Mermaids - A Fleams Tale

The people of Fleams, though they live in the most land-locked place in Britain, have heard tell of sea anemones.  In fact, they know where sea anemones came from.



 A sea anemone

This is how they know tell of them... One time on her travels with The Button Gypsies, Ella Campane had arrived at the North East coast.

Miss Ella Campane

She was always on the look-out for new healing powers, which she used in her treatment of the insane at The Canholes Asylum.  Asking around, she found the people of the area very welcoming, and keen on a natter.  They counted it lucky to find a visiting stranger who wanted to hear their stories.

They told her the story of the sea anemone.  It goes like this:

One day, a young healer was wandering by the shore, puzzling out a cure.  The horses belonging to a certain local farm were hag-ridden and it was feared they might die.  The healer sought a way to keep them safe.  She walked and sought an answer in her land.  Right by the strand was a tumbledown cottage, where no-one had lived for years.  Seaweed and mussels grew on the tumbled stones outside, and sheep sheltered inside, where bracken grew.  And, on the rocks outside, she saw an old man sitting.  When the healer let on, he spoke at once, with the tongue of a wiseman.

"A mermaid has done this," he intoned.  "Bleed the next horse that falls ill, and catch the blood on a handful of straw.  When it dries, set fire to the straw, and the ill-wisher will appear in the smoke.  Catch her and slit her throat."  That was all he said, and the healer took note.  She returned to the farm prepared.  In the morning, when another horse was sweating and shivering, she knew what to do.  The young healer carried out the old man's instructions. 

In the smoke, a mermaid appeared.  The healer rushed at her, with her blade drawn.  She managed to slash the mermaid's pearl-white throat, but the mermaid slithered to the shore with unnatural speed.  Her blood fell onto the rocks and into the rock-pools as she passed.  Before you could say "Jack Robinson!" she was in the sea and gone.  The trail of blood-drops she had left became sea anemones, and you can still see them if you go down to the shore when the tide is out.

Ella looked, and she saw the sea anemones, like clots of blood in the crevices between rocks, so she knew the tale was true.  She brought the telling of it back to Fleams.  And what of her search for healing powers?  Did she ever use the wiseman's spell?  Who knows, she may have.

The Sea, The Sea

A Good Photo by Aimo

Still pining for the sea...

Art, Assemblages and Alasdair

We arrived back from holiday energised and keen, and started decorating the dining room.  While I have been painting, I've been thinking about Scotland.  Before we went away, I checked the website of The Ceilidh Place to see who was playing, and ta-da! my favourite! Alasdair Roberts.  We booked to stay at The Ceilidh Place bunkhouse, and booked tickets!  I though it probably wouldn't be of interest to Aimo and Master Aimson, but me and Miss Aimson were very excited about it.  Miss Aimson decided it was the occasion to wear the ram's-horns she made for Comic Con, but didn't wear in the end.

So the Saturday arrived.  We got to Ullapool at 11 o'clock (in the morning), and had time to kill until the gig started at 8.30 o'clock (in the evening).  Master Aimson found some Wi-Fi, Miss Aimson decided to join him, and me and Aimo went for a drive to Achiltibuie.  It was absolutely gorgeous, and we went to look for a bit of art.  Studio 106, next to the Summer Isles hotel, which we had been to before.  It turned out the artists have moved to a new gallery with more space, housed in the Community Hall.  Gorgeous, but still some time to kill before the gig.

We went to the Bunkhouse to check into our room, and who did we bump into (each of us, individually, in turn), but Alasdair Roberts!  I was completely shocked he was in the cheap accommodation with the likes of us; not in the nice accommodation in The Ceilidh Place proper.  Obviously, like Blind Rafferty, he is "..back against the wall, playing music to empty pockets." 

So we went into the gig, Aimo and Master Aimson were taking bets on how many people would turn up to listen to something that Kate likes.  In fact Aimo counted the number of people in the room, loudly, in front of Alasdair Roberts, which I thought was rubbing it in a bit.  Miss Aimson caused quite a stir with her ram's-horns, much to Master Aimson's embarrassment.  So in between him seething with embarrassment, and Aimo counting people in the room, it didn't look very promising that Alasdair Roberts was going to win them over.  He managed to with his amazing unaccompanied singing of The Cruel Mother ballad.  He did that amazing thing I have read about, but not witnessed, where he became the spirit of the song, or however it is technically referred to.  Everybody was won over totally, even the very loud Spanish lady.  Over the course of the evening, she had caused rather a kerfuffle with her loud behaviour, which without slandering her, appeared to have something to do with the glass of wine in her hand.  She annoyed various people in the room, but I can exclusively reveal that she also left the door open in the toilet and didn't flush, or what really horrified Master Aimson, wash her hands.  (It was a continental-style unisex toilets, so we were all in there together.)

I am getting a bit worried about how much I discuss toilet matters in this blog.  Is it a reflection of how much time I think about not tinkling when I walk, or is it just that generally the toilet has been a great source of humour for the British?  I like to think it's just me working in this comic tradition, rather than me becoming obsessed with my own tinkling.

Anyway, sometimes I think about art.  I am totally in love with my holiday purchase this year, a miniature painting by Sarah Watters.  I have been thinking about how I would frame it, or show it.  Today I had a look in the shop "Everything's Rosy" in Buxton and bought a mirror with shelf in reclaimed wood.  The assistant told me it was made by an 80-year-old man who makes stuff for them.

This is the picture I'm in love with:

A Good Painting

This is the assemblage "Aimsons in Scotland 2013":

Instead of a Frame

Who needs TV when you can look at Art?

(no lichen was harmed in the making of this blog)

Sunsets and Waves

A Sunset

Here is the sunset over Loch Ewe. 

I met my colleague Bernadette in town today, and we stood there, in a very landlocked place, pining for the sea.  I need the waves lapping over my toes!  I still haven't re-acclimatised to being here and not on holiday.

Looking at this picture, I can hear the waves on the pebbles.  I can also feel the midges, so I'm not so nostalgic.

Toadstool Boobies

A friend asked me what the Aimsons like to do on holiday.  Well, Aimo very kindly drives us about and we look at stuff.  When we see something we want to look at more closely we stop.  Last Thursday it was a glorious sunny day, and we were driving up to see the mountains.  Passing a very interesting-looking woods we stopped to have a poke about.
Also I wanted to spend a penny, and it is free in the woods.  I selected a spot suitably hidden from the road, in case a car would go by, and was about to wee, when I noticed a swift scuttling in the grass.  It was a lizard.  It had been minding it's own business, sitting in the sun, when it was alarmed by the sudden appearance of a large white moon descending towards it.  Naturally it ran for its life.
When I returned to the car, I told Aimo there were lizards about, and he set off in search of them.  He photographed one by a wall:

A Common Lizard

Then he recorded the map reference to give to the national lizard survey.  Hopefully he won't mention to them that I nearly weed on a lizard, not really the done thing, whether they are common lizards or not.
While Aimo was off lizard-hunting, I was emulating Nica Bentley, the famed gossip-wife of Fleams, and having a good nose around to see what I could see.  I saw some damselflies catching and eating flies.  And then I spotted these:

Some Toadstool Boobies

 

You've heard of goblin balls, well these are toadstool boobies!

So that's a fairly typical day in an Aimson family holiday: weeing (nearly) on lizards and spotting toadstool boobies.

 

p.s. when we got home, I had a quick look around the garden at Aimo's House and we had some new hedgehog poo on the lawn.

Goth on a Beach

Here some of Aimo's photos from Scotland. 

Master Aimson and Beatrix Pigger:

Zac

A goth on the beach:

Blythe

and what she was doing:

Sand Sculpture

 

 

Isle of Ewe:

 

Cockles of My Heart

Spending a Penny

Talking of toilets, just a warning about the toilets in the very coach-tourist parts of the Highlands.  They cost money!  On the way to Scotland, we stopped at Pitlochry for the toilets - 30p each!

On the way home we stopped at Kingussie - 20p each.

You do get very clean toilets for your money, and at least they don't ask you if you've had a tattoo in prison, but you pay for the privilege.  I think it's worth it on the whole.

On the way to Scotland it was raining, and it was for the first day we were there.  As a consequence there were more waterfalls than you could shake a stick at.  Although if you did see a cat-shit crazy woman shaking a stick at a waterfall, it was probably me doing my best to.

Ecclefechan Bridges

Well, we're back from our trip to the Northlands, and talking about our trip to Scotland, I am in danger of sounding like that stupid dog on the internet... Scotland ...
mountains!  my favourite thing!  sea lochs!  my favourite thing!  art!  my favourite thing!  books!  my favourite thing!  lochans completely covered in water lilies!  my favourite thing!  little islands in the middle of lochs!  my favourite thing!  seeing a man in the pub with two cats on leads!  my favourite thing!  sharing single track roads with courtesy (I'll stop for you; no, really, I'll stop for you; no, honestly, I've already stopped for you; no really, I don't mind)!  my favourite thing!  seeing a pig in a field by the side of the road, stopping, naming it Beatrix Pigger and feeding it plums!  my favourite thing!  sitting in the Parlour Bar at The Ceilidh Place!  my favourite thing!  seeing Alasdair Roberts play in Scotland, at The Ceilidh Place!  my favourite thing!  Eccelfechan Tarts!  actually not my favourite thing to eat, just my favourite name!  really scary bridges!  not my favourite thing!  really scary public conveniences with posters "Have you got Hepatitis B?  You might have Hep B if you have had a tattoo in prison"!  not my favourite thing!  In fact the last two made me cry.  On my wedding anniversary, and my birthday, respectively.

Here is the bridge that made me cry:

A Postcard

Here are the tarts from my favourite place name in the UK:

A Tart Box

p.s. my second favourite place name in the UK is Plenmeller.

Hedgehog Laundresses

At the moment I am mostly interested in the  English tradition of nonsense tales, verse, song and illustration.  I want to find out more about it.  I have found a book which looks good on Amazon (it's on my wish list, hint, hint)  I have never read Lewis Carroll, but I love modern nonsense artists like Ivor Cutler, and I would include David Shrigley and The Interesting Thoughts of Edward Monckton.
Last year at the Treacle Market I found Beatrix Potter's long book, The Fairy Caravan.  I had read it from the library when I was a kid, and had been looking for it again.  I had seen a rare edition in Scrivener's bookshop, but wanted a copy to read, so didn't want to spend that kind of money, then finally saw it at the Treacle Market, where everything you want turns up in the end.
Reading the first sentence...In the Land of Green Ginger there is a town called Marmalade, which is inhabited exclusively by guinea-pigs... I had a revelation.  Beatrix Potter belongs in the great English tradition of nonsense writers!  We are so used to the idea of Beatrix Potter-ness; hedgehog laundresses, cat shopkeepers, etc we don't see them for what they are; we just see them as Beatrix Potter pictures.  When in fact when she wrote them, they were nonsense!

A Very Good Book

If you get a chance, read it.  Anyway, I've got to go, it's haircut day at Aimo's House again.

Hedgehog Poo

I am pleased to say we had a sighting of the hedgehog last night.  Last year we had a hedgehog living under the shed, which we used to see regularly.  We knew that she lived under the shed because we could see a beaten path emerging from under it, then onto the lawn, through the flowerbed with the pear tree, then onwards into the garden.
This Spring, we knew that the hedgehogs had come out of hibernation where we saw an adult and a teenager.  And their poos, which they thoughtfully left on the path so they were very obvious.  One was outside the front door.  Have you ever seen hedgehog poo?  It is very black, maybe because they eat slugs? 
Then there was very cold weather, and we weren't sure what had happened to them; whether they had left (because they had been out the front) or whether they had gone back into hibernation.  We were wondering about them for a while.  But now we know they're out and about and still living under the shed., so we're very pleased about that.  Oh, and Miss Aimson's A Level results, of course.

One Very Strong Scene of Precious Bane

Me and Miss Aimson were watching Wuthering Heights on television at lunchtime.  It was the 1939 version and when it started it didn't seem as bad as I remembered.  The start with Mr Lockwood's story and Cathy at the window was really quite good, much better than I thought.  In the window scene you can hear the sound of Kate Bush: it's me Cathy, let me in at your window... Then when it starts on the story of Cathy and Heathcliff, it's a bit soppy.
We really enjoyed the 2011 version:

A DVD

I didn't watch it for quite a while, because I didn't fancy the way she had chosen a black Heathcliff, I thought it was just "political correctness gone mad".  Eventually I bought the DVD and watched it, and the casting makes perfect sense, to try to explain Heathcliff's isolation from society in a way present day audiences can feel.
I was a bit surprised with the rating: 15 - Contains strong language, once very strong, racist terms and animal killings. I never worked out which was the one use of very strong language; and I wondered why it was so bad when the one scene of necrophilia didn't get a mention.  How come s******* a corpse doesn't get a rating?  Am I really just a prude?
The same way I can see why Heathcliff as an African works to explain his character, I can understand that the necrophilia works to explain the feeling in the book where Heathcliff explains that he wants the sides knocking out of his and Cathy's coffins so that their bodies can decompose into one slime together, which might be quite hard to express to a modern-day audience, which isn't as familiar as Victorians with talk of graves.
The 2011 film is really good, but I feel there's still room for more art based on Wuthering Heights.  I'd like to make some myself, actually.  Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights aren't as gothy as you think, they're much more down to earth than that.  It's Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre that are  as gothy as can be, and Jane Eyre is always filmed soppy, instead of gothic.  Talking of down to earth, Miss Aimson has just read Gone to Earth by Mary Webb, and has just started on Precious Bane.  They are favourite books of mine.  Gone to Earth is a great black and white film, as well.

Mermaids, Rainbows and Skeleton Leaves

Mermaids keep turning up everywhere at the moment.  I couldn't believe that Byron's family crest was a mermaid, mermaids already having their place in Fleams.  Then the Jacqueline Simpson pub name book (see last post) had The Mermaid Inn and its story.  It stands lonely on the ridge, on the opposite side of the valley to Fleams.  Its tale of a mermaid's pool is a different one from Fleams's own story, more melancholy.  There is another mermaid's pool on Kinder Scout (see Mass Trespass and Ewan MaColl).  These hills are full of mermaids, and we are the most landlocked place in the UK.
Now I am reading Tide-race by Brenda Chamberlain, inspired by our visit to Ruthin Craft Centre.  The first few chapters are full of silkies, selkies, and mermaids.
"Come to me.  Come to me, said the silkie".
"Ho there! beautiful beast.  Moon-dappled silkie!"
"she twists to dive and ... where her back of mottled fur touches the surface, is iridescent as mother of pearl.  Rainbow.  Mother of pearl, sheen of the sleek and mottled skin."
(Quotes from Tide-race)
Here is a photo of a cup-marked stone, that could represent a mermaid's pool in the hills:

 

 

Here is a some embroidery I did on some skeleton leaves, inspired by the above picture:



Yarn-bombing Buxton

Walking past the Opera House today, Miss Aimson and I noticed a Canadian flag knitted onto a lamp-post.  Bloomin' cheeky Canadian yarn-bombers trying to claim our lamp-posts! (Shaking fist action here). 
It may have something to do with the Gilbert and Sullivan festival, which is on at the moment.  Somehow I think there is an overlap there between: Canadians, knitting, naff operetta and lamp-posts.  I bet it is the same people who are amused by HMS Pinafore and try to annex other people's lamp-posts.  There may be some link to Land of Hope and Glory there as well.
Came home to a hot chocolate with LOTS of marshmallows to get over the kerfuffle.  Relaxed and flicked through new books (for a total of £3.97 from the works): Selected Poems, Christina Rossetti, Selected Poems, John Donne (actually that's Miss Aimson's, she's going to study Eng. Lit. at Uni), and Green Men and White Swans, The Folklore of British Pub Names, Jacqueline Simpson.
Here is a photogram of some knitting:

Outlaws and Serpents

We went on a family trip to see The Lone Ranger today.  We love Westerns - the children have no choice - they have been brought up to love Westerns - same as I was.  There was compulsory John Wayne and Clint Eastwood  for me, and compulsory Bonanza and Branded! for Aimo.
My folks actually took us on a trip to visit the Wild West: Abilene, The Hole in The Wall, Monument Valley, Mesa Verde, Serpent Mound.  Well, now that's Indians, not Cowboys.  Here we are, remember it was the Seventies, and everyone wore hot-pants,

and we printed our own photos, that's why its a bit skewiff.

Sketchbooks and Steampunks

Working on the picture "Idle Women" still.  It's great when you are working on a long project, the creative ideas start to flow.  I'm thinking about making The Little Shop of Fleams now for Etsy.   I  already have plenty of stock to go in it, just need to tackle the technology of setting it up.  I have my fellow crows to help me, though, they're pretty experienced at that sort of thing.  Why do things keep going italic?  Technology is really not my thing.

Just found some old sketch books.  Here are some pictures from one.

The scanner decided to cut off the bottom of the pages.  It obviously doesn't have an artistic appreciation of the unfinished sketch book page.  Philistine.

Miss Aimson is in the kitchen making cheese straws whilst watching a DVD of Franklyn.   Now that's what I call goth cooking!  Actually, I just said that for effect, I know full well it's steampunk cooking, as she's going on a steampunk picnic tomorrow.

Working with Idle Women

Here is a picture of Idle Women, the picture I am making for the Sheffield show.  (It was going to be about The Patience Kershaw Rapper Women, but that didn't really have a wartime connection.)
It is about the Idle Women, who were the women whose War Work was on the canal boats, delivering coal and such like. (Have I told you this before?)

 

Do you like it?  I'm thinking the text on it will be: Idle women, women's work, idle work.  Does it work?  The picture is kinda reminiscent of the crochet work in the post "Blythe and The Water People", don't you think?

Mugwort, Hoverflies and Wasps

Oh no! The hoverflies have started licking the mugwort and we know what that means:  hoverflies swooping around in slow motion, buzzing "Why can I taste purple?", then flying into the patio doors.
Nica Bentley, the Fleams gossip-wife and "yarb-doctor" had observed the same phenomenon with wasps.  Here is a quotation from one of her letters:

"I have observed wasps on the mugwort leaves, apparently licking them.  Do you think the virtue of that plant, which we know to be narcotic, exudes from the leaves?  Do you think the wasps enjoy the sensation thereby gained?  I find I do not like the idea of drunken wasps.  What do you think?"

Nica wrote to several gossip-wives around the country, and (with her permission), Kate W Aimson, published a selection of the letters that Nica had kept, under the title: My Dearest Sister Gossip-wife.  I have a copy of the 1912 booklet, which I am including in my reconstruction of The Lost Book of Fleams.

Buttons and Unknown Pleasures

Miss Aimson and I went to see The Button Project today at Macclesfield.  If you haven't been you're too late as it finishes tomorrow. 
Here is a picture of some buttons:

We also had a look round The Silk Museum Heritage Centre, which I am ashamed to say we haven't looked at before.  I bought a picture of Marianne Brocklehurst and a map of places related to Ian Curtis in Macclesfield.  Master Aimson can walk around Macclesfield moodily in black and white.
Here are the shots from when I walked round Macclesfield in black and white.  I was very moody, and got a migraine because I was accompanied by a Scouser with verbal diarrhoea.

Next time we will go and see West Park Museum to see Miss Brocklehurst's Egyptology collection.  She was a spiffy sort of Victorian heiress, who travelled Egypt with her companion collecting treasures, keeping journals, doing watercolours, that sort of thing.
On the way home, as we walked from the bus stop, past the waste land (planning permission to build 11 houses.  What about the common lizards, the bee orchids?) , we saw a host. a flapping host of butterflies.  Talk about making hay while the sun shines, the mummy and daddy butterflies have obviously been making butterflies while the sun shines. 
We have a lot of self-sown willows in the garden at Aimo's House, which I leave partly because the caterpillars love them.  We have been growing batch after batch of caterpillars on these for the last month or more.  Obviously it is all coming to fruition now, and everywhere is covered in butterflies and moths.  The thistles on the waste land were covered in tortoiseshells, peacocks and different whites.  We counted 20 tortoiseshells as we walked past. 

Songs From The Pie Tree

Searching through the boxes of Fleams stuff I came across this - Songs From The Pie Tree - Fleams music recorded by Kate W Aimson at The Pie Tree pub in Fleams.  It is in the form of sheet music, and is favourite songs and the groups that performed them.  Here is the index of songs from the front cover:

Winking Man Jig as performed by Roaring Jelly
Churn-House Cut as performed by Idle Women
In The Doxey's Arms as performed by Gelding the Devil
Winter's Gibbet as performed by Outlandish Skeleton
Kilter-Kelter as performed by Theories about Pygmy Fairies
Swan on the Old Barn Wall as performed by Waterfall of Bones
The Testimony of Murdo MacLean as performed by Haunted Ape-House
Toady Old Man Rag as performed by The Toad Shakers

the last being a rag-time melody in the style of Mr Jelly-Roll Morton of Chicago.

Music was a very popular entertainment in Fleams, and groups could make a living, or at least part of their living from travelling and performing.  Lally Buck used to illustrate the sheet music they sold with her lino-print pictures.  I believe she did the illustration on the sheet music "Songs From The Pie Tree", which Kate W Aimson published in 1913.

Mam Cymru - a Bad Ass Bess

I have just been reading some of the guide books I picked up at Ruthin Old Gaol.  In one, there was the history of the kind of noblewoman they like in Fleams - Katheryn of Berain, known as Mam Cymru.  She was kind of like a bad ass Bess of Hardwick.  She was said to have disposed of an unwanted lover by pouring molten lead into his ear, and then burying him in her orchard.

Her first marriage was to John Salusbury.  When he died nine years later, she married the fabulously wealthy "Sir" Richard Clough (quotation marks because he was called "Sir" by becoming an honorary Knight of the Holy Sepulchre on pilgrimage to Jerusalem).  He allegedly proposed on the way to the funeral of her first husband, thus narrowly beating Maurice Wynn of Gwydir, who had politely waited until after the funeral to propose.  Wynn in fact became her third husband.  Later, she married Edward Thelwall.  In total she had six children, at least 16 step-children, and 32 blood grandchildren, and the rest.  That's why she became known as Mam Cymru, although her stepson called her "a siren and a base enchantress" instead of Mam.  On the other hand, she was well-known for charity and kindness to the poor.  A badass with a heart of gold!

Mermaids, Pools and Poetry

I was interested to see that Lord Bryon's family emblem is the mermaid.  This is very apt in the way of Fleams, because of the legend of the Mermaid's Pool.

Ella Campane, who did pioneering work at The Canholes Asylum for the Incurably Insane, worked with various inmates who were obsessed by the story of Mermaid's Pool.  She got them to write about their thoughts.  Here is an extract from one of Ella's case studies:

Case 9

This is the case of a lady with alternating episodes of mania and despondency.  She told these tales in our storytelling times and came to understand how to tend her hectic mind.

These are her words.

There was a tale when I was a girl: The Mermaid’s Pool.  It went like this:

If a young man went down that road, then up that hill, and followed that track he would find a pool.  This he had to do on a magical night.  He should wait through the twilight, until with the night a beautiful young woman would appear from the pool.  After spending the night with him she would either grant him the gift of poetry or take him back with her to live in her world at the bottom of the pool.

There was a similar story in a village over the way.  In that place they told the story like this:

If a young man left the village climbed the mountain up a track he would find a pool.  On that one magical night the pool became different; not the ordinary pool you could see any other day of the year.  He should find a cave by the pool and wait through the twilight.  Then with the night, a beautiful young woman would appear from the pool. 

She would take him into the cave and in the morning would grant him either the gift of poetry or madness or take him with her back to the land beneath the pool.

She sang the song of the siren:

Come hither
Come hither
And led him to the bottom of the pool.

That’s some of the ways they told the tale.

It seemed to me that tale was about the line you tread hungering for inspiration.  You stoke the fires of the imagination.  You make room for inspiration to come in.  You invite the muses to breathe into your mind.  You run with the creativity that grows from that breath.  But what if it runs out of control?  What if it runs into mania?  What if you are trammelled into train tracks of creativity?  Running down just one track over and over, over and over, over and over and you can’t get off?

But worse, what if you don’t get into the groove?  If you’re stuck, stuck, stuck, churning through the same thing again and again and again.  Trapped now, under the pool, can’t talk to anyone.

 

Parkinson and the Gaol

At Newstead Abbey, we did like the peacock, which I thought was called Parkinson.  Here is a photo of him:

We did feel a bit sorry for him, as he seemed to spend a lot of time running away from screaming kids.  Maybe the stress is why his tail feathers had fallen out.

Back in Fleams, the locals are more likely to be poachers, chasing pheasants rather than peacocks.  Yesterday we visited Ruthin Old Gaol museum, and saw the fate in store for ordinary people who were caught breaking the law.  Picking oakum, the treadmill, the crank, the scotch cap, and transportation.  And that was in the modern, "reformed" gaol.  Things were pretty harsh for rogues and vagabonds. 

This cool lock is actually from Newstead Abbey, rather than Ruthin Gaol.

Levellers

Whilst all that mad aristocrat stuff seems fun, the people of Fleams don't have anything to do with the aristocracy.  The Duke's lands, of course, are nearby, but they avoid them where possible.  They are fiercely democratic, or as they would say, of a levelling tendency.  They are free peasants, like the sokemen of old.  If they were boatmen they would be Number Ones, working for themselves.  That is why they live in the remote outlaw lands of The Peak, and cut themselves off, travelling to trade on their own terms.  Back in Fleams there are no gaffers nor lords and ladies - only the people of Fleams.

Blythe, Bryon, and a Bear

Aimo has loaded up his photos of Newstead Abbey now, so I can share them with you.

Here is Blythe dressing up in Bryon's dressing room.  Real top hats and still no steampunks or goths (except Miss Blythe)

Here is Miss Blythe as a ghost in one of (yes, that is one of) the yew walks:

Here is another of the yew walks, where I wondered where are all the goths?

Lastly here is a gothy picture, as I tell you some more about Byron:

He arrived at Newstead Abbey, from university with his gilded bed (which seems very small, considering the amount of shenanigans that went on in it), and a tame bear.  He lived in the ruined abbey, as he could not afford to rebuild the place, apart from his bedroom, dressing room, games room and dining room with said bear and two large dogs.
Two of his great friends were Mr Hobhouse and Col. Wildman.  Eventually Col. Wildman bought the Abbey, as Byron could not afford to keep it.
A bear, a rabid dog, Mr Hobhouse, Col. Wildman, a ruined abbey, oh, and a chalice made from a human skull; where are the goths?

Bryon, Bats and Bees

Just been for a day out to Lord Byron's old house:

Newstead Abbey.  As we toured the gothic halls, the haunted dressing room, I kept thinking where are the goths?  As we viewed Lord Byron's chalice made from a human skull, I wondered where are the goths?  As we walked down a yew tunnel, beside the monk's pond, I wondered where are the goths?  What's wrong with them, haven't they heard of Lord Byron?  The only gothic representation was Miss Aimson in her shorty bloomers and purple bat-print tights.

The only visitors who seemed to heard of Byron were foreign tourists.  The others were a wedding party and local day-trippers enjoying the park and gardens.  Which were great.  More yew walks than you could shake a stick at, lots of ponds, arbors and benchs, some formal gardens.  Even the formal gardens weren't strictly looked after, and weeds grew amongst the borders, including some large drifts of monkshood, which seems to be the most suitable plant for Newstead Abbey. 
There were more bumble-bees than I have ever seen together, blue damselflies and lots of butterflies.

Blue damselflies, there are common too, like the ones we get at Aimo's house, but we only get red ones.

Yet again I observed there seems to be an affinity between yew and elder, with lots of little elder saplings growing from the bases of yews.  Is it just because they know how pretty elder blossom looks against dark foliage?

A view of the very romantic slightly ruined gardens.

On the way back we passed Cromford Steam Rally, and I wondered if steampunks visit steam fairs and see real steam engines?

Now we're home there is a huge thunder and lightning storm, I'm just going to fill my human skull chalice with red wine...

A Harecastle

Liz, a great advocate of Fleams was enquiring last night about food in Fleams.  Parma Violets and Pies, I replied.  Fleams's favourite pies are, of course, supplied by Elsie Marley, the landlady of The Pie Tree pub.  Her speciality is Hare Pie.
Aside - on going to check my newest clematis, which is coming out in flower, I noticed I had caught several wasps in my wasp trap.  Hah! Serves them right for being wasps, the only animal we are not required to share Earth with peacefully.  So what if they pollinate Figwort?  Do we really need Figwort?  I went to Mrs Grieves to check...
"During the thirteen months siege of La Rochelle by the army of Richelieu in 1628, the tuberous roots of figwort yielded support to the garrison for a considerable period, from which circumstance the French still call it "Herbe du siege".  The taste and smell of the tubers are unpleasant, and they would never be resorted to for food except in times of famine."  So if the pollination of figwort is the wasps' only justification, it seems a very slim one to me.  Perhaps you know of others?
Anyway, back to Elsie Marley's Hare Pie.  It was a kind of pasty which the men often took with them when working their lead mines.  At snap time, the miners would sit on a rock to eat their hare pasties.  These rocks became known as Harecastles.  Here is a picture of one, doffed (decorated) in the manner of the traditional custom in Fleams.

It Passes Through the Gate...

You have now missed your chance to see The Fleams Collection this time around.  It has now  left The Green Man Gallery, passed through the gate, and disappeared into the mists for the time being. 

Next time it passes through the gate and materialises in this world I will let you know.

One of my fellow artists at the Green Man has just said "I shall miss your work.  It always had that quality of things remembered from a previous life."

It was not a previous life, but a parallel one.

Approaching Ripe Harvest

I kinda pinched the post title from one of my favourite artists, Kit Williams, kinda pinching being the sincerest form of flattery.
Lammas and a misty moisty day.  To celebrate the approaching harvest I ordered a copy of The Garland Sessions by The Owl Service.  I was wishing it would arrive today and it did.  Ta-da! the old magic still works.
Lucifer is just coming out in the garden at Aimo's House.  That is the crocosmia is in bloom now, but it sounds better the first way.  And I have a massive comfrey growing out of the side of my compost bin; I'll have to try and plant it somehow.  Talking of seeds, can you guess what it is:

Yes. it's the star in the apple.  Not the Sword in the Stone, or the sheep in the rug, but The Star in The Apple.