Named storm Bert arrived overnight on Friday 22nd, and by the time rain eased off 36 hours later, we’d had 103 mm of rainfall.Fortunately, I’d done preparatory work on our access track, clearing out chevron channels and the central main ditch, but even so, problems arose because the land drain we’d installed under the track as one enters the yard had become blocked. Something that’s never happened in 25 years, causing the massive spring outflow which always emerges from beneath the barn after anything above 34 mm in 24 hours, to end up running down the track instead.

I spotted this quite quickly on Saturday afternoon just after the spring had begun to flow, and did some emergency channel-clearing. But overnight on Saturday the stronger winds and dislodged leaf and twig debris blocked the central channel in a couple of places. A couple of hours of work was needed in the light rain today to begin to sort these issues out, and shift the accumulated leaves. Again. At least using drain rods on the land drain was more benign and satisfying than their more usual role in sorting out blocked pipes leading to the septic tank. To come up against an obvious obstacle, and eventually achieve a break through at the very limit of the rod’s reach, and be showered in a gush of quickly clearing water was really satisfying. Before a couple of sessions with the Goldoni shifting scalpings to fill in the gouged rivulets on the steep section of our track.

Country life, anyone? (From the excellent ‘Roots- Best of’ Show of Hands‘ compilation, double CD – if you can find a secondhand copy, or indeed download it, which I gather is how most now source their music).

‘Bert’ probably ranks as the heaviest 36 hour rainfall event we’ve ever experienced, and highlights just how horrendous the 500 mm of rain which fell in 24 hours near Valencia just 3 weeks ago would be for any landscape.

However, up until Bert blew in, November had been an unusually benign and dry month. Despite often gloomy skies early on, we’ve still enjoyed more fabulous sunrises, and even the occasional sunset, than ever before. Or at least than I can remember in recent Novembers. Always a special delight of life here. And which compensates for some of the inconveniences – the latest being an estimated time for repair of our EE internet and phone mast now pushed back to February – we assume that’s 2025, though we’ll wait and see. Starlink beckons us. Country life, anyone?

Yes, certainly.

A sudden change from relatively warm air to an Arctic blast with Northerly winds, for 3 days earlier this week, saw sharp frosts, sleet, snow and hail. I’d remembered about covering up external standpipes, but forgot about our lovely glazed terracotta bird bath impressed with the opening words from William Blake’s wonderful poem, ‘Auguries of Innocence’

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

The poem continues at length, and presents, (according to this AI English literature analysis on All Poetry):  “a series of interconnected ideas about the natural and human worlds, the consequences of cruelty and injustice, and the importance of faith and innocence.”

We’re already onto our third identical design birdbath. We, and more importantly, the birds, love it, but the last one only lasted a few months after minus 8 temperatures shattered the outer terracotta rim with Blake’s impressed words. (Oops – forgot to bring it in again last night – below). Wanting to avoid a repeat, I nipped out at about 8 pm to bring the latest one inside. Already a sheet of firm ice had formed, but I plonked it on the kitchen counter, noticing as I did, that the ice had extended to completely cover the outer unglazed terracotta rim – albeit at very shallow depth.

Half an hour later I prodded the ice, and discovered that the whole sheet could be rotated, having melted sufficiently in that short time frame. Which gave me an idea. Carefully sliding finger nails beneath the icy rim, I could lift the whole disc off the bath and carry it, intact, back out to the table. What was even better was that the thin outer ice rim was sufficiently narrow and strong to allow me to slot it in between slats on the wooden table top. Holding it as vertical as I could, it only took a couple of minutes for the disc to become frozen and fixed in this vertical state. Which meant I could then try to photograph it.

But how to illuminate it? I thought our trusty CluLite torch would work, and whilst it did, the exposure times were still so long that I reckoned video might be better. But then discovered that although invisible to my eyes, as soon as I started recording, black bands began to scroll over the disc as I filmed, looking through the camera’s viewfinder, with a somewhat unnerving strobe like frequency – presumably a consequence of how LED light is actually produced by the diode.

Trial and error allowed me to position the torch light to the side of the disc and get some better clips where the flickering light could almost be imagined to be from a candle.

Repeating photography the next morning, with the disc still in place, gave me some alternative impressions.One of the things that struck me most was the number of tiny linear air bubbles trapped in the very thin peripheral ice corona. Why were they only there, and where indeed did the air come from?

Which in turn led me to muse on the different phases or states of matter – solid, liquid, gas, and what defines them. And indeed just how one considers any gas dissolved in a liquid (air in water in this case). It’s technically treated as a solute – just as dissolved sugar would be. But as the temperature of water reaches freezing point and ice crystals begin to form, the solubility of the gas rapidly reduces, so it’s forced out of solution.

In this case, probably because of the very particular specific details of the (shallow) water depth over the rim, the rapid freezing, and maybe even the relatively low mineral content of the rainfall water, the air was forced out and trapped in the way it was.

This image from a Nasa site gives a simple pictorial explanation of the three different phases of matter, as well as introducing me to the more recently recognised fourth phase – plasma. Which really only exists at very high temperatures, such as in the sun, when atomic matter breaks down into sub-atomic particles which can then behave in ways difficult to categorise as conventional liquids or gas.

All of which meant that as well as producing a short video, I spent much more time trying to produce a free-form poem. All from a fleeting, by chance observation of a rather special natural phenomenon. It took me a long time to select a piece of music to accompany the video, but in the end the piece chosen seemed suitably calm and contemplative. And indeed one we’d heard barely 6 weeks ago played by Anna Tsybuleva. Although after completing this YouTube, I discovered that there’s a considerable mystery over the slightly strange name of the pianist credited on Musopen. Who seems to be fictitious. Whoever really played the music, I think the tempo is wonderful, even if it meant I had to re-edit the clips to extend them by about 30%, to avoid finishing the music part way through.

(Please note there is a short clip early on illustrating the strobe like effect the camera registered, which wasn’t obvious to my naked eye.)

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Altered States 

Unseen, inanimate, dissolved until those laws of nature forced you out.
In the open trapped you, crystal-cast and caught beyond the torch-strobe beam
I could not see, yet camera glimpsed without a lie. Your secret’s bubble-blown.

Elemental air of heaven, sleet-sluiced, bird-washed
Your icy cell’s no cage, no mausoleum, mere temporary tomb.
My misty breath a clue – you will escape, once more invisible
When mid-day thaw sets in.

Phases of matter. Silent, strenuous triangle of form,
Clear Celsius line dictates their give-and-take
So energetically predictable and without end.

Thinking, dreaming, death – blurred mind blocks
As life slips sloppily back and forth – unguided states.
Few joules are asked for, sucked or spewed
Until that final chilling and entropic end.

A Space X grab. Will MAHA fly? Trump or Musk may shift the dial.
While farmers fight and tweeters fret. Starmer, Farage? Strange hands
To guide these drifting, altered states.

While gaslit, blind joined atoms dread the ice-cold trap, the mythic frog’s
Benign slow warmth, ‘til boiled, then vaporised release,
Into, who knows, that fourth red plasma fire.

23/11/2024

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During one of the lovely dry and sunny periods earlier in the month, we had a few special moments within a 24 hour period, which I’ve called November novelties:

• Our first daffodil flower emerged, on November 11th.
• I’m really not sure whether this is a single bulb of Narcissus ‘Rjinveld’s Early Sensation’ which is flowering nearly 6 weeks earlier than it’s managed before. Or possibly a seedling flowering for the first time. If so, perhaps it should be called ‘Remembrance’? I think I moved some bulbs around in this front border last spring, and usually find that moved daffodils then tend to flower a little earlier than normal. But 6 weeks?
• A honey bee collecting the sticky resin from Sorbus sargentiana buds to make propolis to make some final draught proofing of the hives in time for winter proper. I’ve known for a long time about the critical role that propolis has – not only for sealing the hive, but also because of its antimicrobial and antifungal properties. (There’s a good simple Cartoon YouTube on the above link explaining its role). But I’ve never actually photographed a bee collecting it before. The video is a little shaky, because I was craned looking nearly vertically to the top buds on the tree, You really struggled to see the bee until it flew on to another bud.
• A family of long-tailed tits descended on a white-barked silver birch at dusk as I sat on our muse stone waiting to watch the sunset through the yew windows. Again difficult to capture photographically in low light, and silhouetted like the few remaining leaves.
• Then a nuthatch flew straight towards me across the croquet lawn with a hazelnut in its beak, and spent ages trying to hammer it into a hole in our old oak tree before giving up. I’ve often seen and heard this behaviour at a distance but never managed to film it before.
• A last resting place for an elderly bumblebee inside a late Geranium flower. It was still there in the morning, and I assumed it was dead, until I spotted a tiny bit of movement. I’ve often seen dead old bumblebees inside flowers ( or at least I’ve assumed they were all dead!), but never so late in the year.
• And finally, a small, strangely coloured cloud which I spotted as I sat outside in my night clothes, watching dawn. There were other similar sized clouds in this zone of the sky, but this was the only one that coloured up in this striking way. Five minutes, and the effect was over and it looked once more just like all the others.

That’s not bad for the usually gloomiest month of the year.

 

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Last time I mentioned my idea for an A.g.o.g. (culture club) gig. I can report that the event happened, seemed to be enjoyed by all, and another gathering has been planned for next month. Although due to dark nights and iffy weather we’re switching to a pre-lunch start time, with a soup and bread meal, rather than the pizza and crumble. The concept worked well. A quick introduction from all the participants, then after a dice roll to choose running order, the simple five minute sand timer got turned over in relaxed fashion a few times, which seemed to allow everyone a fair session. As a bonus, Mark and Phil brought their guitars and played a few short classical tunes.

And what of the very loosely described ‘cultural’ topics discussed. Since it was pivotal to the idea occurring to me, and since we were close to armistice day for the first meeting, I shared a couple of short videos after talking about my discovery of Steve Knightley and Show of Hands recently. Here’s a short clip of the incredibly moving story and images of the “Shrouds of the Somme” – 19,240 handmade figures laboriously created by the artist to reflect the number of fatalities on the first day of that battle. Expanded later in a different display to over 72,000 shrouds packed in a 40 metre trench to represent all the men who died and whose bodies were never recovered.

And this is the song that Knightley wrote and performed in Exeter cathedral, as part of his own commemorative input to an event to remember the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. His own grandfather was involved in the battle.

Other contributions included Andy’s review of a recently completed book by Robert Verkaik: The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’s Greatest Betrayal and the Moment That Changed History Forever. A deep dive into the background to the ultimately disastrous ‘Operation Market Garden’ to seize the bridges at Arnhem and Nijmigen and potentially accelerate the end of World War II. This interview with the book’s author explores the possible role of British, Dutch, German and Russian spies, in particular Dutchman Christain Lindemanns and Britain’s own Cambridge spy ring of Blunt, Philby, Burgess, Mclean and Cairncross. Some of whom were more than double agents.

We also had some guitar duets played by Mark and Phil, who highlighted the background to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ most famous composition ‘Farewell to Stromness’, from his ‘Yellow Cake Review’. With some extra information on the composer, and how the piece was composed as part of a project to object to a planned Uranium mine on Orkney (which fortunately never went ahead). And how this short piano piece was nearly instantly transcribed for classical guitar by an Australian guitarist who was present at the premiere.

I knew this short piano piece already, (piano performance above and YT by Peter Fagerlind) but later found this YouTube of that guitarist Timothy Walker playing his own version. As well as an enlightening 1962 BBC documentary that Phil mentioned with archive footage demonstrating the great differences between a young Maxwell Davies, and his contemporary Dudley Moore!

Finally, Mark filled us in on his journeys into Virtual Reality with a ‘Meta’ head set and in particular the ‘Meta Marine-Verse’ which allows potential sailors to both learn how to sail a dinghy, and also to race competitively against others. Mark already sails so has great insight into how realistic the experience is – apparently very. Which is demonstrated, but only in 2D (!) on this link.

Mark also delved into some of its pitfalls and how one can get sucked into add-on extras and communications with the clever guys behind such technology who are keen to keep you involved for as long as possible. Mark reckoned that after about 20 minutes, his brain had had enough of this virtual world and needed a break, and return to actual reality – or at least what we assume it to be.

All in all a diverse forum discussion, and a great way to spend an evening. Many thanks to Mark, Phil and Andy for being willing guinea pigs, and for their contributions. I’m already planning my next mini presentation, and looking forward with COMPLETE uncertainty, to what I’m going to see and hear!