Gleaming

Today - August 1st - is a very special day. It's Yorkshire Day! Happy Yorkshire Day everybody! This year, sponsored by the BBC, a wonderful piece of music has been composed, recorded and filmed in celebration of this significant day when Yorkshire people all over the world give thanks for being born in these heavenly broad acres. We pity anyone who is unable to claim Yorkshire roots. The Symphony for Yorkshire was composed by Benjamin Till whose musical vision was eclectic and ground-breaking. There are brass bands, harpists, rock musicians, rappers all woven in and a lyric crafted by Doreen Brigham, a 98 year old Yorkshire lass. Here are Ben and Doreen together and below the picture you will find Doreen's verse:-

Yorkshire in verse

Sing a song of Yorkshire, from the Humber to the Tees
Of horses, wool and terriers, of pudding and of cheese
I know no other county where the land is quite so fine
England’s lovely county. And I’m proud to call it mine

Where shining purple heather stretches far across the moor
And the lapwing’s cry above me takes the place of traffic roar
And peace comes drifting gently, there’s no place I’d rather be
Than this land of hills and valleys, from the Pennines to the sea

So when I’ve done my roaming, and when my step grows slow
When heart and mind assure me that the time has come to go
Then let me rest in Yorkshire, for it’s there I want to lie
‘Neath sun and wind and heather, and a gleaming Yorkshire sky

Below, final film sequence shot at Hunter House Road, Sheffield - ten minutes walk from this keyboard:-

Woodlice

oniscus asellus

In Britain there are at least thirty five species of woodlice. Worldwide there are several thousand species with new species still being discovered. The most populous British species are the common shiny woodlouse (oniscus asellus), the common rough woodlouse, the common grey pygmy woodlouse, the common striped woodlouse and the common pill bug (armadillidium vulgare).

Fossil evidence proves that woodlice have been around and little changed for over three hundred million years whereas the best estimate for homonoid type beings is ninety million years with recognisable modern man only being around for the last 250,000 years. These figures are of course debatable but it is very clear that woodlice were here long before human beings evolved.

Our humble Sheffield house has a not so humble garden which I estimate to cover around 4,500 square feet. Much of this is grass lawn - not the best territory for woodlice who enjoy damp, dark places. Lift any brick, pot, stone, dead weed, leaf, compost bin or watering can in our garden and you will find a woodlouse party going on. Lots of them, of all ages. They are all over the place. Despite the lawned areas, I estimate that there are ten woodlice for every square foot of our garden - that's 45,000 on our property alone. It wouldn't surprise me if my guesswork was wildly conservative.

Some say that woodlice can damage young plants and several English councils' environmental departments offer advice for getting rid of them. However, in my experience as a gardener, observer of nature and former allotment keeper, I have never had a problem with them. In fact, in chomping through dead plant material and dead timber, woodlice are most probably making an invaluable contribution to overall soil quality.

They are right under our noses and fascinating to watch even though they are principally nocturnal creatures. You could say that this is their planet. They were here long before human interlopers arrived and are perfectly evolved to undertake the jobs that Nature requires of them. If there were a need to begin a "Save The Woodlouse" campaign, I would be one of the first to join it but thankfully, though some sub-species are threatened, worldwide woodlice numbers remain bountiful beyond our wildest imaginings.

bathynomous giganteus

Eden

The unpromising claypit in 1998

Mr Rhymes and Ms Blawat, cousins residing in our American colonies, have both asked me for a little more about The Eden Project. Well here goes.

First of all, it's easy to access The Eden Project's website. Just type the name into Google and you'll find it. What I am about to write is off the top of my head with no reference to the guidebook we bought there or the website I've mentioned.

Just outside the town of St Austell in England's remote south west there are china clay deposits which have been mined for at least 150 years. Sometimes the claypits become exhausted and so it was with the pit near the village of St Blazey. In 1998 it was an ugly, barren hole in the ground with no future until it was spotted by a dreamer - former music producer Tim Smit and his growing team of environmental and botanical enthusiasts.

Their dream was to turn the pit into a sort of garden which would remind the world of humanity's relationship with nature, especially the plant world. It was to be a project that would celebrate, educate and inspire, perhaps altering mindsets in the battle to cherish this wonderful yet terribly abused planet.

Smit and his team set up The Eden Project charity and before too long, trucks were bringing load after load of soil, compost and sand to the site. The sides of the quarry were made safe and irrigation plans were put into practice. Two enormous greenhouses or biomes were constructed- the biggest in the world - looking like giant bubble wrap from afar.

Sculpture made from detritus of the modern world

Gardeners were employed - only men and women with genuine passion for the project. Plants were located all over the globe and transported to Cornwall.

The rainforest biome is now well-established with mature tropical trees, shrubs and creepers. There are pineapples growing inside it, bananas, coffee, cocoa, coconuts and beautiful jungle flowers. There's a waterfall and authentic rainforest huts. The humidity was sweltering on the day we visited.

Shirley through a misted lens in the Rainforest Biome

The other biome accommodates "mediterranean" plants. Growth is of course less prolific. There are cacti, vines, sunflowers, olive trees, tobacco plants and several complementary sculptures including a horse made from driftwood.

Outside the biomes, the botany is equally interesting and Shirley and I especially enjoyed the little vegetable garden with its quirky ideas and scarecrows. We were seeing it in early July when everything was fruiting - I guess it would look much less impressive in say November.

Foxtail lilies

In this world it gets easy to yawn, to be cynical and dismissive but I must say that is not the feeling I had about The Eden Project. It was and is quite brilliant. To have had the dream and to have seen it through - Tim Smit and his team have once again proven that human beings are capable of amazing things and this project is certainly not about personal financial gain. Ten years down the line - I was so pleased to have seen the Eden Project at a level of maturity that visitors would not have seen in the first two or three years.

There - I think I have said enough. One last memory I want to share. In "The Core" building on the site there is a 70 tonne block of Cornish granite that has been skilfully carved into the shape of a seed pod. I believe that it is the biggest single block granite sculpture in the world. Perhaps it's saying that from seeds big things can grow. Certainly true of The Eden Project.

Snaps

Apologies for this self-indulgence. Five more holiday snaps:-

St Ives Harbour at low tide

At Dartmouth

The Eden Project

Porscatho harbour

At Land's End - First and Last House in England

Mentioned

After our holiday in the south west of England I submitted several photos to the laudable Geograph project. Every week there's a competition to find the best Geograph picture of the week. Yet again I had another photo in the top fifty out of some 6826 submitted. The judge singled it out for special mention - praising the colours and reflective elements.

Here it is:-

It's of King Harry's Ferry. For hundreds of years a ferry has crossed the River Fal at this very point, taking people and their vehicles to and from the Roseland Peninsula, saving a round trip of over twenty miles. The name of the ferry may possibly relate to King Henry the Eighth who - it is believed - honeymooned with Anne Boleyn in nearby St Mawes. Other investigators think the ferry is more likely named after Henry the Sixth.

The River Fal is very deep at this point and I noticed several ocean going ships laid up even higher up the river. The Fal boasts an exceptionally good natural harbour and historically played an important part in England's development as a major maritime force.

Elders

The Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield

Paul was only sixty two but this week I found myself sleeping in a room with three men all over eighty. There was John who once ran two successful off-licence businesses with his wife and made enough money to plan a comfortable retirement on the east coast near Bridlington. They even bought the house and stayed there at weekends but sadly she died before the retirement plan could come to full fruition.

Quietly and in intricate detail he described how he had cut his lawns for the first time, making neat parallel lines up the slopes - just like Wimbledon - then filling thirteen black plastic bags with grass cuttings. After relating this tale, he shuffled to the lavatory holding an aluminium walking frame with a support worker holding up his green pyjama bottoms. He laughed when I told him to stop running.

Albert lay in another bed. Five feet tall with devilish blue eyes, this wiry little fellow had been a joiner for fifty years and in that role had served with the British army in Singapore and Malaya. He had eight children and several grandchildren but oh dear - he was losing his marbles. There was the battle of the locker key. "One key! There's one key!" he kept saying. It was gripped tightly in his right fist and he wasn't letting anybody else have it even though another man's belongings were in the locker. Later he seemed to suspect a staff conspiracy against him. "They're all acting as one!" he confided. But he took a shine to me and acceded to some of my requests for him to lie down or take his pills. The staff were grateful as Albert seemed to soak up far too much of their precious time.

Then Sammy strolled in in his chinos and sandals with a stripey shirt and a shoulder bag. He was eighty three years old and had lived in northern California for twenty years. He had loved it there - "Oh! Yosemite!" - but his Sheffield-born wife was homesick so finally they returned. She died eight years ago. What a lovely man he was. His face was full of sunshine. He sat by the window without reading glasses, engrossed in Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstein are Dead" and he kept engaging me in conversations about Sheffield's history, the existence of God, California, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkeagaard and his "lovely girl" - the wife he had lost.

If only our Paul had made it to eighty. Another eighteen years at least, like these men. All so different. Different pathways. Different results. Heading so differently for death's exit doors. I promised to take Sammy out in August to show him a couple of historical sites that he had never heard of in this Un-Californian city - assuming of course that, like me, he survives hospital.

Home

Home again after ten days in the south west of England. Old friend and former teaching colleague, Mike and his wife Jan have retired to Kingswear in Devon. They live on a precipitous slope with fifty steps up to the back gate and fifteen down to a little lane that winds down to Kingswear Marina with its ceaseless ferry service to Dartmouth. The view from their living room has a genuine "Wow!" factor. It's like a giant framed picture with a myriad of boats bobbing by the foreshore, colourful quayside buildings on the west bank and Dartmouth Naval College formidable in the middle distance.

View from Mike and Jan's living room

We stayed with them for twenty-four hours which included a very lovely boat trip up the river and a delightful evening meal taken on their lofty terrace. Mike and Jan should be on the cover of a brochure for retired teachers. They made it through the educational jungle with health, happiness and financial comfort. Though their working lives were spent entirely in Sheffield they have quickly become active Devonshire villagers and seem to know most everybody. It was a delightful way to start our little holiday.

Mike and Jan - enjoying retirement

Though she'd been to America, Hong Kong, Morocco, India and several European countries, Shirley had never before visited the ancient kingdom of Cornwall with its strange placenames, wind-stunted trees, winding lanes and wonderful coastal scenery. When I was a litle boy, my family would trek down to Cornwall each summer - always to the village of Pentewan with its magnificent sands. For the first time in forty five years I went back there and saw the very stream where my brothers and I would luxuriate in white china clay mud before romping in crystal clear Atlantic waves.

A thin rain started to fall so Shirley and I headed for "The Ship Inn" in the village for pints of bitter shandy and I recalled vaguely how as boys, my brothers and I would sometimes play outside this pub on August evenings for we were not allowed to follow our parents over that hallowed threshold reserved exclusively for those tall and venerable beings known as "adults".

Highlights of the week were the brilliant Eden Project, strolling round St Ives, homemade Cornish pasties, walking by beaches and ancient hedgerows, pints of St Austell Brewery "Tribute" in "The Punchbowl and Ladle", our peaceful residential caravan in Penelewey, a cream tea in St Agnes, a kestrel hovering expertly in a gusting wind at Land's End, The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, old churches and a Kellys' ice cream cornet. Cornwall or as some prefer in the Cornish language - Kernow - the land that time (almost) forgot.

Porthbeor Beach, Roseland, Cornwall