Moon Wobbles

Maybe I should have been thinking about the Mercury Retrograde post-shadow phase  as I filled up my car this morning in preparation for my trip to Wiltshire.  Not to mention the intensity of all the Cardinal energies in the air.  Plus the moon wobble.  Yes, full moon wobbling in Wiltshire where they are expert in all things lunar.   

Instead I was wondering what colour exactly my nice new top is.  Then, after an altercation with pump number 7, I realised it was petrol blue.  

Over at Semington, Dru was on the phone.  While I waited for her to finish, I sat in a field and wondered what shade exactly you call green wheat turning gold.  

  

Then it was off to Pewsey so Dru could drop some of her art off in the gallery there.  On the way we passed the Alton Barnes white horse.  

I've a mind to tick off all the Wiltshire White Horses over the next few years, but it doesn't feel like today's sighting counted somehow.  Driving past at a distance won't do.  It has to be done on foot and up close.  

In the Pewsey Heritage Centre, Dru got all misty-eyed over engines, lawn mowers, surveying chains, etc.  This did it for me. 

Then it was back to Trowbridge Museum to meet up with potter, artist and needle-felter Jan Lane for a visit to her exhibition, Mockingbird.  Except that when we got there, it was closed.  Damn you, Mercury Retrograde post-shadow phase and moon wobble!  

A phone call later, Jan had ascertained that it was only closed because a volunteer had omitted to turn up and we gained entry anyway.  

Not for nothing is Trowbridge dubbed 'the Manchester of the South' - well, it is in Trowbridge, anyhow - and the museum is housed in one of the town's former mills.   


Jan's exhibition is in part inspired by the textiles in the museum's collection. 

Her trademark quirky birds are very much in evidence, and soon to be joined by the two who nest in my house, Leonardo the magpie and Murdo McLeod, who is a crow.  

Other inspirations are fossils from the collection of Rev George Crabbe, poet, surgeon and clergyman, who spent the last two decades of his life in Trowbridge.  

Look closer at this owl's head - it's patterned with ammonites.  

Mockingbird is on until 27th September so there's still plenty of time to get along there if you can.  

More of Jan Lane's work - including her wonderful felted creations - can been seen here and the blog of the exhibition here.

  

Three Women - and a Man - and a Dog - in a Boat

Going to see Dru in her new home reminded me of the time we went mulberry picking - how she could walk straight up the (slanty) trunk of the tree while I climbed cumbersomely, scaredly, not liking the thin air on either side of each branch. 

Because she's already trotting along impossibly narrow ledges while I peer at my feet, trying to work out where the canal bank ends and the silty reed edge starts. 

As soon as we arrived in darkest Wiltshire - that's me, Ted, Dru's House Teenager (whom I suppose must now be called Houseboat Teenager), and my own Son the Younger who has less than a fortnight of teenagerhood remaining to him - there was stuff to be done.  Like returning a narrowboat that had slipped its moorings to the bank.  

Time for a quick glance at NB Eve, Dru's new abode ... 

... before we had to get the boat facing the opposite direction, which meant going through a lock to reach the turning point and then coming back the same way.  Poor Dru, her crew had no idea what they were doing. Can only  hope to get better with practice.  

'What's that funny squeaky noise?' worried Dru as the water level fell, taking the narrowboat with it. 'It's OK, it's only Ted,' I said.  

By the time Dru had turned Eve and we'd come back through the lock the other way, Ted was an old paw and coping with equanimity.  

And Dru was looking to the manner born.  

Once we'd moored again, it was time ... 

... for tea and cold cross buns.  

And to watch the first swallows of summer buzzing the water for insects.  (Well, my first; Dru had spotted them the day before.)

Then we walked the two and a half miles along the tow path to the Barge Inn at Seend, with its flocks of rooks and jackdaws ...   

... its pussy willow and massed blackthorn ... 

... the remnants of the GHQ Stop Line which I didn't know about till Dru told me ... 

... a gnarly old ash tree, with an old, mud-lined nest from last year in it ...

... and built and rebuilt bridges.

Plus more rooks to go with our cider.