Yakety-Yak part 2 …

 

Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom film … is a quite delightful story telling about a Yak in Bhutan, a recalcitrant youth, and a school high up in the Himalayas in need of a teacher …

Lunana is between the 'M & A' of the 
Himalayas name

… said youth had to finish off his teaching diploma before he could leave Bhutan, with his guitar, to pursue his dream of achieving a musical career in Australia – for which he already had a provisional visa.

Ultimately he has to qualify as a teacher … so off he goes up into the Himalayas … grumping and groaning as only a rebellious youngster can …

Pokhara Valley in Bhutan

The headman sends two herdsman to meet him – when the 'road runs out'; he has his walkman headphones permanently clamped to his ears … ultimately the batteries run out …

… the two villagers reassure him the walk is easy – it's along a river – yes, but that stream is pouring down the mountains – so the walk is an uphill wet trog. He'd purposefully bought Goretex boots before leaving – well they're no good – soggy wet feet step onwards!

Poster for film

We journey with him … it is beautiful, hardwork, we see cultural aspects, are introduced to a few peoples along the way.

Eventually he arrives – it is basic to put it mildly – he has his own hut … he's fed that first night … and given some basic instructions about how things work – he needs to light his own fire, cook his own food etc etc … eventually sleep comes …

Early the next morning there's a knock on the door – by the littliest schoolgirl – we're ready for you 'teacher' she beams announcing with delight …

See link at end

… oh dear – nothing's organised … eventually things sort themselves out – he's beguiled by the children, copes with wet yak pats – told he needs dry ones to light his fire … etc etc

His guitar comes out – he recognises there are excellent songsters in the hamlet … he sends for teaching tools from Thimphu, capital of Bhutan …

A Yak - they're sleek animals

He's given a Yak to look after – who has pride of place in the classoom – domesticated yaks are highly regarded for their milk, fibre and meat, and as beasts of burden – then there's their droppings – fuel for their fires … but the yak will not eat grain … they must have grass …

… in the end they have a happy year – but he's determined to leave … and does … he's qualified and can travel to Australia … his dream has come true … but has it …

Here he's playing his guitar to his yak!

… he's playing in a bar in Sydney and realises no-one is listening to him … they're all nattering away … he's upset … then appreciates there's a calling at home – high up in Lunana …

Some brief stats and info … Lunana's administrative area has a population of under 900; rainfall is over six feet a year; many of Bhutan's glaciers are within the district, which lies at an altitude of 3,400m (over 11,000 feet); yaks are related to cattle and are also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox, or hairy cattle …

The movie inspired me – and still does – I hope you'll be able to make a plan to watch it sometime … 'a teacher touches the future' and 'you find what you seek in a place you least expect' …

The trailer to watch ... Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom 

Wikipedia's page on the film ...

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Yakety-Yak … part 1 …

 

Absent without leave … the brain being 'overwhelmed with 'to dos''and as you'll gather not getting very far. Yes, I do want to write about Yaks … strange, but true …

I've had a few things going on … the brain works, but not much else apparently – so my grey cells tell me!! Also I got a whammy … my blood pressure has decided to not agree with me … which needs to be addressed – i.e. slow down, de-stress … not something I needed right now – but obviously I must deal with it.

We had a wonderful talk from the Finnish Ambassador - he was great … very personable … he'd accepted our European Movement (see January post) invitation last June – mentioning he never confirmed speaking dates so far in advance … but for your meeting I have.

Apparently he'd been looking forward to coming back to the Sussex coast since the 1980s when his father had sent him over on a student exchange … we'd opened the door for that return.

His talk revolved around the history of Finland over 1,000 years – it was fascinating in the context of a country being part of an evolving area of Europe.

Identity Global image - website here

This month we had a local high achiever as our speaker, whose Identity group has been responsible for organising the Coronation, other global events ...

... including messing up 'my childhood beach at Carbis Bay, Cornwall' for the G7 Leaders get together (their Summit!) last summer, COP26 in Glasgow and the recent NATO summit … we had a really fun evening …

Perhaps to get back to this age ... of no worries!

I'm trying to cut back to give myself more time away from committees – so re-evaluating life and getting my 'rambling' health back into line. I'm fine – just need to make sure I get back to being healthier.

I think I'll stop there … having just heard a snippet about the Michael J Fox film 'Still' on his life and living with Parkinson's disease for over 30 years … the word 'attitude' was highlighted – I need to get over myself right now – and get back to normal.

I'll be curating a few other happenings – my brain is full on at the moment … and I need to lighten its load – poor grey cells - which means overloading your visits!!

Thanks for bearing with me – I'll be around soon … Happy Mother's Day weekend to those in the States …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Write … Edit … Publish … Bloghop /IWSG hop: Life is Beautiful

 

Life is beautiful for us … for some not so … for others it was until life intervened …

We are so lucky … has anyone experienced homesickness … what does it mean? Missing home, or family, or friends, or all three – and then there's our emotions that affect us so profoundly.

I left home – the home that was security – yet exploring beyond my own realms was actually beyond my own imagination …

Victoria Falls with its bridge
(Southern Africa)

I made life easy so used the same language – was able to engage with like-minded people, though different … but I missed home; I couldn't go back – well I could, but I had to give myself a chance living overseas.

Within the environment I embraced … things were much the same … the humour, the music, the books, and yet new memories would be created … I was not going to be culturally bereaved.

Our maternal homeland
(I always miss it!)

Now I am back home – in the country I was born in ... and have that freedom that comes from being in a safe place … there are other adjustments that others cannot easily make …

But I can learn … and need to learn to appreciate others' ways of life – the whys and hows of how others think about life away from their roots …

Look at the other side
of life too

When my mother was in her last years in a nursing centre … I became more aware of how others' felt – in other words how I was feeling – not being completely in control, as I needed to be with my mother, rather than worry too much about myself.

There are two sides of a hand … the palm, or the dorsal side … I learnt that if someone was frustrating me – I needed to rethink … and used my hand as a metaphor to change my thinking.

Others' lives are in our hands

It has made my life easier for me – I can adjust … Life is beautiful – yet it needs to be for all peoples of the world … as a child we are (or should be) born into a positive world … where compassion and thoughtfulness abound – each person helping, caring and understanding the other …

Our world is becoming 'upsy-down', horrific for many, sad for others … so many are homesick yearning for what was …

Courtesy of: NHS Tayside Mental Health

Let's help each other have hope – and allow them time to create their own life of beauty …

Ugliness and cruelty are unnecessary

Life is Kind and Beautiful

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Pasta Primavera – Spring Pasta …

 

The delights of Spring … those early vegetables … and the thought of enjoying a Spring meal using young Spring greens – with luck new peas, sprouting broccoli, watercress, sorrel, Spring cabbage, early broad beans or runner beans, pasta with a creamy sauce … and some herbs …

Pasta Primavera with asparagus

Healthy flat ribbon pasta (tagliatelle) – steam or lightly cook your veggie as you usually do … boil the tagliatelle, drain … add the fromage frais and gently stir in (making sure the sauce doesn't split) as you warm it through …

Sprouting Broccoli - one of
my favourites

Add the veggies and chopped herbs of choice (parsley and chives come to mind) with a splash of pasta water … stir very gently … lightly season …

Broad Beans - also delicious!

Serve scattered with parmesan, and a drizzle of olive oil …

Spring Meadow - with blackthorn in the 
background

As this is a Spring dish … I prefer not to add tomato at this stage in the season … preferring a green pasta dish …

Pasta Primavera with Shrimp

We could add salmon, or seafood if so desired for a Good Friday lunch/supper …

Apparently the dish was invented in the 1970s in Canada by a New York restauranteur … I feel fairly certain the Italians would have been making similar dishes over the centuries in their villages … but so be it: it introduced me to Roberts Island, in Yarmouth County …

Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia -
their shipping museum

… but I can't find a satisfactory image – so I'm showing you Yarmouth County Museum – which is full of shipping history. Nova Scotia has an interesting coastline – suitable for rich barons who need summer homes!

Personally I wouldn't add asparagus as ours really doesn't come into season til the end of this month … on checking – St George's Day is when it commences here (23^rd April) … til mid-summer's day (21^st June). Then of course May will arrive rather sooner than expected – so please use asparagus if you'd like to!

Peas growing ... so good straight from the plant

A simple meal to prepare over the Easter weekend … with the fish appropriate for Friday … I doubt it's going to be warm enough here to eat outside – some years it has been.

Happy Easter to you all – here is a collection of Ukrainian pysanky with traditional folk designs … and I'll be back with my WEP entry next week … 

A variety of Ukrainian Pysansky eggs

Note: Pysansky are Ukrainian Easter eggs – decorated using beeswax and dyes. The verb comes from pysaty, “to write”, as the designs are not painted on, but decorated with beeswax.

See the history here ... Pysanksy Eggs project ... 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Surfing … Big v Small (film) – Nazaré, Portugal ...

 

I'd often wondered about the draw of the Portuguese coast's Nazaré monster surfing waves – but had never been inquisitive enough to look further …

Monster breaking wave at the end
of the underwater Nazaré canyon

What was it … and why were the waves so big …? well now I know – and so will you in a few hundred words!

A recent Film Society Film 'Big v Small' explained a great deal, as well as opening my eyes to how we can tame the fears inside us … under the ice in Finland.

Holding our breath for any length of time for most of us is nigh impossible … and we all have fears of some sort … perhaps mostly hidden from our friends and the outside world.

Joana Andrade

Joana Andrade, the Portuguese surfer featured, is of tiny proportions – not obviously hugely tenuous … yet this film shows us what can be achieved – by an intrepid character … her comment from Surfer Today just explains her attitude to life:

"I am a small woman - 1.56 meters tall - and not very muscular. My strength comes from the head through a lot of meditation and breathing exercises. I train at home to relax, connect with my inside and find the way to trust myself."

The 'Oeste' Administrative
area on the coast of Portugal

Growing up on the Oeste coastline – about half-way up Portugal's coast – Joana, as many a normal kid would do, rebelled against her mother … no surfing … not in those waves … but Joana had other thoughts. Typical rebellious kid!

She looked and looked at those huge breakers, while improving her paddle-board surfing skill along the coast … at that stage: self-propelled with her surfboard.

Tow-in Surfers shown on the waves

The technique of tow-in surfing came about in the 1990s … when a surfer is towed by a partner into a breaking wave – using a Jet Ski or helicopter. It was pioneered in Hawaii …

Monster surfing waves are found in Hawaii, off California and Nazaré, Portugal … there are other notable big wave surfing spots. These waves could only be caught using the tow-in method …

Joana Andrade surfing a giant wave

This was when waves over 30 feet (9 metres) were beyond the bounds of a surfer … after the tow-in method evolved waves over 50 feet (15 metres) could be surfed …

The ups and downs of 'tow- in surfing fashion' has in the last five decades or so – opened up other areas … one of which is Nazaré – where the waves break really close to the shore … the area known as Praia do Norte (Nazaré).

Geomorphology of
Nazare's underwater canyon

The Nazaré underwater Canyon … is the largest submarine canyon in Europe … reaching depths of about 5,000 metres (16,00 feet) along a length of about 230 kilometres (140 miles). 

There are three distinct sections … one of which I must remember to mention when I get back to my English Language post/s.

Another problem was holding one's breath should one fall out of a wave, as another huge wave would be waiting to break, with perhaps a third soon behind …

Johanna Nordblad - under the ice

So on searching for help … Joana came across another … in this case … Johanna Nordblad from Finland – who is an ice diver, and freediver – who also holds the static breath record of 6 minutes 35 seconds.

They went to Finland to help Joana Andrade hold her breath for longer, as well as overcoming her fear of being submerged … in this case under the ice for a period of time …

Fort of Sao Miguel Arcanjo (1577)

Mind over matter … something at that level beyond my desire to attain … but the film was very intriguing and very absorbing.

The links fill in or add to the informational spaces …

Big v Small IMDb documentary film ...

Portuguese Joana Andrade - article in Surfer Today ... 

Free Diver, Ice Diver from Finnish Johanna Nordblad ...

Adding another link I'd forgotten about: From Cambridge University about 'cold shock' being tested for its value with various diseases". I can't seem to provide a link - but if you're interested ... please type in the sentence below and you'll be sent to the link.

Scientists in Cambridge and Berlin have used a form of gene therapy to increase levels of the so-called ‘cold shock protein’ in the brains of mice, protecting them against the potentially devastating impact of prion disease.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Wheatley and Gillray – Georgian artists …

 

The two history talks I gave were about these two Georgian period artists … Francis Wheatley (1747 – 1801) and James Gillray (1756 – 1815) …

Francis Wheatley

We're learning something of the Georgian era (George I to George IV: 1714 - 1830) … which included the sub-period that is the Regency era (when George IV as Prince of Wales was regent during the illness of George III).

Some members of the group opt to give talks on different subjects - I'm usually the one that tends to break the mould … choosing something interests that me, rather than a subject suggested.

Chair Mender

Wheatley (1747 - 1801) was an English portrait and landscape painter, who was brought up in and around Covent Garden … where the poor would hawk their wares …

He had an eventful career when his low point came in 1789 he was elected to the Royal Academy in preference to the King's nominee … that was that – he never secured another commission from the aristocracy.

Preparing for market

His career unravelled … yet in the middle of all the turmoil he had created these 'Cries of London', which were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1792 and 1795 …

It is thought that his third wife, who became, after his death, Clara Maria Pope, was his model for the female hawkers shown in these paintings. There's a ginger and white terrier that often occurs throughout the series.

Sweet Oranges

Various engravers of the time brought these 'Cries of London' to the public's attention – which have ever since remained in the nation's heart …

The ballad seller

… and prevail as part of our historical culture … featuring on chocolate boxes, biscuit tins and prints often found hanging in the houses of elderly relatives and the seaside hotels of our British childhoods.

James Gillray

Next came James Gillray … a caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mostly published between 1792 – 1810.

He's been called “the father of the political cartoon” … and who, along with Hogarth, became the two most influential cartoonists of the era.

L'Assemblee Nationale (1804) -
was called "the most talented caricature
that has ever appeared" partly due to its
admirable likenesses.  The Prince of Wales
paid a large sum of money for it to be 
suppressed and its plate destroyed.

Gillray's targets were the great and the good, not excepting royalty. But his vision is often dark, his wit frequently cruel and even shockingly bawdy: some of his own contemporaries found his work repellent.

John Bull raising Napoleon's
head just after landing in
England (1803)

He changed his art from embracing the French Revolution to being no longer hostile to King George III … creating John Bull, defending the realm from the French and Napoleon …

It just happened that a new book by a young highly applauded historian, Alice Loxton, has come out … of which the convenor of our history group sent me the review … so having ordered her book it awaits my eyes to be read: Uproar!: Satire, Scandal and Printmakers in Georgian London.

The other particularly noteworthy aspect about Gillray - was that he was a skilful writer, taking great pains over the text that accompanied his works …

'Dublures' of Characters (1798)

To sum Gillray up – he was late Georgian Britain's funniest, most inventive, and most celebrated graphic satirist, continuing to influence cartoonists today.

For further reference – should anyone wish to read my talks … I'd be happy to send them to you (they're not long) … together with a list of slides that illustrated both talks.

Spitalfields Life – has further details on Francis Wheatley and his 'Cries of London' together with relevant art works …

There will be various reviews of Alice Loxton's book and articles about James Gillray on the net …. Wikipedia has plenty of Gillray's cartoons.

I will get back to 'Our English Language' … I have lots of books to read first … but posts will occur!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Canadian – Sussex – War Artists at Cuckmere Haven on the South Downs …

 

Canadians were stationed near here in both World Wars … we think of War but don't often relate to which one … sad, but true …

Cuckmere River running out to the
English Channel with its oxbow lakes

A blog post had sent me off to the Group of Seven landscape artists, who were prominent Canadian artists practising at the Algonquin School, Ontario (1920 – 1933) …

… a group I had heard about because Emily Carr, the Modernist and Post-Impressionist style artist lived on Vancouver Island - where I encountered her, was associated with the group.

Frederick Varley's 'The Gas Chamber at
Seaford' (1918)

I am getting to my point for the post! … for whatever reason I decided to read on about the Group of Seven, then came across a view I immediately recognised … but it was of the Cuckmere Valley, Sussex in 1918 … so now … I looked further.

Lord Beaverbrook (1879 - 1964), a Canadian-British newspaper publisher, had recommended, Frederick Varley, (1881 – 1969), as a World War One war artist … hence he was commissioned to Sussex.

Our iconic view from Seaford Head looking 
eastwards towards Eastbourne

Now – this coastline – the chalk downland above Eastbourne, where Beachy Head is to be found – is usually remembered for its film sets, as too tv background scenes, adverts … and a beauty spot for us all to visit …

c/o BBC March 2023

… it too today retains its dangers … a new crack has opened up – danger on the cliffs, danger below …

This iconic view has over time drawn professional and amateur artists to spend time here enjoying painting en plein air. Graham Greene and H.G. Wells both referred to walking in this area …

Eric Ravilious (c 1939)
Cuckmere Haven

So to tie this in … Eric Ravilious (1903 - 1942), a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver, grew up in Sussex being particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs and love of the Seven Sisters' coastline and Downland …

He served as a war artist and was the first British artist to die on active service in WW II when the aircraft he was in was lost off Iceland.

I was surprised and interested to see Varley's art – 'The Gas Chamber at Seaford' – giving us an idea about the training for the mustard gas attacks that had started to be used in WW1 …

… and being able to jot down a few notes here covering the above aspects … and a few more links to be found below should they interest you …

Seven Sisters chalk coastline looking west

Obviously there's another war link today … we have Ukraine refugees here … 

East Sussex WW1 - gas chamber information ... 

Eastbourne College - Summerdown WW1 camp 

Frederick Varley (1881 - 1969)   

Self-portrait ... found at this interesting website:  Thematic Stamp Collection ... details of Varley's self-portrait on the 17c stamp issued 1981 - painting completed c 1945

Eric Ravilious - a film entitled 'Drawn to War' ... preview of film here ... 

I'm recovering from being off colour and fed up with things ... but all well - and I'll get to the English language posts shortly ... have two talks to give on Monday ... after that!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories