Welcome to THE VIEW FROM RHOS HILL ! I'm Ninahare and I live at Rhos Hill in West Wales with Jim. We are Ovates in OBOD, dedicated to the land and to their myths. I invite you to share our spiritual journeys through the practice of British shamanism and the sacred path of ritual. I dedicate this blog to the land and all its creatures and invite you in to share their wonders.
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Wednesday
The Great Radio Debate
Saturday
MId May
We took a bit of time out to go and visit cousins Enid and Nicky and Tim in Dorset, and Barbara in Hampshire. Joan, Barbara's sister had too bad a cold to join us, so hope you get well soon, Joan.
We travelled from a lovely day in Dorset to Hampshire, staying overnight in Thruxton, just outside Andover in a lovely thatched cottage. The following day, Barbara took us to a gastropub, where we could feast on anything from wild boar to venison. Actually, I had the veggie option and it tasted truly wonderful.
It was nice to be back, though. We've had a lovely month so far...we've escaped the worst of the UK rainfall (yes - believe me!) anyway, we just get on with things. Now the chicken house is up, Jim is finally erecting his greenhouse. So far, it looks professional, good on the eye and sturdy...all it needs is glass(!)
I've been adding to the beds in the field, extending the flower beds as well as working on the veggies. We've now got three big beds; potatoes in the newest; onions, leeks and carrots in the next and legumes in the third. Up until now, we have not done well with legumes. Broad beans seem to struggle wherever we plant them, and the runners Jim put in the polytunnel to grow up into seedlings have all been eaten...or maybe the seed we used was just out of date. The French beans are doing fine, almost ready for transplantation, though. I have dug two smaller beds (more manageable) this year; the first is a variety of things including lettuce, beetroot and parsnips. The second is brassicas...I'm particularly proud of Jim's Brussell sprouts, grown from seed and now sturdy plants. If anyone round our way would like some BS plants, just come and collect.
When Mark Webb, our butcher from Rhydlewis, pulls up on a Saturday morning, hooting his van like some boy-racer, I try to chose meats that will compliment what we've got in the garden. We are still eating out of the garden, even though this is supposed to be the lean time...a 'garden in waiting'. In the polytunnel we have early spinach and salad veg - in the garden last year's spring greens are now hearty and delicious and there is one remaining row of purple sprouting broccoli from last year which will make a couple more meals. Tonight, I'm cooking Mark's chicken breasts with spinach (and spuds and carrots are from the farmers' market in Newcastle Emlyn), and tomorrow we've got an oyster cut of beef so I think a bit of the spring greens will go well. What I'm really waiting for with anticipation are the polytunnel early peas; they are already fattening in the pods and maybe they'll be ready to eat by the time we get back from Mark's party - Becki's partner will be 30 years young at the end of this month and Mark and Becki are flying in from Antibes for the ocassion. We're going down to Shoreham on Sea to celebrate with them all.
Meanwhile, we have our first floor in the extension; the utility room has been tiled with gorgeous shiny (but non-slip) ivory coloured tiles and we're delighted with the result.
Out in the garden early yesterday while putting the washing on the line, I heard my first cuckoo since we moved here...and my first cuckoo for about seven years, actually. He soon flew away out of earshot, but it was a great moment. We have dunnocks in our garden, so I must warn them to keep a weather-eye out for Rather Oversized Eggs in their nests. And an owl has started hooting just before it becomes dusk each evening, another lovely country sound.
Sunday
May at last
Sunset over Rhos Hill |
Over the week we've completed the chicken house and run. We chose a cute looking thing with a little ladder to an upstairs bedroom - foxproof we were hoping - but the construction isn't as good as we thought. It's a little bit flimsy and will need shoring up, probably. Anyway, there is time, we're not getting hens until the beginning of June.
On Saturday we went over to Jackie and John's in LLandybydder to help them build a stone circle. After all we're total masters of that art having one ourselves...ahem. John had found eight really good sized stones in his garden (in fact they were not the largest, just the largest he could move). We created the circle in the same style as the one at Rhos Hill - a stone in each quarter and a stone between - 8 stones in all - one for each point of the ritual year. Jackie also wanted an alter and had found a flat stone for that purpose, which we balanced on 3 white quartz stones. This process took us through lunch and afternoon tea, at which point the men lit a fire and Jackie began her ritual to bless her circle, her land and to welcome in the time of May. J&J's land is quite high and the view is incredible from every aspect; a 360degree panorama of hill, forest and field. It is a stunning location for a personal ritual circle, something I feel is important in my own life. I prefer to go out to my little circle and find more solace and power in it than even I do at stonehenge or Avebury. The ancient sacred sites are wonderful, full of mystery and awe inspiring, but I don't feel as if they belong to me, which indeed they don't. We will continue to discover ancient sites in our neck of Wales, just as we did moving round Britain, making pilgramages to all the famous ones, from Skara Brae to the Merry Maidens, but guess it must feel a little like visiting great cathedrals do to Christian pilgrims; a transformational experience, but not quite as comfortable as the little church in one's home town.
After the ritual at J&J's, we where physically and metally and spritually whacked, but John, bless him, still rustled up a chilli with jacket spuds, which was wonderful fodder for tired ritualist builders. We watched a film and sank into bliss until we finally dragged ourselves home. Thank you Jackie, John and Rowan of course, for an amazing day.
April 1st
Meanwhile, back on the ground, its time to get the spuds in!
march
Saturday
February
Esyllt is tougher than her photo suggests; although slight of figure and fairly quiet of voice, she packs a storytelling punch.
Wednesday
S'now problem here
But, someone had come and salted the roads. When our cars are in the layby, that does mean the bodywork gets salted too, but hey. At least we were able to get to our storytelling workshop.
Jim went out and started digging an area for his greenhouse. Was he mad? Wasn't the ground rock hard and freezing cold? Well, once the sun was out, apparently it wasn't bad going. Certainly, one little creature was grateful, the resident robin came and perched close by, waiting for anything that was turned up by his spade, including worms that were clearly above his punching weight!
Luckily, the snow melted quickly enough for our latest visitor (other than the robin, I mean) to arrive safely. Trudy had come to talk about some work she's doing on the landscape of Wales. She showed us the work she'd achieved so far, wowing us with its complexity.
As dusk fell the night she arrived, she asked if we could have a little drive about. We set off, not really knowing where we were headed, and suddenly the full moon came up over the horizon, a massive ball the colour of a rose quartz. We pulled in and got out of the car. The evening was almost entirely dark by that point, and the cold came down and made us shiver, but the moon seemed to warm us from above. We just gazed up at it from the edge of the road.
At this point we were only a mile or so from Llangrannog, so we took Trudy down the steep winding lane that leads to the village and the beach. The tide was full in, massive breakers were roaring onto the pebbles. The cliff loomed dark, and the moon hung overhead above all this. We took some water from the deep gushing freshwater stream that pours out of the earth to pour down into the sea. We used this two days later, when we held a little ritual in our garden. (See Pages - THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR AT RHOS HILL)
Friday
January is nearly over!
Can’t wait to sit in our new lounge....hopefully all the readers of this blog will join us at some point to sit there too.
Wednesday
January 11th
Rhos Hill snowdrops |
Jim's first buy was Ronald Hutton's Stations of the Sun; it's one of the few books by Ronald we've not read, and that was specifically because the font in the paperback was so tiny. This book moves through the seasons looking at traditions of the British Isles, and begins right now, at Christmas and the new year. It inspired us to Wassail our apple trees with apple juice. We paced around the chosen tree chanting the rhyme...Here's to the, old apple tree, Whence thou mayst bud and whence thou mayst blow! And whence though beat apples enow! Hats full! Caps full! bushel-bushel-sacks full, And my pockets full too! Wassail! Wassail! Wassail! We are hoping for a mammoth crop of apples after all that hard work.
Meanwhile the buiders are back and the extension keeps extending. The man for the windows came yesterday, bringing a sample of the oak windows he's going to fit, and planning is looking to reduce the roof size so that we can still look out of the landing window. It's looking exciting...just a bit cold and wet, without a roof or windows, but it grows ever day and we can't wait to get going on the inside...once there is one.
Tuesday
Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Worship : The Ness of Brodgar
Ten or more years ago, my imagination was captured by the mind-blowing discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, where the archaeological dig had unlocked some amazing secrets.
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk Investigating a prehistoric complex in the heart of Neolithic Orkney |
Archaeologists started uncovering this new discovery in a 2010 dig. Brick by brick, bone by bone, they are revealing a 5500-year-old temple complex with more than 100 buildings, surrounded by a 10ft wall. Some of this complex is possible more than 800 years earlier than Stonehenge and could be as, if not more, important than the Wiltshire site.
An artist's impression of what archeologists are uncovering |
The Ness of Brodgar, the thin spit of land where the dig is taking place, links two of the stone circles we saw when we were in Orkney. In the centre of the Stones of Stenness is a square defined by kerbstones. To the east side of the circle is a small ‘cove’ – three waist-high stones. I had no idea what these inclusions are, but then neither did the guide, pontificating to the little crowd of people he’d brought to the site. But he told them (I was lying on my back in the centre square at the time, looking up at the intense blue of the sky), that one night, unable to sleep, he’d come here in heavy mist. He’d got out of the car and become quite disorientated in the mist, not even able to see the stones until up close to them. But when he lay in the square in the centre and gazed up, the stars were clearly visible above him.
The Dig will go on, and every year amazing and exciting artefacts are revealed, and our understanding of early man widens. But excavation on this scale is expensive. Each season in the field costs over £100,000. You can donate here,
and find out more about the dig here