Snape Lane

 When I told my mother I was getting married to the man who is now my husband....she tutted and commented that it was a real shame to lose my surname for the name...Snape.

She said it had no poetic ring to it.

I kept my Ulster name for a while and double barrelled with Snape.

Geraldine McClelland- Snape

What a mouthful. 

I soon got rid of that.

Then I found out that a snape is an old english word having two meanings.

snape

v.

also sneap, "to be hard upon, rebuke, revile, snub," early 14c., from OldNorse sneypa "to outrage, dishonor, disgrace," probably related to similar-sounding words meaning "cut" (cf. snip (v.)). Verbal meaning "bevel theend (of a timber) to fit an inclined surface" is of uncertain origin orconnection. Snaiping "rebuking, reproaching, reviling" is attested fromearly 14c.

Surname meaning for "Snape"

English and Scottish: habitational name from any of various places in England and southern Scotland, for example in North Yorkshire near Bedale, in the Lowlands near Biggar, and in Suffolk, so named with Old English snæp ‘area of boggy land’. In Sussex the dialect term snape is still used of boggy, uncultivable land.

More than that I started going to Suffolk and regularly visited the village of Snape and The Maltings...where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears set up the Snape Maltings Music Festival.

Wow....that made Snape even more attractive.

It didn't end there... oh no.

Next thing I discovered was that the last queen of Henry VIII...Catherine Parr.. lived and married second time to John Neville 3rd baron Latimer...in Snape Castle in Yorkshire....well they say that's God's own county I hear.

I'm only an Irish woman so I'm believing what I'm told you understand.

Now...the potter and I have a little retreat up on the bay...that's Morecambe Bay...The Bay.

We started exploring the limestone bulge that surrounds so much of that lovely part of England.

Carnforth...Silverdale...Arnside...Milnthorpe

And one day I shout at the potter.."Look...Snape Lane ...lets go up there."

I've started taking pics of this magic little secret lane regularly as the seasons change.

We went on Sunday and these are the up to date snaps of it.

No white lines here.

Very little traffic...and how I love the way the fields have been given appropriate titles. 

  

  ...that's me and my shadow...Gerry Snape

...we stop at the first bend in the road to see the view over the countryside...

...the hedges have been given their autumn coiffure...ancient hedges protecting even older stone walls...I think of Robert Frost's wonderful poem about dividing and protecting neighbours...

...lines...marks...pattern...chiaroscuro...

...this was our discovery on Sunday...the naming of fields...my dad often talked about the names of the fields at his home farm in Armagh..it meant so much to him and he would recite them to us in our city lives...

...this one is "The Pond Field"...where sheep graze on the gentle hill that dips down into it...

...and Snape Top Field...at the top...

..up into the top of the lane and the road is bounded by high stone walls covered in ancient roots of 

ivy....I go to see what they have twisted around this year and gather the dead branches from the fallen leaves underneath...

                                      

...looking west to the top of the hill under the yellowing canopy of late autumn trees....

...looking east back to where we have come...

...light and shade and a view through to old established trees...

...and sunlight filters through to light the ivy casting many blue shadows on the stones...

I can't write any poetry yet about this lane.

It's almost too much to think that way yet.

And I'm not giving you directions to get to it...it's secret.

Maybe one day.

A Poem for Thursday

The Midsummer Knight's Dream

This morning at the Thursday morning writers group the prompt was  from Margaret K.

" Brush up your Shakespeare"

.

But some of us were grieving for another writer of both comedy and tragedy ....

Victoria Woods. 

Then on top of it being Shakespeare's birthday this week...a double whammy with The Queen's 90th. today. What a week! Now whether you are for or against the Monarchy...to celebrate a 90th birthday and be the longest reigning Queen ever, deserves at the very least a mention.

 But my thoughts were about Victoria...the Queen of Comedy since the 70s......and this one is for her...and for her beloved Morecambe...and in particular Lubin's...a place of inspiration. We were lucky enough to eat there  many times before it closed its doors for good. 

I have read that..." Is it on the trolley?"... maybe a quote from Lubin's !!!!!

Some artistic licence in this mad sonnet.

The Midsummer Knights Dream

We sat on the crimson red sofa,

The potter, the daughter and me.

We ordered a platter with cheeses

Some bread and a big pot of tea.

When who should come in through the doorway

With her children and husband in tow

Victoria and the Magician

In his best Sunday suit and his bow.

The sun caught the top of his bald pate,

She heaved up her boobs from below.

Her kids ordered meat pie at Lubin's

And icecream to have on the go.

But the dream was just Midsummer Madness

For she's gone, and we're left with our sadness.

Blogging, followers and friends!!

I've been posting blogs since March 2010...I can hardly believe that!

 But in all that time I've not personally met a single blogger friend. Well all that has changed! 

The timing was exact...the place was right ...the conversation started...and lo and behold...someone who actually had read my posts...finding them on the sidebar list of the wonderful Pen Wilcox. Stunned ..we both were.

I was standing by the Pithoi pots at The Beetham Garden Centre near Milnthorpe in Lancashire when as I was ringing the rims to make sure that the pot was whole..as.any little crack or flaw will not give a bell-like sound. (This I know from the potter himself!...he had rung one or two before going off to buy a pot for our Christmas present to one another.)

It's big!...some in the Tuesday evening ceramic group that he teaches wondered why he didn't make it himself...well...it's bigger than the kiln for a start! And pithoi from Crete are famous for their shapes and traditional decoration.

So now I'm a follower on "woolywanderer" on Instagram...I'm G Snape there.."Documenting the Mundane" by the way. And also a follower on multicolouredmadness.blogspot.com .

We hugged with laughter and tears and hugged again...two grown women who had never met but had so much in common! 

Well that's blogging for you. You wait five years and along comes a follower and then a friend. We shall plan to meet up again I'm sure of that as we both have homes around that glorious Bay I talk about so much.

Thankyou Blogspot...thankyou daughter amelieshouse.blogspot.co.uk for getting me started...thankyou senior grandgirl troase.blogspot.co.uk for encouraging and quietly showing me techie things!!

Sunday at Grange-over-Sands

It was Prom Art again on Sunday ...gosh it comes around so fast I can hardly get my breath.

Well... we love Grange and The Prom Art...but not the rain that stopped the people from promenading with their families and dogs!

So it was a matter of covering up the stall and in the heavy showers hauling in the paintings while the ceramics could look after themselves!

    

  The stall looked good..

...even in all the wetness!

.and Robert....chief organiser, if you don't count his gorgeous wife !...

was to be seen as usual, walking up and down the prom encouraging us.

 yellow hat glowing... so we would know that he was around.

We had some new tiles on the stall...         
               hares......!

 yes... I know you all realise I'm besotted with them at the moment...

                       but there you go!

...you must blame Derek Jarman's cottage for it all!













There's always a bonus at Grange.....
...the bay was glorious with massive rain clouds  hanging over the hills around Arnside...
I just had to take loads of pics...

Then just to be seen away in the distance at the oppposite side of the bay...

...leading his people like a modern day Moses across the treacherous sands....

the Queen's Guide, Cedric Robinson

I listened to two little girls discussing the sands...

..." If you fall in there the sand will swallow you up"...

...unbelieving look..."Really?"

Well it could have been a Dr. Who moment!

The River Irwell

So...did old Lowry sit beside the fluss?
and did he think I'll paint that lot one day?
or did he only see the children run
 barefoot across the stinking bank
toward their Salford homes
to pray for hotpot on the stove.

Did Lowry hear about the one who'd had enough
when times were thin and thinness was in vogue?
who sank into the mud and stayed in it
between the empty prams and beery glass?
is that the reason Lowry stayed so long
when he had reasons of his own to up and go?.

They called his people... matchsticks...that they were
such skinny children, all of them unknown.
they've planted trees now where there once were weeds
and the river's rancid  smells are sanitised.
proud Irwell once the Roman's northern fort
now has the cache of Lowry's tender daubs.

L.S.Lowry the painter lived in Salford near the Irwell River.
Today we took our granddaughter to see the art in The Whitworth Gallery, and passed by the River now all clean and pretty , My friend grew up within the shadow of the factory buildings that Lowry painted and knew the scenes as home.
Much of Lowry's work now hangs in The Lowry Gallery on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal

This is for Magpie Tales 116

                                                                   and Poetry Pantry 99

I'm also adding this in to this week's poetry pub for dVerse.week 43...what fun!

A Monastery Garden.

Hyning monastery is near Warton village in the north of Lancashire.
It's a monastery run by Bernardine Cistercian Nuns.
We've been a few times before to conduct art workshops.
There is a really good studio suitable for quite a big group of people,
 with accomodation available in the monastery.

With a bit of free time in between teaching the classes, we explored the gardens around the house.
These were laid out many years earlier by the Peel family living there at the time.
Now Sister Mary Stella and her helpers are attempting to bring them back to the glory that they were and in fact add to it.

I love this moon gate.

I think that the idea is originallyChinese.

Any gardening bloggers can put me right.

Aconites and crocuses have multiplied as they grow together under the trees.

The grounds stretch away into the distance

 with wonderful views of the Lancashire countryside.

Old stone walls are clad with ferns and mosses,

a sign of the pure air of this northern land.

An old bridge has been rebuilt over the stream that winds it's way through the garden.

And the pond has been dug out and replanted around the edges with early flowering Daphne.

This was once the summer house for the Peel family,

facing south catching the morning sun.

Ancient doors lead on to secret gardens,

and old doors wait for a thicket of undergrowth to be cleared away and use made of the rooms discovered.

It makes me think of The Sleeping Beauty!

Every thing will have it's purpose one day.

Swathes of these delicate lilac coloured crocuses have naturalised along the paths.

I've no idea what these fungi are, but they were about the size of a thumb nail
and every where on the dead tree roots.

No self respecting monastery would survive without a cat or two!
This glossy black and white moggy sunned himself each day in the early spring sunshine,
against the door of the studio.
Plump and purring and well fed by friendly nuns.

Any one interested in the art of icons might like to know that Sister Mary Stella is an icon writer.
[The correct term for the painting I believe].
An exhibition will be held at Hyning from 10th -12th April.    2.00p.m. - 5.15p.m. each day.
There will be viewing in the studio and the chapel 2.00 p.m.- 3.15 p.m.
A talk at 3.15 p.m.
Refreshments from 4.00p.m. onwards.
Donation £5
01524 732684