#Hull City of Culture 2017 (two) Yes, I was made in Hull !

I am poised, Credit Card ready,  Family pre-warned , Family agreed, Family poised for when at 8.30 am on ticket release day  I shall let Hull Know that we want tickets for the Firework Display on January 1st which kick starts the #Hull City of Culture 2017 big time.

In fact this City of K U Hull Girl has planned a 3day City visit for the family , the London Born, the Scarborough Born, the Oldham Born and the Kingston Upon Hull born . My sisters and I are really going to say ,

COME BACK TO OURS !

Ive been blogging about Hull since my first tentative post in 2006, when I was working using Dial- up and had not even got a Digital Camera let alone a smartphone. 

I'd only been able to use the internet since when  in 1997 each classroom in school was given a Computer .  I even remember the Head coming to me one morning and saying he'd just discovered a wonderful search engine called Google! We used Yahoo before that . 

I was  started on my journey to computer literacy  in Hull too. I've just found my certificate certifying that I'd followed a programme of study in Introduction to Information Technology  at Humberside University campus in June 1997 . 

So nearly 20 years later I find myself with a houseful of devices , Plusnet, 2Macs, 2 PCs, an old netbook, a Raspberry Pi and a second career as PA to Computer illiterate family members.who receive e messages on my email account.  The Grandchildren, however, who have been using my devices since they  could reach the keyboard for Jeux Poisson Rouge are now disappearing upstairs to the office and returning with imovies they've done on the Minimac. I find compositions on Garage Band in my Files and they've moved on from Minecraft to Utube and they are leaving me behind with their expertise . Each time  I open my MacAir  a new login dialogue box will be there under mine to allow  MinorMayhem  or Rooreviewer to log in . 

My G grandfather would have seen these

The #Hull City of Culture is the first time for me then that a whole year event  is being organized using the best of  the  technology of DIGITAL AGE . I applaud you ! Yes it was great that even here in the outpost that is Filey ,(once in the East Riding) , Look North , from Leeds  was featuring #Hull2017 on 22nd September, all the forth estate seemed to be shouting Hull , and my pride just swelled and swelled.  #fb and Twitter posts from the Hull Daily Mail and #Hull2017 kept appearing on Social Media . I was well informed.

So Ive bought tickets for The Hypocrite,( I'm looking now at the woodcut of Sir John Hotham on my office wall), with the delightful miniature of Hull in the corner ,heading this post .

I've opened my account ready for Firework Tickets, booked the wonderful  Premier Inn in Tower Street and am going to bed hoping that at on the release  morning the website will just let me on before I start another  busy day .

Made in Hull, I certainly was, 70 years of my HISTORY . I'm thinking of registering an interest in the Community Brand,  after all I want to do my vicarious bit  for the 47 models . 

Mary Gardens ,two in two weeks.

from Castle Bolton in Wensleydale 

In Castle Bolton I discovered a Mary Garden, planted in the last 12 months . I had never heard of one before . I was  intrigued to glimpse into the part that plants played in the life of the Medieval Christian (then Roman Catholic ) Church in England. Mary the mother of Jesus Christ and the legends about  her ,were woven into the culture and social history , warp and weft , of every person in the land whether or not they chose privately to dissent. 

Along with the Doctrine of Signatures, whereby the appearance of a plant and its likeness to parts of the body would lead to its use for curing that part ,so too some  plants were associated by their appearance with the life of Mary . 

So at Castle Bolton 68 different plants are growing each pertaining to Mary .

 I just loved the very thought that Lavender known as Mary's Drying Plant was so called because it got its scent after the baby Jesus's clothes were placed on it before they dried . I wonder that maybe Asafoetida had the reverse affect with His garments before they were washed .

Ladys Bedstraw, Carr Naze

I never knew that LadyBirds were known thus because of the benefits they bring, as in medieval

legend they came miraculously to save crops from Aphids . Their red colour is from Mary's Cloak and the 7 black spots (on the 7 spot Ladybird) represent Mary's 7 sorrows. 

Lady's Bedstraw, Gallium verum was thought to have been used as a preparation for the birth of Jesus, and used in His bedding . It was used too in medieval times to stuff mattresses as it contains a natural flea repellent .

Ive enjoyed reading the list of 68 plants at Castle Bolton . I've wondered at how my favourite Small Scabious could end up as Our Lady's Pincushion until I found the picture of one I took at Fountains Abbey.

 Friend Pam and I like a 'Quiet Day'. Saturday took us to Madonna House at Robin Hoods Bay  for a day of reflection , solitude if needed , and a chance to recharge ones Spiritual Batteries. The  Scarborough Ecumenical Group Crofters who organized the day , use this venue regularly .

And there it was . another Mary Garden .  

The Summer Gentian was not on the list of 68 plants for Castle Bolton , perhaps it was included because of the beautiful blue of the plant, a colour associated with Mary but I'm sure she never wore the colour as she was not rich or royal .

Summer Gentian , Mary Garden , Madonna House

Caravan route to Thirsk

That is how  to go from Old Malton to Hovingham to Coxwold to Thirsk  and then Leyburn , we take the caravan route , not to avoid Sutton Bank, but just because its the scenic route and full of delightful surprises. The meeting point for the converging family cars was Jervaulx Abbey this year, always a treat , and this year we were blessed with sunshine and the free bench overlooking the park for our picnic.

It was a special Holiday for us, all the family in 4 different cottages in our very special place . We have been going to Leyburn for years and staying just off the Market Place in cottages overlooking Wensleydale towards Middleham . Its perfect, because for us , Leyburn is perfect. Ive known it all my life , as my father fished the Ure staying at the Cover Bridge inn for years in the 50s, and then the Rose and Crown ,Bainbridge in the 60s . His week away every May was the eager climax to a winter tying Mayflies and Brown and Olive Duns, and the one we children loved to hear him say , The Bloody Butcher. Its just a year since we found that my mother had never parted with the tins of trout flies, all hooked into disintegrating foam , and made by my father , who died in 1975.

Cover Bridge Inn, Ancient Order of Trout! OKA York Fly Fishers

Picture taken by my father in 1958 ish , l to r: Alan Crosby, Fred Farrow, Vic Leggett , Bob Dales and Colin Dales, my father Benjy Bruce took the photo. So Wensleydale was a very special family place, and is becoming so all over again as the next generations are already  planning another visit.

My father used to say that West Burton Falls were his favourite waterfalls of the many in Wensleydale. The Family found some no one had heard of , a short evening stroll from Leyburn at Harmby, and said they were lovely . Spouse and I however went with daughter 2 and family to West Burton falls  which I had never viewed before. If Id known how picturesque and charming , quiet and with easy parking I'd have got us there in earlier years. Now that spouse is not able to clamber or climb , West Burton with easy access and a seat, and no other people was just a joy for us all. I never realised how constraining health and mobility issues may be . (so recommend West Burton Falls for any one who has them and a car, though the great little White Dales Bus , the Wensleydale Explorer stops in the village )

West Burton Falls Wensleydale

Son in law from Brighton told of a guidebook to Wensleydale that he has that belonged to his parents, both Yorkshire Born. He told of the lovely illustrations and the interesting and well written text. So in every shop in Leyburn  and Hawes  I looked to see if he was talking of the books of Ella Pontefract , Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby my heroines of the Yorkshire Dales, but could not find any of their  titles amongst the shelves heaving with brash photo books of Yorkshire Ghosts and Yorkshire , (not mentioning them incidentally , or Kit Calvert, but of Herriot and Hannah , worthy but accidentally so , the way of celebrity). 

Home in Filey my first task after completing the empty caravan route home  was to seek out the Hartley Woodcuts serving as the illustrations for the 1936 book Of Wensleydale by Ella Pontefract  . I hope that woodcuts come back into fashion, as they are labours of love. Marie Hartley  illustrating Joan Ingilbys text  in the 1950s had abandoned woodcuts for  black and white line drawings, which in  postwar modernism do not have the charm of the earlier medium  for me . 

Barbara Rattenbury nee Bowen  Woodcut

This is a poor repro (didnt want to unframe so glass shine)of my own woodcut done by friend of the family, and dear neighbour in Sutton on Hull,  Barbara Rattenbury nee Bowen . I've known this small woodcut for over 60years and love it. Its not Wensleydale of course , but a coastal location , I know not where.

I'm going back to my nurture/younger  years in other ways without being sans everything . On my allotment I am happily beginning to grow plants for Dyes. Wensleydale has nailed it , seeing all the wool caught on fences, which years ago I gathered and took home to use in class, as we boldly learned spinning and dyeing . A whole generation taught by me probably still remember when we were allowed to boil up onion skins and chemical mordants, when the classroom reeked , and we eagerly awaited for the stones and string to be removed from the pieces of cotton sheeting and beheld our creations Tied and Dyed. Its coming back to me , Ive made enquiries about getting a Spinning wheel for my dotage when I'm going to sit in the corner and be in no ones way .