Horses on Horfield Common (again)

Every now and then I fall down a rabbit hole into the past, sometimes more than once. 

All these years later I remember what a treat it was to spot horses on Horfield Common just before Christmas in 2011, and last Friday there was an echo of that visitation when I saw more horse-drawn vans making camp on the common, alongside the rather more mundane motorised vans, caravans and camper vans that line Kellaway Avenue in these days of scant social housing. 

I was on my way to the reading by Alice Oswald and Kim Moore in town, so couldn't stop for a closer look, and since I was due to drive to Oxford the next day to take Son the Elder to a roboteering event, I concluded, sadly, that I probably wouldn't get a closer look at them. But in the morning, as luck would - or wouldn't - have it, my car started making disconcerting juddering noises before we'd even got as far as the M4, which meant the trip was off, and having driven it rather gingerly  to our garage in Redland, my walk home took me straight past the Common and the new camp there. 

Important, I feel, not to romanticise hard lives; nevertheless, both I and the little girl who used to hang around outside the blacksmiths at the bottom of nearby Bishop Road in the 1960s in the hope of seeing a horse in need of shoeing (but never did), felt all kinds of happy to see horses grazing the common. 

The 2017 Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month Art Exhibition, Bath

A scramble to Bath yesterday for the last day of the exhibition in Walcot Street marking Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, where we met up with Dru Marland, one of the artists exhibiting and on a flying visit from Hungerford, where NB Eve is currently moored. 

There was a lot of work on display from people living on the Kennet and Avon. These beautiful moths, from Chris and Jinny of Skyravenwolf, for example. 

I really loved this imaginary map of Wiltshire, called Myth, merriment, memories and murder by Emily Drake - a fascinating mixture of history, politics, personal experience, folklore and quirk, and I could have looked at it for ages. 

The Avebury wishing tree, chalk horses, the devilish origins of Silbury Hill ...

... the Battle of the Beanfield ...

... poltergeists and ghosts, pets (RIP Beamish) and playground games, the magic roundabout (driving test nightmare), police officers Just Obeying Orders ... 

... witchcraft (frog up a chimney in a little leather patch) in the White Lion Inn in Malmsbury, and the death by tiger of Hannah Twynnoy ... 

... Stonehenge, leporidine shapeshifting and Barbury Castle. 

Dru's latest edition of her map of the West End of the K&A canal is selling well. Maybe she'll produce a middling section after her jaunt to Hungerford. 

There were two excellent collections of photos of travelling life too, and some short films showing in the basement. I was particularly fascinated by the story of Dave Sanger of Sanger's Stage Show.  And you can see it too.

Even old biddies have technology these days.

We then repaired for lunch two doors down in Made by Ben. Luckily, none of these items featured on the menu. 

Holloway by Stanley Donwood

Summer Solstice in Bath, Bathampton and Bradford-on-Avon

I've always been a bit ambivalent about Bath. I suspect this dates from when I was 11 and found myself confessing to the well-to-do mother of a schoolmate that I'd only been there once before, on a school trip to visit the Roman Baths.  Given its proximity to Bristol, my cultural ignorance appalled her.  She also corrected my vernacular pronunciation (Baath) to the far more acceptable 'Bahth'. (They do like their blood sports, the middle classes, and a working class girl new to grammar school was clearly fair game.) 

The one area of Bath I do like is Walcot Street, although these days the same corporate mindset that has rebranded Bristol's Counts Louse as 'City Hall' and parts of the centre of town as 'Old City' calls this area of Bath 'The Artisans' Quarter'. And it has gone up in the world - look, here's a Bentley that's so posh it's allowed to park on double yellow lines. 

There's some good art, though, too, like this holloway by Stanley Donwood, who worked with Robert Macfarlane and Dan Richards to produce a book called ... erm ... 'Holloway'. I particularly like the interaction of the creeper and the road sign.   

I was there for something else, however - an exhibition in Walcot Chapel, a former mortuary chapel which dates from the 1790s.

Architecturally not really my cup of tea, but inside a beautifully austere space. 

The exhibition was part of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, and featured interviews, family photographs and written memoirs.  I was especially intrigued by a photograph of a family wedding in 1917, with the groom and one of the young male family members in uniform.  The guest had a patch over his eye, presumably injured in action and home on leave.  I also learnt that they started to breed coloured horses (skewbald) during the first world war because the military would conscript black and bay horses.  

Also exhibited were paintings and sculptures by travellers and members of the local boating community ... 

... including Dru Marland, who had produced a series of beautiful paintings of her friends and neighbours on the cut. 

For close-ups, see Dru's Flickr stream.

The graveyard was interesting too, with a large proportion of plain headstones, though I did spot these cherubs. 

I always wonder what stories lie behind the blank half of a stone. 

We made our way to the canal at Bathampton for a cup of peppermint tea on NB Eve.  Then, while Hazel had a lesson from Dru in how best to paint lichen, Pameli and I took our dodgy limbs (hip replacement and ankle ORIF respectively) along the Kennet & Avon canal for a therapeutic stroll. 

A glimpse of Brown's Folly in Sally in the Wood. 

Then it was on to Bradford-on-Avon and a sandwich in The Swan, followed by Words and Ears, where I was guest reader, courtesy of Dawn Gorman.  Such a treat to spend time listening to so many talented local poets, in such a calm and sunny setting - a distinct difference from the last time I read there on a summer solstice, which was memorable for quite different reasons!

I drove home with the very last of the light feeling lucky indeed. 

Horses on Horfield Common ...

  
These made the child in me, who is still in love with the Romani wagon in Bristol City Museum (below), very happy.  

I've resolved not fret over how, when I told them that I had asked my cousin to make me a proper Romani wagon bed with curtains in my future forever home, a second cousin AND my neighbour (and erstwhile friend) both claimed that I would be too old and arthritic to change the sheets.




Instead, I shall reflect on that lovely etching 'The Plough' by Robin Tanner, forbearing to mention that for years I puzzled over why it was so titled when everyone can see it's a picture of a vardo ...