Last walk of the Winter

A last outing of the Winter for my IWC and me as we reconnoitered a route for a walk we are leading next week. We'd done this one a few years ago and we thought it was worth repeating as it took in a river, tidal creeks, castles, hamlets and woodland. It was about 6 miles and rated 5/6 on the Universal Mud Scale.
 

We started off at the side of St Stephens by Saltash church, which is by Saltash. A 15th century building over an earlier structure.

Two of my IWC's forebears are buried in the churchyard: her great, great grandfather George Henry Laws who died aged 41 on 4th October 1877 of apoplexy (nervous) syncope and his wife, Charlotte Frances, who died aged 39 on 20th December 1877 of ascites anascara. Within 3 months, four children (14, 13, 10 and 8) lost both of their parents and ended up being distributed amongst a number of relatives.

One interesting feature, but not unique amongst Cornish churches, is the height of the burial ground above the level of the church. This is what happens when cart loads of soil are added to enable successive interments in the same area.

Here the Forder creek (and its valley) is wide enough to have needed a significant viaduct for the Great Western Railway (RIP!) to cross it. When Brunel originally brought the railway down to this part of the South West he built a wooden viaduct here and this was replaced by stone at the beginning of the last century.

Further down the creek is the Forder tidal mill, reputedly the best preserved of its type in England. The building bears the inscription FB, RB, AB 1613 commemorating the date of its erection and the names of the first family of millers - Frederick, Richard and Abraham Buller.

When it worked, and it hasn't for about a century, the incoming tide filled the large artificial pond to the right, the sluice gates were closed to retain the water and this was gradually released to feed a number of waterwheels. The lower level opening is the exit for the race of one of the wheels.

Floral succession with the snowdrops beginning to fade as the daffodils are breaking bud.

And this is me fiddling around with Photoshop.

A woodland stretch, soon to be enveloped with leaves and bluebells.

Just one of the many tidal creeks along this part of the walk. No waders to be seen today.

Nowadays the Brunel Bridge at Forder doubles as a canal used for naval vessels. HMS Gotcha can be seen in the middle making its way to Devonport. The tidal pond for the mill can be seen to the right through the bridge.

Royal Fashion Icons

For reasons I won't go into here (and it's nothing to do with the fact that I'm Welsh and our mythical proclivity for our ovine friends), I was recently looking for images of sheep on the internet. To my delight, I came across this knitting pattern for THE sheep sweater, as worn by Princess Diana (she of blessed memory).



You can imagine my excitement when I found out that I could download a copy of this pattern (you, too, can get it here). Our house now echoes to the sound of my Number 9 knitting needles clicking away as I work on a replica as a surprise wedding anniversary present for my IWC (sshhhh, don't tell her). She'll be so pleased when the day comes. And if she's as delighted as I anticipate, her joy won't end there, as I've got a whole catalogue of fashionable designs I can work through for her. Looks like I'll be busy for quite a while but the effort will be worth it just to see her smiling face as she basks in the envy of her friends. I'm sure they will all want one as well.  Ah, ah - do I sense a business venture opening up before me?

While I'm on the subject, what is it about the dress sense of Royals? Take a look at the sartorial adventures of Prince Charles and feel proud to be British. Or cringe. Perhaps it was this shared interest in style that brought the fashionistas Chuck and Di together in the first place?

From one pantomime to another....

From my last posting on Beauty and the Beast, I move on to yet another pantomime - our collective response to the extremely serious matter of Climate Change. By coincidence, my reading matter over last weekend - New Statesman, New Internationalist, Green Issues and the Guardian - all contained political cartoons on the subject. As is often the case, a picture is worth a thousand words......... You may have to click on some images to be able to read the text.

Depressingly, I think the last one (from the Guardian Weekend of 22nd February) sums it all up: the politician who takes everything he hears with a pinch of salt.

Panto Time in the Village

It is panto-time in the village again with the annual production of the Stoke Climsland Amateur Theatrical Society. Every year they offer a reworking of a traditional panto theme and this time it was the turn of Beauty and the Beast to get the SCATS interpretation. We went along for the matinee performance with three of our grandchildren: the two girls had been before but it was the first time for our eldest grandson (well, he's three). He didn't know what to expect and, bless his little cotton socks, he was rather apprehensive about the eponymous Beast.

One of the joys of a village pantomime is seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar guises. Look, there's Jenni from the Post Office with red hair. And Lyn from our walking group as the Evil Fairy. And wasn't Paul brave to act his part without his teeth? And who told Simon he could sing? Or Mary that she could act? (I've made the last two up. Oh, no I haven't. Oh yes, I have). And so on throughout the programme and stage hands. 

Another joy is watching children get into the swing of things by hissing and booing the baddies, cheering the goodies and joining in the singing. They had a good time and the fact that they kept still for the duration of the show attests to that. 

And I shouldn't forget to mention that, as the scripts are written by members of SCATS, all performances are replete with references to local places and people. In this way the village pantomime differs from the larger productions at provincial theatres where the lingua franca is all about TV shows and so-called celebrities. Hooray for SCATS and long may they continue to entertain us in their own inimitable style.

A walk from Lerryn

A walk yesterday with 7 members of our regular group. Because of the adverse weather conditions up on the moors, we decided that we would go somewhere rather more sheltered and so we started at Lerryn, just south of Lostwithiel. Our route took us down the side of Lerryn Creek and just after it joined the River Fowey at Cliff Pill, we headed inland to St Veep and completed the 7.5 mile circuit by taking in Tencreek and Kingole. Thence back to Lerryn for an al fresco coffee and a biscuit. A great walk under pretty good conditions: not too much rain, plenty of mud and stiles, wonderful countryside, hordes of snowdrops and excellent walking companions. I should also mention that it seemed to have more ups than downs or level bits.

A piece of trivia: it is claimed by some who profess to know these things, that Kenneth Grahame made a boat trip with some friends on the very stretch of river we walked along. This became an inspiration for the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows where the Rat and the Mole make a boat trip along the river for a picnic. Maybe it's true as the ambiance of Lerryn Creek certainly matches the mood of the book.  It's a hidden gem and repays repeat visits.

Some of the photographs are best clicked and viewed at a larger size to bring out some of the detail.

This is my favourite shed in all the world. A shed of character. A shed to envy. A shed that features in the book 'The UK's Best Sheds'.

Looking back into Lerryn, with the 'shed of sheds' on the right.

I like this shot because of all the small ferns lined up in a row on the branch.

Looking down the river towards Golant on the far shore. A sky that promises rain in a short while.

This church was originally dedicated to Saint Veep, but when it was rebuilt in 1336 it was rededicated to Saint Quiricus (Cyricus) and Saint Julietta. Nothing is known about St Veep, not even whether the saint was male or female. But the story of the other two is hardly a barrel of laughs.  
According to legend, Julietta and her three-year (sometimes described as three-month) old Cyricus had fled to Tarsus and were identified as Christians. Julietta was tortured, and her three-year-old son, being held by the governor of Tarsus, scratched the governor's face and was killed by being thrown down some stairs. Julietta did not weep but celebrated the fact that her son had earned the crown of martyrdom. In anger, the governor then decreed that Julietta’s sides should be ripped apart with hooks, and then she was beheaded. Her body, along with that of Cyricus, was flung outside the city, on the heap of bodies belonging to criminals, but two maids rescued the corpses of the mother and child and buried them in a nearby field. An alternative version of the story is that Julietta told the governor that his religion could not be accepted by a three-year-old child, whereupon Quiricus testified to his faith, and mother and child were tortured before being decapitated.

A pretty ordinary Cornish stile until our resident ancient buildings expert, Richard R, pointed something out to us.

I think the squarish holes on the bottom two steps, which are also chamfered,  can just about be made out. Richard identified these as Tudor granite window frames - the square holes originally held the wooden glazing bars. Who knows how long they had been in place here but they are a good example of recycling.

Not a lot to look at now but this bank to the right is called the Giant's Hedge and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is post-Roman, probably Anglo-Saxon, and is a linear boundary. No one is sure what it's original function was. It stretched some 12 miles from Lerryn to Looe, running mainly along the top of a sinuous ridge. In some parts it would have been 12 foot high so it was a substantial structure and, given the effort that went into building it, it must have been important.
Just in case you were wondering, the iron frame to the left is probably not Anglo-Saxon.

Oooh, look: solar powered light sabres. May the Force be with us.

An interesting road sign. The inset shows the spelling on the reverse side - Foy for Fowey - spelt as it's pronounced.  And the stone mason (the black ink is infill for the carvings) couldn't quite fit the whole word on the front. The arrow below is an Ordnance Survey benchmark.

On the Universal Mud Scale, today's walk approached the maximum of 10. Even the trousers of my IWC ended up splattered - and that rarely happens.

And a couple of minutes after I took this shot, we had a short, sharp shower.

A solitary daffodil..............

But swathes of snowdrops. There were a constant feature of our walk.

A double rainbow over the river at Lerryn. Now that the tide was out, the stepping stones were visible.

Looking back down the river as the late-afternoon sun was dropping over the trees.

The sign on the right warns drivers that the car park is liable to flooding. I presume the boat is there to rescue people when this happens?

Yet more pachydermal ponderings

After a trip to Canada last year, I came back with an interest (or, as someone close to me would say, an unhealthy obsession) in Jumbo the Elephant and wrote a trio of postings about the beast (here, here and here). Against this background, it comes as no surprise that I've just read a book (biography?) by Paul Chambers entitled 'Jumbo: this being the true story of the greatest elephant in the world'.

I find it a fascinating story and one with enough poignant pachydermal pathos to engage even an old cynic like me. His mother killed by hunters, young Jumbo—the runt of his family—was hauled off to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. There he led an unhappy existence in cramped quarters before being sold to the Royal Zoological Grounds in London in late June 1865. His zookeeper at Regent’s Park, Matthew Scott, was an anti-social eccentric who became as much his companion as his keeper, rarely venturing far from Jumbo for the rest of the elephant’s life.

In 1882, Jumbo's life took another unexpected turn: the US showman Phineas T Barnum bought him for his circus for £2,000, worth around £200,000 today, give or take a few pounds. After packing his trunk, Jumbo resisted the change—it took many struggles and then trickery to get him into a crate and onto a ship to New York. Upon arrival there, he was greeted as an exemplar of his species, supposedly far larger than normal, though in fact he wasn’t—it was just another of Barnum’s publicity ploys.

As an aside, no one really knows how Jumbo came by his name, but when it was bestowed upon him in London, it didn’t mean big, gargantuan or the largest of its kind. Those associations came later, thanks to some clever marketing by Barnum. His name might have come from a slang phrase current in London, “my jumbo,” for a lowly looking person. Or, perhaps it came from “Mumbo Jumbo,” a name given to certain West African holy men, as popularised by European explorers of the time. Whatever its origins, the name stuck.

Circus life was hard, but Jumbo had an extremely profitable four seasons for Barnum before that tragic night of September 15th, 1885, when he was run over by a freight train in St Thomas, Ontario. The rest is history: stuffed, he was housed in a museum bearing Barnum’s name at Tufts University (Barnum was a trustee) and became the Tufts mascot and a good-luck symbol for students through the years. In another twist of the elephantine story, in 1975, Barnum Hall burned down, Jumbo and all. Someone had the presence of mind to scoop up some of the ashes in a peanut butter jar, the only remains, mmm, remaining. (His tail is in the Tufts Archives, but that’s another tale.) Having been the mascot, it was felt Jumbo rightly belonged to the Athletics Department and the ashes are now handed down during the changing of the guard in the Athletic Director’s office. 

And Jumbo’s legacy? He’s given us a word for 'big' in the English dictionary and has inspired a very readable biography. Not bad for the runt of the pack, eh?

Climate Change: who to believe?

One of the good things, if it may be described as such, to come out of the recent flooding and storms is that climate change is firmly back on the political agenda.  It was always going to take a disaster in the UK (yes, we really are that parochial and blinkered) before people would really take it seriously: perhaps this is the event that's going to do it? 

It was interesting to see former Thatcher chancellor Nigel Lawson going head-to-head with Met’ Office Chief Scientist Professor Julia Slingo – completely destroying her scientific assessments that the recent extreme weather conditions were almost certainly the result of climate change with the devastating scientific argument that she is just : “this Julia Slingo woman“.

I'll admit that I don’t know too much about the science behind climate change but I'm always willing to learn something new. So let’s take a look at who is most likely to be right between Lawson and Sligo on the scientific arguments around climate change. I know which one I'll believe.

And, if you think this is a one-off, just tell me the name of one respected scientist in the UK with a detailed knowledge of climatology who sides with Lawson? As I said earlier, I'm always willing to learn.

A wet February walk in Excelsior Woods

A break in the rain and it was off to nearby woods for a sloshy stroll around to see how they have fared with all this bad weather. A few photographs will give a feel for it.

I was thinking that there weren't that many flowers around when - duh - I realised that I was surrounded by hazel flowers - catkins. These are the male flowers. The female flowers are not so prominent and look like buds on the plant stems. If you look closely, you can just about make out some of the red styles that emerge at the top of the buds.

Water coming from new places. This cascade was not there the last time I came this way. It was formed by water draining from a nearby mine adit.

The pile of stones on the right might not look that significant but they are the remains of the old deer park boundary. First documented in 1215, by 1272 Kerrybullock Deer Park was owned by the Earl of Cornwall, and in 1337 passed into the Duchy of Cornwall. The Park continued until 1542, when it was “disparked” in the reign of Henry VIII. It is thought that it was not so much a hunting place but rather a nursery where deer were raised and subsequently moved to the grounds surrounding Restormel Castle at Lostwithiel (about 30 miles away) for sport.

Something else that doesn't look significant - but is.  The just-about-discernable hole-in-the-ground is, in fact, a wheel pit that at one time housed a 40 foot diameter water wheel. It was powered by water that would have been fed in from the top via a series of launders (wooden shutes), leats and reservoirs. There are few remains of any of these now as the undergrowth has taken over but it's fun scrabbling around looking for traces.

Stoke Climsland Parish Church in the distance with a fallen tree in the foreground. And there was a blue sky - but it didn't last that long before more rain came down.

The only fungus I came across was this one: the Turkeytail (Trametes versicolor, previously known as Coriolus versicolor). It's a very common bract fungus and gets its name because some think its multi-colour looks like, mmmm, a turkeytail. Versicolor means many coloured. Its thin, white wavy margin is quite distinctive.

When it is able, the Turkeytail can be almost circular in form. When they are like this, their form can be really appreciated.

There were lots of fallen trees in the woods. Caused, I think, not so much by the winds but by the fact that the rains have meant that they are effectively rooted in mud rather than soil. In these conditions, it doesn't take much for some of them to topple over.

A few red berries add a splash of colour against the vivid green moss. I was going to do something arty-farty with these in Photoshop but fell at the first hurdle. I really must brush up on my masking skills.