A sunny day in Tudor England

Catch 22

I want to renew my driving licence - purely as a form of identity.  I can't drive any more but that is my view of my abilities, not the formal medical one which says I am OK to drive.  (But I know I would be too much of a hazard with feet slipping off pedals and double vision).

In order to renew my driving licence I need a Government log-in i/d.  I don't have one.  So the licence renewal site says I have to register for one.  I try registering and it says I can't (no explanation as to why).   So I go back to the start to see where I have gone wrong.  I try logging in without a Government i/d but it says I have to have either the e-mail address I used to create my i/d or the password.  But I don't have these because I have never had an i/d.  So I need to 're-register'.  But I can't...  Need I go on?

In the news

Just to show I am aware there is news outside of our house I should mention that here is to be a major change to the British monarchy.  In future the succession to the crown will depend upon who was born first and not upon the child’s sex.  In other words, an older sister will not be displaced by a younger brother as has always been the case in the past. I mention this specifically because Adrian’s friend, the Duchess of Cambridge, is pregnant and may have a girl.  In the past if she then subsequently had a boy he would have displaced the girl in the line of succession but from now on he won’t.

Also in the news, but a bit more local is the loss of what was believed to be the oldest oak in Britain.  The gales which we had a couple of weeks ago brought down the Pontfadog Oak, a 1200 year old tree near Chirk.   Some experts claim it could have been as old as 1600 years.  It was certainly already a major tree when Prince Owain Gwynedd rallied his troops beneath it before defeating Henry II at the Battle of Crogen in 1157.  Legend has it that it was spared by Henry when he had surrounding woods cut down in 1165.

A Tudor Day

It was sunny on Bank Holiday Monday and whereas Partner-who-loves-tea and I would normally stay at home away from the crowds we went along to Speke Hall in Liverpool because they were having a Tudor Day and I fancied photographing some of the outfits.  (The Tudor period in England and Wales is the period between 1485 and 1603).

  

 

 Could these two be Romeo and Juliet??

P-w-l-t was not particularly bothered about seeing the Tudor activities but there was compensation in the form of a silver jewellery stall that yielded a new pendant and a ring.

The new ring is the one on P-w-l-t's little finger.

On another day I shall blog more about Speke Hall and about the Morris Dancers who were there on Monday.

Who recommended the Curiosity Cabinet?

Someone recently recommended the book the Curiosity Cabinet by Catherine Czerkawska and I downloaded it onto my Kindle.  Nowadays it is a toss-up between downloading onto my tablet (which is what I did with all the David Gemmel books) or the Kindle which I have used for various other books.   I still haven’t decided which I prefer.  Czerkawska’s story is delightful so may I thank whoever recommended it and apologise that I can’t recall who it was.  It concerns a small Scottish island, the kidnaping of a woman in the late 17th or early 18th Century, and a potential love affair between an Edinburgh woman and an islander in the present day.  With three hundred years separating them, the two women are linked by the cabinet and its contents, by the tug of motherhood and by the magic of the island itself.

The Kindle / Tablet issue may be fairly irrelevant for the next few months.  I have decided not to add a single book, real or digital, to my collection until I have worked my way through some of the books which are piled high along the upstairs landing and in every room of the house (including the downstairs cloakroom /loo!). 

Gardening

The sunshine continued today and I spent almost the whole day in the garden working my little socks off.  But that is a story for another day.

Happy Monday - the Painting

I don't know who did this but it's clever!

My In-box is growing, even as I write.

If you have e-mailed me recently and are wondering if I am ever going to reply I can only excuse myself by saying I’ve been poorly.  There are 35 e-mails in my in-box.  That is 35 I have perused, not new ones (presumably the in-box is growing even as I write this).  All 35 need action of some sort- website renewal, changes to my BT Broadband and Yahoo accounts, driving licence renewal (and that's a long story in itself), E-bay telling me I haven’t used my account so it’s going to be deleted (I had forgotten I’ve got two accounts – must rescue it), and lots of personal ones…

I have decided that if I don’t go to bed between now and the end of August I might just about catch up with the jobs I have to do, the e-mails, the blogging, the decorating, the gardening, etc. etc. That is assuming no more jobs come in during that period.  I really don’t understand where the time goes.  

In the meantime, so you don’t start e-mailing me to ask in the catten is well – 

“It's a hard life being a cat and lying here all day between meals. You want the newspaper – that’s your hard luck, I’m not moving!”

"Warmth and sunshine, at last, let's have a good roll."

"How did I end up with my nose under here?"

"I suppose I have to accept being cuddled sometimes."

Friday My Town Shoot-out - Machinery

What better piece of machinery could one have than a Rolls Royce car or a Harley Davidson bike?

I suppose the answer is a camera -

(And yes - that is from a long  time ago - I had dark hair in those days - but I still long for some aspects of my Pentax, despite all the advantages of a digitial camera.)

If you want to see more Friday My Town Shoot-out entries please click on this link to the blog.

The plants don’t know it yet but it is May Day.

The plants don’t know it yet but it is May Day. 

 Hawthorn or 'May'

In the medieval and Tudor / Stuart times this was one of the most important days in the country calendar.   Even as late as the early 20^th Century it was celebrated in many English villages, including Childwall, a suburb of Liverpool where my Mum was born.  

 

But by the time this picture was taken in the late 1920s the Childwall festival, like many others had become a Summer Fair with the crowning taking place around Midsummer’s Day.  The maypole and its dancing had also moved to these midsummer festivals in many places.  In many villages the Second World War killed off those traditions which had just about survived the First War. 

The origins of May Day go back to Beltane or Beltain - the Gaelic May Day festival. Most commonly Beltane was held on 30 April–1 May, or halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It was especially observed in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. In Irish it is Bealtaine , in Scottish Gaelic Bealltainn and in Manx Gaelic Boaltinn or Boaldyn. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals; along with Samhain, Imbolc and Lughnasadh.  On the night of Beltane young people would often stay out all night and do what young people do when they stay out all night.

But to go back to the subject of the plants, quite a few have May in their names to show their importance for the May Day festival.  These include the May Flower itself – the Hawthorn.  I have no doubt someone somewhere in Southern England has managed to see a Hawthorn flower already but the vast majority is many weeks behind because of the long winter.  

 Of equal significance with the Hawthorn was the Rowan which helped to protect one from the less kindly of the elementals on May Eve.

In parts of Ireland until the late 19th century a small tree, typically a thorn tree, would be decorated with bright flowers, ribbons, painted shells, and so forth. This custom was also apparent in a few English villages and persists at Appleton near Warrington in Cheshire.

The Appleton Thorn

Holy wells were often visited at Beltane, and at other Gaelic festivals like Imbolc and Lughnasadh. Visitors to holy wells would pray for health while walking "sunwise" around the well. They would then leave offerings. The first water drawn from a well on Beltane was seen as being especially potent, as was Beltane morning dew. At dawn on Beltane, maidens (those who were left after the previous night's celebrations!!) would roll in the dew or wash their faces with it.  It would also be collected in a jar, left in the sunlight, and then filtered. The dew was thought to increase sexual attractiveness, maintain youthfulness, and help with skin ailments.

May Bubbles and May Blobs were local names for the Marsh Marigold.  I haven’t been out enough to know if they are blooming in the wild but the ones we have in our garden pond are certainly not in evidence yet. 

One of the main flowers that many people of my mother’s generation recalled being used in May Day celebrations was the Cowslip which was made into Tisty-tosties for the day.   

Tisty-tosties were the flowers of the Cowslip tied together using wool with the stalks on the inside so as to make a cowslip ball.  These could then be tied on a stick and carried or thrown as a ball from one to another with a rhyme being used to find the name of one’s intended.  Sometimes loose flowers were strewn at the doors and windows for good luck (or to keep out bad luck).  Cowslips and Marsh Marigolds would also be fastened to cows and equipment for milking and butter making.  Our garden cowslips are out and have been for a couple of weeks so at least they aren’t late this year.

By contrast our Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus), May Rose or May Ball is nowhere near flowering yet.  

One of it’s alternative names in days gone by was King’s Crown because it was used in the May King’s crown so it obviously should be out on May 1^st.   

So much for Global Warming so far as 2013 is concerned.