JAFMHT- Just Another Medieval Hill Town

I like things to be on a human scale. When I enter a magnificent church, I am not reminded of the glory of God (well I wouldn't be would I?), and of the insignificence of human life. Quite the opposite: I marvel at human endeavour and ingenuity throughout the ages. Why do people ask "Is this all there is?" What more do they want? The amazingly rich variety of human life and culture over the millennia since we started to think and talk, plus the wonders of the rest of the universe, should be enough for anyone methinks.

So what is this all about? I am trying to analyse why I hated the Sistine Chapel (artistic as well as religious blasphemy I fear), St Peter's Basilica, and the vast and vulgar piazza outside it, where a funny little man comes out every so often and thousands of people fall to their knees in awe. And on the other hand, why did I love the original Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, and all these charming little hill towns we have been visiting?

It's partly to do with scale- it's a lot easier to appreciate something that is your sort of size, but it is also to do with intent. I believe that much of Renaissance architecture and art was intended and designed to aggrandise both the rich and powerful and the Church which in turn bolstered and legitimised their power. At the same time it is meant to make ordinary people feel little and insignificant.

Anyway, be that as it may, here are some pics of some of the lovely little towns we have encountered in our travels, so many and so picturesque that they tend to merg in the mind, hence the title of this blog.
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Better than the Sistine Chapel- reflections on Italy

We visited the Vatican- St Peter's and the Sistine Chapel etc- the first time for me. I was impressed, but not, I suspect in the way I was meant to be. It was impressively big, overpoweringly powerful and ultimately ugly. Designed I think to make the viewer (worshipper) feel small and worthless. I have no doubt that Michelangelo's paintings are extremely wonderful works of art, but they were so far away that they were difficult to see. Add to the distance the fact that you need to dislocate your neck to see them at all and the result is somewhat over-awing. Bossy papal officials shushing everybody didn't help me to feel respectful! What I did get a sense of, was the technical difficulties and skill of painting at such a height and flat on one's back- and all into wet plaster in a limited amount of time. I now want to find more about it. (Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus is an interesting take on the subject which I will now re-read.)

However, the Monastery of Saint Benedict at Subiaco was altogether different. It was quite simply the most beautiful and interesting church I have ever seen.







Clinging to the hillside like the swallow's nest that an early visiting pope called it, the building is difficult to fix in your mind. You enter by a corridor which skirts the side of the mountain and overhangs a small rose garden which sticks out from one of the caves. Staircases wind up and down, and chamber clings to chamber like an accretion of limpets on the side of a boat. Rock and building often merge, and frescos of great humanity and narrative power cover every surface.

Men and Women at Work

Our gardening angel, Avril, has been sawing down branches and trimming hedges; work that has been desperately needed now for several years. In the photos above, you can see her cutting off two huge branches that stuck out a long way into the garden and overshadowed one of the beds. She left the fork with two stumps sticking out as a comfortable perch for small boys! I might try to carve the ends into faces! Look out for more on the story of the tree seat.





While Avril worked on the hedge bordering the lonning, Mike cut some huge overhanging sections from the multi-stemmed cherry by the roadside. He kept having nightmares that it would fall across the road one day and cause an accident. While he chopped up the resulting logs, I stacked them on the veranda of the cabin- an ideal place for a proper woodpile. Hopefully by next winter, it will be stacked full, and should make us self- sufficient in wood.





Yesterday was a perfect winter's day, blue and warm with a slight haze, lulling you into a false sense that spring was almost here, but as the shadows lengthened, the cold found ingenious ways to bypass our defenses and remind us that winter is far from over, and there will be cold and wet days a plenty to come.

Nanny says don't go onto the ice

We have now had a total thaw after a month of ice and snow. We have been virtually hibernating, going out only when necessary. However, we did go out to Keswick last Saturday, to see the unusual phenomenon of Derwentwater frozen over completely. It was like a scene painted by Breughel. The ice was solid and clearly many inches thick, and was able to support dozens of people, walking, sliding and even cycling. It was such a joy to see so much innocent fun, and so many adults recalling their childhood. As for the kids- it was as if all their birthdays and Christmases had come at once.

Where there was a rift and a thin place in the ice, between the shore and Belle Isle, everybody stopped, assessed and went a different way round or turned back. We had intended to walk all the way to Friar's Crag on the ice, but this stopped us.

We have got unused to using our initiative and judgment these days: rarely are we faced with situations of personal danger in our absurdly risk-averse and litigious society. It was heart-warming to have proved what I have always believed: that most people are mature and sensible enough to conduct their own lives reasonably, and we do not need the infantilizing rules, notices and warnings that plague our society.

What did next day's newspapers bleat on about? You've gussed it- how irresponsible it was for people to endanger their lives by walking on the frozen lake!

Frog blog

Discovered in the garden, just trying to hole up for the winter, possibly the fattest frog I've seen!

Swallows and Amazonite

Not long back from a mind blowing trip through the Rockies, and expecting the swallows gone, I was thrilled to see over thirty gathered on the wires above the garage this morning. They are obviously thinking of going, and who can blame them as the grey clouds gather over Skidder, and mist forms on the inside of the glass!



Visually, the trip was mind-blowing and gave me lots of ideas for painting and jewellery, so I can see a busy winter coming up. The amazing subtle colours of glacial ice and the astonishing blues and greens and greys of glacier fed rivers and lakes, to say nothing of the patterns, inspired jewellery ideas, so I looked for gemstones that could echo and reflect these colours. What I found was a stone I hadn't come across before: amazonite- it looks like chunks of ice.


And labradorite, with its elusive iridescence, watery moonstones, and ancient looking turquoise can also add their subtle notes. One pair of earrings made so far- watch this space!

More bird news

The last four baby swallows ventured out of the nest yesterday, and flew today.



Meanwhile, a baby blue tit took a shower... and was having a great time until a big boy came along, and pushed him out. Is the usurper looking around to see if Mum is going to tell him off?

Swallow Central Update

This is the latest nest, and the five eggs have produced four chicks- at least I can only see four. (You can only see three in these pics) However, the nest is so small that another one might be underneath! Mum and Dad have to sleep on the floor so to speak, or in this case on the end of the ladder which hangs right by their hastily thrown together homestead. As far as I can tell, the whole family crowds into the nest at night, sitting on each other's heads. At least, that is what family no 1 do. It looks like this lot will be ready to fly in a week or so. Watch this space!

The Constance Gardener- and the Michael

We are a three garden family. Other families have several cars, some even have second homes, but us, we have three gardens! We have a big stake in our daughters' gardens: there are many plants in theirs that originated from ours, and we frequently bomb off south to do a bit of a makeover. Having worked recently on the Southern Garden, and the Mid West Garden (in Swindon) we came back to the Northern Garden to find lots of weeds, but also many flowers. Our Garden Goddess, Avril, has done sterling work recently, and we are delighted with our replanted central bed with a mad mix of orange pink and red flowers. It shouldn't work, but it does!

The Southern Garden

The London garden. After a week of solid work, and a lot of luck with the weather, this was the result. A new bed created and one turfed over, a large number of new plants added to give summer colour as well as a tidy up of the existing beds. I am delighted with the result. More photos @ www.flickr.com/photos/amberimages/

Results from the Summer School

Well, Brian's Summer School is finished, he is off to America, we are off to Canada soon, and Anna is back to work. Anna has achieved a lot with a super painting of Izzy and Shay in Greece, Mike has started experimenting with oils, as can be seen fom his unfinished painting of a country road near here, and my painting of a young cow in Grasmere village is ok- but not at all the new start I wanted. I tend to paint with obsessive detail, crouching over the canvas with a tiny brush, and my glasses pushed up, while I long to paint big impressionistic canvases, full of light and colour, suggesting great sweeps of landscape and sky. So I am disappointed in myself, that I have stayed within my comfort zone, even putting in the stone wall in the foreground which has become a bit of a cliche with me. Must do better.... but that will have to wait until the new term in September.

First two days of Summer School

Got going in our first two painting classes: I blocked in my cow picture, and Mike did his first ever oil painting. We are now looking forward to next week when Anna joins us to paint. All we need is Kate to come and play for us!

Paintings of Maryport?

Might work on these two as a pair with similar shapes

Food for free

Found these in the garden, under the Bramley Apple tree. Picked the biggest and fried them in butter, waiting for the rest to grow. Perhaps if we leave one or two to go over and produce spores, we'll have a regular crop.

Baby Bird Production Line

For the last two years, we have had the privelege of swallows nesting in our carport. They have come back now for the third year, and have just raised their first brood of three. However, we were thrilled when another pair made an untidy nest under the eaves of the cabin- and their four are now zooming around after insects like mini flying hoovers, and screaming at us indignantly when we go in and out of the cabin! Now though, we have a third nest- under the carport again, but on top of a pile of pots. So far they have five eggs. Production figures are creeping up!