I'm settling into an Easter break on here, as has been my tradition since starting dovegreyreader scribbles twelve years ago, but can you believe I missed the blog birthday on March 6. I think it's because that is now the anniversary of the day we said goodbye to The Tinker, and also this year, by chance, the day my bus pass arrived. As well as remembering my dad I was too exercised in wondering where I might find a bus...he'd have loved it. So a belated thank you to all of you as always for being there, for reading and commenting and for supporting the scribbles as we head into our thirteenth year and towards four million page views...eek.
The Easter break has its origins in childhood recollections of Holy Week, and especially one of not being allowed out to play on Good Friday, and certainly not on any Sunday, but especially Easter Sunday. I might be lapsed in any regular Anglican observance but not in the traditions, or the chance to take a bit of time out to be quiet. I have been sewing and listening to some wonderful choral music on Radio 3.
I have finally found the right format for the quilted tithe map. I wanted to stitch the names of the fields around home back into existence from that original 1842 map and had done all the research at the Devon Heritage Centre and Tavistock Library.
You might recall, this was my first attempt with the sewing machine. Bondaweb, bias strips, hours of Bernina blanket stitch...

But somehow it didn't feel right. It was too stiff, lacked life and contours and much more besides. In fact it seemed to lack heart, as if Bernina had made it not me. I put it away and still don't quite know how to finish it.
In the same way that I walk it all on foot rather than drive or cycle it, the land around us all needed to be hand-stitched without the help of a machine. All quilters and other craftspeople will know how much of yourself and your life you hand-stitch into a piece of work, and in my head I had a much better idea, I just needed some time to do it. Well, I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed working on this...

Twitter seemed to like it too. More about it dreckly.
Alongside this, and each day since March 21, I have been reading a slice of In Pursuit of Spring by Edward Thomas and also revisiting his poetry. I spotted the Little Toller edition on a recent trip to The Bookshop, and decided this might be a pleasing journey to do from my armchair while we awaited the arrival of the season.
Edward Thomas set out to cycle from London to Somerset 'in pursuit of Spring' on Good Friday, March 21 1913 and wrote a book about his endeavours. As Edward gazes over Salisbury Plain I could feel myself gazing alongside...
'It makes us feel the age of the earth, the greatness of Time, Space and Nature; the littleness of man even in an aeroplane, the fact that the earth does not belong to man, but man to the earth'
It's a feeling I get when I stand up at the woods and look across the Tamar Valley...

So much detail has caught my attention, not least following Edward's route on Google Earth. He describes the landscape in such detail that it is easy to do, and fascinating to find so many features still in evidence. And then looking up some of the inns that he names along the way. In fact I started to write them down, a bit like the Tinker and I and our list of 'Caravans We Have Seen' all the way to Orkney ( 'Oh there's another Coachman Mirage, that's the fourth today'.)
Rose & Thistle, Holly Bush. Jolly Sailor, White Hart, Hop Poles, Barley Mow, French Horn, Bear & Ragged Staff, Ox, Roebuck, Haunch of Venison, Round of Beef, Sea Horse, Wool Pack, Miller's Arms, Chequers, Anchor...
Many of them still in existence today as pubs, or restaurants. This edition contains many of Edward Thomas's original photographs from his journey, and tantalisingly a few of them of unknown locations. It will be interesting to see if anyone recognises them.
And something else struck me too...the vast numbers of elm trees that Edward Thomas sees and notes...
'This is a country of noble elms, spreading like oaks, above celandine banks.'
Between Melksham and Holt in Wiltshire...
'Elms of a hundred years' growth lined the road. some upright, most lying among the wreckage of their branchwork far out over the grass...'
Such a rare sight in the UK these days, and certainly not in anything like the numbers before Dutch Elm Disease struck in the 1960s. I had to look it up on the Forestry website to remind myself of the devastation...
'Within a decade about 20 million elms out of an estimated UK elm population of 30 million were dead. By the 1990s the number was probably well over 25 million. In lowland central and southern Britain, the new epidemic took rapid hold, especially of 'English' elm trees (Ulmus procera), during the early to mid-1970s, leading to the death of most mature English elms by the early 1980s.'
How fortunate we are, in that case, to have a little group of four old elm trees in the village, behind the church, complete with very noisy rookery. Bookhound and I went up to have a look at it yesterday...

'The rooks were now silent dots over the elms of the Trowbridge rookery...'
Not so ours, what a noisy, persistent parliament they were, and by the time you read this I should have uploaded some video onto the Instagram feed over here <<<<<<<

'To the low, dark-blue elm country away from the Plain [Salisbury] - that is, northward - and to the far wooded ridge on its horizon, the westering light was beginning to add a sleeplike softness of pale haze. Over the low hedges I saw league after league of this lower land...'
On reading In Pursuit of Spring the American poet Robert Frost encouraged Edward Thomas to write poetry and its not hard to see why. There is so much lyricism and rhythm to this prose it was a natural progression. More about it to come.
Meanwhile, this week I shall be returning to The Magic Mountain and have a few more books lined up for some Easter reading with no idea whether they will be 'right' or not, and one in particular...
I have invested in The Friendly Ones. the new novel by Philip Hensher on the basis that I loved The Northern Clemency (so much so that I wrote not one but two blog posts about it in 2008) I am hoping this may be 'of that ilk' because sadly much that he has written since has not appealed to me. The book is winning on cover art ( Kleinkinderschule auf der Kirchenfeldbrucke by Albert Anker ,1900, oil on canvas) and nice-to-hold size already but at 600 pages...well, we'll see. I will report back.
But how about you...
Some good Easter reading lined up...
Any sewing or similar in progress...
Has Spring (or Autumn) finally sprung...
And Edward Thomas... do we still share the love.
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