We live in what could be termed a low technology impact area.
Yes our hamlet of 7 houses has a proud 1970's orange sodium streetlamp clinging to a wooden pole shared with telecommunications and a woodpecker that seems to like treated wood ! The lackadasical appearance is added to by the 10 degree list. But retreat to the rear garden and there is very little in the way of light pollution (a smudge on the horizon that is Bourne 6 miles away).
This means that to the ill trained eye of the ex townie the sky takes on a horrifyingly paranoid splendor on cloudless nights. Jupiter rises to the east and our little telescope enables two moons to just be discerned (those 2 dots of Europa and Io were enough to stir excitement out of all proportion to the achievement). Turn to the SSW in the early evening and Venus tries to burn out the retina. Look above, the milky way can just be seen with the naked eye. Using the scope however, big mistake, infinity beckons. No wonder Patrick Moore always seemed a little deranged, it could unhinge the best of us.
On a calm mid evening in December; between gales, as the dew point lowers gently and the frost begins to crisp the first blades of grass, this stargazing is accompanied by the foxes for miles around coughing their location (like escaped Beagles from a scientific station) owls performing triangulation with each other, the pewit versus twoo as different species spell it out for each other.
Yesterday evening however had the best sound at last light, never before heard outside of BBC Sound Effect record #6 side B track 15 - cry of eagle on moor. I'm truly home.
Friday, 27 December 2013
Monday, 16 December 2013
It's Dibley
I cannot be alone in this, since the BBC Vicar of Dibley was based on a pastiche of well founded character types that must crop up everywhere, but our village is a damn good fit.
We have those that grew up in the fields and woods, now they are 80 year old children, not moved too far from scuffed knees and scrumping (indeed I think some returning in that circle of life). Those that own local farms, others moved away and came back when they could, some crept from local town to village or those like ourselves, dropped in from urban climbs to the rural life because we both wanted to and were lucky enough to have the means to perform it.
It set my wife and I to thinking, we're exploring local history by our walks, back to the Romans in places, a wonderful example being the 'Black Field' in another hamlet called Stainfield (Stone Field), it marks the site of a small Roman town on King Street a South Lincolnshire Roman route. In years gone by the Georgian market days in Bourne were supplemented by girls selling Roman coins and pot shards dug up in this field to provide income additional to produce. The implication is small hoards of coins, often associated with Temples and Shrines to local British and Roman gods.
It would have been a cosmopolitan place, site of Iron Age activity, gentrified by outsiders, made official by the Romans, retired soldiers from the 9th Legion in Lincoln perhaps. They would have had the same character types as today.
I like to think of Davidius Maximus from Londinium and spouse perhaps making a happy home here in 213AD. He would have been a scribe and administrator, happy with his lot and perhaps leaving something for us to find one day.
Remind me to bury some graffito from 2013.
We have those that grew up in the fields and woods, now they are 80 year old children, not moved too far from scuffed knees and scrumping (indeed I think some returning in that circle of life). Those that own local farms, others moved away and came back when they could, some crept from local town to village or those like ourselves, dropped in from urban climbs to the rural life because we both wanted to and were lucky enough to have the means to perform it.
It set my wife and I to thinking, we're exploring local history by our walks, back to the Romans in places, a wonderful example being the 'Black Field' in another hamlet called Stainfield (Stone Field), it marks the site of a small Roman town on King Street a South Lincolnshire Roman route. In years gone by the Georgian market days in Bourne were supplemented by girls selling Roman coins and pot shards dug up in this field to provide income additional to produce. The implication is small hoards of coins, often associated with Temples and Shrines to local British and Roman gods.
It would have been a cosmopolitan place, site of Iron Age activity, gentrified by outsiders, made official by the Romans, retired soldiers from the 9th Legion in Lincoln perhaps. They would have had the same character types as today.
I like to think of Davidius Maximus from Londinium and spouse perhaps making a happy home here in 213AD. He would have been a scribe and administrator, happy with his lot and perhaps leaving something for us to find one day.
Remind me to bury some graffito from 2013.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Never try to return to the past.....
but sometimes it can do some good !
It is 4 months since we left the big smoke, it feels like years. The seasons move slower in this rural backwater, mainly because they are wholly observable. We have been learning so much, the country is a land of life and death in the raw, even down to finding dead flies pinned to the middle of a window pane as if there has been some sort of fly based execution by the maggot mafia.
Predictably it has become colder, a few interesting weather extremes have happened, the most recent has hit the coast to the east of us very hard, our initial research for somewhere to live took us above the flood plain, below the crest of a hill nestled lovingly in the arms of woodlands. But by gum, when the winter wind vectors to northwesterly we get it full in the face and boy we know it. The gales and floods were preceded by the most shockingly wonderful red morning sky, it lasted under a minute but looked like the end of the world was going to happen.
This past weekend I returned to London, air traffic control was suffering a computer error resulting in fewer overhead distractions. The streets were crowded, the tube which would once be relaxed was heaving and confused, I eventually emerged under the Shard at London Bridge Station in what my text autocorrect called Toilet Street (Tooley Street).
The trip up town was to meet two old friends from school days, we've not all been together for about 13/14 years, families, children and such like providing valid diversions. The great thing was the camaraderie remains over the years, we grow up but clearly not apart. One thing we all have in common, London is a nice place to dip into, but we could't eat a whole one.
Returning to the shires roe deer in the headlights, trees everywhere and eventually no traffic, ahhhh bliss.
It is 4 months since we left the big smoke, it feels like years. The seasons move slower in this rural backwater, mainly because they are wholly observable. We have been learning so much, the country is a land of life and death in the raw, even down to finding dead flies pinned to the middle of a window pane as if there has been some sort of fly based execution by the maggot mafia.
Predictably it has become colder, a few interesting weather extremes have happened, the most recent has hit the coast to the east of us very hard, our initial research for somewhere to live took us above the flood plain, below the crest of a hill nestled lovingly in the arms of woodlands. But by gum, when the winter wind vectors to northwesterly we get it full in the face and boy we know it. The gales and floods were preceded by the most shockingly wonderful red morning sky, it lasted under a minute but looked like the end of the world was going to happen.
This past weekend I returned to London, air traffic control was suffering a computer error resulting in fewer overhead distractions. The streets were crowded, the tube which would once be relaxed was heaving and confused, I eventually emerged under the Shard at London Bridge Station in what my text autocorrect called Toilet Street (Tooley Street).
The trip up town was to meet two old friends from school days, we've not all been together for about 13/14 years, families, children and such like providing valid diversions. The great thing was the camaraderie remains over the years, we grow up but clearly not apart. One thing we all have in common, London is a nice place to dip into, but we could't eat a whole one.
Returning to the shires roe deer in the headlights, trees everywhere and eventually no traffic, ahhhh bliss.
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