Autumnsong: 2 of 2

I went home to Norfolk for Bonfire Night, and spent it at the house of someone I had never met before! An employer of a friend of my parents'.  Somehow, and I'm not sure how, within ten minutes of arriving I found myself in a garage containing half a dozen classic American cars from the 1950-70s.  They belonged to this man, and every year he goes back to America to hunt down new projects and buy the authentic parts which are used to repair them.  I'll freely admit to knowing very little about classic cars, but I can tell a beautiful piece of design when I see one.

We spent maybe half an hour marvelling and discussing them, although I barely knew what to ask.  I would not have minded spending a bit more time with that little yellow Corvette though.  The sound when the cars were started up was pretty thunderous and terrific.

Eventually we did make it outside and enjoyed the fireworks.  All the guests were asked to contribute a firework, so it was quite a show including some of my favourites.  (Oh come on, everybody has a favourite!)  Here's one of them.

It reminded me of last year's Bonfire Night when a few friends and I, with no display to watch, decided to make our own from the living room.

After the fireworks were over the immense bonfire was lit and we all stood about it, simply talking about nothing in particular, although as time went on some of the topics became a bit more profound..  It's amazing the things that come out with a bonfire present, something about the agelessness of fire that brings bigger notions to the surface as well as the usual small talk.  Even if everyone had been silent, I'd still have enjoyed just watching the flames.  There's something about the beauty, threat and alien nature of fire that I've always found fascinating.

Autumnsong: 1 of 2

So it's that time of year again, the season burning itself out in a blaze of glory, darker nights closing in about us and nature closing up shop for the winter.  But still there are reasons to be out and about; it may be cold but there's been lots to see and do.

On the sunnier days I've still been canal walking, mainly to see how far I could get in a particular direction.  On the first week I set out north, towards Normanton-on-Soar.  It's a nice walk, you get out of town fast and the fields open up quickly.  There's a great feeling of space.  Even when you reach Normanton there's no way to cross the canal while you're in the village, so you walk past it on the other side.  There's a church there, encased in scaffold and looking less like a Norman tower and more like some strange platformed treehouse.  On the way home I stopped to talk to some fisherman and a couple of day-trippers working the lock below.

The next weekend I headed the other way, south to Barrow-upon-Soar.  It takes you a little longer to get out of Loughborough and Barrow represents a very finite end to that section of the walk, but there were some very interesting things along the way and a lot of adjoining paths you could wander off on.  I saw a line of narrow boats up against the side of a bridge, with the underside of the arches turned into their own back gardens, with hammocks, log piles, and even chicken enclosures. Also, I was accosted by a projectile-acorn-wielding squirrel.

A week or two later I did this walk again with friends... and at night.  It was cloudy so the light from the surrounding towns was diffused through the sky well enough for us to see by and we didn't even need torches.  After some debate we stuck to the path we knew, along the canal bank, although on the map we could see a couple of routes we could have taken.  The weather was cool but not cold and the company was very welcome.  I'd highly recommend it.

I've been busy!

Mainly making little Bible story videos for church.  They've been doing readings at the start of easch session from the book of Acts and to make them more interesting some of us have been asked to knock up some different ways of getting the story across.  My friend Amy did a few doodle-videos, shutting ourselves up with bag of Playmobil and a lot of felt tip pens for an hour or two and despite a distinct lack of useful software they seem to be going down rather well.

Acts, Chapter One:



Acts, Chapter Two:




Also have been doing a few snippets for a Bible Overview Course, basically a whistle-stop tour through the Bible, looking at the main themes, journeys and plotlines.  I was in the class last time and found it fascinating and hugely helpful - the Bible is a pretty hefty book and it can be easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what's going on and who everyone is- but this time I'm helping provide resources.  Currently we're on Abraham and Moses, so there's a lot of maps going an and also some cut-in-halfable animals that we're using to explain the concept of sacrifices in the ancient world.

Exodus: Part 1

Exodus: Part 2

Summary of the Life of Moses (teaching aid: no sound)

And on top of that I've been doing some sketches to illustrate a talk on the story of Ruth and Naomi.  It was great to read it again, now that I'm a bit older I see things in it I didn't see before.  It's not just a sweet story for kids, it deals with issues of pain, selflessness, poverty, work, being a foreigner and stranger in a new place, and there's a bit of a romance in there too!  Someone should really make a film of this.

I love the big hair I gave her.  After seeing Alex Kingston play River Song in the most recent seasons of Doctor Who, and the trailers of the upcoming Pixar film Brave with Princess Merida's gorgeous ginger curls I am all over big hair.  In retrospect I think I could have made it even bigger!

The Pumpkin Queen!

As a Christian I don't celebrate Hallowe'en... however, also as a Christian, I happen to follow a God who is very fond of parties!  (Don't believe me?  Find a Bible and check it out - the first recorded miracle of Jesus was to make some extra wine at a wedding that ran out.  Now that's the kind of miracle I think we'd all like to see more of :P)

To that end, I was helping out a party on Saturday for those that don't do Hallowe'en.  Lots of kids running about, sweets and goo everywhere, and at the end we had a Pumpkin Judging for those of us who had brought along a carved vegetable.  Now, I'd never carved a pumpkin before and possibly I got a little carried away on my first attempt,  This took me about an hour...

In the light: 

And in the dark

I didn't win the contest (there were kids playing!  Obviously we had to give the prize to one of them) but nevertheless I'm pretty proud.

On the make

So many birthdays right now!  I'm trying to make most of my presents and cards this year (partially for money reasons, but) mostly because the cards in the shops never seem quite cool enough, or say what I want them to say.  I find cards for boys are particularly difficult, as most cards seem to be aimed at women -let's be fair, we buy cards way more than men do- and our very decorative and girly tastes.  Lots of flowers, teddies, puppies etc, but the shelves for Man Cards are usually only a fifth as big and the options are pretty limited.  What if your brother/husband/boyfriend doesn't like golf/yachting/football/cars/beer/dirty jokes?  Mine don't.

All the Man Cards I like normally have a badge stuck to them with 'I AM 3 TODAY!' written on them.  I don't think I'm asking for the world, but this time round it seemed easier and far more personal to make a novelty card that my brother might actually chuckle at instead of giving him something generic.  Add to this fact that I was short on time and it had to be something pretty simply.  I ended up doing this...

I don't normally like collage much, but doing these big flat shapes was actually quite a good look, and saved on the hastle of trying to paint smoothly or smush a piece of card through a printer designed for copy paper!  And when you open the card Bats draws back his cloak to reveal...  A Cake!  Of course :)

Bolstered by that attempt I decided to get a bit weirder with the second card.  All I can do is promise you that this line makes complete sense if you knew the person I gave it to.

Let's be honest.  A Shakespearean badger would be quite difficult to beat in a battle of awesomeness.  You'd mention that you knew a good card trick, and then the badger would clear his throat and begin quoting Othello at you.

And here's one for a friend after a month's hard work towards her goal

I know these cards won't be winning prestigious art awards any time soon, but they were surprisingly fun to do for a girl who hates cutting out paper, and I liked the fact that they are cheesy and blatantly handmade.  It occurred to me that I could do a lot of cards like this.  I have a cheap set of animal cards that I lifted from somewhere and use for random notes and thank yous but they get a bit boring sometimes and the Frog gets used way more than the Orangutan ('cause really, what occasion do you have to give someone a card with an Orangutan on it?) but I can add things to them, cut out props or hats or captions of my own.  Much better!  

Rookfest

It's mid-October, and I am obsessed with Rooks.  They're everywhere right now, including my sketchbook!

Plus they have the best collective noun ever.  Crows may be a Mob, but Rooks are a Storytelling.  How's that for a name?

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled

I like things that are vast... but I also like things that are tiny and intricate in detail.

Last Saturday, after a weekend of cabin fever stuck in the office I went on a new walk.  I went to the canal and decided to see how far I could get in an hour... and I walked straight out of the town.  Past narrow boats, fishermen and locks in motion, past the bridges and, eventually, out into the middle of nowhere.  I reached the next village before my hour was up and I turned round.  As usual I took my camera and recorded what I saw, but my favourite picture wasn't one of my usual panoramics or skyscapes, but this one.  Click on the image to enlarge it.  It's worth it...

It's a tight-knit spiderweb, dew-jewelled under the shadow of a bush.  It almost doesn't look real to me, all those tiny drops lined up like that, only a little surface tension and the strength of a silken line I can barely see to stop them from falling.  I think it's amazing

Vision: Ely Cathedral

I want to tell you a story.

It begins with a woman named Ethelthryth (Etheldreda), who lived nearly fifteen hundred years ago in East Anglia.  As the daughter of the region's king (England was still four separate kingdoms back then) she was given unwillingly to a lesser king of the Fen region around Cambridge, and her husband gave her the land around what is now the town of Ely as a wedding gift.

When he died she was married again to secure an alliance with the young King of Northumbria.  Despite her status as a wife she was determined to retain her celibacy, and when her husband tried to pressure her into changing her mind she ran away to her lands at Ely.  The dangerous marshes and waterways of the Fens surrounded the land there all the way around, turning it into an island and defending it from attack far more effectively than walls or ramparts ever could.  Armies had been lost in the Fens, and her husband did not care to have her back so much that he was wiling to overcome such obstacles.  Ethelthryth settled in the small town of 600 people and began to build her dream, a monastery of which she became the abbess.  She lived there until the end of her days, on June 23rd in the year 679 AD.

Ethelthryth's vision continued to thrive for 200 years, becoming one of the most prosperous monasteries in the country.  Then the Saxons (Vikings) began to invade the British Isles from the eastern countries of what is now Norway and Denmark, in search of lands more fertile than their own and new wealth and homes for their people.  Due to the protection of the Fens Ely was late to fall but in 870 AD they penetrated the waterways and the town and monastery was destroyed.  It is generally believed that only one church survived, hanging on at the edge of a broken settlement, barely remembered.  In 970 the land in Ely was rebuilt as a new monastery, constructed over the foundations of Ethelthryth's original vision.  Someone must have remembered her, and what she had done, as  a shrine was built to her on the site of her great endeavour.

Another 200 years passed before Britain was invaded again, this time from the south.  The Normans (French) came across the Channel in their ships in the year 1066 AD and gained control of Ely, destroying the church again.  But they had a new idea.  Shortly after arriving, in 1109 AD they began to build, not a church but a cathedral.

The semi-circular arches built by the Normans

This was a task that was to take over 100 years, spanning at least three generations of builders and countless craftsmen, the passing of two architectural styles and one nearly disastrous collapse as the weight of the freshly built West Tower began to sink into the waterlogged land of the Fens.  This tower, at 215ft in height, would have been the tallest structure most of Ely's inhabitants had ever seen, dwarfing even the tallest of trees and earning the cathedral the title of 'Ship of the Fens' for that way that it's soaring height rose out over the flat expanses of the Fen marshes and was visible from miles away, guiding pilgrims to worship like a beacon across the sea.

In 1236 AD the main structure of the cathedral was finally completed, although new visionaries continued to add to and alter it over the years, including the addition of the Octagon 'Lantern Tower' an hundred years later. 

The nave from the west

Finally the cathedral was finished, although life continued around it.  The Tudor king Edward VI had it stripped of all its riches, its gold, sculptures, items of ceremony, and demanded that the head be knocked off every statue, the stained glass windows be smashed, and the gaudily painted plaster stripped from every wall, leaving only the cream-coloured sandstone behind.  Only faint remnants of these decorations remain today.

Each of these niches once held the statue of a saint

The cathedral at Ely continued to stand, little-used and in disrepair, through the Reformation, the English Civil War and various attempts to modernise it, all of which failed to bring it back into general popularity.  Then, in the early 1800s the Victorians took an interest in Ely cathedral and the first of three major renovations took place, replacing the glass, painting the Lantern and returning the building to something closer to its original splendour.  

The Victorian Angels painted on the inside of the lantern

The view down from the Lantern

And across.  Some of the angel panels can be drawn back,
allowing you to see across to the other side of the Lantern

Since then Ely cathedral has once again been a functioning place of worship, as well an astonishing historical resource if you're a nerd like me! It's is very much a part of modern life in the region as well as a link to the past, and it is the past that interests me the most.

I'd been wanting to visit it for ages so I made the most of my trip, climbing both the Octagon Tower and the West Tower, where I saw how the Romanesque semi-circular arches of the Saxon building style gave way to the pointed Gothic arches of later building.  I witnessed the shored-up spaces that support the weight of the West Tower from sinking once more into the marshes.  I found the pale stripped stone of the pillars painted with light from the coloured window panes.  I saw the etched markings of the stonemasons by which they kept their accounts of the stone riven into the hidden turns of the winding stairs, and read the more recent scrawls of schoolboys who are now long dead on the sides of the Lantern.  I walked the leaden roof and saw the distant glint of Cambridge, about 15 miles away across the Fens, marvelling at the bravery of the men who were willing to climb to a height that only birds and angels inhabited in order to complete this monument to the glory of God and the wealth of a king.  On the highest spires are the most beautiful carvings that would never be seen by anyone on the ground, only by the proud craftsmen and God in his heaven.  I found it astounding.

West Tower from the roof of the Octagon Tower

And the Octagon from the roof of the West

View from the West Tower, to the edges of Ely, and beyond

I found graffiti signed as early as 1906 on the outside of the Lantern.
The Kings School is the boys school next door to the cathedral that Henry VIII established.
It still exists today.

What struck me most is that throughout the Cathedral's history is this continuing story of vision.  It took vision for one fifth-century woman to imagine her monastery, a home for her and dozens like her.  Vision for her to run for her freedom and vision to build and lead a community on the Isle of Ely.
When her monastery was destroyed the memories of it sparked a new vision, of a continuation of the church that survived two invasions and then one hundred years of building through years of harvest and famine, and of war.
There was vision in the eyes of the architect as he drew up his plans, and in the hearts and minds of those who contributed their money and resources to the half-formed dream of what could stand on that island.
That vision had to be passed on from father to son, master to apprentice, each man putting his faith in the knowledge of something that had not yet come to pass, but that he saw growing on the distant horizon with every dawn.  Each man throwing himself into the task and pulling his weight, and then passing it to his successor to run the next leg of the race, instilling the same dreams in him.
It took vision for the Victorians too, to see what the dilapidated building had once been, and what it could become again.  To invigorate it with their own dreams of a glorious monument for the past and the future.  And we now do the same, not always with cathedrals, but with our love and our faith and our lives.

They built for a hundred years.  I can't imagine spending more than a few months on anything.  But I guess that's what a hope really is.  We imbue our beings with a vision of how things might one day be, and bend our work towards those far off dreams that may only come to pass when the world has turned, and we are long dead, and our sons and daughters finally see our visions bear fruit.

On the way home I was treated to an amazing sunset, like those that have been seen over the Fens for hundreds of years, and will be seen for hundreds of years after me.  Suddenly I felt very small, but strangely content with it all.