March 23rd 2012 - Not!!

My life did not come to an end on Friday 23rd March 2012 (as one one-time reader of one of my blogs surmised).  Nor did my photography stop.  Nor did my cooking.  Nor did my interest in dates. It is simply that I couldn't cope with having so many blogs and decided to concentrate on my main one - Rambles from My Chair. If you wish to see what I've been photographing of late just click on the link and join me there.  You'll be most welcome.

I msy be back to post the occasional date but please don't hold your breath...

November 8th

1874

Nov. 8, — Walking with Wm. Splaine we saw a vast multitude of starlings making an unspeakable jangle. They would settle in a row of trees; then, one tree after another, rising at a signal they looked like a cloud of specks of black snuff or powder struck up from a brush or broom or shaken from a wig; then they would sweep round in whirlwinds—you could see the nearer and farther bow of the rings by the size and blackness; many would be in one phase at once, all narrow black flakes hurling round, then in another; then they would fall upon a field and so on. Splaine wanted a gun: then 'there it would rain meat' he said. I thought they must be full of enthusiasm and delight hearing their cries and stirring and cheering one another...

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

September 30th

1769 - Appleby, Westmorland

30 Sept. 1769
WIND at N.W. Clouds & sunshine. A mile & Vz from Brough on a hill lay a great army encamp'd. To the left open'd a fine valley with green meadows & hedge-rows, a Gentleman's house peeping forth from a grove of old trees. On a nearer approach appeared myriads of horses & cattle in the road itself & in all the fields round me, a brisk stream hurrying cross the way, thousands of clean healthy People in their best party-color'd apparel, Farmers & their families, Esquires & their daughters, hastening up from the dales & down the fells on every side, glittering in the sun & pressing forward to join the throng: while the dark hills, on many of whose tops the mists were yet hanging, served as a contrast to this gay & moving scene, which continued for near two miles more along the road, and the crowd (coming towards it) reach'd on as far as Appleby.

On the ascent of the hill above Appleby the thick hanging wood & the long reaches of the Eden (rapid, clear, & full as ever) winding below with views of the Castle & Town gave much employment to the mirror: but the sun was wanting & the sky overcast. Oats & barley cut every where, but not carried in.

Thomas Gray
(Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University. He is best known for his 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard' and his 'Journal of a Tour through the English Lakes'.)

September 24th

1870 - (Stoneyhurst College, Lancashire?)

Sept. 24 — First saw the Northern Lights. My eye was caught by beams of light and dark very like the crown of horny rays the sun makes behind a cloud. At first I thought of silvery cloud until I saw that these were more luminous and did not dim the clearness of the stars in the Bear. They rose slightly radiating thrown out from the earthline. Then I saw soft pulses of light one after another rise and pass upwards arched in shape but waveringly and with the arch broken. Th^y seemed to float, not following the warp of the sphere as falling stars look to do but free though concentrical with it. This busy working of nature wholly independent of the earth and seeming to go on in a strain of time not reckoned by our reckoning of days and years but simpler and as if correcting the preoccupation of the world by being preoccupied with and appealing to and dated to the day of judgment was like a new witness to God and filled me with delightful fear.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

September 12th

1826 - Stroud, Gloucestershire

Stroud, Tuesday Forenoon, 12th Sept., 1826
I set off from Malmsbury this morning at 6 o'clock, in as sweet and bright a morning, as ever came out of the heavens, and leaving behind me as pleasant a house and as kind hosts as I ever met with in the whole course of my life, either in England or America; and that is saying a great deal indeed. This circumstance was the more pleasant, as I had never before either seen or heard of, these kind, unaffected, sensible, sans-façons, and most agreeable friends. From Malmsbury I first came, at the end of five miles, to Tutbury, which is in Gloucestershire, there being here, a sort of dell, or ravine, which, in this place, is the boundary line of the two counties, and over which you go on a bridge, one-half of which belongs to each county. And now, before I take my leave of Wiltshire, I must observe, that, in the whole course of my life (days of courtship excepted, of course), I never passed seventeen pleasanter days than those which I have just spent in Wiltshire. It is, especially in the Southern half, just the sort of country that I like; the weather has been pleasant; I have been in good houses and amongst good and beautiful gardens; and, in every case, I have not only been most kindly entertained, but my entertainers have been of just the stamp that I like.

I saw again, this morning, large flocks of goldfinches, feeding on the thistle-seed, on the roadside. The French call this bird by a name derived from the thistle, so notorious has it always been, that they live upon this seed. Thistle is, in French, Chardon; and the French call this beautiful little bird Chardonaret. I never could have supposed, that-such flocks of these birds would ever be seen in England. But, it is a great year for all the feathered race, whether wild or tame: naturally so, indeed; for every one knows, that it is the wet and not the cold, that is injurious to the breeding of birds of all sorts, whether land-birds or water-birds.

William Cobbett
(William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey.)

September 2nd

1774 - Selborne, Hampshire

Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year: notwithstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.

Gilbert White
(Gilbert White (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) - letter to Daines Barrington. White was a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist, born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). )

August 27th

1826 - Tangley, Hampshire

East Everley (Wiltshire), Sunday, 27th August, Evening
We set off from Uphusband on Friday, about ten o'clock, the morning having been wet....
In the midst of this, I got, at one time, a little out of my road, in, or near, a place called Tangley. I rode up to the garden-wicket of a cottage, and asked the woman, who had two children, and who seemed to be about thirty years old, which was the way to Ludgershall, which I knew could not be more than about four miles off. She did not know! A very neat, smart, and pretty woman; but, she did not know the way to this rotten-borough, which was, I was sure, only about four miles off!
"Well, my dear good woman," said I, "but you have been at LUDGERSHALL?"
— "No."
—"Nor at Andover?" (six miles another way)—"No."
—"Nor at Marlborough?" (nine miles another way) —"No."
—"Pray, were you born in this house?"
—"Yes."
—"And, how far have you ever been from this house?"
—"Oh! I have been up in the parish and over to Chute."
That is to say, the utmost extent of her voyages had been about two and a half miles! Let no one laugh at her, and, above all others, let not me, who am convinced, that the facilities, which now exist, of moving human bodies from place to place, are amongst the curses of the country, the destroyers of industry, of morals, and, of course, of happiness. It is a great error to suppose, that people are rendered stupid by remaining always in the same place. This was a very acute Woman, and as well behaved as need to be. There was, in July last (last month) a Preston-man, who had never been further from home than Chorley (about eight or ten miles), and who started off, on foot, and went, alone, to Rouen, in France, and back again to London, in the space of about ten days; and that, too, without being able to speak, or to understand, a word of French. N.B. Those gentlemen, who, at Green-street, in Kent, were so kind to this man, upon finding that he had voted for me, will be pleased to accept of my best thanks. Wilding (that is the man's name) was full of expressions of gratitude towards these gentlemen. He spoke of others who were good to him on his way; and even at Calais he found friends on my account; but he was particularly loud in his praises of the gentlemen in Kent, who had been so good and so kind to him, that he seemed quite in an extacy when he talked of their conduct.

William Cobbett
(William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey.)