mother Nature is slowly——inextricably reclaiming her Own.

Tragically and touchingly, beside Flora’s name – is that of ‘Peter Redmond Thompson’ – her younger son who was lost at sea during the Second World War; I think she died of heartbreak…

Flora’s last Will and Testament stated “if any headstone should be erected to my memory I wish that the name of our beloved son Peter Redmond Thompson shall appear thereon.”

“Thank you.”

As is Nature’s wont.  One of a number of long-forgotten corners in Longcross Cemetery.

In memory of Flora Thompson – 5 December 1876 to 21 May 1947.

How Time flies. 

Nearly a week’s gone-by, since I joyfully accompanied a merry throng – ‘The Torrington Senior Citizens’ – on a pilgrimage to the historical heart of the small City of Wells in Somerset. I was a guest of my Mother——and the Almighty.

I don’t think even a year would be time enough to fully appreciate the magnificence and sheer awesomeness of ‘Wells Cathedral’ – let alone a few hours out of one bright, sunny day in May. However, I put my best foot forward plus these…

A pilgrim’s pendant.  Thanks Mum for focusing the camera on my ample blue ‘overhang’ – to use an architectural term – but where’s me ‘ead?!!!

‘The Lady Chapel’  It was like being inside Christ’s lantern in ‘The Light of the World’ by William Holman Hunt…

Wells Cathedral is quite the biggest ‘Labour of Love’ I’ve witnessed in quite some time, maybe this lifetime. It’s the Blood, Sweat and Tears——the Devotion, the Dedication——the Skill of all those long forgotten hands that caused me to stand back and think to myself ‘WOW’ over and over again. After much neck craning, eye popping and mind boggling, my Mother and I retired outside into the sunlit garth for a contemplative half-hour before catching the comfy ‘Taw ‘n’ Torridge’ coach home to Devon. Under a quadrangle of heaven-sent blue sky – we each found our own space. My mother sat in the light – content to rest on one of the sun-warmed seats to bask, whilst I trod my own circular path in the shade of a much revered Evergreen. Round and round and round in a clockwise direction I went – only stopping to pick up a fallen stick that was lying on the hallowed ground…Outside in, the cloistered space seemed to emanate an even greater feeling of peace, warmth and tranquility – it felt like we’d arrived at ‘journey’s end’ – at the still centre of the turning World, the Universe – in Somerset, in England. Really quite extraordinary! 

Even the clustered bole of the Yew seemed to magically mirror the soaring shapes I’d seen inside the cool cathedral…So much so, I fancied that the great Gothic edifice of Wells had ‘squared’ the Yew even though in reality the Cathedral is older by quite a few centuries. In truth, the Wells ‘centre of gravity’ is about 300 years old – a youngster in Yew terms, where as the Cathedral was built between 1175 and 1490!

A pilgrim descending the footworn steps from the Chapter House.

Apart from a collection of ‘stained glass’ window clings that I’d bought in the cathedral gift-shop, I carried nothing else home from Wells other than an ongoing sense of peace and eternalness, all of which were as light as a feather about my person. The only other memento that I kept held in my hand, was a precious bone-like twig that ‘found me’ under the spreading Yew… 

The Cathedral also houses one of the oldest working clocks in the World; an astronomical, horological masterpiece – that has been chiming the passage of time since about 1390. Here’s a video I found on YouTube of the clock in action…

Beneath the celestial cogs and dials, there’s a gleaming figure of ‘Christus Redemptor’ carved from Yew wood – which is incredible in itself as Yew is so hard! I had an impulse to gently touch his wounded feet but took this photo instead…And then there are the colossal strainer or ‘scissor arches’ – mega constructions that literally keep the whole place from collapsing in on itself. And thankfully not on top of me and my dear Mum – and all the ‘Torrie Town’ Senior Citizens, to name but a few pilgrims on this day – Tuesday 22nd May 2018…To my mind, ‘the scissors’ more resembled an hourglass on a grand scale. Huge Gothic style ‘figures of eight’ that encased a space to wander through and marvel at the supporting structures. Awestruck and gasping, I followed invisible footsteps in and out the silently groaning arches – those of ‘hundreds of thousands’ of pilgrims who’d gone on – down the days, the weeks, the months, the years——the centuries – as particles of light passing through time and space.

Sleeping dust from centuries past.  The tomb of one Thomas Bekynton – or Beckington.  Bishop of Bath and Wells 1443 – 1464.

Wells Cathedral is truly monumental, a testament to the masons that imagined this soul-soaring place and then painstakingly shaped it with hammer and chisel. 

The wonderment of ‘Wells’ has led me to find this wonderful rendition of my all time favourite pilgrim’s song. I’ve been waiting all my days for a rendition as brilliant as this one, I absolutely love it and I’m sure Mr. Bunyan would love it too!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

WOW.

Magnificent Art on a Very Small Scale!

Added on Sunday, 1st May 2022. See comments below!

Ellie’s finished mini masterpiece of Wells Cathedral’s Great Yew —— the painting measures just four centimetres square!

© Ellie Moore. Shown here with kind permission of the artist. 

Ha ha the funniest thing!  – ‘Bella Silene dioica’…

Since 2016 I have been propagating——patiently nursing, willing on, a single ‘Deadly Nightshade’ plant, affectionately referred to as my ‘Belladonna Babe’. Two years on since germination, ‘she’ has matured into something recognisable but definitely not deadly in any shape or form, in fact ‘she’ is a deLIGHTful miracle – or a deLIGHTful accident; indeed BOTH!

A beautiful lady – or a male perhaps?  Silene dioica or Red Campion. ‘Silene’ comes from ‘Silenus’ – a Greek male deity of the forest – a satyr (faun in Roman mythology)  ‘dioica’ comes from another Greek word ‘dioecious’  or ‘two households’ – which means the male and female flowers of the wild Red Campion are borne on separate plants.

The ‘beautiful mix-up’ started when I bought some ‘Atropa Belladonna’ seeds from an Ebay seller in 2016 – and planted some as per the advisory note that accompanied them through my letterbox. I submerged a dozen teeny-weeny, darkly ‘specks’ in fresh water and placed them in my fridge——to cool and to fool them into thinking that the winter thaw had taken place. Everyday I refreshed their water and carefully placed the seeds back in the fridge in a sealed container – until finally they were ready to sow, after about two weeks…

I planted all twelve seeds together, in a pot of richest, crumbliest soil that I had scooped off the top of a molehill on one of my walks; probably how this beautiful ‘cross-fertilisation/contamination’ came round!!! Miraculously, one out of the dozen——nay ‘Baker’s dozen’ germinated, and I have nurtured the lucky ‘thirteenth fairy’ ever since. In hindsight, I have to admit there where times when I did look dubiously upon her as any mother would – who feels her babe has been switched at birth!

Doing nicely – Spring 2017.

Nonetheless I loved her, and even gave her a name ‘Jane’ and wrote about her progress here – and again here. Ah, such was my investment, devotion – expectation——belief!  

With two cold snaps early on this year – I protected last season’s growth of shriveled leaves with a bell-cloche, in the hope that she would survive into Spring. Suddenly, come the warmer weather – the brownish clump burgeoned, ‘she’ enjoyed a mini heatwave in fact that she converted into a significant growth spurt! Um, I thought to myself – as her “lusty limbs” suddenly and rapidly shot-up, with pink-tipped buds by mid-April; much too early for Deadly Nightshade to bloom – and wrong colour! I’m deLIGHTed to report on May Day – that my ‘Belladonna Babe’ has matured into the most benign of plants, Bella Silene dioica – or beautiful Red Campion! The funny thing is I’m not the least bit disappointed because Campions are an enduring favourite of mine – even an inspiration for an earlier, coincidental blog post called, ‘Champion Wild Campion’. 

Nowadays, wild Campion are still a relatively common sight in our hedgerows – through Spring and early Summer. Their bright-pink, bobbing heads reminding me of my country childhood, when I’d freely pick a posy to take home to my Mother – something one mustn’t dare do now, at least not with a clear conscience! With a verdant clump of ‘pinks’ happily bobbing in my backyard – I may just pick a posy for the table – as a nod to when life was as innocent as picking wild flowers. —— Of treasured memories of growing up through the 60s and 70s, a time I now recall and SEE as golden.  

Backyard ‘Bella Silene dioica’. That promised rosy ‘Posy of Pinks’ – metaphorically picked down memory lane – to celebrate the beginning of fair May.  1-5-2018

Unfazed by my own delay – for a ‘harvest’ of “button-bright” berries, I have purchased a bona fide sproutling – that despite her diminutive size, is ‘deliciously’ recognisable as a beautiful, succulently juicy ‘Belladonna Babe’ – or Deadly Nightshade. (Latin name ‘Atropa Belladonna’ comes from ‘Atropos’ – one of the three Fates in Greek mythology, who cut the thread of life. The Romans identified her as ‘Morta’.  ‘Belladonna’ means ‘beautiful lady’.)

Definitely no plain ‘Jane’.  I could’t be more deLIGHTed to be a surrogate mummy to ‘my’ new healthily plump ‘Belladonna Babe’ – than if I’d raised her myself!  For the grower X

The lesson learned here – for a novice nurseryman like me, is always plant seeds in a potting mixture that comes out of a BOUGHT bag – whilst leaving the tops of molehills to the Moles and to Nature! Wild Red Campion evidently fend for themselves and do prolifically – even magically flowering again in the harshest of seasons – in a quiet, secret location…

December’s bravest stars come out…

‘Red Campion’  in the pink – in the dark – in the bitter cold – Winter 2017.  Truly a miracle ‘Biflora’ specimen –  like ‘The Glastonbury Thorn’ Crataegus monogyna ‘Biflora’ – that blossoms twice-yearly too.

Champion Wild Campion.

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

Ever my inspiration for endeavouring to raise a ‘Deadly Nightshade’ – is this potent passage from ‘The Go-Between’ by L. P. Hartley…

“It wasn’t a plant, in my sense of the word, it was a shrub, almost a tree, and as tall as I was. It looked the picture of evil and also the picture of health, it was so glossy and strong and juicy-looking: I could almost see the sap rising to nourish it. It seemed to have found the place in all the world that suited it best.

I knew that every part of it was poisonous, I knew too that it was beautiful, for did not my mother’s botany book say so?

I stood on the threshold not daring to go in, staring at the button-bright berries and the dull, purplish, hairy bell-shaped flowers reaching out towards me.  I felt that the plant could poison me, even if I didn’t touch it, and that if I didn’t eat it, it would eat me, it looked so hungry, in spite of all the nourishment it was getting.

As if I had been caught out looking at something I wasn’t meant to see I tiptoed away, wondering whether Mrs. Maudsley would think me interfering if I told her about it.  But I didn’t tell her, I couldn’t bear to think of those lusty limbs withering on a rubbish heap or crackling in a fire; all that beauty destroyed.  Besides I wanted to look at it again.

Atropa belladonna.”

Atropa belladonna.  No mistaking she’s the real deal…

Bellissima!  One single Deadly Nightshade flower – 27th August 2018.

Other posts on this most beautiful of mix-ups…

Bellissima!

Organic gardening: Atropa Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade.

…progress update! 5th. June 2018.

On ‘The Through Road’.  A post about seizing the Moment – and the Day – and a ‘Hand’ – all interwoven with some TREE MAGIC!

There are four stretches of road that I especially look forward to driving along on my journeys to and from work; a round trip of about thirty-six miles.

To my way of thinking, it’s a journey mapped out by four ‘waymarkers’, three legs, two crossroads, one bridge and zero stops!

I love going over the River Taw –  nevermore so than when I’m on my way home on a cold, dark Winter’s night – when the water beneath is in spate.  This faithful bridge always feels so reliable and strong.

The ‘four’ significant waymarkers en route, are all remarkable trees – or ‘uplifters’ as I perceive them.

The first——or last, is not so much a single tree but a whole wood, where there’s a steep path that leads to a row of five ‘luminaries’ that stand at the top edge.

In the click of a shutter, they enabled me to decipher the ‘marks’ on a drawing that’s been overlooked for more than a century, ‘lost’ in fact.

A no flash light bulb moment! “The trees speak bliss to me.” from a poem by Emily Bronte. And to me…

The tree alignment that came out in the photograph, told me to look at the original drawing again – because the clue to the identity of the portrait is outlined in the trees themselves – like joined-up handwriting. The trees magically connect to spell out the very name enfolded in the sitter’s cloak. Enough said, as this is a tale not for me to unfold… 

The sweep of road I journey along…

And the same path from another perspective  – heading into the wood in April…

Spring 2018.   Time – and Woodcutter – take care of everything!  The ‘Luminaries’ are still visible in some shape, form or other – but ‘Emily’ was in the moment; now vanished.

Moving on…

Depending on direction, the second, or second-to-last tree is unmissable. It commands attention from its high place on the hill, where it stands out in all weathers, through the seasons——through the years. The ‘Beech’ comes into sight on homeward journeys only – as outbound it’s behind me. After work, I look forward to seeing it spring into view as much as arriving home and having a refreshing cup of tea——or two in my ‘Wunderkammer’! 

Drinking in the Summer view.

Ever a tonic in Winter.

The third—or second waymarker, is a skeletal tree that points to a spot where a fatality happened. The fatality inspired ‘Trace of Hare’  – a post about death and transformation through Art. 

‘Trace of Hare’

My last tree—or first, depending on whether I’m heading east into the unfolding day or westward home – is an odd-shaped Oak that grows at a place called ‘Four White Gates’.So called, because there literally are four white gates positioned at each corner of the crossroads…

On the through road, the tree is clearly visible in both directions and has no best side – yet it is an Oak of two distinct halves. Its most notable feature is a projecting arm that reaches out and momentarily holds me in thrall, every time I pass it by. 

I just love the way this lateral branch airily transcends the rigidity of its trunk, that stands straight and immovable, on the verge of the fast-moving road. To the eye – the arm’s stick-like form looks too exposed, too vulnerable, as if it might break in the slightest side-wind, yet evidently, it possesses the core strength——grace and beauty, of a classically trained dancer. Once more, it has miraculously weathered the storm of another Winter, a prolonged Winter that has lasted well into Spring. 

Inevitably, time and gravity will return the skyward branch to its roots and to the soil one day – so as a matter of some urgency, I set off on ‘the through road’ to STOP and take a few photographs before it’s gone from sight…

Its claw-like grip letting go – as mission accomplished!  Sunday, 15th April 2018

No matter that the sky wasn’t blue on Sunday or that I’d voluntarily got caught out in the heaviest of April ‘showers’ – that lasted all afternoon. Or that I drove home in wet clothes – or that I made a puddle in the footwell of my car – and had uncomfortable boots for Monday’s start.  No matter at all, because I’d got what I came for – and more!

It’s not just the outstretched arm I love – it’s ALL of the tree, and its place on the four-way cross. I love the pair of clotted-cream coloured houses too against the leaden sky, and the name – ‘Four White Gates’.

Genome! An Arthur Rackham-ish nodule found lying in the sodden grass beneath the Great Oak;  an unforeseen gift from Mother Nature – to go in my Wunderkammer!

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

5th June 2018. The end of the road…

Well, the ‘long arm’s’ gift was nothing more than pulp when wet and sawdust when dry – rotten through in fact, so what does one do with the rock-hard shell of a decayed piece of old wood? 

Strip it out – or hollow out  – and turn it in to something anew…

‘The heart that goes on…’ – complete with left and right ‘ventricles’! I love it!

In memory of my faithful blue Skoda Felicia – that was scrapped on the 31st May 2018. Gosh how many times have we driven through ‘Four White Gates’ together – and by the tree with the long arm – on our journeys to and from work. Most reliable car Ever, but sadly too old to sensibly go through another MOT…

…it felt like a betrayal signing it over to the recycling yard – like abandoning an old friend.

In its ‘present’ form as a blue Skoda Felicia (left) – it had finally reached the end of the road – a no-through road.  It’s probably already been stripped-out – grabbed – crushed ;o(

Goodbye me ole blue flyer – thank you for keeping going right to the very ‘end’ – when I reluctantly dropped you off after work at ‘SWM Car Heaven’ – a hellish place for a silly, car sentimentalist like me!  X

I liked winding down my car window…

Dedicated to a retired Violinist I happen to know. 10th. April 2018…

Spring heralds the time of year when Red Deer stags cast their magnificent antlers.

Shedland’s wild stags seem to be more genetically inclined to shed their ‘horns’ late, yet this year’s Quest has already begun in earnest. My search is as much about hoping to find a huge shed antler as actually finding one, the thrill of the hunt is everything… 

After several hours lost in my element each evening – I always think to myself as I climb back over the gate for home – how very lucky I am to have already found three ‘magnificoes’; two in 2016 and one in 2017. Every night before I go away upstairs to sleep – I touch my eight-pointer for luck, it’s like ‘touching wood’ only different, it fortifies my belief in the elemental forces that are at work all around us, in Nature.

Scaling Shedland’s heights…

My favourite hour for this Spring-tide activity is just before sunset, at evensong – when all the woodland birds seemingly sing as one Chorus——filling the silence of the darkening wood with a sound so pure, so sublime, it would be impossible for this mere earthbound mortal to put into words – so I’m not going to try. 

However, there is an orchestra of musicians whom have exactly captured the excitement of my nightly Quests——the feeling, the ascending notes that joyfully sound inside my head long after I’ve come home after dark; it’s Vivaldi’s Four Seasons recomposed——reimagined by Max Richter.  Together, Vivaldi and Richter are Alchemy to my ears.

I realise too – why this rearrangement of Vivaldi’s magical musical notation has such special significance to me now.  Last year, I welcomed a very special new friend to my house – and during our meeting he offered to read my palms! It was then that I noticed his extraordinary long fingers – that curved back at the tips like an arc. I asked him to hold his extraordinary hand up to the light so that I could photograph it; the palmist is a retired violinist among other great talents – truth be told he’s a polymath.  It was only after he’d gone – that suddenly I could see ‘something other’ in his hand. This past year, we have been on our own Quest——together, that for me started where my fascination with Shed hunting began…

Antler like Hand like Antler.

‘Yod’ my first find in 2016.  Like an outstretched hand waiting to be unearthed…

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

“A time to every purpose” From Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

Mid February 2018, I lost my connection to the Internet, and anyone would think someone had died in the house——oh the unbearable loss!  The first few days were the hardest but gradually I, and my eighteen year old son who was also unable to connect via his smartphone(we live in a WiFi black spot – a trough!) became accustomed to being broadbandless, in fact we will remember it as a special time – a GIFT! The problem was an external one, so there was nothing we could do other than patiently wait – five whole weeks for re-connection! Of course my son was able to use WiFi when he was out and about – but for me, I don’t have a smartphone – or any other portable means of connecting to the Internet – so it was downtime for me, other than sending a couple of very short ‘distress’ messages to friends and family to say I couldn’t answer any emails for the foreseeable future. In order to email, it involved walking at least a mile from home – standing in a windswept gateway, fumbling around in the dark, trying to ‘text’ with cold fingers (I can’t do it with my thumbs like the young folks do)and then continuing the walk as if the phone’s intensely bright screen had been seared onto my eyeballs so I couldn’t see where I was going momentarily…’we’ got through though!!! 

Anyway, enough of all that ‘woe’ – I’m back and I can visit here again, and write – and upload pictures and everything, it’s great—but different…

I certainly won’t take the Internet for granted anymore – and expect that it’s always——magically going to be there anytime I care to switch on. It really isn’t the end of the World if you loose IT for a while. We rediscovered the joy of watching series one and two of ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ together – and are still hooked – so much so we’ve just bought series three and four on Amazon – oh the joy of t’Internet!!!   

The upside of having no Internet has been the completion of an artistic project that I had neglected to find time to get on with. Finally, the woodworm ridden, shell of a Grandfather’s clock that had been dumped in my father’s cold, unlived-in room for months – has been transformed. Several coats of Mouse’s Back  were applied – then buffed with a soft cloth to a fine, fragrant beeswax finish. Its purpose complete…One of the top corners of the clock has been eaten away by woodworm but the little critters are silent——long gone, in fact the clock is silent as the grave itself. It doesn’t tick, it doesn’t tock – or chime on the hour, but it tells the time more accurately than all the other timepieces in the house. And if one cares to open the door in the base of the clock, there’s an added reminder never to waste time aimlessly browsing again!

“The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shape of things their colours, lights and shades; these I saw.

 Look ye also while life lasts.”

(From an anonymous epitaph.)

Time teller.  No cogs, no chains, no hands required; only the clock face behind the glass.

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

A lovely, romantic  encounter.

“These I saw”  Springtime 2018.

Cradled to safety from the middle of the road, a beautiful pair of coupling toads. Even though I prefer walking in darkness – on a Spring night it is essential to move forward by torchlight!

I said to the Great Wise Owl who stood at the gate of ‘Shedland’: 

“Give me owl vision that I may see in the darkness.” And the Owl replied:
“Go forth into the darkness and flap your arms——as beating wings.
That shall be to you better than sight and safer than on foot, lest you should trip on a tree stump or fallen branch!”
So I flapped, and finding I could magically fly, swooped silently into the blackness. Tu-whit, tu-whoooooooooo…

Adapted from ‘The Gate of The Year’ by Minnie Louise Haskins.

Owl Sanctuary.  Even by day – light only filters in at the edge.

A film of Shedland’s owls in complete velvety blackness, interrupted only by the sound of silence…

3rd. June 2018 – an update. Unfortunately my recording has been ‘accidentally’ deleted from my son’s YouTube account and is no longer available! tu-whit, tu-whoooooooooo)o:

My daily and nightly inspiration.

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

It seems pointless trying to keep the glass clean on my wood-burner door when it blackens again so quickly——especially during these long cold Winter months when it’s in daily use. And why anyway – when the bundles of kindling that I’ve gathered daily on my walks – have etched a beautiful skeletal Phoenix for me in the blackened glass.

Twig Art…

‘The Phoenix In The Glass’

6th. January 2018.
My dear old Dad passed away one year ago today – on the 6th January 2017 at precisely 10:50 am. Today I enjoyed a trip down memory lane with a visit to his favourite town – Okehampton, followed by a bracing walk around his favourite park, Simmons Park, with my son, Tom – his grandson. 

In memorium.  A walk around Simmons Park, Okehampton – to enjoy Winter’s flowers and the rush of the East Okement in full flow.

A visit to Okehampton is never complete without a rummage around my favourite charity shop – ‘The Fairplace Church’ in the Arcade. It’s a charming, rather old-fashioned type of Charity Shop – quite unique. I’ve been going in there for years – on occasions with Dad. Or he’d wait patiently outside for me to appear with a lovely bargain – such as today’s timely find.

The original in Keble College Oxford – 20th June 2017.

Imagine my delight today of all days – seeing my favourite painting hanging in the ‘Fairplace’ at the top of the stairs…for sale for a very fair price indeed…

‘The Light of the World’ for £4 only – BARGAIN.

Of course the ‘Light’ came home with me even though I have numerous copies already around my house – I can never have enough ‘Light’ on my walls especially in light of something my father said—or rather didn’t say during his last night. It was his reaction when I asked him who it was that was standing in the corner of his low-lit room that will forever enlighten any sad thoughts I have of his passing from this world to the next.

I couldn’t see anyone there but there was such a strong presence in the room – I pressed my father for an answer. Names of family that had gone on met with little or no response – so I asked him whether it was ‘the man in the picture’. Suddenly – he opened his eyes wide and nodded his head firmly towards the invisible figure – but it was his tight lips that confirmed what I’d asked, especially as he could hardly speak come the end. Suddenly he’d recognised the stranger waiting in the wings to collect him come morning light. In that unforgettable moment of recognition my father looked like he was going to cry——with elation.

(o:

From what I could tell from the face reflected in the picture glass today – I reacted much the same.

The Time. The Place. The Light.   (Only image ‘Title’ can be edited – and image ‘location’ can be edited to ‘no location’ to keep location secret – but the Date and Time are set in stone!)

Dad I’ll never forget your face… or ‘that face’ – in the quiet hours of the 6th. January 2017. X 

* * * * * * * * * *

Come Home. X 18th January 2018.

2018 has two blue moons coming up in the first quarter – one is rare – hence the saying ‘Once in a Blue Moon’ but a double is supernumerary—superlunary——MOOOONTASTIC!

‘Blue Moon’ double dates – 31st. January 2018 – and again on the 31st. March 2018.