LYS

Last week the Olympic Torch went near to my parents' house and through the area where Tony and I grew up.  Unfortunately it was a pelting wet day (there's a surprise) but people still turned out to see it and record the moment.

I don't know about the US, but it's Father's Day here today.  Tony has been well bedaddyed, in spite of having two services and a choir rehearsal to keep him busy today.  A very funny parcel arrived from Daughter, the Sunshines called in on their way home from North Yorkshire with a nice bottle of something, and LYS sent a Shakespeare DVD - Coriolanus - with a delightfully witty and well-expressed letter.  He finished this with two offerings for our word games -

Avocado - to give a car to a female deer

Wail - what Woger wides the twain on

Lady Waterford's Paintbrush

Before I say anything else -

I can tell you that harmony is the fee you get paid for making people laugh, or that 'socially' is the alternative to 'so shan't he?'  But I cannot compete with Kaitlin and her father's definitions for 'disembark', which made me laugh out loud.  To read them, view the comments.  The bar is suddenly very high.

Now, Louisa, Lady Waterford.  She was the daughter of a an upper class English family, her father was a diplomat, and she spent many years in France during her childhood.  What's more, she was a very talented amateur artist.  On her marriage to whatsisface Waterford (sorry, I don't have the biographical details in front of me), she moved to Ireland.  By the time he died she had left the local villages better off by a couple of schools and various projects to help the poor.

As a widow with no children she moved to one of her husband's other estates, Ford village in Northumberland.  The village had no school, so Lady Waterford did something about that, and the school she established is now the village hall, and well worth a visit.

Village schools at the time could be quite grim places, but not this one.  Lady Waterford was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite/Arts and Crafts painters, and set about painting the hall with murals of Biblical scenes, using the local people as her models.  As the murals were for a school, there are a lot of children in the pictures - Samuel as a child, young David, Miriam  - and, of course, women bringing their children to Jesus, with all the panels interspersed with flowers and vines.  If I'd gone to that school I might not have learned my tables, but I would have loved looking at the walls.  These were village children with not much access to books or pictures, and that schoolroom must have been a magic kingdom for them.

Lady Waterford was popular, kind, and active in leaving any community happier and healthier than she found it.   She should be an honorary citizen of Mistmantle.

Hello, Petal!

Helen has done it again.  She just sent, among others, 'personable - someone who can' and my favourite, 'catastrophe' - this cat has won an award in the Olympics.  The day she can get her computer to talk to my blog, look out.

In the North-East of England, a part of the world God made for himself, 'petal', is a term of endearment, as is 'flower'.  'Are you all right, flower?'  'How are you, petal?'.  I was reminded of that at the delightful village of Ford - it's so close to Etal that they're generally known as Ford and Etal.  That was where we found one of those shops that should have come out of a story.  Petals'n'Paper.  (I think the website is petals'n'paper.co.uk, but you'll find it on Google.

You walk through a lavish, thriving garden to a wee cottage with a welcoming door and a welcoming lady, Dorien Irving, and straight into Aladdin's cave.  Almost everything there is made by local craftspeople - cards (lots of them, mostly made by Dorien and her family), framed prints, jewellery, scarves, notebooks bound by hand, and all manner of wonderful things.  They take orders for calligraphy, and do notices and all sorts for the little local community.  Also in the village you can find Taylor and Green craftsmen made furniture, and I think I may have told you about the antique shop.

Another time I'll tell you about the redoubtable Lady Waterford, who had a lot to do with making the village what it is.  In the meantime, see you later, petal.

Archers Update - Ruth's worried, Linda's got hay fever, Amy's obsessed with her ex, Jamie's in a love triangle, Will and Nic want a baby, and Tracey fancies the cricket coach.

words to the wise

My friend Helen - the one I just got back in touch with - has raised the word game to a whole new level.

Paradise - gambling on salvation

to which I feebly reply

Remembrance - where did I leave Auntie?

I was reminded recently of one of those family sayings.  When my sister was about four years old, Dad was helping her to plant seeds in a flower bed.  A visitor arrived and Dad welcomed him into the garden, but said,
'Take care not to step on the soil there - that's where we just put my daughter' seeds'.

"Daddy!" she said, running over.  "Can I see the tortoise seeds?'

dricht

'Dricht' is a hard word to explain, but if you're on your way home from a day out in North Northumberland and you can't see the drizzle ahead of you for the fog six inches in front, then it's dricht.  Fortunately, as we've just spent four days with my sister and brother-in-law, we were soon out of the dricht and into their snug stone cottage with log fires, hot coffee and two cats.

Yes, we have finally met the two ample cats.  They have slimmed down since Christmas, when they first arrived, but they are still very considerable cats.  Harvey sprawls across his Mum's lap to have his tummy tickled, and I've never before see a cat do that, have you?

Mercy, we thought last weekend was wet.  It was like driving home through a monsoon.  Camping and caravan sites in South Wales (where Daughter lives) and Cornwall (where the Sunshines spent their holiday a week or so ago) are flooded.  Any overseas readers planning a trip to UK in the coming week, bring a brolly.  If this goes on, I'm going to buy one for Much.

You need welly boots, too.  I'd lend you mine, but they've started to let in water.  I discovered that this morning, when my sister and I decided to wade across the stream...

Teeming on Thames

Well, that was - er -entertaining.

Here in the village it's been a great Jubilee weekend so far.  Special themed quiz on Friday (we won!  Award that woman the Order of the Corgi) and there was an afternoon tea for 140 people on Saturday.  They told me it was 140, but I washed up and I reckoned it was five hundred and they all used more than one teacup.

Yesterday we had a lovely morning services with hymns from every decade of The Queen's reign and thoughts about what the church in Britain has been doing over that time, and the direction it's going in now.   We followed this with a lunch and a party, all presided over by a cardboard cutout of ER II.  (You could stand behind her, stick your arm out, and do the wave.  Regrettably I capsized her while lifting down high chairs from the stage, but I picked her up, apologised, and curtsied, and nobody's put me in the Tower yet.)

In the afternoon we settled down to watch the Thames Pageant.  Some bright spark had decided that the way to do something magnificent for the Jubilee was to amass lots of little boats of all kinds and have a procession on the Thames.  The Royal Family were on this very beautiful boat thing, which pottled along the water and got saluted by everyone.

There were some nice things about this.  It was a homage to the little boats that rescued the British Army at Dunkirk, and some of those original little ships were there.  They had representations from all sorts of clubs, sports people, working boats, and so on.  The crowds turned out.

So did the rain.  It was a cold day and when the rain arrived, as it did in force, it hammered down.  The whole thing lasted something like four hours, and the commentators were running out of things to talk about.  Frankly there were few highlights, and the queen gave it her best as she always does, BUT she was on her feet all that time, and looked nithered with cold.  Did nobody consider what sort of a demand this was on a lady of 86?  Was this suppose to honour her, or make her wish herself home by the fire with a warm corgi?  God love her, I wanted somebody to bring her a cup of tea.

It was worse for the singers from the Royal College of Music, who stood bare-headed and soaked to the skin, but still smiled bravely as they belted out Land of Hope and Glory.   Paramedics were kept busy looking after those who were getting hypothermic, including some from the boats.

Ninety year old Prince Phil appeared to enjoy it a lot - he's a naval man after all - but today, he's not at the Buckingham Palace Party.  He's in hospital, suffering from a bladder infection.  The long afternoon standing by the Thames won't have caused it, I know.  But it can't have helped.

Oh deary, deary me

Oh deary, deary me, as Granny Weatherwax would say.  I have a few days holiday and come back to find a blog full of comments. What on earth has been happening in the House of Stories while I was away?

So, firstly, let's look at the latest word game, which is doing terribly well (see the comments if you want to catch up).  When Lovely Younger Son was about six, we visited the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge, the one that broadcasts the Nine Lessons and Carols every Christmas Eve.  It has a famous fan-vaulted ceiling, and the very thoughtful people who run it have installed mirrors and a neat little model to show how it's constructed.   LYS, being a child of a lively mind, loved this, and grabbed me by the hand to come and see it.

"Come and look at this!" he said.  "It's fantassinating!"

So, when this thread was launched, he texted me to claim 'fantassinating' by ancient right.  Another of his inventions is 'snickled' which is that tingle you get in your nose when you've been drinking something fizzy.

If you look at a map of Scotland and find the South-West, which is Galloway, there's a sticky-out bit on the end like a whale's tail.  We've just had a wee holiday on that sticky out bit, right on the coast.  A very amiable seal popped up one evening to say goodnight to us.  There were more birds than I knew the names of, a deer in the garden, a hare crossing the road in front of us, and pheasants so determined to get run over that it's a wonder they're not extinct.

We came back in time to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee in true village style.  Of which, more later.