How Not to Lead a Walk

Day sack, walking poles: what could possibly go wrong?

Get up, bright and early.

Get washed, dressed, and have a hearty breakfast.

Make sandwiches and pack day sack.

Check map: I’m leading today’s walk!

Put boots and walking poles in bag.

Put bag and day sack in car.

Drive to Ripon rendez-vous.

Welcome walkers, who all car-share to start of walk – not my car.

All get booted-up and ready to walk …..

… Except me.

The boots in my bag are not mine.

They’re my husband’s.

Stare at battered canvas sneakers I wore to begin the day.

Realise these won’t do for a country walk.

Thrust map and walking route into press-ganged hands.

Wave walkers a reluctant goodbye.

Trudge along the road, back to Ripon.

Not recommended.

…. Malcolm’s boots. Not exactly identical, are they?

My contribution to Six Word Saturday.

Le Jardin Extraordinaire: a late summer treat

In this most dreadful of weeks for British politics, I think we all need a distraction. Just now, this is it. Back in France, one of the regular pleasures of our late summer was a visit to Le Jardin Extraordinaire, open for just a few days every year as the holiday period drew to an end. Let’s go there now, courtesy of a post I wrote in 2013 …..

September 4th, 2013

Le Jardin Extraordinaire, 2013 version

Le Jardin Extraordinaire is always comfortingly familiar, yet always surprising. If you’ve been once, you’ll go again, on this one weekend of the year, to enjoy strolling round this very special wild, yet bewitchingly tamed garden. The members and volunteers of Artchoum have been working for months to create this space, just for your pleasure.

You’ll want to explore the riverside walk and exclaim at the enchanted place they’ve created with stones, trees and flower petals. You’ll go on to wander through the leafy tunnels and arches tumbling with gourds. Then you’ll amble off into the woods, where more fantastical experiences await you.

You’ll go in through a flower-filled meadow…

… then this …

…don’t forget to glance upwards.

Who’s this in the water?

What’s this?

An enchanted river.

River statuettes.

A flower garden in the river.

Arches in the river.

Doorman at the river’s edge.

Last glimpse of the riverside walk.

A tunnel of gourds, topped by a sunflower.

Wandering through the gourd tunnel.

..and a little further..

… and further still …

Etched gourd in the garden.

Shower bath anyone?

View past a woven sculpture.

Look among the trees….

View from the top.

Bison on the hill.

Bison close up.

Bison’s stamping ground.

Bison’s view.

Puppeteers.

…. and their puppets…

Storks at the refreshment area.

People come from miles around to explore, smile and wonder at this very special place. But although you won’t be alone, there’s a relaxing feeling of space and of peace too. You’ll go away refreshed, invigorated and joyful.

Click on any image to view full size.

An entry for Jo’s Monday Walk. It’s an old walk Jo. But sometimes the old ones are the best. And I hadn’t ‘met’ you then.

Flash Demo, Leeds: ‘Stop the Coup’

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that we’ve been on another demo: a Flash Demo – one of the many that sprung up around the country as a direct and horrified response to Boris Johnson’s decision to ask the Queen to Prorogue Parliament: here’s an explanation.

If you’re reading this on Saturday, we’ll be in York, demonstrating again, alongside thousands of other in Leeds, and cities all over the country.

On Thursday, we heard from politicians from different parties, cooperating to fight together. We heard from campaigners. We heard from those from mainland Europe who’d chosen Britain as their home. We heard from individuals terrified of the effect of No Deal on their own health or that of a loved one, dependent on prescription drugs. And best of all we heard from children, some still in primary school: informed, passionate, articulate speeches. Those children, still a long way from voting age, are our future.

This time, these rallies aren’t about Brexit. Not really. They’re about our Democracy.

Here are photos.

Shaffaq Mohammed, Yorkshire & Humber MEP (LibDem)

Louise Houghton, South and West Yorkshire for Europe.

11 year old Laura.

A very impassioned 10 year old.

But I’ll leave you with this one, snapped through the window of a barbers’ shop in Leeds. You might not like the language. Gotta approve the sentiments.

My post for this weeks’s Six Word Saturday.

Framing North Yorkshire

There’s an invitation this week, in Amy‘s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, to consider Framing the Shot.

Walking in the Yorkshire Dales gives so many photo opportunities that I thought I’d stay right here, on my home patch, to give this a go.

Here’s a wintry shot from just outside my own village. Trees provide a traditional frame.

Over in Reeth, I made use of some less-than-attractive wire fencing to frame the distant hillside.

Harlow Carr Gardens provided its own frame above a pond.

While at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, (in West Yorkshire, this one) Henry Moore provided a frame through which to view the landscape.

But there’s no need to take framing so literally. There are other ways of a picture inviting you in.

The Pennine Way, near Gargrave North Yorkshire.

Those fields of rape plot the path we may take over the hills.

Near Semer Water, North Yorkshire.

The Strid, near Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire.

While these two suggest the limitless landscape lying beyond the dry stone walls.

And these sheep, this cormorant, highlight the vastness beyond them, just as the tree below, utterly unframed, suggests the famous bleakness of the Top Withens moorland near Hawarth, home of the Brontë sisters

Sheep near Conistone, Grassington, North Yorkshire.

A cormorant on railings at the end of the pier, Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Let’s finish with typical Yorkshire weather. A view taken in the Crimple Valley one very dismal day in May.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #60– Framing the Shot

Wood: ‘All is Safely Gathered in…..

…. ere the winter storms begin’*. Farmers round these parts worry about getting the harvest in at this time of year. Malcolm and I worry about getting wood for winter, for the log burner. So we ordered some and it came this week.

From this, three large bags of it ….

to this … in two long, sweaty and back-breaking shifts, warming us every bit as much as a blazing winter fire does. Unpack the bags, and neatly stack every single log in tidy tall rows in the shed.

You’re meant to be impressed at our hard work.

We’ve got ash, valued for its steady heat output and bright flame: and oak, a dense, long-burning wood with a small flame. We’ve stacked them so we can access either. Can you spot the difference?

Ash.

Oak.

* This is a mis-quote from the English Christian harvest-time hymn ‘Come ye thankful people come’.

My offering for Six Word Saturday.

‘Wish You Were Here’

Summer used to be a time for postcards. Sending them. Receiving them. Receiving was better. What to say to your friends and relations with only such a small space to play with? ‘Wish you were here’ maybe?

The views were standard, wherever they came from. The castle. The cathedral. The fisherman’s cove. The crowded beach.

Today I’m reviving the tradition, but with a different angle on the standard shots.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, seen reflected in Angel’s Wing (2000) by Thomas Heatherwick, Paternoster Square, London.

The Leeds-Liverpool Canal passing under a bridge near Gargrave.

The Port Olímpic area of Barcelona seafront, reflected in nearby buildings.

Hull Minster, as seen in a nearby office building.

An honest view of a British holiday? The countryside near Penrith on a soggy Sunday.

This is my contribution to Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #59, Angles. Leya so often joined in when I was contributing to the Ragtag Daily Prompt that it seems only fair to return the compliment. Thanks, Leya!

Two Reservoirs: the Back of Beyond

The view from the dam of Scar House Reservoir.

You don’t have to go very far in Yorkshire to feel remote. You don’t even have to get beyond the reach of the man-made. Those adjacent reservoirs in Nidderdale for instance, Angram and Scar House, both built to supply the City of Bradford with fresh water: Angram in the 1890s, Scar House in the 1920s. They’re off the beaten track, isolated. You’d never guess that when they were being built construction workers had their families with them on site: a shop, a place of worship, a school, all built for their use.

Now the construction workers are long gone, and their community too. Only the odd foundation stone remains. The area feels remote, reached only after a long drive down a narrow B road and one belonging to Yorkshire Water. It’s home to a rich variety of wild life. Walkers love to tramp its walking routes, relishing the emptiness, the silence, the bleak beauty of this spot.

Walking by Angram Reservoir, Even the distant view of the dam doesn’t change the feeling of remoteness.

Debbie from Travel with Intent is responsible for this post. Because of her, I’ve joined her Six Word Saturday Challenge, and been led to the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Remote. Thanks, Debbie!

My Life in Linocuts

Today I went to Dulwich Picture Gallery, with a friend I’d never have met except through my blog. We wanted to see Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking. We weren’t disappointed. Dynamic and vibrant, these block-printed images, mainly linocuts, celebrate the everyday. I thought I’d use some of them, photographed there and then, on my phone of course, to illustrate aspects of my own life. I’ve mainly chosen female printmakers whom I know little about. I want to know them better now.

Just now, we’re all contending with Weather. Rain.

Ethel Spowers. Wet afternoon. Linocut 1929 – 30.

And Weather. Wind.

Sybil Andrews. The Gale. Linocut. 1930.

And the life of a Country Mouse was well-represented.

Ethel Spowers. The Plough. Linocut. 1928.

Sybil Andrews. The fall of the leaf. Linocut. 1934.

And Sunday mornings on the main roads into the Yorkshire Dales. Motorbike Central.

Sybil Andrews. Speedway. Linocut. 1934.

And my trips into London.

Cyril Power. Not female! Whence and whither. Linocut. c.1930.

Cyril Power. The Tube station. Linocut. c.1932.

If you’re in London before 8th September, it’s worth a visit.

Country Mouse visits the Big City

Country Mouse, Country Mouse from Yorkshire ventures south this week, to The Great Wen, the Smoke – that’s London to you.

We Yorkshire Country Mice like to put it about that we are friendly, neighbourly, affable. That them southerners on the other hand, are not. London folk, we opine, don’t know their neighbours, wouldn’t lend you a cup of sugar, and Keep Themselves to Themselves.

That’s never been my experience of London.

And here’s the proof. I stepped off the train and headed for Coal Drops Yard. You need a bob or two to live or shop in this newly gentrified area.

But anyone at all can and does enjoy the public spaces here: the canal side, the water play in the large open squares, the markets.

Families, tourists, couples, youngsters all amble happily, taking advantage of the open spaces, an impromptu jazz band playing on a barge (aka a second hand bookshop), and children playing in the water fountains.

My photos haven’t really captured street life. I simply can’t see what I’m taking on my phone, and my camera is in Intensive Care (the bill will be expensive: no NHS for photographic equipment). But enjoy strolling round this area, a mere five minutes from Kings Cross and Saint Pancras Stations. You’ll be in friendly company.

Jo’s Monday Walk is on holiday. But I’ll send my stroll along anyway.
Capelas, Sáo Miguel- not quite a Monday walk

Gurukula: a Small Corner of Paradise

After Karnataka, Kerala. Rain forest Kerala.

Gurukula

Forest at Gurukula

Gurukula: a sanctuary returned to Nature.

Simple food cooked and shared together.

Kitchen at Gurukula

Rolling chapattis for supper

Indigenous crops: bananas, rubber, coffee, tea.

Coffee

Collecting cup on a rubber plant

Bananas in the pantry

Sunset, sunrise over the Western Ghats.

Gurukula is a special place. For the last forty years it’s been a sanctuary for the rain forest which has suffered massive deforestation in the Western Ghats, causing almost irreparable damage to the habitat of thousand of plants and animals, and to our own ecosystem. I urge you to follow this link to read all about it.

Our few days in Gurukula were special too. We wandered freely in the lush grounds, and when nature called, we found a quiet corner- toilets were deliberately under-provided so we all took a part in fertilising the soil. Meals were taken communally: we all shared the cooking, the washing up, the tidying.

We explored the rain forest, an almost meditative experience with the sounds of water, forest creatures – macaques in the trees, rufous eagles above the canopy. What wasn’t meditative was the strangler fig. It grows up its host tree, those climbing tendrils thickening into sturdy sinuous branches, which strangle and kills the tree beneath which gave it life, becoming an extraordinary hollow tracery.

We explored the surrounding communities. During the 1940s, communist Kerala obliged landowners to sell their land cheaply, so all citizens were entitled to buy at a price they could afford. At first this worked well. Families worked the land in a diverse way, growing a variety of crops for their own use and selling the rest. These days – or when we were there anyway – there is a monoculture, with families taking whatever subsidy is on offer to grow the latest crop – till the price plummets. Tea, coffee, rubber, bitter gourds, bananas have all had their moments of glory before a crash. Families no longer grow the rich variety that kept them so well-nourished. 90% literacy means people are leaving the land to get work in the cities – call centres and so on. It doesn’t sound a success story.

The highlight of every day was sunset. We climbed a vertical and rather scary ladder on the water tower near the house, and then…. simply sat. We watched enchanted as the sun set over the Western Ghats. As the moon rose, the sky darkened and the stars emerged. Silence fell. And then, distantly, we heard two mullahs from two different distant mosques chanting their call to prayer – admittedly amplified by megaphones. This, together with a cascade of shooting stars, provided one of the most magical experiences of my life.