A Year in Review: 2012 July – December

Posted on January 6, 2013 by johnshortlandwriter

Where does the time go? Christmas has been and gone, as have the New Year celebrations and here we are already at the end of January’s first week. I’m beginning to understand those lines of William Davies’ “We have no time to stand and stare…“. Not that my life has too many cares fortunately and, of course, I’m exceptionally lucky living where I do and working outdoors – I have plenty of time “… to see, when woods we pass …“

Continuing on from my review of the first six months …

July: we had a rare fine evening in a year filled mostly with rain, an opportunity for the lucky few to go hot air ballooning. We had a surprise visitor when Charles Teall, who lives a few miles away, dropped unexpectedly into the secret valley. We joined him and his balloon team for drinks by the river, a lovely way to end a flight. Some years earlier Charles had flown me across the Cotswolds before landing to a champagne breakfast – but that’s another story.

Another surprise was when I found an abandoned bantam egg and hatched it out, capturing the moment on video, now uploaded to YouTube. You can watch it by clicking here.

August: You don’t go on holiday to Ireland for the weather, especially the west coast lashed as it is by frequent Atlantic Ocean storms. To everyone’s great surprise, we had unbroken sunshine and high temperatures day after day. We even swam in the millpond calm sea. At night we were treated to the most glorious sunsets, every evening more dramatic than the previous one.

September: Britain has a long and proud history but we tend to forget about the days before the Conquest in 1066. We had been invaded and settled many times prior to that but the Romans left us with a road system that is still much used today. Their houses have long since disappeared although there are many excavated ruins that can be visited. Cirencester was one of the premier cities of the time and the museum there houses many artefacts including some remarkably intact mosaics, the subject of a post.

October: Their are numerous new diseases affecting our trees and one species that has been hit badly is the Horse Chestnut. The leaves become infected with leaf miners and cankers weaken the tree further. This, in time, may kill the tree but short-term affects the quality of their fruit – the conkers of childhood games.

November: Trees also featured this month along with a visit to my earliest schooldays. The larch was my introduction to nature cleverly made magical by my school teacher, Miss Vine. Larch still are my favourite tree: we have a good number of them here in the secret valley where they give me still as much pleasure at all times of the year as they did all those years ago.

December: With the year whizzing by there were no posts this month other than to wish you all a happy holiday and start this review with the first six months of the year.

Every year has its memories but 2012 will be recalled as the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. 2013 looks like being an especially memorable one for me but you will have to wait a little longer before I reveal all!

And just in case we are all rushing about far too much let us remember the words of William Davies:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Leisure from Songs of Joy and Others, 1911

A Year In Review: 2012 The First Six Months

Posted on December 20, 2012 by johnshortlandwriter

One of the signs of getting older is that the days, weeks, months and years go by ever faster – this seems rather unfair as you are likely to have relatively few ahead of you. Not that I plan to leave this world just yet (well, not if I can help it), it is just that 2012 was the anniversary not just of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but also of mine which has focussed the mind, rather.

As the time has sped by so fast I thought I would review the year, if only to remind myself what I’ve been doing the past twelve months.

January: To London for the New Year. Whenever we visit ‘The Smoke’ (I wonder if anyone still calls it that now that the days of dense smog have long gone) it always ends up rather ‘foody’. That trip was no exception; we ate our way up the Kings Road, ate our way around Sloane Square and finally ate our way to Fortnum & Mason arriving in time for afternoon tea. Fortnum’s is the most wonderful grocery store on the planet – whereas, most people, especially those from overseas, visit Harrods, Fortnum’s is the one place you really shouldn’t miss. Everything about it is delightful and its afternoon teas are legendry. We did squeeze in a visit to the National Portrait Gallery but why show you images of great works of art when you can see photos of Fortnum’s? Add it to your list of ‘places I must visit before I die’.

February: A visit to Snowdonia staying at a friend’s isolated chapel house on the side of the mountains. The weather was quite kind to us considering the time of year so we were able to do a lot of walking. To our dismay, our favourite spot that we had christened ‘The Enchanted Forest’ because of its lichen encrusted trees and great mossy hummocks had been clear felled and all signs of it destroyed. This may sound like wanton vandalism but the trees had been planted for timber production regardless of the impact they had on the scenery. Now years later, there is a move to restore the mountains back to their original state which is, I’m sure, admirable and an ecologically sound thing to do. The trouble is that we loved this silent, brooding woodland that no-one, it seemed, apart from us ever visited and now it is gone. And with it has gone our desire to return but, who knows, perhaps we shall one day.

March: Recording the life of a hedgerow seemed like agood idea at the time. It was supposed to have become a month by month photographic notebook of the changes that took place during the year but sadly March turned out to be the first and only entry. As April arrived I took more photographs but when it came to blogging them they had disappeared (reappearing months later – one of the mysteries of computer technology). Then came the rain – and it has rained ever since – and the project was abandoned, apart from a vain attempt in May. The hedge, which is in the little lane that leads from our cottage up the hill out of the secret valley, is an ancient relic from the time of the Wychwood Forest, cleared in the very earliest days of British history. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book, that great list of the plunder of William the Conqueror, written in 1086. Although the forest has retreated by many miles there are still some fine trees standing and wild flowers that would normally be found in woodland still grow on its grassy banks. I shall make a resolution to resurrect the project in 2013.

April: Part of my everyday job as a practical gardener is pruning, a subject which is a mystery to many people and often fills them with terror at the very thought of wielding secateurs to a treasured shrub. Mahonia is one of those useful winter flowering plants that so often look dreadful as they become ever more gaunt and ungainly. This was the case with one in a client’s garden so it seemed a good idea to photograph the process of restoration and blog about it. That post has rapidly become my most read and I am glad to be able to report that the plant is thriving. Now covered in new flower buds and almost ready to open, it will welcome the New Year with the scent of lily-of-the-valley. If you have one in your garden, cut a few flowers for a shallow vase to fragrance the house.

May: Despite the rain that seems to have fallen incessantly since April, we had a fine, dry day for the most important day in my social calendar of 2012 which was also an important one for the Queen too. The Pageant of the Horse was held in the grounds of Windsor Castle and celebrated the Queen’s sixty year reign through her association with and love of horses. Horses, riders and other performers representing every country from around the world that the Queen has visited gave us a show that both we and she will never forget. It was a quite remarkable and memorable experience; apart from the showmanship and being so close to the Queen and Prince Philip, we had a private ‘Haka’ from the Cook Islanders when they noticed us still seated after the bulk of other visitors had left. Very exciting!

June: The Jubilee celebrations continued withthe River Pageant held in London on the Thames in pouring rain, this time. A much smaller river, the Coln, featured in a post ‘The Most Beautiful English Village’ about the exquisite Cotswold village of Bibury. With its clear, trout-filled waters fast running past ancient stone cottages, it is hardly surprising that it is protected by the National Trust and much visited by sightseers. It is said that visitors often don’t realise that it is not a living museum and sometimes walk into people’s private gardens or houses to be surprised to find the owners eating their lunch or watching television.

To read any of the posts mentioned above, just click on the links in green. July to December will appear soon.

The River Pageant

Posted on June 9, 2012 by johnshortlandwriter

In 1717, a musical pageant was held on the River Thames for King George I and was captured on the famous canvas by Canaletto. This was not the first time that there had been royal river pageants but it was this painting that was the inspiration for the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant for Queen Elizabeth.

A major feature of the pageant was again music but the number of boats on the river was to outrival all the previous pageants of the past. Over 1000 boats took part, breaking not just the record for London but becoming the largest ever in the world. The oldest boat dated back to 1740 and one, the Amazon, had taken part in the celebrations to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee(the present Queen’s great-great grandmother) in 1897.

Central to the parade was the Royal Barge that carried the royal party.

The barge sailed past many of the iconic images of London – The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral which can also be seen in the Canaletto painting. Crowds lined the banks of the river and also the bridges – they can just about be seen through the torrential rain that fell for most of the day. Despite that nearly one and a quarter million people came to see the pageant and wish the Queen well. The boats sailing in front of St Paul’s are bearing all the flags of the Commonwealth countries.

All along the banks, tributes were made to the Queen ranging from military salutes to one from War Horse on the roof of the National Theatre.

Every church bell along the river answered the peal from the barge leading the procession. The floating belfry was carrying a specially comissioned set of eight bells – these were later hung in the Church of St James at Garlickhythe.

The fire boats also gave their salutes wetting already soaked participants even more ……

And Tower Bridge raised its bascules to their highest point in acknowledgement …..

Despite the grey, dreary weather the river – it is rarely given its full title of the River Thames – was a spectacle of colour, of bells ringing, of music coming from one of several orchestral barges and the sound of the crowds cheering, clapping and singing the national anthem, “God Save the Queen”.

Once the Royal party had passed through Tower Bridge, the pageant came to an end. It concluded with the choral barge singing patriotic songs with great fervour despite the choir being drenched to the skin. Never had the words of “Rule Brittania” seemed more pertinant: “Rule Brittania, Brittania rule the waves ……”

For more details of the procession or to read about the individual boats that took part, visit the official website of the river pageant: http://www.thamesdiamondjubileepageant.org/ . Much of the information above has been taken from their very informative site.

The Gloriana (above) is the first Royal rowbarge to have been made in over 100 years. Covered in gold leaf it lived up to its name. Pphotographs can be found on an online article of the Daily Mail – and more information – by clicking here.

Around the World with Queen Elizabeth

Posted on May 31, 2012 by johnshortlandwriter

Last October my partner and I were surprised and delighted to receive an invitation from the Duke of Edinburgh to a reception at Windsor Castle. It seemed unreal passing through the State Entrance, walking up the Grand Staircase to the magnificently restored St. George’s Hall and spending several hours being able to explore the historic rooms at leisure. To read more about that evening, click here.

This weekend, the whole country is in a Royal frenzy as there is a four day holiday break from routine to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Everywhere, there is red, white and blue bunting and Union flags flying in preparation for street parties, village dances and fetes. For many of us, the Queen represents more than just our Country, partly because, having been there for sixty years, the majority of us have no memory or knowledge of any other monarch. She has always been there, always consistent and that is quite a comfort when the news is full of political and monetary chaos throughout the world.

Windsor Castle is not just a grand, old building; it is also a much loved home to the Royal Family, so it was only natural that it would play a lead role in the Jubilee celebrations. “Around the World in 60 Years” was an extravaganza that celebrated not just the Queen’s achievement (Queen Victoria, the present Queen’s great-great-grandmother is the only other monarch that reigned for over 60 years) but also
a record of the many countries that she has visited during that time. When we had the opportunity to be at Windsor for this once-in-a-lifetime treat we leapt at the chance.

The performance, which took place in the private grounds of the castle, began with the entrance of the Household Cavalry and King’s Troop, which is always guaranteed to whip up a fervour of patriotism. Behind the arena, the stage was a massive recreation of the facade of Buckingham Palace.

The arrival of the Queen and Prince Philip brought everyone to their feet. The British don’t display their patriotism openly very frequently but when the band played the National Anthem, “God Save the Queen”, there were many – men and women – whose voices faltered over the words “long to reign over us”…. For me, the raising of the Royal Standard above the mock Buckingham Palace, which is only ever flown in the presence of the Queen, was my emotional downfall, for I am always aware how fortunate I am to live in a free democracy: one half of my family did not and perished because of it. My friends tease me, saying that now my family have lived here for 100 years, I will soon be a ‘proper’ Englishman!

Over 550 horses and 1000 people took part in the Pageant. Performers from every continent and the numerous countries the Queen has visited, displayed their horsemanship, danced or sang.

North America was represented by cowboys, by native Americans and by the Canadian Mounties. The Mounties are always very popular with the British and played a leading role in the Pageant. They also mounted guard at (the real) Buckingham Palace, a great honour (click here).

Two hundred men and women from the Omani Royal Cavalry were a colourful addition, wearing their green, burgundy and gold colours and riding barefoot.

Towards the end of the evening all of the Queen’s own horses were paraded – or in the case of her racehorses, galloped – through the arena. Even her ponies from Balmoral in Scotland were brought to Windsor.

The finale was the most incredible sight as all 550 horses and the performers came into the arena together along with the Royal State Coach.

We were one of the last to leave the arena and as we sat we were noticed by the Cook Islanders who performed a ‘haku’ especially for us. It was very exciting to have our own private performance and made our evening even more memorable.

And just when the evening could hardly be even more magical, we stepped outside to see the castle lit up in a dark sky. Breathtaking!

My photographic skills couldn’t cope with the extraordinary horsemanship of the Cossack riders – to see them rehearsing for their performance, click on the link here.

The Diamond Jubilee Pageant “Around the World in 60 Years” is to be shown this coming Sunday on television: ITV 6.30pm – 8.30pm.