Monthly Archives: October 2012

Duddo Stone Circle, Northumberland

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I had never heard of Duddo until Margaret@BooksPlease blogged about it recently, do have a look at her very interesting post, her photos are better than mine too, here. I’m still getting used to the new camera, well that’s my excuse anyway!
Thanks Margaret, we would never have found the Duddo Stone Circle on our own, it’s fairly off the beaten track.

Duddo information board

Lorraine was asking how long it took for us to get to York from Scotland and I have to say that I’m not exactly sure, somewhere between 3 and 4 hours I think, because we stopped off at Duddo on the way there. The sign on the gate which you go through to get to Duddo says that it’s about an hour long walk there and back – and it was for us anyway. It’s an easy walk if you’re fairly fit, along the edges of fields of crops which had recently germinated, and we had a lovely day for it.

Duddo from a distance 1

Although Duddo is in Northumberland and so is now definitely part of England, I think of it as historically Scottish as it’s north of Hadrian’s Wall. It was obviously a very important place for Neolithic/Bronze Age inhabitants. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery but they do know that it dates from about 2,000 BC. Cremated human remains were found in the centre of the stone circle, it might have been a place of worship and burial or for sacrifices, or both.

Duddo from distance 3
It’s an impressive spot today, just imagine what it must have been like all those years ago.

Duddo standing stone 1

It’s thought that these massive grooves have been worn into the stone by the weather over the centuries, they look spookily like they’re man-made though.

aOne of the Duddo standing stonesstone 3

This one is actually the smallest stone but it’s still about 5 feet in height, as you can see there are lovely hills in the background. We were lucky in that there were no other sight-seers there and we had the place all to ourselves, which made it all the more magical for me. I count myself as being a fairly hard and cynical person but I definitely felt that there was a special atmosphere at the stone circle and I walked around them touching them all.

Can’t you feel it? I said to Jack. That’s the Viking in you. They’re just stones – he replied.

That’s the scientist in you! – I said. Honestly there’s nae romance in that man of mine.

Duddo landscape

I think Duddo would be quite bleak in grey weather but it was very pleasant on a blue sky day. There was quite a lot of fighter jet activity, some of it too high up to see but you could certainly hear them and a couple of jets did pass over us, very low. It’s a very rural and sparsely populated part of Britain at Duddo, which makes it a good training airspace for them I suppose. It does seem a bit weird though when all that state of the art metal, costing millions of pounds flies over a Bronze Age structure.

The Scottish Border and Independence

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Katrina at border

This was the last photo that we took on our recent trip down south, I haven’t sorted through all the others yet, obviously Jack took it as I’m in it. I’ve got my ‘thumb up’ glad to be back in Scotland. We were on a quiet, small road into Scotland, just at the village of Coldstream, and as you can see there are no flags at this small border crossing, the flags are by the side of the motorway.

Anyway, today David Cameron was in Edinburgh finalising the details of the referendum on Scottish independence. Sixteen and seventeen year olds are going to be allowed to vote in it, that’s a first as eighteen is the normal voting age in Britain, and it’s just going to be a straight yes or no to independence. Some people were hoping there would be a ‘devolution max’ option.

One thing which a lot of people seem to be worried about is whether we would need a passport to travel between Scotland and England. Thankfully the answer to that is NO – and it’s just as well because with the amount of traffic going backwards and forwards between the two countries it would take us forever and a day to make the journey.

If you’re interested in hearing what our two great leaders(!!) said about the historic day you can have a look here.

Autumn Break Book Purchases

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I came back home with very few books this time, slim pickings indeed. I didn’t see one Angela Thirkell book but I did buy:

Fire, Burn! by John Dickson Carr
A Thatched Roof by Beverley Nichols (sequel to Down the Garden Path)
and on the way home I bought a 1970s edition of Four Hedges by Clare Leighton.

The bookshop in York, just beside the Minster is one of those ones which sells a lot of prints too. I always find that quite sad because most of them have been ripped out of books. But I couldn’t help admiring some woodblock prints by Clare Leighton, I don’t recall ever seeing anything by her before, so when I picked up a book in an antiques centre at Powburn, Northumberland I was amazed to see that the book underneath was one by Clare Leighton with 88 illustrations by her. How lucky was that?! At only £5 it was definitely coming home with me. You can see some of her work here.

When I got home I looked her up and discovered that her brother was Roland Leighton, whom I always think of as O Roland – if you’ve read Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth you’ll know that she was engaged to him but of course he died of his wounds in 1915. Four Hedges is subtitled A Gardener’s Chronicle and needless to say I won’t be breaking it up to hang any of it on my already overcrowded walls.

So that was it, just three books bought whilst in England but today we wandered down the High Street and I went into one charity shop and ended up buying:

The Demoniacs by John Dickson Carr
Watson’s Choice by Gladys Mitchell and
Taken By The Hand by O. Douglas

I’d better get down to some serious reading at the rate the TBR pile is growing, especially as two of the books which I had requested from the library have also turned up. I still haven’t got around to sorting through the photos I took whilst we were away. Maybe tomorrow!

Mid Week Autumn Break

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We’ve just got back from a mid week autumn break and as usual we’re glad to get back to our own bed and have a rest after all the running around we’ve been doing.

We were staying close to York which is a place we used to visit quite regularly when our boys were wee so but when we counted back we realised that it was about 18 years since we had been there. It doesn’t change though and it was still crowded with tourists, like us, marvelling that the buildings are still standing.

Book wise York was a bit of a disappointment, it was slim pickings and I didn’t see any Thirkells at all anywhere. In desperation I ended up going on the internet to see if I was missing any second-hand bookshops, it was horrible to see a list of shops which had closed written beside their details. Apart from the Oxfam bookshop we could only find one second-hand bookshop, a bit of a shock in what is after all a university city.

We also visited Ripon, another cathedral city, very much smaller than York I think but the cathedral was nice and welcoming and they were setting up an art exhibition whilst we were there which looked interesting. Well worth a visit if you’re in that area.

National Trust wise we visited the Treasurer’s House in York, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, and on the way home we visited Cragside in Northumberland which is an amazing place. We had wanted to go to Lindisfarne but just didn’t have enough time. Luckily we had good weather but when we stopped off at Wooler, a small market town in Northumberland the wind was absolutely freezing. Wooler weather they call it, it felt several degrees colder than at Powburn just ten miles or so to the south of Wooler, and strangely when we stopped again at Coldstream just over the Scottish border it didn’t seem nearly so cold there. Wooler feels like it’s in the Artic Circle.

Anyway, that’s me back on that perennial Brit topic of conversation – the weather. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have sorted out some photos of our trip.

Pinterest

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If you look closely at my sidebar, just underneath the About bit (new photo BTW argh), you’ll see that I’ve joined Pinterest and Facebook at last. I haven’t done much on Facebook as yet but my Pinterest boards are filling up with stuff I like, although some of my boards are still empty, it’s wishful thinking so far but I’m sure it’ll be a fun place for me to visit anyway.

I think it’ll be a handy place to keep favourite recipes and the like, the Organic Textures board is completely empty, but when I eventually get around to downloading all my photos, they will hopefully be useful for embroidery inspirations, that’s the idea anyway. Maybe they’ll be useful to other people too.

Have a look at some of the things I admire – if you have the time.

The Great British Bake Off – again

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This programme is just about the only ‘must watch’ one for me at the moment but I was sad when Cathryn had to leave last week. Obviously I was hoping that James the young Scottish chap with the lovely hand-knitted Fair Isle jumpers would win.
James
But Cathryn came a close second for me because not only is she a great baker but she has a lovely habit of giving a running commentary on everything and talking to inanimate objects.
Cathryn

I loved her reaction to things going wrong – no black belt cursing and swearing on the BBC of course but she did say: Oh my giddy aunt! – a lot, and there’s not enough of that one around to suit me. Last week she even resorted to Heavens to Betsy! The only person I’ve heard saying that recently is myself and I even give Heavens to Murgatroyd an airing now and again.

I’m reserving my black belt cursing for all the ghastly politicians who are cluttering up our TV screens at the moment, on both sides of the pond.

Anyway, here’s a wee taster of the Bake Off, as you can see, Cathryn is the young woman at the beginning of it. She has gone back to looking after her young family but I’m sure she’ll end up using her talent for baking somehow in the future.

The Old Bank House by Angela Thirkell

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This book was first published in 1949 so we’re still in the middle of food shortages and rationing despite the fact that the war has been over for three years. Food is often a topic of conversation but the inhabitants of Edgewood still seem to manage to do quite a lot of entertaining. For me, as this was my ‘book at bedtime’ it was quite confusing at times. I think Angela Thirkell is an author who quite uniquely has several characters in her books with the same names or variations on the theme, so it can be confusing, specially if you’re tired. She was being really too true to life as at the time she was writing it was common for new babies to be called after a favourite relative or friend, as everyone in my family was. I could really have been doing with a list of characters and their connection to other characters at the beginning because it was almost as bad as War and Peace, some characters are known by three names or titles, depending on who is with them at the time and it was a wee while before I had them all straight in my head again. It doesn’t help that I’m reading the books out of order as I haven’t managed to find them all yet.

I did enjoy the book though, technically it might not be the best writing style, at times she rambles like crazy but it all adds to the charm. Thirkell shamelessly nicks ideas and even dialogue from the classics, you could play a game with it all – spot the quote – but after all, there’s nothing new under the sun!

As ever, there are people to be paired off but I think the most important part of the book is the acceptance of Sam Adams as a force for good in the town. He may not have been one of their sort and frankly a bit common on the outside but he learns fast and beneath all his loud bluster there lives a sensitive and kind soul.

In fact I find just about all of the characters to be recognisable, which makes me wonder if anyone recognised themselves in these books as it seems clear that Thirkell must have used her friends, family and neighbours as copy. There are so many bits in this book which I’ve heard people say or said myself, or felt. One person says when his mother dies that it’s strange being on the front line now, a feeling that we all have I’m sure when we are ‘orphaned’ no matter what age we are.

Mr Macpherson, Martin’s land agent features in this book, speaking broad Scots which Thirkell manages to write very well, and that isn’t an easy thing to do. However she did have the advantage of a Scottish father and presumably grandparents too. Her first husband must have been of Scottish descent too, being a McInnes. The author Colin McInnes was her son. In fact it’s quite a surprise to me that Angela Thirkell isn’t claimed as a Scottish author herself. Oh all right, I’ll claim her as a Scot anyway.

Falkland, Fife, Scotland

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A couple of weeks ago we went for another walk in Falkland estate, Fife and were surprised to see this teepee in a field at the bottom of the Lomond hill. The stonework which you might just be able to see is actually part of the family memorial which has some graves in it of the family who originally owned the estate.

a teepee

We were even more surprised to see that a nearby tree had been got at by those people who festoon things with bits of knitting. I must admit that I don’t really see a lot of point in doing it as with our weather it isn’t long before it all looks grotty and tatty, but it takes all sorts to make the world I suppose and it’s harmless – I think.

a totem pole

From there we walked into the woods, in a direction we hadn’t been in before. We wanted to walk to the Pillars of Hercules, just to see what was actually there, having seen the roadsigns but having no idea why there is a place with a name like that in Fife of all places.

woods at Falkland

As you can see, there’s a nice wee bridge and burn in the woods but somewhere along the way we took a wrong turning and never did reach our destination, so we’ll have to go back another day and try again. Sadly we didn’t see any native Americans on our wanderings, just a few walkers.

a bridge in woods

In fact it turned out that we had just gone around in a big circle as this was the view of the Lomonds from the woodland path and the field with the teepee in it is just the next one along. But by that time we were too tired to hike up the hill. In fact this is the first year that we haven’t done any actual hill walking, mainly because the weather has been so bad with rain just about every day. A few years ago we were at the top of this hill when it started snowing, and it was just about this time of the year too. Half way down it turned to rain though, but still it was not my idea of fun. I’m a fair weather walker – I admit it.

Lomond hill, Falkland.

This was the last photo which my camera took as when I tried to use it again the screen was all ghostly. I have absolutely no idea what happened and our technical sons have had a look at it but all to no avail. Maybe the teepee dwellers ‘put the kibosh’ on it! I swear that everything nowadays has a ‘die now’ chip in it. Our previous camera developed a big crack across the screen between taking one photo and another, whilst it was just being held in my hand. So a new camera is required and I hate spending money on gadgets because to me they’re just not things of beauty.

I’ve just googled Pillars of Hercules and discovered that it’s an organic farm and restaurant! Not too exciting then, despite the name!

The Duke’s Children by Anthony Trollope

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No one, probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the world than our old friend the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died.

Those are the opening words of the book, and I could hardly believe them. I don’t normally ‘give away’ much of the plot or action of any book, for fear that I might spoil it for other potential readers, but lots of people seem to have watched the serialisation of the books so it’ll be no surprise for them.

Whether you love or hate Lady Glencora, and I swung between both, you have to admit that it’s an unusually sudden way to learn of a character’s death. No long dragged out will she, won’t she for him. He couldn’t be more different from Mr Popular Sentiment (Dickens), I actually thought to myself – ‘this reminds me of Psycho’ – because when that film was first released in cinemas the audiences were aghast that Janet Leigh had been done to death so early on in the film, as much as the way of her going.

Anyway, this book is about how the Duke of Omnium copes with his children now that their mother is dead. He has always been quite a remote father to his two sons and one daughter and Glencora kept a lot from him. So when he realises that his late wife had been encouraging a relationship between their daughter and what he regards as a very unsuitable young man, the Duke is not pleased. He plans to marry his daughter off to just about anyone else. The whole situation reminds him of the beginnings of his relationship with Glencora, and he wants a similar outcome for his daughter.

His sons are causing him even more worry through gambling but he manages to cope with that more easily and sees the loss of £70,000 as cheap at the price – if it cures his heir of gambling.

This is the last in the Palliser series and although Trollope is usually really good at tying up the loose ends of characters, he didn’t quite do it here, so I can see why Angela Thirkell decided to write about some of the same families, albeit a few generations ahead. The book didn’t end the way I expected it to because at one point the Duke is described surprisingly, as being a man who is susceptible to feminine frills and petticoats, and I thought that that was a bit of a clue that he would be replacing poor Glencora fast, as so many men seem to do, but I was wrong.

You’ll probably have noticed that I’ve been a bit vague on names here, that’s because I finished reading the book over a week ago and I read it on my Kindle and although I have a copy of the book – I can’t find it – the usual situation for me I’m afraid, I saw it recently! Anyway, I think the children are Silverbridge, the heir to the dukedom, Lady Mary, and was the ‘spare’ son called Gerald?

I did enjoy the book but Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux and The Prime Minister were my favourites in the series. Yes, they’re much more political, but not in a boring way and they are full of insights into human nature, an education in themselves.

National Trust Collections

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Just a quick one tonight, as although it’s almost midnight this is the first time I’ve been on a computer all day, I’ve been been busy sorting out my knitting which I hadn’t picked up all summer. I can tell you it was a lot more technical than doing anything on a computer! It’s a sure sign that winter is coming when I start knitting.

Anyway, my National Trust Autumn Magazine arrived in the post last week and it has an article on their collections and a link to their collections site. I’ve always thought that it’s such a shame that you can’t take photos inside National Trust properties, so this is the next best thing. You can have a snoop at a lot of their goodies in the link below, if you’re interested.

National Trust Collections