Z is for Zumbador

Zumbador was one of the words in the 'words beginning with Z' list I found on the internet.  The defninition gave it as a South American bird.  I researched it a little further and found that it seems to be Spanish for hummingbird.  And then I found this little film clip.  I love watching birds and if you have a minute or two do take a look.  It's happy-making.

Zumbador reminds me of the old West Country word  for a bumble bee 'dumbledore'. 

And then I started looking at videos of Zumba classes.  Wow. 

Now that does look like fun.  I love the music and there was a time when I could have moved like that.  Not so sure now.

So, we are at the end of our ABC.  It's been great, I've met some wonderful people and learned lots. 
Thanks everyone.

Patterns in Nature

Patterns in tree bark

I was intrigued to see these patches in tree bark because they reminded me of something.  It's almost like an aboriginal art.


A stripey branch

I've tried to find pictures on the web to illustrate what I mean, but I haven't found anything that comes close.  So I'm reverting to a photo of a hollow log coffin that I took at the British Museum a while back.  It does nothing to support my fancy that the tree bark looks like an aboriginal painting, but I like it anyway for the shapes and colour. 

Aboriginal Hollow Log Coffin at the British Museum

Which moves me on to another theory that I must research.  Artefacts like the hollow log coffins and other aboriginal works often remind me of European design in the 1950s and I wonder if that's when these works were being discovered and first valued as works of art.  I know so little about this subject.  What a wonderful world.  So much to find out.

An October Walk

Walking below Ashdown Copse looking towards Sidbury Hill

On a walk in mid October I can begin to feel the grey part of the year approaching.  There are little accent snatches of bluest harebell and deep purple/pink ragged robin still to be seen all jostled roughly by a strong wind blowing across the hillside.

And then there was this little flower. 

The Common Rock Rose

The hillside was simply covered with this plant although only a few flowers remained and I can only imagine what it must be like when out in full flower, so I have to be sure to go back.  It's a form of helianthemum.  I grow a strong red variety in my garden.  It clearly likes chalky soil a lot.

The tussocky hillside smothered in helianthemum plants

On the top of this hill was an ancient field system and a burial mound.  The mound had been dug into and turned into an observation post during World War II, like so many around here.  There was something a little creepy up there and I don't know whether it was just the turn of the year or my mood, or my sadness about the burial mound, or the grey sky.  A jay flew into the woodland, a very shy bird and I noticed how very silent is their flight.  Ghostly.

I was cheered up by a flock of long tailed tits rushing through the bushes looking for berries.  Hard to be melancholy when you see their dapper little bodies busying about and all vying for the best pickings.

'Y' is for Y

'Y' is for Y, another instalment in the ABC meme set up by An Accidental Knitter

Section of Y's sampler of what was called Plain Sewing

I first knew Y when I was a little girl.  Her name was Ynona, but she was always known as Y.  Born in 1916 she was educated in a Belgian convent.  She struggled through her sampler at the convent, having little interest in needlework and it always reminds me of a sampler described by Rozsika Parker in 'The Subversive Stitch'.  In contrast to other seventeenth century samplers with verses about love and duty, diligence and obedience there is Polly Cook's, whose sampler reads

'Polly Cook did it and she hated every stitch she did in it'

Y would have felt the same.  She didn't really understand my fascination with embroidery and knitting.  She was completely baffled by my interest in how to launder things properly.  But she used to tell me about her attempts to knit a pullover for her first husband and how she would knit on long train journeys to see her brother at his RAF base on the east coast early in World War II.  She described the result as 'full of holes' but her husband wore it anyway, out of love for her.

Knowing my interest Y gave me all the crochet and embroidery pieces that her beautiful mother, Belle and her aunt had made.  Some of them were in a sorry state and I'm still working to launder and restore them.  Y couldn't understand why I would do all this just to pack them in lavendar in a box, but was happy that they gave me pleasure.

Y was related to dukes of the realm, to princesses in fact, but her branch of the family had no money and so she had to earn her living.  With no practical education, she capitalised on her looks and style, did a little work as an extra in films and also took what she called 'a dancing job' in Milan, a great adventure for her.  She also modelled lingerie at fancy department stores.

From Y's scrapbook, the programme for her 'dancing job' in 1935. 
She was part of a troupe known as 'le Young Ladies of Mayfair'

She was a lively, beautiful young girl during the last years of the 'long party' between the two World Wars, living in London and having a wonderful time.   She had so many stories, like the one about being chased around a large dining table at a smart London address by an over-amorous young man and we laughed together as she described skidding round the corners on the wooden floors in her party shoes.  We shared an absurd love of slapstick.  Now I come to think about it, she never did tell me whether he caught her.

Programme for Gala Evenings, 1939

Y's husband died in 1943 after attempting an escape from a Japanese prisoner of war camp.  Her beloved older brother and only sibling, a Flight Lieutenant was killed in 1942 in a Lysander near Alexandria.  Y also lost many of her friends.   Her only son died tragically in his thirties during the 1960s.  After the war and right into her seventies Y worked tirelessly to support herself, learning whatever skills were needed to earn her living, something her upbringing had not really prepared her for.

Never, ever bitter or self pitying, this courageous lady had no surviving close family and invested her energies in building a circle of friends, most of them many years younger than herself.  A highly intelligent, sometimes challenging lady with an enquiring mind, Y would have made the most of a decent education if the opportunity had been there.  She would have absolutely loved the internet for the world it could open up to her.

Y in 1935

Y died on her 86th birthday after a long battle with her last illness.  She died in her own bed at home with her lipstick on.  As she would have wanted.

I think of Y often.  She taught me so much about standards, about endurance and style, about life between the wars and during World War II and about the world she came from.  As always in these circumstances, I wish I had asked her more.  I'm priveleged to have known her.

Another One Finished

Rather Smart

When Mum was still able to knit in any quantity she chose a variegated yarn to make a waistcoat, but didn't buy enough.  So she did the fronts and we decided to buy a dark navy to do the back. Then knitting became more difficult for her and I took it away (some time ago) and finished the back and button bands this week. 

This has come up rather better than I expected and I managed to find some rather snazzy buttons in my button tin which tone in nicely.  Mum will have forgotten all about this project by now and it is being wrapped up for her birthday as a surprise.  Just the right thing for this time of year.

What is so good about this is that she managed to do so much of it and that will please her.