Merry Christmas

The Coming of Zion's King

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!  Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!  See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 9:9

Goodwill and togetherness

Carollers gather for a song of praise.  A horse and wagon trundle past, and there's the tring-tring of a bell, as a young cyclist peddles through the slush.  People are enticed by the warm glow of the Imperial Electric Theatre, and all the other inviting lights that line the path of Queen Street.  A little further up the town, the Globe Hotel throws open its doors to winter travellers, whilst flower ladies sell holly and mistletoe on the kerb.  Austins, the drapers, is busy with customers admiring the finery, and all through the air is the smell of coal and wood fires from the nearby houses.  It is a quarter past five in the afternoon, but the edge is taken off the bitter temperatures by the lovely, iconic ringing of the bells emanating from the very centre of the town, St Leonard's Tower.  It's Christmas in Newton Abbot.

Much has changed since the Victorian inspiration behind these paintings, yet so many of the details in the above description still hold true in our little market town. The air of togetherness, the goodwill and feeling of community, which binds us so strongly at this time of year, are overwhelmingly evident in these paintings, and is a message that we can all take into the festive period, in amongst all the shopping and the rushing.  I wish every reader of this blog a happy, merry, peaceful and meaningful Christmas.

Queen Street - detail from an original painting by Annie Meakin, on a card sold in aid of Dame Hannah Rogers Trust

The Clock Tower - detail from an original painting by Annie Meakin, on a card sold in aid of Dame Hannah Rogers Trust

Merry Christmas, George Sterry

And so to a man - a great-great-great-grandfather of mine - who passed away at Christmas time in 1901.  Edward VII has been on the throne for less than a year; Parliament passes the Factory and Workshop Act, raising the minimum working age to 12; and Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland.  It is 23 December, and in Gloucester, George Sterry, a shoemaker, is rushing around to get his affairs in order before settling down for the festivities.  He leaves his home and workshop on Tredworth High Street, rushing in the cold weather, to Pembroke Street, where he will collect some shoes in need of mending.  The Gloucester Citizen tells the rest of the tale (click the story to enlarge):

It must have been a terribly sad Christmas for the remaining family, particularly for George's wife Ann (his second wife, to whom he married in 1893) and for his children - Elizabeth, Fanny, George, Edward, and Amelia Kate, my great-great grandmother, who lived close by in Gloucester.  No record of George's burial can be found - presumably he was laid to rest after Christmas Day, but whether this was before or after the New Year is unknown.

Jefferson David Chalfant's The Shoemaker

There have been 115 Christmas Days since George passed away.  115 times that family have swapped presents under the tree; 115 gatherings around the Christmas dinner table; 115 moments that we as descendants may have looked up to the heavens, our hearts full of remembrance, and whispered into the cold night air, Merry Christmas, George Sterry.

Here comes Christmas

We Three Kings of Orient are

Bearing gifts we traverse afar.

Field and fountain, moor and mountain

Following yonder star.

O star of wonder, star of night

Star of royal beauty bright,

Westward leading, still proceeding,

Guide us to thy perfect light.

Well, Christmas has arrived again at Oak Tree Drive, after what seems to have been a mere five minutes since last year.  There's not an awful lot new this time around - after all, Christmas is about tradition, memory, and the revisiting of timeless classics - and so it's the usual tree decorations and nutcrackers, which always fill my heart with festive joy.  I did, however, pick these two little gems up in Exeter recently.

It seems that Christmas started very early this year - the first Sunday of Advent fell on its earliest possible day, and with the general poor state of the world in recent months, it appears that people are embracing the festive life with all of their hearts.  We're probably the same as everybody else - this is a time to reflect on the many good things we have, to discover cheer and rebuff the adversity of the cold months, and to search out kindness - kindness to each other, our family and our neighbours, as well as kindness to all the wild residents with whom we share our home - the robins and the wrens, the gold crests and the wagtails, who are receiving big handfuls of seeds, peanuts and mealworms to see then safely through to spring.  Let us not forget the garden at this time of year, where the odd treat still warms the soul - the skimmia, the ever green ferns, the cyclamen, the appearance of helleborus niger - the Christmas Rose - and the knowledge that under every pile of sticks, and snuggled deep into the compost bin, there will be numerous frogs, the odd toad, and the sleeping slow worm.

Meanwhile back inside, a Yankee Candle wafts its cosy winter scent throughout the house, its flame flickering gently in the soft darkness, the undeniable smell of Christmas for me.  The curtains are drawn, the night is shut away, and the simple pleasures - to eat a hearty stew together, or to sit and read a book by lamplight - prevail.  Home is wonderful at this time of year. 

Remembrance

To Germany

You are blind like us.  Your hurt no man designed,

And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other's dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other's truer form
And wonder, Grown more loving kind and warm
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

Abandoned passions, silent terraces

There's a sad but interesting reminder come to my attention today, about the perilous existence of English football's lower-division and non-league clubs.  It's timely, as rumours about Torquay United's prospective new owners take a leap forward - not necessarily for the better - and Gulls fans wait, with bated breath, to hear the answers to the grimmest of questions.  Will we still have a football club?  What will the club look like?  How will it be run?  Where will it play?

Seaside resorts and successful football clubs seem to have an all-or-nothing relationship.  Bournemouth and Brighton have both come through mighty perilous journeys before arriving in happier climes.  Blackpool have tasted the sweet success of Premier League football, before plummeting down the divisions.  Morecambe and Southend seem, on the surface of it, to be making a consistently successful go of it.  And then there's Scarborough FC.  Scarborough FC, who came to Plainmoor in the second leg of the 1998 Division Three play-off semi final, lost, and subsequently spiralled into relegation, and then non-existence.  Recent chatter on a Torquay forum put me onto a website, with photos of the then-abandoned McCain Stadium, Scarborough's one-time home, and clearly as characterful as any you'd find in football.  Images of the empty ground, where spectators would once have chanted, cheered and waved their scarves in the air, seem particularly haunting, almost apocalyptic.  What a sorry affair, and what a sad demise of a football club, trying to survive in just the sort of town that makes our football pyramid unique in the world.

The eerie silence of the McCain Stadium (source: Urban Ghosts)

Of course, the story doesn't quite end there for Scarborough, with the arising of their phoenix club, Scarborough Athletic.  The team now play ten miles away in Bridlington, and are riding high, currently sitting second in the Evo-Stik Northern League First Division North.  Will they one day return to the glittering heights of the Football League?

The McCain in action (source: Derelict Places)

Back in Torquay, we wait for the news that will either confirm the future of our club, or ratify its conclusion.  Non-league football is a cruel, stark and brutal world, a million miles from the game that so many people know from Sky Sports or Match of the Day.  Winter is coming to the English Riviera - and unlike its usual balmy climate, the forecast of clubs past points towards a very cold, very dark season ahead.

Torquay in play-off action versus Scarborough at a packed-out plainmoor, 1998 (source: Herald Express)

The colours of Autumn

The falling leaves drift by my window
The falling leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands I used to hold...

So sung the great Nat King Cole.  Now, there was a man with a richness in voice that was simply made for this time of year, his gentle croon matching the softening tones of colour and light as the garden enters this most reflective of seasons.  As we approach Halloween, our garden is in a sultry frame of mind, the dying embers of summer now extinguished as it steels itself for the cold months to come.  Leaves are the current fashion here, with birch leaves falling to the ground in immeasurable numbers.  The leaves of the blueberry bushes, meanwhile, are still intact, forming the stunning curtain of pinks and reds, for which these plants are famous.

The colours of Autumn are my favourite of the whole calendar.  It's easy, in a summer month, to take each flower or fiery tone for granted, but on a cold and grey October day, where the sun doesn't show her head and the clouds loom with menace, a single flash of colour is to be received with the same fervour as Howard Carter, when he first stumbled upon that famous tomb.  The best treasure in the last week has been this red admiral butterfly, a late-flyer that I've spotted much more readily this Autumn.  Other remnants of the warmer months are also trying their best to hang on - such as a (very) late flowering pink campion, the final flush of red geraniums, and the true queen of the garden at this time of year, fading with regal dignity, our hydrangea.

To me, nothing in the garden screams Autumn like fungi, and whilst I don't know my mushroom from my toadstool, I'm certainly impressed with these beastly organisms that have found a home - as if by magic - on the woodland bank.  I notice that fungus doesn't tend to stay around too long, and no sooner has it appeared, then it is peppered with holes and knocked about by the elements.  Nonetheless, there's a fascination about it that leaves me intrigued and slightly flummoxed, and like with all things woodland and wild, it is welcome to have a home here.

Around a year ago, I blogged about some garden centre bargains that I picked up in a clearance sale.  Happily I can report that almost everything has thrived (the less said about dahlias and slugs, the better.)  This year I've done a spot more bargain hunting - a winter flowering jasmine for £3; some brunnera plants for £1 each; and a few ferns and primulas that should really kick on next year.  Naturally, my attention has now turned back to our winter border, where I've popped in a few bergenias and dug in a number of winter aconite bulbs.  It's an ongoing project to try and work out what works where in this slightly difficult part of the garden, but with the addition of a couple of hellebores, a few evergreen ferns, and the ever-emerging cyclamens, I'm hopeful of a winter show that encapsulates the season and gives some colour and interest to make our garden a place to enjoy, whatever the month.

Monty Don mentioned in the most recent Gardeners' World magazine that his relationship with his garden will be taking a short hiatus, a little time apart to recharge and become excited again.  Possibly it's because I don't have acres to tend, but I don't share Monty's emotions about our own plot at this time.  Right now the garden is moody, and both of us know it isn't at its best.  However, its character still excites me, and as we push into the ever-damper, colder days of darkness, there's an increased intimacy that I want to find, uncover, and enjoy, far away from the prying eyes of summer.  For the next few months, its just the two of us facing whatever winter wants to throw our way - and we need each other now, possibly more than in any other season.

Goodbye rhinos

Was it really back in sunny August that we stepped out on safari and followed the rhino trail around South Devon?  Well, believe it or not, the trail has ended already, with a crescendo of art, colour and horns adorning Paignton Zoo for one weekend only.  Here was a chance to see all our friends together again, and to catch up on some of the more outlandishly-located creatures that we missed the first time around.  Before that, however, here's a round-up of some of the rhinos we found since my last blog post.

Big Sweetie, an ingenious piece of art that incorporates everything sweet shop.  Foam shrimps, gummy bears, twister lollies, it's a trip down memory lane for the sugar fiend, and one of the funniest rhinos on the trail.  I particularly like the "for keeps" love heart, once again bringing the conservation message home; afterall, nobody wants to lose the Javan and Sumatran rhinos.  Meanwhile, in Torquay town centre, Rhino an old lady who swallowed a fly (get it?) takes us through that particularly quirky nursery rhyme, with a granny rhino displaying each stage of the story, from the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog, the cow, the horse... She's dead of course!  Rhino an old lady comes complete with her own horn fly too, a little touch that perfectly completes the piece.

On Paignton Sea Front, Rhinoctopus stole the show in my eyes, a lovely seabed scene in which a large pink octopus takes centre stage.  Incorporating coral and clownfish, it's a tropical nod to biodiversity that really appealed to my fishy tastes.  Paignton has also been the home of Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside, a take on the traditional British beach holiday, complete with sand castles, ice creams, and good old Punch & Judy.  It sort of fits perfectly in the faded glory of Paignton's Torbay Road, a throw-back to the days when this really was a destination of distinction, but celebrating the still-beautiful stretch of coastline that makes up this wonderful bay.

To Paignton Zoo, where the great gathering of rhinos was in full swing, all lined up neatly like a conservation army.  Here we had a chance to sweep up some of those we missed, such as Stella, which showcases endangered animals in the stars, and Rhino Why the Caged Bird Sings, which just has an intrinsic beauty that I'm not sure I even understand.  The impact of having so many rhinos in one place is a sight not-to-be-missed, giving - for the first time - a real understanding of the scale of the project.  I mean, what an effort by Paignton Zoo, once again giving the people of South Devon a world-class art trail for all ages.  Through the mindless moments of vandalism and antisocial behaviour of a tiny minority, the project has shone through to give a summer of pleasure to thousands of locals and tourists alike - we two included.  Thanks to the zoo for this, and for their conservation work generally.  You can see a gallery of all rhinos on my Flickr page.

Finally, to my favourite.  Or favourites, as there's two that stand out for me.  the first, Blossom, we snapped at Bernaville Nurseries near Exeter.  It appeals to the gardener within me, and would surly look perfect up by our summer house.  The second, which would also not look out of place in our back garden, is Woodland Safari, a celebration of native nature, and a reminder that you don't need to travel far to enjoy a safari of your own, to find fascination in the British countryside, and do your bit to help our embattled wildlife no matter where you live.  I guess that's the message that this project has spent a summer trying to get across - it certainly wasn't wasted.  So bye bye rhinos; and let's hope it's only the sculptures to which we bid farewell.

Grandma

1925-2016

Farewell old friend!

April, come she will

When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;

May, she will stay,

Resting in my arms again.

June, she'll change her tune,

In restless walks she'll prowl the night;

July, she will fly

And give no warning to her flight.

August, die she must,

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;

September, I remember,

A love once new has now grown old.
(Simon & Garfunkel, 1964)

Two years home

We're celebrating two years (two years!) since moving into our first house, and my my, how the time has flown.  Moving back to Newton Abbot has been good for us; we enjoy the town, the surrounding countryside, and the fact that the coast is four miles away.  I certainly feel part of a community here and the town, whilst small, is bustling, with a lively centre and several quality independents.  One which we use regularly is the Pizza Cafe - and what better to order in for our two-person party?

After a frantic first year, life has mellowed at Oak Tree Drive.  There's still much to achieve - the oven repairman visited recently and was aghast at how the gas pipe had been installed by the previous occupants; the carpets still need replacing; and our internal cupboard space still needs some attention - but at least it feels like home and, piece-by-piece we're getting there.  One thing that's certainly doing well is the fish tank - the plants have matured, and the fish have grown, all the while enjoying this peaceful little corner of the Amazon.  Obviously there's also the garden, the subject of many blogs, in which the biggest transformation of all can be see in the new borders and carefully-placed wildflowers, ferns and shrubs.  If last year was about learning and feeling our way around the plot, picking up rubbish and digging new ground, then this year has been all about the plants and the wildlife - and it has all been wonderful.

So that's it for year two in our ownership of the place - I wonder what things will look like in September 2017.

The Lions of London

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