Hey Blog! Time for a book review again, and as a special treat you’re getting two books in one!

Most people my age will have read Harry Potter, by J. K. Rowling. It is a modern classic and a pillar of magical fantasy. I had known about Harry for a long time, and had been slowly gathering information about it, but then, last year, on the 31^st of July, which to those readers who have already read the books will be a special day, Dad came home with a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I subsequently spent the following afternoon with my nose buried into it.

Magic. It’s a simple word, but how much history and power has it got behind it? How much bloodshed? How much robbery? And how many authors? The answers to most of these questions will never be found, especially the last. All because of a simple, yet coded fact – the Supernatural is anything that is not Natural. And what is natural is what we can explain. If you can cast your minds back to the Mediaeval period, you will remember a certain magician or wizard commonly spoken of, the sorcerer of Arthur’s court, the enchanter Merlin. No British book containing so much as a whiff of magic has not been inspired in some way by this great mage, who basically rules the roost when it comes to European magic. He is mentioned in Hogwarts, but does not feature in the two tales I have read so far.

Harry’s entrance into the Wizarding World is like two envelopes – one good news and the other bad news. The good news is told in one sentence: “Harry – yer a wizard” (Rubeus Hagrid). The bad takes longer to explain. Namely, Harry has mysterious powers no one quite knows what to make of, starting with a protective power that saved him when he was attacked as a baby, power that kept the dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort’s powers at bay, and then destroyed them. Second, when Hagrid takes him to buy his wand, the wand has a phoenix feather from the same bird as gave the feather from Voldemort’s wand. Circles within circles. Only at Hogwarts does he confirm that Hagrid was telling the truth.

Hogwarts, the fictional school, is a castle built by four founders: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. It is one of only two schools I would ever go to by choice, the other being in Earthsea (Ursula K LeGuin’s creation). Who wouldn’t want to learn magic?! But if you are very famous because of stopping the dark magic of You-know-who (Voldemort) and you have a very noticeable scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on your forehead, it might take a little more convincing to go of your own accord. Such as the fact that your carers are horrible.

Harry goes to the Hogwarts Express, on Platform 9 ¾, which I wrote about gong to see in June. He gets to Hogwarts, making one friend and one enemy on the way, and in the great hall tries on the Sorting Hat. This hat selects which of the school houses (named after the four founders) you are destined to be in. After a lot of difficulty, the hat finally registers him as Gryffindor, and he takes his place as a first-year Hogwarts Wizard of Gryffindor House. Suspicious circumstances mean research into what is happening, culminating in a journey to look for the philosopher’s stone. For the rest, well, READ THE BOOK! (clue – he’s still alive in book two, so he survives).

I’ve only just got the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but I’m already rereading it. You may have heard of Dobby the House Elf – I certainly had – before reading it, but he’s in Chamber of Secrets. The plot is similar – suspicious circumstances, needs research, only this time Harry and his two friends Ron and Hermione have more magical tricks to work with and more spells are used for me to try out (Yes, I have my own wand – I made it myself from a tree up the hill; Rowan, 12 inches, don’t know what core I need yet, and I do have an 11 inch Holly wand like Harry’s too). Again, it culminates in a face-off under the school, and again, you’ve gotta read the book!

I’ll probably be getting Prisoner of Azkaban next year, as I’ll be 13 – the same age as Harry. But till next week, I’m going to VANISH IN A PUFF OF SMOKE…

Poof!

Hey Blog! I briefly passed over a puppet project in Bunting, wire, puppets, boats, etc. back in the Spring. Now I’m back with it after a Summer of hard work, and am ready to reveal the details to you.

Puppet Club is attended by several members of my friend group, and by now we’ve all decided what to make. We made down-right crazy decisions, for example Kenny from South Park, a plague doctor from the Middle Ages, and a vampire bat. I chose a mediaeval knight – nicknamed Sir M.I.D.Knight as M.I.D. are his initials. My puppet (which some think is typical of me) is far more complicated that most of theirs… as mine has a body, arms and legs, which is more than the simple cloak and head of the other puppets!

At the start of the project, we started off by making a project book and drawing in multiple designs, at the end of which we each chose a favourite design. I have to note here most of this was not done in the sessions, but at home; however, as my puppet required more work, I had to do more at home. In the end I whittled these choices down to just two – dragon or knight. So I had to work out whether to capture or save the princess, at which point I chose save her. Would you have chosen otherwise?!

Now that I knew what I was making, I drew the big picture of it. This is a full-page drawing of the chosen character, with all the changes made after thinking through the making process. Here is my picture:

I next compiled a list of materials I would need; these were:

1. Sock (stuff to make the head and tie off, then stuff to make the body and tie off).
2. Stuffing for body, head, arms, legs, hands, feet and codpiece.
3. Felt in brown, to make the face; white, to make the eyes; grey to make the hands and feet (they’re in armour); and red, orange, green and blue for a background to the shield.
4. Silvery-grey wool to knit into armour.
5. Black wool for hair.
6. Greenish fabric for a tabard, a kind of tunic without sleaves or side seam.
7. Embroidery thread in black (eyes) red (mouth) red, yellow, green, blue and purple (heraldic emblems on the coat-of-arms).
8. Red and blue fabric for inside and outside of cloak.
9. Rickrack braid for embellishment to cloak.
10. Sewing thread in different colours to connect parts.

Luckily, I had most of these materials, so I could start right away!

The second session was getting started on the actual puppet. We took a bamboo stick and a sock and stuck his head on a stick. Then we made a face out of felt and added facial features, before attaching it to the head. The armour was slower to start as I haven’t knitted since finishing my scarf back in 2019 or 2020, and I had to learn pearl stitch to make the armour as forwards and backwards stitches (knit stitch and pearl stitch) combine to make an all-forwards piece of fabric. If you find that hard to understand, try knitting yourself (I mean doing knitting, not making a wool clone) – it’s really fun! By the end of the armoury apprenticeship I could anticipate what would make it look correct. I made gauntlets, the mediaeval term for armoured gloves, and armoured shoes, which and sewed to the arms and legs. Once I had made all the pieces all I had to do was stich them up, stuff them, sew them together, and a body was complete!

The next step was to make the tabard. I used the sewing machine to hem it, and then stuck it onto the body. It’s important to note here that the neck hole was too small to get the arms through, so I sowed them on after, even though I mentioned this first. The neck hole I enclosed with an extra piece of fabric and hand-sewed, as I was going into 3D constructs with 2D fabric. Meanwhile I cut out a shield shape on paper, quartered it, and used these pieces as templates for felt. Once I had sewed them together, I embroidered designs on them, then connected the completed shield design to the tabard, as a coat-of-arms.

That is all I have on the body at the moment, as this is an ongoing project. The latest meet-up of the group was yesterday, though not everybody has attended all sessions. On Thursday I was making the cloak, but I haven’t finished. One attendee actually finished his, so the next step in the project is to make up a story for our puppets to act out. I’ve never seen South Park (educational viewing in order?) but apparently Kenny dies in every episode – in this one maybe killed by the vampire bat, plague doctor, or Sir M.I.D.Knight? or Huggy Wuggy or a picmin? Either way, it’s going to be funny!

Hey Blog! As mentioned in the other post today, I was on Scout Camp last Friday, so here I will tell you all about it!

I talked about Scouting in Be Prepared! sometime in spring. Since that one all of our meetings have been regular, once-a-week, and, typically Scouts, doing interesting stuff. I haven’t been on a Scouting camp since 2019, when I was in Cubs (the branch of Scouts for 8–10-year-olds) and that was only my second camp ever!

The first Scout Camp ever was in 1908 on Brownsea Island, Poole harbour. However, whether this is recognised as such is questionable, as this was a trial run for ideas in Baden-Powell’s book ‘Scouting for Boys’. The camp was a success, and the Scout Movement was launched. Without this camp we wouldn’t have such an influential organisation! However, a lot has changed since the 1908 camp, not the least is there are a lot more troops. For instance, in the first two camps I did only my troop (First Belper) took part. In this recent one, there were five or six! Yep, it was a District Camp!

The camp started on Friday evening, so we all arrived and began to set up tents. The tents we were using were cross-frame with two hoops (there isn’t a proper word to describe it that I can find) and fairly big. Unlike in Cubs, we were three to a tent rather that four. This meant there was much more room for all. We had supper – crackers and cheese, and cupasoups for those who wanted. Then we went to bed; as for going to sleep it was more like 12 o’clock for most Scouts, though the Cubs did manage to keep us awake till 11 or later!

Saturday morning

After waking up and having breakfast, which was cereal and bacon sandwiches, we were sorted into teams for activities. These teams were the colours of our wristbands. All the other Scout troops had done this, as there were Scouts from each of them in one group. I was in the green group. There were six activities set out over the course of the day, and the different coloured groups were to move around each one. We went down to the bottom of the field for ‘flag break’, which is not breaking the flag but ‘breaking it out’ (in the olden days when flags flew on sailing ships, they would be tied up, but the twine they were tied with would be broken to release them). Our first activity was Circus skills.

No one had to dress up as a clown, thank goodness. However, there was juggling balls, at which I was hopeless; juggling clubs, at which I was even worse; stilts, really cool and amazingly I could just about keep my footing; tightrope/slackline walking (they seem to imply two different things – what do they mean?) at which I was OK, though I had to hold on to something; unicycling, at which I had NO chance, and several other things. All in all, I think the tightrope walking was the most fun, with stilts a close second. We were then sent down, after a fifteen-minute break, to Craft.

Craft was about making things. The first thing I made was a bracelet, which I am currently wearing now. It’s a design where you fold the paracord in half, then knot it, making a loop, then thread the cord you make it with through the bead twice, once each way. Tie a stopper knot at the end, thread it though the loop, and job done. At the same table, I made a woggle – the thing Scouts wear on their neckers to keep them together. It was made the same way except you didn’t make a knot at the beginning and you threaded three beads on each time. Then, after attaching the back to the front, you had a finished woggle. After this there wasn’t much time left so I went and made a piece of cord.

The third and final activity station of the morning was Challenge. In this one you had to do all sorts of challenges like carrying a football between two poles in the fastest time, or knocking over as many water bottles as you could in thirty seconds with a tennis ball hanging from your head! I succeed in knocking down all the water bottles twice, and this was definitely my favourite activity in this whole base! Another of my favourites in this station was the knotting challenge where they asked us to tie a reef knot. I know a reef knot back to front, so I could tie one pretty easily! After tying a reef knot, I was asked to do it behind my back, eyes closed, and one-handed, all of which did not prove difficult. I was then quizzed on all the other knots I knew, but I have a book called ‘50 knots you need to know’ by Marty Allen, which I have learnt several knots from, including fisherman’s knot and alpine butterfly loop, both of which I demonstrated. However, I fell short at a Turks Head and Monkey’s Fist! Knowing a bowline, I taught a couple of Scouts how to make it using the rabbit-hole-tree method (loop over towards you is the hole, attached end is the tree, the tip of the rope or rabbit makes the loop, he comes up through the hole, round the tree, back down the hole). You never know when they might need it – if they need to winch someone into a helicopter it would be very useful! We next all went back to the camp for lunch.

Saturday afternoon

The green group went to Bushcraft. In this there was rope making, pendant making, den making, and everyone’s favourite – S’mores making! I made a short piece of rope, then a pendant, and hung the pendant from the rope. Unfortunately, there was only one s’more per Scout (Maybe the leaders had ponced a few before we got to them…).

We then went to what must be the best activity of all the ones that day – a base called Bounce! This had pogo sticks, at which I was rubbish; space hoppers, just the same, and bouncy castles! There was one where you tried to demolish your opponent with a punch-bag on a string, a small persons’ bouncy castle, and a race one which you climbed through as fast as possible to a slide at the end. I went through the first and last many times, and enjoyed it HUGELY!

The final one was Water. It meant getting wet, in more ways than one. There were bottle rockets, which you sent up with water, reusable water bombs, which were not for a water fight but for team building (throw it to a partner and see if you partner can catch it without the water bursting all over them, wet sponge tin can alley, and instead of hook-a-duck, chuck-a-duck, where you catapulted rubber ducks into a paddling pool. By the time we were walking back to camp, the sun had dried me, so I didn’t have to change.

We had dinner: it was pasta and meatballs in tomato sauce; and each Scout lined up to ‘adopt a Beaver’ (Beavers are the branch of cubs for 6–8-year-olds). Then we travelled down the field to the campfire to join the district in songs, most of them absolutely crazy! We dropped off our Beavers with their parents and had supper – the same as last night, except that I had hot chocolate. I was much quicker getting to sleep this night!

Sunday

We got up, had breakfast, which consisted of cereal and crumpets/muffins, and were delivered new wristbands for fencing and crossbows. I was lucky, as I got to do both! There was no time to do anything else, so I went straight down to the shooting hall to do Crossbows. These crossbows were much more modern and powerful than I had imagined, and I would have loved to own one! Straight after that was fencing, which I did three years ago at a different Scout activity. It’s just possible that I will start fencing regularly, so watch this space!

I wandered around the different bases doing what they had to offer. At midday, we all came back to our little section of the camp to strike tents and prepare for leaving. The Closing Ceremony followed, at which point we all reaffirmed our Scout Promise to our new monarch, King Charles III. Then we all went home.

Hey Blog! Last Friday I was on scout camp, so this is a two-for-one week. Sunday two weeks ago was a Watch Group day, and we were in a local park learning about Rewilding!

What do you think rewilding is? An engaging activity making a landscape better? Leaving an area alone for a while? A concept? Apparently, it’s the latter! And the actual hands-on part is a bit of both of the former. If there were no humans, and we left the landscape completely alone, then anything that wanted to would recolonise, but being humans, we don’t like being preyed upon. Therefore, we need to step in and help do what animals, which we haven’t let recolonise, did. Exactly what help you give the landscape is dependent on where it is, and as a result of that, what lives there. For example, on moorland you might reintroduce deer and birds of prey like Hen Harriers. However, in a lowland river and floodplain, you might want to encourage otters and waterbirds; different again is a woodland, where the animals you want would be similar to red squirrels and tits. Also, how to do get them back to the landscape? That’s determined by the wanted species’ proximity to your rewilded area. Sometimes you can tempt them if they occasionally pass through, but if they never visit, you might have to deliberately move them. Rewilding in the real sense is not eliminating our presence from the world, but getting the balance of nature to a point where we can be incorporated harmlessly into the game of Survival.

Watch group was held in Allestree Park, near Derby. The entire grounds of the park are subject to a massive rewilding project, making the park the largest urban rewilding/rewilded green space in the UK. There’s a way to go before the world has cities looking like we all live in Singapore, but this is a start. This project provided the backdrop to the session, and the reason for what we did in it. We started off on a walk finding all the things that have been always or have moved in here since the project started. I found some trees that had obviously been planted, funghi, a squirrel, and a few insects. We soon arrived at a “bunker”. Not what it sounds like. Though Derby was targeted in WWII because of its Rolls Royce factory, I don’t think there would be many air raid shelters this far out. No, this is a relic of the golf course: a bunker is basically a mound of sand and earth for golfers to try and whack small white balls off. This is a perfect home for rabbits – not to be confused with hares, which have also been seen in the park. Hares do not burrow, the make a little hollow in the ground called a form, where they rest. There were a lot of faecal remains of the former lagomorph, evidence of use by this animal in the recent past (do I sound like a biologist?). We continued in this way to a second bunker, and there stopped to play a game.

The name of the game was ‘Predator and prey’. The aim of the game was if you were a predator, you hunt and tag your prey, but if you were a prey animal, you had to get away. Half the group were the former, and the other half the latter. Prey had ten seconds to get away and hide, then predators would chase them. Prey worked a lot better when there was cover to hide in! We then sorted into groups and looked at a booklet about other rewilding projects in the UK. One of these is the Knepp estate, a farm where wild pigs have been working the land, scrub and open woodland have naturally seeded, and White Stork have bred in the UK for the first time in over a hundred years. The other mentioned in the booklet was in southern Scotland, and has been going for much longer – the first picture was in the 90s! Both sites have changed massively over the years, the Scottish one having nearly full-grown trees in it in the last picture, bearing fruit. Just think what Allestree might be in the next few decades…

Which turned out to be the last part of the session. We were each allocated paper and pencils and chose what time in the future our drawings would be. I drew about seven years away. Will our dreams come true?!

Hey Blog! Cast your mind back to two weeks ago, on Tuesday. I briefly passed over a hill climb to the top of Dumyat, and also told you I would cover it this week. Here we go…

Dumyat is a mountain in Scotland. It is part of the Ochil Hills, standing at their southern end, and was the source of inspiration for author Rennie McOwan’s novel Light on Dumyat. It’s one of my favourite books, so naturally when we were visiting nearby, I wanted to go and see it. Dumyat is 418m high, so it was going to be a pretty long climb.

Light on Dumyat is a children’s book. Its plot is in some ways similar to Swallows and Amazons, but instead, Scottish and land-based rather than nautical. As the first in the Clan series, it introduces the main characters: Gavin, from London, come to stay with his Aunt and Uncle; Clare, leader of the Clan and oldest of her siblings; Michael, middle of the three Clan members; and youngest member Mot, really Tom (left handed, he wrote his name backwards once and it stuck). The Clan are imaginative, interested in any Scottish history, and adapt expert at secrecy in woods and on the hills.

Gavin sets off from London to Stirling when his summer holiday is cancelled, thinking that Scotland is going to be ‘rather tame’ (how wrong he is!). Armed with a box of equipment for hiking and birdwatching, soon after arriving a mysterious light shows itself on the hill named Dumyat, and next morning he explores for its source. All he finds is a sheltered valley and a trail of polished rock. But scratching away at a mossy rock reveals a door into a cave, kitted out with bows-and-arrows, tartan sashes, and boxes containing cutlery and crockery. But the prize find is a silver dirk (Scottish dagger) with a cairngorm stone in its pommel and fancy silverwork…

And for the rest you’ll have to read the book! Let’s just say it includes silverware, burglars, woodcraft, and an initiation test. Oh, and some Morse Code and close-range archery.

Inspired by the book, I asked whether we could go and climb the hill. The answer was YES. So at lunchtime we set out to climb the hill.

It took a little longer than I anticipated. First we had to walk along the Jubilee Path, before turning off at the church where we saw steeplejacks – on a steeple. I know that sounds weird, but actually we don’t often see them in their natural habitat any more. After that, we had to cross a small burn (not a fire, a stream: it’s the Scottish name). Then we went through the wood which must have bears as there were great big claw marks on the trees – watch out! It was here that my legs began to whisper stop, but soon we came to a place called Witches’ Craig, where, legend has it, in the 18^th century, some witches danced with the Devil to cast a spell. It seems they’ve been there more recently, as there are some firepits with charred ashes. I wonder what spell they were trying to cast this time! From here you could see both the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle, the latter of which I visited last time we were in Scotland. It strategically overlooks the site of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn, a major defeat for the English and major victory for the Scottish. We could also see the river Forth snaking its way across the landscape, and the bridges like punctuation marks on the sentence of the river. Then we passed through a rhododendron tunnel to open moorland, and we could almost see the summit.

This landscape was mainly heather and tough grass. We followed the stony path north until we came to a cut right to Castle Law. Here I ought to explain the etymology of Dumyat. If you say it slowly you’ll arrive at Dum-eate. Change a few letters around and you get Dun Maeatae – the Dun (hillfort) of the Maeatae tribe. This was a large fortification, but there’s not much to see now, only the view the Picts saw and the birds they heard (and the pain of walking up there they endured). We thence travelled in a North-Westerly direction towards Dumyat proper, the full height of the hill. Looking down from the summit we could see most of the Forth valley and the surrounding Ochils. I climbed the little mound on which the beacon sits and added a white quartz pebble on the top.

Nothing much happened on the walk down, and unfortunately, I didn’t find the Clan’s cave. Hopefully I can go back up there again one day and continue searching!

Hey Blog! In June I detailed a knights’ tournament at Bolsover castle, but that was (cough cough) only with men in armour and weapons. Last Sunday was far better than that. There were horses and lances as well. Guessed yet? What, Mediaeval jousting? Oh YES!

I’ve already told you the history of Bolsover, so I won’t go into more detail on that subject than there was originally a mediaeval castle, but the ruins standing are 17^th century. It’s the mediaeval bit that I’m concentrating on, as jousting died out in the Tudor period. You may have seen jousting in films, books, or even been to a display like I did, but just in case you haven’t, here are the rules and instructions:

Ye olde booke ofe instructionse for knightse to jouste

1. Make sure you’re a knight.
2. Put your armour on.
3. Get a horse and ride it.
4. Take a long blunt spear, hold it under your right arm.
5. Take a wooden shield, hold it in your left hand.
6. Put your spurs into the horse’s side (you have won your spurs, haven’t you? If not go back to stage one and start again).
7. Hold your lance pointed at your opponent across the tilt rail.
8. Options for points: A) Knock him off his horse (extremely dangerous); B) hit him on the helm (four points); C) hit him on the shield (three points); D) hit him on the arm (two points); E) hit him on the body (one point); F) miss him (zero points); and G) barricade (when lances tangle, making a hit difficult or impossible – rerun the course).
9. Get to the end, exchange your (hopefully broken) lance for another, and try again.
10. You charge twice in the tournament style that we went to. However, some jousting tournaments go for three or four courses.

There, that should do it.

The knights at Bolsover were each taking the role of their favourite legend from history, so we saw the Wildman, a kind of hermit/recluse/mad clubman from the woods; the Wyvern, a fire-breathing beast exactly like a dragon except that a dragon has four legs, and a wyvern has two legs; Sir Lancelot de Lac, King Arthur’s finest knight in everything apart from love (adultery with Queen Guinevere, why he lost the quest for the Holy Grail); and the final knight was Jason of the Argo, from Greek legend, captain of the ship Argo which carried the Argonauts in the quest for the Golden Fleece. There were to be two sets of jousting, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

You can’t decide how well you win or lose in jousting. It totally relies on the speed of the horse and the skill of the rider. It’s nothing like what I imagined it at first, as the horses went faster than I expected! You may think the aim is to keep your lance whole and knock the opponent off – the second part is true, but lances are designed to be broken! But the origins of jousting are different. When it first started, you would charge with a sharpened spear held at your opponent. Needless to say, this caused many deaths, and as the king wanted every knight he could get for defending the country’s borders, jousting had to change. So blunted, easily splintered lances were created.

The lances splinter when they get a nice, hard hit. The wood flies really high into the air, and spins around, sometimes going ahead of the horses. The best places to hit are the helm and the shield, as both will get your opponent reeling in the saddle! It probably hurts a lot – would you like a long pole coming hard and smacking you in the head? I am definitely the sitting on the side and watching kind! In the first round all ran against the other, and when the points were scored, in 4^th the Wildman, 3^rd the Wyvern, and joint 1^st Lancelot and Argo. The final, therefore, was between these two. It went down to the last run, and even that was equal! The deciding score was on the lances’ breaks, and it was decided Argo won the round. A short demonstration of archery followed, and then the second round of jousting. It was a complete repeat! The final two again (Lancelot and Argo) both ran their two courses, but this time lance break was not needed, as Argo came in a margin ahead.

If jousting sounds cool, and you like watching movies, I recommend “A knight’s tale” – it’s super!

Hey Blog! Regular readers will realise I missed a post last week. The reason is that last week we went on holiday, so I’m going to tell you all about it!

We went to visit my Granny and Grandad, both avid Home Ed In A Shed readers, who live in Scotland. This required a long journey, which had to be by car because of the railway strikes. We decided to split the journey both ways, staying at Darlington on the way up, and Hexham on the way down.

We left early on Friday night, then travelled halfway up the English part of the journey, and stopped just north of Scotch Corner. As there was nowhere else open, me and Dad had a KFC, which I haven’t done since we lived in Barbados! Next morning, after a stonking Premier Inn Breakfast (keep it up, Premier Inns – you’re doing a great job) we traversed the Scottish Borders. It’s really funny when you go up the hill and then come sharply back down, as you get a squiggly feeling in your tummy, apparently like on a rollercoaster. I’ve never actually been on a rollercoaster; this information is from rollercoaster riders who have the same feeling. However, it’s fun. We could just about see the Lake District hills, but our focus was more to the north. The most exiting part came when we saw a sign saying ‘The last café in England!’ and it was only a short drive through Kielder forest and then…

The Border!

I stopped for a picture to send my friends on WhatsApp, and we continued on our way.

It took four hours to get to my grandparents’ house, in Fife, but it was interesting because I haven’t been to Scotland since before the pandemic. I remember when we went up on the train, aaaaages ago. I counted the tunnels and bridges on our journey, and we went over the Forth Rail Bridge. This time we went over the Queensferry Crossing, Edinburgh. After this, it was only a quick drive to Cupar, where they live. I got a haircut in the afternoon Saturday, and we mooched around the charity shops till dinnertime.

Note: the rest of the week will be in diary format

Sunday

We all drove up to Dundee to meet my cousins, who live in Aberdeen. We had planned to meet them at the V&A Dundee, which we looked around before they joined us to have lunch in the splendid café there. This took up most of the day, then we wandered along the river and looked at an oil rig.

Monday

We went stone-hunting. Pictish stone hunting, to be more accurate. The Picts (from Latin picti, meaning painted people) were a culture of the Scottish tribes, who the Romans came into contact with. It was these encounters which demanded the building of Hadrian’s wall, the monument which runs across the north of England. The other side of the wall used to be the barbarians’ country (AKA Scotland) but borders have changed since then. It seems defensive walls just encourage your enemies to come and assault them – maybe they were inspired by the old proverb “the grass is always greener on the other side of the wall”? Anyway, these Picts erected huge carved stones, with symbols and animals carved on their faces. These symbols often come in pairs, some of the more famous abstracts are Double-disk and Z-rod, Crescent and V-rod, and also objects like Mirror and Comb. Among the animal designs is the famous ‘Pictish Beast’, which reoccurs far and wide over Pictish territory. This creature with a curling snout and curling appendages which could be fins or could be limbs. We saw quite a few of these, most notably on the Aberlemno stones, one of which stands in a churchyard and has a Celtic cross on one side, while the other demonstrates a battle scene. Most likely referring to a Picts/Saxons battle, exactly which conflict it illustrates is shrouded in the mists of time. Another of these Aberlemno stones has cup marks on the back. Cup marks are of Bronze Age origin, which means when the Picts were carving it, during the first millennium, were reusing an already ancient piece of more than two thousand year-old art!

Tuesday

Today we climbed the mountain known as Dumyat (pronounced Dum-eye-at) at my request. Dumyat is the mountain in the centre of the novel Light on Dumyat, by Rennie McOwan. My grandparents purchased it for me a few years ago, and I haven’t stopped delighting in it since. I will do an EXTRA book review next week to cover this and write about the book.

Wednesday

This morning I played the organ! As I told you in ‘This is music to my ears!’ a few weeks back, I play the piano, and the organ has a keyboard, similar to the piano but slightly different. A piano has one continuous keyboard, whereas an organ has two – a lower console called the great organ and an upper one called the swell organ. Other differences include the way they produce sound. A piano has keys which push hammers which hit strings, producing vibrations; and an organ has pipes that work a bit like a whistle, making a sound when air is pushed through them. An organ also has ‘stops’ which control how high and low or rich and shallow you make the sounds. An organ has pedals too, not just the one which determines how loud the sound is but also deeper sounds than you can make on the keyboard. I played three of the pieces in a book I mentioned before, one of which was inspired by the ruined cathedral of St Andrews, near where my grandparents live. It was a bit difficult to retune to a totally different instrument at first, but after I got the hang of it, it was far easier!

Later in the day we visited Crail, where there’s a beach with fossils. We walked along the harbour wall and then went down to the northern beach, where I collected pretty/interestingly shaped or coloured stones and shells, and managed to get three skips while skimming stones. On the southern beach we found two fossil tree trunks, and I found a stone with what looks like a branch imprint. Here is a picture:

Thursday

On Thursday, our last day in Scotland, we went to Wemyss Caves, on the coast. These caves were used as a massive art gallery by the Picts (those Picts again – if you don’t remember what they are go back and have another look at Monday and do a memory test). Maybe ‘art gallery’ isn’t quite the right word – if you remember Time Team (who visited these caves) anything we don’t know the meaning of is ‘ritual’; this means dubious origin and either domestic or spiritual significance. Among the carvings are a boat, a horse, many of the Pictish symbols I mentioned earlier, and a possible Romano-British god. There is also the so-called ‘MacDuff’s castle’ which was actually built in the mediaeval period, after the time of MacDuff. If you remember the name, he’s the Thane of Fife who killed King Macbeth in Shakespeare’s tragedy. We then said goodbye to Granny and Grandad and set off down the motorway.

Friday

We spent a long day coming slowly down through Cumbria and the Lake District. This journey was largely examining the map and zipping around checking out stone circles and other features. Most prominent of these was the circle known as Long Meg and her Daughters, in which the story goes Long Meg was watching her daughters dance when a wizard popped up and cast a spell, turning all into stone. The wizard must have had an interesting time studying geology, as Long Meg is sedimentary sandstone and her daughters are igneous granite. Another henge we went to is Mayburgh henge, right next to the M6 and with a huge bank made of pebbles. There’s an enormous monolith (standing up block of stone) right in the centre, and we had lunch sitting on the bank opposite it!

We arrived Friday evening, and had a pizza to celebrate. And that’s all.

Except for the water leak…

Hey Blog! Today it’s all about a watery sport I do every week!

Swimming is an exercise, very enjoyable, useful training, and a key to higher sports such as sailing. It’s the oldest aquatic sport, though wasn’t considered a sport until very recently. Essential for all budding mariners, swimming is awesome!

What is swimming? Basically, swimming is moving through the water using your own body’s energy while in it. So doggy-paddle, front crawl, breast stroke, or any other style works – even if you’ve only just invented it! I started swimming in Barbados, which is an island in the Caribbean, so the beach is never very far away and the water is warmer – ideal conditions for wanting to swim! I apparently didn’t like putting my head under water when I first swam, but I was only three at the time.

After leaving Barbados, we lived in Ghana, west Africa, for a year, but we didn’t swim in the sea as, unlike Barbados, the sea was dirty. Swimming lessons did not continue very long, so the next time I was part of a proper swimming group was in Derbyshire, where I live now. I go to the Arc, Matlock, and am currently learning with the best teacher I have met there. If you go or have gone swimming, you’ll probably remember there are several stages in this country. I started in Swim England Stage Four, and am now in Stage Nine/Ten. This is partly because I was seven when I started here, and am now twelve, which both enhances my strength for kicking and pulling, and also means larger lungs, so I can go underwater for longer.

My favourite stroke is and was always breast stroke (the frog-kick stroke) but I have got far better in back crawl and front crawl. The latter was my least favourite stroke but is not anymore, partly because I tried out flippers (the best swimming invention EVER) and partly because I learnt butterfly (in my opinion the worst stroke ever). My bag (Details of making in post ‘The Great Bailey Sewing Bee’) shows how many awards I have done and shows my journey from shallow to deep water:

Though pool swimming is good to learn with, it’s not what I’m aiming at. Nor, probably, is the Olympics. More like going back to the Caribbean, where the journey started, and go and dive off my favourite catamaran – Cool Runnings*!

*Cool Runnings Barbados – I totaly recomend them if ever visiting the isle! Website https://www.coolrunningsbarbados.com/ .

Hey Blog! Last week I went to see a performance by a theatre company of good pedigree – the Chamberlain’s men!

Wednesday evening was interesting. We went straight out as soon as Dad came in, waiting only to pack the picnic, and drove to Chatsworth house, north of Rowsley. This is where I went to see the sculptures in July (see Splendid sculptures, super-sized breakfasts, and spectacular Chatsworth! for more on this). It was the country house of Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, and is now in the ownership of the Dukes of Devonshire. Posh stuff. But this performance wasn’t indoors, it was outdoor theatre – apart from a bit of interactive outdoor theatre, the first I’ve ever been to! It was just getting towards dusk when we started our picnic tea – and then the play began!

What do you see when you hear the word Shakespeare? A stage full of actors, some scenery, a dagger and a basket of roses? Something like that! The Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare wrote his plays for his company, The Chamberlain’s Men. At that time, all parts were played, or acted, by men, or boys for the female roles. The most valuable things the acting company possessed were the costumes, and the scripts, which were tailored for the players of the company, though could be played by others if they suited. Some of Shakespeare’s most famous works are the Tragedies Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and the Comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though he wrote Histories too. Queen ElizabethⅠpreferred The Chamberlain’s Men above all other theatre companies, and her successor JamesⅠbrought them under his patronage and they became known as The King’s Men. The modern ‘Chamberlain’s Men’ take their name from this ancient theatre company, though, unlike their predecessors, they have a website: https://tlcm.co.uk.

The play we saw was As You Like It. This is a comedy, about three rivalling sons, a banished duke, his daughter, her best friend, and the fool, with – typical for a Shakespeare comedy – a generous dollop of love. It is from this play that the famous line, “All the world’s a stage, and men and women merely players,” (© William Shakespeare, 1600s – did they have copyright back then?!) comes from, referring to the philosophy of life. It is also this play in which the song ‘It was a lover and his lass’ first appeared. There are only seven actors in the company so there was a lot of costume changing – made even harder by the fact that the main female character masquerades as a boy during it! It was a truly magical experience, with the sun setting over the house, and sitting on your own chair like people would have done when the company went on tour from the Globe, listening to Shakespeare’s words. I have had the recommendation that if you read nothing in your whole life but The Complete Works of Shakespeare you would still be an educated man, so it’s obviously worth watching Shakespeare!

I follow in his footsteps too. Shakespeare was an actor in the company he wrote for, and I am also in a drama group, though I haven’t written any plays for it yet! We’re going to do some ‘Shakespeare shorts’ in the autumn, so long as covid doesn’t stomp on our plans… I think it’s worth watching Shakespeare, the most famous playwright in the English language, and possibly the world, to learn and feel the four-hundred years between us shrink to nothing, a bridge over which we can see and hear.

Hey Blog! On Monday I visited Cresswell Crags to do an ancient form of art and survival technique I’ve wanted to do for as long as I have been interested in archaeology!

Before I go on about what I did at Creswell, I said last week that I would give you the latest news about the bronze axes this week. Well…

They both worked perfectly! The first one to be taken out was solid, as in it had no hole where it could be secured to the haft, therefore only needed a two-part mould and was easier to make. The second, a socketed axe, where the haft is in a socket in the axe head, needs a three-part mould (both outside sides and the inside) to create the hollow in the middle. This is far more tricky! But AncientCraft obviously knew what they were doing, as they both came out looking bright golden brown.

This week on Monday I went up to Cresswell Crags. This was, in the Ice Age (Lower Palaeolithic) and slightly later into the Upper Palaeolithic, an important site for hunter-gatherers of the time, who took shelter in the gorge which it is situated in. The caves are of international importance for their rock art, which includes a stag, an ibis, and many other animals, though, of course, we can’t say exactly what the artists meant by them! However, we were not going inside the caves, but staying in the visitors’ centre where AncientCraft was doing the workshop I was attending.

I suppose I had better tell you about AncientCraft. It is a business founded by Dr. James Dilley in 2009 dedicated to educating people about their prehistoric connections. They run workshops for children and adults in flint knapping and bronze casting, all over the UK. The website is https://www.ancientcraft.co.uk/ where you can find out about all that they do and buy replica finds. These are not exact copies as the flint or bronze they are made from will be different, but the techniques they are made by will be the same. Or, you could make your own – like I did!

The workshop I was doing was a children’s introduction to flint knapping, making a few bits and pieces like scrapers and blade flakes. To knap, you simply get a large chunk of flint, a nodule, and then take a stone and split it. When you have a piece that is flattish on one side and convex on the other, you turn it so the flattish face is facing up, tilt it slightly down, take a pebble (beach pebble works well) and hit the flint flake about a centimetre from the edge. You should get a small flake of flint to come off. If you want your flake to look nice and flinty, use an antler’s base to hit the very edge of the large flake. This removes a long flake which goes far into the convex side, which should remove the cortex, the white outer bit. I don’t live in an area where there are many bits of flint (in fact there are none, except for the imported garden chippings!) so I’ve never been able to knap much. However, this workshop made a change! My best piece, a scraper, is pictured below.

Flint knapping is an ancient skill developed before the first Homo Sapiens ever stood on the planet.  The oldest indirect evidence of stone tools is in Ethiopia, 3 and a half million years ago. If you’re surprised that’s earlier than humans, then welcome to the club! To put it in perspective, if the history of the universe was a 90 minute soccer match, we humans would only have been playing for a quarter of a second…! Flint tools, however, would have been on the pitch a little longer, but not much.

I think flint knapping is a truly timeless thing to do, as no one can remember its start and it is still being done. Yes, doctors occasionally use flint as it is completely sterile, and can be made sharper than surgical stainless steel can be! Not to mention the many craftsmen, re-enactment groups and experimental archaeologists who are forever whacking rocks with other rocks or antlers to make precisely worked, beautiful and extremely sharp tools, which also have a mystic, old-time feel of spiritual rocks. This feeling dates back to the age when having a few pebbles and a flint nodule, plus knowing how to use them, could save your life, and it is this feeling I think which inspired me to want to start knapping. Now I’ve done quite a bit, I want to keep going even more, and make some truly sharp, spectacular, and smashing stones!