How many onions?

It is guaranteed that I am always to be found in the most heavenly of moods when preparing supper [not] and one evening, last week, I grumpily thought to myself "how many bleedin' onions must these hands have chopped over the years?"

I looked down at my hands and then began to ponder just how difficult it would be for me to chop an onion if I wasn't fortunate to have a fully functioning pair of paws. It was with some wonder that I realised just how many tasks a day they allow me to achieve and I don't even notice. They don't just allow me to go about my daily business at work and running the home, but they allow me to operate machinery, to drive between places, to create and repair, bake, sew and move. I can think of times when they have held new life [my son, a newborn guinea pig] and touched death. They have been used to caress, scold, comfort and express both joy, anger, fear and confusion. I've held ancient objects and those newly made, explored surfaces unseen and experienced textures and temperatures across the scale from a glacier to parched dry conditions. These hands have had nails painted in colours from the deepest blood red to sunshine yellow and been adorned with rings of silver, hula hoops, gems from my ancestors and the rings I wear everyday to mark my marriage.

So, perhaps once in a while, it's good for me to remember just to be quietly thankful for one of those everyday marvels I never "see". As for the question of onions....I never did reach any sort of conclusion. Just bleedin' sackfuls mate!

Arilx

Good Golly Miss Molly.

Shamelessly pinching Little Richard's lyrics there, I have just encountered my first Molly Morris side at last weekend's day of dance in Lewes.

Originally it started out as an outlet for the ploughboys to make a bit of much needed money during the fallow season. All males, one would dress up as a woman [the molly] and in order to disguise themselves, they would black up their faces with coal [yes the "controversial" blacking up which has been in the press for all the wrong reasons recently] Basically, if you didn't pay 'em they might plough up areas of your land you didn't want 'em to. Over time the tradition died out, but was revived in 1977. Seven Champions are the creme de la creme of this particular tradition. They dance without any of the normal Morris paraphernalia....just hobnail boots. This is their dance "Invisible Bert", which they performed on Saturday.

It's good to see this type of dance not only surviving, but thriving. By poking about online I've unearthed this little gem. Pig Dyke Molly really have reinterpreted the genre and put their stamp on it. Can't tell you how much, given the chance, I'd love to share a stand with them. I can't imagine that a combination of them and Mythago would stand out in the slightest!!

Arilx

A Very Modern Welcome

Holy Trinity Church in Guildford. Sheer genius. Double clicking will enlarge the image.

Arilx

Mr Fuller...are you completely off your folly?

Mr John Fuller [1757-1834] or Honest John as he liked to be known. A Sussex man of means, an erstwhile MP and a philanthropic soul who stumped up for the first life boat in Eastbourne, provided work for the local community and was a patron of the Arts and Sciences [he sponsored Michael Faraday].

All that makes the Squire of Brightling sound like Captain Sensible.....erm except he often wasn't and he is most well known in this county for his mad cap folly building, examples of which are dotted around his stomping ground.

This one is quite tame for starters.....the Brightling Needle. Built for no good reason save he could so he did.

The sugarloaf. This was built as a result of a drunken wager [Mr Fuller was very fond of the grog] as he bet that he could see the spire of St Giles in Dallington from his house. The legend goes that when he awoke in the morning he found this to not be true so had this spire put up quickly so he didn't lose. The door halfway up relates to when the folly was occupied during the 1930s and had an upper floor put it. If you look carefully you might just spot some Old Bird wearing her '50' birthday badge. Can't think who she is, but she bleeding well turns up all over the place!

This is the village church...looks like it would be out of place on the set of The Vicar of Dibley.

Except for this final piece of Mr Fuller's handiwork. One socking great pyramidal mausoleum built 23 years before he shuffled off this mortal coil. Once again the rumour mill went into overdrive as it was claimed that he had been interred sitting down fully dressed with his top hat on and a chicken and bottle of claret laid out on the table before him. Sadly the truth is much more mundane for he's buried conventionally.

Now perhaps you are beginning to get a sense of why we call our great Sussex Eccentric Mad Jack Fuller! As for me...having hunted down greenmen in Rotherfield this was how I chose to spend the remainder of my birthday. The Sussex streak of eccentricity is alive and well it would appear!

Arilx

Revelations From Round The Card Table

Sometimes I am party to the gossip from the local Bridge scene. Being neither a card player nor a competitive soul this pithy little quote is not a million miles away from what I am told...all I can say is that the fine and noble art of  back stabbing is alive and well in certain quarters!!

"Bridge is so like relationships. All hearts and diamonds to start. Then you look for a club and a spade."

Arilx

Doom Not Gloom.

When one's dancing chum [he of the Uffington White Horse adventure fame] mentions to me that he's visited a church that day that he thinks will be right up my alley my little ears prick up.....

For there's one of these......propped up by a multitude of telegraph poles [why do we call them that...wasn't it telegrams everyone used to send?]

Along with masses of these........

But he overlooked this one....an unrestored doom screen with Jesus sitting on a rainbow and looking extremely worried.

This is St Denys in Rotherfield, East Sussex. It's off the beaten track and I may not have got there had I not already had other plans in place for my birthday outing. However, it's a funny old world and I took its proximity to our final destination as a sign that I was meant to drop by. Delighted I did now!

Arilx

Indian Summer

I don't know about you, but I'm rather like the Queen at the moment with several changes of threads a day depending upon what the weather is doing....long sleeves, short sleeves, long sleeves, short sleeves. After a weekend of working away in Birmingham wearing winter clobber I've had to drop the layers again now. No worries though...I rather like that last blast of warm weather September and October often delivers to us. I view it as as an unexpected, but welcome gift and have always known it as an Indian Summer.

Leaping wildly to conclusions I have always assumed that the name derives from Asia. It's a term that's been in use for at least 200 years and it's believed to have derived from the Native American- Indians so couldn't have been more wrong really! In this country it is apparently known as St Martin's summer. The flowers were in Belfast city centre last month.

Arilx