Tag Archives: Vikings

Learning New Things

Peacock on the roof

Here is an interesting story. One day I may do something with the knowledge, but I more than likely won’t. I as browsing a list of British Castles, noticed that Lowdham had one, and followed a few links. The story is nothing to do with castles and shows how my huge depth of trivia has accumulated – random chance and devotion to pointless procrastination have been both a gift and a curse to me.

Really, I suppose, I could use each of those links to write an informative blog post. However, that would be too organised and too close to professionalism for my liking. If I followed up on every urge like that I might have an interesting, and even commercial, body of work. But I don’t. I blunder on and end every day wondering where my life went.

Red Arrows practicing over the Ecocentre

Peterborough Castle (until today I didn’t even know it had one, despite living there for years) was built by Abbot Thorold, a Norman appointee, to protect himself from the monks of the cathedral. To be fair to the monks, the abbot was at one time captured and ransomed by Hereward the Wake, and the abbey was also burned by the Danes, so it wasn’t just the monks he needed it for.

I was surprised that the attack was as late as it was (1070) as I had always thought it was a looting Viking horde rather than a group of mercenaries working with Hereward. It seems I have confused two events. Ivar the Boneless and the Great Heathen Army probably attacked it in 870, though the historical record is patchy. The Danes Hereward’s army then attacked it in 1070. In 1071, on the orders of William I, the castle was started. This, sadly, seems to be a more accurate version than the one about the abbot protecting himself from the monks.

Ivar the Boneless, comes from a time when people had much more interesting names. two of his brothers were Björn Ironside and Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye. However, if I follow their links I will end up in trouble, as Julia just returned from work and needs a cup of tea.

Photos are from August 2016, when life was more interesting and less predictable.

Oilfield Memorial – Duke’s Wood

Thoughts . . .

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We had several part bags of oven chips in the freezer. They are now in the oven cooking. We don’t buy them often, we just seem to use 90% of a bag and leave the others in a frozen corner. We also have four onion rings heating up with them. Because there are too many of them to fit in the tray properly it is proving to be a difficult job to get them cooked properly. When piled up, they steam rather than roasting. I know this from making roasted vegetables. At the moment I am writing this post and hoping that the time it takes will be enough for the chips to turn golden. They can be quite off-putting when they remain white.

White is the colour of things that you find under stones or the bellies of dead fish as they float past in a river . . .

Or maybe that’s just my imagination working overtime.

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

White, despite the way the label has been used over the years, is not an accurate description of me. I’m slightly pink and, in winter, a bit greyish too. Sometime in summer I go red in places and may even take on a very light tan colour. The sun and I are not a great team. I have light brown freckles, or had them. They may be age spots by now, after stealthily changing without me noticing. There are a few spots of me where I have burned or cut myself, and they re white, but they are very small, and you wouldn’t notice them most of the time.

It’s a strange thing to muse on, but what else do you do when you have twenty minutes to kill and a blog to write.

If I were a deeper man I would go on to explore ethnicity and racism. But I’m not. The only ethnicity I seem to have, due to the ginger beard and mousy hair, is Viking ancestry and, after reading about Vikings recently I now know that they are the cause of much toxic masculinity, imperialism and Fascism. Being both English and Viking I have much, it seems, to answer for in historical terms.

And with that in mind, I had better get to the kitchen before I imitate King Alfred the Great and burn the chips.

Dunwich Beach

Not Much Happened Today

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Last night, despite my good intentions, I was tired, disorganised and lazy and failed to post. This is not unusual these days, and it’s something I need to address. I’ll probably have a look at it tomorrow, but for now I will post something.

There’s quite lot happening on the internet, but most of it is politics. I’m not keen on politics. For one thing, it doesn’t bring out the best in people. Second, no matter what you say, you can always find someone to disagree with you. And third, the big one, you will never change anyone’s mind on politics or religion, or global warming, immigration or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Christie definitely cheated the reader, despite what her apologists may say. All you end up with is an unproductive argument and

At this point in my first draft I wandered off into politics whilst discussing why I wasn’t going to discuss it. I was happy with the writing, the conclusions were sound but the overall effect was exactly what I was trying to avoid. That’s the trouble with politics. It’s so pervasive. Rather than start a number of arguments I just deleted 200m words and started again.

I’m happy to say that the book on Vikings is starting to improve. It’s taken a while to get going but I am now enjoying it and learning, which is the point of it. I knew, for instance, that Torksey in Lincolnshire (which I mainly think of in terms of being a caravan site and car boot sale venue) had been a Viking base in 872. Well, a Viking base, I had to look the date up. I also knew that Repton, in Derbyshire, had been the site of a Viking encampment in 873. What I didn’t realise until now wa that they had travelled from Torksey to Repton by sailing along the River Trent. It’s so simple once somebody tells you. As both places are less than an hour’s drive away I really ought to have a trip out. I’ve been to Repton, and driven through Torksey more than once, but never really stopped and had a proper look. Having said that, I will probably be disappointed, but that’s life.

The photos are of a Newark Siege Shilling, which I’ve covered before. The Viking Fleet must have sailed through Newark on its way to Repton. Maybe I should write a post on the history of the River Trent.

Magic on the Marshes

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The weather was mild this morning, we had nothing pressing to do at home and the coast beckoned. We rose at a leisurely pace, had a late breakfast (with the intention of having fish and chips at Sutton-on-Sea), and pottered off.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately I set off on the wrong road and neither of us noticed because we were talking at the time. Eventually we realised and I adjusted our route to take us to the coast via Gainsborough, which is an interesting town with Viking history. Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut won a kingdom here when they defeated the army of King Ethelred the Unready. The story of Cnut, or Canute as he was known in my younger days, and his attempt to turn back the tide, may have occurred in Gainsborough.

It was also England’s most inland port, being 55 miles from the sea. However, big ships no longer call, so it’s not a proper port these days. The Nottinghamshire Naturalist’s Trust have some interesting records of whales at Gainsborough, and dolphins near Newark.

But enough about Gainsborough, it’s a nice enough town but it is not our destination.

We travelled to Sutton on Sea and enjoyed a bracing stroll along the front, watching the dog walkers and their various styles of dog walking and noticing the tracks across the sand. It was about 1.00 pm by this time. I noticed that if a lot of people had passed that way, turning the sand numerous times, the sand seemed to stay moist, and the tracks showed up as churned sand the same colour as the beach. If only one or two people had gone that way the churned sand seemed to dry in the wind and leave a pale trail across the beach. I hope the photo will demonstrate what I mean.

Tracks on the Beach

Dogs at Sutton on Sea

I looked for the glasses I lost on our last visit. They were not there. It’s just like being at home, people are always moving things after I put them down.

The fields were full of pheasants, who clearly know that the pheasant season ends on 1st February.

After that we travelled north to Horseshoe Point. We’ve been there before, It is reached by a pot-holed road, which is getting worse due to construction traffic – they are building the onshore bit for one of the offshore wind farms here. There is a car park, some marsh, a few coastal defences left from the war and not much else.

Horseshoe Point

As we parked, three vees of geese flew over, obviously intent on grazing a field before roosting. We didn’t see them later but we did see a big flock of Widgeon on the return trip. Today we had views of ships in the Humber, hazy wind turbines and a Little Egret. I was particularly pleased with that as we’d seen two in roadside fields during the trip but hadn’t been able to stop and watch or photograph them.

Little Egret – Horseshoe Point

It stayed in the distance, but it did do quite a bit of walking about and some short flights. I know they are quite common these days, but it’s always a thrill to see one.

On the way back to Sutton on Sea, and the chip shop, we were lucky enough to see a hunting Barn Owl as the light fell. They are ghostly, pale birds, and suit the light at the end of the day. It flew from one side of the road to the other, banking several times to show off its plumage, which is a lacework pattern of cream, grey and beige. A magic end to a fine day. It was just a shame it was too quick for me to get the camera out.

Wind Turbines – Horseshoe Point

(To be continued)

Toilet rolls – blessing, or curse of modern society?

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Every day 27,000 trees are used to meet our need for toilet roll. That’s 9,855,000 a year. I’m not quite sure how many mature trees you get to the acre or how old a tree is when you harvest it, but the total amount of resources consumed must be huge.

About 75% of the world’s population does not use toilet paper.

According to figures from 2007, each person in the UK uses 17.6 kilos of toilet paper per year. The Americans only use 15.7 kilos. Consumption is forecast to rise by 40% by 2017 thanks to innovative marketing techniques. That’s a lot of trees.

I’m not surprised that it hasn’t become a major subject for discussion because the very thought of alternatives makes me shudder. I’ll quite happily discuss, and use, composting toilets (because it’s a massive waste of drinking water to use it in toilets) but I’m not so keen on doing without paper.

Faced with the choice of doing without toilet paper or a car I’m not sure what I’d decide. It would be inconvenient to do without either but without a car the worst that can happen is that you have to walk. Or possibly share a bus with a drunk, a dozen school kids and a woman with facial piercings. Without toilet paper you undermine the whole basis of my life.

However, when I pause to think I have to admit that I’m in the first generation of my family who has always had access to proper toilet roll and it doesn’t seem to have done my forebears any harm. The Romans were reasonably successful and they only had sponges on sticks. Even the Vikings, though not great house guests, were fairly successful at looting and pillaging, and they, I’m reliably informed, used moss in place of toilet roll. (Yes, those trips to Hadrian’s Wall and the Jorvik Centre definitely paid off).

Back in the 60s, there was a lot of Izal about. My grandparents had it, public buildings had it and even in the 70s I remember visiting a nurses’ home that had Izal printed with “Property of the National Health Service” in pale blue. If you do remember it, stop shuddering. If you don’t remember it, it made great tracing paper.

It’s a wide-ranging subject, with the Chinese leading the way, first with paper in the 10th Century then with specially made toilet paper in the 14th Century. One British maker, G.W.Atkins & Co, claimed to have royal warrants dating back to 1817. The Americans followed in the mid-19th Century.

In the 1930s one manufacturer was advertising that his paper was “now splinter free” . Makes you think, doesn’t it?

I think that’s enough now. There’s only so much thinking you can do about toilet roll.

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Life after the Care Farm