Manorbier Bay 2

And here is Manorbier Bay in its Red Aspect (the old red sandstone):

Manorbier Bay 1

Having recently escaped my "carer's" duties to stay with very special friends (more about them later) in Manorbier- in Wales- I totally fell in love with the Bay there. Apart from the visual aspects, I was particularly enchanted by the "duet" made by the delicate, tinkling sound of the shallow stream making its way to the sea and the deep, resonant sounds of the waves. I will devote two posts to the bay, showing it in some different moods:

King's Troops come to Manorbier

A beautiful blue skied, sunny Saturday on a cliff top overlooking a blue, blue sea and Caldy Island… burnished, gleamingly groomed horses silhouetted against the blue… gold-braided exotic uniforms…and this in peaceful Manorbier in Wales.

Visually it was a wonderful treat. Thirty horses and their riders, from The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery in St John’s Wood, were here for their Summer Seaside Holiday Camp and at the same time to entertain local people with their talents.

There was however a much darker side: although their roll is primarily performing at ceremonial occasions such as the Trooping of the Colour, there is no denying that the object of this exercise was to attract young people to the army- to become soldiers, to fight wars. By enjoying and sharing the visuals am I therefore supporting wars? That is certainly not my intention.

I was reminded of a story of my mother’s: before- and during- the Second World War she and my father were staunch Pacifists- members of the Peace Pledge Union. At the time they were living in Edinburgh in a top flat in Ramsey Gardens, directly overlooking Edinburgh Castle Esplanade. There the romantic Highland regiments regularly paraded, to the emotional skirl of the bagpipes. Coming from the Highlands herself, to her shame my mother’s Scottish blood was stirred by this pageant …she kept her feelings and her shame to herself…

So here are some images of a glistening blue seaside day and the close relationship between horses and their riders… sweeping my uneasy thoughts under a carpet…

River Avon Reflections

As always, I am entranced by the reflections of trees in the River Avon, so here are three more of them:

Farm Animals...

September was a bad month for me as far as keeping Treeaware going. I have temporarily turned into a full-time "Carer", until I return to Los Angeles in November. Although I have had some breaks when I have been seeing wonderful blog material I have got very behindhand in processing it, so am now trying to gradually catch up.

Yesterday I showed some of my earlier Horse Chestnut Blight images and now I will show some of the animals around Bath. What I love about Bath is that although it is a City you can immediately walk into real country. The Pre-Raphaelite-like sheep I saw in a field on the other side of the Canal, just a short way from my brother's house where I am staying. The very English scene of a cow under an Oak tree and the Chinese-looking grey horse were seen when I was visiting a friend in the small, rural village of Kelston, a few miles outside Bath.

Horse Chestnuts in Jeopardy

Those of you who have followed this blog will know of my love and involvement with Horse Chestnut- or Conker- Trees. I have written before about the "blight" that has been effecting the leaves of these wonderful, majestic trees in recent years. This is caused by a leaf miner moth, Cameraria Ohridella. The caterpillars "mine" the leaves until they turn brown and die, giving the trees an early Autumn appearance. The trees normally recover from this but it can weaken their systems over the years.

Walking around Bath almost every single Chestnut I see- and there are many- has sadly been attacked by this hardworking grub. I get very emotional about this as, having planted many Conker trees myself, I regard them as my inheritance apart from regarding them as such exceptionally beautiful trees. Not only do they have fantastic, Matisse-like leaves but they also have those fantastic, candle like flowers.

I am therefore particularly distressed by a further disease which has been attacking these trees. This is "bleeding canker", a deadly bacteria caused by a fungus, Pseudomonas syringae pathovar aesculi, which results in sores in the trunk and limbs out of which ooze a black liquid gum. If this spreads in a continuous ring around the trunk it can destroy the tree. Also, branches can be weakened making the trees potentially dangerous to pedestrians, resulting in them being felled.

Another result of these diseases is a reduction in the harvest of conkers: where the ground beneath the trees is normally covered with these very special, shiny, tactile treasures, now you can find very few of them. Apparently the World Conker Championships- held in Ashton, Northamptonshire- have had problems supplying the 5,000 conkers need for the contest.

More Horse Chestnuts....

It is surprising what one can miss when one is distracted. For the last few weeks I have regularly being visiting St Martin's Hospital in Bath, travelling there by bus. By the hospital bus stop there is a churchyard and I had registered the fact that there was a row of Horse Chestnut trees running alongside the boundary wall. What I had NOT registered- being preoccupied either about getting to the hospital or about when the next bus was arriving- was that these trees had the most fantastic barks that were like wonderful works of art. So here are some of them:

Venerable Horse Chestnut Trees

On my Bath walks there are two spectacular, aged Horse Chestnut Trees- or "Conker Trees" as I think of them- that I constantly admire. The first two images show the warty bark of one by the River Avon, the last three an Arthur Rackham-type tree on the other side of the river:

Bunya-Bunya Tree: Cones

Recently I wrote about Santa Monica Treesaver's success saving the Bunya -Bunya Tree in Douglas Park. I have just received a couple of Treesaver emails giving me more information about the Cones.

Treesaver Dan Jansenson supplies this info:

"The cones of this tree contain about 50 nuts, each about the size of a large thumb. In the Australasian regions, the nuts are often roasted or barbecued, popping spectacularly, and then blended with honey for very tasty spreads. They are also used for a unique variation on pesto (as a replacement for pine nuts).

In the old days, Australian aborigines would gather every three years (during bumper crops), harvest the nuts and bury them in the ground. After a few months the nuts were ready to be eaten, having developed soft sprouts."

In a forwarded email from Councilmember Kevin McKeown (the one and only committed environmentalist on the City Council) he describes how 15 cones have now been removed from the tree in Douglas Park, for pedestrians' safety. The largest weighed 22lbs and the smaller ones were softball size. From the tree outside City Hall 21 cones were removed, the largest weighing 15lbs and the smaller ones also were softball size.

Kevin supplied this spectacular photo of the largest cone adjacent to a soup can:

Roving Reporter: Mariposa Festival

Something that I have a passion for is how the late evening sun can transform a landscape with an incredible glow- I am always chasing after this brief moment. When I was a child, I remember being particularly attracted by the visual image of these lines from the poem "Nod" by Walter de la Mare:

"His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's fold."

Equally as a child I empathized with the Aberdeenshire landscapes of the Scottish artist Joseph Farquharson, who totally captured this magic light, regardless of whether it became a cliche.

Because of this, I was particularly delighted when Zac, my Roving Reporter, recently showed me these images, taken when The Proclaimers were playing at the Mariposa Festival in Orilla, Ontario: