Murder (?) At the Golden Square

Today started with shadows from the sun illuminating our hotel room - a nice departure from yesterday's rain - then the shadows became sinister when Blue stepped into a vast puddle of congealed blood at the bus stop on Golden Square. Then there was human hair. Then a general feeling of uneasiness. Then we missed the bus to Bamburgh Castle (pronouced Bamburra).

That was all by 10:30 am! After an hour back at the hotel to figure out what went wrong on missing our bus, helping Blue get his equilibrium back, and replanning the day, we started anew.

The next bus was sheduled to leave at 2:30 so we had time to hit the "art" museum at the Berwick Barracks (pronounced Bearik Beariks).  Most of the exhibition featured an eclectic mix of art collected by Burrell. In addition to the orginal Degas crayon sketch, the exhbit featured more of the Glasgow Boys, first introduced to us when we visited the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow several years ago.

We stopped in at the Tourist Center to hear a quirky rendition of Berwick Upon Tweed's history, plus enjoyed a cuppa and a scone and a chin wag with a group of volunteers. This helped erase some of the trauma from the morning! Then we caught the bus to Bamburgh Castle!

And what a glorious day! The sky was brilliant blue, the North Sea azure and white, the cricket green, well, green, and the sandstone pink. What a sight and a sight and another sight!

Bamburgh Castle is inhabitated and  HUGE. Built on an extinct volcano core, this was the first castle to fall due to the use of gunpowder ammunition. Since our day was cut short, we did not go INTO the castle, rather, we hiked around it and then out onto the miles and miles long white sand beach that visually identifies this castle. We could see the holy island of Lindisfarne to the north, and the Farne Islands to the south with the nearly full moon overhead.

Back to Berwick Upon Tweed with the morning's blood cleansed from the shoes and the soul, we enjoyed a bruchetta and beer and to bed.

Tomorrow we hope to head inland into the Border country. Cross fingers we don't miss the bus!

Bridges and Bastions at Berwick Upon Tweed

We tallied up the miles from yesterday - 5,183 or so from home to Berwick Upon Tweed in England. Berwick is pronounced Bear Wick, or more precisely bare-ick, with a sort of swallow on the "ick" at the end. It makes sense when you know that Ber mean grain/barley (bere) and wick represents a farm, which is a clue to it's agricltural beginnings.

This town is an old one and was well-established before the 12th century began. From 1290 to 1480 control of Berwick changed hands 13 times, finally winding up in England's possession. Queen Elizabeth 1 strengthened the walls to protect against further invasion or dispossesion, and we walked on those walls today.

The walls around the old city feature five bastions which are designed so that no land or sea approach is left unguarded. They appear something like arrow points that protrude from the walls and include cannon placements on the "neck" of the arrow as well as on the angled edges. These are huge earthworks and the photos cannot do them justice.

This is the Dewar's Lane Granary which leans more than the Tower of Pisa. It is now a youth hostel. You can see the buttress walls placed on the outside to keep it in place. We also saw the other side on our rambles; it, too, leans like this. I guess square doesn't really matter after all!

Thanks to a local gent who volunteered to be our photographer. We are on the wall atop one of the gates through which auto traffic can flow. The Town Hall / Creamery tower is seen behind us.

We started out this morning walking up river to the ruins of Berick Castle. All that remains is one gun tower and some of the famous White Wall that ran from the castle to the river. Most of the structure was torn down to build the Victorian-age train station and train viaduct / bridge. Some views.

Views of the three bridges over the River Tweed - Old Bridge c. 1611; Royal Tweed Bridge c. 1928; Royal Border Bridge (train) c. 1850. I love the reflections on the last photo; you can just see the train bridge on the far right in te background.

Some more views we encountered during our day out on the ancient walls and bastions.

North Sea with the Tweed River entering the ocean.

Garden allotments, a fierce "potted lion" who appears quite surprised, flowers on the wall of a close, the Loo-vre - a tiny B&B created from a former Victorian era public toilet, and sea serpents supporting the benches along the ramparts.

Miles 5,831; 27 hours of time from there to here.

All the Light - 2023

 

I started this project in September 2022 and finished it in February 2023. It was a fascinating project, full of twists and turns, new stitches and an engaging story line. I couldn't put it down! 

This is a Crochet Along from 2020 by Sheepjes called d'Histoire Naturelle. The pattern is based on the book All the Light We Cannot See by Idaho author Anthony Doerr. Much of the setting of the book is in Paris' natural history museum, and each part of the pattern focuses on a section of the museum starting at the center: Jardin des Plantes, Galerie d'Entomologie, Galerie de Botanique, Galerie de Mineralogie et Geologie, Grand Galerie de l'Evolution, and finally Galerie de Paleontologie.

In the photo the Jardin des Plantes starts in the middle of the circle and ends at the pink square garden walls. Full of plants, flowers and hedges, this section is full of life and blooms.

Next is the entomology department. Featuring bees and butterflies and plants to sustain them, this section was challenging to crochet. You can see the bees and butterflies in the next photo.

The final section shown is the Galerie de Botanique, a round greenhouse full of plants and leaves.

The four corners represent the Minerology and Geology department. Can you just imagine the dark gallery with agates, quartz, lapis lazuli, rhodochrosite, jade and geodes sparkling under the lights directed at them from above? The gems glow in their dark backgrounds, bordered by white diamonds.

The Galerie de l'Evolution features a parade of animals representing the march of evolution. In the museum this can be viewed from the arcades, galleries and walkways above the display. At the head of the march, or perhaps at the end of it, is the elephant, see here above the diamonds. Can you make out the balcony above the elephants as well, with its marble balustrades?

The last Gallery in the afghan features seashells, pearls, bones and skeletons.

This project was compelling. Unique to me, the idea of creating a crochet project based on a book's description of a place spurred me on to designing my own pattern for a Tree of Life mandala. I am sketching and planning; yarn is purchased; I am Googling how to write and record the pattern as it develops. 

Perhaps this endeavor, this project, revealed some of the light in me I cannot see, or have not seen, or have put under a basket for far too long.

The Borders 2023

Our annual pilgrimage to the UK is just 10 days away. The trip this year is very different from the past few - we are not visiting any islands, except for a plane change in Dublin, Ireland.

This trip focuses on The Borders - that area between Scotland and England which was fought over for five centuries as governments - monarchs, sheriffs, wardens - attempted to draw a line, drive a wedge, between and among clans and families, economies, religious choices. The Border remained fluid and wild and a place of reivers, mobsters, unruly denizens and unruled government officials. It was illegal to marry across The Border - wherever it lay in that decade, that century - to engage in commerce, to converse.

We will be visiting medieval cities, abbey ruins, castles, churches; weaving, textile and corn mills; rivers, viaducts, bridges, and hiking the Eildon Hills. Most of our trip is in Scotland; we will cross the current border into England and visit Bamburgh Castle, Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Flodden Field. Like last year, the rented car will carry us around the region, our trusty steed on this, another adventure. 

Our trip concludes with a couple of days in Edinburgh, wandering the Royal Mile, searching for the original walls of the original city, visiting history and art museums.

Transformation & Hope - Parts 7, 8 & 9

 

For some unexplained reason once I started on the last 23 rounds that made up Parts 7, 8 and 9, I did not stop until I reached the end. It was not a flurry of activity, drop everything and get 'er done effort, rather a steady, methodical work that filled evenings watching baseball, restful afternoons after mornings of outside labor, and one day listening to the rain fall during a September vacation.

The work was easier - straight rows down four sides of the square which, once started on a single stitch pattern repeated itself from corner to corner. No repeats of four or eight or 16 as in the center circle and star work. No need to check check check the pattern. Quick and fluid the yarn slipped from the skein into the finished product.

I wonder now, with the quiet and calm completion of the blanket how I have been transformed over this last year, or if my easy hope has returned from where it has taken itself to hide.

Decidedly there is movement "across, beyond, through and on the other side of" many things: family celebrations; beginning my sixth decade; personal self-reflection and examination; creative endeavors outside this project; planting and reaping, editing and amending, tending our house, our place. Living the verb form of trans, where creation, building and devising reside, is natural to me: I do create, make, construct and devise all day long. This is my center, the me that ignites joy and maps my life.

The noun of form, however, is harder to examine. I have changed my shape - lost 25 pounds, let my hair grow, tried new pieces in my wardrobe. Our family is a different shape now with new people joining it. The old house is getting new windows; our field will bloom with 1,500 daffodils in the spring; more fences are coming down.

Has my character changed this last year? Undoubtedly. I am Sixty and I am uncertain how to be this new character of crone, hag, witch - not the insulting words, rather the complimentary nuances of the old meanings and origins: Crone - an abusive word meaning carrion, a dead thing, newly reclaimed as a symbol of mature female wisdom; Hag - a word applied only to women the origin of which is close to diviner or soothsayer; Witch - convoluted and confused throughout time and across languages, its origin containing hints of healer and holy, tinged with knowledge of herbs and healing. I also sense a new fragility in my psyche and body, stamina and strength.

There also has welled up, or let loose, anger and cynicism in me, a dark hope and expectation, as delusion runs rampant in the US and the world. The ongoing onslaught of political and military lies from two men on opposite sides of the world, intent on tearing us apart, prodding wounds and gloating over the bleeding for self-gain and perceived glory - authoritarianism raises its head above horizon close to home and is celebrated welcomed. 

These things these things these things sit like an ache on me.

The hope-that-hides resurfaces occasionally as I strive to live more from my core, my being, my center. I do not always know what this is, this center; however, I am finding it, feeling my way inward downward upward outward stretching to a lighter place.

And what is hope, really? An expectation of a good or better outcome? optimism? 

This year of meditation while transforming the light of the sun into a blanket warm compels me to deny these easy definitions. It is deeper, personal, rooted in my past, tied up in my present, a brief flame illuminating my future, lighting a way forward. Hope is not easy any longer, and this is a deep deep transformation. Digging down and out and up to grasp hope, that spark of light, requires strength and will, contemplation and fearlessness. 

Hope is work, and it is not easy.

Finished stats on the blanket:

Size: 60" x 60"
Weight: 3.25 lbs
Stitch count: 53,198
Start: November 2021
End: October 2022

Transformation & Hope - Part 6

Almost a lifetime has passed since I last mused on this year's Transformation & Hope project. In the intervening time we managed a long-delayed vacation to Orkney and a wedding. Intertwined with these events was months of rain and more rain. Talk about some transforming activities since March!

Undoubtedly the project is now a square. Each of the corners was crocheted independently of the other during this stage; the next stage sees me working once again around the perimeter without a break at the corners.

I worked each of the 13 rows at one time, repeating the stitches of the row at each of the four corners. This was somewhat jarring after the 77 rows of wending my way around the center still point, north star, epicenter. To take out my crochet needle, find the corner, start and end anew was fiddly and different, less contemplative and more structured, aligned, marching. I suppose this is how transformation works as well, moving from a rough field to pasture and wheat requires precision and work, planning and scheming, measuring and lifting the plow.

The rain has also been transforming - green wheat fields are yellowed from the water, planes flying overhead to spray fungicide to save crops, floods down Main Streets in towns and sandbags a common site. Our lawn is still green - that never happens in July! I am just getting the grass pulled out of the perennial borders as it has gone wild in the rain. No lilac this year either; the rain did them in.

It was the 9th wettest May on record here in the last 128 years. That's a lot of rain.

The flip side of transformation and this project is, of course, hope. I HOPE that the next stage of the mandala, when I work it in a full, non-stopping square, begins to find a contemplative rhythm once again, building itself around the still point.

I HOPE the crops do well with the rain and provide a stellar yield for our farmers and their families.

I HOPE the lilacs didn't drown, and I look forward in hope to next May for the annual glorious blooms and fragrance, a season indelibly printed on my lifetime. And Lilac Beer.

I also HOPE I can whack back the out of control grasses and weeds in the garden borders before it gets too hot and dry! And I HOPE some of the vegetables bear fruit.

The photo on the right doesn't look so square, and the colors are really washed out - blame the camera person who couldn't hold her phone at a flat angle and the LED lights that cast a strange color glow over the room.

Wedding Quilt 2022

 

It has been a long time since I've posted a finished quilt, and here is one at last! This is the 2022 Wedding Quilt for a son and lovely wife. The Celtic Knot weaves his "hot" colors of yellow and orange with her "cool" colors of green and blue. This is going to be a good match as the opposites attract, interlock and make the knot secure.

The wave pattern background was completed by Eaglecrest Designs. Thank you, Gerry. It was exactly what the quilt needed to tie it all together.