River Brathay

The River Brathay (Old Norse - Broad River), rises close to the top of Wrynose Pass, 1289 feet up in the English Lake District. From there, it descends 930 feet to Little Langdale Tarn and then drops a further 40 feet over Colwith Force before flowing into Elter Water. Continuing on, it heads east under Skelwith Bridge and towards Clappersgate, which is where we picked up its course.

It was flowing quite quickly and providing perfect water for a kayak.

At this point, it is near the end of its course, soon joining the River Rothay at Ambleside before feeding the northern end of Lake Windermere.

Interesting to note that this river once formed the boundary between Lancashire and Westmoreland. I hadn't realised that when county boundaries were adjusted in 1974 and Westmoreland and Cumberland merged to become Cumbria, a great chunk of Lancashire was also sacrificed to the new county. The whole of the Barrow in Furness Peninsula was once part of Lancashire, stretching up to include most of Windermere and encompassing Coniston Old Man. Nowadays Lancashire stops at the top side of Morecambe Bay, near Arnside, some 25 miles south of the Brathay.

Seed

The birds are quite happy in my garden at present, with quite a range of seeds to choose from.

This is about all that is left of my fennel, still smelling enticingly of aniseed.

 I can't remember the name of the blue flower these seeds developed from, but I loved the spiky structure.

And, just in case the birds can't find enough food of their own, I give them a helping hand.

The smart little feeder below was a present from my aunt and uncle way back when we lived in Old Trafford. Unfortunately, we didn't see much apart from pigeons and magpies up there. Here, the tits, finches and sparrows love it. I've even seen the robin clinging on for dear life.

दिवाली मुबारक.

H is for Happy Diwali!

(Huge LOL that the Alphabe-Thursday linky obviously doesn't recognise Hindi :D )

Normally, we have a gap of a week or two between Guy Fawkes night and Diwali, but this year, the two celebrations have fallen on the same day. As a result, the fireworks, which are normally spread out across late October and early November, were all concentrated into one very bright and extremely noisy weekend!

My neighbours are Hindu, so we always have a close up show of their fireworks, set off by Ravi in their back garden. We also often hear a ring on the doorbell accompanied by a gift of samosas (which taste infintely better than the shop bought ones!).

The giving of gifts is one of the many customs which accompany this Hindu festival of light; a celebration based around a story of great courage, when the exiled prince Ram fought Ravana, the ten-headed demon king of Lanka, to rescue his beautiful wife Sita, who had been kidnapped. Helped by Hanuman and his army of monkeys, Ram and his brother Lakshman built a huge causeway over the sea from India to the island of Lanka. There, the two armies engaged in battle, until Ravana was finally killed by a magic arrow fired by Ram from the bow which he alone could bend. Ram and Sita returned to the great city of Ayodhya and the people welcomed them back by placing small lamps in their windows and lighting up the night sky. These lamps are called divas or deepas, from which comes the name of the festival Diwali, or Deepawali.

Today, Hindus light up their homes with divas, coloured lights and fireworks, in the hope that Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, will come to visit them at Diwali and bring good luck throughout the new year.

They send each other cards and gifts, buy new clothes, write special prayers in the front of account books, tell the story of Ram and Sita in puppet shows and make rangoli patterns (often out of coloured sand sprinkled on the doorstep).

The children in school made rangoli patterns from seeds and pasta.

And so, as my next door neighbours would say

Diwaali muubaarak

दिवाली मुबारक.

If you aren't too busy celebrating, wander over to Alphabe-Thursday at Miss Jenny's to hook up with other heterogeneous h posts.

Penny for the Guy (extra)

Pondside commented on my post from yesterday and she has got me thinking, so I'm posting this as a mini extra.

(Normal, photo-accompanied service will be resumed nearer the time that the Alphabe-Thursday linky goes live.)

I neglected to mention a couple of Bonfire Night traditions in my post.

One is the tradition of burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on the bonfire. Even though Guy himself wasn't actually executed by burning at the stake, we have still tended to throw him on as a warning to all others who would consider filling the Houses of Parliament cellars with gunpowder!

And the other is the practice of trawling the streets with a home made Guy asking for a "Penny for the Guy" ; a custom which I much prefer to Hallowe'en, but which has, sadly, all but died out. There was a time when it would be common to see small groups of children standing on street corners with a home created Guy made by stuffing some of Dad's old clothes (usually, stuffed with straw for ease of burning), but I don't think I've seen more than two such groups in the last five years!

I do think it a great loss that so many of our own traditions are overwhelmed by those from elsewhere; especially the States. It's so much easier to buy a Hallowe'en costume than it is to make a guy and the shops push Hallowe'en very hard these days. There is profit to be made!

Also, for the children, I suspect that there is much more reward to be gained from a one night trawl of 'Trick or Treat' than there is from loading a Guy into a wheelbarrow and going door to door. I do wonder though, what message we are sending to our children with the whole concept of "Give me a treat or I'll play a trick on you" and I know that some elderly people dread the event, to the extent that they will turn off all of the lights and sit in darkness pretending the house is empty.

Our local library also give away window display cards produced by the Derbyshire Constabulary (police) to politely inform people that Trick or Treaters are not wanted at this house.

I'll be very interested to hear what you think on this one.

(And I'm going to be very careful not to slip as I climb down from my soap box.)

Gunpowder, treason and plot

This weekend has seen a double celebration in England, with both Bonfire Night and Diwali falling on the same day.

"Remember, remember,

the fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!"

It all began with Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn, who was crowned Queen in 1559. During her reign, the Anglican church was established and strict legislation was passed against the practice of Roman Catholicism in England. This was partly in reaction to the persecution of Protestants during the reign of Mary I, half sister to Elizabeth, and it led to continued tension between the two traditions.

When Queen Elizabeth died on 24th March 1603, she was succeeded by James I of England (James VI of Scotland). Catholics hoped that he would change the law to allow them more freedom, but instead, he increased the restrictions against them; an act which triggered the gathering of a group of Catholic plotters, led by Robert Catesby, whose intention was to kill King James and a number of his political leaders.

The Plot was simple. The next time that James was due to open Parliament, the conspirators would use gunpowder to blow up the building. They bought the small house next door, which had cellars stretching underneath the Houses of Parliament and planted their barrels of gunpowder. It fell to Guy Fawkes to watch over the barrels and light the fuse, but on the morning of 5th November 1605, acting on information provided, soldiers searched the cellars and he was discovered.

Guy Fawkes was taken to the Tower of London, where he was tortured until a confession was extracted and he had told the names of the other plotters. On 31st January 1606, Guy Fawkes was executed by being hung, drawn and quartered.

To celebrate his escape from death, King James ordered that people in England should have a great bonfire; a tradition which continues to this day accompanied by the setting off of many, many fireworks.

Berries

Although I have the odd stray flower clinging on in my garden, defying the colder days and frosty mornings, the main colour now is from the berries. The pyracantha are all laden. This is the only distinctly yellow bush. The other three range from deep orange to bright red. I can remember that the birds have a distinct order of preference, but I can't remember what it is. I shall be looking out for their feeding activity over the next couple of months.

After many dead-headings and a consistent show of blooms, I have finally allowed the roses to develop their hips. These belong to the climber, which is raging rampant over my arch and trellis, in need of a little love and attention. Definitely a task pending!

As children, we used to split the thick rind of the haw to harvest the internal  fibres as itching powder; much more cost efficient than buying it at the shop and equally effective! Just thinking about it is making me want to scratch.

Apparently though, rose haws are a real treat for chinchillas; a creature unable to produce its own supply of vitamin C and lacking the ability to process it from all but a few sources. Must remember that if I ever buy a chinchilla!

The cotoneaster berries are also ripened nicely, though these put on a much more subtle show, being smaller and on a ground covering variegated variety, rather than an upright bush. Their position close to both ground and house does mean that they will survive the birds for much longer though, being virtually the last to be consumed. By the time the birds come to this particular table, most self respecting cats will be keeping their paws toasty by the fire!

Finally, I'm never sure whether I like these berries or not. They are a beautiful milky white, but do tend to shrivel quite quickly and produce a lot of brown mess. For some reason, not much else seems to like these berries either, because they hang around all through the winter virtually untouched and take a lot of clearing off the lawn when they drop. In spring, however, this bush will be a blaze of bright yellow flowers. (Roll on!)

I think the plant is called Jew's Mallow, but I'm quite poor on plant names and am totally ready to be corrected.

Beech

My neighbour has a small line of beech trees. Too close to his house really, they block the light from the windows and he is talking of having them pollarded. I'm pleased that his thoughts are of reduction, rather than destruction, because they are beautiful trees.

'Beautiful' at any time of year, but glorious now as the leaves cycle through pale green to yellow to rich golden brown.

And, meanwhile, my forsythia is rapidly turning towards deep burgundy.

I'm torn. I love to see the changing colours, but I'm missing the long warm days of summer already. Winter does seem like a season of virtually continuous hard slog and autumn is her prelude!

I seem to be in the minority though. Most of the posts and comments I am reading are saying how much people love autumn. What about you?

Nature's fire

Aureate,

Closing statement!

Crowned in glory,

nature's fire precedes winter's

epitaph

Seasons in the sun

We walked down here last Friday. This is the path that runs through the top section of Breedon Golf Course. As you can see, it's quite a tree tunnel and it has a lovely feel, especially with the birds singing or a bit of a breeze sighing through the branches. But isn't it interesting, to see a place at different times of the day or in different seasons. The same location can have a whole new feel or atmosphere. I imagine that this footpath could be quite creepy in the pitch black, early hours of the morning.

In winter, the bare branches of the trees trace a skeletal pattern against the pale blue sky. All of the joints and forks are clearly visible, and bristle; almost like a giant upturned yard brush. The predominant colours are the silvery browns, greys and greens of the wood, with the contrast of the reddish brown castings from autumn strewn along the side of the footpath.

Contrast this one...

My immediate rection is that I prefer this photo, taken last October, with the richness of the colours of the turning leaves; but when I look more closely, I'm not so sure. What do you think?

Remnants of red

In my garden, I have four pyracantha, ranging from pale orange to vivid red. In Spring, they are covered in a blanket of pure white blossom, while the berries give welcome colour during the bleaker days of winter. That is... until the blackbirds feast! Each blackbird is a miniature berry stripping automaton; peck, swallow, peck, swallow, peck... It is fascinating to see the speed at which one bird can de-berry a whole section of plant.

This year, there was added interest as the blackbirds were joined by another type of bird. I had to look it up. And even then, I wasn't convinced that I had actually got it right (until a friend confirmed sightings in her garden), but yes; the brownish speckled breast, the distinctive flash of red under the wing - I really had been visited by a group of around five redwings!

Being in a city, albeit fairly close to the edge, my garden is not often graced by unusual or rare birds, so this really was an unexpected treat!

Tribute to tenacity

The sun came out this afternoon. It didn't last long, but it was still welcome and I took the opportunity to nip down to the very bottom of my garden to see what I could find. In a small number of weeks this area, over-shadowed by the big sycamore tree, will come into its own as the bulbs show through, stretch towards the light and then open up in a glorious show of colour. It's the time when my garden is at its very best and I can't wait.

Meanwhile, there are one or two interesting remnants from the autumn past - if you look closely enough. This tiny leaf retained it's autumnal golden-brown and survived the wind, rain and snow just long enough to end up being a photograph on here!