And a very merry Vernal Equinox to you too ...

Today is a very special day. Yes, yes,  I know it's Friday ...
... but it's also the Vernal Equinox!

Now these things normally pass me by in the whirlwind of activity that is my daily routine, but the other day I found myself searching around for a reason to bake a cake. As regular visitors will know we don't need much of an excuse to have a party over here at Talk-a-Lot Towers. But I don't bake cakes very often, and, as a result, I still subscribe to the view that a cake is a bit of a celebration. So I found myself casting around for something to celebrate when my recipe finally came together too late for either Mother's Day or St. Pat's. And as only the Vernal Equinox was on the near horizon I decided to run with that.

So what is this Vernal Equinox? Well our dear little planet travels around the sun on an orbit called the ecliptic. It's a journey that takes a year to complete. During the course of that year it tilts on its own axis. When the North Pole tilts towards the sun we have spring and summer up here in the Northern Hemisphere, and when it tilts the other way we go on our seasonal journey into winter. And because of this tilting behaviour the sun is rarely directly overhead the equator. That only happens twice in the year, as the tilt reverses, and the hemispheres change seasons on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes.   On those two days of the year, at the tilting points of the seasons, day and night are of equal length. And thereafter the change of the season soon becomes manifest, or it ought to if old Mother Nature is following her script.

It's all text book science today, but way back in the days before anyone went to school, the ancient people of the world saw a special kind of magic in these two days.

I'm always amazed that they noticed, but I suppose if we didn't have television and I had to either grow or catch our dinner every evening before we ate it out in the back garden I might also notice a slew of things that escape me at the moment. Anyway our wily ancestors recognised the Vernal Equinox as the day that marked the shift from the season of cold, dark barrenness to spring, the season of light, growth and the rebirth of the natural world after the long dreary months of winter.

For totally logical reasons many ancient people regarded the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring, as the first day of the year. It was, after all, the day on which the cycle of the seasons kicked off.

The ancient Chinese are said to have seized upon the egg as the emblem of all this happy sunny stuff; a perfect symbol of fertility and the rebirth of nature. Given what they observed to be the perfect balance of the hours of daylight and darkness they imagined that special forces were afoot in the world. Someone, somewhere, on this day, found a perfect egg with a slightly blunt end that they were able to stand on its end: a feat not normally achievable with a regular egg. It was hailed as a miracle! And the sages of the day reasoned that the perfect balance of the day and the night, and the tipping point of the seasons must mean that the celestial bodies were aligned in such a way that the Equinox was blessed with certain gravitational anomalies not present on other normal days.

It was all a load of old hooey, of course. You need to practise a lot, but on just about any day of the year you can balance a blunt-ended egg on its blunt end if you take the pains to do so. Why you'd want to is of course another matter entirely.

Actually, because I like you all so much,  I'll let you into a little secret as to how you can impress all the egg-fanciers out there. If you place a plain wedding ring under the tablecloth in the exact spot where you'd like to balance your egg, and then take pains to remember where you've left it, you can make just about any old egg stand upright on its end, using the ring as a hidden cradle to support it. Here's one I did earlier (photo below) Impressive, heh?

The ancient Chinese art of egg balancing on the Vernal Equinox

Anyway have a very merry Vernal Equinox. As for me: I'm off to peer through the clouds at the solar eclipse and honour this auspicious day with a very large slab of marmalade cake, and I'll worry about bringing order and balance to my waistline in the season of light and rebirth.

All the best for now,


Bonny x

The Real Tudors ... Masters of Propaganda and Spin ...

Now I have to 'fess up: I'm in withdrawal.

The BBC's totally splendid Wolf Hall season has finished and I am SO going to miss my weekly fix of Mark Rylance's superb Cromwell. Wasn't he fabulous? So wily and self-restrained with more than a hint of violence tucked away with that stiletto blade he kept hiding up his sleeve. I don't think there was a weak member in the entire cast. They were all brilliant.

Feeling slightly sad about the end of the season I took myself off yesterday morning to the National Portrait Gallery where the exhibition The Real Tudors is winding up. Sorry peeps but it finishes on Sunday so there's not a lot of time left if you want to trolley over for a gander yourselves.

Now, first off, I have to take issue with the NPG's title for the exhibition: the Tudors were the masters of spin and I feel that it ought to have been called the Tudors as they'd like to have been seen. Honestly, this lot could have taught the image-manipulators of today a PR trick or two.

The second big point is that they haven't included anything by the great court painter Hans Holbein, who crafted the great, iconic images of the age. Waldemar Januszczak argued recently that our enduring fascination with the Tudors has grown out of the fabulous images that Hans Holbein created, which have provided us with a vivid window into the life of the time. I think he's got a point, which makes the omission of Holbein from the Real Tudors feel as though something important is missing.

That said it's an interesting exhibition with some great images to savour.

They start off, as you'd expect, with the founder of the dynasty, wily old Henry VII.

His portrait looks strange to me: the head seems too big for the shoulders. The rose he's clutching in his right hand appears to be the red rose of Lancaster, which later morphs into the red and white Tudor rose in the portraits of his successors as they gilded the legend of how they were the great consolidators who united the warring factions of Lancaster and York. 

Apparently this is the oldest portrait in the National Portrait Gallery's entire collection. The inscription tells us that it was painted on 29th October, 1505 on the orders of Herman Rinck, the agent for the Holy Roman Emperor. The story was that, after the death of his Queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry had his heart set on marrying Margaret of Austria, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, and had opened negotiations with her father, the Emperor, Maximilian I. As was the custom with the great and the good in those days a portrait was sent so that Margaret could get an eyeful of what might be coming her way. The marriage negotiations came to nothing, but Margaret got to keep the painting. 

Also on display beside the portrait is the head of Henry's funeral effigy. When he finally popped his clogs they had a life-sized effigy made to go on top of his coffin for the funeral procession. The face of this effigy was moulded from a plaster cast of the dead king's face. He looked surprisingly animated and personable for someone who was recently deceased.

The exhibition moved on to Henry VIII, and we saw him strutting his stuff with that famous pose immortalised by Holbein, but shown in a copy made by Holbein's studio, and on loan from the National Trust. Isn't he the very image of royal power and majesty? Jaw set with determination - or, maybe just a hint of stubbornness, leg's planted confidently apart in a masterful stride and eyes staring straight out at us, demanding that we bow to his kingship. In the course of just one generation the royal image-makers have come quite a way from the awkward portrait of his father, staring meekly out of the frame in the hope of snaring a bride, to this image of kingly virility.

And then we have the Mini-Me image of Edward VI painted in the same masterful stance as his father.

As the mother of a nine year-old boy I was moved by the play-acting of the nine year-old Edward, trying to fill his father's shoes, and so vulnerable to the machinations of his Uncle Seymour, who reigned in his place as Regent.

There must have been huge fears and concerns for the safety of the realm when a child took the throne, but this portrait seems to have been conceived to reassure everyone that the boy was a chip of the old block, and that England would be as safe in the hands of the son as it had been in the hands of the father.

After Edward came the austere Catholicism of his half sister Mary. Her images seem to have been forged to convey the sincerity of her strong Catholic faith, during a time of huge religious upheaval. Edward had been a Protestant Evangelical in a way that made his father, the sponsor of the English Reformation, look moderate, and ,with the connivance of his Seymour relatives, young Edward consolidated Protestantism as the state religion. He worried that this work would be undone if the Catholic Mary, or the apparently disinterested Elizabeth, should take the throne and, in a bid to protect his legacy he wrote them out of the succession in his will, nominating his cousin, the devoutly Protestant, Lady Jane Grey, as his heir. Mary, of course, was having none of this. On her brother's death she raised an army and Lady Jane was ousted after only 9 days as Queen.

They were turbulent times, and Mary's portraits depict her as a pious woman with a serious purpose. To my eye she's a bit dowdy by comparison with her wonderfully flamboyant sister, Elizabeth.

Here she is (below), painted in 1554 by Hans Eworth. Do you see that fabulous pearl she's got round her neck? That's la Peregrina,  one of the most famous pearls in the world. It was found originally by an African slave on the island of Santa Margarita in the Gulf of Panama. He gave it to the administrator of the Spanish colony, and was rewarded with his freedom. The pearl made its way back to Spain and into the hands of the future Philip II, who presented it as a love token to Mary. After Mary's death it was returned to the Spanish Royal family whose women wore it for another couple of centuries before it fell into the hands of Joseph Bonaparte. In 1969 it was bought by Richard Burton for his great love, Elizabeth Taylor. When she died it was auctioned off by Sotheby's in 2011 for a cool US$11 million.

Anyway I'm getting distracted by the bling. Back to the portraits. 

My favourite Tudor is unquestionably the Virgin Queen, or Elizabeth the Great, as I think she should be referred to. And her portraits deliver spin and dynastic propaganda in spadefuls. Elizabeth's personal motto was semper eadem, always the same, which must also have been the instruction given to her portrait painters who never allowed her image to age. 

And here in all its splendour is the Armada portrait, painted to celebrate England's victory over the Spanish Armada. 

This portrait is laden with strutting triumphalism. It oozes out of the brush strokes. Elizabeth's right hand rests delicately on the globe. Here she's not just Queen of England. With the vanquished Armada floundering in stormy seas over her left shoulder, she's the Queen of the Waves and all the World. And it's not just Spain that's in the firing line here: this is painted as a vindication of her Protestant faith. It's proclaiming that God was with her, and her newly Protestant kingdom. Remember that at this time the Holy Roman Emperor was busy telling anyone who would listen that Elizabeth was illegitimate, a usurper with no proper claim to the throne and a heretic to boot, adding that it would not be a sin to bump her off. No English monarch - until the ill-fated Charles I - lived in greater or more constant danger than Elizabeth, but in this painting she stands victorious and undefeated, overcoming the very worst that her many enemies can throw at her. This, my friends, is Girl Power as we've never seen it before, or since. 

If you get a chance do go along and take a look. I understand that they're going to include the paintings in a larger scale exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris next month. You can find the link to the Parisian exhibition here: Les Tudors. I see they've given the whole thing a racy new French title, Les Tudors, as opposed to Les Vrais Tudors. Maybe it was all just a subtle case of English humour and those clever curators down at the NPG were being ironic when they suggested that these were the Real Tudors.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on Friday Finds

Osterley Park's Christmas Bling ...

This morning dawned cold and frosty with clear skies and December sunshine: a perfect winter's day.

Emi and I headed out to Osterley Park to make the most of the good weather. I'd heard that they'd got all their Christmas decorations up and were opening the doors to let us in for a look at their Christmas bling.

I've written about Osterley before (The Jersey paintings return to Osterley Park and Bluebells in Osterley Park). It's a wonderful National Trust property just down the road from where we live, and is one of our favourite haunts for walking the Wonder Dog. When we want some fresh air and can't think where to go this is usually where we end up.

We had to leave the Wonder Dog behind as we were going inside, so we were able to stop and watch the ducks for a while. The Wonder Dog does not approve of ducks, and we normally have to walk quickly on by so as not to upset them with his barking.

It's hard to believe that this place is in Greater London. You can just about make out the aeroplane on its descent to nearby Heathrow.

As you walk around the estate you sometimes hear the roar of distant traffic, but otherwise it's incredibly peaceful. It's a great spot to come and enjoy Mother Nature's seasonal best. For those of us who live in the city it's easy to miss the passing seasons, but a quick trip out here soon puts us in touch with the natural world.

I like to sit on these chairs, with the sun on my face listening to the birds.

I love the majestic sweep of the branches of this Cedar of Lebanon that trail down to the water's edge. This old chap's got to be my ultimate Christmas tree.

Another old friend of mine lives on the opposite side of the house. He's an oriental plane tree who's been there since about 1755.

 They think that he originally came from Iran or Turkey. Isn't he amazing? His branches grow in strange ways, almost like the arms of a monkey who leans on his knuckles as he walks along.

Can you see little Emi standing amidst the branches to give some sense of perspective? If this old tree could talk, his tales would be well worth listening to.

The rest of the gardens were looking neat, but at this time of the year they owe their splendour to the beautiful rise and sweep of the trees.

Here and there we found the odd little reindeer, flexing his muscles and gearing up for the Big Night.

The gardeners had given each one a name. The chap above was called Blixen. Emi had a great time running from one to the next discovering their names and shouting them out into the cold air for everyone else's benefit.

Finally we remembered what we'd come for and headed inside.

In the long gallery, one of the surviving Tudor parts of the house, we found the most magnificent tree. Doesn't it look grand?

Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, came to visit Osterley on at least two occasions. I like to imagine her striding energetically up and down in here on rainy days with her courtiers fluttering after her like great black crows in a newly ploughed field.

It's a cracking room with exquisite paintings and objets d'art dotted around.

One of the many, many things that I love about this place is the staff who volunteer to help. They're all so enthusiastic about the place. This morning many of them had dressed in stunning period costumes. And without exception they were happy to chat about the place and answer Emi's questions.

Emi had a game of Devil Among the Tailors with a lovely young man who was bewigged (18th century style) and volunteering as a guide. The object of the game is to send the spinning top whizzing around the table to knock over as many skittles as possible. Each skittle has a number value and you have to take your aim with a view to hitting as many of the high-value skittles as possible. It's a game of skill and strategy that was once popular in London's many public houses.

Devil Among the Tailors is a name that was given to the game of table skittles after a group of tailors kicked up a rumpus outside a London theatre where they were staging a play called The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather. The play satirised the London tailors, and they took umbrage at the way in which they were being portrayed. They showed up en masse on 15th August, 1805 and started to riot. The special constables of the day were helpless against the numbers of angry tailors brandishing scissors and whatever else they had to hand. The Life Guards were called in and they did the job of dispersing the rioters so effectively that they were compared to a ball ploughing through the skittles.  And ever after the game of table skittles was known to Londoners as Devil Among the Tailors. 

Having made some Dried Orange Slice and Cinnamon Stick Christmas tree decorations I was interested to see how they had used dried fruit to make decorations too. In the Long Gallery they'd brought in lots of standard bay trees, which looked amazing with slices of dried apple and orange and whole dried clementines and limes: so many ideas for next year ... .

In the hallway they had a wishing tree, where Emi recorded his Christmas wish on a special label. Here he is with another of the lovely volunteer guides, writing it out carefully in his very best handwriting. 

And then he tied it to the tree along with all the other children's Christmas wishes. It reminded me a little of Buddhist Temples I've visited in the Far East where people write out prayers and tie them to trees in the Temple gardens. Our guide told us that this was once an authentic English tradition. I've never heard of it before, but as I think it's rather charming, it's one I'd be happy to adopt. 

This wonderful table centrepiece caught my eye. Back in the day the pineapple on top was probably worth more than they paid the cook in a year. 

Or how about this dumb waiter, groaning under the weight of its seasonal delights?

And every mantlepiece seemed to sport its own festive garlands and decorations.

Down in the kitchens they were making griddle cakes and we had a go at stirring the Christmas pudding. The cosy warmth from the old range cooker and the smell of Christmas spices were magical. 

We came away with grand plans for further embellishments to our own modest decorations at home. Emi has spent a good part of the afternoon working on his paper chains. If you're in the London area and you need something to reboot your Christmas mojo you might like to consider a trip out to Osterley Park. You can find their website here: Osterley Park.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on image-in-ing

The Roman Baths ... in Bath ...

Yes, we're still on the trail of those pesky Romans, as Emi works his way slowly through his half-term homework assignment.

On our way back to London from Devon we stopped off to take a look at the Roman Baths in ... Bath. No prizes for guessing how this city got its name!

I've been here so many times I think I could hire myself out as a tour guide. Everyone who comes to visit us from overseas gets dragged down to Bath at some point during their stay. It's such a great place to visit, and it was a real pleasure to show little Emi around. He's been pushed around the sights in his pram before, but claims not to remember a great deal about it.

Have you ever seen a more timeless looking place than this?

It's like an onion with every skin a different age. 

Before the Romans the Celts lived here. Some of their gods are still in evidence at the complex.

This sacred trinity of mother goddesses was dug up at Bathwick. They were being venerated here long before the Romans started polishing their lances and wondering whether or not they should cross the Rubicon.

And even after they'd been conquered the ancient Britons still managed to do Roman things their way. Take a look at this wonderful carving that once stood proud on the central plinth of the temple here in Bath. Is it a (male) Gorgon with the snakes for hair, Neptune, god of the seas or our good old Green Man, Master of the Celtic Wild Wood? It's anyone's guess, but whichever way you cut the cake he's gorgeous.

The temple here was dedicated to Sulis Minerva, the goddess of the heavenly hot spring.  Is it just me, or does anyone else think she looks a bit like Margaret Thatcher? Maybe it's just the way she's had her hair curled.

And when we got right down to pool level there were still a few Romans hanging around enjoying the party. I wonder what they're talking about. Where's the best place to get your chariot serviced? Why doesn't anyone in this country know how to cook a decent stuffed dormouse? I wouldn't know where to begin, but at least they did a good job of blending in with the tourists (not).

Here's another chap who's been standing around for so long that he's turned to stone. I think he's drawing his sword to clear a way through all the tourists to get to the pool. It was standing room only when we passed through. And everyone - absolutely everyone - was listening to the talkie guide they hand out at the door.

The water rises out of the ground heated to a steaming 46º C (115º F). It's the only place in the UK where this happens, and those old Romans thought that it was the work of the gods.

It would be amazing to go for a dip in that ancient pool with all those regal statues looking on. These days they've got an amazing modern spa where you can do just that. The best bit is the rooftop pool where you can drift around admiring the view of the rooftops through the steam rising off the water.

It's a brilliant spot to pass an afternoon and Emi seemed to learn a load of stuff about the Romans. But it would be magical to go at night and have the place to yourself. Can you just imagine floating around in the hot water with a glass of something cool and delicious, watching the stars twinkle overhead? How very decadent!

All the best,

Bonny x

Exeter Guildhall

The other day, when Emi and I were on the cold trail of the long-gone Romans, we happened to pass by the Exeter Guildhall ... and the door was open.

The Tudor front facade of the Guildhall, Exeter

Come on, Mum, let's check it out, Emi said.

And who could have resisted this wonderful open door?

Nicholas Baggett's magnificent door, the Guildhall, Exeter

Although it has to be said that it was designed for people who were a bit vertically challenged - and that's coming from someone who stands all of 5' 0" tall.

Looking out the other way, it's just as impressive.

Nicholas Baggett's door from inside the Guildhall, Exeter

The Guildhall has stood on this site since 1160. The present structure was originally built in the fourteenth century and refaced with the current porticoed front facade between 1593 to 1596. Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating of the roof timbers in the magnificent vaulted ceiling of the chamber shows that the trees from which it was built were felled over the period 1463 to 1498. 

The amazing oak door, which was too good not to walk through, was made by Nicholas Baggett, a local carpenter, in 1593. I love the fact that they remember his name, and deservedly so, because it's a gem of a door.

Meetings of the full town council still take place inside, making it one of the oldest working municipal buildings in England. Exactly how old is a matter of some debate. There's been some sort of guild operating down here in Exeter since the year 1000 AD, and it's likely that their original hall stood on this spot. 

They used to keep the city stocks under the central arch of the porticoes, just in front of Mr. Baggett's wonderful door.  The weekly market also took place on the High Street,  just outside. There's still a hook in the ceiling from which they used to hang the scales for weighing meat, wool, corn and the other goods that would have been sold here on market day. 

Moving inside, this is what the chamber looks like: 

The Chamber of the Guildhall, Exeter

Under this magnificent room there is a 14th century cellar that once functioned as a prison, known back in the day as ye Guyldhall pyttt. 

In the time of the travelling Assizes, the King's Justices held their courts in here, trying those who had been indicted for felonies, and who would have been incarcerated, awaiting trial, in the Guyldhall pyttt beneath. Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys presided over the Bloody Assizes in this very room after the Duke of Monmouth's failed rebellion in 1685. James, Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate Protestant son of Charles II had risen against the Catholic James II, leading many West Country men to fight for the Protestant cause, only to be defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last battle ever to be fought on English soil. 

In the aftermath of the rising the defeated men were tried for treason against their King in the Bloody Assizes, notorious for the severity of the sentences handed out to dissuade other would-be rebels from following suit. These trials were held in a number of towns across the South Western Circuit including Dorchester, Exeter and Taunton. Hundreds were condemned to death and transportation to the Americas. 

Here in Exeter 40 men stood trial for their part in the rebellion, of whom 13 were found guilty of treason and sentenced to a traitor's death, which was a particularly grisly business involving being hung, drawn and quartered.  How they must have shivered with terror in this room as their sentences were read out. I can almost feel the ripple of horror that would have run through the people crowded in to witness the drama unfold. 

Here's the Lord Mayor's Chair, in which the presiding judge of the Assizes would have sat as he administered the King's justice. 

Mayor Bale's chair in the Guildhall, Exeter

It was made for Mayor Christopher Bale who held office from 1695 to 1697, and it bears the city's coat of arms and its motto semper fidelis, always faithful. 

Around the walls are numerous coats of arms of important benefactors, mayors and the city's trade guilds.

Here are some benefactors:

Benefactors' Coat of arms displayed in the Tudor panelling of the Guildhall, Exeter

I was especially interested in the trade guilds, which give a window into the economic history of the city down the years. The medieval trade guilds emerged to control and represent the interests of the different trades within the city. They were somewhere between a governing body, a secret society, with their own secrets and rituals, and a trade union. The very wealthy guild of Weavers, Tuckers and Shearmen, had their own guildhall, the Tuckers' Hall, built nearby in 1471. Exeter grew rich on the wool trade, which prospered from the 1430's right up to the 18th century and the weavers, tuckers and shearmen, who were the skilled finishers of the product, did rather better than most.

The guildsmen met in this hall to discuss their business. They fixed the rates at which they would sell their produce, sometimes they pooled their buying power and negotiated terms on which they would purchase their raw materials, or considered trade alliances with guilds in other cities, and from time to time they reviewed the necessary skills to be taught to their apprentices so as to maintain the standards within their ranks. They also met to consider the admission of new members to the guild, and to consider whether apprentices had shown the necessary expertise to qualify into the ranks of the masters. A candidate apprentice would be required to produce a master piece, a sample of his work in which he demonstrated all the skills of a master of the trade. Can you imagine the masters sitting around the walls of the chamber unpicking some poor apprentice tailor's stitching to see whether his robes were up to the mark, or passing an exquisitely fashioned kid glove around to see whether someone was good enough to become a master glover?

The arms of the Tailors' Company displayed in the Tudor panelling of the Guildhall, Exeter

The haberdashers (below) would have dealt in all the small items of sewing: the needles, thread and buttons. They would have worked in conjunction with the  tailors (above) and the mercers, who were the cloth merchants.

As I've explained the weavers, tuckers and shearmen worked in the local woollen industry, producing the finished cloth. In the early days the weavers wove the wool into a rough fabric called kersey. After about 1615 they also wove a finer fabric called serge. Then the tuckers treated the cloth, shrinking it and creating the nap, the textured surface of the cloth. The shearmen came along at the end of the process and trimmed or removed the nap with their shears to produce the finer qualities of fabric.

The coopers (photo below) were the people who made and repaired the casks, kegs and barrels that just about every sort of liquid was moved and stored in. 

My personal favourite was the Guild of Merchant Adventurers founded in 1556. These were the merchants who traded overseas, the import/ export guys. Mostly they would have been involved with the export of woollen cloth, but they would have also grown rich importing foreign commodities such as sugar, chocolate, tea, coffee, furs and wines to sell at home.

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Emi and I spent a fun half hour piecing together all the different trades that once flourished within the city walls, and trying to understand what they actually did. It all seemed far removed from the world of today where so little of what we use is actually manufactured in this country, and in which so few of us seem to be involved in work that produces a tangible, hold-it-in-your-hand, product at the end of the day. 

If you're passing and you'd like to visit for yourself you can check out the details on their website: Exeter Guildhall Website

All the best,

Bonny x

As shared on Our World Tuesday and image-in-ing