Happy Easter!

Not a great photo but I was trying to capture the beautiful handmade chocolate eggs in Betty's window...

...while also reminding myself to take time to remember the essential message of Easter.

Doing my bit for 'real ale'...

(Actually I don't know whether these qualify as real ale...)

This one I bought at Castle Howard (where else?)

These, which come as a badger sett (!) I couldn't resist. I tried the Fursty Ferret first...

In Memoriam...

In London...

And in the Minster precinct in York...

"When you go home

Tell them of us and say

For your tomorrow

We gave our today"

Seasons...

As the spring flowers unfurl, the clocks go forward and Easter approaches, I wonder what it must have been like for the first wave of European immigrants to New Zealand, adjusting to an autumn Easter, a summer Christmas, a gardening/farming/holidaying year turned upside down. Easter in autumn makes no sense either in the Christian or Pagan tradition. Perhaps this is the reason why we have no Maypoles (that I know of) in New Zealand. The meaning and purpose is lost. At a distance I find I have lost the garden rhythm. Al asks what he should plant in my garden for the winter and I struggle to tell him. I realise that my gardening is dependent on the continuity of being there, of knowing instinctively what to plant when, of what follows what as the seasons change.

I have lost touch with the garden in another respect. Being here in winter I have purchased all my fruit and  vegetables and, for some reason, have felt absolved from my usual commitment to buying only what is in season locally. So I have consumed large quantities of courgettes, capsicums and tomatoes from Spain and Morocco. Were I to continue to do this at home I would miss the seasonal changes in vegetables and while my diet might be more varied year round it would also be blander. I would miss that point where I sigh at the very thought of yet another serving of brocolli and long for the beginning of the first salad greens - which are all the more delicious for the wait.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park...

Spent yesterday (the first day of UK daylight saving) at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. This entailed a drive south down the M1 (is there a speed limit???) to a glorious country parkland and gardens landscaped in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Sculpture Park was established in 1977 and is today billed as 'the only one of its kind in Europe' (though there are certainly other outdoor sculpture venues in Europe - I recall one in Oslo...). The Park positions itself as 'a centre of excellence in the display, creation and study of sculpture and art in the landscape'.

It was a day that invited many photographs!  One of the main featured sculptors was Peter Randall-Page who was exhibiting such rounded organic forms as these...

Amongst my favourites were Taiwanese Ju Ming's works that took inspiration from Tai Chi...

Jonathan Borofsky's Molecule Man 1+1+1 made a splendid statement amongst the trees...

...while this Henry Moore was probably my favourite for its sinuous elegance and sheer joy...

There were so many delights...

James Turrell's Skyspace located in the Deer Shelter, brought the sky down to just above head-height and engaged viewers with the changing sky and light-scape, while the interior windows of the YSP Centre had been transformed to cast whimsical shadows on the walkway...

The park was full of families having a day out. I had the best piece of carrot cake ever in the cafe and lingered longingly around the excellent YSP design shop.

Other things that impressed me - excellent provision (in a difficult location) for disabled people; dogs were allowed; the wonderful exhibition connected to the Stone Project; beautiful works that it was impossible to do justice to with my basic camera and photography skills; the variety of innovative indoor as well as outdoor exhibition spaces; informative brochures... I thought about Sculpture on the Peninsula and that fact that it could morph into a permanent exhibition site not unlike YSP albeit on a smaller scale.

York buskers...

On a super busy Saturday lunchtime in the centre of York, these two young men were drumming on plastic rubbish bins, fitted out with other kitchen appliances to provide a variety of drumming tones. They were fantastic. They performed with great enthusiasm and skill. Hearing them in the distance before seeing them I could have sworn the drumming was Korean or Japanese. Maire and I joined the large and appreciative crowd and then went on to have delicious curried parsnip soup at Cafe Concerto.

Mass protest - Kinder Scout

In conversation with Richard and Jean about walking, public access and the at-risk countryside, Jean mentioned the 'mass trespass' or 'Kinder Scout' protest. I was very keen to find out more, having been hugely impressed in the past three months by the extent of public access/rights of way. From Wikipedia...

The mass trespass of Kinder Scout was a notable act of willfultrespass by ramblers. It was undertaken at Kinder Scout, in the Peak District of England, on 24 April 1932, to highlight weaknesses in English law of the time. This denied walkers in England or Wales access to areas of open country, and to public footpaths which, in previous ages (and today), formed public rights of way. Political and conservation activist Benny Rothman was one of the principal leaders.

The trespass proceeded via William Clough to the plateau of Kinder Scout, where there were violent scuffles with gamekeepers. The ramblers were able to reach their destination and meet with another group. On the return, five ramblers were arrested, with another detained earlier. Trespass was not, and still is not, a criminal offence in any part of Britain, but some would receive jail sentences of two to six months for offences relating to violence against the keepers.

The mass trespass had a far-reaching impact, some of which is still playing out today. Eventually, changes in the law would allow all citizens access to public footpaths (and bridleways and byways), regardless of whether they crossed private land. This culminated in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which legislates rights to walk on mapped access land (see Open Country). Some people might call this a right to roam although this is a misnomer, as the rights only apply to mapped access land, and not gardens or fields everywhere. The phrase right to roam truly refers to a campaign by the Ramblers Association in the 1990s, which has subsequently been adopted by the media. Introducing the CROW Act 2000 was a key promise in the New Labour manifesto which brought them to power in 1997.

This website http://kindertrespass.com/index.asp tells the full story and brings it up to date. It's a wonderful story of what determined and dedicated people can achieve.

Snickets, ginnels and snickelways again...

I like the fact that I have three choices of route from Greencliffe Drive to the centre of York. I can walk past the Green, along Clifton Road and Bootham to Bootham Bar. This is the comparatively busy and 'urban' route - tall buildings, schools, cars... noisy but always interesting.

Then there is the river route. Down to the end of Greencliffe Drive, across the ings to the river path which follows the Ouse into town. This way is open, quieter, the preserve of dogs and their owners. It is also the best way to the Railway Station and to Lendal Bridge.

The third way is what an ex colleague would term 'up the middle'! And this is the one that employs the snickets, ginnels and snickelways (I doubt anyone calls them that but I like the words, all of which basically describe narrow alleyways). This route runs behind Clifton Preparatory and St Peter's Schools, around St Olave's School and along Marygate Lane to emerge at the Museum Gardens. I first walked this route in the snow with Maggie and Don. It too is surprisingly quiet, known, I imagine, only to locals.

I choose according to destination but also to frame of mind.

And yet more about moles...

Below, from The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift. This is the book I am currently reading - and imagine my delight when I came, entirely unexpectedly, across this... (if you are not interested in moles, stop here!).

The moles are on the move again too, heaving up their miniature castles in long Maginot lines across the lawn. When the ground froze in January they retreated deeper underground, following the earthworms. Now, as the soil warms, they abandon their winter quarters and move closer to the surface, spring-cleaning burrows which may have collapsed from disuse, pushing the soil out on to the surface with their broad white palms: fine, dry, friable soil- the best potting compost in the world. Later on in the year the young moles will emerge onto the surface and will live for a time in the outside world, in the air, among the grasses and flowers, looking for new territory of their own;when they find it, they will disappear again into the world beneath the surface - a world they will rarely leave for the rest of their lives. Adult moles are solitary beings, fiercely protective of their territory, each inhabiting its own subterranean world of tunnels and burrows, independent of others. They have underground larders where they store food, nests for sleeping furnished with leaves and dried grasses. They lack for nothing. They have no predators. I can understand Mole's affection for his home in The Wind in the Willows. It is a safe solipsistic universe, in which the senses in general need not be especially acute. But the mole has one sense of almost unimaginable sensitivity: touch. It is through using touch that the mole experiences the underground world. Using its naked snout, the bristles on its face and tail, the fine hairs all over its body which brush against the tunnel walls as it moves, it gathers information not only from contact with solid objects but from such insubstantial sources as changes in temperature and vibrations in the soil and air. The snout in particular is exquisitely sensitive to changes in air pressure, to the slightest draft in the tunnels, the merest movement of air - occasioned perhaps by the distant presence of another creature, by worms dropping into the feeding runs, by the soft fall of soil. In the pitch-darkness of its underground world, the mole can detect solid objects and avoid obstacles merely from the compression waves set up by the movement of its own body.

With sincere and memory-full acknowledgements to Arthur Rackham.

A moor adventure...

Here's a story that's going to require a bit of telling and lots of photos.  Chris, John and I set off this morning from Low Mill in Farndale on the southern edge of the North York Moors to cover the ground of a walk John is leading in a couple of weeks time. Farndale is famous for its wild daffodils or 'Lenten Lillies' as they are sometimes called. It was too early for the daffodils to be blooming in this exceptionally late spring season, but hopefully they will be in full flower when the Yorkshire Ramblers return. It was a gently misty day and very boggy underfoot. All was well as we started to climb out of the dale and up onto the moorland above.

The going got steeper...

...and soon we were high on the moors, walking for quite some distance along a misty ridge. There was a strong, cold wind and the heat that had been generated on the long climb up was soon dissipated. At first the moor looks bleak and monotone, but soon you  discern a wealth of rich colours - chocolate brown - almost black, red, green a swamp warning...  We saw dozens of pheasant on the lower slopes and on the open moorland it was grouse that proliferated. The grouse were superbly camouflaged and we would never have known of their presence had they not insisted in flying up out of the heather with a persistent cry. Pheasant, partridge and grouse are all bred for shooting - a rich man's sport as John observed. Grrrrrrrrr....

We were looking for a path that would take us down off the moor and back into Farndale, though much further up the valley from where we had begun.  At this marker we turned back along the ridge because Chris and John thought we had gone too far.

Following what we thought might be the route, we soon found ourselves pathless and making our way through bracken, heather and deceptive swamp ground. The amount of moisture in the ground was remarkable. I was beginning to feel both tired and chilled. Also I had seen The Hound of the Baskervilles on television a previous evening and the scene where the villain gets sucked into moor bog was fresh in my mind!!

Eventually we stumbled rather than navigated  a way down which included negotiating old mining tailings.

We finally made it back down to the valley floor - much to my relief...

Then a long, beautiful walk back along the valley through the occasional farm and hamlet to Low Mill.

It was a superb walk through the most glorious landscape. It was also a salutary reminder that this can be unforgiving country.

On the bright side...

Something to dispel the gloom of the previous post. In Durham this afternoon this Jack Wills window caught my eye...

Jack Wills is new to me and I love the stores. Trading on Englishness but with a twist that pulls in the young people. This outfit, from the sidebar, is Jack Wills and I love the combination of tweediness and frivolity.

And at the railway station, students from the university were competing to welcome new 'recruits' at a university open day. They were very gracious in their willingness to be photographed...

Another UFO...

The first time I crossed the North Yorkshire Moors to Whitby I was entirely unprepared for this structure...

While I took these photos on a more clement day, the weather on that first occasion was grey and drizzly and the structure loomed out of the mistiness - unsettling, disturbing and ugly.

It is, I discovered, an RAF installation - RAF Fylingdales. From their website...

Welcome to Royal Air Force Fylingdales. Our mission is “to provide an uninterrupted ballistic missile warning and space surveillance service”. Our tasking from the Ministry of Defence, through Headquarters Air Command, splits into four jobs. Firstly we are charged with continuously providing warning of ballistic missile events to both Her Majesty’s Government (through the UK Missile Warning Centre at RAF High Wycombe) and the United States’ authorities (through the Missile and Space Domain, which is situated in the Cheyenne Mountains in Colorado). Secondly, the Station’s complementary mission is to support – on a non-interference basis with the warning mission – the United States’ developing Missile Defense System. The Station’s third job – and secondary mission – is to contribute to the Allied Space Surveillance Network, and this enables, fourthly, the Station to support UK forces worldwide through the Satellite Warning Service.

I was unprepared for the degree of RAF presence/activity in Yorkshire - which has caused me to think about our comparatively fortunate status in New Zealand where the need and desire for such systems is largely absent.

From the same vantage point I could also look down on the high moor village of Goathland, location for the filming of the TV series Heartbeat! What a strange juxtaposition. 

Tilly...

Who me??

Did I do that????

No, not me... never!!!

Country living...

A walk this morning from the small village of Welburn in the Howardian Hills, skirting the Castle Howard estate.

There were dancing trees...

...and a UFO...

The UFO plus mole hills...

The UFO in a neighbouring field...

...but we weren't interested...

...nor were we...

There is an interesting juxtaposition of village/farm life and incongruous yet attractive grandeur. The mole hills, the Mausoleum, the rolling Howardian Hills, the trees - the shapes all reflect and repeat one another. Even the sheep and the horses' rumps have that rounded solidity.

A day of two halves...

Why I was in Ripley in the rain early this morning is too complicated to detail, but, having heard a rooster crow, I went searching and found this charming gathering...

Then, in the afternoon, I had been invited to a rehearsal (the York Musical Society, thank you Jenny) of Dvořák's Stabat Mater in the Minster. So I trotted off in the rain and was utterly overwhelmed by a choral work of which I knew nothing but which (despite the fact that it was a rehearsal with stopping and starting and visitors moving round the Minster taking photos) I found profoundly moving. I have just been finding out more about Dvořák. He wrote the Stabat Mater at a time when he had lost his three small children in quick succession. I didn't know this as I listened to the music, but I did find myself close to tears.

Loo with a view...

I went to the toilet when I arrived in Whitby (necessary after the drive from York) and there was an excellent view out the open window behind the cistern so I took this photo...

Then later, from the other side of the river, I spotted the very window (lower open on the left) from which I had taken the snap and realised that I could well have been on show, if only for the cormorants...

At least the toilets no longer empty straight into the harbour as they once did - though the colour of the water might suggest otherwise.