Yes, Friends, are YOU thinking of spending Hallowe'en in China? If you aren't a big fan of Halloween "shenanigans", it may be the perfect place to be, because they don't even 'do it' in China, which will come as a relief to some!!!!! And searching the UK press this morning, and their iconic "China supplements", you certainly won't find a Hallowe'en story to shake a stick at, even, which makes a pleasant change!!!!
Here's Colin's selection of today's China "doozies" - reference Onion News's popular 'China Today' news column on page 94 of the print edition, if you're short of time and just want a quick 'overview' !!!!
Strangely, however, today's somewhat 'routine' flood of Chinese news brings a hint of a smug smile to the faces of me and my wife Lois this morning, here in semi-rapacious Liphook, Hampshire - no question about that!!!
me and my wife Lois - a recent picture
for Lois and me, a visit from our daughter Alison brings us a touch of
excitement with news of our 16-year-old grandson's forthcoming visit
to China, with schoolmates all studying Mandarin Chinese for A-Level - the scamps!!!!
our 16-year-old grandson Isaac [inset] and his forthcoming school trip
to Xiamen, China with his Mandarin student classmates - the young scamp!
Then the group will be travelling on to Gulangyu (?), reliving its history, and visiting the Botanical Gardens, rain-forest and science-and-technology museum, and that kind of "malarkey" (!), before meeting some primary school kids, with whom they hope to chat informally, in Intermediate Chinese. Then on to Guangzhou (?), which is also a real place, Alison tells us, where the group will even be attending school lessons, would you believe!
What madness!!!!
Imagine !!!! And a real shock to Lois and me today, because when we first brought Alison home from Cheltenham's St Pauls Maternity Hospital back in 1975, we never imagined that one day she'd be in her fifties and have a 16-year-old son visiting China.
And that picture of my dear late mother Hannah ("Nan") holding little Alison (see above, right) reminds us that today would have been her 107th birthday. Below is her first ever picture, at the age of 3 months, in the arms of her mother Gladys, in Bridgend, Glamorgan, a picture taken by one of the town's photographers.
What madness (again) !!!!
And what we hear is a most fascinating talk, about all the cattle-droving that went on for centuries through English towns and along country lanes, until the phenomenon started to be killed off by the coming of the railways, with their big cattle trucks, back in the 19th century. It nevertheless continued, in smaller numbers: here's Tim Healey's slide of cattle being driven along the Abingdon Road, Oxford as late as the 1950's.
To be frank, it's all a bit of a shock to Lois and me this morning, - and it's not even Isaac's first trip to China: he went there with his school group in 2024, so he's becoming a real "old China hand", as they used to call it!
flashback to 2024: Isaac's first ever visit to China, with schoolmates: (left) Isaac [inset]
also to be seen bottom-right, half out of shot, on the school bus-ride to
London's Heathrow Airport, and (right) the group arriving at their destination in China
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
(left) flashback to 1975: our first ever picture of our daughter Alison, now 51,
and (right) little Alison in the arms of my dear late mother Hannah (Nan),
so obviously delighted to be cuddling her first ever grandchild
Weirdly, in my Facebook feed today, there's also, somewhat randomly, a picture of the town's "County Cinema" taken in 1919, from the 'Old Bridgend' website, which I follow.
(left) first ever picture of my dear late mother Nan, 3 months old,
in the arms of her mother Gladys, at their home in Bridgend, Glamorgan,
and (right) a picture of the town's "County Cinema" which appears,
somewhat randomly in my Facebook feed today
What a very long time ago, it seems now - 1919 !!!
And today, Friday, is altogether a weird day for Lois and me. It's our first day out of the house for a week, would you believe, after Lois put her back out last Thursday night. Since then I've been helping her move around the house, and also getting my hands on anything she wants to get hold of, if it's a a bit 'out of the way' - either too high up or too low down, basically, if you know what I mean !!!!
[Good summary, Colin! - Ed]
Yes, Lois today is almost completely back to normal, I can happily, and exclusively, reveal, and after a week indoors, we celebrate this morning with a quick trip out to the local Co-op for some much-needed essentials, which is nice!
19:30 These days, if you want a quick joint of beef, say, you can just go along to the Co-op (other mini-supermarkets are also available !!!!), and pick a joint up, from the meat aisle - not rocket science is it !!!!
It wasn't so easy in the olden days, however, as we hear, through the magic of the Internet, from a lecture about the old-time "drovers" from Scotland and Wales, who used to drive sometimes hundreds of cattle through English towns, to satisfy the English people's insatiable desire for beef - what a madness it all was (again again) !!!!
us this evening, watching a lecture on the internet about the Scottish and Welsh 'drovers'
who used to drive hundreds of cattle through English towns to satisfy
the English people's crazy, insatiable desire for beef - what madness!
[That's enough madness! - Ed]
You wouldn't think it to look at me, but, at the grand old age of 80, I'm a bit of a technical 'whizz', and have learnt how to project pictures from our laptop onto our TV screen, so we can see them better, which is nice! In the pictures above, you can see our laptop on our little bureau, and, if you look carefully, you'll see also a little cord that connects the laptop to our TV, and "Bob's Your Uncle!" - why don't YOU try it, it's so "simples" haha !!!!!
Lois, "for her sins", is a member of the Banbury Historical Society - she's an Oxfordshire lass born and bred, and her dear dad Dennis was a scion of the north Oxfordshire town of Banbury - you know, the town in the nursery rhyme "Ride A Cock Horse, to Banbury Cross", a phrase which rhymes in the Oxfordshire dialect, weirdly, would you believe!!!
(left) map showing the location of Banbury, Oxfordshire, in the very north of
the county, and (right) the town's Historical Society display in a local field,
enthusiastically trying to attract new members - but what madness!!!
The society has this lecture on tonight, in a hall in Banbury, all about the old cattle-drovers, by local history "buff" - Tim Healey, but obviously Lois would rather not travel there, and, that's why we find ourselves tonight 'tuning into it' via the Internet, which is handy!
"Droving Cattle" - slide of the famous 1565 picture by Pieter Breughel the Elder,
with (right, inset) history buff Tim Healey as he shows the slide during his lecture tonight,
in a hall in Banbury to members of the town's Historical Society
For markets and butchers in the south of England, the cattle mostly came from Wales, with drovers covering, on average, 12 miles a day, and making a horrible noise, with hundreds of cattle mooing and their drovers shouting - shouting mostly in Welsh because few Welsh drovers could speak English in those crazy far-off times, which was mad!
this English ale-house barmaid wants a ride from a passing "Welchman",
but the sad reality was, few Welsh drovers could speak English, which was mad!
There was a constant threat of attack by cattle-rustlers, even into the 19th century, and drovers, uniquely, were allowed to carry guns - flintlock pistols. And they were paid not in banknotes but in promissory notes from the bank, thus frustrating any rustlers or highwaymen, who just wanted a 'quick win', thinking to just 'take the money and run'.
highway robbery: the threat to cattle-drovers from robbers and rustlers -
uniquely drovers were permitted legally to carry guns in England
The drovers' routes across the countryside weren't always the most direct, but were designed to minimise passage through the tollgates which sprang up after turnpike trusts were set up after 1706, in an effort to raise money to improve the quality of the roads.
The drovers took a string of dogs along to help control the cattle - mostly lurchers but also corgis, which came as a surprise to Lois and me. And when the drovers had got their cattle to the markets in the South and East of England, they just let their lurchers go, and the dogs surprisingly had no trouble finding their own way back to their homes in Wales - without satnavs or any of the modern "gizmos", which was totally crazy!
the dogs most favoured by the drovers were their lurchers, and their lurchers
had no trouble finding their own way back to their homes in Wales, even without satnavs!
And even today, there are still clues in place-names, and in the landscape, which reveal the routes that the drovers took: the names of paths over the hilltops, plus roads in some towns called "Welsh Way", plus pub-names, and road-names and house-names incorporating "Drift" or "Drove", or "Coldharbour", which indicated a route sheltered from the cold. Also merely the town-names such as "Wallingford" in Oxfordshire, which means the place where the Welshmen forded the river. And if you see any clumps of Scots pine-trees, these were often planted by the drovers as way-markers.
Also, many a "Green Lane" was so called because of the extra vegetation brought about by all the dung from the cattle that went along it.
What madness, wasn't it !!!!
tell-tale signs that drovers had once passed this way: house-names and street-names
incorporating "Drove" or "Drift" or starting "Coldharbour", even clumps of Scots pines (!)
Fascinating stuff, though, isn't it!!!
[If you say so! - Ed]
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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