Category Archives: Memories

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Celebrating The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee & The Stories Within The Story

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Yesterday was a big day for many in Britain as people across the country rolled up their sleeves and created a huge outdoor party to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

There are those who think the time for a monarchy has passed and they were noticeably absent, but I enjoyed the afternoon’s festivities and the opportunity to get know some of my neighbors a bit better. There were games for all but with a focus on the children and the food we brought to share was bountiful and delicious.

We had gorgeous weather yesterday which was much appreciated especially by the people who had worked so hard to make our village ” block party ” a huge success!

Going through my photographs from yesterday’s celebration, I kept seeing images that while they were clearly taken at the two events I attended, they had the appearance of another story, one with details not as obvious as the reason we were all together and some that were completely unrelated.

Ten years ago Britain celebrated the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. I was aware of course, but I wouldn’t visit the UK for the first time until the following summer in 2003 so it didn’t mean as much to me then. I admired the Queen though for a variety of reasons and marveled even then at how much she managed to do at 76. Ten years later she seems to have barely slowed down.

If you had told me in 2002 that I would be here for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, eating Pavlova and singing “God Save The Queen,” I’m not sure I would have believed you, but I would have certainly considered that it might make a good story.

Dora got into the spirit with a few banners to dress up her look a bit.

My sweet tooth and camera went into overdrive with all the colorful cakes and pastries decorating the long table.

I missed the Empire Biscuits when they made it to the table. Interestingly, these were called German biscuits until WWI when they were renamed.

My friend Tina … taking a break from watching the Saffron Maids dance.

The Saffron Maids like to get the audience involved in the dance and you don’t need to be a maid to participate.

For some strange reason this dance made me think of A Chorus Line.

This Pavlova was my favorite thing … I understand why people rave about Pavlova so much now.

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Clearly Clovelly … Minus Most Of The Fog

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When I left you yesterday, we were in stand of tall trees that I tend to think as Live Oak trees. John said this expression meant nothing to him except the obvious one of an oak tree that was living and not dead. After a little online research, I found that there is a tree in the American south that is called a Live Oak,’ but they tend to be shorter and the limbs grow out more to the sides instead of up like in the last photo you can see here in yesterday’s post.

Since we ended the post with a foggy shot of a sheltering tree, I thought we also should begin with one today. When I saw the tree in the photo above, I wondered out loud about the way it reminded me of weeping willow type of tree that looked as if someone had given it a haircut. John promptly said that he suspected cows were the culprit and they’d likely chewed up as high as their necks could stretch. If you have a different theory I’d love to hear it.

Walking on we reached our destination, the village of Clovelly. This privately owned fishing village has the steepest streets I think I’ve climbed since moving to the UK. There are no cars in Clovelly, you have to walk. People use sleds or sledges as they say here to drag their belongings up and down the 400′ foot cliff that provides a home for a small community of people.

You can see a red sled in this photo … it’s kind of small compared to most of the others we saw.

I thought it was pretty interesting that the Methodist Chapel was next door to the pub.

The chapel popped with color especially after seeing the mostly white walls of the buildings that led to the doorway.

A forgotten communion glass.

Remember what I said about 400′ down … this was taken only part way.

Wear sensible shoes when you visit Clovelly and watch your step.

I’m not sure how they get the sledges or sleds over these speed bumps, but they do.

After hiking out of Clovelly and pausing to catch our breath, we did something we rarely do on our coast path walks, we went back the same way we came.

These boys were were super friendly almost to the point of allowing a head rub before they turned skitish.

This shot was hidden in the fog on yesterday’s post and when we began our late afternoon walk back to the car, we discovered we could see Clovelly Court.

Remember the shelter where we had lunch … it was so foggy we could only hear the sea, but on the way back we could also see it as the fog was completely gone.

Angel Wings, our sandwich stop.

This one’s for perspective. This is more of what we couldn’t see on our walk to Clovelly earlier in the day.

The gorse was everywhere giving off a scent that made the air smell faintly of coconut and we had view so gorgeous it was difficult to move on.

This is one of my favorites and even though it’s still a bit foggy in the distance, I like the look of the rocky coast.

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Unusual Pets & A Pet Store Mixup

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Mystic The Owl - Clovelly

Walking into Clovelly from the coast path last week, I was taken by how the woman’s hair in the photo matched the color of the owl’s eyes. When I politely squeezed my way into the conversation, I was moderately surprised to discover that the six-month old Bengal Eagle-Owl was a pet out for a stroll and not a money making opportunity for the woman you see holding it.

She told me she’d bought it from a breeder when it was only 10 days-old and had hand fed it so now it thought of her as its mother. I found it odd to see an owl out in the early afternoon and asked her about it’s sleeping habits. She said it stayed in the bathroom at home and was awake  so she had decided to bring it outside for a bit of air. I never got around to asking her what she fed it, but when I looked it up online, I found that while they eat rodents, instead of swallowing them whole as I’d imagined, they like to tear them up first. I’m pretty sure I would not want to clean up her bathroom after her owl had a meal.

Hearing that she kept it in the bathroom made me think of a pet that I’d when I was 23 because I kept it in the bathroom too when I went to work during the day. Delilah, or Dilly as I called her, was a skunk. I’d bought her at a pet store on impulse without doing any real research on skunks, a decision I quickly came to regret. Although she was cute and fuzzy like a kitten, she soon let me know that she was no pussy cat. Dilly had a wild animal’s temperament despite being fed and housed by me and she had a few habits I did not find amusing.

I’ll admit I thought it was kind of cute at first when she’d stamp her feet at me and back up with her tail in the air trying to use what nature gave her when she needed to run off a predator, but having been de-scented before I bought her, all she could do was a funny looking backward bounce step while looking over her shoulder to gauge the effect. It’s interesting looking back now at the way she knew what to do instinctually and I feel bad that I must have done something to cause her to respond in a protective mode.

Dilly was a terror at redecorating as I quickly discovered when I came home from work one day to discover that she’d torn up huge chunks of the bathroom floor while I was away. It seems she’d found a loose tile and pawed at it until it came up. Once she’d pulled out the first one, the others came up like dominos in reverse as whole rows of tiny ceramics tiles found their freedom. It was a mess!

I accepted this in much the way a new pet owner would the accidents that go with training a new puppy not to chew up the furniture or wee on the carpet, but when Dilly began to bite despite my attempts to discourage her, I decided I’d had enough.

In frustration I called the pet store and after having going back and forth with the owner, we agreed I could give her back so she might be re-homed. I told him that I didn’t want a refund, I just wanted him to take her back. He searched through his list of interested people and found someone who was willing to take her and I drove her back the the pet store where I thought they were expecting her.

Only they weren’t expecting her when I arrived, at least not at the pet store where I left Dilly. There was a teenage boy there who said he didn’t know what I was talking about, but I explained that I had spoken with someone there who said I could bring her in for her new owner to pick up. After a lot of back and forth, he took Dilly and I made a mad dash for the store exit, rushing back to my car in a hurry to get to work.

A few hours later, I received a phone call from the pet store owner asking about Dilly. I said I’d dropped her off like we’d agreed and explained about my interaction with the guy who’d  finally taken her from me.

As it turns out, I had taken her to the wrong pet store. It was an embarrassing mistake especially as the pet store owner had worked to find her a new home. It all got sorted and she finally made it to the right place, but I felt really stupid.

Mystic, the owl looked well cared for and unlike me at the time of my skunk experience, her owner looked mature enough to take on any issues that might come up. I did ask her about longevity and she admitted that with some owls living up to sixty years, you needed to have a backup guardian lined up in case the owner died first.

Sorry for the blurry state of this image, I was a long distance away when I shot it. If you look you can see the empty glove and leather straps used to hold the owl, while Mystic, is tucked under her owner’s arm like a small dog.

In the video link below, you can see two very cute baby Bengal Eagle-Owls. One is moving his head in the same way I saw Mystic move hers. Her owner said that was how they focused their eyes and hearing.

Baby Bengal Eagle-Owls

 What’s your most unusual pet story?

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Memorial Day 2012 – Put Down That Plate Of Barbecue And Think About Today

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From where I sit this morning, there are no “Buy one, get one free, sales” and no families planning a cookout or any opening day festivities at the neighborhood pool. No one here is celebrating the end of the school year or the beginning of summer. It’s just another Monday. I’m not even sure my friends in UK community know what today is in the US. I don’t expect them to, but it’s kind of lonely in a way.

Today is Memorial Day in America and it’s national holiday meant to remember those who died in wars or other military conflicts. It always occurs on the last Monday in May creating a three-day weekend for vacation-hungry Americans and while it was never intended as a day for shopping or beer drinking and pool-side fun, 147 years after its post Civil War beginnings, that is all Memorial Day means to many people. I will confess that before I moved to the UK and despite having served in the Army myself, I tended to fall into the category of seeing it as a much needed day off from work.

I’ve realized how important the day itself is having watched the Remembrance Day ceremonies here in the UK for those who died in wartime. It occurs every November 11 when the leaves are gone and the sky is more likely to be grey, all of which adds to the solemnness of the occasion. People are primarily focused on honoring the war dead on that day with rituals and traditions that remain much the same as they have since WWI ended and Remembrance Day began.

I wish our Memorial Day had more focus on the sacrifice that inspired it and less on shopping and summer celebrations.

This is not my first Memorial Day post and it’s interesting to see the progression of my thoughts since moving to Cornwall. You can read more if you’d like by clicking the links for 2010 & 2011. In 2010, I wrote about Eleanor Grace Alexander and later about my great-uncle, Hugh Lee Stephens who died in France just before the end of WWII.

If you have someone you remember on this day and would like to share them with us, please leave their name in comment below or if you’ve written a Memorial Day post, feel free to leave a link.

El

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Buttercup Madness & Mid-May Diversions

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It’s one of my favorite times of the year in Cornwall when the buttercups go mad popping up everywhere. The weather has been iffy for the last few weeks and I’ve been feeling slightly desperate to see a color other than grey. Yesterday delivered big time so John and I went out for a walk in the afternoon after I finished with work.  I was getting ready to photograph him sitting in the buttercups when he disappeared!

You can barely see him in the shot above.

When I looked up to see where he’d gone, I found him flat on his back soaking up the sun. A few weeks ago the buttercups were just beginning to show up, and I wrote a post with links explaining why this meadow is so special to us. You can follow the link if you’re new to GOTJ and interested in learning more.

Ahhh … there he is!

John snapped this one of me while I was trying to get a macro shot.

We posed for a timed shot with the buttercup field behind us before moving on for a walk through the woods.

From this angle you can see the buttercup field through the trees. This area is stunning all year round and John and I often talk about how lucky we are to have this walking distance from our home.

This tree with its fresh new leaves was more beautiful than my camera could capture and too large to get more than a bit of it in the shot.

Walking on a bit, I saw a path I had not explored and was off down the hill to see the water I could hear below.

Again, my little Canon can’t begin to communicate how beautiful this space is or how the water rushing over the rocks in places sounds like people murmuring together, carrying on a conversation I can’t make out.

The banks and surrounding area have these gorgeous bluebells scattered all around.

After hearing John calling out to me saying he was going on, I hurried up the hill to walk the rest of the way with him.

We walked on reaching the village by way of the main road after we left the wood and we saw a common sight, where riders on horseback share the road with cars. That’s our village church in the background.

Have you got a favorite place you go to clear your head or find your balance after a tough day? Nature always does it for me.

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Mother’s Day – Blooming Through The Bitter & The Sweet

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Some celebrations are not always happy ones and Mother’s Day probably causes more angst than most for many people each year. If you’ve been reading GOTJ for long, you already know some what makes it both bitter and sweet for me.

The sweet is clearly visible in the image above. My daughter Miranda is only a few hours old in this photograph of my step-mom Cullene, holding her for the first time.

What I know best about ” mothering and being mothered ” I learned from these two precious people and it’s important for me to be sure they know it especially on days like today.

Cullene, like most mothers would tell me not to get her anything to mark this day, ” No gifts please, a card will be fine … ” and I understand exactly where that comes from especially with a child of my own, but while a card may be enough for her it isn’t enough for me.

Being so far away, I miss spending time sitting and talking with her in the chairs by the kitchen fireplace like we do when I’m there, making it more important for me to give her a little reminder of how much she means to me since I’m not close enough to show her in other ways.

A few years ago, I discovered that my favorite tree from my home in Georgia also grows here in Cornwall. Being in the southwest of England, we have just the right kind of environment Dogwood trees need to thrive and bloom.

When I first saw pictures of the jewelry my friend Leslye was making I fell in love with one piece in particular and it pleases me greatly to be able to give one of her dogwood flower necklaces to Cullene for Mother’s Day.

Leslye was the first blogging friend I met face to face as she lives in Atlanta and we’ve seen each other a few times since. Fittingly for today, her blog is a mother-daughter collaboration where she and her daughter share their photos and thoughts.

I like the idea of Cullene having a tangible reminder of what I am aware of everyday … that I am better able to bloom through the seasons of my life due in large part to her care and nurturing.

She won’t see this post until after she opens her present so I’m giving you a sneak peek at the lovely work Leslye does over at Autumn Sun Jewelry.

Autumn Sun Jewelry

Autumn Sun Jewelry

I’ve included two images so you can get a good look at the necklace before it’s boxed up by Leslye and sent, along with the bottom one so you can see it as Cullene will when she opens it.

Isn’t that the sweetest way to wrap a gift inspired by nature … I wish I could be there to see her face!

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The Buttercups Cometh

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I remember the first time I walked through this field. It was late afternoon on Valentine’s Day and I was in Cornwall meeting John face to face for the first time. All it took was one comment from him for this special place to become my own personal “Field of Dreams.”

When he said, ” You should see this in May when it’s filled with buttercups,” I knew I had to come back.

We took a walk yesterday evening catching the last bit of good light and the first glimpse of the buttercups, which are not yet in their full glory, but they’re definitely coming.

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Raise Your Hand If It’s Your Birthday!

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My sister Jennie has a birthday today … she’s the baby with her hand in the air. She was eight months old in this photo and that’s me holding her. My fourteen year-old sense of style was a bit lacking back then as evidenced by my summer blouse at Christmas topped off by my dad’s old army cap.

Jennie was barely five when I enlisted in the army and acquired some military head-gear of my own. I hate what hats do to my hair and I’ve never  been able to wear them as well she does. I tend to think of hats as necessary to keep the sun off or to stay warm if it’s really cold outside, but Jennie does it with flair, making them both useful and a fashion accessory.

She’s in the mountains today having a birthday weekend away with her mom, my step-mom, Cullene. I borrowed the photo below from her Facebook page. Cullene took it last year when they were snowed in and it illustrates what I mean about Jennie’s ability to pull off a hat and look good doing it.

Happy Birthday, Jennie. If there’s a party hat involved today, send me a picture so I can post it.

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Citizen Scientist – “Do You Get A Badge For That?”

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Lifelong learning keeps things interesting and while I love being able to find information at my fingertips through the internet, nothing beats the discoveries that can be found in an afternoon walk if one is willing to slow down enough to see them.

I take a lot of photos many of which you never see, but I thought you might enjoy hearing how my observation and impromptu photo session of a Violet Oil Beetle turned me a citizen scientist.  It seems these beauties are in serious decline in the UK along with three other varieties of oil beetles, a discovery I made when I went online looking for information to help me identify the hungry bug below.

I told John that I was going to send my photographs along with other requested data to Buglife, a conservation group that uses the information to track the distribution of oil beetles in the UK and I added that the site referred to people (like me) as “Citizen Scientists.”  I smiled as I said this feeling a bit grand about my little bug photos thinking how they might be helpful in tracking the declining numbers of oil beetles … and I may have even mumbled the words, “citizen scientist” under my breath before hearing John say, “Do you get a badge for that?”

He was of course teasing me ever so sightly and referring to scout merit badges but I didn’t get that until later. I pictured instead a freckled-faced girl in shorts wearing a secret decoder ring from a cereal box with a plastic badge pinned to her t-shirt with the words, “Citizen Scientist” on it.

His badge comment reminded me a happier part of my childhood where decoder rings really felt magical and an afternoon spent outside could be an opportunity for daring adventures and bold discoveries.

Pausing for a few grass munching beetle photographs led me to some fascinating research on oil beetles and their special relationship with bees. One of them likes to treat the other like a taxi service and an all you can eat food bar. You can find out which one by clicking on Buglife.

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Breaking Down Walls When A Sledgehammer Won’t Do

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Yesterday morning I walked down the hallway from our bedroom to make coffee like I do most mornings leaving my husband John behind to sleep a bit longer. The path into the kitchen is not straight forward and as I stepped from the hallway onto the landing and then back through another door into the kitchen, I thought about how by the end of the day, the wall blocking easy access from the hall to kitchen would be gone.

And then just like that I went from visualizing breaking down physical walls to thinking about the emotional walls people sometimes put up and how I deal with them. Frankly, even I think that’s too much for a 6:00 am wake-up and certainly too much for me to be mulling before my first cup of coffee, but I couldn’t help myself.

Some of you already know that I grew up in a home of extremes, a place where my memories until I was 14 alternated between silence and shouting, and anger was meted out in harsh physical ways by raging adults who didn’t bother to hold back. Once I was safely out of my mother’s house and living with my dad and step-mom, my mother cut off all communication with me. I’m not sure there’s a bigger wall than a total lack of communication unless it’s death.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time and money learning how to break down the protective walls I used to put up. They serve no useful purpose after a time and much like the convoluted path from our hall to kitchen, it’s a waste of energy.

Not all barriers can be overcome, but given the right approach and commitment, the results can be obvious.

There are times when a committed attempt to chip away at an unnecessary wall will yield good results given the use of focused energy and proper tools.

One person can only do so much on their own and progress can be slow, but once a breakthrough occurs it may be difficult for the person on the other side to turn their back on the possibility of letting in the light.

Breaking down walls is hard dirty work. You use muscles that you may not have worked with in the past and even with progress towards a common goal, things might appear slightly cloudy at different points.

You may find you feel boxed in and think it better to try to climb over the wall taking a shortcut to a place where it feels easier to move and breathe.

But then you realize that breaking down walls can be easier when you work in tandem with someone else and when both people are committed to the outcome, the results can be seen much faster.

It’s good to know ahead of time that there will still be rough edges to smooth out after the walls are cleared away.

Decisions will usually still need to be made afterwards as you consider which doors you’ll walk through and which you’ll close off.

As you finish for the day, you’ll feel amazed by how much more open things are without the wall and you’ll remember that until it wasn’t until you tired of walking around it that you realized it did not have to be there forever.

Who knew that renovation could be a form of therapy … perhaps there’s a new business model in all that dust.