Solstice

Today marked the solstice and a lunar eclipse. In Bristol the times of sunrise and maximum occlusion were separated by only four minutes. I've no idea what that means to a good pagan, especially since we could see nothing of the sky through the lowering clouds and mist.

As the roads are snowy and unsafe we reluctantly decided not to drive to Avebury but still felt that we had to celebrate the turning of the year in some way. So Moonface, Tom, Biggsy and I left our homes in the pre-dawn cold and walked up through the snowy streets to the highest point of the Downs, not far from Sea Walls. Biggsy had brought some tea-lights so we picked some small sprigs of holly and ivy, planted those in the snow and surrounded them by the seven lights. We lit them at sunrise, welcomed the return of the sun and the moon together then walked home via a cafe and bacon sandwiches.

All in all it was a lovely quiet start to the new year which gave us a real feeling of being able to look forwards to spring, in spite of the snow and frost with which we are still surrounded.

:o)

Wikipedia Ascending

Folly, Kings Weston House



Three weeks after first hearing Vaughan-Williams' "The Lark Ascending" for the first time and subsequently asking for a CD of the music as a Christmas present, I learned something more about its composition.

Moonface and I tried to get some exercise today by walking from home to Shirehampton via the Downs and Blaise, about six miles over quiet roads and snowy deserted open spaces. En route we stopped for a very civilised coffee and cake at Kings Weston House. In the potted history of the House which was provided for visitors, we read that it was there in 1920 that Vaughan Williams completed the composition of The Lark Ascending. Later we passed the compact Shirehampton village hall which was where the work was first performed, with the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society providing the chorus.

When I returned home (in darkness, it's been a short day) I tried to confirm the history and found that though this story is well attested locally, Wikipedia thought that the work was first performed in London. Bloody typical. So I edited Wikipedia to give the real version. This is my first ever edit of Wikipedia. It's so easy that I'll have to do it more.

:o)

Walking home

Today was quintessential November: grey, cold, drizzly. We trolled around an art trail yesterday, so fancied a change today. I also needed to try my contact lenses for an extended period in which I wouldn't want to either read or use a computer, so a walk was the obvious answer. As I didn't want to drive anywhere Moonface & I took the local train to Shirehampton and walked home via the riverbank.

Seeing the Avon at low tide from this new perspective and at walking pace is to see it in a very different light as it's lined by low grey cliffs above the mud-line. The walk home is about six miles, of which only the last is through town, and there's about another quarter-mile of tarmac along the Portway to Black Rocks, before climbing up to the Downs.

A few observations: in spite of the weather and the omnipresent sound of traffic the walk had interest and was effectively rural. And I could see without glasses! Today must have been the first time for forty years that I have spent so long awake without glasses on my face. When I finally succeeded in the prolonged struggle to remove the contacts ( I hope that this gets easier with practice ) and replace my glasses, they felt very strange and unwelcome. I should have tried contacts years ago, before my ability to focus atrophied.

In the final mile we stopped for cake & coffee in a new-to-us caff on Whiteladies, then scouted for others to try on subsequent Sundays: winter is coming.

:o)

Hitcher II

Returning from a cold and frosty walk on the Ridgeway and the first meeting with Fiona for at least a year, we stopped to pick up a hitcher. It's only been a month or so since I last gave a lift, so I was surprised to see another man thumbing so soon.

And that is a relection upon how rare hitch-hiking is these days.

This guy looked like a tramp, with a long coat, woolly hat and long unkempt beard. Moonface told me that he smelled like a tramp, too, but my sense of smell seems to have disappeared again after a recent series of nosebleeds. Anyway, he was a decent enough man, a little terse but open enough, with a lovely Durham accent and a respect for the car: he suggested putting his rucksacks in the boot to keep our interior clean. Nice guy, no money, I hope that he managed to get to his destination before nightfall as it's cold out there tonight.

:o)

Holland Park

I arrived early in London for my first meeting, with 90 minutes spare to make a 40-minute journey, so I decided to walk. From Paddington to Olympia isn't a bad stroll: it took me just over an hour via the perimeter of Hyde Park, Notting Hill and my introduction to Holland Park. I'd never passed through that park before, so I really enjoyed myself. It was noisy with birdsong rather than traffic hum, probably die to its being on a rise and surrounded by trees.

And what birds! A heron flapped steadily overhead, a small hawk zipped through some scrub, and there was a surrealistic green flock of parakeets feeding in the formal garden. I've never been as close to wild parrots, ever.

And I was still early for my meeting.

:o)

Fawn from Faun's

On Saturday, needing to travel down beyond Taunton to talk vans with a man, Moonface & I went for a walk along the Quantocks. After so many weeks of fine weather, autumn seemed to have arrived with a keen wind and a numbing cold, so we cut the walk short and tried to keep off the ridges and into the wind-shadow to protect ourselves from the worst of it. We're just not used to being cold now.

En route, we stopped in Nether Stowey to grab something for lunch. The butcher there, Faun's, is fabulous. We buy their pies when we can, but there were none available this weekend. However, they did have some rolled shoulder of venison, and at a ridiculously cheap price. Fresh from the hills, I suppose. We bought the smaller piece (3lb 13oz, £8) as well as some duck, local cheese and locally smoked mackerel.

Yesterday I cooked the meat: slow pot-roasted and surrounded by Moonface's home-grown onions, with odd herbs, crushed (frozen) redcurrants and juniper berries. I was worried about half-way through the cooking, that there was too much liquid thrown out from the meat and vegetables, but after another hour or two this had reduced to an acceptably thick gravy.

And the venison was delicious: tender and deeply flavoured, warming for the first cold weekend of the season. With baked potatoes (again, home-grown) to soak up the juices, I was very pleased with myself. Since there were only three of us, we didn't eat more than a third of the meat so it looks as if we will have curry later this week. After an apple crumble for pudding, I was full and happy. Yum.

:o)

Navigation

North of Minions, crossing the Moor, there were no waymarked paths.

I think that I enjoyed the navigation there more than anything I'd done before, since the landscape is so old. We followed the stones of some ancient boundary, and as we ascended or descended the curves of the hill, another stone would miraculously become visible. The traces led to a six-thousand year-old stone circle where each stone was surrounded by a pool of water where cattle had rubbed themselves against the rock.




The next day, we navigated along an invisible bridleway over plains that looked as if they were Wyoming, using a combination of mapwork, compass, the sun and tiny pimply mounds and irregularities of the hillsides, which led us to the right spot some miles onward. We were following tracks of our ancestors, thousands of years old, using the same markers that they had laid down; and it felt so close to nature.

We passed hut circles of the same age, relics of the old transhumance or summer huts when the moors were only occupied in fair weather and wondered at how the world had changed.



Walking is wonderful.


:o)

Little Red Corvette

We were astounded by the number of wild horses running loose on Bodmin Moor, from single mares with their foals to herds of a dozen or more chasing each other unencumbered by fences or fields. They were beautiful and slightly intimidating, especially when the stallions galloped over the grassy moorland with their heads lowered and teeth bared in aggression towards their mares or rivals. We could hear them thundering from a distance, and when seen against the skyline the romance was intense. The horses came in all colours, brindle to grey to roan to piebald and mustang skews, all slightly unkempt and tatty from recently losing their winter coats.

There's a line in Prince's song "Little Red Corvette" that goes: "The place where your horses run free" so the song lodged in my brain for the whole weekend, mixing the presence of Bodmin with my idealised visions of the American plains (which I've never visited) and memories of the preceding New York weekend spent in the company of E and her stories of a complicated past in Texas.





"It was a Saturday night, I guess that makes it alright; and what had I got to lose?"



:o)

Contrast

With my previous weekend spent in New York, the zenith of 20th-century city building, the contrast between that and this weekend's walk around Bodmin Moor could hardly have been greater. Moonface & I took four days to walk a little over sixty miles with plenty of stops to admire the views and wild horses.

Although we had initially decided to follow a trail described in a book (The Copper Trail), in the event we augmented & improved the walk by making much less use of roads and correspondingly more use of the high moorland and unmarked access land. The pub food was acceptable and simple, our B&B excellent, the walking utterly lovely. We should return someday.

:o)

Dope

Although I am an occasional tobacco smoker, taking from perhaps one or two per week down to less than one a month, depending upon whose company I'm in, I hardly ever smoke any dope. I do (did?) like the mild effect that one or two drags on a joint can give me, so when I was offered some last weekend I accepted and enjoyed the slight enhancement of sound and vision that makes cannabis fun. It must have been over a year since I last had any.

Then, this morning while walking Moonface towards work I spotted a plump little plastic bag on the pavement close to the Gloucester Road. Being an incorrigible skip-diver and scavenger, I picked it up without thinking then discovered that it had a little portion of tightly-pressed grass inside it. Hmm, I thought, while putting the bag into my pocket. Then on my return journey I saw another similar little bag close to where I found the first. It also contained weed. Hmmm again.

So, what do I do with this? Pass it to my dope-smoking friend? Smoke it myself as a small luxury? Throw it away? Store it for twenty years like the last lot I acquired, then dispose of it?
It's sitting in a tin at the moment, waiting on a decision.

:o/

Rus in Urbs

In London for the weekend to visit friends, we did no traditional sightseeing, no shopping, no shows, no nowt apart from some very beautiful relaxed walking.

We stayed in Camden in a lovely early Victorian square which has been somewhat wrecked by the imposition of modern flats along one side and by the building of greenhouses and what look like educational accommodation in the old green space, but the original houses are still fine. An ex-cabinet minister lives two doors along from our friends.

Our Saturday walk was direct from the house. We were able to reach the lower reaches of the Grand Union Canal and from there walk westwards via Camden Market towards Wembley, passing through thick crowds to start with towards the deserted reaches of Kensal Green and areas of London that I'd hardly heard of before.

We turned at the Grand Junction Hotel, somewhere in West London, taking a drink served by the most unfriendly surly barman I've met for years; an Aussie I think, who was almost reluctant to serve us with anything, and certainly not the coffees which we'd asked for and which were advertised outside the pub. Fortunately it was only a couple of hundred yards from the nearest tube and railway; it only took us half an hour to return back to Camden.

:o)

Castlerigg

Although the real purpose of the weekend in Keswick last month was to meet the extended Moses family, which was a fantastic chance for reminiscing and grounding for me but somewhat overwhelming for Moonface; we also managed a decent walk.

At least some of us did, there were about a dozen of us who headed up from Keswick, towards Skiddaw up the Glenderterra mine track between Lonscale Fell and Blencathra, then back via the Castlerigg Circle. It's years since we saw it, the last time was possibly when Moonface & I had our summer together collecting chironomids, in the late 70's. It seems smaller now than it did then, and tamer. There's a car park nearby, and instead of being on our own there were other visitors too. But the setting is still superb, with views of the snowy hills not far away.

The whole walk was pretty good, with lots of chilly sunshine in spite of our walking right up to the snowline. And the most surprising thing was the way that the hilltops nearby looked so like chocolate cakes, with their dark brown tops where the heather, grass and bracken had died back, and a frosting of snow which petered away to very sugary spots lower down the slopes.


:o)

Snow sculpture

I wish I had the talent to sculp this one, a copy of Rodin's "Thinker".

Perhaps it should be retitled "The Drinker"



This one is more basic, but at least the girls think that it's fun!



The Downs were wonderful in white, as busy as I've seen them, good for scuffing along and rejoicing in the sunshine. Moonface & I went for a good long walk in the snow with Mary & Simon, ending at the new China exhibition at the museum.


:o)

Health and Safety

Thinking back to France again, on our brief walking break, I was impressed by the lack of health & safety provisions which typically blight interesting locations in Britain. There were no warning signs over sheer drops, crumbling fortifications were unmended, railways unfenced: overall there seemed to be a general concensus that it's an individual's responsibility to act sensibly and to take care.


(Moonface and the Cow's Arsehole)


A case in point was the cave near Meailles. In the Mendips there are many limestone caves and potholes, all of which are carefully closed off by locked steel shutters to prevent the unwary or inquisitive from entering them. Two hours walk into the hills from Meailles, it's a different story. The Grotte de Meailles is 400m long, and descends for over 100 slippery muddy metres into the hillside. And it's completely open to anyone, so Moonface and I investigated it. Locally, it's known as the "Cul de Boeuf". It was a great experience, descending steeply along the sticky clayey boulders inside the cavern. We had two torches, so light wasn't a problem, but there were potholes in the floor of the grotte which we had to look out for. It's the first proper cave I've been in unaccompanied and without guides, since I went into Kirkdale cave as a lad. It was cool, it was sticky, it was wonderful. I only wish that we had spent more time there, but we had a last train to catch from Meailles back to Entrevaux. We saw no other walkers that day, only a solitary woman mushroom-picker in the morning.



:o)

Quantocks

Last weekend, the last of September, we spent a night in the van on the Quantocks prior to a long walk. It's been a year and a half since we went there for our first ever night in the van which convinced us that we could have some good times using it.

This weekends' was a peculiar walk, as the hills themselves were clear, sunny and bright, but the lowlands to both north and south were occluded by a low mist which sent occasional questing tendrils up onto the higher slopes of the moors, and which obscured the lower woodlands. As our walk took us from the high hills down to the sea by Cleeve, we found that in spite of setting off and returning in bright light, much of the walk was actually foggy.

The coast by the Severn Estuary has low shaly cliffs. With the current controversy over the use of Alaska's tar-shales and the effect which their use for oil extraction would have upon the environment, I was amazed to see the remains of a plant which had been built down by the shore in 1906, for the extraction of oil from these local shale beds. The works were not economical, so closed down soon after opening and have been gently decaying ever since.

We returned to Bristol on Saturday evening, intending to go to the Louie to see a couple of bands in which friends played, but for some reason we were both so tired - exhausted - that we both fell into bed by 9:30 in the evening. Strange. Nevertheless, it meant that both Moonface and I had busy and full Sundays in the sun. I took the singlespeed out into Leigh Woods and tired myself out whilst Moonface and Tommo punished the allotment and garden.

:0)

Urban 2

En route to yesterday's exhibition of young shaven male bodies and testosterone-laden leaping, Moonface and I had a quiet appreciation of democratic and simple art.

Our stroll to the docks first took us past one of our local pubs, one that we have more-or-less given up on going to, as it's become too noisy and popular for us; we seem to prefer a quiet drink and a talk rather than the loud atmosphere which pervades so many locals now. But they are popular with people younger than us, so they must be doing something right. The one I'm thinking of, the Prince of Wales, used to be a "normal" pub, with nicotine- stained ceilings and sticky carpets when we were regulars. Now it's got slate floors, serves food, has piped music just too loud for us, and is full.

The exterior has been painted, too:



We strolled over Cotham, past the University and down Park Street, where Bob Antell and some other artists were showing their works at Bristol Guild. Bob was manning the stand, so we talked for some time while before looking at his an other works. As I wrote before, I do like his art for its simplicity and accessibility. The themes are mostly very domestic: allotments and beach holidays. I think that this makes them all the better for this local market, as his foreign scenes (India, the south of France) just aren't as relevant to his audience's lives. HIs nudes aren't bad, either.




We have sort-of promised ourselves that when Moonface receives her first salary cheque from her new job, we'll buy a print of his as a commemoration. We'll see how it goes.


:O)

Urban 1

It's Saturday night, and I'm writing the blog instead of being out on the razz. I'm not disappointed, as it's been a great day, just taking a day as a tourist in my home city.

It could have been an unsatisfactory day, as the two evening activities which we had as options, were both cancelled. Andy put off his birthday party, which was a shame because we always enjoy them, and Dan (of Falling Dan)'s gig was also postponed or was otherwise off.

In the knowledge that we had a day in the city, Moonface & I decided to walk to the city centre and have a look at the Project 360 activities, a festival of urban sports and arts. By Urban, I think the organisers mean "working class" rather than High Art. It certainly looked that way. The visual arts were represented by grafittis, and the sports were those of - let's face it - the poor white boys. There were BMX half-pipes, parkour set-ups, and skateboard ramps. In the first sunny weather for a month, the participants were true athletes. Their dress was street, and most of the parkour boys went bare-chested with baggy track bottoms. How they handled their bodies and bikes I cannot understand: it seemed as if the laws of physics and physiology were being broken every second.




All of this took place in the Lloyds Amphitheatre, beside the Docks. After sharing a Pieminster pie, we strolled along the banks of the new developments of flats towards the old Cumberland Rd gasworks, astounded at the new blocks replacing the old shunting yards and admiring the clean water, appreciated by birds as well as boaters.




And then we retraced our steps and walked home in the heat, with a bit more tourism thrown in. But I'll try to cover that some other time.

:-)

Aveline's Hole

On the first "real" Sunday we have had for a while, with both Moonface and I at home, together with Tommo, we joined the UB-organised trip down Aveline's Hole, a cave in Mendip. It is (so we were told) the largest mesolithic cemetery site in Europe, the burial site of 70 dismembered bodies from 10,000 years ago.



Although we have driven through Burrington Combe en route to walking over the Mendips many times before, and even seen the entry to the cave, we had never stopped to look inside. Now that the cave has been emptied of sediments and detritus by archaeologists, it looks much like any other limestone cave, except for its strong downward slope which is many ways more reminiscent of a mine adit. However, toward to back of the cave where it takes an upward slope again, there is a gated grille. This was installed in 2004, after a small series of prehistoric art was discovered; it was that which we were there to see. To be honest, it didn't look much: just a series of faint hatchings on a smooth rockface at about head height. But it was only the second instance of cave art from that period found in Britain, so it's important. And sadly, the grille was put there to protect the scratches from vandalism.


(It doesn't look much, does it?)

The explanations and information given were wonderful, given by the discoverers of the drawings, and they pitched the tour perfectly but were able to expand and expound upon any questions we were able to throw at them, for as long as we wanted. Thank you, Linda Wilson. To summarise, the cave was the cemetery for a small hunting group of about 25-30 people over a period of around 120 years. At that time, the ice sheets had gone, and the coastline was similar to today's. They blocked the cave after each internment, and then stopped, leaving it blocked until 1795 when it was discovered by some rabbiters.

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

We also had a short walk high on the hillside above the cave beforehand, making the most of a spell without rain. We ate sandwiches on a dry lime outcrop, with views across the Severn to Wales.


:O)

Coast to Coast, the Finish.

We finished in a haze of driving rain and mizzle which headed from Germany across the North Sea into our faces, forcing us to keep our heads covered just when we wanted to raise them and grin with a sense of achievement. This was almost the only rain that Moonface & I had experienced during the whole of the fifteen days walk across England, 192 miles / 300 km of solid trudging over many types of terrain and landscapes, from Irish Sea to North Sea.

We did it!
The last five days were remarkably easy. I don't know whether it was the sensible distances which we covered or the type of walking; all I know is that it just seemed to be almost a stroll over the last eighty or so miles from Catterick to Robin Hood's Bay. Perhaps we are just fitter.

And on to the next walk. But what could be more satisfying than to walk across the width of an island country?


;o)

From Langogne

In 1878, Stevenson wrote so much better than I do: of his ascent from the Allier valley, he said:

"All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained and hailed alternately; the wind kept freshening steadily, although slowly; plentiful hurrying clouds--some dragging veils of straight rain-shower, others massed and luminous as though promising snow--careered out of the north and followed me along my way."

Of course, Moonface and I had a wind from the south, blowing into our faces to force our jacket hoods up and our heads down, for protection against its chilling bite. Instead of a donkey to carry our baggage, we had a taxi to take most of our goods from hotel to hotel, although we each carried a rucksack of goods which might be needed during the day.


:O)