The paving guys are with us again today, making some incredible,
deafening, noises with their equipment, but they finish for the day by about 2
pm, which is nice. There’s still plenty of noise this afternoon, though,
because coincidentally the County Council have today started resurfacing our
road.
Talk about “surround sound” – my god!!!! It’ll be really nice to
get some peace and quiet at the weekend, before work starts again on Monday –
the road resurfacing will continue till next Friday, while one of the paving
guys will be with us again on Monday too, replacing and painting the strips of
wood on our gable – oh dear, is there no end to the maintenance of older houses????!!!!
The paving on our driveway is now finished,
but the road going past our house
is now littered with county council resurfacing
vehicles.
But it will be nice to get the road surface renewed, and the
potholes removed, that’s for sure.
Lois brings back the mugs we have used to keep the
paving guys
constantly supplied with strong, heavily
sugared, tea
14:30 Lynda’s U3A Middle English group holds its monthly meeting
on zoom. We read through, and translate into modern English a couple of passages
written by John of Trevisa in the 14th century. John of Trevisa and his
writings are the group’s current project.
What John wrote about “The Marvels of Britain”, for example, is
very informative about the state of knowledge about the world, as it stood in
the 14th century. It’s interesting, for instance, to see what a
puzzle the Stonehenge monument was to people in medieval times – they didn’t
have any means of telling how old prehistoric relics were. And because
Stonehenge was so old by then, there was no unwritten tradition handed down from
generation to generation, that might have explained its existence.
Or in modern English: “in Britain are many wonders. Nevertheless
four are the most wonderful. The first is at Peaktown. There, there blows so strong a
wind out of the chinks of the earth that it casts up again such clothes that people
cast in. The second is at Stonehenge, near Salisbury. There, great stones and
wondrously huge, are erected on high, as if they were gates, so that there seem
to be gates set on other gates. Nevertheless it is not clearly known or
understood how and why they are so erected and wonderfully suspended….”
The medieval period’s main sources for history were the Bible and
the classical writings from Ancient Greece and Rome. And John of Trevisa also
translated a history of the world, starting from the Creation, as described in
the Bible, and telling the main events that had occurred up until the 14th
century. It’s evident that with such sources as people had in medieval times, the concept of the
Stonehenge monument must have seemed totally mysterious and inexplicable to them.
An interesting group meeting on zoom. I am able to tell the other members
about the origins of one or two of our modern English words, which is nice.
They don’t know, for example, why we use the word “country” to describe the
areas outside of the big towns. It started with Late Latin, and a bunch of
town-dwellers, probably standing on their town walls and looking out over green
fields – these fields were what was "counter" to them, i.e. “facing them”, so they used the word “contrata”
to describe them: a word which later became “contrée” in French, and “country”
in English. Simples!!!
a typical medieval woman looking down from
the battlements at the “contrata” – ie the
fields that were facing her,
the origin of our word "country"
Aren’t the origins of words totally fascinating! Who would want to
study anything else!
21:00 Lancashire stand-up comedian Peter Kay sends us to bed
laughing.
Peter can sometimes be a bit tough on older people, but he’s got a
heart of gold underneath. He takes his mother shopping to the local Asda supermarket
so they can park into the “mother-and-child” parking spaces just in front of
the entrance. What a good idea!
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzz!!!!
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