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


Friday 25 June 2021

We Are the World’s Blogfest # 50: Misty Clips … stop glasses fogging when masked up …

 

He’s a 21 year old student, his career was (and still is) to become a pilot, Covid put that on hold … he started to work in a local (Eastbourne) supermarket …

 

MistyClips c/o their website

 

… as soon as he put his mask on his glasses fogged – what to do …  become an inventor! 

 

 




Alex Wickens - modelling his invention
He set to … developing these ‘MistyClips’  - with full instructions for fitting: slide your MistyClip onto the top edge of your face mask, pop on your mask and glasses … 


... then the site says …. ‘And breathe …. ’



 

… but I add to this – essential care-use instructions: the company is very careful about reminding us that MistyClips are less flexible than petroleum-based products – so handle with care to ensure longevity … 


I find this encouraging in this day and age … the instructions are very thorough.


 Produced using renewable resources and by-products from the food industry, including corn starch, coffee grounds and finely ground mussel shells - not an oil well in sight!

 

 

Banks of 3D printers
Local small networks of businesses are being helped with the support of the MistyClip’s entrepreneur – Alex Wickens and his associates.

 

 

They’re produced using a 3D printer … and are now being sent as far afield as the USA and Kuwait …

 

 

Rough Sleeping in London
They donate a percentage of their profit to Trelis, a Sussex-based (Eastbourne) charity … providing employment skills for homeless and unemployed people.

 

An amazing young local Eastbourne entrepreneur … Alex Wickens has defogged the opportunity to help others as his journey progresses. 

 


I’m very impressed by their very simple and clear website … if only everyone took this amount of care with the ‘instructions and notes’ when using these little clips …

 


That’s my simple #WATWB idea for this month … MistyClips – eliminating the fog on your glasses, once masked up, helps …


Healthcare workers …

Other professionals … eg food hygenists …

Anyone feeling the need to carry on wearing a mask … until we’re through this dreaded time …


Spring Green Misty Clip


 

We are the World Blogfest

In Darkness, be Light

 

 

Misty Clips website

 

Care of product …getting the best out of your MistyClips purchase …

 

Bournefreelive: Eastbourne details about Alex Wicken's MistyClips

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories


Wednesday 16 June 2021

Write … Edit … Publish … Bloghop / ISWG hop: The Great Wave …

 

As a kid, geography was a lesson that could cover various sciences … her early ones were a blazing volcano seen exploding from the page, the ensuing great waves travelling the oceans, an outline of the continents, the darkness in the skies, an art lesson …

 

The Great Wave of Kanagawa
by Katsushika Hokusai
(1831)

Well they learnt about Krakatoa’s eruption in 1883 … it impinged – enough for her to remember to this day …

 



Stormy seas off Newlyn, Cornwall
… the stormy seas when visiting her grandparents in Cornwall … huge waves of water crashing into the harbour walls or coastline …


 


Hayle estuary at low tide
Grandpa would regularly take to the sea … swimming in St Ives Bay and on occasions taking the plunge to cross Hayle estuary – a treacherous channel of water … this she remembered …

 

 

An artist's depiction
… the pictures in the school book gave her imagination time to wander … art was never her thing … but the images were added to the memory bank as the years went by …

 

 

Krakatao's eruption



… at some stage the form of a nightmare occurred disturbing her sleep … but her imagination had common sense … so all was well …

 


 



Hokusai's Great Wave - as a backdrop
to the 'beach' as part of an art
installation for the Paris catacombs 
As she aged - more was learnt … but those minor nightmare reminiscences continued on … the Great Wave arising from the volcanic explosion, the colours master artists crafted into magnificent depictions of events … released into her mind, never to be forgotten …

 


 

Racing great wave across an ocean
The things as a child one can start to learn and appreciate over time … volcanoes, ocean swells with rushing waves, how to explain things, creative vision through art, with the added recurring nightmare thrown in … that this ‘Great Wave’ reminded her about …

 

 

Cargo Boat passing through the waves -
print by Hokusai (c 1805)
She is grateful for those early geography lessons, before the discipline separated the sciences out … the ‘Great Wave’ lingers on into her eternity …

 



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