Category: Roseberry Topping
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Odin’s dark side
What’s the time? Half-past Snow Hall Farm, it must be 09:32 precisely. Odin’s brother, Loki, the trickster, was considered to be the dark side of Odin, his sinister shadow. Perhaps Odin’s hill as a gnomon points to Loki, constantly shifting. And so, into December, the final month of this tumultuous year. Originally the tenth month…
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A Modest Proposal
Warning satire alert. I came across an 18th-century essay yesterday by the Jonathon Swift, best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels. It hails with the grand title of: A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the…
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Roseberry in the Golden Hour
Headed up to Capt. Cook’s Monument for a run this morning but the day turned more brumous the higher I climbed. Then like a lot of days this November the skies cleared after lunch. The golden hour is that period of the day shortly before sunset when the sun is low in the sky and…
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Hawthorn tree, Roseberry
The hawthorn trees are laden with their scarlet berries at the moment, awaiting the arrival of hordes of marauding fieldfare. ‘Hopperty haws’ are super-fruit, fabulously rich in both Vitamin C and folklore, associated with protection and sacrifice, perhaps even Christ’s crown of thorns. In Ireland, there are instances where engineers have designed new roads to…
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Who did this then?
I noticed this last week. It’s hard to imagine it was accidental. Someone has gone to the effort of moving the stones to the side creating a clear route through. If a stonewaller had done that, the stones would have been laid out and graded, heavier stones nearer the gap, with receding rows of smaller…
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A bullfinch sky over Roseberry
Perhaps not the best of sunsets but the crepuscule has always been a magical time. Throughout the millennia, man must have gazed upon the mesmerizing sky, reflecting on the day gone and the morrow to come. In Norfolk, a red-hued sunset was called a ‘bullfinch sky‘. I like that phrase but is it red enough…
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Kalsarikännit
A Finnish word for that feeling you have when you spend the evening getting drunk at home alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out. The word came to me when this afternoon when I was so attired, log fire blazing away. The beer came later. I had returned home tired and weary…
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A changing pastoral scene
We are all familiar with flocks of sheep grazing on the hills and moors. They were first introduced by the Romans and we are now by far the largest sheep and lamb producer in the EU with a quarter of the total flock. We have 14 million breeding ewes here in the UK which last…
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Roseberry summit
Roseberry was quiet this morning. What more can I say? So I’ll digress. The other day, I came across a new word and stored it in my memory banks for a suitable occasion. The trouble is it’s a Dutch word ‘struisvogelpolitiek‘ but I think it’s worthy of it slipping into common usage just as we…
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New signs
New signs have appeared on Roseberry. A bit late, summer being almost over. Shame it’s come to this. How long before it is trashed? I wonder what percentage of the population has actually heard of the Countryside Code. Open Space Web-Map builder Code