This ...

THIS IS THE PATH into the woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, when the early summer sun lay down his golden coins amid the blue ...


This is the wood, found by the path ...
This is the wood in bluebell days, where I walked and lay down my coins of dreaming in between these beauties belled blue ...


These are the trees who live in the woods ...
These are the trees in bluebell days, who spoke me an old tale gathering, and a once-upon-a-dusk-light blue ...


This is the moss that carpets the trees ...
This is the moss in bluebell days, pillowing my dreaming head, greening the floor of blue ...


These are the flowers that dance on the moss ...
These are the flowers in bluebell days, when gold and green, they sang out blue, songs of the verge and summer anew ...


This is the lamb that looked from the verge ...
This is the lamb in bluebell days, who ate the flowers and watched me pass, up the lane, into the blue ...


This is the cow, a friend of the lamb ...
This is the cow in bluebell days, no crumpled horn, but a muddy rump, who watched me pass, up the lane, into the blue ...


This is the horse, a friend of the cow ...
This is the horse in bluebell days, who stood on that hill where I first looked over, and found this home, under the blue ...

This is the foal, daughter of horse ...
This is the foal in bluebell days, who lay down to sleep while I held her hoof, and breathed in the scent of the blue ...

This is the blue, eaten by foals ...
This is the blue in bluebell days, painting my dreams a delicate haze, and holding the moor beyond in eloquent blue ...


This is the hill, and the moor beyond ...
This is the hill in bluebell days, where I came to sit and imagine a map, describing a path, over the edge of the blue ...


This is the path, into the woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, over the edge and into the woods, the path round the hill where I laced my dreams by the blue ...


These are the woods, not found by that path ...
These are the woods in bluebell days, woods by a river, a sat-by river, edged those days in blue ...


This is the river, the river of life ...
This is the river in bluebell days, where rocks and moss and sunlight play, and water goes by to the seas beyond and I sit and sing tales to the blue ...


This is the path, into other woods ...
This is the path in bluebell days, where a green road goes with my heart and my toes, and I skip away into the blue ...

Deadly Curios & Wardrobe Clearouts

TODAY I BRING you a motley collection of tales, the first few from a delightful book that I was reading last night in the bath. Timpson's England ~ A Look Beyond the Obvious by the late John Timpson who was a well loved presenter on BBC Radio 4 as well as writing a delightful collection of interesting books about local English oddities. I found some intriguing stories and photographs from corners and byways of England and wanted to share three on a rather deadly theme.

First there is the Old Coffin House (left) at Brixham in Devon... the father of a local girl is said to have told her suitor that he would sooner see her in a coffin than married to him. The suitor, being sharper than most, duly constructed the house in the rough shape of a coffin. The father was so impressed by his ingenuity that he relented and the couple lived happily in their coffin ever after.

Next we have a grisly memorial to the days of hanging - Steng Cross Gibbet (right) in Northumberland, where the body of William Winter was hung in chains after he had been hanged in Newcastle in 1791 for murdering an old woman in a lonely cottage near Whiskershield Common. He is said to have been urged on by two tinker-women who'd been given hospitality by the old lady. This strange band broke into the cottage, killed the old woman and took her belongings away on a donkey cart. A shepherd boy spotted the goings on however, and Winter was brought to justice.
Gibbets are places where the dead bodies of the hanged were displayed.. the Steng Cross Gibbet even has a wooden demonstration head! A great deal of uneasy tales and superstitions have sprung up about gibbets and the land they stand on, understandably. This one, rather bizarrely, is said to cure toothache if you take a splinter from the gibbet post and rub it on the offending tooth!

Last I bring you the Temple of Vaccinia or the Cowpox Temple. It was built in the Berkeley garden of Edward Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination. Mr Jenner was born in 1749 and devoted much of his time to the study of smallpox, a terrible blistering skin disease which killed thousands of people in those days. There was a tradition in Gloucestershire that milkmaids who caught cowpox whilst milking were immune to smallpox. So a small boy named James Phipps was used as a guineapig by Jenner to test the theory that an inoculation of the cowpox virus would protect against smallpox. It did and Jenner achieved great fame... celebrating his success by building this delightful little temple (above) in his garden.

Finally .. I bring news that I am having a major wardrobe clearout ... so if anyone fancies a rifle through this raggedy pile of old gypsy gladrags then feel free....
No news on the hard drive yet, so fingers are still crossed.
Wishing you all a happy end of week from sunny, haily, lamb-bedecked Scotland.