I had been reflecting on how yellow everything was again. We went through daffodil time, which gave way to bluebells, and lately everywhere has been yellow again: buttercups, dandelions, gorse. Not to mention the ubiquitous poppies. And in the last week the laburnum trees have suddenly blossomed.
But in fact, although there is a lot of yellow, the rhododendron bushes have been every shade of palest pink, light purple, deep purple and bright scarlet. And now the foxgloves are joining in. This is a lovely time of year for flowers.
My German friend tells me that foxgloves are called Fingerhut in German. It means thimble, which is indeed a hat for your finger, “hut” being German for “hat”, if my memory serves me well. Phil tells Fingerhut is also a common surname in Germany. How does he know this? No idea. I do not know anyone called Foxglove, either as a surname or a forename. Roses, Pansies, Poppies, Violets, Daisies but no Foxgloves. No Buttercups either, apart from the occasional cow.
A cousin of mine commented that foxgloves always reminded her of visiting our grandmother in the village of Slade Hooton somewhere between Sheffield and Rotherham. My cousin remembers putting the individual flowers of the foxgloves on her fingers - like little hats for the fingers! - fortunately she managed not to poison herself in the process. I know that I visited Slade Hooton as a small child but I remember nothing about those visits. I have a vague memory of travelling there on steam trains. I am pretty sure my mother got free rail travel for some time because her father had worked for the railways. Presumably we stopped visiting the place when my grandmother grew old and infirm and moved in with one of my uncles.
According to the internet, I should refer to Slade Hooton as a hamlet, not a village. “The name comes from the Saxon term 'hoo' meaning 'Hill town' and Slade coming from the Norse 'slaed' or Valley. The hamlet appears in the Domesday Book as 'Hotone'.” There you go!
The Guardian runs a feature from time to time on “The Ten Best Films about .... “. The latest one I saw was looking at films about football. I loved this review of a film about Diego Maradona made in 2019:
“Asif Kapadia’s documentary about footballing great Diego Maradona tells his gripping story purely through TV footage, masterfully chosen and shaped. Maradona causes mass hysteria in Buenos Aires and Naples: goals, nightclubs, goals, gangsters, girlfriends, pregnancies, pregnancy denials, cocaine, weight gain, despair … it’s like a 130-minute Match of the Day title sequence by Sophocles.”
“A 130 minutes Match of the Day title sequence by Sophocles” - can you beat that for a comment on a film?
I read an article this morning about a lobster fisherman (almost) swallowed by a whale off Cape Cod. He was fairly deep in the water when he felt a bump and everything went black. At first he thought maybe a shark had attacked him but quickly realised he was in a whale’s mouth and that the beast was trying to swallow him. The beast gave up, surfaced and spat out the rather distressed diver, still alive thanks to his breathing equipment, but with a broken leg and plenty of bruises. Wow! Will his friends call him Jonah from now on?
As I hung my washing on the line this morning, discovering that something, probably the trousers whose fashion label describes them as “penny brown” in colour, had turned a number of formerly white clothes a variety of shades of pink (hopefully the pale pink underpants will go back to white after the next wash! ) I reflected on what clothes are made of. This is because I read the other day that “Approximately half of the clothes sold by large online fashion brands such as Boohoo and Asos are made entirely from virgin plastic materials such as polyester, despite a push to reduce the huge environmental impact of the fashion industry.”
Of course I really knew that polyester, nylon and synthetic fabrics were made from plastics. It’s just that we don’t think about it on a daily basis and we’ve welcomed the easy care fabrics into our lives, along with plastic bags and clingfilm! How many young people, I wonder, virtuously telling us we have messed up the planet, realise that when they buy cheap, almost disposable, clothing they are also messing up the planet? Much of the really cheap stuff ends up in landfill as it is designed to be worn only a few times - built-in obsolescence as well as fast fashion - but even the longer-lasting stuff sheds micro-plastic fibres and particles every time it’s washed. And so it enters the food chain. Even breast milk has been found to contain micro-plastic! Frightening fact! Soon we will all be partly made of plastic. How do we solve that problem!
Are they discussing that at the G7?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment