Showing posts with label Cornwall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cornwall. Show all posts

Friday, 21 February 2025

The Edge of the World … a bookshop …

 

At the moment … I'd like to disappear off to this Penzance shop to quietly keep my head down away from the news … to be able to read lots of books – but life is here in sunny old Eastbourne – when the sun decides to show its face again …


I'm forever blowing bubbles appeared in my little grey cells – the lyrics don't really fit the time … but I could happily sit on the sands dreaming as the days pass … til the need to blow bubbles has passed.





The lighter days cometh … it is now warmer and of course damper – British weather.





I have numerous tomes, some shorter!, I hope to talk to you about some of them – all in due time of course … for now the winter darkness is still around … but these crocuses are reaching above ground to cheerfully greet us … and remind us time doth pass …




I'm off to an exhibition on Sunday using the Sussex Art Shuttle … a little bus that takes us from the Towner Gallery out to Charleston (Bloomsbury Group Sussex home) … meandering through the swathes of snowdrops, early daffodils and those crocuses …



Not to the bookshop (or the edge of the world) … but a bright informative exhibition in the Sussex landscape will satisfy … enjoy your times …



Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Wednesday, 27 September 2023

Poly-Olbion ... colouring-in books ...

 

Poly-Olbion is a topographic poem depicting the counties in England and Wales, written by Michael Drayton (1563 – 1631) and published in 1612, with a reprint in 1622.


Part of Cornwall - showing 
St Michael's Mount and the Scilly Isles
Drayton was an English poet, specialising in historical poetry, who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. Every poem was anthropomorphised … then brought to artistic life by William Hole, a skilled engraver, who died in 1624 (his d.o.b.) is uncertain.



Poly-Olbion came to my notice (somehow) as colouring books– so guess who had to investigate...


Drayton had adopted the concept of celebrating all the points of topographical or antiquarian interest in his homeland …



Title page of Poly-Olbion -
as engraved on copper
plate by William Hole
in 1624


Albion's Glorious Ile – 'Of Albion's glorious Ile – I write.' - Drayton's used the rhetorical device of prosopopoeia throughout his song-poems.





As I didn't understand it – for elucidation: to remind me and let you know … prosopopoeia is when (in this case) an abstract thing is personified


River Severn - showing south Wales, with
the English of St George on the pennant,
on the opposite shore
England in the 1500s had very few roads, when the rivers were an important and mythologised natural feature – which the poem eulogises …



Part of the blurb 'as we move from place to place: an extraordinary textual repository of English and Welsh history, topography, legends, wildlife and traditions is amassed'.


Possibly depicting Boudica - Queen of
the Iceni tribe - which resided in
Norfolk, by the city of Norwich

Every subject imaginable is considered: Roman builders, English saints, the birds of Arden Forest, Dutch settlers, the great sheep of the Cotswolds, falconry, Robin Hood, sea monsters, Druidry, civil wars, herbal cures.



Quite honestly – that's even more than my brain carries! - it has been boggling at these songs/ poems …



Well I think perhaps I'd better just get to why I'm writing this post … when I was out in Canada I came across adults' colouring art pages … but quite honestly they didn't do anything for me …


Cover for one of the volumes


Then these colouring books appeared and I was entranced – whether I actually sit and colour them in is another matter – being somewhat incompetent in that area …




Who'd have thought the art of colouring was popular during the 17th century and beyond – when many of the original monochrome copies of these maps would be hand-coloured by both amateur and professional colourists.


Showing a coloured version
from earlier times - this is
part of Worcestershire




If you feel another post could enhance this one to add a bit more information – then I'll give it a go next time …





A few links: The University of Exeter's takes you to the others, with some explanatory details set out … particularly relevant are that the workshops were delivered for children, with Special Education Needs, mainly in the South-West region of England … the Royal Geographical Society was also involved.


Flash of Splendour's logo



The University of Exeter's involvement


Flash of Splendour Arts


The Poly-Olbion Project/s … the children's project ran concurrently with the scholarly version …


Michael Drayton c/o Wikipedia


PS - the books are now out of print ... so I was lucky to have found some ... publication was in 2015 ... so time has passed.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Society

Thursday, 21 September 2023

The Cornish are a Nation …

 

This was not the intended post … that's coming … but this intrigued me … being a committed Cornishlady …

The three ancient
continental land masses



I must have been looking for something (understatement) but came across this Facebook post from the University of Plymouth … at the boundary of Cornwall and Devon …



it was subtitled: Cornwall – a different people, a different land! - though I wasn't born there (my mother's family is from St Ives) … this could so easily apply to me.



I've plagiarised/ summarised /messed with their 2019 FB post – but linked back so you can see the whole …


World Heritage Mining Walk
(Botallack is marked -
part of 'The Crown Mine' estate)

Geology has always fascinated me … and coming from the land of the tin mines, it makes sense – in fact my disastrous marriage was celebrated in a tin mine counting house at Botallack … the culinary celebration was very good – the rest: not so …



I wrote about Bewitching Breeches at Botallack for my 'B' post in the 2015 A-Z challenge 'Aspects of British Cornish.



Avalonia

The University of Plymouth believe that a third ancient continental land mass melded this Albion isle … as shown in the image posted above …


It's been known that Avalonia formed most of England, which then formed an attachment to Laurasia … part of the Laurentian land mass, which at one stage formed part of the ancient continent of Euramerica/Laurussia …


It always amazes me that these continental plates 'moved around' so much, and at one stage (long, long ago) we could have walked to north America …


Folded old red sandstone rock formation
at St Anne's, Wales

...the Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region – which extends from Great Britain, Ireland and Norway across to Greenland and northern eastern Canada and the USA …


Another A – Z post on Aspects of British Coasts – the 'G' post: G is for Geology, Gneiss, Groynes, 'Grippers' … gives another view …


Geology of Great Britain (see Wiki)

I think I've probably almost ruined the idea about the world and its tectonic plates … but there is a link – to my next incredible story … colouring books from the 1600s – who'd have thought?!




Patience is a virtue … thanks for reading though …


The ancient Celtic tribes of southern
England (Dumnonii - Cornwall and Devon)


University of Plymouth Facebook post September 2019;

Avalonia – c/o Wikipedia

Laurasia – c/o Wikipedia


Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Saturday, 7 January 2023

Annalisa Crawford's new short story collection ...


'The Clock in My Mother's House' … 

What a great cover ...


... my own mother had a clock that I will now forever think about as I remember this story by Annalisa …






The dictating clock – an apposite quote:

'One of the greatest mysteries of the Universe is time. Time is enigmatic, a dimension that doesn’t quite behave like the three geometric ones. A particularly strange fact about time is that people can experience it differently.'


Two Cornish people should connect shouldn't they … I do – albeit I've never lived there – I most definitely relate to my mother's county … so here's another mother connection … which Annalisa feels run through all these stories: her dedication to her mother …


For Mum, for the laughter, and for the inspiration …



Those early years form us … it's when our future creative lives might first appear … nurtured by our mothers.



Here we find ten stories, of varying lengths, from Annalisa – all published, shortlisted, or longlisted on a range of competition sites …


She is an accomplished author … and don't we learn from all the stories and posts we read by our authorial-blogging friends …


Annalisa at the Costa Awards, 2016

our outlooks become less blinkered – we learn about others' lives, we have a chance to expand our educative horizons …


and if we're from the same county – we can each relate to the different content we read, as I know I do with Annalisa's tales … my imagination has grown.


Her book is now OUT ... I hope you enjoy it -
I did! - for links see below

 

For Amazon UK click here
And for Amazon US click here


"Crawford is a skilful short story writer. In this collection, melding mundane life with the fantastical, she deftly explores the internal worlds of her characters, creating a haunting and frequently wistful collection of short stories that will possess the reader’s imagination long after the last page has been turned." - J.S Watts


Annalisa Crawford - find her here:


Here's the link to all the retailers stocking the release of 'The Clock in my Mother's House' - officially due out 10th January, 2023 ... yet Amazon has already posted!


My post on Annalisa's 2021 publication Small Forgotten Moments 


Annalisa's collections - her dark contemporary
fiction with a hint of paranormal

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Friday, 25 November 2022

Phosphatodraco … Happy Thanksgiving …

 

It was blustery here, overcast and rather dismal while I thought about Thanksgiving times … and that poor turkey – mind you - here they'd only have a few more weeks before Christmas turkeys get into the shops …


Featured yesterday in Wikipedia



I was wondering if this magnificent creature could have been an early progenitor of the turkey -  you are or will be eating?




Apologies – I just was bemused by the image … let alone its name Phosphatodraco … and don't usually get down about 'life' beyond these shores … but it has got to me – I count my blessings, but am inwardly weeping …


Clade of Pterosauria


The vandalism, barbarous demeanour, rude, crude uneducated, uncivilised people of this world – who raid, maim, kill, herd into isolation – has been and is  awful …




yet what has really triggered my mental distress has been the pillaging of all things cultural from Kherson and its Art Museum … I cannot get my head round this dismembering of a country's art collection …



A room in the Kherson Art Museum
prior to the looting

having recently given three 'talks' on Russian art pre 1917 … and following the artistic story on into the early Stalin years to 1932 … I couldn't believe the repeat horrors I heard were happening in Ukraine.



War is not a subject I've been interested in – I intensely dislike it … but this has struck at my heart strings … I so admire the Ukrainians in this instance, and all, particularly refugees, who do not have freedom, yet who strive, hope and expect their worlds to improve …




I know it's Thanksgiving when we count our blessings, while to cheer myself up and get back to simpler things …





These scented narcissi from the Scilly Isles are available for sending out in time for those early parties – just sent some to the family …



The islands about 25 miles from the mainland

The Scilly Isles always remind me of my mother and times in Cornwall … happy memories of earlier times … when our parents had been through World War Two to give us our freedom … that so many of us live today …



Apologies – I'm not usually this morbid, and especially here on the blog – but this once … here's one that's different to my usual posts.



I know this is a wild one - but I'd rather
have this for my Christmas dinner!


I just hope a Phosphatodraco has not landed on your dinner table? I am looking forward to my Christmas turkey a month today!





With thoughts to one and all …


Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Positive Stories

Sunday, 19 September 2021

Small Forgotten Moments …

 

A wonderful book by Annalisa Crawford … bringing to life those tiny fragments, that rattle around in our minds …



 

… in the book there’s a ghostly undertone to these thoughts that constantly reappear … what do they mean and why, and where are they coming from...

 

 


Annalisa sets Jo, her artist character, working and living in London … before the wheels come off and Jo realises she needs to go back to her beloved Seaton Beach in Cornwall to work at and sort her life out – so much seems to be missing.

 

 

Seaton Beach, Cornwall 
Annalisa lives in Cornwall, where she admits her very active imagination, dances around down at the local beach, devising novels, and in this case deconstructing art works … wondering what the life of the person portrayed would be like …

 

 

Our character Jo, an artist, infiltrates the story … moving us around between reality or a confusion …

 

… black and white portrait sketches appear, then bright colours fill in parts of the draft as Jo draws … each haunting memory comes into being via these art works …

  

… the palette becomes less strident … as each realises pieces of the dream, drawing those snippets of memory to the fore …

 

Saltash Bookstore - The Bookshelf
Her book is a great read and one I recommend.  She gave a wonderful interview to Radio Cornwall about the book … it was a delight to listen to … then there was the recent book signing event at her local Saltash bookshop – the BookShelf …

 

 

Annalisa receiving her prize
I don’t know whether you remember Annalisa came 3rd in the 2015 Costa Books Short Story Awards … so you can see she has writing pedigree.

 

 

Kernow chocolate - I was sent
the 'Cream Tea' bar ... 


I entered a draw for a copy of her book, and some Cornish chocolate … my dream was realised!  Thank you and congratulations to Annalisa …


 

Costa Book Awards

Annalisa’s blog post … she is very self-effacing!

 A Chance to Win ... offered by Annalisa Crawford


Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

Of Mice, Men and Englishmen …

 Why the post is titled thus I have no idea – but I changed my mind – ladies are (I believe) allowed to alter their brain thoughts on occasion … are they not?


Edward Lear's A Book of
Nonsense giving us limericks
(The Father of the Limerick)

A limerick – I often start one and then it fades away into ellipses many – to start us off …

 



There was an old man from Brill

Who designed a straight garden rill

Pebbles were scattered, water filtered through

Fledglings flocked in

Sparrows, robins and songbirds all

Came to drink from the old man’s drill.

 

Then a little post-tale … as it’s summer in this island … we have rain, we have mist, we have strawberries, we have cricket, tennis, even football … we have had to entertain ourselves closeted in … and so it goes …

 

A garden rill

Some friends let me know that their newly built rill is keeping them occupied … a fishing net to hand with a long-handled broom help their days along rearranging stones to make bird bathing hollows for sparrows, robins, blackbirds, magpies and wood-pigeons …

 

 

Roses in Regent's
Park, London



June is finished – the next half begins … we hope for more freedom – I’m staying relatively put – I’d like some more sun … but our roses are blooming heartily …

 





We have a family birthday this weekend – it’s a family picnic time … this time at a famous church, across the fields from the house …

 

These are packed and flown by 
first class post around the UK

 … I ordered some Scented Pinks from Churchtown Farm, St Martin’s Island, Scilly Isles – they grow scented flowers all year … narcissi for winter and pinks for summer … for the birthday girl.

 


St Martin's Island
with the summer sun


The website is interesting … showing the Scilly Isles, their flowers, while the farm videosare delightful

 

 




Just enjoy – savour the scent … it is wafting around … so wonderful … let’s all have an easier next six months.

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories


Wednesday, 9 June 2021

Treasure those Memories – Carbis Bay and G7 Summit operative preparations …

 

Hey-ho … select one of the most out of the way places in little old England … this be long … so be warned!

 

St Ives, Penzance across the peninsula - both shown
... Newquay airport and Falmouth both marked

… Carbis Bay: a village of ribbon development above a cliff beach … population about 2,000 … where my Cornish roots stem from and where I took my first beach walk – has to be about as major an event as walking on the moon – surely?!




Ordnance Survey map One-Inch map - sheet 189: Land's End



… a post with tongue in cheek as I write, or facetiously stated …


If you can get here - you can shop
… don’t worry about the residents or people who have businesses in the area or locality …

… bring in the sewer police – check all the waste pipes and drainage sewers for potential trouble-makers …



… close down the roads, trails, coastal paths …

… alternative routes – have you lived down there? practically none available …



Digging the meeting rooms
… chop down ancient trees … because there aren’t enough ‘break-out’ rooms for the various meetings – in what is not a very large hotel at the best of times … but was originally decided just right for the G7 Summit … what was planned?  



Also no planning permission was given – it was just ‘done’ … chop, chop, chop

… with all that expansion – I wonder where the parking will be …



Tregenna Castle Hotel
... the VIPs are all staying about a mile away at Tregenna Castle Hotel ... plenty of room for helicopters and for accommodation ... it's above St Ives ... 




The cruiser accommodating the extra security
... the Media is being put up at Falmouth, the police too in a cruiser brought in ...




... tower over the little bit of land - St Ives a Royal Navy vessel, and the cruiser in Falmouth ... 



… Hayle Towans, across the bay from the Carbis Bay Hotel, is Mount Recyclemore – highlighting the growing threat of e-waste … climate change, and building a greener future all subjects on the G7’s agenda …



Adam Handling - the chef

… Food – a subject after my own heart … the chef, Adam Handling, was selected for his sustainable menus … and focuses his restaurants on food, drink, art and music – the newly created meeting rooms will be used by the Ugly Butterfly group after the event for both teaching and as a restaurant …


… a favourite I spotted was lamb sweetbreads with seaweed and Cornish potatoes – yummy! … for my 21st I requested that we serve sweetbreads … took the family and guests by surprise, as too the hotel … delicious! = a memory …


The Ugly Butterfly logo

... my Ma's care home was in Newlyn, just outside Penzance very near the crabbery (crab is on the menu) ... so guess where we went when I visited!




… the meat, fish, vegetables, herbs and desserts will as far as possible be made from local foods …



Royal Navy guarding St Ives - but towering
above the town ... 

... spread 5,500 police officers, every ten feet,  around for security …


… further security detail will be there too …




… have your two pieces of ID available and probably a lock-down certificate or two, or even three … just check the zone though … it might have gone from green, to zombie amber … ready for show at all times … even leaving your home, should you live there …



All closed with nowhere to go ... 
I love these wooden signposts we use here

… cars are banned, train stations closed, buses suspended, and as I mentioned the South West Coast Path blocked … to keep protesters out …



… some will benefit, some will just move out for the duration … a local b+b has no bookings, but is full of police! = benefit …


… police are insisting that protests must be held in designated areas … is that normally the case, when you protest – me thinks not.


Roadside verges - I hope ..
and planted around Newquay
airport
… some benefits – how long lasting is another thing … wild-flower roadsides, potholes filled – it’d be nice if they would do the rest of the country’s potholes …




… Newquay airport … tidy it up, fill those potholes too … look who’s coming G7 leaders perhaps … they could balloon in, or glide in, or even drive … if they’ve enough IDs on them – passports at the ready … or for that matter sail in …


… time is of no essence – the powers that be are coming … more importantly the Boris man – will he wear a wetsuit, or just a cozzie – that’d be interesting … my imagination reels!


From Newlyn looking towards
Penzance ... on a very wet day (c 1900)
… oh or he could go to the Penzance Jubilee Pool (one of the oldest surviving Art Deco pools) – now heated utilising thermal energy from the rocks below … 


...the interesting thing is that my mother seriously looked into that for heating the care home business she owned in Newlyn back in the early 1980s … way too expensive then – but it was an option …

Boris prevailed – the pool is heated!


Closed off tomorrow 10th June
… Penzance – by the way is over the other side of the peninsula – they’ve closed the promenade to traffic – only pedestrians and bikes … as one chap said – there were traffic jams before – guess what now: impossible to drive locally … queues already on the main road into to Cornwall – let alone the Penwith area …


… I have now found out that Stanley, Boris' father, an Ottoman by descent, was born in Penzance – that was a surprise … not sure what my mother would have said!



Working on the new meeting rooms -
they were still being built last week
… there’s a ‘green push’ going on by our Government … though with the trees being felled, I’m somewhat befuddled …




… the Cornish are great – they’ll embrace anything … cow-poo is being collected and the carbon gas emitted is being used to run the Council vans …



Tin Mining +/- 1890
Camborne and Redruth
… they’re looking into mining again … this time Lithium – a necessity in the requirement to go green – batteries will be needed.  It was found in Cornwall at Wheal Clifford, when mined for copper and tin during the years 1835 – 61 … so what now: start mining again …



… I thought these security guys could fly their planes and helicopters … but they seem to be practicing a lot!


Looking down from St Michael's Mount
battlements ... 
… they’re staying at Tregenna Castle Hotel … so helicopters in and out there … as well as Exeter, Devon and Newquay, Cornwall airports … and good heavens – in the garden area at St Michael’s Mount … and at Carlyon Bay, St Austell, Cornwall …



Looking up ... 
… the helicopters were ‘dropped off’ from the US Air Force plane, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III (for anyone interested) …




Windsor Castle -
Crimson Drawing Room
after restoration from 
1992 fire

… the powers that be – the President and his wife, will stop over to meet the Queen at Windsor Castle on Sunday …




 



Botallack Engine buildings
Promote all areas of Penwith … including Poldark’s area … these were very early ‘wheals’ (engine houses) – another memory: I had my reception at the Botallack Count House, when it was a restaurant – back in 1980 … stunning food then, the setting was shrouded in mist (and it was this time of year) – says much for the future of the two protagonists … !!  Enough said …

 

Let’s hope that whatever is agreed, is then pursued and achieved …

… the Cornish economy is supported in the foreseeable future … and that the fishing businesses have their lives sorted out …



Mount Recyclable G7 summit - built on
Hayle Towans facing across St Ives Bay
towards Carbis Bay

… that everyone leaves, taking their rubbish with them … so the Cornish coasts and countryside are left as nature intended, and that the people can be peace again …






… I hope it will not be a county of haves with second homes, and have nots - no jobs to apply for, no opportunities …

 

The links I used to write up this post … with many thanks for all their information and pics I’ve ‘borrowed’ … they bring the post to life so I’m very grateful …


Cornwall Live - which has been regularly updating details of the 'goings on' ... 

Ugly Butterfly - details re the chef and general info ... wonderful reading: I think!

iNews G7 Summit - introduces us to the menu ... 


PS - that yellow sand on Carbis Bay beach has been shipped in ... oh the expense!  After all I was toddling on that beach in 1949 and ever after ... 


Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories