Pigeon Post ...

 

We had to use up our stamps by July 31^st … the deadline was looming … I had a few – not enough to worry about swapping out for the new ones, but definitely not waste.

One of the old stamps -
featuring our Eastbourne
band stand.

I thought of whom I could drop notes to (not proper letters) … mostly, believe it or not, bloggers – so the cache were scattered out onto the table … as I had 1p (one penny stamps), 10p, 5p ones- dating back to who knows when … well I guess the 1990s, when I came back to live here.

I also had to ascertain the cost of stamps in July … we had moved on to … I had some 'World stamps' and some 'Europe' ones … a right mix – but the priority became more urgent as the July days ticked by.

The particular version - I sent to Damyanti

Competition kicked in – business ideas changed etc etc … so I guess the change up in July was to be expected … now that we had a new monarch: King Charles III (first time I've written that).

Amazingly the British postal service was founded 507 years ago – when Henry VIII was on the throne. Name changes have occurred – and it is now the Royal Mail as a brand – the government's remaining share was sold off in 2015, ending 499 years of state ownership.

Louth (Lincolnshire) to London Royal Mail
(1820) by Charles Cooper Henderson

These Origami inspired crafted letter-envelope combinations appeared at our Towner art gallery and I always rather admired them – so decided they'd make a few journeys across the seas or up and down the country: using up said expiring stamps.

Apothecary Pigeon ones

Pigeon post – suggest you send a pigeon. 

Here we have Apothecary Pigeon letter-cards ... Fern, honesty, witch hazel ... these medicinal marvels were picked from the artist's (Jake Lever) garden.

Simple instructions for the letter Reinvented:

                    Write.

                                    Fold.

                                                Send.

Feel more connected – send a Pigeon.

I dutifully followed instructions: I may have sent them in plain envelopes … so I (or the various mail systems) didn't mess up the actual design.

Wildflower ones

Their motto – 'A more satisfying way to communicate' – I couldn't agree more … I've heard back from most – perhaps they haven't arrived, or sickness reigns, or it's summer holiday time still …

… and one post from Singapore appeared – jogging my posting mind that this could be my first autumnal one, getting into the way of normality again (I don't do normality – but there we go!).  Damyanti has/had nesting birds on her balcony - so this choice of pigeon post was appropriate.

So another reminder for us all – do write hand-written letters … they can inspire and uplift friends or family.

To round this off – here's a quote from the long poem Musophilus by Samuel Daniel, first published in 1599 in his Poeticall Essayes:

O blessed letters that combine in one

All ages past, and make one live with all,

By you we do confer with you who are gone,

And the dead living unto counsel call:

By you th'unborn shall have communion

Of what we feel, and what doth us befall.

Thanks for visiting – and congratulations to the IWSG group, Alex in particular, which/who celebrated 12 years yesterday … my first A-Z, which led me to IWSG, was in 2011 … and I know many of you have been around for as long as I have.

Midnight Garden Pigeon ones

I certainly wouldn't still be blogging if it wasn't for this incredibly supportive group of blogging friends ('you' in other words) … and learning from each and everyone of you.

Damyanti's post: When was the last time you wrote a letter by hand?  

Pigeon Post website ... well worth a visit ... 

Please Read the Letter prompt for the WEP entry in June 2022 - here's my entry ... 

Musophilus - see Wiki entry ... 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Write … Edit … Publish … Bloghop / IWSG hop: Please Read the Letter …

 

Who knows who will read this letter … but to each of you I hope you will take your time to learn more, to understand … life offers so much – this earth and its occupants are so extraordinary … so much goodness here …

Keep your letters - there'll be words of
wisdom in there ... and memories ... 

… be aware each of us has something to offer – learn others' cultures, garner that knowledge and use it wisely …

In recent times as the 21^st century opens up, and as my life is on the wane … I have no wish to go, but have taken to contemplating my life … I am now making up for lost time, as best I can …

From Daphne's post

To keep me going when my mother became ill, as I needed to spend her last years with her – I started this blog 'Positive Letters Inspirational Stories' and am somewhat amazed at what resides there!

I'm not a diarist, never have been, yet I've thoroughly enjoyed this process – recording and learning – and today as I write this, find myself back in 2009 … rather shocked, happily surprised to be reading my own words, as too those of others …

You never know who will read your words – even you yourself … the post is longer – but perhaps these are the salient points … that resonated with me as I read my own words …

Mum and us on Lake Windermere +/- late 1950s

Darling Mum – I am honoured to have been able to share so much with you over the last two years .. and to have been able to laugh with you, smile with you .. and watch your belly ratchet up and down laughing uproariously .. bringing others into our room to see what’s going on!

You’ve been an inspiration to me .. in that you’ve never complained, never worried, never whinged or moaned .. we’ve laughed our way through your adversity, our trials and tribulations ..we seem to have settled into a wonderful existence and have two minds that have met enjoying each other's company, while also appreciating the snippets of information or things that amuse us.

I don’t know where your brain is .. but it never ceases to amaze me at what you can remember .. you may be muddled occasionally .. but it doesn’t matter you’re just so pragmatic about everything and ready to join in the fray – you are most definitely extra special .. and I love you.

My original post is here … 'Giving My Mother Something to Live for' …

Daphne's 'Positive Letter to Hilary' is here – sadly she no longer blogs …

Then there's also all the thoughtful, supportive comments – no wonder I've stuck around in the blog community … it's so worth while …

Thank you – these are important too … I do write 'thank you letters' – keeping me 'honest' to this craft …

Tag line:   You Never Know Who Will Read Your Words or the Benefit they impart ... 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Don’t Walk in the Road …

This was shouted out as I wandered up the old High Street, past the town hall, with the intention of going on home … 

Eastbourne Town Hall -
top of Grove Road (which was the main high street)

… but the junction by the town hall is a miss-mash (or mish-mash!): two one-way streets, one which bifurcates as it reaches the town hall, opposite a two-way street, just round the corner another road that comes in …

My mish-mash junction ... I was walking past The Grove
Experience (not sure what that is!) on the Town Hall side
of the road ... and walking on up past the Church
(see next image for the actual junction)

… so car drivers also don’t always know where to go … but the shout-out … took me a while to realise it was, more than once, addressed to me!

Town Hall on left as you look
at the image - and I was on the
pavement outside the town hall
- not quite visible in the photo ...
but the bifurcated bit of the road
in front of the town hall is -
where this electric was ...

I’d forgotten my bus pass and was wandering home and had decided to walk up on the other side of the road … knowing that ‘this junction’ might make me wait around for a few seconds – but to be ‘accosted (by shouting)’ don’t walk in the road took me by surprise – yes I was in the bifurcated part of Grove Road …

Eastbourne Town Hall
- built 1883

… but hadn’t heard a car coming up behind me, to then realise it was an electric one … as I was happily about the cross over to the middle of the road – so I stepped back onto the pavement.

I tried again … unusually! traffic in all directions – so kept stepping back …

Lewis Carroll's illustration
for the old man standing on his head

… the chap sitting on the town hall steps was now quite anxious – calling out did I need help to cross the road ………… by then I was laughing to myself.

But knew that he was being very thoughtful and was obviously concerned I was a completely incompetent old lady … so I did turn back to him and say … I’m fine thank you.

 I have to say these exchanges occurred a few times – eventually the traffic cleared and off I toddled.

The junction isn’t that easy – but it’s unusual to get held up … yet one needs to be aware of the various directions traffic could come at you from. 

I was on the bifurcated bit … and quite often it’s ignored by drivers: they get to the junction without using the bifurcation – which surprises pedestrians, who don’t expect to be accosted by a motorised vehicle turning right into their path.

Tenniel's illustration for 'turning a
somersault in at the door'

I should think I’ve lost you with my descriptions … blame it on old woman blogger syndrome!

I’m pretty road savvy and spatially aware … so was bemused to be ‘ticked off’ by a chap sitting on the cold town hall steps.  I might say he was there the next day – then I was in the bus … so in no danger of causing him anxiety!

Obviously I need to take heed … to others:

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—

What made you so awfully clever?"

I think I need to pay attention to the first verse … where the old man stands on his head … my lack of hair might not show quite so much …

Another of Tenniel's illustrations -
thankfully I am not like that!

… and the third verse … my word for the year (not attributed to me!) is waistline … needs to be found – I am not, as the stanza says, ‘uncommonly fat’ … but a little reduction would help!

Well that’s enough waffle for me … setting the tone for Monday’s post … with the very appropriate poem by Lewis Carroll: “You AreOld, Father William” … or … You Are Getting Older, Blogger Hilary …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Talc ...

Talcum powder … mostly known as ‘talc’ or baby powder … but this is a clay mineral of the softest kind, listed as such on the Mohs hardness scale.

Block of talc - greeny, grey, cream colouration

'Monti' Montague Sykes, artist, sculptor, writer and blogger, wrote a piece on her Montana talc sculpture … I was fascinated – she’s a great blogger/writer-artist combining the creative art forms … but I’d never thought of the possibility of sculpting from baby-soft talc …

Bozeman - capital of Gallatin County,
Montana - on the eastern side of the
Rockies, USA

I then went searching just to gain a little more understanding … first things – Montana Talc … now that mine is owned by Imerys … a global organisation.

Where had I come across Imerys before – well: at the approaches to The Eden Project in Cornwall – a favourite of my mother’s, which therefore holds many memories. 

Eden Project with meadow plantings ...
c/o Visit Cornwall

The dramatic global garden housed in tropical biomes that nestle in a china-clay pit crater the size of 30 football pitches … is a gateway to a better understanding of relationships between plants and people … a unique resource for many …

Imerys own the China Clay lands of south-mid Cornwall … and announce the fact as one drives through their landscapes … I’d been used to English China Clay … now Imerys.

Waddesdon Manor - bequeathed by the
Rothschild family to the National Trust 

Imetal founded in 1880 by the Rothschild family had combined a few of their many subsidiaries in metals and mining industries, which then became known as Imerys.

I have to say I’d never really associated the Rothschilds with mining – but of course having amassed the world’s largest private fortune in the 19^th C – it’s not surprising to find that their business enterprises cover many areas, over and above banking.

This wonderful coloured depiction - shows the
structure of  talc (see Wiki for detail)

So back to Montana and baby bottom talc … Monti’s piece is titled “Emerging” sculpted from talc … the form is definitely transpiring and becomes revealed … the mineral looks so soft …

You may have experienced soapstone – which is a metamorphic rock composed predominantly of talc … it can feel ‘greasy’ to the touch.

The word talc derives from Medieval Latin talcus, which came from Arabic, derived from the Persian … and covers various related minerals, including talc, mica and Selenite.

Monti's sculpture: EMERGING ... you can definitely
see the form ... 

Who would have thought talcum powder would take us on a world tour – China Clay … started in China – that’s another story … but knowing how soft and easily damaged soapstone can be …

… talc’s story unfolds so appropriately using Monti’s wonderful sculpture “EMERGING” … a human form sculpted from this softest – as a baby’s bottom – stone …

National League of American Pen Women ... art and poetry on view

Mary Montague Sikes blog and her post:
     Seed Work for Authors and Artists - Visiting the Trees

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

It’s a bug’s life … or not …

... saving itself from extinction, appearing as a magnificent rainbow jewel 175 million years later, or humans’ thinking ah! this would make a good meal …

Matrix Opal c/o National Opals, Australia

Bugs are incredible, and together with the natural earth, keep this world in balance, which is more than can be said for the Anthropocene epoch.

Nothophantes Horridus – yes, more commonly called the Horrid Ground-Weaver – an extremely rare species of spider in the family Linyphidae (sheet weavers or money spiders).

 

Goldcrest love Sheet Weavers

Etymology gives this little bug its name: from the Greek words ‘notho’, meaning spurious, and ‘hyphantes’, which means weaver, and the Latin ‘horridus’, which means … not horrid! … but bristly.

Anyways … it is very rare and has only recently (1989) been found in a microscopic area of Plymouth, Devon,  less than one kilometre square - whereupon its environmental friends called this endangered species ‘to action’:   as evidence that a housing development in a quarry should not go ahead:  the Planning Inspector upheld the bug’s right to exist.

 

A fossilised Belemoidea

The next is a Belemoidea, which has raised its pretty little head after life in the Jurassic era – about 175 million years ago.

They are an extinct group of marine cephalopod  (being millions of years old I guess that’d they'd be extinct?!) – but very similar to squid and closely related to the modern cuttlefish.

This particular bug has had a chequered life … seen by marine dinosaurs in Australia’s vast inland sea, before the sea regressed.  At that time the weather was erratic and very acidic – the effects caused silica-rich gel to become trapped in the earth.  Over time the silica solidified to form opals.

The Virgin Rainbow Opal

This Virgin Rainbow Opal was found in the Coober Pedy district of Western Australia – “The Opal Capital of the World”.  It has been secured for the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

Coober Pedy

Not knowing the area at all … I was interested to see that Coober Pedy lies on the Adelaide to Alice Springs road and on to Darwin – I’ve taught myself a bit of geography here.

We are running out food … well so they say … and we’ve always constantly looked at other alternatives of food sources … how about bugs?  Australia has them … Balmain Bugs – I always liked the look of these slippery lobsters – a food to be enjoyed.

Balmain Bug

Some of these aren't bugs ... buttttt .......... I enjoyed writing about them!

Balmain Bug, Prawn, Squid, etc

A lot of us won’t eat bugs … just the thought of scrunching down a creepy crawly sends shivers down our spines.  They’re not unhealthy; they’re often quite tasty and loaded with the sort of nutritious good stuff dietary professionals love.

Sooner or later we’re probably going to have to get over our apprehensions and embrace these remarkably efficient sources of protein. 

Served at a pub near you ... 

Let us eat worms, we already eat snails … the American Army Survival Handbook, I see, tells you (not me!) how to catch worms, clean (purge) them and then you can eat them raw.

Late 1800s ad

But remember we used to despise oysters – the poor man’s food … and those bugs the lobsters despised by American coastal dwellers, but beloved by the train passengers (good to eat) and railroad bosses (cheap to provide).

Now there’s the Wild Food School in Lostwithiel, Cornwall – which provides Entompohagy Courses – new word?!  Yes for me too … but here they show us that eating insects is de riguer in many parts of the world ...

So let’s embrace bugs … for their use, their balance of life, and for the beauty they might provide in a quarter of a billion years ahead!

Here are some links … that might amuse and tell more of their story:

Finest Opal Ever c/o The Jewellery Judge 

Big Think on Eating Bugs

How Lobster Got Fancy c/o PSMag 

Wild Food School: Edible Insects and Bugs

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Preparedness and on the Couch with Denise Covey …

Timber ahoy! – last Friday  I had the ultimate example of preparedness … and how things might go wrong, or just get stuck for a while … and knowing that I might be ready to return to blogging realised I was not prepared.

Men getting prepared to chop the trees

Dark and Gloomy - the day was too ...
but the thickness of the trees gave us privacy

I am always thinking – ah! that could be great content for a blog post … wherever I go and whatever I do … the brain is triggered into contemplating … that could be a great example ... I could write about that, or at least incorporate it.  Trouble is I rarely settle to write … I ‘keep’ it safely locked away, or squirrel it away in various paper nests!

Denise's caption  header: Cafe Writer

I love the colours here

Denise’s Couch called to me to return on the day Queen Elizabeth II will become our longest-reigning monarch; as at today +/- 17.30 pm Greenwich Mean Time … the Queen will have surpassed Queen Victoria’s long reign of 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes on the throne!!  (63 years and 7 months to put it more simply!)

Was I prepared to return? … as these tree fellers were … no!  The Queen however had had some time to prepare … just over fourteen years from Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936: which must have been a huge shock … a stumbling block – which the family overcame.

She has served us with a willingness that few show … there will have been and will be many programmes on her reign and the Royal Family  - so I’ll just tell one snippet, which amused me …

The Winkle Club in Hastings is a famous charitable organisation formed in 1882 by Hastings fishermen to help the underprivileged families of Hastings Old Town.

Apart from some specially selected local residents, Winkle Club members have included a few very illustrious personalities such as Sir Winston Churchill, Neil Hamilton (American actor) and HRH Queen Elizabeth II (who became a member in 1951, when she was still Princess Elizabeth), who were/are honorary members.

A painting recording Churchill's Membership

Each Winkle Club Member (or ‘Winkler’) carries a winkle shell which they must produce when challenged to ‘Winkle Up’: failure to do so results in a fine which goes towards the local charities.

The Queen and Prince Philip both appear to be in rude health for an 89 year old, and a 94 year old … who still appear to be very much in love – as Victoria was with Albert, her Prince – so long may she reign.

The Winkle statue on Winkle Island -
a pavement area between the town
and seafarers

I am looking forward to being back and being involved again – it’s been helpful to have had this long break – but I enjoy the stimulation.

Denise’s Blog gives us great variety … on Australia, on Writing, on Travelling – she seems to spend a lot of time in the middle of the Pacific on amazing islands! – and on time in cafes … yet her passion is obviously cake, cake, cake and more cake … always tempting us to visit her Café … and couch, as I am today … telling a little of myself …

Trees down, with one lopped

Last Friday we had the Leylandii Cyprus trees cut down – they were pushing the paving up in the housing association flats opposite … and taking their light.  The second sycamore (the other came down 2 years ago) has been heavily lopped.  There was an old flowering diseased cherry that was cut off too!

The men turned up, laid out their gear, started with the cherry tree and demolished that … they then started on the Leylandii – which are prolific growers, and have never been thinned out …

Need for thinning

… these trees acquired a section in the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 giving people affected with high hedges (often Leylandii) the power to have the trees or hedges taken out or severely reduced in size.

However the stumbling block occurred – the second of the three trees threatened to fall into next door – remedial action was needed.  Man up tree … from the bottom thinning as he went … it was somewhat time consuming – but led to being safely reduced to ground level.

Summer Pasta Salad

So we never know when those stumbling blocks of life may happen … cutting trees, calling on flat renters to watch bemused, wasting the day away … it all happened really quite quickly.

As I don’t own the place, so don’t have a say, what will be put in their place … is totally I should think unthought about.

I've had way too much fun being out and about!

Enough of that … the lady who is an honorary member of the Winkle Club will later on today celebrate an historic moment in the thousand years that Kings and Queens have reigned over us, while that elusive blogger will return to her writing ways.

I’ve missed you all … and look forward to being around – and thank Denise for waiting for her couch visit …



Let's eat cake together ... one of Denise's favourite - Toblerone Cake

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories