Routines. Raining … or not. Alarming road signs. Cycling crashes. Drama workshops.

 Getting back into my usual routine of a morning run, after the better part of a week with a houseful of visitors, I looked at the weather app on my phone, saw that the temperature was down to about 12° and decided to wear running trousers and a long-sleeved top instead of the running shorts a a sleeveless vest I’ve been wearing for at least the last couple of months. Outside though it felt rather warmer than that. So it goes!

I had decided to leave my waterproof at home on the grounds that even if it rained on me I would not melt. It didn’t rain on me. There was, however, evidence of the approaching autumn!

But the days of hanging the washing to dry in the garden and taking it in a couple pf hours later bone dry appear to be over. We have had some rain, occasionally quite heavy but on the whole people seem quite pleased to see it - quite a rare reaction around here.

Yesterday Granddaughter Number One and her partner were driving somewhere or other to visit her partner’s aging grandfather. At one point she messaged us this photo of a warning sign, one of those occasional signs that appear on the screens attached to a gantry on the motorway. This one, however, was not the usual sort of thing about speed or about “lane ahead closed” of the like. 

It was rather more frightening! Especially in view of the fact that two incidents have been reported recently of young people filming themselves driving in the wrong direction and posting the video on social media. With dreadful consequences!

We were very relieved when she messaged us later to tell us she was home safe and sound.

I read yesterday that five times Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar has crashed out of the Vuelta a España.  He tried to get back on his bike but the injury to his shoulder was too painful. So that’s the end of his ambition to win the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de Franc3 and the Vuelta a España all in the same year. And that’s Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, rivals, both recovering from crash injuries. 

Here’s a link to article about Darren Raymond, an ex-prisoner turned theatrical director and organiser of drama training for young people. One element of bis inspiration was the actor Mark Rylance in a drama workshop activity in the prison. Now he is directing Mark Rylance in a theatrical production of his own.

In the article actor Tosin Cole comments on having become an actor through taking part in drama activities for young people in an organisation called Intermission and the fact that such activities, as well as youth clubs and other auch places where youngsters can meet and learn new skills, are disappearing:

“He’s also an advocate for more spaces like Intermission’s original venue to exist, lamenting the loss of the city’s youth clubs and adventure playgrounds. “That place was super special. It’s sad now when you’re in Knightsbridge and you walk past and see the place vacant.” The church has since been converted to a luxury home and was on the market for £35m last year. “Look at any artist or musician that’s come from an inner city and a lot of their skill and their success has come from resources being accessible. A lot of talent came out of the youth clubs where things were free.”

And I was reminded of the fairly recent fight to keep Salford Lads’ Club open - now Salford Lads’ and Girls’ Club if my memory serves me well. 

We need such places.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

International family reunions. And the end of summer?

 It’s all quiet at my house now. For the last 4 days we’ve had my Spanish sister, her daughter and two grandchildren staying wth us. It’s been lovely to see everyone but it’s all been rather chaotic. Not to mention noisy!

 Other members of the family kept turning up from time to time. 

Our daughter has been bringing the two younger grandchildren for breakfast with their cousins. The two small boys, my Grandson Number Two and my sister’s Grandson Number Two, both six years old, have insisted on eating their breakfast cereal at a picnic table in the garden, fortunately before the rain started most days. It’s been interesting seeing well they managed to communicate considering that one speaks English and the other Spanish. They have managed to carry out scientific investigations into insects together, demanding more and more plastic containers to put stuff on. Fortunately I had a number of plastic tubs once full of olives or humous and now waiting for recycling. They have also snipped leaves off plants to creat “potions” in my water barrel in the garden. One day soon I need to get all that rubbish out before it starts to ferment and smell! 

Granddaughter Number One (and partner) and Granddaughter Number Two have been appearing after they have finished work. Even Grandson Number One put in an appearance. And one of the Southport cousins has been on the scene two. On one occasion we had 14 people round the dinner table!

Fortunately the two small boys were happy to sit at a small table of their own.

But this morning the Spanish contingent of the family has set off for London, where they spend a couple of days sightseeing before heading off for home in Andalucía. 

My sister and I have been going rather crazy switching from English to Spanish and back again depending on which members of the younger generations wanted to join in the conversation. As her Grandson Number One, 14, spent a lot of time on his mobile phone, we inevitably talked about young people’s dependence on their phone. And here’s a link to an article appealing for people to abandon heir earbuds and get back in touch with nature when out and about.

And as the rain has set in in, or at least intermittent showers are now around, and summer seems to be coming to an end, here are some cartoons anout holiday reading:

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone! 

Rain. Avoiding the rain. Visiting the old railway station. The world getting its own back.

 

Today it’s raining.

Yesterday rain was forecast. So when we went out we took raincoats and umbrellas. Or at least I took a raincoat and an umbrella. Granddaughter Number Two took a large umbrella. My daughter had left her raincoat and the children’s raincoats in her partner’s car! The Spanish family just took pot luck. Fortunately it didn’t rain on us. 

We walked to the cross roads and took a look at the old Delph station. It’s not been a railway station since the late 1950s but the station house remains and is bow a private house. For once the gate was open and we could see the old building. The owner invited us into the yard to take a look.the old platform is still there.

A year or two ago he installed an old railway carriage outside the house. This is now an air b&b. He invited us to take a look inside. All good publicity as we will now recommend his business as a friendly welcoming place. 

Sometimes there is a smart sports car parked outside ut more frequently it is a motorbike, sometimes a vintage bike. My brother in law usually takes an interest and tells us about the bike. Yesterday it was bike of unknown vintage, unknown to me anyway.

The  we walked on along the old Donkey Line, as the railway line was known locally when it was running. Games in the park at Dobcross and a snack lunch at a local cafe followed. 

Elsewhere in the world they have had mud slides in Nepal, killing hundreds. It seems as if the planet is taking its revenge for our mistreatment of it.

That’s all for today. I have people to feed. Over the last few days we have seated up to 14 people for dinner. It’s ot so much the cooking as the seating of people and actually moving around the room?

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Another icon gone. Land redistribution. Disruption to normal service.

So it’s goodbye to Dolly Parton. Which rich person is going to take over her role as philanthropist, providing education and books for disadvantaged children? She will be missed.

I read something the other day, something I’ve not been able to relocate, about a solution to the food crisis is to make it possible for more families to grow their own food, or at least some of their own food. Part of the argument wos that there are vast tracts of land, held for example by the National Trust or by various members of the royal family, land which is not doing anything much other than looking beautiful. People could be given pieces of land and encouraged to cultivate it. What it don’t say was how families struggling to make ends meet and maybe working two or more jobs would find the time to do this. 

I was reminded of a young couple I knew long ago who wanted to be self sufficient, a noble aim, but they were fiercely resentful of the fact that nobody was prepared to give them a patch of land to live on and to grow stuff. So it goes.

We are currently hosting a huge family group. My Spanish sister, her daughter and two grandchildren have come to stay. The local family members are of course joining in the fun. Consequently my posts are going to be somewhat intermittent over the next few days.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Artwork. Fires and other environmental stuff.

 In an article about how we need to take global warming seriously (which, yes, we do!) there was this photo of people sitting on a beach in SW France, with smoke from the huge fires making the sky dark above them.

And I was reminded of Jack Vettriano’s painting “The Singing Butler”. It’ the general composition and the dark sky above them. Or maybe it’s just the way my mind works.

As regards the fires, global warming and our human interactions that have led to this environmental chaos, I read something about the fires near Bordeaux. Here it is.

In the 18th century, the coastal wetlands of south-western France were so swampy that shepherds used stilts to cross them in winter. Then, in 1857 Napoleon III made landowners drain the marsh and plant maritime pines, creating Europe’s largest manmade forest and a timber industry employing loads of people.

All very nice but when they burn pine tees do so very fiercely because of the resin they contain. And the floor of the forests becomes covered with pine needs and cones which provide perfect tinder when dry, as they nave been this year. (Eucalyptus trees, also planted deliberately, also burn fiercely as parts of Spain and Portugal know.)

It’s a mistake to create forests of only one type of tree. In a forest of mixed trees the broad-leaf trees retain moisture and provide shade which prevents the undergrowth from drying out to such an extent. And we now know that we need to creat firebreaks in forests so that if a fire does break out, for whatever reason, it can’t spread so rapidly and easily.

There you go. We are our own worst enemy! Let’s hope it’s not too late to learn.

A British cyclist, Matt Brennon, has won stage two of the Vuelta a España. He’s not in the lead though. TAdej Pogacar in in the lead after a stage one tome trial. Confusingly, for me anyway, the leader of the Vuelta doesn’t wear a yellow jersey as in the Tour de France, but a red jersey. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion, apparently, that Pogacar is going to win the Vuelta. We shall see! 

Actually I probably won’t see but I’ll read about it. Every year I follow the Tour de France in some detail but only take a passing interest in the other cycling races.

Here’s a link to an article about a farmer who has let a field re-wild itself with pleasing wildflower results. Some people deliberately scatter purchased seeds to create a wildflower area. In this case the farmer has just let flowers plant themselves. The field is mown once a year. Dairy farmers are pleased to have his hay with it’s mix of grass and flowers, food for the cattle apparently.

Incidentally / coincidentally, I have a self-planted sunflower growing in a pot in my garden. Earlier in the year I bought a pot of herbs, thyme I think, from a sale at the grandchildren’s school. Sadly I neglected it and the herbs dried up. I put the pot outside in the garden and over the spring and summer this stray sunflower has appeared. Whether it will bloom fully before the summer is over remains to be seen.

Incidentally / coincidentally, I have a self-planted sunflower growing in a pot in my garden. Earlier in the year I bought a pot of herbs, thyme I think, from a sale at the grandchildren’s school. Sadly I neglected it and the herbs dried up. I put the pot outside in the garden and over the spring and summer this stray sunflower has appeared. Whether it will bloom fully before the summer is over remains to be seen.

Life foes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

More local traditions. And attacking trees in the Middle East.

 It seems to be well-dressing time again. According to sources on the internet “the custom of well-dressing in its present form probably began in the late 18th century, and evolved from "the more widespread, but less picturesque" decoration of wells with ribbons and simple floral garlands” it’s also called well-flowering: “a tradition practised in some parts of rural England in which wells, springs and other water sources (especially holy wells or sacred springs) are decorated with designs created from materials such as flower petals.”

As they say “especially holy wells or sacred springs” I wonder of the tradition goes back a lot further with some suggestion of keeping the providers of water happy. Maybe it was linked to witchcraft and so became frowned upon and cancelled. Was it merely revived at the end of the 18th century? I’ve not found any evidence either way. 

Anyway, you take a wooden frame, pack it with clay and press flower petals into the clay to form a design. It first started to happen in Delph when we were released from Covid restriction. The designs have celebrated the NHS, mountain rescue and other things worthy of commemoration. This year it’s the turn of the Rushcart festival which has been going on this weekend.

We don’t have a well and so the well dressing board is propped against a tree at the edge of the village.

That’s enough about local traditions. 

Here’s something posted on social media by a group called Rabbis cor Human Rights:

“For more than twenty years, Amin has cared for a grove of olive trees in the village of Duma. He raised them from saplings, pruned them each season, and gathered their fruit every autumn.

This week, settlers destroyed more than twenty of those trees. Some had stood for twenty-five years. Trees that took a generation to grow are gone.

What threat does an olive tree pose?

This past Shabbat, Jews around the world read Parashat Shoftim. It sets a limit even on an army at war: when you lay siege to a city, you may not destroy its fruit trees. "You must not destroy its trees... Are the trees of the field human, that they should flee before you?" (Deuteronomy 20:19). Our tradition shields a fruit tree even from soldiers in the middle of battle. There is no war on Amin's land. There is only a farmer, and the trees he raised.

Amin is not waiting to be rescued. He plans to stay, to replant, and to bring in next year's harvest. Rabbis for Human Rights stands with him and with the families of Duma who keep tending their land under pressure.”

Just something to reflect on.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Keeping up local traditions - no technology involved. And technology breaking records.

There seem to be an astounding number of temporary traffic lights around here at the moment. Roadworks abound, holes are dug and barriers erected, and bus routes are diverted. It’s not a good time to be driving around the area. And this weekend it’s going to be even worse because they’re going to be dragging the Rushcart from village to village.

So what is the rushcart? Well, it would seem that in the past churches commonly had basic earth floors. The floors would be covered with rushes for special and important occasions. Rushes were collected from places close to the church. But as settlements grew the rushes had to be collected from further afield and would be dragged on sledges to the church. Eventually they began to be piled high on carts and from this a tradition grew of making elaborate displays of tied bundles of rushes on the carts. Individual villages vied with each other to create the most elaborate rushcart. Here’s a rather old picture of a Rushcart.

Saddleworth is one of the few places where a traditional Rushcart survives. And this weekend it will be pulled from village to village, pulled by Morris men and accompanied by even more Morris men who will dance in each village where the rushcart stops. 

Here’s a view from the top of the Rushcart.

On Sunday I understand that the Rushcart will be taken to St. Chad’s Church in Uppermill where the top will be dismantled and the rushes mixed with fragrant herbs and flowers and then symbolically spread in the aisles. 

Rushcarts died out in the early 20th century but a group of folk dancers – now better known as the Saddleworth Morris Men – brought the tradition back to life. In 1975 they built their first cart and have built one each August ever since, usually a two-wheeled wooden cart which weighs two tons. Here’s an old photo of the Rushcart arriving in Delph, our village.

Much is being made of it being 50 years of tradition - 51 by my calculation but there it is. It’s a chance for grown men to dress in baggy white trousers and shirts, to put bells ln their clogs and to don hats decorated with flowers. There you go.

Here’s a different celebration: “Chinese ⁠smartphone maker Honor’s self-developed humanoid ⁠robot Lightning ⁠ran the 100m in 9.32 seconds, ⁠beating the human world ⁠record, China’s state broadcaster ‌reported.

The humanoid ‌reached a peak speed of 14.5 meters per second during ‌a preparatory test event for the second World Humanoid Robot Games, which ⁠begin on Saturday.

This performance surpassed the 9.58sec men’s 100m world record set by Usain Bolt 17 years ago at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.”

Impressive but it was probably inevitable that a robot would do such a thing. I’m still more impressed by human beings who can achieve such things.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!