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LAMMAS
The ancient Celtic race of western Europe believed in a number of different deities and spirits existing in natural objects such as trees streams rocks and in there living environment in general. Beliefs and practises differed in the Celtic lands which stretched from the Black Sea to the northern most shores of Scotland. These begin to bear romanisation following the Roman Empires conquest of Gaul (58bc) and England (43ad), although the depth and significance is still open to academic debate. This major European Spiritual movement declined in the Roman Period and gradually disappeared during its persecution by the various sects of Christianity through the subsequent centuries of the dark ages.The medieval church maintained the 'pagan' harvest festival which was celebrated on August 1st [English Quarter day].
Sunset 31st July Traditional date 1st August Old Lammas 6th August In Britain witches refer to this astrological date 6th August, known as Old Lammas. This is considered a power point of the Zodiac, and is symbolised by a Lion (Leo). Lughnasadh marks the beginning of the (grain) harvest season. At this time we give thanks to the Earth for its bounty. Festivities and Rituals center on the assurance of a bountiful harvest and to celebrate the harvest cycle. Witches though at this time give thanks to the Goddess, bake bread, and place ears of corn, grain, corn dollies and bread on our altars. This is a time also when the Sun God is beginning to lose his virility and as the days start to get shorter the Sun God begins to age and decline. This is a time of farewells, justice spells, spells for abundance are appropriate now, to dismiss regrets and prepare for Winter. It is a good time for grounding meditations and prosperity magick.
Lughnasadh (Loo-nus-uh) named in honour of the Celtic god. Lugh (Sun-God) of Celtic mythology. The name Lugh means 'shining' or 'light'. Lugh is a Celtic fire and light god. Lugh's foster mother was from an older race known as the 'Fir Bolg'. Who were conquered by the Tuatha De Danann of Ireland. According to legend Lugh decreed that a commemorative feast be held at the beginning of the harvest season each year in honour of his foster mother, Tailtiu. Tailtui being a royal lady of the Fir Bolg who were defeated by the Tuatha De Danann. Tailtui was obliged by the Tuatha De Danann to make clear a vast forest so that grain could be planted for them. As a result of this exhausting work she died, and legend says that she was buried under a large mound which was named after her...'The Hill of Tailtui'. The hill of Tailtui was where the first Lughnasadh was held in Ireland. Where many folk gathered to feast, take part in games and contests of skill. Some ideas to celebrate this time are to perform ritual. Share your harvest with others, bake bread, pick fruits from your garden if you have one and share some of your harvest with your neighbours. Visiting places such as orchards, lakes and wells at this time is also traditional. Harvested from "Sourcewitch" to share with you.
"As in the bread and wine, so it is with me. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In England of yore, before the natural feelings of the people had been checked and chilled off by Puritanism, the harvest-home was such a scene as may be recognised by 2000 years of farming families. The grain last cut was brought home in its wagon—called the Hock Cart—surmounted by a figure dressed in representation of the goddess Ceres. Reapers tripped around in a hand-in-hand ring, singing appropriate songs: 'Harvest-home, harvest-home, We have ploughed, we have sowed, We have reaped, we have mowed, We have brought home every load, Hip, hip, hip, harvest-home!' In the evening a supper would take place in the barn, the master and mistress generally presiding. This feast was always composed of substantial vitals and with an abundance of good ale, ensuring a scene of intense enjoyment. A song of thanks is sung to the host and hostess: Here 's a health to our master, May prosper his crops, boys, Now harvest is ended, For she 's a good woman, TOUR DE PARISAhhhh Paris . . . City of tree lined boulavards... . city of dreams - surrounded by a modern moat of the peripherique. . . ..crazy drivers all on the wrong side of the road. . . pedestrians who dice with death when stepping onto a zebra crossing. . . flea ridden pigeons that thrive on offerings from misguided tourists.. . . these tourists who like sheep are guided from one site to the next . . . followed by waves of itinerant pedlars of chinese manufactured, tawdry models of the eiffel tower.. . . the sounds of the modern city almost drown the cries of history - almost . . . but silence the heaving masses and the stark history of Paris and indeed the whole of France stands naked for all to see. . .. .if only we stop and look about us. Our coach
 Stopped in many places - this one is a city bus stop!
One statue we passed several times but never got to capture on camera was the Statue de Jeanne d'Arc. on the rue de Rivoli.This is a close up.
The weather forecast had been for rain for the four days we were due to be in Paris. As we dropped down into Dover on the M20 the sea was a mass of white foamed topped waves - a force 7 gale the captain aboard the "Pride of Canterbury" informed us. The ships stabilisers made for an uneventful crossing. We arrived at the hotel close to Port Clichy at 9.30pm. How close? This was the view from my bedroom window.
 Monday: On a warm and sunny day we toured some of the historic landmarks of the city and stopped by the Eiffel tower at midday. Some of the party took a cruise on the Seine around the Ille de Cite but having done that on my last trip through Paris, I went a walk along the riverside, careful to dodge the lunchtime joggers and cyclists. Here is one of the many bridges of the city, at the waters edge several housboats were moored.
 A short stop for a picture of the hotel des invalides, the final resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). :
In the afternoon we drove down into the cavenous underbelly of the Louvre Palace where all the tourist coaches park - The next level up, past the medieval castle walls, is a shopping arcade and a cafe area. I bought my ticket at the Tabac and walked along to the large concourse beneath the famous glass pyramid. It was full of peoples from around the world. I went to one of the four sections of the museum. In the Richelieu wing I wandered up a large stone staircase following the flow of the crowd - what must it be like at the height of the tourist season ?????
I passed a big bull and came to the statue of "Aphrodite" - Venus de Milo. It was at this point that I realised I was not in the correct area to see the "Mona Lisa". With difficulty ie stairways and corridors I retraced my way back to my starting point and entered the Denon area of italian paintings - following the arrowed signs to de Vinci's famous work... . upstairs - along corridors - all thronging with fellow tourists - a veritable house of Babel ! Stopping to look at other works of art - along another corridor and . .. ...another stairway and I ended up where I had started some 15 minutes previously !! Still next time . . . .?
Tuesday: Today is hot, blue skies flecked with cotton wool clouds as we race [!!] along the Périphérique towards this mornings destination of Monets Garden & House at Giverny. The road follows the seine as it flows northwards and we pass :
 ok - I collect pictures of power stations as well as castles !!
But this was what we had travelled to see, the famous Lily Pond:
 A view from this bridge in the painting
 Leaving the gardens I had a coffee with ham and cheese sandwich at a small cafe opposite the carpark.
Across the river when leaving Giverney, in Vernon is Le château des Tourelles a 12th [?] century castle which defends the river crossing. In the town we passed a section of roman? / medieval town wall.
 picture from Le Blog d'Ariane, http://givernews.com/?2007/12/10/599-chateau-des-tourelles
The journey to our afternoon destination of Versailles was uneventful,the temperature was now 29/30 c or mid 80's F.Their appeared to be as many peddlars as tourists as we walked to the entrance of the Chateau. Here is a view of the hall of mirrors:
Wednesday:Today is again hot, no sign of the bad weather. Breakfast is a little chaotic in the hotel dining room as two more parties have arrived one from Spain and the other from the Orient. This morning with our guide Michelle we discover "Hidden Paris" We pass through Montmartre, getting a fleeting view of the Sacre Cour, and stopping for 10 minutes outside the Jarden Place De Vogues.
 KING LOUIS X111
The statue remains upright and in one piece as it balances on a tree stump !! Leaving here I saw the 'Cafe Victor Hugo' which is part of the museum dedicated to the famous writer. Soon we were passing the site of the Bastille - across the bridge by the small canal mooring area for pleasure craft and turned right at the Plant Museum. Passing faculty's of the world famous La Sorbonne, founded about 1150.
.jpg) We stopped just long enough to photograph the Pantheon: King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from an illness he would replace the ruined church of Sainte-Geneviève with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. It was completed in 1789 at the start of the French Revolution, the new Revolutionary government ordered it to be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, with a pediment of "The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues". Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a temple to the great intellectuals of France including Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo and Marie Skłodowska-Curie to name but a few. From here
we travelled long the side of the Seine continuing through the Latin quarter and back to Port Clichy and our hotel for a 15 minute break before continuing on our afternoon visit to Fountainbleu.
If Versaille was a little disappointing then the Castle of the Blue Fountain made up for it.
the entrance:
This was in the chamber of King Francis 1, considered to be France's first Renaissance monarch. A philanthropist and humanist it was however in his reign began the persecution of the Huguenots . [ His name I came across when visiting his birthplace at château de Cognac. Also he beat Henry VIII at a wrestling match in Balinghem, the 'Cloth of Gold' site of the famous and lavish meeting of the two Monarchs. ] The Royal Elephant .
and finally here is a picture of the cafe where I had a quiet relaxed lunch, in the centre of Fountainbleu almost opposite the castle gates
Wednesday evening we had a thunderstorm and on Thursday morning it rained all the way from Paris to Calais. The journey home was long and tiring [we were in a traffic jam on the M25 [The london orbital road] for almost 3 hours.....!
Hope you enjoy the pictures and it gives you all an appetite to visit Paris
au revoir
AVIATION HISTORY 25. JULY 1909Louis Blériot,[1 July 1872 – 2 August 1936] French aviator, inventor and engineer, was born in the village of Dehéries near Cambrai, he studied engineering at the École Centrale Paris. He invented automobile headlights and established a successful acetylene headlamp business. On July 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft when he crossed the English Channel, receiving a prize of £1000 offered by the newspaper, Daily Mail for doing so. The French government allowed a destroyer to escort and observe his plane during the trip to Dover.He is credited as the first person to make a working monoplane. Blériot was a pioneer of the sport of air racing.Blériot opened flying schools before World War I at Brooklands and Hendon Aerodromes in England.He built 800 aircraft during WW1. The trip took 37 minutes.He flew 22 statute miles (36.6 km) from Les Barraques,Calais to Dover. The landing was in turbulent weather, and Blériot encountered numerous problems: rain was cooling the engine, putting it in danger of being shut down, and strong wind was blowing him off course. As Blériot reduced his airspeed for the landing, the gusts of wind nearly caused his plane to crash from an altitude of 20 metres (67 feet) when he cut off the engine. The landing severely damaged his landing gear, along with the propeller, although the rest of the airplane was fine and the landing was deemed successful. In 1927 Blériot, long retired from flying, he was present to greet Charles Lindbergh when he landed at Le Bourget field,Paris, completing his transatlantic journey.RECOLLECTION.
O quiet spot and limpid stream,
Clara Eveline Ramskill.
19the century poet from Lancashire
Well it makes a change from a picture of the Eiffel Tower !
14 juillet 2009
DID THE SA GOVERNMENT DO THIS TO ANC SUPPORTERS ?
Mohammed Abbas is sick, with chronic diarrhoea. Not for the first time.He and his family live in a Palestinian village with no running water, no sewage system, and no prospect of getting either any time soon. Watching her son, eyes closed, clutching his stomach on a mattress on the floor, his mother, Sunna, told me she is desperate.
"I'm angry that my son is sick. The doctor says it's because of the water. We buy it from outside. I don't know where it comes from. I give it to my children even though I know it's contaminated. What else can I do?" Sunna's story is becoming increasingly common in the West Bank. The name of her village, Faqua, means spring water bubbles in Arabic, but access to water here disappeared long ago. The village council says most of the underground springs were appropriated by Israel in 1948 when the state was created by the United states of America backed by the UN. An Israeli-Palestinian Water Committee was set up in the mid-1990s as part of the Oslo peace accords. But Palestinians say Israel makes it virtually impossible for them to dig new wells or to join Israel's water grid. The West Bank is home to an important regional water source. According to a World Bank report published this year, Israel keeps 80% of water it drills from the mountain aquifer for Israeli citizens. Palestinians get the leftovers. It is not enough. While driving around Faqua village we came across a private water tanker, its hose rolled through the street into the Sallah family's backyard. Murky-looking water gushed into an underground tank there. The World Bank warns the water quality is deteriorating. So Palestinians pay dearly. Unclean water makes people sick. Lack of water means prices are high. Munir Sallah says it makes a difficult life even tougher. "We need a lot of money to cover this expense. We could use the money for other things like food for example. "Every bit of money we have we use to pay for water. You're not going to eat well. You're not going to use much electricity. You need to save this money for water. "In Faqua money is in short supply. The village fields lie barren, dry and dusty. Traditionally, Palestinian villages depend on farming. For that you need water." But Israel says it is not to blame here - Palestinian planning is. Israel claims Faqua village never applied to join the water grid - although the local mayor disputes this. Israel says the Palestinian Water Authority should be more effective across the West Bank. Human Rights groups tell a different story. Sarit Michaeli works for B'tselem: "Palestinians are entitled to water. It's their basic right under international law, but very often they are discriminated against in the allocation of this resource. "Water is scarce throughout the entire region but the little water we have has to be equally shared out between Israelis and Palestinians." Up in the brown hills of Faqua, a frustrated Palestinian farmer shows us the lush fields of an Israeli Kibbutz next door. Faqua village is just on the boundary line between the West Bank and Israel. An Israeli army jeeps keeps a close eye on us from the other side of the metal fence - part of the separation barrier Israel is building in an around the West Bank. Ahmad Abu Salamah says Israel has given the kiss of death to agriculture here. "We in Faqua village live in Area C - the part of the West Bank under total Israeli control. Israel should give us water. If it did, our land would be as green as theirs. But they use all the water for their land "Water along with land and religion lies at the heart of the conflict here. Fair distribution will have to be part of any solution."
A report By Katya Adler BBC News, Jerusalem
Many years ago I was prevented from buying South African produce because of the world wide fight against white rule in the independant country of South Africa, which apparently was inhumane. The above article is one reason why I would NEVER buy products labelled "Produce of Israel" Why is it wrong to kill [a few] Africans and OK to exterminate an Arab race ??????? When that question can be answered write to your MP/Senator/ or local Taliban recruitment team. I also remember the world's celebrations when the infamous Berlin Wall was demolished; recently the UN's general assembly,have said : "Israel's wall in palastine is illegal, it must be removed." The silence is deafening from the libertarians. PETER HAIN where are you now ?
I AM
I am! Yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life nor joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest-that I loved the best-- Are strange- nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below - above the vaulted sky. John Clare TALE OF TWO CITIES
A retired man who grew up in China wanted to show his family the city where he was raised so they stopped off there last Saturday en-route back to Britain from Australia or was it New zealand. However, China's swine flu quarantine programme has been stepped up at major international airports as health officials target aircraft from countries where the virus has been detected. Mr Aylott, of Norwich, said: "They came on board the airplane and everybody had to be swabbed. We seemed to have passed that test, but then they were getting passengers to stand next to a thermometer. "When Celeste stood next to it the alarm went off. Ironically, we'd been joking with her beforehand that they would take her away and then that was pretty much what happened." Mrs Aylott said: "The girls had a slight temperature and they insisted on taking the girls and their parents to hospital. When they got there it was appalling. They were put in a room with only one bed and a bucket to go to the toilet in. "They were kept waiting in a room and then they were told the littlest girl definitely had swine flu and they were pretty certain the other one had it too." The girls were then taken to hospital while Mr and Mrs Aylott went to another hotel. Mrs Aylott said: "The hospital they were taken to was almost derelict. It had filthy corridors and from the window you could see dressings and needles which had been thrown into the street."They simply refused to go in there and there was a stand-off for about four hours." With the help of Chinese friends, they managed to get the family quarantined to a motel, which they were taken to by ambulance. The family are now all together in the 168 Motel, where they are the sole occupants allowed on the top floor. Guards in face masks, sleep in one of the neighbouring rooms and monitor the family all day. They are now hoping to fly to Shanghai on tomorrow and back to Heathrow on Monday before returning to Norwich. Mr Aylott said: "We are just hoping they keep their word now and allow us to fly out on Saturday." This story mirrors the concerns my friends had about my trip there earlier in the year. Who knows they may have saved me this families experience. The UK now has the third highest number of swine flu cases in the world - 9,718 - after the US and Mexico. As of Wednesday, Mexico had 10,262 cases, and there were 33,902 confirmed cases in the US. 14 deaths have been reported in the UK. Yet people are still free to fly from here to the more infected countries of America, Australia and of course Mexico. Had travel restrictions been imposed in April these and future deaths would have been avoided. What is more important,the freedom of people to live or to have a holiday cancelled? When is a single persons rights less important than the rights of the many? JOHN CLARE 1793-1864
Regular visitors will know that I usually include a poem on my Saturday blog and that my favourite poet, perhaps, is John Clare. I heard an item on this morning’s news bulletin that his home had been bought and restored. This is a picture of his cottage and a few lines from a poem where he writes about it:
“The old house stooped just like a cave Tucked away between Stamford and Peterborough,in middle England,lies the village of Helpston the birthplace and home of John Clare (1793-1864). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest of the English poets and lived in the village for his first forty years. This is the site which provides all the details: http://clarecottage.org/ THIS IS WHY I DRINK SO MUCH COFFEEA few cups of coffee a day may stave off Alzheimer's disease and could even help to treat the condition, according to new research. Patients with Alzheimer's disease have sticky clumps of abnormal protein in the brain called beta amyloid plaques. Caffeine was given to mice and researchers recorded a 50% reduction in levels of beta amyloid protein in their brains. The creatures also developed better memories and quicker thinking. The equivalent dose in humans would be 500 milligrams of caffeine a day, or just 5 cups of ordinary coffee or 14 cups of tea. Bed in Summer
vivent longtemps le requin
SAVE THE SHARK A third of shark species and their evolutionary cousins, the rays, are at risk of extinction due to overfishing, says the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The body’s experts say sharks are especially sensitive to over-fishing because they take many years to mature and have relatively few young. It is vital for governments boost monitoring of boats catching them, they said. The tagline of a popular beauty product is: 'Be healthy. Be vibrant. Be beautiful… unless you’re a shark. Then, be dead.' This line of beauty products uses squalene harvested from the livers of sharks. Sharks used to provide the squalene for these beauty products are captured and killed by bottom-trawling deep sea fishing operations. Those operations use heavy nets that drag across fragile ecosystems on the ocean floor, ripping them up and replacing healthy marine habitat with deep sea deserts. Killing all sea creatures. Squalene could easily be obtained from olives grown organically in sustainable groves. If this environmental destruction were happening in order to provide life-saving medications available in no other way, perhaps there might be some reasonable excuse for it. But that’s not what we’re talking about. The situation of the sharks in the world is dramatic! France has an enormous responsibility in the dramatic situation with which the sharks are confronted; Indeed, in Europe, France is the country which kills the most sharks in the process of their decline. France is in addition the only European country who persists in fishing the shark INTO extinction and whose flesh is sold in the fish shops under the voluntarily misleading name of " calf of the sea". In the Mediterranean, more than 90% of the sharks have already disappeared. If nothing is made to save these ANIMALS the marine ECO SYSTEM will be irreversibley destroyed. In the world 100 million sharks are massacred annually. Food for the starving peasants????????? NO! Shark liver oil, known as squalene is used in cosmetic products TO PLACATE THE VANITY OF WOMEN. Oil free moisturisers can be found in products ranging from ageing creams to lip gloss. To its credit Unilever, an international manufacturer of leading brands of food,personal cars and home products, recently announced that it will remove squalene from its cosmetic brands, including Pond’s and Dove. The French also to there credit, and my admiration, have stopped burning English mutton and are launching a campaign highlighting the wonton and systematic destruction of the shark. Today July 2 @ 12.00 at a cosmetic store at 34 avenue du General Leclerc, Paris 14arr. [ a model, I assume ! ] of a shark will be suspended from the upper windows of the Lush store to promote its pirate nemo soap. Lush products only use natural ingredients . . . amazing what you learn on Facebook ! 1st JULY 1916 After bombing the area of no mans land between German and English Forces in Somme region of France the English soldiers went over the trenches expecting little German resistance , but the Germans had large numbers of Machine Guns trained on the area and by the end of the day 20,000 British soldiers were dead and another 40,000 had injuries, this became one of the worst military decisions in history and the offensive was eventually stopped after 4 1/2 months with 600,000 British and French soldiers killed, wounded, or missing in the action.
They came from towns and villages from Astbury to Zennor. Amiens to Z.... They came from the farms, offices, factories and public schools. Pals from Manchester. Scousers, Brummies, Scots,Geordies,Taffies & Frenchies. They came from towns and villages often so small no one has ever heard of them. They left behind, mothers, fathers, wives, sweethearts, siblings and children. They left behind their country. It wasn’t for adventure or glory that they came, though some hoped for it. They came because their way of life was threatened. This is not a place of budding poppies or neat white crosses..... There is nothing to inspire or evoke greatness, only acrid, oily smoke filling the air and stinging the eyes. The cachophony of heavy guns is so deafening it is impossible to think. You advance, the straps of your backpack, biting into your shoulderblades, step by step, rifle in hand, you advance, through a hail of machine gun fire, to Montauban, an impossible objective. Then silence. You crumble and fall. You are dead. Those who live lay in the mud, with the stink of your stale blood, and rotting flesh. The stench of cordite is your sacramental incense. They lay with bodies torn apart for hours, sometimes days, slowly dying. They suffer for each breath you and I take for granted. All they want is to see loved ones a last, final time...... This is the reality of war, at 6 am, 93 years ago, the week long bombardment of the German lines ceased. At 7.30 Whistles were blown and in near silence thousands of men began to advance on the enemies front lines.....for James Harold Boardman, age 25, a private in the Manchester Regiment, it was a stroll to oblivion. No cross marks his grave - just a name on a slab of marble at Thiepval. HE WAS ONE OF 20,000 BRITISH SOLDIERS WHO DIED THAT DAY..............
The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial also serves as an Anglo-French Battle Memorial in recognition of the joint nature of the 1916 offensive and a small cemetery containing equal numbers of Commonwealth and French graves lies at the foot of the memorial. The memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was built between 1928 and 1932 and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence of the President of France, on 31 July 1932. |
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