Well here I am again just three days later. This is my twenty-second visit this year to a National Trust property and my sixth visit to Canons Ashby. I need this to be a special visit. I have been unwell since the end of last year with my physical sickness causing mental illness, I need to bring into my life today something lovely which will push away my sadness so here In am saying hello to nature and within it some of my special friends.
Bees
are some of the most wonderful creatures within this world. They are possibly
the most hard working creatures on Planet Earth. They do their work tirelessly
to pollinate flowers, without that work there would be no flowers whose beauty
we can enjoy in our lives and yet mankind would seek to destroy these beautiful
creatures. I have seen in the media a report explaining the government has
allowed a previously banned crop insecticide to be used which will harm our
bees.
Our National Trust not only preserves the country’s heritage but also the wildlife within it.
I
think they are rooks but my avian knowledge may be failing and they may be
crows but who cares ? I don’t ! I care about my friends who nest high in the trees
above the courtyard café at Canons Ashby and every visit I make I point my
camera with its zoom lens extended to capture their beauty. A photograph can
not share the sound of its image but please as you look at this picture keep
your physical eyes focussed upon my friends in the tree and mentally close your
eyes so you can listen to them speaking.
William
Wordsworth eat your heart out !
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That
floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When
all at once I saw a crowd,
A
host of golden Daffodils;
Beside
the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering
and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And
twinkle on the Milky Way,
They
stretched in never-ending line
Along
the margin of a bay:
Ten
thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing
their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did
the sparkling waves in glee:—
A
Poet could not but be gay
In
such a jocund company:
I
gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What
wealth the shew to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I
lie
In
vacant or in pensive mood,
They
flash upon that inward eye
Which
is the bliss of solitude,
And
then my heart with pleasure fills,
And
dances with the Daffodils.
Wordsworth
wrote that poem in 1804 remembering a walk with his sister two years earlier
when they did indeed come across a field of daffodils.
The beauty of the daffodil has not changed has it ? Providing man does not destroy this planet which we have to accept as a real possibility there will be beautiful yellow daffodils in March 2238.
The sapling trees The National Trust is planting within its present ambition for twenty million new trees by the year 2030 will be grand mature trees.
The garden at Canons Ashby was designed and created by William Dryden between the years 1707 and 1718 although the estate dates was back to Tudor times.
Another friend I like to say hello to when I visit Canons Ashby is Robin. I have given him the name Robin although I do not know what his name really was. Robin was a shepherd boy who lost his life when parliamentarians on the estate were attacked by troops loyal to the king.
Robin’s statue was erected by the lady of the manor to preserve his memory.
Walking
through the ancient gateway from The Mulberry Lawn to where Robin’s statue can
be found I looked into his eyes and tried to feel within my heart his
character. I then put my hand on his foot and felt a very strange sensation as
Robin said hello to me.
I wrote a little story about Robin and his dog I called Snowdrop and published it on Amazon as an e-book 28th February this year ROBIN AND SNOWDROP A LIFE TOO SHORT TO BE LIVED.
I will be taking that story, together with some others I have written set in different National Trust properties and publish them in paperback form later this year.
Robin the shepherd boy.
I have very mixed feelings about the sheep I find in the fields when I visit canons Ashby which is set in the heart of Northamptonshire’s sheep famring community.
I am currently writing a whodunit book within which there is a chapter entitled THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. With my notebook always close to hand I scribbled the final fifteen hundred words to conclude that chapter. Notebook in hand and sheep within my view.
I am a passionate vegetarian. I have not been so all of my life but for four of my soon to be seventy-two years. It pains me so deeply to look at the beautiful Spring Lambs who excite people and are the subject of joy offered to children. Those lambs will have such a short life before they are slaughtered, murdered in their youth to be eaten my people.
The
illness I am currently enduring is an eating disorder brought on by my becoming
a vegetarian. These are not empty words when In say I would rather die than eat
the flesh of that baby lamb here suckling up to its mother. A mother soon to
have her child taken from her to be butchered for no other reason than to make
lamb chops and shepherd’s pie.
When those meals are prepared and put on someone’s dinner plate how much will be eaten and how much left on that plate to be thrown into the rubbish bin ?
Yes
I am approaching my seventy-second birthday. I hate being old ! As a teenager I
attended Boldmere High School for Boys in the Royal Borough of Sutton
Coldfield. The school badge was a bear whose name was Ursus.
When you visit Canon’s Ashby go down into the kitchen garden, right down to the lion gates and you will find this gardener’s sculpture.
It is, of course, a hedge image of a lion but when I fist saw it my old school badge came to mind so it will always to be known as Ursus. Still with a lot of grown yet to come it is fantastic isn’t it ?
Also in the kitchen garden you will find Lazy Lennie.
The National Trust is the biggest charity in the country but it is not a commercial charity, such I despise. It is not always in you face screaming donate, donate, donate – money, money, money ! I have been a member of Then National Trust for forty years and I can assure you the subscription offers incredible value for money. Support does not only mean money, I am doing my best to support our National Trust through my own tree planting project supporting the Trust’s ambition, I am up to thirty-six trees right now, and through my writing this diary with its little stories.
More
friends.
I was wandering along, returning to The Mulberry Lawn when this lady met my eye. She really did look me in the eye and said Point your camera my way.
How could I not oblige ? I clicked the camera then off she went with her little one.
The Mulberry Lawn. It was on 27th February last year that Amazon published my e-book THE MULBERRY LAWN set in Canons Ashby. It is one of the stories in my paperback book PLANT A TREE ‘TIL SEVENTY-THREE published on 3rd October 2021 to launch my tree planting support for The National Trust.
I came to Canons Ashby feeling unwell and needing some love from my friends. This has been a warm sunny day but the warmth has come not only from the sun but from my many friends.
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