This seems the time to come clean about what’s really happening in our lives.
My son-in-law Phil – the husband of my daughter, and father of those twin boys – has been given only days – at most a week or two, to live. He’s never had much of a mention on this blog and it’s tough that this is how he’s introduced to you.
We hadn’t been back in England long when he was diagnosed with cancer. With a mixture of surgery, treatment, chemotherapy and sheer bloody-mindedness he kept it more or less at bay, though never defeated it. Suddenly last week, cancer took over, irrevocably.
He and my daughter have – or had till yesterday – a respected and successful voice-over business, which they’ve temporarily closed with immediate effect, though my daughter will relaunch it.
There’s plenty to say about Phil and his life and times. But not today. Ellie has said it all so much better than me, on Facebook.
Easter holidays. Time to have those ten-years-old grandsons over. Time to keep them so busy they don’t have a chance to realise that ours is not a home stuffed with devices. Not a smart phone in sight.
Let’s get them back to the past straight away, even before we get them back to our house. Are they too old for an Easter Bunny hunt at Fountains Abbey? Apparently not. Not when there’s a chocolate bunny to eat at the end. Are they too cool for egg and spoon races and egg-rolling down the hill? Apparently not.
Egg-and-spoon race.
Egg rolling.
Would they like to visit ‘Forbidden Corner’? They agreed they would, even though we failed to provide a description of what to expect. We couldn’t. It’s been described as ‘The Strangest Place in the World’. Perhaps it is. It’s a folly. It’s a fantastical collection of follies. It’s woodlands, walled gardens, mazes, tunnels, grottoes, built in the manner of a topsy-turvy collection of fairy tale castles in enchanted grounds. Every stone putto is liable to pee on you as you walk past. Every passage is too narrow, too low, too dark, and may lead nowhere. You just want to try to get along it anyway, because at the end there may be another secret door, with halls of mirrors, or ever-changing fountains, or grotesque stone gremlins, or stepping-stones …. And beyond, in every direction, the glorious countryside of North Yorkshire.
Next day, off to Brimham Rocks. No child can resist the opportunity to climb and jump among these extraordinary tottering towers of balanced rock formations. A visit there is a regular fixture for Alex and Ben.
And finally – yet more rocks. Underground this time. Stump Cross Caverns: limestone caves set about with stalactites and stalagmites, tinted in all kinds of shades from the iron and lead seams that also penetrate the area. Gloomy, dark and mysterious, and guaranteed to fire the imagination. Photographs courtesy of Ben.
Down, down, deep into the earth.
In the evenings we sat round the kitchen table and played board games. The London Game brought out everybody’s inner mean streak as we blocked other players in, or despatched them to the end of the line at Wembley Central. Stone Soup gave us the opportunity to lie and lie again in an effort to get rid of all our cards. All very satisfactory. A good time was had by all.
But Granny and Grandad would quite like a rest now. Please.
Last Thursday, I learnt to weave. Not a splendid rug with intricate and richly coloured motifs. Not a cosy scarf in soft heathery colours in subtle, muted stripes. Not even a simple table mat, plain but serviceable.
No, I wove a ….. er, thing. A ‘thing’ I have yet to find a use for (Mobile phone mat? Drugget for a pet mouse?). But I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I rather resented the fact that because I was on a course, I was time-limited, and had to finish and tidy up just as I was getting into my stride.
This course, you might guess, was at Fountains Abbey, where I’ve volunteered to be part of a new project. The idea is to open up Swanley Grange, once an abbey farm (since 1358 in fact) but in more recent years the Education building.
The aim is to create the ‘feel’ of a monastic farm space as visitors enter the sheep-field/grange area and to help them make connections between the grange network and the abbey. Until now, there’s been little to highlight the importance of the wool trade to the expansion of the abbey.
Over winter, the building has been redeveloped inside, and outside there have been very exciting happenings. There’s a ‘mediaeval style’ vegetable garden, just waiting to be planted up with mediaeval-style vegetables (kale, beans, leeks, that sort of thing. Potatoes, courgettes and tomatoes need not apply). Traditional cleft fencing will enclose a flock of sheep, just like the old days, and there’ll be chickens, and bees in mediaeval-style skeps.
The volunteers will be keeping an eye on the animals, and with the help of the gardeners, maintaining the vegetable plots. Most of us who’ve volunteered feel quite comfortable with that. But most of us who’ve volunteered are less comfortable with mediaeval crafts.
Spinning with a distaff….
So the other day we learnt to spin wool, first of all using a distaff, then a spinning wheel. I don’t think I’ve found a new hobby. Teasing out the raw, though washed wool, keeping the distaff turning, turning, to twist the wool into a useable fine thread seemed frustrating and, frankly, dull. It was work that women did constantly, even when minding the children, walking, talking, working. But you can find blogs written by those who enjoy it, even now it’s no longer an economic necessity. The greater mechanisation of spinning seemed less tedious, but quite tricky, all the same.
… and with a spinning wheel.A spot of carding.
We did a spot of carding, combing out wool into parallel, useable fibres ready for that all important spinning. Even that was hard going, and we were glad to break for lunch.
And after lunch, there they were. A collection of small table looms, the warp already prepared so we could get busy with the weft. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look here.
And we got busy. We learnt to like the rhythmic back-and-forth as we pushed our wool-laden shuttles through the warp threads. I felt the need to get above myself, and try something just a little more complex. Here it is.
A mini-masterpiece? Or an adequate first attempt ?
But if I could produce that in not much more than half an hour, who knows what weaving genius is within me, trying to get out?
This post is dedicated to blogging friend Kerry, writer of Love those ‘Hands at Home’, who inspires me with her love of textiles, of learning new things, and of life.
When teachers bring parties of children to Fountains Abbey, we often tog them all up in monastic robes, and explore the site with them .We want them to get a feel of the day-to-day life of a mediaeval monk. What? Prayers eight times a day? No underclothes? No talking? No heating? They’re impressed, in a horrified kind of way.
Then they go away, with only brief notions of the story the Abbey itself has to tell. Or why the place is a roofless ruin.
Until this year. Now they can come with their teachers and ‘Act the Facts’. They’re given props – perhaps a simple cape, a feathered cap, a woollen robe, a crown . These turn them into an early monk, a master mason, an Italian wool merchant, a dastardly baron, or even Henry VIII.
They have a script. It’s a melodramatic pastiche telling the Abbey’s turbulent history. Simple God-fearing beginnings, then powerful prosperity, then war, plague and corruption all leading to the final action. Henry VIII dissolves the monasteries.
The question at the beginning of the play is –
‘Who destroyed the Abbey?’
Acting it out, the children lose their places, stumble over words like ‘Cistercian’ and ‘lavatorium’, and forget which character they’re playing.
Honestly, what’s the point? It’s too complicated. They’re learning nothing.
Then they reach the end. We ask them to line themselves up. Twelfth century characters first, then thirteenth… and so on, through to those who bring the story to an end in 1540. We ask them which century was best.
And that’s when we realise how much they’ve learnt. They talk passionately about the simple piety of the early days set against the laxity of later centuries. They discuss austerity versus comfort. They talk feelingly about the plague, and the reasons for the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
And in telling the story of the Dissolution, they’ve solved the mystery of why Fountains Abbey is a roofless ruin.
Back at school, there’s so much for their teachers to build on. The ruin has brought history to life.
Come and see it for yourselves. We can’t promise you a feathered cap, or a cardboard crown, but you could join one of the regular tours. You’ll get a real taste of history as you soak up the special atmosphere of this special site.
Look, I promise I won’t just reblog my daughter’s blogs from South Korea every time she publishes one. You’re quite capable of ‘following’ her yourselves after all. But I ‘m so excited that her first month there has been such a positive experience. And if everyday life includes ballet yoga on Wednesdays, and kimchi jjigae on any day of the week, it’s worth reading about, I think.
I can’t believe it’s almost been a month since I arrived in South Korea. I expected to be wailing under the covers by this time, sniffling and puffy-eyed because I missed home. Not true in the slightest. These few weeks have been very strange for me…mostly because I don’t feel strange here.
I imagined complete culture shock, foodshock, and oh-God-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life shock. Aside from the latter, which is felt by most people on a regular basis, I have yet to really experience any kind of shock. The language barrier is certainly very real, but it hasn’t been a cause for any kind of trauma (yet), apart from a shouty taxi driver who pretended not to know where I was going. 5 minutes later, we pulled up outside my local metro station – I get the feeling he only pretended not to know so he could drive around the block for that extra 200…
I love allotments. I love those productive shanty towns that you often see at the side of housing estates, edging railway lines, or just beyond the local sewage works. I relish the make-do-and-mend of gardeners’ huts fashioned from lengths-of-wood-and-bits-and-bobs, set alongside neat little cabins bought from B&Q. I enjoy contrasting planting styles. Here – neat meticulous rows of cabbages, beets, carrots and potatoes: there – less organised plots with discarded tyres serving as planters for courgettes and beans set among a hotchpotch of gooseberry and redcurrant bushes. I love the camaraderie of the allotment community – the willingness to share hard-earned knowledge, tips, seeds, cuttings, and even muscle-power. So much more fun that a solitary afternoon battling with weeds.
In Harrogate, I had an allotment. I was the disorganised type, always running from behind, because work and family life got in the way. In France, our vegetable garden was too far away to get the attention it deserved. Here in North Stainley, there are no allotments …..
….. until now.
A few years ago, some villagers decided to initiate an allotment project. They worked hard, but progress was slow. Surrounded by countryside, even identifying a suitable site proved difficult.
I heard about the plans and asked to become involved just as the group reached a turning point. The local landowner has offered to rent out a plot large enough for ten full-sized allotments. An allotment is ten poles (or rods or perches) large. That’s the size of a doubles tennis court. We reckon most people will be happy with a half plot. Twenty allotments then.
Our allotments-to-be.
So last Saturday we went to look at the land. It’s a large chunk at the end of a productive field, and it’s currently rather wet, like just about every other field in England. Promising though.
Then we went along to neighbouring Boroughbridge, where they’ve had an Allotments Society for the last 6 years or so. They were friendly and generous with their time. So much to think about though. Paying for water to be piped to the site. Thinking about car-parking and access to individual plots. Keeping pesky rabbits at bay. What to do with allotment tenants who grow only weeds. Establishing a fair rent and knowing what that rent has to pay for. We’ll be lucky to be up and running for next winter. There’ll certainly be no planting before 2017…
Six years ago, this was a field as unpromising as ours. There’s hope, then.
The story is – there is no story to tell about our walk near East Witton.
It was cold, frosty but bright so we stepped out energetically. The day went on to be warm, breezy and sunny. There was only one stile to climb over. The ground was firm and frosty, but neither icy nor muddy. Nobody slipped or fell over or got injured.
The landscape was just right. The gently undulating farmland of the Yorkshire Dales gave way to moorland whose picturesque bleakness was enhanced by the occasional lonely tree. We’d pause to take in the long-distance views across the Dales. And as we returned through woodland to East Witton once more, there was a proper English parish church just asking to be photographed. Nobody was displeased by the views.
Our two pauses were ideal. Mid morning, we had picture-postcard moorland views in front of us, and the solid protection of a sturdy drystone wall behind. We ate our lunchtime sandwiches in sheltered bosky woodland, with convenient benches in the form of tree trunks. Nobody got cold, or wet, or lost their sandwiches.
The energetic uphill stretches were all before lunch. Our path afterwards returned us gently to the valley floor. So we got back to base after a gently-challenging workout. Nobody was exhausted or fed up.
So there’s nothing at all to tell you.
Oh hang on. This will have to serve as our banner news headline. ‘Hiker loses gloves on Wensleydale walk’. That was me. First one glove vanished, then the other. But as anyone who knows me will tell you, this is not news at all. It’s what I do most weeks during the winter.
What if you and I were strolling through the grounds of Fountains Abbey, or some other national treasure, and I asked you what you most appreciate about the chance to visit to somewhere like this . What would you say? What about ‘I enjoy seeing…’, ‘It’s a chance to look at….’, ‘I like to watch….’? I know I would. That first sight of Huby’s Tower for instance, as I tramp down towards Fountains Abbey on a cold and frosty morning, or on a bright and promising summer day, or on a dusky day in late Autumn or Winter, never fails to stir my soul.
Huby’s tower glimpsed through the trees on a summer’s day.
But what if I couldn’t see it? What if I were one of the two million visually impaired people who live in the UK? Would that mean I’d simply have to count myself out of a family trip there, stay at home and go without that experience?
At Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, we rather hope not. Last week, staff and volunteers alike crowded into the lecture hall to get a taste of what it’s like to live with visual impairment, and to begin to understand what kind of support this section of the population – only 4% of whom are fully blind – actually needs, in order to live rich and active lives. Afterwards about a dozen volunteers remained behind to begin a journey towards becoming Community Sighted Guides.
Struggling to overcome the visual impairment of special glasses mimicking various forms of visual impairment. (Photo courtesy of Emma Manners)
We thought about what ‘visual impairment’ means. To some, it means ‘seeing’ the world as if through thickly frosted glass. To others, it’s putting up with the limited view you would have if squinting down a drinking straw. Others find their view constantly defaced by blotches in their field of vision. And so on. We tried on special glasses which mimicked these effects, and experienced the frustration of never getting things quite in focus, or of not being able to get visual cues from conversations going on around us, of not being able to read the material there in front of us.
And then we thought about what we ourselves appreciate about visiting our own and other properties. We talked about listening to birdsong, to leaves and to gravel scrunching beneath our feet, to the River Skell tumbling and burbling past the monastic buildings. We remembered savouring the smells of the damp earth early in the day, the tang of wild garlic, the musky smell of dry Autumn leaves. We observed that we like to touch the ancient stones of the Abbey: to run our hands over tree bark, noticing how some trunks are smooth, some rough and knotted. We often sit down for a while on a rough wooden bench, a cold stone seat or the damp cool grass. So much to enjoy and appreciate, even without the use of our eyes. Yes, we’d like to come on a day out to Fountains Abbey, even without fully functioning sight, especially if we could put our trust in a volunteer sighted guide.
Then came the moment to put our trust in each other. We took it in turns to be blindfolded, and to be led by our partners through the carpeted Visitor Centre, along a tarmac-ed route, down a rather steep gravelled path, along a rather winding one, down some steps towards the Abbey. At first putting one foot safely in front of the other demanded all our attention. Gradually though, we came to appreciate our surroundings, and began to ask questions of our trainee guides, encouraging them to talk about the snowdrops in season, the trees we were passing, the other visitors who overtook us. As guides too we learnt to relax, and to offer simple companionship to our ‘visually impaired’ partner.
We’re a new team, so far untested. But we’re looking forward to gaining in confidence, and to having the opportunity to learn to share our appreciation of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal with another different audience .
With thanks to Lorraine and Anne from Guide Dogs UK for their inspirational training, and to Emma Manners, Learning Officer, FASR who arranged this training.
You’ll know that we waved ‘Goodbye’ to Emily this week. She’s arrived in South Korea, jet-lagged and exhausted, but not so much that she can’t send snippets of up-beat information about her new life as Emily-in-Busan.
While she was with us, Emily-in-Barcelona briefly became Emily-in-London, Emily-in-Bolton, and Emily-in-Yorkshire. And while she was with us, Boyfriend-from-Barcelona came to visit. What should we show someone from a vibrantly busy city, one of whose attractions is several kilometres of golden, sunny, sandy beaches? Well, on a frosty, gusty February day, with more than a threat of snow in the air, what could be better than a day beside the seaside?
Whitby: the view anyone who’s been there would recognise.
Whitby seemed to fit the bill. Picturesque fishermen’s cottages huddled round the quay. A clutter of narrow cobbled shopping lanes – a tourist mecca to rival Las Ramblas. A sandy beach with donkey-rides, and the chance to find fossil remains etched into the cliffs or a morsel of jet washing about on the sands. A ruined Benedictine Abbey high above the town, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, and the focus of a twice-yearly Goth music festival. And fish and chips. Always fish and chips at an English seaside destination. Emily and Miquel explored the lot.
Whitby Abbey.
Whitby seen from St. Mary’s Church, next to the Abbey.
The old town.
The abbey and church seen from a ginnel.
The beach.
The beach.
The beach – again.
A close view of those cliffs.
One of the hundreds of gulls, thousands of gulls, reasy to steal your fish and chips with no warning.
And just before we left … a little bit of rainbow.
And Miquel, windblown and chilled to his fingertips, declared that it had been a fine day out, with the added bonus of being firmly inside the car when we journeyed home across the North York Moors as the snow began to fall.
Best to be back in the car when the weather’s like this.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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