The Dun Cow and Father Time

I'd not appreciated Durham is a World Heritage Site, though I have visited Durham Cathedral and appreciated the view from its rooftop.

On our recent family walk there was a big metal cow with a stone marker mentioning footsore monks, a cow and a couple of milk maids. So I took a photo to look it all up later. 

Apparently Durham Cathedral is built on a shrine to St. Cuthbert, a local 7th Century Christian hero of sorts, having converted a lot of Danes to Christianity,  The story goes that several monks - this is in the 11th Century - were moving his coffin back to Chester-le-Street (sort of a suburb of Durham) when the waggon carrying his coffin stopped and refused to move. After a three-day fast and prayer session, it was revealed that the coffin should be placed a place called Dunholm, but they didn't know where this was. About this time one or two milk maids came along (the story varies), searching for a misplaced dun (defined as a neutral grey-brown - I'd call it taupe) cow. She/they directed the monks to Dunholm and there they built a white church which eventually became the site of Durham Cathedral, a Norman structure that replaced it. 

I always forget what a really big guy Martin is. 

Also, the word 'dun' is old English for 'hill' and 'holme' is Norse for 'island'. (So my house, which is named Seaholme by the builders, means I live in Sea Island?). In medieval times this word was Latinised to 'Dunelm'. There is a chain of department stores called Dunelm around here. Somewhere in Norman times, Dun Holm was changed to Duresme. No one seems to know when it became Durham. The name Dunelm is apparently hallowed by those associated with Durham, it being the official name of the Bishop of Durham and it refers to any degree earned from the University of Durham. 

So the cow represents the lost Dun Cow - and I believe there is a coffee shop in Durham by that name.

A bandstand with an interesting weathervane grabbed my attention from across the river. Fortunately our walk took us past it on the way back and I got a better photo. Bill knew all about it, having lived in Durham for several years during his childrens' early years. 

The weathervane is a copy of one at Lord's Cricket Ground, London. It shows Father Time removing the bails from the wicket. The quote below is 'Lest Time Bails You Out'. This has something to do with one of the rules of cricket: "After the call of Time the bails shall be removed from both wickets".  I gather there is a cricket ground near this location in Durham. And one can buy a copy of the Father Time weather vane from the shop at Lord's for £400. I wouldn't even attempt to explain one thing about cricket, as everyone I know says it is terribly complicated. Also the games last for days. All I know is that the players wear white.

I take it that this is another of those upper class signifiers of Conspicuous Leisure, having the time to understand and enjoy cricket. 

Reading

When I returned home from the library last Friday, I unpacked my backpack to see which books had been loaned to me.  One of them, a biography, I had no memory of requesting. I knew neither the name of the author (Hermoine Lee) or the subject of the book, Penelope Fitzgerald. I decided to read it anyhow, given that Fitzgerald was known for having published her first book at the age of 60 and having won the Booker Prize aged 73. Another three of her novels were shortlisted; not a bad record for the author of nine novels. I'm always happy to be inspired by a late bloomer, given the number of things I still aspire to accomplish in spite of soon turning 65. 

Though I'm now barely into the second chapter - this book has tiny print and is not an easy read, I spent much of the first chapter referring back to the family tree at the front, which had annotations that didn't become clear until I'd read well through that chapter - I believe I'm going to enjoy this challenging book. Fitzgerald lived between 1916 and 2000 and grew up in an illustrious family full of Church of England bishops, Catholic priests and writers - her father was editor of Punch magazine. Fitzgerald described her childhood home well enough to make one bask in the cosiness of interwar England. 

"She recreated the vanished 1920's Hampstead of her childhood with pleasure and precision. 

The village - and Hampstead still felt itself very much a village - was a place of high thinking, plain living and small economies. The steep charming old streets were full of ham and beef shops, old bookstalls, and an amazing number of cleaners and repairers, all helpful to shabby refugees and literary men. There was even a jeweller's where one bead could be bought at a time, for all the Hampstead ladies wore long necklaces. The livery stables had only just turned into a garage...poets walked the streets, Stanley Spencer pushed his pramful of painting materials aimiably across the Health...

This was a Georgian childhood. The streets in her memory were not only full of poets in their 'wide brimmed black hats', but also of lamplighters coming round to light the gas lamps, muffin men in winter, and lavender sellers in summer, knife grinders and chair menders, pony-carts brining dairy milk from the farm at Highgate. Gazes the drapers had everything you needed in 'the button, woollen, stockings and knicker line'; Knowles Brown the clockmaker had a silver clock in the window in the shape of a spaniel whose tongue moved up and down with every tick; small shops sold 'pennyworths of licorice'. 

Hampstead was literary, poetic, artistic, rural, part-bohemian, part-genteel. It was not a bit like Bloomsbury...Hampstead was 'undemanding' and 'homely'."

Fitzgerald's father and his brothers all went to Oxford. Two of her grandfathers were vicars and then bishops. The cosiness of their time is in part due to their station in life as much as in the time in which they lived. I'm always rather envious of the descriptions of the gardens / orchards / vicarages / country houses, all down south where they actually experience summer most years. 

My local library has only a couple of her books, but the Lit and Phil has more, including The Bookshop. I see that Hermione Lee has also written biographies of Willa Cather and Edith Wharton, also two intriguing books, The Lives of Houses and The London Scene. I don't think I'll ever run out of what to read!

 I seem to be reading more serious books these days. I recently finished Melinda Gates' book: The Moment of Life - How Empowering Women Changes the World. I found it almost astonishing that it happened to echo the message of David Attenborough's book that I wrote about last week.

There are chapters dealing with topics such as maternal and child health, education, child marriage, women in agriculture, unpaid work, women in the workplace and women excluded from society. Each of these chapters tells stories of women the author has encountered in her work for the Gates' Foundation. She talks about aiming to lift people out of poverty at the start and then discovering that empowering women was the key to that. They resisted this initially, calling it 'mission creep' but eventually the penny dropped. 

The stories don't just come from Africa or India, but from impoverished areas in the US, which I find appalling. Ignorance breeds ignorance wherever it happens. 

One of the stories that stayed with me was about Patricia, a woman farmer in Malawi. While the rest of her family and village celebrated Christmas Day, she was meticulously planting her small field, because that was when the rains were predicted to come. Farmers need five things to succeed: good land, good seeds, time, knowledge and farming supplies. The barriers between these things and Patricia existed simply because she was a woman.

1. Up until recently women in Malawi could not inherit land. A law has been passed recently but the culture is slow to change. Paying rent for her plot was expensive and prohibited her being able to increase the size of her plot. It also stopped her investing in improving the land. 

2. Her husband made the decisions about where the family's money was spent and she had no say so couldn't acquire farming tools that would make her work more productive or for other tools like cooking pots that would shorten her other work to make more time for farming.

3. Her husband also had the say over how she spent her time: collecting wood and water, cooking meals and washing up after, caring for the children. Any work to grow food for the family had to come after those tasks. Even had she the means to hire farm labour, the workers wouldn't like taking orders from a woman.

4. Even the quality and choice of seeds was influenced against her as a woman. Development organisations working to create seeds resistant to pests or to grow larger plants would speak with community leaders to get their input. Those leaders were always men who were most interested in crops they could sell, where Patricia wanted to grow nutritious crops to feed here children, like ground nuts (peanuts) or chick peas (garbanzo beans). And because the men didn't do the work in the fields, they never thought to tell seed developers to make tall plants: the women complained that harvesting short plants was hard on the back. 

5. Giving useful information to women about farming is tricky. Few poor households have TVs so radio was thought to be the best option, except that women don't control the radio dial. Most men would not wish to listen to an educational programme and would select something more entertaining, Also, women are not allowed out of the house without the permission of their husbands. They will be beaten - and believe it to be justified - if they leave without permission. The solution in Ghana was to talk with men to encourage them to allow them to let their wives meet together in groups of ten or fifteen. 'so she could increase the family's income'. 70% of the world's poorest people make money from growing and selling food from their small plots of land. Making those plots more productive would give families more money. 

Some time later, Gates attended a group meeting and was surprised when the group leader said

Raise your hand if - before you joined the self-help group - you could grow enough food to last your family the whole year. 

Not a single hand went up. Then the leader said

Raise your hand if you had surplus to sell last year.

Almost every hand went up. 

Patricia's solution was a bit different. A CARE organisation worked with couples and had them switch roles and role play. She was able to tell him to 'Do this, do this, do this, do this...' He came to realise that if she had no help in the household work then they would always be short of food. He became a more supportive husband and she finally had what she needed to succeed at her farming endeavours.

The book is careful to explain how empowering women also helps men: there is more food, children are healthier, there is perhaps money to educate their children which reflects well on the head of the family and, in one scenario, a man worked out that if helped his wife with the work - contrary to community expectations for men - his wife was happier and less tired and so their marriage bed was happier.

It is not just men who hold women down, but other women as well, particularly when it comes to female genital cutting (using the word 'mutilation' is derogatory and not conducive to discussing the issue with villagers). The consequences for individuals and for families aren't always obvious to people who blindly follow traditions and it is necessary to find ways to help them see the benefits of change. 

Another surprise from Gates' book was that she tackles the role of religion in suppressing and damaging women. I've ended up buying the book, as I did Attenborough's book, to re-read and study. 

My first choices for charitable giving have always been women's causes, particularly Planned Parenthood, women's refuges or homeless shelters for women. At the back of Gates' book is a list of causes she recommends, many of which she described their work in the book:

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

www.brac.net

CARE

www.care.org/our-work

Family Planning 2020

www.familyplanning2020.org

Girls Not Brides

www.girlsnotbrides.org

Kakenya’s Dream

www.kakenyasdream.org

Malala Fund

www.malala.org

#MeToo Movement

www.metoomvmt.org

Population Council

www.populationcouncil.org

PRADAN

www.pradan.net

Saksham

www.community.org.in/story

Save the Children

www.savethechildren.org

Tostan

www.tostan.org

Gates Foundation

www.gatesfoundation.org

www.momentoflift.com 

A Life on Our Planet

I finished reading this book by Sir David Attenborough a week or so ago and it still resonates with me. I read it as a library book but decided to buy it because I wanted to re-read and study it. I want it to inform a lot of my purchasing decisions. I actually think it should be required reading for everyone on the planet - or at least for everyone with young children. 

Although this book is packed with scientific information, it's an easy read - except perhaps for the Glossary which I found I had to concentrate to get through. All those terms placed in context with his straightforward style of writing were easy to take on board when introduced in the text. 

It isn't a terribly depressing book either. I had watched his television programme of the same title and found that though the information presented was alarming, the gorgeous photography and the history of his career (in black and white) was fascinating. This book does present much of the same information but it also presents some of the possible solutions being developed. He sets the stage for us all to make some adjustments as well. 

One of the things I love about A Life on Our Planet is that is explains why some things are important, eg 'diversity'. I've recently come to associate this term more with racial and other minority people being more included in society, but of course diversity of species is one of the necessary criteria for health of the planet. Or, let's be right about it, health of the human race. The planet will be just fine, thank you very much, without humans. The plant life we work so hard to beat back will re-grow, various inconvenient species will thrive and the ecosystem will set about re-creating itself. The species we've killed off may never return, but other species will develop to take their place, in time.

For example, Attenborough explains why we needed to stop killing off whales: 

A key problem restricting life in the open ocean is the availability of nutrients. When conditions are right, plants and animals live in the surface waters and, when they die, drift continuously downwards as 'marine snow'. Where nutrients are not freely available, the surface waters of the oceans can be almost sterile. Just as land plants need fertiliser as well as sun and water, so phytoplankton, the photosynthesising foundation of the food web, need nitrogenous compounds in the sunlit surface waters if they are to thrive. There are places in the ocean where the decomposed marine snow is stirred and carried upwards by the currents flowing over submarine mountains and ridges, and here the phytoplankton - and hence fish populations - can flourish. But the rest of the open ocean would remain a vast, blue desert were it not for the whales. They are so big that when they dive to feed in the depths or rise to the surface to breathe, they can create a great stirring of the water around them. That helps keep nutrients near the surface. And when they defecate, the waters around them are also greatly enriched. This 'whale pump' as it is often termed, is now recognised as a significant process in maintaining the fertility of the open ocean. Indeed, whales are now thought to be responsible for bringing more important nutrients to surface waters in some parts of the ocean than the outflows of local revers. The ocean of the Holocene needed its whales to remain productive. In the twentieth century, men killed close to 3 million of them.

He also includes the idea of a 'Donut Economy' as part of his vision for the future. Population growth is a large contributor to the difficulties we are facing. He quotes a report I hope to read soon: The Economics of Biodiversity, which states that 50% of the impact we humans have on the living world is attributable to the richest 16% of the human population. I am curious to learn whether I am part of that 16%. Don't laugh - there are an incredible number of very poor people in the world and it is remarkably easy to be 'rich' by comparison if one lives in a developed country. The donut economy should be our compass for the future: the inside ring is a minimum standard of living to be enjoyed by all humans: clean water, health care, food, housing, gender equality and other basics for a decent life, called the 'social foundation'. The outer ring is is called the 'ecological ceiling' which is the limit of our human activities that the natural world can tolerate and still be in balance, still provide us a place to live. Some of these boundaries include climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, fresh water withdrawals, among others. Not all of these boundaries have been quantified, but several have already been breached and need to be brought back into line. Using the Donut Economy is seen as the best way to bring all nations into a state of population stability, to help them transition past the high death rates and resulting high birth rates.

One of my favourite parts of this book is about empowerment of women. It seems that 

Among all these social improvements, one in particular is found to significantly reduce family size - the empowerment of women. Wherever women have the vote, wherever girls stay in school longer, wherever women are in charge of their own lives and not dictated to by men, wherever they have access to health care and contraception, wherever they are free to take any job and their aspirations for life are raised, the birth rate falls. The  reason for this is straightforward - empowerment brings freedom of choice and when life offers more options for women, they choice is to have fewer children. The faster and more fully women are empowered, the quicker a nation will move through State 3 and on to state 4. 

I may have fallen in love with David Attenborough when I read those words. He goes on to describe various examples of empowerment. As it happens I am also in the midst of reading The Moment of Lift: how empowering women changes the world, by Melinda Gates. It hasn't thus far told me a great deal I didn't already know or suspect, but it's an interesting read all the same. At this point I might venture the opinion that it is more about social psychology than philanthropy.

So, I hope I've convinced you to read A Life on Our Planet. Do you think you might?

Learning New Tricks

One thing that has seemed to fill a lot of people's time during this pandemic has been cooking. I think that's brilliant as people can only control what they y eat by cooking their own meals. I've often seen a sign on local restaurants 'Don't Cook Just Eat', which infuriates me. Turns out this is a delivery service that restaurants can contract with to do deliveries. I gather it isn't cheap and they collect their money whether or not the restaurant is selling delivered food, though I could be wrong about this. 

In any case, Bill and I have been out of the habit of eating out much for years now. Once I retired, cooking dinner didn't seem particularly onerous, particularly since I had any number of 'recipes' memorised. My favourite involved starting with sauteed onions and then adding whatever vegetables and possibly meats were on hand. Stir fries cook up quickly and you don't have to use a lot of oil. 

However, I must admit it started to get a bit boring and, far worse, I started gaining weight. So I got out my Betty Crocker's Cook Book from 1987, which has calorie counts for each of its recipes. I had at some point circled the calorie count of any recipe under 300 calories and those are the ones I focussed on. Besides calories, I've been trying to cook less and less red meat and more whole grains and vegetables. I frequently substitute yoghurt for sour cream or oil for bacon fat (it is an American cookbook after all). 

Some of Bill's favourite recipes of late have been cream of mushroom soup and Pennsylvania red cabbage (cooked with brown sugar and apples). I've never, in the 30+ years I've owned this book, looked at the vegetable recipes. We've also discovered that bulgar wheat cooks up as easily as rice and tastes something between white and brown rice. 

So, amazingly, some bulgar wheat cooked up with a vegetable stock cube and some red cabbage and some Brussel's sprouts (shredded and stir fried with a diced onion) is a pretty satisfying meal. Who would have thought?

Threads of Life

 I've just finished a book that I found very moving. Threads of Life by Clare Hunter speaks about not just historical sewing but about the experience of women. It's difficult to describe further without quoting long parts. 

I did fold down one page to return to. It lists the textiles Mary Queen of Scots brought with her on her return to Scotland from France:

For her voyage to Scotland Mary had packed ten cloths of estate (the ceremonial cloths which hung above monarchs' thrones emblazoned with their coat of arms), forty-five bed sets, thirty-six Turkish carpets, twenty-three suits of tapestry, eighty-one cushions, twenty-four tablecloths and a variety of embroidered wall hangings. There was her own wardrobe of fifty-eight dresses, thirty-five farthingales (hooped or padded underskirts), several cloaks and shifts, petticoats, stomachers, drawers and coifs. They encompassed thousands of metres of luxurious fabric: embroidered, appliqued, braided, beriribboned, fringed, tessellated and studded with jewels.

Never mind cloths of estate, she had me at fifty-eight dresses. I wonder how many pairs of shoes she brought?

At the end of the book the author lists websites that hold images of some of the things about which she wrote:

Bayeux Museum: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/

Conflict Textile Collection: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/

(https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/conflicttextiles/)

Craftivist Collective:  https://craftivist-collective.com

Embroiderers' Guild: https://embroiderersguild.com

Foundling Museum: https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Hunterian Museum: https://gla.ac.uk ( https://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/about/video/)

Judy Chicago:  https://www.judychicago.com/

Peace Museum: https://www.peacemuseum.org.uk/ 

(search for textiles)

Peoples' History Museum:  https://phm.org.uk

(banner-display)

Quilt Museum: https://quiltm.org.uk

AKA The Quilters' Guild Museum

(oh, the shop! - and the close ups of items in their collection!)

Sewing Matters: https://sewingmatters.co.uk

(sadly, this is not a secure site?)

Smithsonian Institution: https://si.edu

(search textiles)

National Museum of African American History and Culture:  https://nmaahc.si.edu

Textile Society: https://textilesocoety.org.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum: https://vam.ac.uk

Visual Arts Data Service: https://vads.ac.uk

(search for textiles and enjoy the amazing close up views)

Not Quite Keeping Up

I chose the book for our WI Book Group for June: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo. I chose it based on the fact that it won the Booker Prize for 2019 (or perhaps half - it was the first ever shared prize, along with The Testament, by Margaret Atwood.) Also that it appeared on Barack Obama's list of favourite books he read in 2019. I can't say I'm an Atwood fan, though I recognise she is a powerful writer. It's just that I find her books to be rather depressing and I prefer a bit of escapism in my reading. I'm not sure I'd call what I got as escaping, but Evaristo's book was far from boring.

Every one in the book group said they really enjoyed the book and our discussion was lively. They congratulated me on a timely choice, as though I knew back in May that George Floyd would be murdered and that his death would cause protests world wide. 

Without getting into the story line(s) of the book, it did strike me as being as much about sex as it was about race. I remember telling Bill that the first character, Amma, was not only black, but gay, worked in theatre and lived in London. I commented that I couldn't find a character more opposite to me: white, straight, stuck in my left-brain and definitely a suburban girl. Fortunately the book has many stories and Amma's is only the beginning. I never came to like Amma but I definitely respected her.

While making my way through this book my attention was drawn to the controversy around J. K. Rowling's essay that revealed a sad past of abuse. The essay highlighted her concern that women's private spaces were potentially about to be invaded by men claiming they were women (in spite of no hormone therapy or surgery) and therefore entitled to be in the women's toilets or changing rooms. She saw this as a potential threat to the safety and well-being of women. She also questioned the motivation of young women wishing to become men; was it because the world treats women as less than men?

I'd read about the actors who distanced themselves from Rowlings viewpoint but didn't read her essay until a New York Times opinion piece titled "Harry Potter and the Scales of Justice" claimed that Rowling's essay was full of hate. That seemed so unlikely that I had to go read it for myself; it certainly is not. However, I found that I needed to look up a number of words to understand her meaning, which made me aware that I've just not been keeping up with the goings on in the world. Just in case you haven't either, I shall share some of the things I learned.

I think I've always used the terms 'sex' and 'gender' as interchangeable, but nowadays they are different things (or perhaps they always were). Simply put, 'gender' is what is in the brain and 'sex' is what is in the pants. Also, 'cis' is from the Latin for 'on this side of ' which is the opposite of trans, meaning 'across from'. So a person who is 'cis-gendered' is lucky enough to have been born with the same genitalia as how they feel in their mind.  

Non-binary can be someone who doesn't necessarily identify as either male or female, but apparently non-binary is a term that means different things to different people and it is important to ask an individual who identifies as non-binary what it means to them. They may well wish to be referred to as they-them rather than he/she-him/her. The character Megan / Morgan in Evaristo's book was actually one of the more popular with our book group, simply wanting to be able to be themselves without having to live up to the expectations of either a feminine or masculine stereotype. 

Another thing that was cleared up for me is that the sex that comes after the word 'trans' is what that person has become, not what they used to be or changed from.  Also, that sexual orientation is a completely different issue to sex or gender, referring to whom one is attracted. For example, a person born male who became female can be attracted to either men or women; or a woman who became a man can be attracted to either men or women. 

All these terms and concepts were news to me and though I'm glad I looked them up, I don't feel hugely wiser. How many people aren't happy about being men or women? Have there always been this many and I just didn't know? One thought that I cling to is the idea that I just need to treat people as human beings, I don't necessarily have to understand them; after all there are plenty of cis-gender people I've never really understood. 

I wonder how all this will be looked back on in fifty years. Will the idea of male/female identity be outdated? What will have replaced it? Will people look back on this as a time of great change and confusion out of which good things came? Will women of any ilk have equal pay and equal representation in places of power? Will Black Lives Matter have achieved their aims? And, most importantly in my opinion, will we have saved our planet from ruin? I can't say I'm optimistic about much of this, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

L S D

I was reading yet another Lord Peter Wimsey novel one night last week when I came across a reference to old British money: £ s d. The first symbol is of course for the Great British Pound and I vaguely remembered that the 's' stood for 'shillings' but I was thinking the next word should be 'pence' but there was a 'd', not a 'p'. I asked Bill to look it up on his phone and he came up with the fact that the £ symbol originated with the Latin word "Librae" and that this is where we get the abbreviation for a pound (weight) as lb. After that he came up with 's' is for solidi and 'd' is for denarii but that got me no closer to shillings or pence. 

So I scribbled a note to myself and looked it up. Of course it's not very simple, not simple at all. 

According to Wikipedia, while the words to referring to the coinage of course are Latin and therefore to do with the Roman Empire, the definition of the amounts and the relative value between the coins was introduced by Charlemagne. The term Libra comes from the Latin for 'balance' as in balancing scales. This makes sense as Charlemagne decided that his pound weight would be roughly 490 grams, which is what a Libra weighed. The current pound weight in Britain is about 454 grams and no longer has anything to do with the weight of a GBP coin. Charlemagne's system was prevalent throughout Europe until the decimalisations that occurred in the 1700 and 1800s. Except of course for Britain where they didn't change over until 1971. The (new-ish) United States was one of the first countries to change to a decimal system, in 1792.

Under the old system there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings (or 240 pence) in a pound. Somewhere along the line I thought someone told me there were 17 pence in a shilling and when Bill would brag about how good some member of his family was at adding columns of money in his head, I was truly in awe. Multiples of 12 are a little less daunting, but I'm sure most folks are forever grateful for decimalisation (or would be if they thought about it). 

Interestingly, or so I thought, in the middle ages, only denari were actual coins, made of silver. Librae and soldi were just used as accounting terms. Over time (and inflation) in Britain, as elsewhere, other coins began to be minted (guineas, crowns, farthings, half-pennies, etc) but the original terms were still used in accounting.

All well and good, but I still didn't understand how one got from 'soldi' to 'shillings' or 'denarii' to 'pence'. So, back to Europe, in France they called these coins livre, sous and denier. In Italy they were lira, soldo and denaro. In Germany, however, the names were pfund, schilling and pfennig, which gets us closer to the English names.

I was surprised to learn that pence is another plural for penny, in addition to pennies. So all those times I've got confused and called a pence a penny, I was right after all. Or I would have been fifty years ago, as with decimalisation Britain began to say 'one pence'. Oh well.

Since Wikipedia took me no further about these names, I turned to my old friend the etymology dictionary.  To start with, solidi / solidus means 'solid' - as in a solid metal coin. So obvious, right?

Also, the old English scilling comes from "Proto-Germanic". The German term might either come from a word for 'to resound or ring' or possibly from a word 'to cut' as perhaps one might carve a shield, which has similarity to the face of a coin. I'm rather partial to the things being named for the jingle they make in a pocket. The ending 'ing' is a Germanic term for a 'fractional part' (also in farthing), which makes sense given that a shilling was a fraction of a pound.

The word denari is Latin for "containing ten", which sounds great until you remember that there were 12 denari in a solidus. Perhaps there was an earlier decimal system that time has buried? No one else seems bothered about the difference between ten and twelve, so I've no idea.

The etymology of pence is useless so I looked up penny. Tracing the beginnings of that word takes us through middle and old English and Northumbrian p-words to our old friend Proto-Germanic - also Dutch, Danish, Swedish, not to mention Old Saxon and Old Frisian and of course Old Germanic p-words - and finishes by saying, "a word of unknown origin". But it was a fun ride.

On this particular evening when I was asking Bill to explain "£ s d" he turned around and asked where the symbol for USDs - $ - originated. Since I read books, not internet devices before sleeping, I just left him with 'I've no idea.' 

But I looked that up too.

Daddy's Birthday

I just realised I don't think about my Dad so much as I once did, which makes me sad. It also seems rather odd since I work at finding his birth father every day for at least a couple of hours. I sometimes get sick of it and feel it is a waste of time but most of the time I'm pretty determined to crack it. I wonder what makes me so obsessed about this. I think it is because I'm trying to replace what someone 'stole' from me. A decade or so ago I had a whole family tree, for at least several generations. Then the woman who snapped an illicit photo at the Minnesota Historical Society came along and 'chopped' my Dad's side away. I'm fighting to get that whole tree back. I think once that's cracked I might go back to having a more normal life, but don't hold you're breath. I only ever manage a faint facsimile of that concept.

I know quite a bit about my Dad's Norwegian mother and she has sparked my interest in Norwegian culture. As it happens, we are learning Fair Isle knitting at one of my craft groups. I subscribe to a newsletter called Craftsmanship and this month one of the articles is about a Norwegian woman, Annemor Sundbo (except that o should have a forward slash on top of it), dubbed 'the sweater detective'. It tells that she approached a man who had a wool mill because she wanted to study the weaving techniques but instead he sold her the mill and along with it came tons (actual tons!) of old knitted items. She studies the patterns in those as well as in old paintings, noting the variation of patterns. She is trying to get the special sheep that were bred for Norwegian wool, said to be especially hard wearing, to be raised again in quantity. 

Three things struck me from this article. First, her passion for all things wool and where that has led her is the stuff of fantasies for many interested in wool / craft / textiles / history. She's written award winning books and I expect I may try to obtain one at some point. Secondly, the discussion about the variation in knitting patterns from village to village sounded much like the knitted ganseys from this part of the world: wives knitted heavy woolen sweaters for their fishermen using the distinctive pattern developed for her village. Should the man be washed overboard and the body recovered, this pattern would aid in having the body returned to the right village. Grim, isn't it? But it makes perfect sense. It also rather reinforces the idea that Sundbo puts forward that there is a 'spiritual bond' between the maker and the wearer. Norwegian patterns have historical, mythic meanings. Which brings me to the third point. The article mentions Selbu, referring to the popular eight pointed flower called the Selbu rose pattern. Selbu is the village from which my Dad's birth mother's family originated. The pattern is now considered typically Norwegian, but Sundbo says it predates the mid-1800s when it debuted in Selbu and actually dates back to medieval times in Europe and even before in the middle east. The octagonal star has been around for a very long time.

From ThorNews, which I am now following!

I've not got very far on my Fair Isle, it being a rather complex pattern in spite of only using two colours on any given row. I've decided to use the Selbu Rose somewhere in this small bag I'm making. Should I live long enough to finish it, I'll be sure to show it to you. It makes perfect sense to use this pattern in my Fair Isle project given that the place, Fair Isle is pretty much square in between Norway and Scotland. And once I have the Selbu rose mastered, I can move on to the Norwegian 'lice' pattern (or not).

In addition to thinking of my Dad (as opposed to his genetic material) I'm also remembering his brother / half-brother, Albert, born one day and three years earlier than my Dad. Albert drowned in the Mississippi River at the age of 24. I have to wait until 2022 to access his adoption records and learn more about his story.

British Citizenship

On the 13th of February 2019 I attended my citizenship ceremony, the final step in becoming a citizen of Britain.

There were also two new citizens from Bangladesh, one from India and a married couple from Rumania. Bill and I both envied the Rumanians their EU citizenship. That relates to why, after 23 years, I finally decided to apply for British citizenship. 

Between the Brexit vote and the election of Trump as President of the US I felt the world had become a strange place that didn't feel quite so secure. As an alien with 'indefinite leave to remain' - an amusing British phrase, it began to feel too...indefinite. 

The wooden thing on the table is a holder for the Mace.

I had looked into citizenship years before but, other than the vote and right to live and work in Europe, I didn't see much gain. I already could leave Britain for up to two years and still return, but not for more than two years, and that condition remains even with naturalised citizenship. We talked about living the US at one point but health insurance costs changed our minds. It's cheaper to just visit for a month every few years. So becoming a dual citizen became more attractive, giving me that vote. 

Of course Brexit continues to stumble along towards who knows what end. I told Bill getting my citizenship at this point feels like running to catch the Titanic.

It took me about a year to complete the process, no doubt someone could do it much faster. Surprisingly it cost more than twice that of obtaining US citizenship. One of Bill's Asian friends hearing my plans, sent the name of a solicitor (lawyer) who specialises in this sort of thing. I wasn't excited about paying the legal fee in addition, given I'd be doing the work. Besides, it all seemed mostly straight-forward and do-able on my own. 

The first step was to buy a book about 'Life in the UK' to study (£11.95). It was so 'rah-rah, Britain is great' I couldn't believe if was written by an actual Brit. Nor could I believe I needed to know about the popular culture and sports heroes as well as the usual government and history questions. I did like that it spelled out my responsibility to look out for myself, my family and my environment. 

No English proficiency exam was required of me, but I did have to pass a citizenship test based on the book. I found this very helpful website for study and took the exams and tests there repeatedly. I copied any questions (with their answers) I wasn't sure of into a document that I studied in between taking the tests. When I could get at least 90% pass rate on all of these tests I booked my citizenship exam. 

This part didn't go smoothly because the private company that had the contract for administering these tests was moving offices and was appallingly bad at communicating with clients but at least efficient in refunding money. The first test was cancelled 30 minutes before it was to be held in a building with only construction workers removing rubble. They kindly directed me and an also anxious young man to another building, this one with an accessible receptionist - for an unrelated company. She informed us that people had shown up for the past few weeks for tests cancelled without notice. One poor woman came up from London for nothing. The receptionist kindly gave us a phone number from the internet, which of course was answered with a recording. I went home and drafted a letter to the Member of Parliament for our area and rescheduled the test for a couple of weeks later.

The second test was at least cancelled a few days before the exam and with that email I found a live person to check with about booking future tests. I sat the exam on the third attempt. The actual test took about ten minutes to answer 24 questions. It cost £50 (when booking, not refundable if you fail.)

Next, I had to complete a 31-page application, get two references to complete portions of the form and have a proper passport photo taken (£20). The application asked for ancient history: the names, dates and places of birth for each of my husbands and for my parents. It also required provision of documents: birth, marriage and divorce records, not to mention the pass certificate for the exam. Fortunately I already had all those. The other fun part was digging out information about where I had travelled in the past three years. Had I not been married to a British citizen that period would have been five years. As it was I used Bill's emails, my diaries and this blog to compile a list of travel locations for the required time period to show I met the residence requirements for application.

The local authority in Newcastle runs a 'National Checking Service' which allows one to submit documents and have them photocopied and certified, to send with application rather than sending off originals. This service costs £80. The application fee was £1,330. 

Soon after officialdom received the application I was sent for biometric testing (£20). That was a bit fraught as the website gave different information than the checking service about which Post Office I should attend in South Shields, across the river. Bill kindly drove me down, which resulted in a traffic ticket for using a bus lane. Not even he could figure out how to navigate in South Shields without breaking the rules. I don't count his £30 ticket as part of my citizenship expenses, though it just goes to show there are many obstacles to overcome!

I went to one place only to find it shut. A bit perplexed but not out of ideas, I asked a lady where the other Post Office was and she directed me around the corner. Sadly when I arrived their machine wasn't working. There were a number of other applicants on the same mission though they hadn't the benefit of English as their first language nor, I would guess, two decades of experience in Britain. One large man was being lectured by a stern woman in a suit that he could not threaten their staff and it wasn't their fault the machine was malfunctioning. He did seem quite agitated and I couldn't blame him, though I gather he had left things to the last minute, thus adding to his own stress. I wanted to assure him it wasn't at all personal - Britain does this malfunctioning thing to everyone including its own native born. I think it, in addition to the practice of queuing, accounts for the level of national stoicism.

The lady behind the counter said I had the choice to wait for the computer guy to come or to go down to Sunderland. I chose the latter. It was in trying to reconnect with Bill that I realised I'd never yet answered my mobile phone in the years  I've grudgingly carried it. I've only ever texted a few times so  Bill and I had several failed attempts nearly worthy of a digital age slapstick before I managed to find him and the car. 

It all went swimmingly in Sunderland: I made Bill park in a car park and walk the pedestrianised street with me to the Post Office and their machine worked fine. After a short wait I entered a booth where I had a facial scan and my fingerprints taken, a rather surreal experience. After that it was just a matter of waiting from three to six months for the official verdict. 

When I got the acceptance letter I had to phone my local authority, this time North Tyneside, to book into a citizenship ceremony - that was free. 

A drawing of the Registry Office that hangs in the lobby. I'm rather sentimental about the place.

The ceremony took place at the North Shields Register office where Bill and I got married eight years ago. I wore the same dress and shoes. It did sort of feel like getting married again, pledging allegiance to the Queen and to the laws of the the United Kingdom. The latter was second nature, I would live by those laws anyhow, but the Queen? Well, I think of her as a symbol and perhaps a wise little old lady. I've been fascinated with her family since I was twelve years old and in any case there wasn't a republican oath on offer, only the choice to 'swear by almighty God' or to 'affirm'. 

The ceremony began with a few tunes on the Northumbrian bagpipes. He didn't wear a kilt, just a shirt and trousers but with a large scarf, perhaps called a plaid, I'm not sure. I recognised the Northumbrian tartan, a black and white check. This was historically quite fitting as we were part of Northumberland until 45 years ago. I noticed piper's cuff links were buttons covered in the same tartan.

The mistress of ceremony was a deputy registrar I'd spoken with on the phone. A registrar's job is sort of a records manager: births, deaths, marriages...and citizenship.  There were also two official gentlemen who gave fairly similar speeches: the Chairman of the North Tyneside Council and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant (pronounced lef-tenant, you know) - sort of a deputy deputy as it were (as in lieu).

The Chairman of the Council, Tommy Mulvenna, was wearing his Chain of Office and was accompanied by a mace-bearer (also a casual civic driver, according to the job advert) who was...carrying a mace. We examined this interesting object later and found the emblem of the Tynemouth Borough Council, one of four and a bit councils amalgamated to form North Tyneside. According to this website about a film made by a local school in 1950:

  The Mace which is now recognised as a symbol of Royal Authority and Civic dignity, was originally a weapon of offence, capable of breaking through the strongest armour. It was carried into battle by Mediaeval Bishops instead of the sword.

The Deputy Lord Lieutenant was there as a representative of the Queen herself. I didn't catch his name but he kindly came up for a chat when the ceremony was over, explaining that we were 'nearly neighbours'. That gave me pause that he knew the name of my street but then I realised that the Queen's representative probably got to see my paperwork. 

The Queen, probably in about 1995, the year I came to Britain.

I asked the Leader of the Council what I might read to help me choose a political party and make an informed vote in May's local elections. Funny enough, he said it was 'all down to how you feel' and didn't recommend any study at all. He said he was once a Lib Dem (Liberal Democrat) but now was with the Labour party and suspected his wife of being a Conservative. I think he was serious, but I'm not positive. 

The speeches themselves were pretty interesting. They touched on the need for us to abide by the laws of the United Kingdom but mostly seemed to welcome our different contributions to the diversity of Britain. 

After the speeches and the pledges came the dirge-iest (that surely should be a word) version of a national anthem I've ever heard. I knew the words from my study. They are fairly amusing in a way. Think My Country Tis of Thee and sing along if you like: 

God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen. Send her victorious, happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the Queen. 

It implies that so long as the Queen is happy, it's all good, but then she is a symbol of the country, right? Like I said, the words were no problem but it was s-o  s-l-o-o-o-o-w, when I wanted something a bit more upbeat to fit the cheerful occasion. Never mind.

After all that we had our photos. Shame the Queen got cut out, the photographer doesn't seem to have planned well, though it wasn't his fault the curtains wouldn't shut and the room was set up wrong for photos. Still, I'm content - it was free!

Then we all gathered for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit or a bit of cake. I went around to each of my new fellow citizens to shake their hands and congratulate them - very American of me, I know. They were all pretty pleased with themselves just as I was, and shook my hand, smiling. Except for the Rumanian man. He bowed and kissed my hand instead. 

I do wish Britain could stay in the EU.

We had a G&T at the Grand Hotel before going home to change and attend the Tynemouth Historical Society meeting.

Foraging Lessons - Part I

We had a very interesting speaker at one of our WI meetings last year. I get the impression that most of the women don't follow up on any of these talks, but I have gotten good value by doing so. The speaker was from Wild North Discovery and he talked about foraging for food. I took his card, meaning to look into it further.





I didn't think of it again much until casting about for Christmas gifts for Bill. He has most of what he wants and if he doesn't he just buys it. Unlike me, who makes lists and waits...





I bought a membership for each of us, knowing he wouldn't be keen on going by himself. And anyhow, I was really interested in it as well. We both enjoy foraging for berries and the like and Bill likes being outdoors, so I figured it was worth a shot.

We had our first meeting on Sunday. We gathered at St. Mary's Lighthouse on a day when pouring rain was predicted. He just told us to dress accordingly in waterproofs. Also to bring a notebook, a camera and a stick. 

About 15 people showed up and checked in, about an hour before low tide. We went clambering around on the slippery rocks, following him around. He showed us several kinds of seaweed: I remember bladder wrack and something like serrated wrack, kelp, lavar and perhaps sea lettuce and pepper dulse? Not sure how many of these I'd recognise again, probably the bladder wrack. 




He told us we wouldn't likely find razor shells or cockles on this rocky beach but showed us the shells and talked about how to cook them. He explained the difference between bi-valves and grazers. I was fascinated to learn about limpets. I always thought they were barnacles, but barnacles don't move and limpets do, to feed. He pointed out the bald places on the rocks near the clusters of limpets, indicating they had eaten the vegetation that covered most other rocks. Who knew limpets had teeth? I was just grateful they could cling to rocks so well; they helped me not slide around so much.

Those three bumps are limpets...and perhaps a bit of bird poo?

We got lucky with the weather, with just a light shower at one point. The sun was out for a good while at the beginning and the end, but for all that it was perishing cold! And guess who forgot to bring a hat (Bill - though he had a hood) and who didn't think of running gloves, only that dress gloves would hamper writing and photographing. I made do with stretching the long sleeves on my wool cardigan. I also discovered that a waterproof that covers ones rear end and has stuffed pockets makes navigating through slippery rocks and knee-high crevices very hard for this short person.

That straight edge on the right in the beige stuff has a tiny row of teeth!

Bruce is a mine of useful information. Whether I'd ever get Bill to eat 'squidgy stuff' (his words) like limpets or winkles, I'd bet not; I'm pretty sure we'll go foraging for some seaweed at some point, though! We were told not to gather on that day as there were so many of us we could wipe out the resources there and 'sustainability' is part of our lessons.

Our next gathering isn't until spring and it's somewhere in a forest. I'm really looking forward to it!

St Mary's Lighthouse, built 1898 on the site of an 11th century monastic chapel.