Getting On Top of it All

I'm on top of the STUFF now.  I've repacked a lot of the boxes from our loft, put in some boxes of things from Mum's, and got rid of much more.  I've also found all kinds of things I'd forgotten about, like K's collection of historic Coke bottles. I always liked the look of them, each with their own personality in red and white. It was good to see them again, before I passed them on to K.

I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic which I'm hoping will get rid of this awful bug.   Anyone else had it?  It's like a cold,  but it just won't go away, and a couple of people I know have been ill for over a month. 

One dark and wintry May evening T and I went to a meeting of South East London Folklore Society, and it was fantastic. Their meetings are usually in the Old Kings Head pub, which is down a narrow Dickensian alleyway through an archway off Borough High St.  That is the pub on the left of my picture. The bar was heaving with people.  With my phone, I snapped the overspill from the bar standing in the cold and rain with their drinks - what some people will endure for a glass of beer!

The talk was upstairs, in an eccentrically decorated function room, featuring King Henry VIII and The Titanic. (I took some pictures but the quality's too bad to show here. )  And the speaker was Ian Rawes of the London Sound Survey. He is obsessed with recording the sounds of London,old and new.

For us, he brought along some historical recordings of London dating back to the 1920s.   Listening to the old, old cry of the lavender seller, recorded in the 1930s and already a curiosity then,   I almost got chills - I felt I was hearing a piece of real history   People have been singing this song, or something like it, for centuries. The singer must have been one of the last lavender sellers and I like how he gives the song straight and clear, without the fiddle-de-dee fancifulness of modern folk singers.  Hear it here.

So that was a great and - well, I guess you'd call it an "ear-opening" evening.

The weather was atrocious most of the month but the gloom seemed quite appropriate one day when I went to London Bridge station and came out at Tooley Street.  There is a big block of railway property being demolished to make way for a new line just there. The buildings were all quite old and Victorian and one of them had been used by the London Dungeon. I presume this creepy hooded Thing had been part of it.  Or maybe not .... Anyway, it doesn't seem to be bothering the passers by, does it?.

In great contrast, on one day when the weather was bright and radiant, we took a walk to Kenwood, on Hampstead Heath, and saw the magnolias - it must have been the particular day in the year when they were at their peak.  There must have been hundreds of the huge blooms.

I love to look closely and I loved this pistil. It llooks exotic, as if it comes from the Middle East.

Another sunny day we took a trip to Oxford to see our niece TN giving a skating demonstration. She's 14, and very athletic.   It's the first time I've ever watched good skaters in real life, and I felt quite exhilarated to see her and the others swooping across the ice at top speed and spinning around. I was so impressed, because at no time in my life could I have ever done what they did, even on solid ground, let alone on ice!.  

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The weather has been so grey that I've got out of the habit of taking the camera when I go out, which explains the poor quality of some of the photos in this post.  The camera in my phone's never been quite the same since I dropped it down the loo..... but actually there is quite a nice "instagram" look to some of the more colourful pictures I've taken on it.   Here are some Spring flowers I saw a couple of weeks ago in Regent's Park. The flowerbed displays in this park are always particularly imaginative and artistic.

I said last post that I was going to write about the goats.   And so I will. But actually it deserves a post to itself, so I will  make it my next post.

And finally, I have made various trips to the family home, which I am glad to say has sold very quickly. I'd have hated to see it standing empty.  Now my parents are not there, and their possessions are dispersed, I'd like to see the house taking on new life.

But  I took a picture out of the window at the canal before I left .... and there was a rainbow.  

Jack-in-the-Green

Signs of the past are always to be found in London if you look for them. Nigel, a close member of my extended family, is keen on the folklore of South London, and the strange beliefs that people have held over the ages. He's always finding snippets of uncommon history and he knows a lot of people who are into strange folkloric things at South East London Folklore Society

Since it's early May, I'd been wondering if Nigel was interested in Jack-in-the-Green. This old tradition was associated with chimney-sweeps (in the days when people had chimney sweeps), and essentially it involves dressing up as a bush or shrub in early May, and dancing around.

The ancient Primula variety "Jack in the Green"

Lots of old books refer to the unruly folk who used to dress up in pillars of leaves and brawl around in the streets of London scattering leaves and flowers as they went.

I was interested in this 18th century print showing a jack-in-the-green with a puffing chimney in the background. I'd guess it's a political satire, because the gold-laced, blacked-up figure in the foreground is far too grandly dressed to be a chimney sweep, although he's dancing with a very rough looking lady. My guess is that he was a politiican, but what was his crime? If you have further info about this print, let me know!

Although London had more sweeps than anywhere else, jacks-in-the-green were (and are) widespread. They still are, as you can see from this link to a big celebration in Hastings, Sussex, next weekend).

Anyway it turns out Nigel IS interested in Jack-in-the-Green, and I spotted on his blog that he followed the Deptford Jack-in-the-Green the other day. (That's a picture from his blog at the top of my post, and here's a link to the rest of it.

I doubt if any of these folk from Deptford have ever squeezed themselves up a hot chimney. But meanings of folk events are constantly changing to fit the times, and I'm glad that this old tradition still has a place in modern life.

Next year, I hope I'll remember to find a jack-in-the-green celebration. I'd go to Hastings if we didn't have house guests here in London.

PS I've put a Flower for Leontien on my other blog, better late than never.