Friends, have you ever crossed an ice-sheet on your way to uninhabited lands? I bet you have at some point - especially if you've lived a medium-to-longish life, like me and my wife Lois!
The champs in this regard are obviously those "native Americans" and other "indigenous" folk, who crossed somehow from an Asia that was becoming maybe a bit too crowded, through Alaska, and down into North and South America, about 30,000 years ago.
The exact date of these people's arrival isn't known, because the very first diary entries come much much later - they obviously had more to do than mess around keeping diaries, and blog entries weren't possible due to the lack of such luxuries (!) as computers and internet - a slight problem (!).
Much of what we know about these first human arrivals in the New World comes from archaeology, and there was a stunning breakthrough this year, reported in Onion News:
Oh, for Lois and me to be that couple, the one in the picture - can you imagine how excited they would have got on their first night up there, "between the sheets", i.e. between the Cordilleran and the Laurentide, say!
In a way Lois and I had the same level of experience on Hallowe'en Night 2022, when we moved into an unfinished new-build housing estate here in Malvern, Worcestershire: there were builders and diggers all over the place, and our garden was a wasteland, just like Alaska, apart, that is, from a newly-concreted patio.
And fortunately, we had thought to bring an electric underblanket with us, so no ice-sheets for us or should I say "icy sheets" (!) on our first night (!). [That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]
flashback to November 2022: I sit in our curtain-less but otherwise
over-furnished living-room, after a flawed downsizing that obviously
wasn't "down" enough (!), as building workers outside struggle to
complete the other half-built new-build houses in our street.
November 2022: our bedroom, after we move in -
no curtains or blinds at the window, but one life-saver
at least: our electric underblanket [not shown]
- so no "ice sheets experience" for us haha!
And when Lois and I do our morning walk today, in the lee of the 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills, she has more to tell me about Malvern's past that she's gleaned from her current library book, Pamela Hurle's ground-breaking "The Forest and Chase of Malvern" (2007).
on our morning walk today, Lois tells me more about Malvern's
past - when it was even more of a wasteland than it is now
- hard to believe, I know!
Lois says that, when William the Conqueror was busy "afforesting" parts of England after the Norman Conquest, so that he and his "cronies" could hunt in them freely, without being bothered by lesser hunters, Malvern was an insignificant settlement, so remote from civilisation that the chronicler William of Malmesbury (c.1092-after 1142) described as "a wilderness".
Even as late as the 17th century the antiquary Thomas Habington was writing about Malvern in similar terms, and recalling William of Malmesbury's comments:
"Malvern hyll ... mountethe much in huge rockes leavinge in forepassed tymes belowe such a wourld of trees overshawedeinge bushy thickets".
And in the book that Lois took out of the County Library, Pamela Hurle describes Malvern as being ideal place for Benedictine monks if they really wanted to get away from the world.
typical medieval Benedictine monks: Malvern was the ideal
place for them to "get away from the world" and live
in comparative seclusion, writer Pamela Hurle says.
an extract from Pamela Hurle's book,
"The Forest and Chase of Malvern"
What a crazy world they lived in, back in those far-off times!!!!
Compared to that, the Malvern of today seems to be really quite "built up", and with several "creature comforts" available to residents, which is nice!
flash forward to tomorrow morning: I showcase
Pamela Hurle's book for the cameras
[Is that really all you've done today, Colin, a little walk and a chat, before lunchtime? - Ed]
Well, seeing as how you ask, no, absolutely not! In the afternoon, after we come down from our nap-time, I manage to hook up a shiny-new TV recording device, that I'm hoping will mean that we can record late-night TV programmes and watch them, during the day-time, with "subtitles for old codgers", and the facility to "zip through the adverts".
This way we won't be always 100% dependent on sometimes disappointing "catch-up" services.
See? You know it makes sense, don't you!
our shiny new "August" recording device (ringed)
which will hopefully record late-night TV programmes
But am I getting too technical for you? Lois thinks I'm something of a technical "whizz-kid", but you and I know that I'm really just "winging it", don't we haha!
[That's enough madness and ha ha's! - Ed]
20:30 We go to bed on another, reassuringly "mindless", Channel 5 TV royal documentary about what used to be the King's "private house" - Highgrove House near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, built in the 1790's. It's the house where Charles moved in during the early 1980's with his then "latest squeeze", and later wife, Diana "Di" Spencer.
And landscaping expert Bunny Guinness and all the other usual suspects from the "Channel 5 royal documentary" pundit team, are on hand to comment, and to fill in background details, which is nice!
So Charles is a tenant, now, not the landlord. And not only that, but Charles now has to pay rent to his son, to the tune of £650,000 a year, which seems a bit harsh. But maybe it's just a tax dodge? I think we should be told.
Apart from that, the biggest alert was triggered by a group of drunk Welshmen who managed to climb over the garden walls and were wandering about the grounds. They weren't near enough to the actual house to allow a prosecution for trespass, and they just got a warning from police, so that was all right. But since the incident, the rules have been tightened up, so police can now prosecute any intruders found anywhere in the gardens, unless they've got permission to be there, of course.
What madness !!!!!
The house, first built in the 1790's naturally had to have some security devices installed after Charles moved in during the 1980's, but there have been remarkably few "security alerts" since then, which is reassuring. A "panic room" was set up inside the house, with all sorts of life-saving equipment in case of emergencies, but luckily it's never had to be used.
It only caused a problem when, Rory Stuart, the tutor to the then young princes, William and Harry, got locked in the panic room by mistake.
Also, it's interesting to recall how, in the 1980's, Charles's belief in organic gardening, which is now mainstream, was regarded as eccentric and was laughed at in the press. However, Charles was undaunted, and Highgrove's 15 acres gave him his first real chance to put his principles into practice.
Like his "sewage garden", for instance.
Charles's sewage garden at Highgrove.
Charles has always been very proud of the fact that his sewage system is a reed-bed system, which uses a series of bark pits, reeds and willows to process all the waste water at Highgrove. The water gets slowly filtered through several different levels, and all the nitrates etc get taken out naturally.
At the same time, the system forces guests at the house to "behave themselves".
And it was Highgrove where, in the early 2000's, Prince William's then latest "squeeze", Kate Middleton, got her first real dose of attention from the media.
As you probably know, Lois is a keen gardener herself, and loves to grow her own vegetables and fruit, as far as our tiny Malvern garden permits, of course. And there's a practical gardening hint here for Lois as this fascinating documentary draws to a close, which is nice to go to bed on.
flashback to Friday: Lois tries to protect her
runner beans from local slugs, using little stones
I don't know the answer to Lois's question but maybe you do? If so please drop us a postcard!
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzz!!!!
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