Give me sunshine

Yesterday, I picked my first bramble of the year. Purple-black amid the blush of ripening haws and hips, it signaled the end of summer. 

The swallows are gathering, twittering on the telephone lines.Their constant tweeting must be significant unlike that of their human counterparts. Are they reinforcing family bonds before their long flight south? 

The swifts would have gone by now if they had ever been - there have been no swifts around the village for years - but the swallows and, to a much lesser extent, the house martins still dominate the summer skies.
 Now, they perch on the wires, waiting for whatever sign it is that tells them the time has come, a trigger to their senses that says Go!   Every evening they congregate then one day...they're gone...every single one and summer is at an end.

Autumn approaches though its "close bosom friend, the maturing sun" has been conspicuous by his absence for most of the summer. Perhaps the poet's evocation will persuade him to give us an Indian summer. The apples and plums have cropped well, presumably swelled by the amount of rainwater falling on the roots.

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core

A little sun would help.

Thistledown and Rosebay willow herb seeds are blowing in the soft southerly winds, thousands of tiny parachutes, drifting in every open window.

Butterflies and dragon flies are still aplenty in the Rackhamesque woods near the little loch but they too, love the sun.

The weird shapes of the pollarded woods

All nature laughs in the sunshine.*

* Anne Bronte

What's in a name?

An atlas of the British Isles, indeed one of the world, has been a fruitful place for writers to find eccentric or comic names for characters...think of Wilde's Bunbury or Powell's Widmerpool.

On the return trip from Windermere (Blog 02/07/2015 ), we diverted off the M6 to take the old and, in its wintry past, notorious, route over Shap Fell. The village of Shap has Neolithic stone circles and a medieval Premonstratensian abbey to catch the attention of the wandering gangril.

Shap Abbey

 The weather was pleasant and we made our way north by minor roads.

Sign posts are always a source of interest to the stravaiger ( Blog 09/12/2014) and we met with a few that started a game of names and stories.

Heaning Mislet

" Oh yes, there have always been Heanings in our family. I believe it's an old Anglo-Saxon name.

I mean. we call him John...that's his middle name but we christened him Heaning.. family tradition and all that.... and Uncle Heaning is a widower and hasn't any immediate family....

Crosby Ravensworth and Rosgill Bampton have been friends and allies since they were in the same house at their minor public school.  They have been involved in several unsuccessful business ventures.
Their latest scheme is selling time shares in a naturist colony which is being developed by their Scandinavian contact Keld Thornship.

 Briscoe Hill  had a career as rally driver for several motor manufacturers. An unfortunate series of accidents prevented him from realising his potential and he eventually retired to become the motoring correspondent of a national daily newspaper.

Closer to home, we came across Thornton Crowhill who, we discovered, was an amateur archaeologist in the early twentieth century. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun overshadowed his contributions to Egyptology and he returned, disappointed, to the family estate to breed dogs and paint water colours.

On a trip north we passed...

Fintry - Douglas and Angus

A piano and accordion duo who had a long career as a support act to Scottish music hall stars in the forties and fifties. As variety succumbed to television, they continued to appear on the "nostalgia circuits" in Canada and Australasia. They retired to their birthplace in Fife but still gave the occasional charity performance well into their seventies.

(The compendium of Scottish variety performers)

Go on... have a go. It is fun and you can meet such fascinating people.