Beltane.
I'm a little bit of an ignoramus when it comes to pagan rites & ritual.
But when it comes to belief systems ones closer to nature are certainly closer to my own than the monotheistic ones that seem to cause the majority of the conflicts in the world.
So if you read this from a place of pagan knowledge please excuse my ignorance & feel free to correct me.
Something that struck me is the world is constantly in flux & change, be it seasonal, geological, natural or political.
So a belief system that has more understanding of such change &  embraces it is better than ones that try to control everything & everyone.
That is impossible.  It's doomed to fail.
The fact pre Christian pagan ritual still exists despite the efforts of many.  & the way Christianity has fixed its own ceremonies close to the timings of pagan ones.  Also that most of those pagan ritual has been handed down orally, not cast in stone or on scrolls adds to its strength in my humble opinion.

I was invited by a facebook friend to share the Beltane celebrations at Avebury in Wiltshire.
The beginning of summer.
The nights before where cold & frosty & it's certainly more like summer now a few days later.
Avebury is a quirky place.  The largest neolithic stone circle in Europe with a huge ditch dug around it with a beautiful old village & a busy road running through the middle .
The mix of believers, posh wealthy locals, & coachloads of tourists from all over the world made interesting viewing.  I wish I could overcome my own self conciousness that stops me from pointing my camera at others.

Wiltshire is a big open county with rolling hills & big skies.  Very different to my homeland & I was photographing the weather as much as I was the landscape.
Something that struck me was when away from traffic noise was the sound of skylarks.
I didn't expect to hear them in a agricultural landscape that is predominately industrial & chemical cereal lands.
It came as a pleasant surprise.
Onto the photos.

Close to Avebury is Silbury hill.
Ancient & man made & archaeologically fascinating.
My own ongoing project with my local skytip drew me to it.

A beautiful weekend despite two very badly behaved terriers that wanted to fight every other dog & each other.
Thank you Paula & Clare for sharing it with me.  
As always to view the images full size double click on the thumbs & left click view image.

It's rare for storms to blow in from the South but on the 10th April big seas & high tides meant my local port of Charlestown was in line for some rough seas.

From the Coast to the Moor.
Helman tor is on the Saints way & has archaeological remains a lot older.
One of my favourite places.
This is the view from the Tor back towards St Austell & home.

2016 Happy new year

Although we are three weeks in this is my first post of the year so my first opportunity to make such a greeting here on my blog.
It's the 20th of January & on this day in 1925 my father was born.
Sadly he left us two years ago, but I think it's right to post some pictures from his beloved homeland.
Views I'm sure he enjoyed as much as I do, although he never owned a camera or wanted to record moments in the way his son does.
First a photo of the man, although at the time, wasn't much more than youth.
My favourite photo of all time, taken when he was in his late teens, near the end or soon after the end of WW2.
Standing in his Sunday best with his horse Star, leading the carnival queen & her attendants in the local carnival.
I'm wondering how many hours my Father & Grandmother took to get Star looking so smart.
Polishing leather & brass, plaiting mane & tail.  I hope the young ladies on the cart where suitably impressed.

To some of the views I know he loved.
All taken from Carn Grey where my Father was born & lived & farmed for the first fifty or so years.
Looking East towards Bodmin moor  Helman tor with Rough tor & Brown Willy.

 With Knightor house in the foreground.

Gentlemans farm above Par beach with Polruan in the background, not like our little hill farm with its low hedges made from stone pulled from the small fields & more rusty galvanise than fine stone walls.
But he loved his land regardless & I don't think he envied those that had better.

The Gribben. & St Austell Bay.

William Joseph Mitchell 20/01/1925 to 27/01/2014 a life celebrated in the places he loved.

My Roots.

In my last post I got a bit personal & emotional.
This one goes farther.
This Granite tor is my roots.
I spent the first thirteen years of my life living less than half a kilometre from it, & still live about a kilometre from it.
The heath around it & the disused granite quarry below it where my playground & my nature classroom.
I can remember picking bilberries with my mother when I was five.
Purple stained lips & fingers.
I can remember huddling under the overhang with my first love when the heavens opened.   Feeling manly & protective as a curtain of water cascaded around us, although I was still very much a boy.
I can remember the start, then the fascination, when I saw my first adder basking on the rock.
So many memories for one lump of rock & those only mine.
I wonder how many others it holds.

Looking East from Carn Grey you can see three more Cornish Tors.
In the foreground you can see Helman Tor.  Rear left Rough tor, not pronounced rough but row as in argument.  & rear right Brown Willy from Cornish Bronn Wennili, meaning "hill of swallows".
The Cornish backbone.
With my feet on the ground & my head in the clouds I look forward to 2016.
I hope it's a better year for everyone, especially for those I care for.
I raise a glass to the future.

One last Look at Cape Cornwall.   I know Cornwall is a very popular tourist destination but honestly it's at its best when the beaches are deserted & the weather at its wildest.  Those of you that come here in July & August & just laze on the beaches would be better getting a cheap package to Spain.

On the walk back to St Just I came upon Carn Gluze or Ballowall barrow in English.
I'd walked past it the day before from another angle & just assumed it was another mineshaft.  They build hegdes around the old shafts to stop their livestock falling in.
It was unusual to see a barrow exposed.
All I've seen before have been earthed over for protection.  To see one exposed to the elements was a revelation.

& finally a view back towards Landsend, Sennen & the Longships light with the winter sun breaking through the clouds.

A weekend I will always cherish.
A fitting end to 2015.
Since my Dads death a couple of years ago I've been debating what to do with my life & emigration has been high on my list.
I have felt so despondent about Britain & my neighbours.  Considering seeing more of the world & its nature before its gone is tempting me.
Seeing Choughs, my national bird, above Cape Cornwall has grounded me.
It hasn't made me realise Cornwall is my home & I shouldn't leave but more it's told me wherever I am in the world Cornwall will always be my home.
There's a saying wherever you find a hole in the world you will find a Cornishman at the bottom.
It might be my time to climb out of the hole I'm in & go dig a hole somewhere else.
Kernow Bys Vyken.

Penwith Peninsula

The plan was to catch the train to Penzance, bus to St Just, then walk down Cott valley to Porth Nanven.

Then walk on up the coast till dusk & camp on the cliff tops.            Walking on on Sunday to St Ives then home.

All went to plan to start with.

Porth Nanven.

 A couple at more normal shutter speeds.

 I want you to forget this next one.  When I offer my lightly used & well looked after camera for sale in the distant future you will not remember this photo ok!!  :o)

 So as you can see I spent quite a lot of time boulder hopping & dodging sea spray.  My photo assistants where as ever diligent & guarded my rucksack.  A bag within with three days supply of dog food is a good incentive. 

By the time we walked on up over the cliff evening was already drawing in & light levels dropping so camping & food took priority.

Dawn was still grey but there was more definition in the sky so before breaking camp (phhh sounds like I'm Bear Grylls,  his real name's Teddy BTW ;)) we took the camera & photographed Cape Cornwall & the mine remains in the valley.

 Then back to camp for a quick coffee & pack up before walking on.   Whilst packing the tent I heard some distinct calls that I've heard just once before, & as I looked up seven Choughs flew over us heading for fields not far away.                              Everything got quickly bundled into the sack, the camera & telephoto mounted on the tripod & settings checked.  Two hours later I had taken loads of photos & thought the birds might prefer some privacy.

 

I can't tell you how blown away I was with seeing those seven birds.  For most of my life they have been all but extinct here in their native land.  Prior to recent success the last pair to raise young was in 1947.   By fate & others misfortune the foot & mouth outbreak of 2001 shut the cliff paths & three birds from Ireland dropped in.  Two of which decided to stay & bred the following year, & have done every year since.   Long lived monogamous creatures Choughs.

Fourteen years later there are now about eighty resident birds but still only four breeding pairs. The RSPB monitor & guard every site & hopefully generations to come will be able to enjoy their jinking on the updraughts.    RSPB Cornish Chough Project. 

So anyway by now it was late morning & my chances of getting near to St Ives by evening narrow so Woody & Chip wimped & said lets go back to St Just for an all day breakfast.  I was still to blown away seeing nearly a tenth of Cornwalls Chough population in one go & was to weak to argue.

As always if you click on the images & then right click, view image for full size.

 To be continued.

                                                                             Skytip.
I don't know if that word is universally used to describe these conical mine waste tips.
I read recently there's a place in france where similar hills are revered & protected.
Many of them adorned the skyline around St Austell, to the extent that the area was called the Cornish Alps. but sadly over many years they have declined.
This skytip is also threatened.  A new road has been put very close & land is wanted for development.
Unfortunately profit is more important than history to some.
This tip can be seen from all around the St Austell bay area & many mariners used it as a navigation point before satnav.
I have made it an ongoing project to record the scene in all its moods for as long as I can.