Friday, 23 September 2011
Topsy Turvy
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Forgotten Totem
At the old Commonwealth Institute I spotted this intriguing culpture, abandoned, as you see, and being gradually embraced by ivy. It's clearly one of the exhibitits from the Institute which didn't make it to the British Empire Exhibition (and thence, illegally into the grasp of private collectors I suppose. See my post below).
It is by the acclaimed Zimbabwean sculptor John Takawira and it is called "Totem Protection." I'm imagining it standing there through a decade of rain and wind and neglect, seen only by security guards and their dogs, and bravely keeping an eye on the place, all alone.
Actually, I am hoping that Dave King may spot this post and write a poem about it, if he is ever stuck for inspiration. ( I firmly believe Dave is one of those people, like Tennyson, who actually thinks in poetry - so click on his name and take a look at his blog, if you like poems. )
I have written to the Design Museum asking if they're going to incorporate Totem Protection into the bright new renovation scheme. It would be a pity to see it carted away on a builder's truck for an unknown destination, like so much else that was in this museum.
And there's acres of fantastic hardwood flooring inside, too. Just flagging it up, y'know.... wouldn't like that to disappear either...
It is by the acclaimed Zimbabwean sculptor John Takawira and it is called "Totem Protection." I'm imagining it standing there through a decade of rain and wind and neglect, seen only by security guards and their dogs, and bravely keeping an eye on the place, all alone.
Actually, I am hoping that Dave King may spot this post and write a poem about it, if he is ever stuck for inspiration. ( I firmly believe Dave is one of those people, like Tennyson, who actually thinks in poetry - so click on his name and take a look at his blog, if you like poems. )
I have written to the Design Museum asking if they're going to incorporate Totem Protection into the bright new renovation scheme. It would be a pity to see it carted away on a builder's truck for an unknown destination, like so much else that was in this museum.
And there's acres of fantastic hardwood flooring inside, too. Just flagging it up, y'know.... wouldn't like that to disappear either...
Monday, 19 September 2011
London Architecture Open House Weekend
We spent most of the weekend going round some London buildings which opened themselves to the public for the annual Architecture Open House Weekend. What a variety - and some of it was really thought provoking, in various different ways.
We began on Saturday morning with an early walk through the gardens of Kensington Palace. The palace itself is undergoing renovations but the gardens are always worth a visit, at almost any time of year. Right now it has a good display of late summer bedding plants.
We also visited the old Derry and Toms Roof Garden, which was created in the 1930s on the top of a department store of that name. The store has long gone, and the gardens and its art deco buildings are now operated by Richard Branson's Virgin as a restaurant and nightclub.
I am so glad they are looking after the garden with its Spanish buildings,
and its grape vines, flamingoes and so on.
I have to say I wish the modern developments showed the same sense of taste and quality of construction as the original 1930 stuff, but we should be grateful it is there at all.
We continued to the College of Psychic Studies in Kensington. This is a typical early Victorian town house, much altered and modernised. I didn't know why it had been included, since the house was a pretty ordinary early Victorian one and most of what was architecturally interesting had been taken out of it. However, there were some fascinating Spiritualist things around. This picture on one wall shows a medium in the 1920s.
There was more than enough Victoriana in Leighton House. This eye popping mansion belonged to the well known Victorian artist Lord Leighton, and it is one of London's many small but wonderful lesser-known museums. They have just done a stunning renovation. Alas, they don't allow you to take pictures. This stock picture shows the Arabian hall. The ceiling is of gold leaf, and so are several of the ceilings in this astonishing mansion.
Lord Leighton, who was immensely rich, collected ancient artefacts from the Middle East (the tiles shown here are about 250 years old, from Damascus) and he owned many valuable works of art by major artists. The renovation has involved much weaving of authentic fabrics and use of expensive materials. Do go if you are in London. The website is here. It provides more information and a virtual tour which doesn't work on my computer but might work on yours. . (There is usually a modest entrance charge, though they opened it free for the Open Weekend.)
We then went on to the nearby Commonwealth Institute. This has always been one of my favourite 1960s buildings, and it's been deteriorating for ten years since it closed and everyone started arguing about what to do with it.
This striking and frankly gorgeous building has a design of walkways radiating from a central platform, and h what is known in the trade as a hyperbolic paraboloid roof. It looks like this
The Institute was designed to explain and celebrate the Commonwealth, the community that succeeded the British Empire. There were 54 Commonwealth nations, but the whole organisation started to fall apart when Britain joined the European Union. I used to love going there and looking at the displays of cocoa beans from Ghana and Maori artefacts from New Zealand, and so on, and I was also attached to the big, beautiful map inlaid with bronze showing the Commonwealth - here's part of it.
But there are interesting issues around the Commonwealth Institute, and I'm curious. When it closed, many of the artefacts it contained were given to the British Commonwealth and Empire Museum in Bristol. However, according to Wikipedia that museum is closed "pending relocation" (no date specified) and the ex-Director, Gareth Griffiths, was dismissed pending a police investigation into unauthorised disposal of museum assets.
What's more, trusty old Wikipedia also points out that "Comprehensive repair works were carried out [to the Commonwealth Institute] in 2000–1,... by a London-based roofing company ... but by this point the Trust had closed the building to the public....In 2002, the Trust entirely closed the Commonwealth Institute building,...which ... led to controversy because of the secrecy under which it was carried out, the recent expenditure of money on repairs to the building,.....restructuring of the charity and the disposal of the builiding cost approximately £7m in redundancies, restructuring and professional fees by July 2006."
Course you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia, but it's hard to believe that pockets have not been lined here. I also came across a blistering communique from the Commonwealth Secretariat, here. It accuses the UK Government of being a dog-in-the-manger about the site rather than wanting to improve education in former Commonwealth countries - yes, folks, all the money seems to have found its way somewhere else.
The poor old building is finally going to be rescued and turned into the new Design Museum. Nothing of the controversy was mentioned (surprise, surprise) in the Design Museum's leaflets, which concentrate on happy new beginnings. One of the ladies who showed us round, said the Design Museum had acquired the building free of charge, and it was only going to cost them £130,000 to convert it. Hmmmm.....
Anyway, I wonder what will happen to the lovely old map and to the magnificent tropical hardwood floor, since new architects OMA won't be able to re-use them. Step forward Donnachadh McCarthy,perhaps? We met this Irish eco-auditor and guru of recycling and sustainable living on our next visit, his retro eco-cottage, 3 Acorns. It's a quaint Victorian workman's cottage with tiny rooms and a long, narrow back garden, tucked away in a Peckham back street.
Donnachadh practises what he preaches, and his home is full of brilliant tips for saving energy and low-impact living. This fab steampunk fan is part of his heating system; he uses a clean type of wood burning stove fuelled by waste wood which he collects from skips and the streets round about where he lives.
We were so impressed we bought his book, "Easy Eco Auditing" and spent ages listening to him answeing questions - he was being mobbed by people wanting to know more, perhaps because he also appeared as the on-screen eco-auditor in the BBC2 TV series "It's not Easy Being Green". (Although actually, he makes it seem VERY easy ...)
After that, we headed further into Peckham to see 15-and-a-half Consort Road. This extraordinary building was shoe-horned into a tiny, awkward space and uses some startlingly original ideas, not all of them exactly practical, in my humble opinion. But it is certainly fun. Read more about it on their Peckham House website and here's a picture of the pull out fully plumbed bath which they keep stored under the bed.
We began on Saturday morning with an early walk through the gardens of Kensington Palace. The palace itself is undergoing renovations but the gardens are always worth a visit, at almost any time of year. Right now it has a good display of late summer bedding plants.
We also visited the old Derry and Toms Roof Garden, which was created in the 1930s on the top of a department store of that name. The store has long gone, and the gardens and its art deco buildings are now operated by Richard Branson's Virgin as a restaurant and nightclub.
I am so glad they are looking after the garden with its Spanish buildings,
and its grape vines, flamingoes and so on.
There was more than enough Victoriana in Leighton House. This eye popping mansion belonged to the well known Victorian artist Lord Leighton, and it is one of London's many small but wonderful lesser-known museums. They have just done a stunning renovation. Alas, they don't allow you to take pictures. This stock picture shows the Arabian hall. The ceiling is of gold leaf, and so are several of the ceilings in this astonishing mansion.
We then went on to the nearby Commonwealth Institute. This has always been one of my favourite 1960s buildings, and it's been deteriorating for ten years since it closed and everyone started arguing about what to do with it.
This striking and frankly gorgeous building has a design of walkways radiating from a central platform, and h what is known in the trade as a hyperbolic paraboloid roof. It looks like this
But there are interesting issues around the Commonwealth Institute, and I'm curious. When it closed, many of the artefacts it contained were given to the British Commonwealth and Empire Museum in Bristol. However, according to Wikipedia that museum is closed "pending relocation" (no date specified) and the ex-Director, Gareth Griffiths, was dismissed pending a police investigation into unauthorised disposal of museum assets.
What's more, trusty old Wikipedia also points out that "Comprehensive repair works were carried out [to the Commonwealth Institute] in 2000–1,... by a London-based roofing company ... but by this point the Trust had closed the building to the public....In 2002, the Trust entirely closed the Commonwealth Institute building,...which ... led to controversy because of the secrecy under which it was carried out, the recent expenditure of money on repairs to the building,.....restructuring of the charity and the disposal of the builiding cost approximately £7m in redundancies, restructuring and professional fees by July 2006."
Course you can't believe everything you read on Wikipedia, but it's hard to believe that pockets have not been lined here. I also came across a blistering communique from the Commonwealth Secretariat, here. It accuses the UK Government of being a dog-in-the-manger about the site rather than wanting to improve education in former Commonwealth countries - yes, folks, all the money seems to have found its way somewhere else.
The poor old building is finally going to be rescued and turned into the new Design Museum. Nothing of the controversy was mentioned (surprise, surprise) in the Design Museum's leaflets, which concentrate on happy new beginnings. One of the ladies who showed us round, said the Design Museum had acquired the building free of charge, and it was only going to cost them £130,000 to convert it. Hmmmm.....
Anyway, I wonder what will happen to the lovely old map and to the magnificent tropical hardwood floor, since new architects OMA won't be able to re-use them. Step forward Donnachadh McCarthy,perhaps? We met this Irish eco-auditor and guru of recycling and sustainable living on our next visit, his retro eco-cottage, 3 Acorns. It's a quaint Victorian workman's cottage with tiny rooms and a long, narrow back garden, tucked away in a Peckham back street.
Donnachadh practises what he preaches, and his home is full of brilliant tips for saving energy and low-impact living. This fab steampunk fan is part of his heating system; he uses a clean type of wood burning stove fuelled by waste wood which he collects from skips and the streets round about where he lives.
We were so impressed we bought his book, "Easy Eco Auditing" and spent ages listening to him answeing questions - he was being mobbed by people wanting to know more, perhaps because he also appeared as the on-screen eco-auditor in the BBC2 TV series "It's not Easy Being Green". (Although actually, he makes it seem VERY easy ...)
After that, we headed further into Peckham to see 15-and-a-half Consort Road. This extraordinary building was shoe-horned into a tiny, awkward space and uses some startlingly original ideas, not all of them exactly practical, in my humble opinion. But it is certainly fun. Read more about it on their Peckham House website and here's a picture of the pull out fully plumbed bath which they keep stored under the bed.
Although it's on such a tiny site, the house also incorporates a dance studio. Wow!
We returned back to our place feeling slightly dissatisfied with its boringness. Also it's starting to feel cold now the weather is changing. Perhaps we'll call Donnachadh in to give us an eco-audit, and I just wish I could think of a way to use that metal map if OMA would take an offer....
Friday, 16 September 2011
RU OK Day
This is a good idea from Australia - a day on which you contact people you've been a bit concerned about and ask if they're OK. It's mainly about mental health, I think, but I've taken it as a reminder to call people who are frail or sick or having a tough time. Maybe I'll have my own RUOK day every month!
(A. is just checking we're all okay - he needs to wear a waste-basket on his head to do it, of course.)
(A. is just checking we're all okay - he needs to wear a waste-basket on his head to do it, of course.)
Thursday, 15 September 2011
In the Grant Museum
The museum is the last university museum of comparative anatomy remaining in London, and its 68,000 specimens include many from other, now closed, collections. It's still used for teaching, and it is a fascinating place, so long as you're not spooked out by displays on anatomy and physiology. Nearly all the audience yesterday were medics, so of course they were totally unfazed by the somewhat grisly things - bones and pickled specimens - which surrounded us.
I was particularly interested in the museum's specimens from extinct animals. One of the star exhibits is their very rare skeleton of the quagga, hunted to extinction in the 1880s.
The quagga looked a bit like a zebra - see above.
There were dodo bones and a skeleton and Huxley's dissection of a thylacine. The last known specimen of this Tasmanian animal was filmed in 1933 - see it here (makes me mad to see it kept in a cage, actually).
I absolutely love the astonishing glass sea creatures that were created by Leopola Blaschka (1822-1895) and his son Rudolf (1857-1929).
The secrets of how they made their glass wildlife specimens died with the Blaschkas, but the National Museum of Wales has a collection of over 200 sea creatures, and Harvard's collection of over 3000 Blaschka glass flowers is definitely something I want to see some day.
The museum has fairly recently moved into a spacious and very interesting hall in the UCL Rockefeller Building in the heart of London's Bloomsbury. The hall used to be a library, and even without the specimens it would be full of atmosphere and personality. It reminds me a little of Oxford's Pitt-Rivers Museum of anthropology, with its crowded cabinets and hand written labels.
There's a touch of humour in the exhibits. We all agreed that these members of the audience, in the gallery above, were extremely well behaved. .
Making Money from Travel Writing?
Many travel writers are trying to figure out how to make money from their blogs. Don't worry, I don't plan to turn this blog commercial - but like so many other industries, travel is having problems, and so are most newspapers, magazines and publishers. And consequently, life for travel writers is becoming harder too.
This was brought home to me when I contacted a European tourist board about an article I've been commissioned to do. For this type of fairly short (1000 word) general-interest article, I'd expect to stay 3 or 4 days, and I would expect the local tourist board to take an interest. They supply information and (usually very valuable) local advice, and generally provide some free/cheap travel within the destination, and/or a museums card so I can whizz around and see far more than the ordinary visitor would in a brief time. They facilitate stays at hotels that want to show themselves off (and no, I don't guarantee coverage in return). They suggest new attractions I might like to look into, tell me about seasonal things I might not know. In short, a good travel press officer, like Linda Marcuzzi whom I had in Trieste last year, is worth their weight in gold. And a press visit really isn't a holiday.
So I have a commission to write about this particular country (it's not one of the Eurozone debt disasters) but the press officer says she can't help because she's been told only to deal with papers of circulations of 20,000 and up. At the generally accepted rule of thumb of 3 or 4 readers per copy that means a readership of about 60,000- 80,000, plus website.
The paper that commissioned me has an accredited readership of nearly 70,000, but this includes visitors to the website. So the circulation is lower than the board want, but personally I'd have thought 70,000 readers were worth bothering with, just a bit. Anyway, the press officer didn't, or couldn't.
I can't argue with their policy, and of course I'll still go there and write the story, but it will be harder to take in whatever attractions the locals are trying to promote, because I either won't know about them, and/or won't be able to afford them on my budget . And I may not be so keen to write about the place again, simply because I can't afford to.
It shows the way the wind is blowing. This time last year this very press officer was begging me to visit her country, and the paper's readership has actually risen since then. But rates for writers have gone down.
In fact, many print publications are now not using outside writers at all, or paying them peanuts, or expecting them to work for free. So you can see why it's necessary to look at other options if we want to be able to keep writing about travel and making a bit of money.
Two of the money-making travel blogs that I admire are Donna Dailey's Pacific Coast Highway and Karen Bryan's Europe A La Carte Donna focuses on just one region, which she knows really well, and she has said that she makes decent money from this blog, which has many ads. Karen's European blog includes "tell it like it is" reviews and the kind of "Top this and that" features which form a staple of so many travel pages. She ropes in good guest bloggers like Amanda Kendle to cover some of the parts she can't reach. Karen said on David Whitley's "The Grumpy Traveller" that 95 percent of her income comes from travel writing online.
Neither of those is for me. I live in London but honestly who could do a better London site than Londonist? And maintaining a multi-destination blog is difficult and expensive for an individual. I don't have the time (and more importantly the money) to be constantly updating stuff I've written about in various far flung parts of Europe.
Broadening Karen's idea into a bigger site involving more people, you might get something like Simonseeks.com. I don't know if it is making money for its owners now (it wasn't the last time I heard, but it's had a revamp since then.) But even if the owners make money, the writers don't seem to. This link shows that Simonseeks relies heavily on people giving content for free. Even the "experts" who are expected to do a great deal of leg work, don't seem to get anything in exchange except the hope of "substantial rewards" - pay by click and cross your fingers, I suppose? I'm trying to find anyone who writes for them, so I can ask.
I once tried making money on someone else's pay-by-click sites, and wrote about it in Writing for Suite 101 on my other blog: (I hope you can get to the site - the server's having problems today.) You'll see I reckoned then that it wasn't worth doing, and readers' comments - temporarily removed because of a spam attack - agreed in no uncertain terms.
Another site has recently started which is aimed at people who aim to travel-blog professionally. It's called http://www.travelllll.com/ and so far I haven't read the detail. It is clearly a very business orientated thing, serious stuff.
Ah, well, it's a sunny day today and I am not going anywhere, and glad of it. A friend has just called and told me about a Welsh cliff hotel where he stayed with his family which he said was both beautifully located and cheap. One to try next time I'm in West Wales. But now I'm going to the post office (un-favourite task) then I will tackle the nasturtiums which are absolutely swamping everything (that's a bit more fun than the post office), and finally I'll plant some Spring bulbs (which is definitely fun as I imagine how beautiful they'll be).
Here are flowers from some of last year's bulbs. And how do any of you make money from online activity?
This was brought home to me when I contacted a European tourist board about an article I've been commissioned to do. For this type of fairly short (1000 word) general-interest article, I'd expect to stay 3 or 4 days, and I would expect the local tourist board to take an interest. They supply information and (usually very valuable) local advice, and generally provide some free/cheap travel within the destination, and/or a museums card so I can whizz around and see far more than the ordinary visitor would in a brief time. They facilitate stays at hotels that want to show themselves off (and no, I don't guarantee coverage in return). They suggest new attractions I might like to look into, tell me about seasonal things I might not know. In short, a good travel press officer, like Linda Marcuzzi whom I had in Trieste last year, is worth their weight in gold. And a press visit really isn't a holiday.
So I have a commission to write about this particular country (it's not one of the Eurozone debt disasters) but the press officer says she can't help because she's been told only to deal with papers of circulations of 20,000 and up. At the generally accepted rule of thumb of 3 or 4 readers per copy that means a readership of about 60,000- 80,000, plus website.
The paper that commissioned me has an accredited readership of nearly 70,000, but this includes visitors to the website. So the circulation is lower than the board want, but personally I'd have thought 70,000 readers were worth bothering with, just a bit. Anyway, the press officer didn't, or couldn't.
I can't argue with their policy, and of course I'll still go there and write the story, but it will be harder to take in whatever attractions the locals are trying to promote, because I either won't know about them, and/or won't be able to afford them on my budget . And I may not be so keen to write about the place again, simply because I can't afford to.
It shows the way the wind is blowing. This time last year this very press officer was begging me to visit her country, and the paper's readership has actually risen since then. But rates for writers have gone down.
In fact, many print publications are now not using outside writers at all, or paying them peanuts, or expecting them to work for free. So you can see why it's necessary to look at other options if we want to be able to keep writing about travel and making a bit of money.
Two of the money-making travel blogs that I admire are Donna Dailey's Pacific Coast Highway and Karen Bryan's Europe A La Carte Donna focuses on just one region, which she knows really well, and she has said that she makes decent money from this blog, which has many ads. Karen's European blog includes "tell it like it is" reviews and the kind of "Top this and that" features which form a staple of so many travel pages. She ropes in good guest bloggers like Amanda Kendle to cover some of the parts she can't reach. Karen said on David Whitley's "The Grumpy Traveller" that 95 percent of her income comes from travel writing online.
Neither of those is for me. I live in London but honestly who could do a better London site than Londonist? And maintaining a multi-destination blog is difficult and expensive for an individual. I don't have the time (and more importantly the money) to be constantly updating stuff I've written about in various far flung parts of Europe.
Broadening Karen's idea into a bigger site involving more people, you might get something like Simonseeks.com. I don't know if it is making money for its owners now (it wasn't the last time I heard, but it's had a revamp since then.) But even if the owners make money, the writers don't seem to. This link shows that Simonseeks relies heavily on people giving content for free. Even the "experts" who are expected to do a great deal of leg work, don't seem to get anything in exchange except the hope of "substantial rewards" - pay by click and cross your fingers, I suppose? I'm trying to find anyone who writes for them, so I can ask.
I once tried making money on someone else's pay-by-click sites, and wrote about it in Writing for Suite 101 on my other blog: (I hope you can get to the site - the server's having problems today.) You'll see I reckoned then that it wasn't worth doing, and readers' comments - temporarily removed because of a spam attack - agreed in no uncertain terms.
Another site has recently started which is aimed at people who aim to travel-blog professionally. It's called http://www.travelllll.com/ and so far I haven't read the detail. It is clearly a very business orientated thing, serious stuff.
Ah, well, it's a sunny day today and I am not going anywhere, and glad of it. A friend has just called and told me about a Welsh cliff hotel where he stayed with his family which he said was both beautifully located and cheap. One to try next time I'm in West Wales. But now I'm going to the post office (un-favourite task) then I will tackle the nasturtiums which are absolutely swamping everything (that's a bit more fun than the post office), and finally I'll plant some Spring bulbs (which is definitely fun as I imagine how beautiful they'll be).
Here are flowers from some of last year's bulbs. And how do any of you make money from online activity?
Monday, 12 September 2011
Curiosities of Alentejo
When September is rainy and blustery and cold, like it's been in England, Portugal is definitely a good place to be. This marble staircase was up with sun and beautifully tiled with 18th century tiles. According to the sign outside, it was a police station - just a teeny bit different from our local nick here in London, so I crept in and took a few pictures.
In a little museum near Evora, I saw some very unusual embroideries.
Unfortunately, they were captioned all in Portuguese, a language I don't speak, but someone told me that several incorporate pieces of "chestnut skin." (I think that this means the shell of the chestnut fruit). This thin and brittle substance is sewn onto the embroidery in a kind of applique. The examples here all date from about 100 years ago and didn't bear much resemblance to the "local" embroideries on sale in the rather small number of souvenir shops I spotted.
I was in the Portuguese Alentejo, an agricultural and wine growing region which lies north of the Algarve, and is far less well-known than the Algarve. With textiles in mind, I also visited an amazing modern tapestry works in Portalegre. The tapestries - often vast - are hand woven using a unique stitch which allows great precision in the design. This gives them a really fine quality, and means that pictures or photographs or even paint techniques can be reproduced or suggested far more accurately than they can in ordinary tapestry. Like, paint on a wall...
By contrast, the tapestry below is in totally different style. Created to a mid-twentieth century design, it's large, subtle and detailed and it is tremendously striking. I can only show one, much-reduced bit of it here.
As the tapestries are hand made and so specialised, they're also ruinously expensive and production is very slow. Perhaps that's why the company doesn't even seem to have a website. Now I know these tapestries exist, though, I have decided that if I ever win the lottery, I'll commission one to adorn the mansion which I'm going to buy.
Since that's in my dreams, it doesn't matter that it would take years to weave!
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Dogs and Cake Don't Mix
Thanks so much for all the comments - I love getting them, and I''ll be replying to them soon and also going round all the blogs I've missed over the last week away.
Meanwhile, I'd like to share another insect cake. This one is a ladybird (I think they're called ladybugs in the US). I admired it in a garden produce, craft and dog show in deepest Gloucestershire a couple of weeks ago. The judge wrote an encouraging and nice comment on every entry to the show, and has awarded this ladybird second prize. But - do you detect a slight problem with this cake? The judge's comment card explains. It reads: "Very well iced. Sorry about the mess. A dog ate it!"
Here's another picture from the show. These two dogs were waiting for their owner to emerge from the village church, which dates back about 800 years or so and contained a lovely display of flowers from peoples' gardens. They looked so bored and fed up, I couldn't help thinking that a nice piece of cake might cheer them up...
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Goodbye to summer bugs
Had a lazy Saturday today after a really tiring week, and even had some sun, for a change. And now we're saying goodbye to summer I'm not ready to let it go, although I'm not sorry to see the end of summer bugs.
But actually, I'll write a bit more about the cakes. They represent may-bugs, (though I photographed them in June.) In England, may bugs are called cockchafers, and their grubs play havoc with your lawn, as they eat the roots of the grass. Not an obvious reason to turn them into cakes, so I wondered if they have some cultural significance in Germany. Maybe some German reader can explain
I was going to stop my post here, and put in this picture of cake bugs which I spotted in Nuremberg, Germany.
I looked up "Maikäfer," though, and found a little rhyme which is very similar to our old rhyme of "Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home."
"Maikäfer flieg...
Dein Vater ist im Krieg
Deine Mutter ist in Pommerland
Pommerland ist abgebrannt
Maikäfer flieg!"
("Fly, cockchafer, your father is at war, your mother is in Pomerania which is burning to the ground.")
Anyway, I wish I'd bought one of the cakes and eaten it now. German cakes are definitely among the best in the world!
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Rowan Tree
I have always admired the rowan tree. As a child, I was told that it "keeps witches away" which I found very reassuring during a period when I was scared of witches. (Wisely my grandmother also told me that the beautiful scarlet berries are poison, perhaps to stop me eating them to make myself witch-proof.)
I have a little book called "Rowan, Tree of Protection" by ethnobotanist Chris Howkins, which delves into the extensive mythology associated with this little tree. In his book, Mr. Howkins points out that the celtic name for the rowan is "fid na ndruad" which means "Tree of the Wizard" (or, surely, "Druid"?) So its reputation for magic goes back a whole lot further than my grandmother!.
Mr. Howkins has also traced the fact that old English names for the tree often contain the word "quick" which is an old word for "alive" - he quotes "Quickenberry," "Quickbeam" and so on. (He also points out that the common hawthorn is also known as the Quickthorn, something I'd known, but forgotten. Interesting.)
I won't quote Mr. Howkins' book at you - although full of good things, it is not expensive, so if you are interested, click the contact link to find out about it and its author.
But I should say that this particular photo in fact shows two trees. The rowan berries with the distinctive rowan leaves are in the foreground. Behind this is a trunk of silver birch. The birch is associated with birth and renewal, and both trees, although usually seen in gardens and parks, can also be found growing wild on poor acid soil, like this heathland near Westleton, Suffolk.
And, not only do they offer protection from passing witches, and encourage renewal, but I think they look very attractive together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)