Bamburgh

No. I did not take this stunning photograph. It was snapped by another Geograph member back in 2011. His name is or was Alfie Tait. He hasn't added any extra pictures to Geograph since 2013.

The subject of the picture is Bamburgh Castle on the north east coast of England. Alfie Tait appears to have been at the right place at the right time. He has captured the castle in a spotlight of golden sunlight with a threatening storm forming in the east above The North Sea. I hope you will agree that the contrast is .pretty spectacular.

Strange as it might seem, Bamburgh Castle was not built as a tourist attraction nor as a subject for amateur photographers. It was constructed for practical defensive purposes upon a site that had seen several earlier fortresses dating back through the mists of time.

A good quiz question is this: Which English county contains the most castles? The answer is Northumberland with a grand total of 81 castles. They were mostly built in the fourteenth century in connection with on-going conflicts  with Scots from across the border. It is generally accepted that the  most significant Northumberland castle is Bamburgh which has  such a colourful and complicated history.

Here's another Geograph picture of Bamburgh Castle - this time by Billy McCrorie and taken in May 2013:-

Athenry

Pete St John - writer of "The Fields of Athenry"

Memories of Inishmaan led me east of Galway to the little market town of Athenry. It appears on the very edge of the map I put at the head of my last post.

Athenry is a sleepy place that may have remained unremarkable in its obscurity were it not for a song written in the nineteen seventies by a man called Peter Mooney whose stage name was Pete St John. That song, "The Fields of Athenry" reflects on past injustices and perhaps  how  the potato famine and forced transportation affected ordinary lives.

It is a very simple song but the chorus has lifted so many hearts, creating a supernatural sense of togetherness and identity - mostly in those who have Ireland in their blood. It is sung in stadiums by Liverpool supporters, Celtic supporters and The Irish national rugby team to name but three:-

Low lie the fields of Athenry

Where once we watched the small free birds fly

Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing

It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry

Peter Mooney died in 2022 at the age of 90 but I suspect that his famous song will last forever - well almost forever.

It has been recorded by several individuals and bands but I think that the definitive version is by the Dubliner - Paddy Reilly. With his mellow, tuneful singing voice he took the song where it needed to be - finding its rightful place in Ireland's rich cultural heritage. Here's Paddy Reilly in 2010 in Cork Opera House:-

At Pete St John's wake in a Dublin bar  in 2022, we see and hear Paddy Reilly as an old man singing the song that made his name too. He was with Glen Hansard who also sang at the funeral of Shane McGowan. I must admit that I  began to weep half way through this unplanned version:-

Aran

Off the wild west coast of Ireland you will find the Aran Islands. There are three of them - named Inisheer, Inishmaan and Inishmore. In translation from Irish Gaelic, that simply means, small island, middle island and big island. They have been populated for many centuries.

One summer over twenty five years ago I went out to Inishmaan with my kids, my brother Paul and his two sons. We had tents and I recall we stayed on the island for two nights in clement weather, making camp amidst tussocky grasses not far from the wharf. There was a pub nearby where we had access to a lavatory and a tap for clean water. It was a great adventure.

Last night I was checking out the islands with aerial imagery courtesy of Google and I was struck by the patchworks of tiny fields on each of the islands. Those lines show handbuilt walls that you never get a proper sense of at ground level.

Below I have chosen regular images from the islands along with aerial views. I think the aerial clips are quite amazing - like newly discovered wonders of the world...

Inisheer

Inishmaan

Inishmore

The current population of the three Aran islands is 1347 with by far the greatest number residing on Inishmore. Irish Gaelic is still spoken as a first language in most homes.

Empire

It is amazing how quickly the "Orinoco" business empire has grown. I guess it's true what they say about little acorns and mighty oaks. The accompanying photographs show two of our state-of-the-art  warehouses, the fleet of golden delivery vans we ordered from Toyota in Japan and the mighty golden freight plane just delivered by Boeing. Remember that wise old saying, "The camera never lies?" Well, it's true.

I used to think that developing a successful mega-business would be hard but it has proven to be so, so easy. Like rolling a snowball down a hill. Small at first, it just gets bigger and bigger.

In other "Orinoco" news, we are delighted to announce that we have secured the rights to the song "Orinoco Flow" by the Irish singer Enya. Well, to be honest, we offered her a price she should could hardly resist. It will be the company song in cinema and online advertising. We may change the song's title to "Orinoco Flow Chart" in the course of time but here, just as a reminder, is the original...

Repeat

People who have been bloggers for many years can investigate their own big blogpost libraries where we may occasionally look back on how things used to be - what we did and what we thought - sometimes revisiting special moments in our lives - like births and deaths and holidays.

Re-blogging has not been my style but today I thought I would give it a go. After all, the regular visitors I once received have mostly been replaced over the years

This is a  blogpost I first posted on February 14th 2010. That's exactly fourteen years ago when I was  a young lad of 56. I wrote it just a few months after I had retired and I was still getting used to a new life beyond my busy role as The Head of English in a tough Sheffield secondary school.  It was a job that had just about drained the lifeblood from me.

Shirley and I had been away for the weekend - to the place where, millions of years ago, Cro Magnon went to school...

⦿

Fenland

At Wicken Fen

Living here, it is easy to forget that England has so much variety, so much beauty, so much history, so much evidence of our forefathers' ingenuity.

Shirley and I decided to have a weekend break in an area of England we hardly know - the fenland north of Cambridge. Here the rich peaty soil is as black as coal. The mainly flat landscape is criss-crossed with dykes and ditches that were first dug by hand in medieval times to drain what was once a waterlogged marshy world. Above those marshes, occasional clay and gravelly hillocks rose - perhaps only a few feet higher than the surrounding marshes but it was here that ancient fenland settlements grew like islands. One such island was The Isle of Eels where the tiny city of Ely is situated. In medieval times eels were incredibly plentiful in the area and they were an important source of both food and wealth. It is said that each stone of the magnificent Ely Cathedral was paid for in eels.

Ely Cathedral began as a simple Saxon church in AD 673, founded by Saint or Queen Ethelreda. So when the Normans arrived, there had already been an important place of worship in Ely for four hundred years. They set about constructing a vast abbey and monastic complex. That job took over a hundred years to complete and then in the fourteenth century, reflecting East Anglia's economic power, further additions were made including the unique "Octagon" in the centre of the cathedral with its lantern tower that rises 43 metres above the ground.

Above - Ely's "lantern" - internal and external views.

For me one fascinating aspect of medieval church construction concerns the origins of the stones that were used. Around Ely there is no stone at all. The limestone that was selected had to be brought along ancient waterways by barge from quarries over fifty miles away. Imagine that! Hewing huge blocks, dragging them onto carts, taking them to primitive wooden wharves to manoeuvre on to wooden barges that were powered by sails or horses and then days later dragging those same blocks from the Great Ouse wharf at Ely before hauling them up to the cathedral site. Voyage after voyage. The audacity of it! And what was driving them? The power of Christian belief or some sort of economic might that had to declare its presence?

On Friday night we had an amazing curry in the Sylhet curry house on Market Street, drank several beers on Saturday night and on Sunday morning we headed south to Wicken Fen - a National Trust property. Wicken is both a bird sanctuary and a piece of the original fenland landscape with sedge meadows, an original wind-driven pump, reed beds and watery channels. Agriculture has never mastered these unique acres.

Studying the map, I see Thetford, Downham Market, Kings Lynn, Saffron Walden, March, Chatteris - all Fenland or East Anglian towns we have never seen. This was once the cradle of England's economic power - especially as the wool trade burgeoned in the fourteenth century. I think we will be back some day soon...

Wow!

Wow! Considering that yesterday was the first full day of trading for "Orinoco", we blew our sales forecasts to smithereens! I am already looking for a site for our first mega-warehouse. It will be massive with a big "Orinoco" "O" on the side. There will also be a fleet of electric delivery vans running up and down city streets like woodlice seen from above.

On the back of yesterday's phenomenal sales, we have brought forward the second tranche of books by bloggers. It had been scheduled for March 1st. There are ten new publications in total. The price remains $20 US per book plus postage and packaging. See the new titles below:-

One man and his dog Billy, roaming the mean streets of 

Brighton and the leafy lanes of south west France.

"Come here Billy!" I yelled but he was gone.

As in an Australian junk shop, you can find all things here. Antipodean 

writer Kylie Tai takes us on an entertaining  romp through Sydney, her home city.

"Wendy Whiteley's Secret Garden is a place you can really get lost in!"

With his wife Jean, he built a house on the edge of the 

Canadian prairie and they called it home.

"Come in Red!" she called. "It's time for dinner!"

"Okay. I'll be right there my sweet!"

Woke writer Bob Slatten paints a picture of modern day America

which may be unrecognisable to some readers.

"He told them to vote blue but thousands entered 

the trap - just like those kids in Hamelin, Germany."

"Local writer and socialite, Meike Riley, has set her tale of 

romance and fashion in and around our fair city and 

she never disappoints.  I just couldn't put it down!" 

-The Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung (translation)

Children's author Ms Pixie takes boys and girls on another magical journey

to Fairyland, passing The Deep Dark Forest where the monsters dwell.

"My nana wrote it! Poppa read it to me a zillion times!" - Jack (aged 4)

Some boats on the ocean are heading somewhere but others are just drifting along.

"She fried up some mashed potato and boiled cabbage from 

yesterday and then Andrew was like putty in her hands."

Amateur archaeologist Thelma Wilcox creates a vivid sense of 

what life was like in The British Isles during The Bronze Age.

"I can thoroughly recommend 'North Stoke' " - Professor Alice Roberts

From the brains behind The Friday Funnies comes this tour de force 

from the North Dakotan writer and popular former radio host, Bruce Taylor. 

Half comedy and half encyclopedia of strange things, you won't 

be able to put 'Oddball Obsunvations' down!

"I'm so proud of Bruce!" -  Katie Hobbs (Governor of Arizona)

Deals were done by the bend in the river. Shady deals between men who were 

out for as much as they could get until Sheriff Chuck Grassley rode into town!

"Ed Travis's best book yet!" - Des Moines Register

Orinoco

You have probably heard of the Amazon sales giant. You can get just about anything from Amazon but it all began with books.

As I am eager to be ultra-rich just like Jeff Bezos, I have decided to launch my own sales giant which I have decided to name after another South American river - The Orinoco. This will be our logo and in the next year or two it is bound to become as familiar as the "a" of Amazon:-

Following Mr Bezos's example, we are starting off with books - specifically eight books by bloggers that are exclusive to "Orinoco". Each title may be purchased directly from Yorkshire Pudding for the unbelievably low price of $20 US + postage and packing...

A charming and amusing  tale of life in a North Wales 

village - a modern day "Under Milkwood".

"Roger, come here you little bugger!"

A tenderly written novel about love and life in a sultry Florida community.

"What ya doing honey?"

"Just planting beans."

"Splendid read!" - Tallahassee Democrat

The true story of how a king penguin from Washington Zoo  travelled the world. From the author of  the bestselling"The American Bar Association in Disneyworld".

A romantic romp through the hills of south west Ireland.

"She wanted him like nothing she had ever wanted before."

Edwards's linguistic skills are legendary and quite endearing.

"I didn't understand a frigging word" - Liverpool Echo

Deception and intrigue from The Isle of Man's top crime writer.

"Lord Peregrine grabbed the hold-all and sprinted to the helicopter"

It's surprising what you can see from the balcony of a high rise 

apartment in a little known Australian city.

"The cover design is as remarkable as the book itself!" - The Age

The true story of a Yorkshire lad raised in the wetlands near Goole 

who battled against the odds to become the assistant 

manager of a supermarket in Huddersfield.

"I liked potted meat in my sandwiches in them days".

"Recommended if you have trouble sleeping" - The Huddersfield Daily Examiner