Saturday 31st August 2019

Very good day out with friends in Hereford today. Motored the 88.5 miles from home to their abode, arriving in just the nick of time to partake in coussaints in the conservatory, with some extraordinary apricot jam. Then a walk up onto Moccas Hill with their new 7 month old springer x labrador, Maisie. Followed by a lovely light lunch in Hergest Gardens and a perambulation around there before a cream tea back at their homestead in the afternoon sunshine and a drive back home. 12 hours without during the day and what a splendid way to celebrate the end of summer. Good food, good friends and a 7 month old naughty puppy. Cream tea was good too! 

Friday 30th August 2019

What a strange day and it's not even 2pm yet. This morning I was at Tyntesfield, before the first sparrows had coughed up a seedpod. I was there to be interviewed about the GPS project I'm leading for a National Trust podcast. It was so so strange being infront of the microphone, and I was staggered they had a sound man as well as a producer, assistant producer (elsewhere) and the presenter. Old school recording that - where everyone had one role and concentrated on that. It was fun, though I guess the real aim of the podcast was interviewing James Aldred the famous tree climber. My dulcet tones will drift across the airwaves for a few seconds at most.

Drifting across the soundscape this lunchtime was a musical protest, organised by the Extinction Rebellion group. Taking their theme from the film Star Wars, their aim was to promote "The Film Industry Strikes Back" day of action in September to discuss climate change. I have to say as a protest goes, playing classical music did bring in the crowds and a lot of passers by on their lunch-break stopped and chatted to the protesters. More rumbustious protests should take note - gently does it brings in the mainstream, which is where the real change comes from. And they played very well, considering as I'd found out afterwards, this was an association of different Bristol musical groups, playing for the first time together. 

Thursday 29th August 2019

My phone took this image today. I have absolutely no idea what it is meant to be, but do you know what? I quite like it. A surreal abstract on the day that applications for new PPI compensation claims closed. Unconnected, but so was my knowledge of this image and whatever my phone was upto.

Wednesday 28th August 2019

The madness of work. 

Today I'd helped set up a video conference meeting. Sounds simple. Well in a homage to the BBC comedy W1A, I have lived through a west country version, let's call it BS8. Aside from trying to source flip charts, brightly coloured pens, post-it pads and some index cards with snappy topic headings written on them, I booked a room, where 6 people can sit in a video booth and talk to other parts of the UK, also sitting in a video room. It's like being there. 

Except 2 hours before the meeting was due to begin, the person who had booked the London room found out it was not a video room and could only connect via audio. The only video room available in London (there is only one) was booked. "Let's do it on Skype". I booked a different room containing a TV and Skype facilities. Time was of the essence. We had an hour to go. Skype for business is absolutely hopeless. The meeting began. After 10 minutes of picture drop out and inaudible audio, this was dropped.  I booked another room and, following yet another crocodile procession of collages between rooms, the meeting between Manchester, Bristol and London took place on a conference (called a spider) phone.  Everyone was happy.

No record was made of what happened to the flip charts, brightly coloured pens, post-it pads and some index cards with snappy topic headings written on them, during the meeting, or during the maneuvers across the site between rooms, but they all returned to my office intact. Except the index cards with snappy topic headings written on them. They have disappeared completely. 

Maybe Manchester, Bristol and London have teamed up with Bermuda and squared the triangle of mystery.  “We don’t sell crab cakes in a sausage factory.”  - Thanks Anna.

Tuesday 27th August 2019

 

It got very dark, very early tonight. Mostly this was due to a day of heavy cloud and rain, but it struck me as we sat with the candles on that, although officially winter, autumn is knocking on the door. And that's no bad thing, as I like autumn, with spring my favourite seasons.  So nothing better, close the curtains, light the candles and hibernate a wee while.

Monday 26th August 2019

There is nothing like spending a lot of time doing absolutely nothing watching a game of village cricket. Behold - a long way off, seemed a lot closer in person, Winscombe 2nd 11 vs Frome Cricket Club 3rd 11. At the time I had no idea what was going on until I was joined by a most spritely aged gentlemen called Roger. The reason I found myself watching the cricket was twofold. Firstly I waited for Julie to emerge from a garden and arrive in Winscombe and secondly, I like watching cricket but haven't done it for years. My learned new best mate Roger lived 6 miles away and would pop over to do a spot of shopping and then, and only if, the cricket was in play he'd sit and watch it for a while, if they were not playing he's walk around the ground for exercise.  

Hard to know how old Roger was but he was a child in the Second World War, so at least 80. It's always a bittersweet moment meeting people for the first time, strangers, who after half an hour you feel their friendship is developing, only for a parting to bring about a permanent ending. I'll never see Roger again I should imagine, but know he played batsman and bowler in his younger days, and squash, was in the army (a funny story about a dropped bayonet on parade), lived in Dorset and the south east and wondered why there were not female umpires (Winscombe 2nd's it turned out is a mixed team, the long hair was a give away - turns out she is called Olivia Hayes) and why there's no good spin bowlers in the test team now. Dapperly dressed in tweed flat cap, smart slacks and a blue lambswool jumper. I was roasting in my sleeveless shirt as I said goodbye and that was that. A lovely old gentleman I spent part of my day with looking at this view.

I looked it up just now - we saw someone run out at 2 runs ( given in the results as Joshua Cantrell) and the result was a win to Windscombe 119-4 (revised score - skulduggery then?) against Frome 118 all out in 38.5 overs. Frome won the toss and elected to play first. Possibly an error there Frome. Well done Winscombe.

Temperature - 26oC..... much warmer watching the game.

Sunday 25th August 2019

Making grass cutting into an artform. Or a mess, depending on your point of view. 

Anyway this is an experiment, the results of which we'll not see until the spring. Unless a lawn is used as a playgrounds, in most small gardens they need to work for their money. So here is the plan. Having cut the lawn but leaving two longer circles, the inner circle has now been planted with daffodils, of all manner of shapes and sizes (we had 5 large pots of mixed narcissi from last spring which were getting in the way). Better to get them in the ground. The outer circle - so far unplanted - will be of tulips - I like the thought of bronze-red colour, though the exact variety has still to be purchased. Sadly the blog will have ended by the time they reveal themselves, but herewith, I'm recording their creation and gestation on a hot Sunday in August. 

Later, as a reward for all this planting, we did pop down to Dorset and consumed a hearty super of vegetable curry for the lady of the house and a burger of quarter pound regime for himself. Great being back on Eggardon Hill too after over a year. And the first tawny owl call of the season as the dusk settled was a bonus.

Saturday 24th August 2019

Despite having planned to head off to Dorset this Bank Holiday weekend to an Oak Fair, in the end with 28 degree temperatures we decided to en vacances à la maison as the French would say. Very nice it was too just sitting and relaxing, watching the insects that flood into our garden, mostly thanks to Julie who has filled every available space with insect friendly plants. I spent a goodly part of the afternoon trying to photograph both myself and the numerous butterflies, with limited success. My attention then wavered towards the dragonflies which buzz and fizz across our airspace. This most obliging female common darter spent at least half an hour on top of this bamboo cane. Even coming closer to get a good view, it remained on station. So there you have it, man and beast as one. 

Friday 23rd August 2019

I popped over to Portishead tip this morning before work, but think I was being watched. Spending a lot more time in the tip, sorry recycling centre, than a man of my height should it gave me a bit of a start seeing this bunch in the understory. Are these covert-gnomes, assessing how many green bags of garden rubbish I surreptitiously unloaded? Or maybe they're spies for jackdaws and peregrines which live in this old quarry turned refugia? Either way I shall watch my step the next time I off load my 4 green bags and a purple trug of twiggy-bits.

Thursday 22nd August 2019

Despite media reports, the cheque book is alive and well in Somerset. But remarkably, this is only the second  cheque I've written this year and the other one was last week. Even I have to admit that most of the time I use what was once called a flexible friend. Contactless is wonderful for small purchases, never having to fiddle about looking for change. But I do worry about our reliance on electronic infrastructure which when it works is great, but when it doesn't, well it's catastrophic. So the cheques will still be needed, and I will still write them - but interestingly as I write cheque, the word is coming up as a spell-check error word.. then if I hover my mouse over it it suggests squelches. Does my computer know something I don't?

Wednesday 21st August 2019

I'm breaking all the self imposed rules here by posting my daily image the day after the idea came into my head. Although today (Wedensday) I did come across the above image. 

Sometimes with this year long project of mine I do a bit of a catch up a few days later,  as images may have been taken on the day but time to write it all up was lacking. This was the case today when on Thursday 22nd I sat having lunch in the canteen. Mid flow in a dahl curry pick and mix (I got to the canteen late so had a plate made up of delicious left overs), my colleague Jon happily interrupted me. In the course of the conversation he mentioned he had a photograph of me. It was while sorting through old photographs to be scanned that he found a photograph of me - and there emerging from his folder, was a 1997 version of me, suited and booted at a Natural History Unit Christmas party. Next to me names from the past - Martin Whatley, Helen Wharam and Claire Diamond. All now ex-job. But seeing my self 22 years ago reminded me that yesterday (or today if you are reading this in black and white) I'd had a sort out at my desk and came across the above photograph. Which is where the idea came about as today (but written the following day my my colleague Tom discusses a programme idea on the phone opposite me) I needed an image. 

So there I am - master (not quite) of all he surveyed - this was the Trims Backlog team of classifiers. A 5 year project where I staggered through the role of Classification Supervisor. What is embarrassing now looking back is I can not remember one of the team, the woman holding the card June 1996. From the bottom of the stairs we have Amanda [Kear], Claire [Thompson], Tricia [Walls], Richard [ Hassall], the lady I've forgotten - gulp - Mark [Palmer], me and Linda [Robson]. And yes we did live in Portacabins for a few years.

A long time ago and everyone there other than Richard works for the BBC now - odd looking back as I was only 5-6 years older than the team, but now seen as an old man in the media. Lost youth.

Tuesday 20th August 2019

Surrealism comes in many forms, tonight it was on the second floor of the Clifton Down Multi-Storey car park. August really is a tired month. Clifton in Bristol, normally buzzing with students, feels like it has fallen asleep. Either that or I have come into work on a Sunday!! The roads are quiet. Shops and cafes empty. Even the car park. And so it was this image formed in my mind as I reached my car. The wide open space, the darkness, only one other car on the whole floor. Yellow criss-cross lines providing a surrealists palate created by the light of the slit window and weak light illumination. Modern life is a brutally surreal atmosphere indeed.

Monday 19th August 2019

There was a time when I had not heard of Anne Lister. Today that seems like a distant memory. Julie is also hooked by this Yorkshire Lass. I now have so many documents it is becoming a full time job indexing and cross referencing them all.  But today the new blog for writing is launched. If launched is the right word. My previous Mainly Woolgathering site from 2015 had had all it's content deleted (dull is not the word) is now revamped as Mostly Woolgathering, where I plan to ad hoc post researched commentary. The first one is in my head already and today I began writing it. It's 19 pages long with over 20 reference indices... it needs editing.

Sunday 18th August 2019

I came down this morning to make the first mug of tea of the day and saw this image before me. An image which perfectly sums up domestic harmony. When it happens. Julie has started drawing and painting butterflies and moths onto greetings cards lately. She currently works in the conservatory at this desk. All her life from her endeavours yesterday is here. The cards of course. Her car keys. Painting materials, and reference books. A chair. Some lamps if it gets dark. Nothing remarkable, just an everyday image of daily life, a scene never to be repeated, not in its entirety. All that is missing is that mug of tea. I'd better look lively then.

Saturday 17th August 2019

  

The nights are drawing in (as they do every August of course) so by 9pm today it was almost too dark to see much in the garden. But that didn't stop my having 10 minutes wandering about in the gloom. A few days of heavy rain have made all the difference to the garden. Everything has perked up, though sadly I've not seen a swift over the garden since Tuesday, a single bird grabbing a breakfast morsel. I fear that's the summer over for them. Back in the gloomy garden I spent a few moments messing about with the camera. It's something of a hindrance that, when the garden looking at its most colourful, it coincides with day length shortening quickly. Time then to take the above shot, by moving the camera quickly to the right. Just a bit of fun and brings a different perspective to life. In the garden anyway. Moments later it began raining - again!

Friday August 16th 2019

WHAT A THOROUGHLY WET AND MISERABLE DAY

I've nothing positive to say about today at all. Driving rain, strong gusty wind and just miserable. 

Charlotte Bronte had it summed up so well in the beginning of Jane Eyre

" There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question."

Thursday 15th August 2019

The last words in a notebook are often interesting. The point in time or space at which something begins, often in a diary, journal or creative writing can be contrived by a thought or emotion. We begin, begin writing, because we have something to (or wish to) say. But the end of that process can not be predicted. That final part of something is often brutal; at the behest of an external something. In both the cases here, the end of the final page.

Today that ending for me, arrived abruptly as I reached the bottom of my final blank page contained within my 'planning' notebook. I began this book on the 6th January 2017 with the words Gareth Wyn Jones expenses. You have to admit it is a roaring read. My last entry at 4pm today - the inauspicious words LW Pod. I know what that means, historians in the future will however be scratching their heads  - well let me save them that opulence of dexterous endeavour - LW Pod is my shorthand for publish the Living World Podcast.  

Writing in shorthand or abbreviations is normal in journals. 179 years ago on August 11th 1840 (to be precise four days earlier than this posting 179 years ago) Anne Lister penned her final written entry of 4 million words over nearly 3 decades. There is a myriad of cul-d-sac comment out there about Anne Lister since the broadcast of Gentleman Jack on the BBC and elsewhere. I have to admit, prior to May this year, Anne Lister had passed me by. Since then however this Regency landowning woman has beguiled me with her energy and drive. I spend at least an hour a day researching her world, both published works and academic papers. In doing so mostly avoiding the same-sex aspect of her life. But the industrial scale of her letter and correspondence writing leaves me speechless. How on earth did she fit in both the physical connections with her world, and write about it in 24 hours a day? Phenomenal.

Her diaries however began in Yorkshire as a series of letters and thoughts to her first lover Eliza Raine. Her last entry ended abruptly in a very remote, and largely unexplored part of what is now Georgia. And this is the mystery - what happened? 

Her diary abruptly ended due to - that external something - we have no control over. She simply ran out of paper in her diary and was miles from civilization. 6 weeks later she had died of a fever. Speculation of what happened in those 6 weeks continues. And her death. An insect bite and infection? Typhus? Something else?  Those who have researched Anne over years simply don't know, because nothing was written down, or correctly, nothing has survived being written down. Prior to the 11th August 1840 her world was for all to read in exhaustive detail (although this is only now being made possible due to digital scanning on-line technology). But what happened next?  Earlier researchers have suggested that she and Ann Walker her wife made it back to civilization and only then did she succumb to an illness such as Typhus. That is very plausible as they were only a few days distance from the nearest town and she seemed in good spirits, if hungry when she wrote her last words. 

My own theory is she did make it back to civilization but suffering from exhaustion. In the previous 6 weeks or more she and Ann pushed their bodies to the limits. And in this last entry there are repeated words and themes, as if she is unable to fully concentrate. Anne was 49 and therefore middle age could have been taking it's toll - her hair was greying which worried her, and she had had bouts of not feeling well. They and their servants were traveling on foot much of the time, across rough terrain, living in rural buildings with little food or warmth and an exhausting schedule. They had already had to turn back from a planned route to the Black Sea as it was impossible to travel any further. They were in no-mans-land. Did she simply wear herself out and the body closed down once she reached safety - often seen in people who work too hard then take a rest - it's then they become ill. 

And that's what fascinates me - this ending - this end of that process that can not be predicted. Both her diary ending and her life.

As I look at the final page entry below I can feel her energy as she wrote down the day's events propped up in her corn barn. Did she have another blank diary with her which was never started? Or was it begun and then destroyed by Ann Walker as she chronicled her end of life? Did she write on loose papers, lost in the chaos of that 6 month journey back to Halifax in her zinc coffin accompanied by Ann. Were her last words buried with her? Or did she simply become too ill to write and these really were the last words of Anne Lister to the world, a world she so desperately wanted to be remembered by. 

".....All our 3 men have left us to seek somebody or something. [Adam] came back in ½ hour. A- had had an egg beaten up & I had the [things] off my horse & done up my mackintosh. David does not know the road. Get a man to go with us to the village. He now says it is 6 (instead of 3) hours from here to [word missing?] & 6 days from here to [Muri]. Terrible! An hour lost here.

[and in the left margin] Off to the village Djkali at 6 5/.. & arrived at 6¾. 2 [sacles]. Arrange ourselves in the Indian corn barn (a little wicker place perhaps 4½ x 3 yards. Spread our [burcas] on straw. Now, 8 25/.. I have [just] in it the last 19 lines. High hills north & within ridges of wooded hill rising every now & then into little wooded conical summits. The sides of the hill furrowed and little conical summits on the ridges of the sides. Tea etc at 8 25/.. ."

Wednesday 14th August 2019

In my work I am sent a lot of books by publishers. Often these are pre-publication tomes, or like the one above, an advanced copy of the paperback edition. I receive too many to read. But some stand out as garnering a second glance. The Wonderful Mr Willughby is one such book. Tim Birkhead is a legend among  bird scientists. Years spent at Sheffield University mostly perched on a sea cliff have given him wonderful insights into seabird behaviour especially. Francis Willughby (1635-1672) was a linchpin in the scientific revolution which crossed Europe at the time. He and his contemporary John Ray set about clarifying the often bewildering scientific order of the natural world. Sadly before this work went very far Willughby contracted and illness and was dead in the month. Bugger as they say. The rest is history, with John Ray being recognised as the man who brought order to the natural world. This book attempts to redress the balance. I like these books about people once preeminent in their field, now largely forgotten. 

Carry Ackroyd is very much alive. And largely unknown. Carry is en expert print artist who illustrated the book Tweet of the Day. I asked her to present two Tweet of the Day's on Radio 4 last year and she was a delightful person. However as I began scudding fingers over qwerty keyboard, a colleague Alisdair brought in a large cardboard package for me - redirected from BBC Broadcasting House London. Her latest book, 'A Sparrow's Life' is a companion to the birds most readily seen over the British Countryside, and a compilation of articles called 'Bird of the Month' from the magazine The Oldie. Time only for the briefest of glances through this newly published book confirm her illustrations are as lovely as ever.Manna from heaven.

Tuesday August 13th 2019

A meeting room. Soon to be filled with eager workabees, attention rapt at the missive of the week. This week it would be podcasts. But as I set the room up for the meeting, it was calm, collected and made me think. An image of the mundane is often more enlightening than that of excitement and visionary exploration. Well it is Tuesday and I was waiting for the team to arrive with Emma from BBC Sounds, digital, podcasts, whatever they re called this week. Tuesdays, happy days once the meeting is over. Tense, for me beforehand.

Monday August 12th 2019

On this the Glorious 12th, as I munched on Nobby's Nuts, I pondered a vital and important thought which simmered within the void. Could I change Nobby's Nuts to something else by changing one letter at a time? I could.

Nobby's Nuts

Hobby's Huts

Hubby's Hits

Tubby's Bits

Cudby's Bats

Buddy's Cats

Muddy's Caps

Fuddy's Gaps

With that absolutely grueling lexicographical feat over, Nobby - where does this come from?

According to a well known internet encycolpedia, the term Nobby is the diminutive form of the name Norbert. There's more. It is also sometimes the nickname for people with the surname Clark or Clarke.

But why.........? well

1 ) Clerks in the City of London used to wear Nobby hats, a type of bowler hat. 

2  Monks oft wrote letters for the poor. Monks were known as Clerks

3) Getting tenuous now. As monks wrote so much their fingers became knobbly = nobbly? Hmm

4 ) A Nob can be used to denote a toff or aristocrat - noble person being shorten to nob ! Allegedly the first use of this term is from The English Spy (1825), a satirical book by the author and journalist Charles Molloy Westmacott about fashionable life in Regency England: “Nob or big wig.” 

So there you have it. Nobby's Nuts..... 

A Regency nobleman monk used to writing long hand in his bowler hat. 

Who says my research isn't rigorous and taken on trust?  Tasty too.

Sunday 11th August 2019

Summer is just around the corner. Which corner is for much debate. So here we are in late summer and the heavens have opened. We are 2 miles into our 6-7 mile walk and sheltering under an umbrella, just to the south of the famous Shute Shelve Tunnel. Where you ask?  Well the Shute Shelve Tunnel is a 165 m long tunnel which formerly transported the Cheddar Valley Railway from Yatton to Shepton Mallett. Long since disused it now hosts walkers and cyclists along the Strawberry Line. Such as ourselves on this blustery and wet day in August. Good job I had my umbrella then (which started to fall apart mid way) and that at our half way point we were forced out of the rain and into the Almshouse Cafe in Axbridge. Following a tuna sandwich (her) and Moroccan chicken salad (him) we retraced our soggy steps back to Sandford. Despite the rain, it was a great day to be out over this weekend of gales and rain. I like summers like this. 

Saturday 10th August 2019

Behind the scenes of any large organisation is a team of people beavering away. Mountain like, the strongest part of any business is the base. The wide base supports the middle sections, the middle supporting the summit. And so it was today as 40-50mph winds lashed rain onto the homestead, rather than go outdoors I found myself compiling a spreadsheet. Currently leading a year long project for the National Trust, after the field days, there are hours of number crunching to do. In total I think about another 8 hours of time has gone into updating the data. This then heads off into the internet's dark tunnel of alchemy only to return months later as stylish graphs and pie charts. Thus, with the lashing rain drowning out the boredom of a Saturday in August, as bejeweled storm-clouds scudder overhead, my fingers nipped across the keyboard as if summer was really happening..playful, alive and dry. Went to bed early, exhausted.

Friday August 9th 2019

Copyright BBC.com

Today the winds have picked up after a night of heavy rain. Transport is disrupted. Festivals have been cancelled, mothers with children have run into the hills screaming. In the old days, this was called a summer storm. They happen most Augusts and herald the first few deep depression outliers of the Atlantic hurricane season which began in June. We need to get a grip!

Thursday August 8th 2019

August is often described as the silly season. Everyone is away on holiday (it seems). Summer is exhausted. Autumn has not arrived yet. It's the fag end of the year (I don't like this time of year) and as such I have nothing to write about today. So made this little image. 

Wednesday August 8th 2019

The quadrille is a dance that became fashionable in in Europe during the late 18th and into the 19th century. All of which, mildly interesting as it may be, does not in the least explain what is happening here at 2.30pm on August 7th 2019. This modern interpretation of the quadrille involved eight feet in combinations of two. Four feet originated in Italy, four feet of English descent. A moment of calm in this endlessly moving city of international appeal. A motionless quadrille of coming together. If I had a mind to such fancy, possibly celebrating the origin of the term Quadrill, that of 17th-century military parades in which four mounted horsemen executed square formations. I think we may have lost our horses.

We were in Bath to meet my lovely friends Cristina and Luigi. Finding ourselves outside the Abbey, following a quick lunch by the river, this tourist plaque in the pavement caught my eye. My image for the day captured for posterity. It had been 16 years since we last met. Cristina and Luigi are on holiday in England and so an opportunity arose to rekindle the friendship here in Bath. Sitting on a bench outside the Roman Baths waiting for their arrival (after their 2 hour guided tour of the City) we began to people watch. 

Oscillating tides of human tourists entertained me as they flowed back and forth across the tourist heartland. Scanning the hundreds of people ahead of me for my friends, it struck me how flock like tourism is. Pulses of people paraded behind guides (often with follow me umbrellas aloft). I scanned all the faces looking for my friends. It struck me that for a split-second I saw peoples faces. People who were strangers moments before caught my gaze for an instant and my attention. Moments later they passed out of view, a receding memory, returning to their world, in which I was excluded. That is tourism, a collision of time at a place of interest. Transitory, intellectually stimulating, ultimately ephemeral. Unlike friendships.

In that blur of humanity I scanned every face for that special person. A kaleidescope of images, of which none of whom I connected. Then, as I caught sight of Cristina, the Madding Crowd disappeared into a faded background, beside her Luigi, two people formed into my field of view. We waved, we hugged, we connected. Two people in a sea of a thousand faces reunited after years apart. Interconnected Friendship at its prime.

After this image was taken we entered the Abbey and its adorned walls of memorial plaques.  People who were strangers centuries before caught my gaze for an instant and my attention. I read on. Moments later their names passed out of view, a receding memory, they returning to their world behind the memorial plaque. Being alive, I was excluded, as had all the passing tourists over the centuries, though some of whom now were memorial plaques themselves. Memento mori .

Tuesday August 6th 2019

Anticipation : noun

From the Oxford English Dictionary there are two examples given.

1) the fact of seeing that something might happen in the future and perhaps doing something about it now

2) a feeling of excitement about something (usually something good) that is going to happen

Both of which aptly summaries my thoughts today. I'd just collected our train tickets from Worle Station for onward travel to Bath tomorrow. A day off to meet friends from Italy. Collecting the tickets in a downpour they all 'clagged' together (as we'd say in the North East) as they dropped out of the machine. Separating them and laying them on my car passenger seat to dry, it struck me that these represent future anticipation. Anticipation of seeing friends after 16 years. Anticipation of being on a train. Anticipation of the day ahead. I'm excited. All for the princely sum of £26.20 payable to Great Western Railway. 

Monday August 5th 2019

I heard the rustle of the metallic tape long before the workman arrived at the doorway. This is my office, and has been for about 2 years. Soon however it is to be converted into a disabled loo and facilities for one of our colleagues. I shall be evicted. Ever since learning of my office's demise, I have been meaning to write about it. The flash of ruler against wall, has today prompted me to write. 

I'll miss this office, it suits me well. North facing, not hot. North facing, computer screen easy to read. The three desks in here are hot desks, often crammed with busy bees on a Tuesday when we have our departmental team meeting, attended by migratory home working producers from the midlands. A record of my empire. On the screen the ScheduAll system we use to book studios for mixes and so on. My detritus. A coffee waiting to be imbibed, and an ecclecta of paper of interest on the wall. Possibly however the interesting wall is to the left of where I sit. Over the years images of the great natural history presenter Brett Westwood have adorned the 'cool wall' for Brett is cool. The best naturalists I have worked with - for his breadth of knowledge all things feather and fur, creepy crawly. Soon I shall be in another room, turning the familiar into a memory as time recedes. Farewell Room 18, 3TPR.

Sunday August 4th 2019

Mentioned yesterday I had two full days of GPS project work this weekend. Thus after 5 days at work and 2 volunteering, I returned home a cabbage. The body is telling me I am not as young as I once was. Home, long cool drink, then onto the lawn to catch the remnants of the days warmth and sunshine on the ancient frame. And to have a little nap. My view lying on the lawn was of Julie reading the latest Anne Lister book. I don't write much about Anne Lister on this blog save to say there is a lot of reading happening behind the scenes as I become ever deeper enmeshed in her fascinating world. And some lovely emails from academics who are helping me explain. So there you have it, 6pm on a summer evening, I am horizontal without, views, both photographic and intellectually academic in my mind.

Saturday August 3rd 2019

Two full days at Tyntesfield this weekend, bring to a close the seven days of GPS tracking across the estate. Another 7 days due in September. This image was taken at around 3pm, it was starting to rain and I found myself in that limbo-land whereby all ten GPS devices have gone out with visitors, but it could be three of 4 hours before they return. Time then for a coffee and to catch up on the questionnaires in the hope they're filled in correctly. I like this project I have been asked to lead. Wrote about it in the in-house magazine recently, provided an update to the near 1000 people involved with this behemoth of an enterprise. One of the joys of being a volunteer, allows access and involvement in some quite remarkable, and very interesting things. 

Friday August 2nd 2019

This buzzard may look close, but it was over 100 meters, maybe more. I was getting ready for work when I spied this buzzard perched on one of the electric wires which cross the fiend behind us. It's not that usual to see a buzzard clinging to the lines. On a perch or a tree yes. But to grip the thin wires with those huge talons isn't easy. I read an article at the weekend which stated that while photographs are a wonderful record, they can never detail the emotions behind the image as writing does. And that is so true with these four images. What they show is a buzzard, eventually being mobbed by crows and flying off. What these don't show is that the buzzard was perched on that line for over 10 minutes before the crows arrived. Each time the wire moved the buzzard had to re-grab the wire and re-balance itself.  Something it did with remarkable dexterity as it bobbed and rolled continuously trying to keep it's balance. The wire cross the field next to the hedge, was there something in the hedge which appealed? Certainly the crows were non too happy, eventually driving the buzzard off. A nice way to start the day, with some less than common activity and behaviour.

 

Postscript - 05.08.19 - Buzzard was back on the wire this morning, not being mobbed, but presumably this is it's preferred perch to operate from. 

Thursday August 1st 2019

C Google Earth

When I began this blog I had a feeling it would cover a year of changes, some small, some with a wider remit. And so it has proved to be, although I'm writing this on Thursday, the day after my sad topic. Yesterday John Purvis passed away. I can not put into words how melancholy this makes me. John was the best of men, possibly alongside my Uncle Bob in Essex, the best man I've ever met. Both were true countrymen, and Bob died the year I first worked at the farm with John. 

John was kind, compassionate and someone who took time to instruct me in the ways of farming. I was only 15 when I spent 6 weeks on their farm. A summer job, when most of my friends stayed at home and played on the swings. I wanted none of that, I needed to break free from Tyneside. I knew my own heart, and that drove me to a life of the countryside, of farming, in only the way a teenager can be single minded and focused. They would have me back the following summer. A year of torment followed, back at school doing my O Levels - I hated it. Then in June 1980, aged 16 and 2 months I left home. A paid job, an agricultural student, on a north Northumberland farm over 60 miles from home. I loved every minute of that year, and would have stayed forever if I could have done. 

Living in a cottage on the farm (in the middle of this image) this landscape was my world. I'd begin work at 7am and work until 4.30pm on normal days. Breaks at 8.30am and 12 noon. During busy times I'd work into the evening and occasionally near to midnight. But it wasn't work. I was 16, full of energy and very happy. John employed a shepherd called Neville but for most of the year it was just myself and John with help from the bigger farm a mile away, though this one was nearly 1000 acres, nearly 2 miles long. I spent every day with John, he'd tell me stories of his time farming in Australia, driving for hundreds of miles just to get a drink, or his days in Hampshire before he and the extended family moved to two estates in Northumberland in the mid 1970's. 

John smoked a pipe - a silver stemmed pipe with a black bowl. I can't remember the make of the tobacco, but I can smell it still after all those years, and only a few years ago walking down a Bristol street that same aroma drifted my way. Memories flooded back. He was a dignified man, a doctors son (I met his father once, lovely man). John had thick dark hair, a deep voice, a gravelly laugh but a kind temperament. Yes if I got it wrong he'd tell me, but what struck me was his willingness to pass on his considerable knowledge to this teenage sponge, and treat me, someone 30 years his junior as almost an equal. Typified by Christmas Day that year when he asked me to look after the animals as he'd not had a Christmas Day off in years, and with a young family he'd like to spend it with them. Of course he was on the farm if anything happened, but trusted me to do the right thing in a mature way, many 16 year old's wouldn't have done.  He taught me to drive, to inject animals, husbandry, how to think long term, and how to weld, though I've never done this since then.

What a year, and what a man. I lost touch with the family for a while after leaving the farm. Then around 25 years ago caught up with them again and visited a few times, always with a job to do which I enjoyed. Then on the 6th January 2001 John got up with a blinding headache. Later he went up 24 acre to check on the horses and sheep and collapsed to only be found a while later having not returned. A massive  brain hemorrhage and for the last 18 years he has been bed bound, his view outside from a window over the garden and fields, the only connection with the farm he loved. The family rallied around and have done a superhuman job looking after John and keeping him  at home. I last saw him 3 years ago and we had a long chat about the old days, his speech was slurred but the old John was still there, the mischievous and kind man glowing from his damaged  and dysfunctional body. I've thought of John most weeks, a real countryman, locked in that body, locked in that room, with only the view. He was much much too good a man to have that happen to him. His passing is really the end of an era for me, and for his family (who I'll not name on purpose) during this year of change. RIP John, possibly alongside my Uncle Bob in Essex, the best man I've ever met.