More Earwigging . . . . .

Who's a bigot, me?


Elderly couple having lunch with very elderly and deaf parent.


Woman: "I really don't like it when two of a kind adopt."

Parent: "Eh?"

Woman, a little louder: "You know, two of a kind, it's not natural, when they adopt."

Parent: "What?"

Woman, louder still: "Two men or two women, they shouldn't, you know, adopt, little ones."

Parent: "What's that you're saying?"

Woman, desperate, but unable to stop now: "Two of the same kind, you know, the same sex,  a couple of men or two women, they shouldn't adopt children. The grandchildren say we're old-fashioned; they say, it doesn't matter; but I say it matters, it's not right, it's not natural."

Parent: " What?"

Man, very loud: "SHE DOESN'T WANT HOMOSEXUALS ADOPTING CHILDREN, DOESN'T THINK IT'S RIGHT."

Women: "SSSSSHHHHH, that's not a very nice word to use. People might be offended."

The Rainwitch

Tess Kincaid's Magpie No. 84

Woman In The Rain

The land was burning.

There had been no rain for the whole of an exceptionally hot summer;

grass on the hillsides turned dry and brown, leaving sheep and cattle without feed;

hedges and verges grew dusty and trees lost their lustre.

Desperate and exhausted, the people turned to the Rainwitch for help.

Their plight moved her heart.

(She was one of the good witches, always willing to do her best for those in need)

She saw livestock dying in the meadows, 

 crops withering in the fields,

rivers running dry, 

and fish suffocating in shallow pools which had been shimmering lakes. 

She called her familiar, Old Raven, and bid him fly up into the  skies.

"See where the rainclouds have gathered,

and bring me news of those ready to discharge",

she ordered.

When Old Raven returned he had a gossamer thread of the finest silk tied to his wing.

" I have found the clouds ,

see, I have brought a flock of them , enough to refresh the land."

he  croaked.

The Rainwitch

duly did her magic.

Soon, 

lakes and rivers were overflowing,

bursting their banks.

The sky was black and heavy

with a flock of clouds,

 darkness swallowed light. 

day became night.

At first the people rejoiced.

They danced in the rain

as they watched their wells fill up with life-giving water,

and grasses, fields and hedges recover. 

"Thank you, thank you", they cried.

"You have saved our lives and our livelihood.

We will be forever in your debt."

But by and by, as the rains continued to fall, new voices were heard.

"Enough already", they said. "Enough of a good thing.

Are you trying to drown us?"

Roads flooded, and the people couldn't drive their livestock to market.

Fields were sodden and crops in danger of rotting.

Bedding grew damp and mouldy and depression set in.

"Will these dark days never end?"

Old Raven brought the news to his mistress.

"They are fed up down there", he croaked.

"You know that humans are never satisfied, whatever you do for them."

Old Raven was a wise old bird, he'd  seen it all before.

The Rainwitch was a little annoyed.

"Very well, then," she said, 

"I shall return to them and stop the rain".

She climbed up on her rock rising from the lake, spread her arms wide,

and told the rain to end

and the light to return.

"But I'll tell you one thing, Old Raven," she said, 

while the rain eased and daylight once more returned to the land,

"this was the last time I've come to their assistance. 

From now on they can make do with the seasons."

She was true to her word

and the picture above was the last anyone ever saw of her again.

September Miscellany - Of Autumn Fruits and The House Of Libra

Ciclo dei Mesi - 1397

September

Chaenomeles

The fruits of the Japanese Quince are very hard and astringent,
inedible in their raw state.
But roughly chopped and cooked for a long time
they become soft and mushy, and
can be used for marmalades and jellies.
Japanese quinces contain more pectin than apples and true quinces and will set readily.

Tusan
Hypericum androsaemum
(St John's Wort)


'Tusan' is a corruption of the French toute-saine, roughly, 'all-heal'.
Modern herbal medicine uses hypericum poultices and salves for wounds and burns.
It is also well-known among herbalists as an anti-depressant.

St John's Wort, with its bright yellow flowers in summer, which turn to
showy black or red berries in autumn, is a popular plant for a dull spot in the garden.
Most of the leaves are retained in winter.

English Lavender

It's time to prune your lavender plants.
Lavender is another of the herbs that have a wide range of uses,
in food preparation, herbal medicines and cosmetics.

There's always a bowl of lavender flowers,
enhanced with a few drops of aromatic lavender oil
standing in a warm place in my house.



"I judge that the flowers of lavender, quilted into a cap and daily worn, 
are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause,
and that they comfort the brain very well, 
namely if it have any distemperature that cometh of moistness."

William Turner
Herbal 1568

The Sun enters the House of Libra

'The man born under Libra shall be right mightily praised and honoured in the service of Captains. he shall go in unknown places. He shall keep well his own, if he make not revelation in drink. He will not keep his promise. he will be married, but go from his wife. He shall be enriched by women, but experience evil fortune, though many shall ask counsel of him. He shall have seventy years after nature.'

'The woman shall be amiable and of great courage, and shall go in places unknown. She shall be debonair and merry, rejoiced by her husband. If she shall not be wedded at thirteen, she shall not be chaste. After thirty years old she shall prosper the better and have great praise. She shall live sixty years after nature.'

Kalendar of Shepheardes 1604

A Tale Of Woe With a Happy Ending.

Sometimes you have to live through the sort of week which you would gladly wish on your worst enemy, just so you yourself didn't have to see another day of it.

And then something reminds you that in the midst of all the chaos, stress, doom and gloom there is always someone stepping up to the plate and saying: "I'll help" and nothing is quite as bad as you feared.

Thursday to Thursday has been difficult for us. Firstly, I fell ill quite suddenly and was admitted to hospital as an emergency patient. I was discharged again in the evening, but feeling rather weak and quite unable to take Beloved to the same hospital, which is about an hour's drive from home, the next day, Friday. He had an appointment to see a skin cancer specialist to assess a large and fairly deep squamous cell carcinoma on his back; not an appointment we wanted to postpone. He can no longer drive such distances because of his poor eyesight, so up stepped a Good Samaritan friend and said "I'll take him, you stay at home and rest".

I spent most of the weekend resting and felt much more myself by Monday, when the large fridge-freezer in the kitchen decided it had had enough and wilted and died. Luckily I noticed early enough that something was wrong and was able to rescue most of the frozen food and stuff it into the scullery freezer. But I don't have another fridge; butter, eggs, milk, yogurts, cheese, and all the stuff you normally never think twice about was disintegrating. "I'll take it and put it into my fridge for the moment", said a Good Samaritan, again saving the day.

Beloved and I went out and panic-bought a fridge-freezer replacement in an ordinary white goods shop, not one of the massive multiples, but one in the next little town. They delivered the next morning. Once it was sitting in its space and the delivery man had gone, I realised that its domed door made it quite awkward to get at and stick out into the room. I rang the shop and threw myself on their mercy. "Of course, we'll fetch it back. We'll lend you a small reconditioned fridge out of the shop and perhaps measure the space more carefully and together we'll find a fridge-freezer to suit."

They were to collect the replacement apparatus, a huge thing, and leave me with a small fridge on Wednesday morning. As this was also the day for Beloved's second, long-awaited, cataract operation at the day surgery clinic, we were rather pushed for time. Benno was also a problem, his arthritic joints make him slow and a liability on a long day out. I felt I had quite enough on my hands already. Good Samaritans all round stepped forward: "Yes, of course we can come early; what time will you have to leave home at the latest?" said the delivery man from the white goods shop. And "yes, I'll take Benno for the day, and I'll see to it that the fridge is switched on in time for it to be cold enough for you to come home to fresh milk for your tea", said a good friend.

And today my cleaning girl stepped up and gave the house an extra going-over so I could look after Beloved,  instead of having to get through a week's worth of household chores.

The cataract operation went well, we have a date for the skin cancer operation in three week's time and the white goods shop is exploring the possibilities of supplying me with a replacement fridge-freezer as close to the one I had before as they can.

September Song - My World

Day by the day,

unmistakable signs 

herald the advent of autumn;

tenderly, soft mists embrace 

fields yielding their final harvest

before they merge,

seamlessly, into 

the weathering sky.   

Peonies, defying

the laws of nature,

assume a coat of glowing colours,

their red-veined leaves 

betraying a zest for life,

yet to be stilled.

Horse Chestnuts weep 

a gentle rain of

yellow leaves

upon the flower beds they shaded

only yesterday.

Their shiny fruits long gone,

exhausted from their valiant efforts

through the seasons,

their final offering now

to lay a shielding hand

against the frosts to come

over the sleeping life

deep in the earth below them.

©  photos and text USW

This is my contribution to  the new That's My World

A Sad Story About A Greedy Child And A Snake

The Snake Charmer - Henri Rousseau

Tess Kincaid's Magpie No. 83

There once was a child whose mother gave her a bowl of milk and bread every afternoon. Each afternoon the mother warned the child not to go too far from the house and to beware of strangers with sweet voices, whose siren song might lure her astray.

The child took the bowl into the deepest part of the garden, where she sat down in the shade of an old oak tree and spooned her bread and milk, before she fell asleep, leaning against the broad tree trunk. Sometimes, she didn't finish her treat and left a little milk in the bowl, but when she woke up, the milk had gone.

This happened so often that the child became curious. She decided to find out who was drinking her milk. On one particular afternoon she came out as usual with her bowl, but this time she left a much bigger drink, put the bowl down and pretended to fall asleep. Keeping very still, she peeked from under  the very end of her lashes and by and by she saw a beautiful white snake slithering towards the bowl, lifting its sleekly elegant head and dipping a delicate tongue into the milk. 

"Ha, caught you, you thief", cried the child, and grabbed the snake's head. "Steal my milk, would you? I'll teach you to rob me, my mother warned me against creatures such as you." The child was about to smash the snake's head with a stone when it spoke.

"If you grant me life, you shall have all the treasures of the earth you desire", the snake sang, "every day I shall return and bring you silver trinkets and golden chains, pearls and bright stones and all the toys my kind can fashion in the halls under the roots of the oak".

The child didn't trust the snake. After all, didn't snakes have a reputation for being false?

"Swear that you will keep your word and I shall let you live", the child said. The snake did.

Every afternoon from then on the child and the snake met at the bottom of the oak tree and exchanged gifts, milk for the snake and ever more precious and wondrous treasures from the halls beneath the roots of the oak for the child. Soon the child had amassed a large hoard, which she kept secret from her mother. Hadn't her mother always warned her against taking gifts from strangers?

And once again the child became curious. If the snake could bring her a gift each time and promised to continue to do so for as long as the child would come to meet it by the oak tree, how much more was there hidden under the roots?

The next time they met she said to the snake:  "This is getting very boring, one little gift every time. Bring me more gifts,  many at a time, or I shall stop being kind to you; I'll probably not even bother to come out and you can go and get your milk elsewhere."

Now the snake had known all along that the child would become greedy. Snakes know these things instinctively. It had a plan all worked out.

"If you want more gifts, why don't you come with me into the halls underneath the roots",  the snake sang,  "then you can see for yourself what there is and you may choose whatever you want to take."

The child hardly hesitated at all. It had got used to the snake, the snake had kept its promise, they had spent many a pleasant afternoon playing and eating bread and milk in the shade of the ancient oak tree. Blinded by the promise of untold riches the child followed the snake where it led.

THE END.

Same Time Next Year? . . . . . . . .

Journey

by Jay Diamond

Yesterday, my friend Jay of Jay's Pet Portraits,  greeted me with the above words, saying they'd be the perfect title for  a blogpost. She has a point. For those of you who might have been wondering whether Friko Has Left The Building without even a by-your-leave, I can report on something which appears to be becoming an annual event: a short stay in hospital.  Run any kind of virus or mild indisposition by me and I'll gladly pick it up; what's more, I'll instantly convert it into a bout of atrial fibrillation. Cue: visit to my GP max. 24 hours later, who then calls for an ambulance; and that's me out of the picture, attached to machines that bleep annoyingly, bored, self-loathing, bitter, and most of all, extremely cross.

This time I didn't even have a handbag (purse to you lot over there) on me - the GP surgery is just three minutes' drive away -  no phone, no money, not even a bar of chocolate to my name, to sweeten the hours in hospital. Tests and examinations took up some time, of course, but for long periods I was just lying there, doing what I do best, earwigging. (Are you glad you don't live anywhere near me?)

This was a Medical Assessment Unit with four-bed-bays, short of stuffing bananas up my ears, it was impossible not to overhear the conversations around me. Besides, they were the only entertainment on offer.


Part I
Mother and Teenage Daughter, with nurse taking notes:

How's your appetite?

Mother (the patient): fine, I eat well.

Daughter (the visitor): Ha, you eat chocolate for breakfast, chocolate for lunch and chocolate for dinner. I'm always trying to get you to eat properly.

Mother: I don't just eat chocolate, I eat other things in between.

Nurse: Do you smoke?

Mother: yes.

Nurse: Would you like to stop? I could get you into the programme here. How many cigarettes a day?

Mother, quietly: Twenty.

Daughter, exploding theatrically: Twenty! in your dreams, Mum!


Moral: Do not let your teenage daughter accompany you into hospital!






Part II
Mother and Teenage Daughter:

Daughter (the patient), either asleep, or busy with her Blackberry, mostly silent.

Mother (the visitor) to the room at large: She's not well at all, she's had lots of tests already and tomorrow she'll have to have a lumbar puncture. They have no idea what's wrong. But I'm not leaving, I'm going to stay all night. If they try to shift me I'll kick up a fuss. They may act like they're adult but they're still only children. They need their mum to be there, when they wake up.  There should be wards for patients her age, not just for children and adults, and parents should have a place to stay too.


Moral: Do not let your overly protective mother accompany you into hospital!






Part III
Elderly Daughter and ninety-one year old Mother, tea lady, doctor.

Mother, very sweet, very deaf, quietly dozing.: It's not six o'clock already?

Daughter: No, that's not a clock, that's a monitor.

Mother: If it's six o'clock you'll want to go home and have a rest.

Daughter: After sitting all day?

Mother: Why are you here? Have you been here long? You'll want a rest, won't you?
There go those chimes again, is it six o'clock already?

Daughter: No, that's not a clock, that's a monitor.

Tea lady: Hello, would you like a drink?  What would you like, tea, coffee,  hot chocolate?

Mother: What's that? Have you come to give me an injection?

Tea lady, as before, louder. The old lady takes tea. Daughter leaves the ward after helping her mother with tea and biscuits.

Doctor, Indian, in beautiful flowing clothes:  Hello Mrs. X, I have come to take a look at you.

Mother: Yes, thank you, I had a lovely cup of tea, very nice.

Doctor: No, I am your doctor, I have come to take a look at you.

Mother: What's that?

Every other person in the ward: she's deaf, you'll have to speak directly into her ear.

Several attempts at communication later the doctor says: Ask your daughter to speak to me when she gets back.

Mother, with a chuckle: I'm very deaf, you see, you'll have to speak to my daughter.

Moral: Do not leave your elderly parent alone in hospital!

The Rev. E. Nant

The Revenant

Andrew Wyeth - 1949

Tess Kincaid's Magpie Tale No. 82

The Rev. E. Nant  had enjoyed his funeral tremendously. His wife had followed every word of the instructions he had left behind about the big day; the ceremony had done him great honour and the whole congregation had taken part. It might have had something to do with the promise of a lavish celebration of his life after the service and his interment. In fact, the only flaw in the ointment had been his white suit, made of paper rather than fine silk. Never mind, the day would come when he would be able to take her to task about this omission, he determined to leave her in no doubt that she had badly betrayed his wishes in this respect.

Some members of the congregation too had been less than fulsome in their praise of him.  While he had been their shepherd he had spent hours telling them the righteous way, the only way, the way he himself laid out for them. They had not always shown him  gratitude for his selfless actions then, but he certainly would have expected them to see the error of their ways after his death. Again, he made a mental note to remind them of their gross dereliction of duty towards him, as and when they joined him in heaven. "That is, of course", he said to himself,  "if they are given the great mercy to join me here."

He would enjoy keeping a tally of the people who had accorded him less than the full appreciation and veneration, to which he knew he was entitled.

In fact, he'd have a word with St. Peter about it. He would, no doubt, meet him very soon now, a man of his rectitude would not be kept waiting for long.

Just one thing puzzled him, why were they keeping this ante chamber so overheated ?  He'd be glad to settle somewhere cooler soon . . . . . . . .

Crimes And Misdemeanours

Dianne's post at schmidleyscribblins showed me a world of experiences, trials and tribulations with criminal elements, vandals and hooligans, even rapists and murderers, which is a million miles removed from the world here at Valley's End, described by the poet A.E. Housman  as "the quietest under the sun".

The last murder in the valley, or the last murder which was recognised as such, happened a long time ago. It was  a crime of passion, of course; the ditch digger found that his wife was getting more than sausages from the butcher's boy, when the latter visited their cottage on his rounds; he promptly killed them both, his wife and the butcher's boy and the derelict cottage was still called 'murder cottage' when we moved here.  It's since been turned into a very desirable residence, although the new owners were  surprised when they found out by what name the locals know their preposterous manor.

There's been a case of arson too; a forester found himself unloved and unwanted by his employers and decided that: "if I can't have the forest, nobody can," and set fire to it. Another crime of passion.

Passion is what the locals go in for in a big way. Everybody is related to everybody else, one way or another, whether their conception was blessed by a vicar or minister or not. On whichever side of the blanket the act took place doesn't seem to matter, or who was married to whom at the time. The funny thing is that the participants in the game of musical chairs/beds/sofas/hedgerows all stay living in a very small geographical area, and, as far as an outsider like me can tell, remain on relatively good terms with members of former liaisons. They simply swap houses and/or partners.

The drinkers outside the pub are totally law-abiding. Cigarette smoking is no longer allowed in enclosed spaces, which means that they have to do their drinking and smoking outside. Even the landlord joins them.


We get our kicks from watching the traffic. I stopped to chat to Linda, our resident Californian, as she was standing on a kitchen chair outside her front door, watering her hanging baskets. The school bus decanted its pupils at the same time as a small bus, two cars and a truck wanted to negotiate the village square, which is very narrow, not a square at all but more a bendy oblong shape. It took them about five minutes to disentangle themselves.

It was very exciting to watch.

Linda also told me about a crime committed by a horse upon Linda's lurcher, Ghostie. Ghostie suffered grievous bodily harm when Daisy, George's horse, stepped back on to Ghostie's foot,  seriously mangling it in the process. Ghostie is getting over the injury and the leather slipper the vet put on her foot looks very fetching.


And then there is the old stone saddle-backed bridge, which was built in the 14th century and is a frequent crime scene. It is constructed of five small arches with angled pedestrian recesses on either side, and no more than 2.5 m wide at its narrowest point. Large lorries are the vandals here, forever ramming  the stone walls and criminally damaging them.

Watching hapless foreign lorry drivers
trying to ease their vehicles on to and off the bridge round a sharp turning  towards a tiny hamlet called Newcastle, because their satnavs have sent them here instead of to the North of England, brings the locals together in a happy band; a round of applause follows the driver who manages to negotiate the bridge without dislodging stones; woe betide the unfortunate driver whose vehicle makes sufficient contact with the stonework to damage it; rarely will his number plate remain unrecorded.

I don't doubt that, human nature being what it is, there are other crimes being committed even here at Valley's End; occasionally there is a spate of thefts from garden sheds, when such high end articles as gardening tools are stolen by organised gangs from the housing estates of nearby Midland towns. The police find it hard to catch the robbers; although we have a policeman or woman who come out to us and hold advice surgeries on specific days of the month in the community room, miscreants insist on doing their foul deeds outside police visiting hours.

Traffic offences are not considered offences at all; it is understood that we drive how we like and park where we like and if it is necessary that you have a chat with the driver of an oncoming vehicle, both of you simply stop your cars, wind down your windows and talk. Occasionally, one of you might leave his vehicle to get nearer to the driver of the other car. We don't like to shout at each other,  it's considered rather bad manners round here.

Boiled Eggs

Loriot   

Nov 12, 1923-Aug 22, 2011

At some dinner parties the most wonderful conversations, clever and witty, erudite and eloquent arise spontaneously, out of nowhere. A host with a lavish hand and an ever ready bottle opener, good food and a company of people who share a positive attitude towards the pleasures in life are essentials; without these as givens no party will ever really take off.

Some of these conversations are so brilliant that I forget everything but a rough outline of the subjects discussed almost by the time we get home; I'd love to be clever and able to turn these conversations into equally brilliant blog posts, but short of taking a dictaphone and hiding it on the table during the meal I can think of no way to make that possible. Music, literature, the arts, the theatre, how do you keep track of bon-mots and amusing remarks, intelligent arguments and witticisms on these topics? By their very nature they ebb and flow without leaving a permanent imprint except to tell you about the speakers' preferences.

Unless the talk turns to eggs. I can remember eggs. Eggs is easy.

My favourite host invited us to meet a friend of his, one of his former students, whose first novel is to be published in the spring. She is busy writing her second novel about a barrister in chambers; she herself trained as a lawyer, the subject is therefore an obvious choice. She has given this barrister an egg to eat in one episode, and mention of this led us to a discussion of what you can judge about the character of a person from the way he or she eats a boiled egg.

Quite apart from the Swiftian war between the Lilliputians and Blefuscu, a lengthy conflict between the big-enders and the little-enders, who could not agree on which end to crack to eat a boiled egg, there must be other rules and regulations people hold dear.

Mr. Woodhouse, father of the eponymous heroine in Jane Austen's 'Emma', believed that 'an egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome'.

Personally, I prefer a softish yolk inside a firm white, but there are many ways to boil an egg. I once watched a fellow guest in a hotel in Cornwall send back his egg three mornings running, because it was not cooked to his exacting specification; he had stipulated the number of minutes and the chef was unable to bring the egg to the required consistency, no matter how closely he watched the boiling point. In the end, another guest came up with the most logical solution: the Cornish egg was simply too fresh compared to the egg the complainant usually used.

Once we have established how to boil an egg, how do we then open it?  Which end, big or little? Do we stick our knife into it and swivel it round the whole of the big or little end? Do we upend the egg and hit it on the plate? Do we hit the top of the egg with the knife? Or maybe the egg spoon instead of the knife? Do we peel the opened end or eat the top out of the separated end?

Again, speaking for myself only, I use the most merciless method of getting at my egg: I lay it sideways on my plate and behead it with one hard whack, then eat the little end first.

But stop, I forgot a very important point: Do we add salt to the opened egg before we eat it? Kipling says 'Being kissed by a man who didn't wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt', although I think he probably stole the phrase from an old Spanish proverb which says that 'a kiss without a moustache is like eating an egg without salt.'


I won't bring up the soldiers and egg question, I am assuming we are all adults on this blog. Or the hard-boiled egg salad, an abomination in my opinion. There may, of course, be those who do not like boiled eggs; you will, no doubt, tell me so. But a Sunday morning without a boiled egg to accompany a thickly buttered slice of hot toast, or, even better, a thickly buttered slice of sweet raisin and cinnamon bread, is not worth getting up for.

Cash Crop or the Oily Bird Catches the Worm

Tess Kincaid's Magpie No. 81

Abandoned Farm

Mark Lassiter parked the brand-spanking-new Mercedes in his designated parking space by the entrance to the shiny new office building. He regretted having come in his new car instead of using his shabby and worn old truck.The track from the main road to what he still called the farm was deeply rutted, heavy machinery and trucks had deepened the old hollows and potholes considerably. Everything was happening so fast, he was running just to keep abreast of developments. The track would have to wait.

Still, he was here now; as he took the few steps to the big glass doors he greeted several construction workers busy clearing piles of rubble from the front of the building. The sun reflecting from the plate glass windows stung his eyes; he made a mental note to get himself some of these large sunglasses he saw on the noses of many of his workers.

He entered his office. Here too everything was new, his big desk unused and clear, the leather chair plump and smooth. His secretary came in through the connecting door from her own, smaller office, holding a sheaf of papers in her hands. "Good morning, Mr. Lassiter," she said. Something else to get used to, all his life he had been 'Mark', the only Mister he knew was the bank manager. Even he called him "Mr. Lassiter, sir", now.

His own hands, calloused and sun-damaged, took the papers from her. "Must do something about these hands too", he thought. As he sat down, the chair deflated,  a rich sigh emanating from under his backside.

"The board meeting is at 10 sharp", his secretary advised him, "perhaps you'd care to read through my notes first?"

Damn the woman, he'd never taken orders from any female in all his years on the farm, and he wasn't going to start now.  He glowered at her.

He bent his head over the papers; for six months he had been telling her to use bigger writing, these tiny, faint letters were no use to him; he could barely make them out. That fool of a secretary kept the writing small deliberately, he was sure of it. He persevered, reading and trying to understand the intricacies of a newly established business, a business he apparently owned, although all these people, whose salary he paid, were telling him what to do.

Abruptly he pushed his chair back, got up, and left the building. Long strides took him across abandoned fields where he had not long ago  struggled to grow potatoes and corn. Breathing deeply, he came to a halt by the remains of  an old barn waiting to be pulled down. He leant on the shell of a rusty truck, half sunk into the earth, giving the worn tyre an affectionate kick.

He knew there was no going back to the old days, but since the day  they'd come and told him that there was oil under his poor fields  he'd been doing his very best to get used to being filthy rich.

HEATH CHAPEL - MY WORLD

Heath Chapel is arguably the most famous church in Shropshire. Virtually unaltered for 900 years it is perched all alone in a field on the side of Brown Clee Hill.  This impressively simple Norman church, which has no bell-cote, is still open regularly for services, although there are now very few inhabitants living in the parish. 

Narrow and winding country lanes make access difficult, no signposts lead to it; it is almost hidden away; we took many wrong turnings and went uphill and down dale for seemingly hours before we finally found a man walking a pair of sheep dogs who was able to direct us.

Heath Chapel once served the parish of Heath;  remains of this abandoned medieval village are clearly visible in the field to the East of the building. The intact survival of this perfect example of a small Norman church since the early twelfth century is quite miraculous. 

It may look as if I held my camera slightly at an angle, not so; I assure you that's exactly how the church leans into the soil.

The key to the door hangs from a nail on the back of the notice board at the entrance to the field. Apart from an advertisement for 'Age Concern', a charitable organisation which helps elderly people with advice, the notice board was bare. Perhaps that tells us who takes the time to visit this hidden gem, which is definitely worth an afternoon's meander.

Apart from the chevron mouldings on the Norman arch over the door the church is totally undecorated. The ironwork on the door also dates from the twelfth century.

The Chapel contains a twelfth century font, tub-shaped, its foot decorated with baskets of dried flowers. There are some decorative incised arches  just visible on the rim. Other possible carvings on the body of the font have long disappeared, as have wall paintings and writings. 

   

There are some very faint traces of writing. Originally the walls would have had decorative paintings

which were white washed and overwritten in the 17th century.

Pulpit, reader's desk, squire's pew and box pews are all from the 17th century.

Windows in Norman churches are very small and high up on the wall.

Another view of the church with windows and tiny lights high up in the gable end.

On leaving the church you are invited to donate to church funds

by putting money in the slot.