The Lost Way . . . Found?

Hello friends!

The recent incident surrounding the wanton act of vandalism in which the Sycamore Gap tree was brutally felled {is it too strong to use the word murdered?} awoke feelings of deep passion across our Sceptered Isle, and indeed further afield.  Oh, my friends, it awoke a fiery passion in me too!  As the anger played out in my mind it gave way to more positive emotions, more meaningful and relevant to me personally, and it made me realise how much I love where I live, my small but incredibly beautiful corner of this one unique and precious planet which we share with each other, and future generations.  I would passionately defend it to the bitter end!  Many I know feel the same way.  Perpetrators with purpose of malintent be warned, do not invade, for you will surely be met by a gathering of pitch fork wielding defenders in the mode of Jemima Nicolas and her band of fearless Welsh women!

Seriously though, in those moments, I wanted to write about the tree I had never personally seen to expunge the unwanted {unhealthy} negative feelings that emerged.  I began to write but it was at that point that I failed, my writing muse is gone and I came to a conclusion that my blog has lost it's way.  My blog on the tree was short and pitiful.  Others have written far more eloquently and better informed than me.  The realisation that my blog has lost it's way was painful, as it wanders aimlessly without a guide in a strange and foreign land.   Then again, did it ever have a way?  Questions surfaced.  Why do I blog?  What is my blog about?  What purpose does it serve?  I'm not really sure.  I fell into it blogging by chance, because some fifteen or so years ago I was running with a group of creative people who, one by one, dipped their toes into the world of blogging, so I suppose it was bound to follow that I would do the same.  Most of them now no longer blog, or do so very rarely.  I am one of a very few who kept going.

My first blog was called "Tales From A Celtic Heart".  I wrote on a miscellany of topics, mostly my misadventures as I traipsed about the Welsh byways near my home with my new found love of digital photography.  Over time the novelty wore off, it became a chore to write regularly and with the enjoyment gone out of it.  I have just looked back at my first short, tentative entry.  Reading the comments, all supportive and encouraging, I see a list of names, many people long gone out of my life, moved on as we do, but one or two are still virtual friends on Facebook.

I abandoned blogging, only to revive my interest some years later by creating this very blog you are reading now,.  It took a different track from Tales From A Celtic Heart, for it started out as a prose and photographic record of my solo efforts to take care of my late father's garden after he died in September 2009, in fact fourteen years to this very day I am writing this.  Where has that time gone?  It was only yesterday he was digging the soil over and harvesting crops of potatoes and beans for the very last time.

Then I began to stray from gardening.  My diary waned, and I wrote about this; I wrote about that; in retrospect I realised I had returned to my roots of writing about my ramblings in the countryside.  Then, I wrote about nothing at all and became one of those bloggers that followers wonder what happened to them when they disappear for months on end for no reason at all.  Somewhere in the middle came another blog, "The Adventures of Treasure Bear and Other Animals". Returning to this blog, I wrote about the area, some local and Welsh traditions. I took you to The Really Wild Festival and for several years we went out and about on Saint David's Day.  I wrote less and less about gardening, and more and more about cooking and baking, crafting and making, painting, and once more traipsing about the byways and lanes surrounding my cottage.  I enjoyed writing passages of descriptive prose and narrative to accompany each photo, which you seemed to enjoy. Then, I barely wrote at all between 2016 and 2018 as I was care giver for my late Mum.  When someone offered, kindly, to take us out for an afternoon, my camera went too and a blog inevitably followed.

After Mum passed,  I was like my blog, lost in a foreign land.  I had to reclaim my life, find myself, either revive who I was or discover a new and different me as it became clear that after nearly twelve years as a carer for both parents, the identity of my blog wasn't the only thing missing.  I made plans, which included a return to blogging.  

With several years to go before reaching State Pension age, and no plans to retire until at least 70 years of age, I returned to work, but shortly after I did, my employer, the National Trust, had a major reshuffle, everyone had to reapply, and cutbacks of 50% meant last in first out, so in January 2020 I found myself job hunting at the same time as the first whispers from Wuhan emerged.  A strange feeling of foreboding seeded in my stomach.  I tried to ignore it.  As I had already decided to keep working until at least 70, I decided to take an adult gap year.  With careful and frugal planning I could afford it, so I would take time to regroup, to grieve for my mother and, ignoring the tremors in my left hand that had been there since 2015, I would go out and about exploring and blogging about my days out. It would replace that I had not been on holiday since 2006 when I spent a week in Manchester.   I had managed to secure a copy of the much sought after, long out of print, Twr Y Felin Guide in good condition and planned to follow it over the summer months.  The whispers from Wuhan crept closer, sinister shadows in the night.  The feeling of foreboding grew as I tried to sweep it away as I made my plans.

I got comprehensive paper copies of all the three counties, formerly Dyfed, bus timetables and began to plan days out to Tenby, Newport, Carew, Cardigan and more, with picnic lunches and snacks from the local deli as a treat. Shorter distance coast path walks, rock pool exploring beach adventures, and traipsing the paths less trodden were planned for nearer to home. They would fill in the days between the between the longer days out, and I would taste test as many brands of ice cream as I could along the way.

 

I reveled, deliriously, in making plans of exploration for the Spring and Summer months ahead as the Winter winds howled about my cottage. Then, I found this gem online and decided to explore pilgrimages, and added it to my list of books to help me plan.   A shadow grew alongside the whispers.

I planned a series of blogs on the magnificent St Davids Cathedral, sitting as it does, nestled in the valley just a stones throw from home, with particular emphasis on the Victorian encaustic tiles and mason's marks.

By the end of the month, the Wuhan whispers were getting louder, and on every news bulletin, my stomach felt like lead for days on end and I could no longer ignore the feeling of foreboding, as something in my primal senses said something big was coming and I knew my tentative plans were being overwritten by some higher power.  Still, ever hopeful I was wrong, I added more books of local interest to the list for exploring, but something was looming ever closer from the east, and we all know what happened next.

As our world span out of control into something strange and alien, time passed, lockdowns came and went, my tremors increased and spread to my left leg.  I could no longer ignore them and in September 2021 I received a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease.  It was not welcomed, but it was expected.  Now every word I type is hard work and often causes frustration, I can no longer hold my camera steady, my life changing in ways I don't even want to think about.  Not yet.  Not so soon . . .

My retirement, my Autumn years, like my blog, are taking a very different route to what I'd planned and hoped for.  And I have just done what I seem to do best . . . digress!

In 2021 I returned to making art.  I'm afraid at times I rather swamped you with my efforts, but your responses have been generous and encouraging.  I plan to continue to create as long as I am now able to.  And blog about it.  I am even thinking about selling my work.

If you are still here and reading, Thank You!

So, where do I go from here?  What direction does my blog take in the future?  Does it even have a future?  I think so, I hope so.   Even after putting my thoughts down I am none the wiser.  If anything I am more confused than when I began.  Yet, somehow I have returned to my roots, photos with descriptive narrative seems to lie at the core, to which I always return.  The only thing I know for certain is it is highly unlikely I will ever garden again, nor take long exploring walks into the country lanes or out on the coast path.  This makes me very sad indeed, it is the loss of two things that meant everything to me.  Never take for granted that you have an able body for that can change in an instant.

However, I have literally thousands of photos, mostly flowers and landscape with a strong leaning towards macro, and, of course, of my beloved Iceland, through which I am currently sorting.  I have a notion that I will be using them.  You won't mind, will you, if I do that?  Then I shall resume writing about this and that, for I've concluded it's more important to keep my brain active with this and that than it is to ponder which direction to take.  I would rather ramble than do nothing.  It brings me great satisfaction to write these days.

So back to where this monologue began. I shall be writing about where I live with snips of local history. I shall return to writing, hopefully elegant, passages of descriptive narrative to go with my photographs.  I will write about Iceland and the local cathedral.  You may get some art, you may get to see something I've made, or you might even see a recipe popping up every now and then. Despite my bleating about losing my way, I'm afraid I'm too tired to even think about trying any harder than that these days.  I sleep a lot during the day due to side effects of my medication, and this is impacting on my energy levels, as you can imagine.  I have been given two choices. I think of them as Hobson's choice. One is to continue as I am. The other is to reduce the medication and see an increase in tremors. Like I said, Hobson's choice.

Well, perhaps it's time to proofread this and publish it before I go on any longer not making sense. If you've arrived here thank you for listening and I hope you'll be along with me for the journey. If I've made sense, or if you have something to add, please don't hesitate to leave it in the comments.

Until next time

Stay well, stay safe

Debbie xx

Sycamore Gap at Hadrian's Wall

Hello Friends.

By now, many of you will have seen the devastating news about the three hundred year old tree  at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall.  

For those who have not heard, please read this 

The Sycamore Tree on Hadrian's Wall

This is what I have just written on Facebook.

I was never fortunate enough to visit and see this tree in person. However, like so many people this morning I am filled with a variety of emotions over the wanton destruction of this beautiful, natural and living landmark. In recent minutes these emotions of anger, dismay, disbelief, and more are being replaced by an overriding thought. What if we all channel these emotions that we are feeling over one single tree and focus them on our one precious planet? We are just as guilty as the 16 year old boy who has been charged with vandalism against the single tree. We are just as guilty, but on a much larger scale, for we are doing exactly the same thing. to our own beautiful planet. Think about it.

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

Wild Garlic and Ravens

Hello Friends!

Recently my friend Caroline over at Ragged Robin's Nature Notes {here} wrote about Eye, a few miles from Berrington Hall, and she explained that "Eye" is old English for island.  Immediately , this triggered a memory of mine, which I wrote about in the comment I left on her blog. It was such a lengthy comment that I have decided to bring it over into my blog as a thread of its own being to enable me to expand on it.

Some years ago my father ran a boat trip company that, amongst other coastal and fishing trips, landed people on Ramsey Island.  For decades, Ramsey Island was in private ownership, prior to which it belonged to the Church, but circa 1996 came into ownership of the RSPB.  As a crew member, I did a lot of research on the Island, surrounding area, and wildlife in order to give our clients the best possible experience when on one of our excursions. 

The area where I live is rich in history, dating back to prehistory. I am surrounded by Stone Age sites, Cromlechs, Iron Age hill forts, Norman castles, birthplace of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, and so much more, including what one person hashtagged on the site formerly known as Twitter a "whopping mediaeval cathedral".  It is inevitable, therefore, that the diversity of the past be reflected in the diversity of place names of the present.  Gateholm, Grassholm, Fishguard, Hasguard, to name a few that have a particular Norse influence, for with inevitable predictability, the Vikings invaded here.

This brings me to Ramsey Island.  For years people asked if there were sheep {rams} on Ramsey, which the answer was "yes" but that is not how Ramsey came by it's name.

Back in the day, I had only one, quite plausible, explanation.  At one time, during the Middle Ages when the island was owned by the Church, it is known to have been covered in that most delicious of wild herbs, wild garlic, which you can read about here.  The Old English name for wild garlic is Ramsons, which has it's roots in the Saxon word hramsa.  Please take note of these spellings, their important to what follows.

Although the island is now relatively free of wild garlic, testament to it's presence in the past remains on one small, wild garlic covered point that bears the name Trwyn Garlic, literally Garlic Nose, but in English is simple known as Garlic Point.

I would tell people the history of the wild garlic on Ramsey, and then say that in my opinion the name Ramsey is derived from a contraction of Ramson's Eye, or Ramson's Island {in effect, today we unwittingly say Ramson's Island Island}  It seemed perfectly plausible until along comes the RSPB who changed all that, disrespectfully sweeping it away overnight and replacing it with what I can only describe as marketing.

Now, I'm not saying they are right or wrong in their assumption, just that they are wrong to simply usurp one opinion without giving any credence to it whatsoever, other than a blunt "No, it's wrong". 

Here's what they say.

Quite simply that Ramsey is a derivation of Raven's Eye, which has it's roots in the old Norse word for raven, which is hrafn {pronouncedhrap}. The island was therefore named after the eye of birds of the Corvidiae family, Ravens, which can be found in small numbers on the coast.  No ifs, ands, or buts, that's what they say and there's an end to it.  Eye, according to the RSPB, has nothing to do with the old English word for island.  However, what the RSPB fail to acknowledge is that during the Middle Ages then the primary bird on Ramsey was the puffin.  So populous was the puffin that it was a valuable source of food, especially during Lent when it was consumed during abstinence from meat, as it was declared a fish due to it's overtly fishy taste.

The old English word for raven is hræfn.  To my ear, this is sounds more like raven than the old Norse.  The Norse word for puffin is Lundi.  Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel is testimony to this!

Earlier, I asked you to remember the word hramsa, the Saxon word for ramsons.  To the eye and the ear, hramsa and hrafn are incredibly similar, but hramsa has more in common spelling wise with Ramsey than hrafn does.  The similarities are too close to call!

For over two decades I have listened to the RSPB telling people their version without so much as a nod to the other plausible possibility.  I understand their need to promote by romanticising the origin of the name, but at what cost?  They could actively be erasing the true origin from memory.  I'm not saying either one is correct, or incorrect,  both are plausible, therefore both should be offered for individuals to make up their own mind.  It is wrong to overwrite or ignore one option in the name of marketing.

As an aside, a nearby beach promontory is called Trwyn Hwrddyn, which does translate into English as Ram's Nose!  Confused?

For now, for me, it will always be rooted in garlic not raven or eye of the raven.  I hope I haven't confused with my observations, and look forward to what you think.

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

A History Mystery

Hello friends!

I have a little family history mystery which no one in the family can solve. So I put my best thinking cap on and try to work out what it is.

Going through a box of my late mother's belongings, I came across a small brass match case. It is very obviously something from the First World War and has two significant engravings on it out of three sides, all of which are engraved.

The least significant engraving is this one.

The main areas of engraving on this side are a Cross in the centre, which flanked by what appeared to be two oak leaves. There is a crown in the top part of the cross which might point to a regiment, or simply be indicative of the owner being a soldier of the King, and the date 1914 on the opposing side of the cross.  Directly in the middle is a capital letter W.

Let's take a look at the two sides and what's engraved on them. 

The opposite large side has the wording D Williams engraved on a banner across the centre and it is flanked by what appears to be two stylised daffodils.

I will come back to my thoughts and discoveries on this shortly. But first, I will share with you what is engraved on the spine of this book like box.

It is not easy to make out the engraving, because it is highly stylised. However, after much experimenting with letter combinations, I have. discovered it is AUDRUICQ.   Audruicq is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France.  

Further research revealed to me that during the First World War it served a

s a transport hub where goods arrived in bulk by ship and were broken down into wagon-loads and sent on by rail

 to the Front.  It was also a centres for collecting, sorting and despatching reinforcements to units in the field.

Now onto the name, which is the most important part.  D. Williams.  I know of only one D Williams in the family.  He was my cousin, the late Rev. David Williams and he most certainly was not born until well after WW1.  In truth, he wasn't old enough to go to the Second World War either. So it's not him. The only evidence of anyone going to the First World War I have on that side of my family is my grandfather J.G. Williams, who also happens to be the grandfather of Rev. David.

So, who is this D. Williams of the matchbox cover?

I have done some basic family research and I find it rather fascinating, but it does draw me in and becomes cost prohibitive by the time you order and pay for all your certificate copies, etc.  Unfortunately, on my mother's father's side, the information I have is scant at best.  Now that there is no one left to ask, as happens with so many other people, I am full of regret for not having asked questions while the relevant people who could provide answers were still alive.

Rev. David and I shared a grandfather, but we had different grandmothers because Dacu {Welsh for Grandfather} was married twice.  

Due to my grandmother being his second wife, I am finding it very difficult to go back further into the family history on that side. All of the history that I have to my fingertips came from my mother and does not contain much information from his first marriage.  I suppose if I really wanted to dig around, I could find the information. However, I did manage to do a little research in which I found out that my grandfather and his younger brother, apparently named David, ended up in the workhouse when they were around 9 and 7 years old respectively. How sad it that?  Orphans and in the work house at such a tender age.  When I learned they had ended up in the workhouse at such a young age, my research came to a grinding halt. I couldn't seem to get past that my grandfather had been in the workhouse from such a young age.

So have I found the D Williams, whose name is engraved on the matchbox? I think perhaps I have. Although scant, the information I have  certainly would make him eligible to be conscripted or able to be a volunteer for the war.

The only thing is this: everybody to whom I have spoken has no recollection of another David Williams, or for that matter, anybody with the initial D {Williams} in the family.  To date, I have not found any record of how or when D. Williams of the matchbox died.  Did he die in France, or did he return home?  My records are scant, and as happens there are many possible candidates on Ancestry and Find My Past with the same initials or names living in the general area.  

Anomalies and errors in the Censuses don't help, nor does the changing street names and construction over the relevant decades.  For example, there are few alive today who know the location of the Reading Room, or that Goat Street was formerly Ship Street, or that Oakley Street was not part of Nun Street as it is today.  Accurate family research is not limited to just censuses. birth certificates, death certificates and marriage certificates.  You have to be prepared to sift through maps and all kinds of other documents and records in order to correctly identify people.  Tithe maps are particularly interesting!  I digress.

I am wondering if my Uncle Billy, {father of Rev David Williams, and son of JG Williams} was the only one who knew of this other D. or David Williams? It is highly possible that he did know of him, and if he did indeed perish in the First World War, maybe Uncle Billy named his first born son after him.

Unless I decide to dig further, or someone in the family discovers something new, I guess we'll never know who D Williams was.  I am about to pass this little piece of history on to my cousin, Rev David's son.  Maybe he will pick up the baton with success?

So my friends,

Until next time

Stay well, Stay safe

Debbie xx

Is It Too Early?

Hello friends,

Warning: This post is photo heavy!

I bet you think I'm going to ask how early is too early for Christmas? Well, that's not my question. My question is, how early is too early to start decorating for Autumn? aka Fall if you live in America.

Meteorological Autumn begins in a few days on September 1st, while Astronomical Autumn is recognised as starting on the Autumn Equinox around the 22nd of September, this year on Saturday 23rd September, and ending on Friday, the 22nd of December with the Winter Solstice.

Those of you who know me well know that, although I love and honour all the seasons, Autumn is my favourite. I don't know why I love it so much. Maybe it's because I'm an October baby. Who knows? I love everything about it.  Even the bad weather!  I love the warmer layers of clothing. I love the softer lighting as the sun slips slowly lower in the sky. I love mittens and fingerless gloves, scarves and woollen hats. I love wrapping up warmly. I loved going out for long walks on frosty days. I loved stomping through crisply crunchy fallen leaves. I love closing my curtains on the darker evenings. I love the changing smells that waft from the kitchen. I love bringing out my blankets from storage and draping them on the sofa and chairs ready to use as the nights become more and more chilly. I love candles. I love hot chocolate. I love pumpkins. I love the wind, as it howls in the chimney. As long as everyone stays safe, I even like the sturdy winds that come with the Autumn storms.  I love watching Hallmark Christmas movies on the television.

So that raises the question. how soon is too soon to begin decorating for Autumn? Can I do it now, or should I wait until Astronomical Autumn in a few more weeks? Well, I think I already know the answer to this question. A few bits and pieces might start making their way out slowly; I won't go for the full on Autumn just yet, but it won't be long!

Here are a few photos of some decorating from previous years.

We mustn't forget the pumpkins!

I am rather fond of pumpkins. Of all sorts of pumpkins. You'll notice my handle is Rustic Pumpkin.  I have just put together an assemblance of these photos to have a calendar for next year, every photo will be a pumpkin!

So my friends,

Until next time.

Stay safe. Stay well.

Debbie xx