waiting for the white horses

Midsummer in the Vale of Pewsey. With Avebury just over the hill, and Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge just to the south, there's lots of folk in the neighbourhood to do observance to the season, be it hanging out in the stones at sunrise, partying all night to excessively loud rave music while coked up to the eyeballs (fortunately, nowhere near me), or just enjoying being in whatever moment happens to present itself.

Here's a horse that's been providing the locomotive power to a traveller, who'd stopped off overnight.

And midsummer's dawn with a cup of tea, outside my boat.

 

I've been waiting for a new print run of tea towels. Last Friday I had an email to tell me that they were on their way to Devizes Books, and just after nine o'clock on Monday the tracking updated to 'out for delivery', with the delivery slot being 11-12. The mapping thing showed the van resolutely still in Basingtoke, though; I guess the tracker wasn't switched on, which was a bore, because it's fun watching the progress of a delivery van across country and timing my arrival at the drop-off point to meet it.

As it happened, we'd just been into the Post Office to send off orders and pick up a parcel, and came out from Sainsbury's to see Jo at the bookshop opposite, waving and pointing to her phone. The tea towels had just arrived.

 

So that was a big relief.

safely up the gangplank

Straightening a bike's forks

Here's the Elswick Hopper I got last week. Lovely bike, but the front forks had been pushed back by a collision at some point, so, though it's rideable, it bothered me, and I wanted that extra stability you get when there's lots of rake on the front forks; an old Omafiets I once had would ride perfectly happily no-hands..

 

I had to remove the front wheel and mudguard, and chainguard, and the rear brake rod assembly. 

Then I cut a 38mm hole in a lump of wood, this size approximating to the 1½" tubing of the bottom bracket.

 

....and then I cut the piece of wood in half, so I had two semicircular openings

 

....and cleaned them up with a half-round rasp, so that they fitted snugly on the bottom bracket. I held them loosely in place with some bungee, then secured a piece of timber to the front forks with a couple of screws, like this

...and used a car scissor jack to push the forks forward, taking them a little way past the point where they aligned with the headset, because they sprang back a little when the jack was released.

And there they are, nicely aligned! I had to tighten up the headset bearings a bit, because they'd slackened a little as the bearing cups came back into alignment. 

A summer morning in All Cannings

June in the Vale of Pewsey. Here's the sun rising over the Alton Barnes white horse.We're moored near All Cannings, and it's one of those rare places where you can hear the dawn chorus uninterrupted by traffic noise.

In this clip you can hear  the blackbird and wren, and a few other birds too... 

The whitethroats are calling all along the canal...

...as are the reed warblers, and, increasingly, the sedge warblers. Similar sort of calls, but the reed warbler sounds more like a clockwork tank rolling along, while the sedge warbler is more like a steam-powered fax machine that's just about to blow up

they can be tricky to tell apart, but I know this one's a reed warbler

if it quacks like a duck...

the hemlock water dropwort is everywhere, too. I had to chop a path through it to get ashore. And then wash my hands....

An A400 Atlas flying past. Salisbury Plain's on fire again; artillery practice on parched ground, happens regularly

oxeye daisies and the Alton Barnes white horse

the Bristol Avon, a pictorial map

A while ago, Hamish Evans of the We Are Avon campaigning group asked if I'd be up for drawing a map of the Avon. I'm always up for drawing a map, of course; but it took ages for me to get down to it. In the meantime, Hamish has walked the entire length of the river, and you can read about this walk here on the Bath Newseum page.

This Avon (there are several, of course) is a lovely river, and I've boated, canoed and swum in it. But I wouldn't swim in it these days, because I'd probably get ill. Which is a darn shame, and part of what Hamish's campaign is all about.


I had fun hunting through Michael Drayton's huge geographical poem Poly-Olbion for apposite quotes... you may need the aid of a decent OS map to get some of the references. But there are worse ways of spending time.

Then Bradon gently brings forth Avon from her source:
Which Southward making soone in her most quiet course,
Receives the gentle Calne: when on her rising side,
First Blackmoore crownes her banke, as Peusham with her pride
Sets out her murmuring sholes, till (turning to the West)
Her, Somerset receives, with all the bounties blest
That Nature can produce in that Bathonian Spring,
Which from the Sulphury Mines her med’cinall force doth bring...

...Then came the lustie Froome, the first of floods that met
Faire Avon entring in to fruitfull Somerset,
With her attending Brooks; and her to Bathe doth bring,
Much honoured by that place, Minerva’s sacred Spring.
To noble Avon, next, cleere Chute as kindly came,
To Bristow her to beare, the fairest seat of Fame:
To entertaine this flood, as great a mind that hath
And striving in that kind farre to excell the Bath.

By the way, you can get a copy of this map in my Etsy shop; Here's the large version, and here's the small one

hawthorns and bicycles

Frosty mornings and sunny days, this last week. Eve is on the move eastwards, on our slow journey to the Long Pound for summer. Just now, I'm moored up near Semington, between Trowbridge and Devizes. A good place for watching deer, and the occasional barn owl. And a really good place for getting punctures.

I managed to get two in the one tyre, the other day, in the two hundred yard stretch between my mooring and the road.

Here's one of the culprits; Thurg Thorn, close cousin to Nerg Nail.

The towpath is hedged with hawthorn here, and a combination of hedge trimming and the wind that blows fierce here sometimes in the winter, means that robust tyres are essential, and even then not always proof against these extremely hard thorns.

Going off on a historical side road; hawthorn's been used for hedging since at least the time that the Anglo Saxons settled here; they'd push the thorn twigs into the ground as a fence, and they'd take root and grow into a hedge. Hence the hawthorn's other name, 'quickthorn', from the Old English 'cwic' meaning 'living'. Thus also 'the quick and the dead' in the Creed, which used to have me wondering.

Duly repaired, I put the wheel back on and get going. There's a big supermarket a couple of miles away, and I'm stocking up on picture frames while I can. They're really very good frames, with proper glass in, rather than that awful acrylic that you often get in picture frames now, that scratches so easily.

carefully stowed payload

home! and not a single one broken

apres moi le deluge

More torrential rain; and the Bristol Avon responds quickly to rainfall, and was soon in flood. Here's the riverside path into Bradford on Avon, by the tithe barn and the packhorse bridge.

I was transporting the last of my old domestic batteries to the car, to take them to the salvage yardto be weighed in. "What the hell,"  I thought, and cycled into the flood.

It webnt well enough until about half way through, when a strong eddy hit the bike trailer, which immediately acred like a sea anchor, filling with water and pulling me to an abrupt stop.

So I had to dismount, and struggle with the bike and trailer to the shore, drenched up to mid-calf.

We got to Shanley's, the Trowbridge scrapyard, eventually; and my four dead batteries, with a combined weight of 87 Kg, earned me £34.80. So they'll go off to be recycled, and the money offsets at least a small bit of the cost of the new batteries, which was about £600.

Home again, it was dhobi time, washing the river water out of my wet clothes, and hanging them up to dry. My para boots went on a wire rack on top of the stove, and took three days to dry out properly; by which time, they were very stiff.

Out with the shoeshine kit. I started with a light coat of neat's foot oil, brushed in with an old toothbrush; then, when that had been absorbed, a layer of Weather Wax. I do like this shoe cleaning set; I found it in a charity shop in Pewsey. Weather Wax is no longer made, so I'm making the most of this last tin. I guess that Terry Pratchett used to use it too, which is where he got the name for Granny from.

look after your boots, and your boots will... well, they'll be happier boots, anyway

happy boots, ready for more foolishnessapre

....

Mwnt at St Brigid's Day

Here's a picture for Imbolc and St Brigid's Day. The words are a quote from Kyntaw Geir, an englyn describing a pilgrim about to set off on a journey:

 

Offspring of the Ruler, victorious Redeemer,

and Peter head of every nation,

Saint Bridget, bless my journey.

 

...and in the background is Mwnt, a small settlement to the north of Aberteifi with a beach in the bay, the tall hill that gives the place its name (a good place to watch dolphins from) and the small Church of the Holy Cross, a stopping place for pilgrims headed for Bardsey or St Davids, or for casual visitors heading for the top of the hill.

 

The new year is quickening; this morning the blackbirds joined with the song thrushes who've already been singing for a week or so, to give a melodious start to the day.

I've gota few  greetings cards with this picture on, over on Etsy

foraging for firewood

Cruising down to Bath a fortnight back, I saw some of the damage caused by the recent storms; lots of trees had been blown down. A couple had fallen right across the canal, preventing navigation, and had been dealt with fairly quickly by boaters and contractors. But there was still this ash tree, partially blocking the towpath at Murhill Wharf.

It was still there the other day, when I was heading back towards Bradford on Avon. So I pulled in and got the chainsaw out.

A happy combination of results; a clear towpath, and a heap of firewood for me.

...and I loaded up and carried on, because the canal here has a nasty concrete shelf, and I could only get within a long gangplank's distance from the side.

there's cosy now

Here's my neat method of splitting logs, using a hefty two-handed maul (like an axe but heavier) and a luggage strap to stop the bits from flying everywhere. Also observe the ubiquitous IKEA blue bag,  the boater's friend

St Mary's, Charlcombe

It was another icy morning. But the sun came out, and so, when I cycled across to the Post Office in Larkhall, I decided on the spur of the moment to go up to Charlcombe to see the church.

The lane ascending the combe quickly became rural, and too steep for cycling, so I pushed the bike most of the way, making my final approach along a footpath through the woods. Primroses, snowdrops and cuckoo pint were emerging in the churchyard. In the porch, a sign pointed to a light switch, but the interior was far more atmospheric without it.

the Norman font, and the squint

"Isn't she an Evelyn Waugh character?" asked Andrew...

A woman arriving to do the flowers directed me down the slope to the spring; "it was originally in the wall when the monks used it, but it was moved down a bit".

the first snowdrops

 

 A cobbled slope shelved into the water of the main well, and just below that was a little cistern.

I took the alternative route home, encountering even more steep ups and downs among farms and beech trees, reminding me rather of South Wales, though the buildings were of warm Bath stone rather than grey Pennant sandstone. Then there was a long long coast downhill through an extensive housing estate, and a visit to Morrisons to provision before sailing off into the wilds.

 

Here's another St Mary's Well, in Wales

Ffynnon Fair

They did not divine it, but
they bequeathed it to us:
clear water, brackish at times,
complicated by the white frosts
of the sea, but thawing quickly.

Ignoring my image, I peer down
to the quiet roots of it, where
the coins lie, the tarnished offerings
of the people to the pure spirit
that lives there, that has lived there
always, giving itself up
to the thirsty, withholding
itself from the superstition
of others, who ask for more.

RS Thomas

when the canal freezes over

...it gets very peaceful. Boats aren't moving, and the ducks congregate in swim-holes, keeping them open with their splashings around.

I had to defrost my bike before cycling down into Bath, so I decanted the hot ash from the stove into a bucket, then put it under an old overcoat on the handlebars. And the gears and brakes presently started working again.

I was getting a bit worried, because I was down to my last bag of coal and the last few logs for the stove. But Mal came visiting, and asked if there were any errands that needed running; because 'm temporrily car-less at the moment. "Can we go to the boatyard for some coal?" I asked.

We could.

...and, as there was some space in the car, we brought back some extra bags for the neighbours.