fun with words

From Jonathan Clegg's The Medieval Church in Manuscripts

-- All Hallow's Day: commemoration of any saint (or the dead that have gone on before). On "All hallow's e'n" the dead supposedly walked among the earth again

---Shrove Tuesday: Old English term relating to the confession of sins undertaken before lent

-- hocus pocus: possibly hoc est corpus or "here is the body" [of Christ] often said before Eucharist

-- bedlam: corruption of "Bethlehem" and St Mary's of Bethlehem cared for the insane as early as the 15th century; often sick looked after by church hence why so many hospitals have saint's names

-- tithe: Old English teotha or tenth and by the 13th century was a mandatory tax

--bede: Middle English word for prayer: "I bid you goodbye"; also associated with the rounded necklace used for counting prayers--- hence "bead"

A garden, pollywogs, and slugs

A garden in bloom

Fran being Fran

A house with a garden

This morning, I worked and accomplished loads. Later this morning, Fran and I went to Eartham to help his grandparents order their books and take some to charity.  At one point I was ordered to walk the dogs (and myself?) around the house. The house is breathtaking, but the garden is just splendid.  This is even despite the madame's protest that nothing had been done to it all year.  A whole host of ripe raspberries, under netting. Water features and dogs.  A field full of wild grass and flowers.  The odd statue and bench.

In one of the water features were a host (by host I mean 5) of what I would call pollywogs. They were no longer tadpoles, but they looked like tadpoles with four legs, and before the summer is out, I am sure they would be frogs. (However I am secretly hoping they all get eaten becase) I am not sure I have seen anything more horrifying in my life.  I stared in sense of sick fascination and how grotesque I found them and yet I could not look away. I couldn't even take a photo of them.  I kept fearing I would fall in, which was not helped by Fran's acrobatics across the water and pretending to shove me in. I'm not sure I could cope with that after last night.

Outside there is a run I daily place the dear bunnies.  Last night, it was after dark and I was going to lock the door when I suddenly remembered I had left them out there! I sent Fran out because it was dark (I know, I know...) and I was watching him struggle to coax that hard-headed Indy, when I looked down on the steps and slugs were crawling all over. I flicked away four with a badminton racket. I looked up, and ashamed of my cowardice, stole out in my bare feet, hopping on the balls of my feet to the cage like I was avoiding land mines. And guess what. I stepped on one I couldn't see because it was dark and all the horribleness you would imagine DID.  I screamed, scooped up the bunnies, cursing any form of gastropod, rushed straight into the bathroom to get the mess off.  OK, I don't know what slugs are covered in but after scrubbing manically last night, I woke up this morning with the crud STILL on my foot. After considering amputation and soaking it in a tub for about twelve hours, it came off, but, I think I am scarred for life.  Just another reason I need a hedgehog because they eat nasty slugs. And a mongoose because they kill nasty snakes.  Now, what kills pollywogs because I am sure I could appropriate one of them as well to protect from yet another of my irrational fears.

Trespassing in Corf

I shouldn't parade about illegal activity, but when Fran and I saw the castle, we stopped as we are indeed members of the National Trust.  When we walked around the path, a playful urge to seize the castle like medieval invaders involved a natural leaping o're a fence and sprinting up the steep slopes. [By which I mean, I hung on to tufts of grass and panted and heaved my way up. I would have certainly died if I were a real invader.]  We found our way to the back and slipped in through a tuft of rocks.  We had seen people up there only ten minutes before. It was not until we reached the lookout did we notice the gate shut and the campers inside the fence, and our watches read quarter past nine. Horrified at our unintentional misdemeanor, we practically rolled down the slope, like a scene from the Princess Bride, to get out as quick as we could, hoping no one had seen us. 

We played Pooh Sticks under the bridge (score 1:1) and found a short cut through a very muddy path.  As we arrived back at the car, a train had pulled up in the station, and like a geyser, a jut of steam lept forth, drawing our attention. It was an old-fashioned steam train, with the conductor hanging out the window. I was delighted.  By now, the clouds had peeled back and the sinking sun still reigned.  I figured out the car we were driving was indeed a convertible.  We converted the automobile and proceeded home like a banshee in the wind, that is until it inevitable began to rain again.

Lake District (With Pictures)

On the drive we saw these misty mountains

And once we arrived unloaded our trunk

then set up camp

we admired windermere and skimmed stones

Our campsite even had a marsh

with lots of winding road

and many a fence encountered

along with real tepees

with many a field of sheep

and with many a cow

and a visit to Low Wray Castle

where we played life-size checkers

We took this path to Sawrey though the forest

and through this field

We arrived at this pub delighted with their acceptances of our muddy wellies

and collapsed by this stove while we played cards and ate lunch

We visited Hilltop, where Beatrix Potter called home

and took the footpath away and despite being wet through and through

found ourselves exceedingly happy

with views like this through trodden paths

to the ferry to go to Bowness

where all was idyllic save the savage swans

[I know, I know, my phone DID delete them, but Monday morning they reappeared and I was elated.]

Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui

On Tuesday we went to see The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht.  My first introduction to Brecht was through the film The Lives of Others, where by reading Brecht a member of the Stasi secret police transforms into a compassionate human being.  The storyline of Arturo Ui is set in mobster Chicago and serves as a parable for how Hitler rose to power. It's a hard play with gangsters, blackmail, shootings, and betrayal, but I absolutely loved it.  It's one of those difficult pieces that just made sense to me.

I think a lot of it had to do with the translation by George Tabori. I originally thought it was written in English because the iambic pentameter was amazing (!!) and had a Shakespearean hint about it.  The second thing was the Chicago accents of the 1930's.  The crew of actors were the most believable I've ever seen, and although I never "forgot" I was in the theater, the actors themselves were far better and made the characters more believable than even Shakespeare's Globe performances I'd seen.  The set and crew were phenomenal, slowly accruing Nazi paraphernalia as the performance rose to a climax.  The charm was the actors; the time period; the clothing, cigars; but the story. The story was harrowing because it was true. And somehow I now have a new favorite writer.

Wherein my new landlord offers to build the bunnies a hutch

Wherein my new landlord offers to build the bunnies a hutch

A Library

This is a library in a village called Eartham in a house that is beautiful and old with lovely gardens. The library of course is my favorite room.  I mean, it even has unicorn tapestries over the fireplace, a real fireplace.  The only sad thing about it is one could tell the library hadn't been used in a great while, and I feel that's always slightly rough on libraries, because they feel it.  They grow musty and censorious and remind me of woods that haven't had people in them for a long time. This library even has a hobbit door, though I've probably simply read far too much Tolkien. Though, it is thrilling that such things exist.