Comedians and others have always enjoyed creating their own versions of very well known poems and songs. Do you like to borrow from poets or do you prefer to write your own poetry?
We are celebrating the return of the Bayeux Tapestry with Norman Day. If you recall from a previous blog a French guardian of the tapestry was taken completely by surprise and horrified when he heard President Macron casually come out with the news that the tapestry was going to be sent to England – back to England as it was made here. A grand gesture of friendship.
A recent visit to France by the King and Queen.
There were great fears the whole thing would fall to pieces, hence the monumental planning that went into the mission. A new home was created for it at the British Museum. The French requested it be displayed flat lest the characters we have come to know so well succumb to gravity and fall off the pictures. Apparently it had been hanging up and went round a corner, not ideal.
It arrived safely and now is finally ready to be displayed to the public. King Charles, President Macron and our latest Prime Minister had a private viewing last night. It tells not just the story of the Battle of Hastings, but the stories leading up to the invasion.
Lincoln Castle, hundreds of local homes flattened to create wonderful views and a great castle and a display of Norman power.
Norman Day on BBC Radio is featuring lots of programmes perhaps with the theme ‘What Did The Normans Ever Do For Us?’ A lot, but that’s for another blog. Salient points, they were not French, they were Vikings. They inherited plenty of culture from the Anglo Saxon including… here we come to the exciting bit, this great work was created by Women! What can be more civilised and peaceful than a sewing circle and this must have been a Sewing Circle writ large. As men continued fighting over the past millennium this remarkable piece of history survived.
Lincoln Cathedral shares the historic quarter of Lincoln with the nearby castle. Castles and Cathedrals are a vivid reminder of the Normans changing our landscape.
And what has been going on in the rest of the world? A lot, but let us zoom out and leave our troubled planet for a moment. I like to liven up housework and cooking listening to radio programmes with intelligent presenters talking to very intelligent guests about their lives and important things other than politics. I always forget names, probably just as well in case I misquote, but the gist of one conversation was this… The guest had been a cosmologist, but one day she realised that the universe was actually very boring, just piles of rocks floating around, so she decided to study our planet instead, which is far more interesting. This led me to wonder if the creation of the whole multiverse had gone drastically wrong, with Earth accidentally evolving against the odds?
Have you ever seen the Bayeux Tapestry or even better, been part of a sewing circle that created a wall hanging?
Would you rather study the whole universe or potter in your garden?
A nacation is when your neighbour, friend or relative goes off on an exotic holiday leaving you to put the bins out, feed the cat, take in parcels, water the garden and have the dog to stay. If you are lucky they might bring you back a holiday present, such as a packet of the local biscuits which taste even worse than the unknown makes from Better Bargains.
For the next three weeks I am watering next door’s garden while the family are on the other side of the Atlantic. A simple task with their designer minimalist garden, very different from mine, which I’m happy to do as Mr. Immaculate Gardener is always fixing things for me, painting my fences etc. But there was a security routine to go through since various incidents have been picked up by their multiple far reaching CCTVs . To save tramping through the house and switching the burglar alarm on and off, I just had to remember the number for the new combination lock on the side gates… and be shown burglar alarm procedure in the very unlikely event the alarm goes off accidentally.
I am used to visitors checking their phones and watching what is going on in their driveway and back garden. The days are gone when you did not know if your home was still in one piece till you came home again. My old school friend who lived in the same quiet road as me recalls her father notifying their local police station if they were going on holiday. Now you can phone your neighbour and ask them to take in the big parcel that is sitting in the rain on your doorstep.
Even as I was writing this blog an urgent WhatsApp message came from across the Atlantic. Was my virgin WI Fi working, because their CCTVs were not. Yes it was. I now had a new task so difficult he suggested I wait till after 4pm British Summer Time so they would be awake if there were any problems. I had to unlock the front door with 30 seconds to disarm the burglar alarm with the code. ‘I’m in’ I texted back. Now for the high tech part. Go to the utility room and fetch the broom. The Wi-Fi switch is behind the television set and inaccessible so lean over and switch it off with the end of the broom handle, then switch it on again, about as easy as switching switches with a bunch of bananas. But I did it and it just remained to switch the burglar alarm on again and get out of the house in 30 seconds and wait to hear if the CCTV came on again – it did.
We have had various traumatic nacation experiences in the past, like the time the hamster escaped from his rota stack cage while the patio doors were open. We had over two miserable weeks to wait till they got back from France to give them the news. I discovered years later that their son accused my son of being a hamster murderer!
Five houses ago next door had a white rabbit and what a happy bunny he was.- in summer when he romped freely in the back garden. Alas in winter he was confined to his small hutch and I was volunteered to feed him one Xmas holiday. Access involved trekking to the bottom of our garden, into the back lane and down their garden to the patio. He soon ran out of straw and his dry food looked boring so I brought him carrots and rabbit treats from the pet shop. In the middle of this spell of biting winds a fox or cat got to their council rubbish bag before the dustmen did. Their front garden was strewn with nappies and all sorts of revolting rubbish ( for people interested in the world of council rubbish collections we did not have wheelie bins there or food waste bins ) and I had to do a clean up operation. We didn’t even notice their return home as they never came and thanked us and never knew the stressful Xmas I had had!
More recently new neighbours were flying off to Greece in the school summer holidays. A dog sitter they had never met was coming down from Birmingham. As they were leaving in the early hours I was asked if I could just let the dogs out at 7am and give them their breakfast as the dog sitter was not expected till later in the morning. The dogs would be shut safely in the kitchen.
Sounded simple enough, but when I went round all the doors inside were open, the dogs were cowering on the sofa and in the large kitchen one or both of the dogs had had a serious stomach upset! I went home to get rubber gloves and serious cleaning stuff leaving the back door open. On my return the dogs refused to go in the garden… I enticed them out of the front room with their breakfasts. One dog went in the garden and the other dog ate two breakfasts… When I finally got them back indoors I had forgotten to shut the kitchen door so they raced upstairs.
Back home I relaxed with my breakfast, thinking all would be in the hands of the dog sitter soon, but I got a WhatsApp from Greece. The dog sitter had called to say she would be late, she and her little boy were stuck in holiday traffic. Could I let the dogs out again later. When I returned the dogs were hiding in the bedroom and refused to come out…. in the kitchen there was more cleaning up to do.
When I got a message to ask if the dog sitter had arrived yet I relayed the events and she soon messaged back to say her friends who had been enjoying a pub lunch by the river were now marching up the hill to come and take the dogs for a walk. When they arrived at my door so I could give them the key they thought I could come with them to the house as they had never met the dogs. The dogs still refused to come downstairs so they decided to sit downstairs and wait till the dogs calmed down. I went home and after a while they were back at my house having given up.
As we stood chatting out the front with a couple of other neighbours joining in, the dog sitter pulled up, surprised to see a welcome party. She must have been a dog whisperer as five minutes later she emerged with a happy boy and two happy dogs going off to the park.
I haven’t done any doggy tasks again, but have been messaged from Devon to check if one of the teenage daughters had left her hair straighteners on in the bedroom and to excuse the mess. Yes she had, when I eventually found them, but to be fair to the hair straighteners they were cold, so they must have had the initiative to turn themselves off.
But sometimes smart phones don’t capture the moment – What I saw as I arrived at the cliff top – a snowy white yacht gleaming on a sparkling sea… I had to zoom in to my picture to see if I had imagined a boat…
We have our own Mount Rushmore – who would you like to see carved into our cliffs?
Be glad you are not a cactus…
Two days of glory and attention…
Then it’s all over for another year or two.
When you fall down a blog hole...
In the unlikely event you notice some absences on my part in July it will be due to summer projects or some projects. Forty one years ago people said ‘Pregnant?! What do you want another baby for, you have a boy and a girl?’ The answer was ‘So when he grows up he can do every home improvement imaginable, sort out all my technical problems, install a new computer and cook dinners.’ When he brought home his now wife and said she was a lighting technician and pyrotechnic expert, we knew life was going to be fun and he would have someone to help him with every project imaginable.
As we pass the the halfway mark of the year have you any summer or winter projects planned?
Today we are not getting on a boat, unless someone welcomes you on board their super yacht or fishing boat.
The old lifeboat station, now a museum.
But we are bird spotting today, not boat spotting.
Cool off with a paddle…
…then keep walking.
Have you spotted any birds yet?
What historic landmark building have you arrived at?
‘A giant wildlife mural has brought new colour and meaning to a Poole Harbour landmark, turning a toilet block into a tribute to global conservation. Unveiled on May 23 at Baiter Park in Poole, the artwork celebrates the area’s ecological importance as a wintering ground for migratory birds.‘
‘The mural is a collaboration between illustration students from Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) and the Bird and Recreation Initiative (BARI).
Sport is an obvious subject for discussion or avoidance at the moment. Football World Cup, cricket and Wimbledon. You don’t have to be interested in sport of any kind to enjoy the drama, or at least get some entertainment out of finding the news and your viewing schedule totally disrupted. The teeming thousands who venture abroad to support their country’s football team may not have been able to get tickets for the match, but more fun is to be found on the streets of the host city. Taking in the ambience and the experience, saying hello to Mum or your wife if you get to be interviewed by a television reporter. It all looks quite fun from the comfort of my sofa, but I would not like to be part of that seething mass of humanity, might not be able to find a nice quiet coffee shop.
Cricket looks very serene and I like the idea of stopping for tea, no need for hydration breaks. Wimbledon involves queueing early in the morning for lots of fans, part of the tradition.
Meanwhile the players themselves provide drama, suddenly dropping out of Wimbledon with stress fractures or maybe just stress, missing your country’s match against the favourites because you have a stomach upset. I can sympathise, having been struck with watering can shoulder, putting Zumba Gold or a swim in the sea in jeopardy.
While some are out, others are making historic comebacks. It’s not just players who are in and out. Football managers seem to resign every week whether their team is winning or losing, thus heralding much discussion among the commentators in the TV studio, though not as much talk as the English cricket captain caused by resigning in the middle of batting.
Politics rears its ugly head in sport, though sport is supposed to bring people together and forget this country doesn’t let women play sport, that country is executing people back home and your hosts are going to arrest and deport you at any moment.
But it’s all good fun and if you don’t want to venture far from home, but are fed up with sitting at home, get yourself down to the nearest club or pub with a big screen and meet up with like minded people. Here you will be filmed for Breakfast Television giving your predictions, then filmed by the Evening News yelling and cheering and hugging everyone.
Our team won last night – at the last moment… I only saw the first kick and the end as I was watering the garden… but apparently I saw the best bits.
Have you enjoyedany big sporting moments lately or are you going into hibernation or aestivation for the next couple of months?
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 