scribbles tagged ‘Oxfordshire’

one magnetic way

Sunday, December 25th, 2011 | tags: , ,  |

Labyrinths have a a physical pull, a gravity. They pull you into their pathway. Unlike a maze they provide a single pathway, there are no tyrannous choices. You walk the gentle curves that wind you slowly and steadily towards the centre. If several people walk the labrynth one after another,  they can seem to be walking in opposite dirctions, passing each other several times on their journey towards the centre. This passing prompts smiles, laughter, greetings and an acknowledgement of the shared destiny. The meeting in the middle.

There are 3 modern labrynths on the Ridgeway by Streatley. They are constructed from small trenches and rises in the ground, the rises are marked with sparsely placed local stone, flint.  The low hung sunlight of the summer solstice helped to highlight their presence and draw us in…

Walking the Labrynths

4 bits of fabulous banter »

welcoming the green man

Friday, December 23rd, 2011 | tags: , , , ,  |

Early morning climbing the steep hillside at Streatley to the Ridgeway with friends.  We watched the solstice sun rise  in the distance. Toasting the arrival of the green man with mead, elderflower champagne, and sloe gin made with sloes from a nearby tree. Then cleansing each other with some homegrown sage smudging

After some dancing around local labyrinths and rambling through forests we made our way home for fried-egg sandwiches all around. An excellent start to the new year…

Solstice Sunrise Long shadows
 

2 bits of fabulous banter »

opium fields of Didcot

Thursday, June 16th, 2011 | tags: , , ,  |

Every summer I marvel at the beauty of the Oxfordshire poppy fields. I drive through them on my work commute. Not stopping to wonder why farmers are growing poppys. Not until today.

The Daily Mail tells how the poppies are supplying the NHS with the morphine to overcome the shortage caused by the Afghanistan war. Afghanistan was a major poppy producer. NHS Morphine grown in the UK is now used for soldiers injured in Afghanistan. Now these fields remind me of Dorothy falling asleep in the flower fields before the Emerald city, Kansas, the USA.

There are some ornamental poppy’s in the wendy house garden. I had been pondering on how to use them beyond ornamentation. Poppyseed bread perhaps? Some athlete’s who failed drug tests due to trace levels of morphine have blamed poppyseed bread for the drug’s presence.

While searching for ways to use my poppys I was suprised to find very detailed instructions with photographs describing how to harvest and refine opium.  I wont be piloting these instructions. Honest, really, no really….

5 bits of fabulous banter »

tree stump avoidance

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010 | tags: , , , ,  |

walking up the hillHalfway up the Thames Valley’s infamous Streatly Bobsliegh run the Reading team stop to discuss

how best to use their cardboard sled

advanced tree-stump avoidance tactics

healthcare provision

1 wonderful musing »

beware low flying cars

Saturday, December 4th, 2010 | tags: , ,  |

car wreckThe commute to work down the icy back roads of Oxfordshire has been spiced up by the occassional snow flurry and the black ice. Clearly there is some form of adult bumper car game going on. Some drivers drive slowly so as not to take part, others get frustrated at travelling slowly and indulge in risky overtaking. Others just head for the treed hedgerow…

…..BOING!….

….then wait to be flown-out, like this little black number. Thomas just pootles along at a reasonable speed trying not to harrass the cautious or impatient drivers, its a thin line.

Thin black ice

1 wonderful musing »

nowhere

Monday, May 4th, 2009 | tags: , , , ,  |

Whilst concentrating on driving home through the outstanding Oxfordshire countryside I am everywhere-aware and nowhere.   The journey lasts as long as a daydream,   a CD,    15 Johnny Cash songs, 20 miles.   Suprisingly, Thomas didn’t warm to Johnny Cash,   on the other handbrake,   Dusty definitely pumps  his petrol Diesel.  

Dusty Springfield bounced us to In the middle of nowhere

1 wonderful musing »

blue bonnet

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | tags: , , , ,  |

blue sonnet reflected rapeseedThomas swirls  along roads built to bounce him and give me lots of   steering opportunities, through violently yellow  rapeseed fields, between hedges who’s vaulting arms meet above us.  

Thomas purrs and whirrs

Wendy  curls and twirls

what do you think of that »