Link to the wanderingdaphnes.blogspot.co.uk

Bear's Britches or Acanthus Mollis

http://thewanderingdaphnes.blogspot.co.uk 

The meaning of…..

Wandering:  Pronunciation:/ˈwɒnd(ə)rɪŋ/

Traveling  aimlessly from place to place; itinerant:

Amble,circumambulate, circumnutate, cruise, deviate, divagate, divert, drift, float, follow one's nose, gad, gallivant, globe-trot, hike, hopscotch, jaunt, meander, ramble, roam, roll, rove, saunter, straggle, stray, trek,  walk the tracks .

Wander and ramble stress the absence of a fixed course or goal: wandered down the hall lost in thought. "They would go off together, rambling along the river" (John Galsworthy).

Roam and rove emphasize freedom of movement, often over a wide area: "Herds of horses and cattle roamed at will over the plain" (George W. Cable). "For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another" (Charlotte Brontë).

Wondering: Pronunciation:/ˈwɒnd(ə)rɪŋ/

                   a feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar: the wonder of a child

, a thing or a quality of something that causes wonder, admiration, astonishment, awe, astonishment, bewilderment, concern, confusion, consternation, curiosity, doubt, fascination, fear, incredulity, jar, jolt, marveling, perplexity, perturbation, puzzlement, reverence, shock, skepticism, start, stupefaction, stupor, surprise, suspicion, uncertainty, wondering, wonderment

http://wanderingdaphnes.blogspot.co.uk 

performances

Practicing

Kesacana Cornish A cappella group

Hazardous Cargo

The Butter Thieves

Just come down from Rainforest ballon

The Amazing Plant Show with Jane Spurr at the Eden Project

Dances with flowers

t

the caravan people

Living in a caravan is fun and exciting.  You can make dens, catapults and all sorts of weapons. Also you can find bugs and beetles and put them in a jar to make a museum of crawlies. The rest of the time you sit in your caravan playing games and enjoying yourself.

If you look carefully you may find a hairy red, robins pin cushion in the hedge.  It's really weird how a rose transforms into that scruffy thing. They grow on wild roses  and it is when a gall wasp lays larvae on the the rose bud in the spring and the Rose in reaction, to protect itself creates a pin cushion around the larvae and then the larvae grow inside the gall and turn into wasps.

Today I have got dandelion sap on my hands and even after bathing I can't get it off.  We went to the  Minnack theatre by the sea.  After we had watched a very amazing play at the amphi theatre  we went onto the beach and we played for a while and then we decided to go to the beach next to it but there was a cliff blocking us off from the other beach so we climbed over the cliff but as we climbed  huge waves smashed onto them and I almost got wounded and then my mother was just walking along the sand by the face of the rock and suddenly a huge wave crashed down like a tiger pouncing on it's prey, slowly, but fiercely. She sprung onto a rock beside her in eagerness to get away from the waves and I yelled  "run the sea is chasing you!"  Then  Auntie K found these beautiful limpets in the sand.

the beaches by the Minnack Theatre

sand

Once upon a time I decided to leave my home and go traveling with my daughter.  Here she is at home in the apple orchard up the road.  Soon after that I took her out of school and we became caravan people for a year.

Mermaid Tales

                                                                                


A sample of my pictures and stories
                                                
                                                
                                              Once upon time,  there was a spinner mermaid who thought that the grass was always greener on the other side.   The mermaid often wanted what she couldn't get and wasn't happy with what she had! Oh dear!  Inside her heart a garden grew and the mermaid yearned for the land and the trees and the wild flowers, she loved earth more than the coral reefs.   Have you ever seen a coral reef?  They are just as beautiful as the most lovely gardens in all the world. This mermaid loved flowers and she had blossoms in her soul and bird song in her ears and she wanted to be a human.

Everyday she would go to her special limpet rock to spin seaweed for the coral reefs  and her eyes would drink in the soft, green hills of land and her nose would smell the sweet dry scent of the wildflowers that grew there.  And she would sing her see- through songs and the deep sounds poured down into the underwater world, bubbling and echoing and the light ones would rise up with the white spray and spring high into the sky.
And of course, as in all mermaid tales, a sailor caught the breath of the wild note and all he could do was follow that song in the wind, and knew he not, what he followed or why he went there. And he was a man who was often  pulled, this way and that, he already had another mermaid in his heart and in his hands but still,  he was not happy.








   And the spinner mermaid saw the boat coming towards her and terrified was she and frozen in fright, she did not want to be caught by a human for she had heard that they were rough and rude and  that they would eat her for they saw her, only as a fish.  But this sailor was different.  He knew about mermaids for his mother had been one and his father, a human.

The Spinner mermaid trembled with shock and with song gulped back, she went to slip away, but found, a net of  polyester rope had tangled her tail to the seaweed on the rock, round and round,  and  she could not set herself free

 And the sailor, amazed to see a caught mermaid, jumped down to help her, for he could see what she was, and she screamed with a terrible fright, but then she looked and immediately her mermaid's heart flew like a butterfly's .  And so of course, love was there, quick as a silverfish, shimmering though hearts it came, and in each others eyes a knowing, like a twinkle come from the dawn, of the sun itself.

In that moment King Neptune, hiding in his cave, down, in the extreme  deeps, heard her song cease and saw in mer mind eye  scales slide from his daughter's tail and saw he that she had met the fisher king, with his big heart and his deep wound but he knew there was nothing he could do. He could not drag his tired and aching body up to the top for the bad tales of the sea and the rubbish had weighed him down so. But he knew that no mermaid ever lives for long on land and always does  return to the sea and so he sent sea kisses to his daughter and she felt them pop on her cheek and she sent him sea hugs through the water that rippled all towards and round him. And so King Neptune lay on his side, watching the currents of the water flow by, his hand on his head and his elbow on the bottom of the sea and he drew pictures  in the sand. And he waited, he waited for things to improve.

And so the Spinner mermaid went to live in the sailors cottage and she was happy for a while.  But she still had sea legs and walked like  drunken men do and her legs were like rubber legs and  the sailor often had to carry her.  Sometimes the sailor would be away for days and the mermaid, as she sat by her window grew worried and so she would sing and always her singing would call him back.

















  One day a terrible storm rose up at the mermaids window and a face appeared at the window.  The face had long black mer hair around it and a smile.  But the mermaid could sense that this face was very angry and so she pulled her sheets up around her.  Anyway it was the other mermaid and she whisked out her conch shell and with her sea magic she sucked out the mermaids voice and flew off with the storm.  And so the spinner mermaid found she could not speak or sing.












 The spinner mermaid felt imprisoned without her voice and she
could not sing back her sailor  and so she began to spend long moments by herself.  Meanwhile the sailor was having a tough time catching fish and he was gone many long nights and days and she felt lost and forgotten. A veil and a foggy dew appeared between the mermaid and the world and she began to feel like she did not exist and knew not where she begun or ended. Her feet bothered her and for those first days she would sit by her window looking at the sea all day.

Herbs and wild flowers

The Yellow Archangel Lamium galeobdolon 

With Bluebells

This Archangel has silvery streaks on the leaves and is the  the cultivated variety.  Lamium album, is of the wild and has no silver marks. Part of the Dead-Nettle family, it grows in woodlands, often in damp places, these ones are growing by Saint Brevita's Holy Well  in Lanlivery. 

The flower has the reputation of being a guardian against evil spirits.  April 27th is a day dedicated to Archangel Michael, the red and white dead nettles flower around this time and this family group get their name from the day. 

'It makes the head merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirits, is good against quartan agues, stancheth bleeding at mouth and nose, if it be stamped and applied to the nape of the neck; the herb also bruised, and with some salt and vinegar, and hog-grease, laid upon an hard tumour or swelling, or that vulgarly called the king's evil, do help to dissolve or discuss them; and being in like manner applied, doth much allay the pains, and give ease to the gout, sciatica, and other pains of the joints and sinews. It is also very effectual to heal green wounds, and old ulcers; also to stay their fretting, gnawing and spreading. It draweth forth splinters, and such like things gotten into the flesh, and is very good against bruises and burnings. But the yellow archangel is most commended for old, filthy, corrupt sores and ulcers, yea, although they grow to be hollow, and to dissolve tumours.'  Culpepper. It is also said that the dead nettles in general are good for purifying the blood and for exzema.

There are many holy wells in Cornwall, some are supposed to heal and most are connected to Saints.  I want to search  them out for they are where the wild springs gurgle up. 

The well I visited today is near a bog and has a small trickle of water coming from the back and then out of the front. There were lots of Yellow Archangel flowers growing near it although I do believe that the type with silver streaks on her leaves is the less wild variety, (which is what grows here), plain leaves are said to be the true wild form. The Saints Way, a walk for travelers, is near the well and winds it's route from the South to the North coast of Cornwall.  Also the Michael and Mary ley lines that are supposed to cross under the ancient font in the church of my home town.  Today there is a stillness and a  strange image came to my mind of a many headed Serpent as I put my head into the well to look. Saint Brevita's well, in Lanlivery.  

                                                    DANDELIONS

              Blood Cleanser. Lymph tonic. Kidneys. Liver. Stomach. Arthritis.
              Could help with Relaxation.  Emotional stagnation. Depression.
                              Do not use if there are kidney stones

 The root helps the blood in the veins to circulate so therefore could be good for varicose veins, heamorrhoids. Dandelions are high in vitamins A and C and have doses of iron, copper and potassium.   They are believed to be good for balancing blood sugar levels and  for general fatigue, cleansing for kidney, liver, digestive disorders and headaches.  One cup a day, drunk for some weeks should help with overall health. 

                                              ANGELICA  
Angelica is a striking, large herb with powerful and pungent stalks and seeds. It comes out in Spring, along with the Alexanders.  It looks similar to the very poisnous Hemlock, with it's reddish stems, and care should be taken to make sure it isn't that.  I dug out some Angelica from the herb bed at eden and I've asked the Chefs to candy it. Presently it is out of favor but I remember as a child eating tea cakes with the tiny coloured, green and red stalks of Angelica as a topping.  Once tasted never forgotten, it contains all sorts of amazing properties, one of them being Angelic acid which is also found in Carrots. It originates from Africa and was bought to England in the 17th century. Later on a monk saw an angel in his dream who told him to use it for the plague. I have found it calming and clearing and it makes a good all round tonic. Do not eat the fresh root as it's said to be poisonous.  You can eat the seeds, the leaves and the stalks.

The Spinners Story

An unordinary spinner sits beside her window, spinning her wool. She loves the chocolates and greys,' the blacks and whites of the Jacob's wool and the smooth lanolin on her fingertips. As she spins, love flows out of her heart and into the wool, and the sheep, into the grass that feed the sheep, into the earth that grows the grass and into the trees and birds and their songs 

And the clouds feel her love and so does the sky and even do the twinkling stars. She spins love into everything. And as she spins love  sunlight also pours into her thread. But one day, as she is spinning, a tiny lump appears.  It is less than perfect.  And she chastises herself.  Later on it happens again and and again she is not happy with herself. She begins to feel tired and the spinners arms begin to ache and a heaviness descends, down into her body, through her legs and into her foot that pushes the pedal. She stops.  And she rests.  And then she begins to nod, and then she is falling into a half dream and then her head falls onto her chest and she is asleep.

She dreams she is walking down the stone steps of her cellar. She opens the door and it is different to how she remembers.  It is very dirty and very dark.  Suddenly, the door slams behind her and a strange old man enters.  "Who are you?" she asks.
"I am your Caretaker," he says.
"Would you like a cup of tea lady?" he asks.
And in her dream she says yes she would.
"Will you help me clean the cellar lady?" he says, in a croaky, grating voice.
"Why yes," she says.
And so he goes to a cuboard, pulls out a cloth and some cleaner and hands it to her and she proceeds to clean the cellar.  She cleans all day and he brings her cups of tea. After a long while she lies down on a comfy looking bed that has appeared and then she goes to sleep.
The next morning, she wakes up in her dream and the caretaker appears and the cellar is again dirty.  So again the Spinner cleans the cellar and again she falls asleep and again the caretaker gives her copious amounts of cups of tea.  And this goes one and she is stuck and she never remembers that she has cleaned the cellar the day before.
She has all but forgotten herself, that she is s spinner and that she spins love into everything.  One day she goes to the cuboard to get some more cleaner out and she comes across a new variety.  She reads the label and it say Window Cleaner,  but just as she thinks there are no windows, she looks up and there right at the top of the wall is a round and dirty window.  Ooh, she says, I must clean that and so she drags a table and a chair to the window and climbs up and on her tiptoes she is able to reach the window.  She polishes the window and suddenly sunlight pours through and she thinks, Oh! Sun! And the beams pour right over her head and onto the opposite wall and there another window appears so she rushes over to it and begins to clean that one and as she looks through it she can see another person polishing another window in another cellar, and that person is also looking through a window at another cleaner in another cellar, and so it goes on and on, with sunlight streaming through all the windows, until it is full circle and someone is peering through the window that she first had cleaned. Suddenly, BANG! goes the door and the caretaker arrives, he begins to stutter, "Would you like".....and his words trail off.  The cleaners all down in the cellar, all blink and stretch their eyes become clear, the sun shines on all the walls that are white and gleaming and they all gather together and as they do something strange begins to happen to the caretaker for little horns appear on his head and wool sprouts up about his ears. He is turning into a sheep! He says, his last words, that end with a bleat, no ladies, no they didn't need cleaning they was already clean! And with that he trots up the cellar stairs and the people follow him. And they remember, they remember who they are.  And the woman, she awakes and she knows now that she is not alone. For there are many spinners, spinning out their love, to the world everywhere. 

Stone

 I have two, granite, 3 billion year Lewisian Gneiss stones in a box with Helibores. Speckled pink, grey and white. These tough, lovely flowers live for quite a long while. They are similar to the stones, rosy, speckled, still. Some say they are soft, others hard, that they are smooth and others, rough. Nobody can quite agree.

The Gneiss are from Scotland, the Isle of Lewis.  A long time ago that big lump of stone moved over from North America and became part of Scotland and it didn't change to clay like some granite will.

In quantum physics there is more space in a rock than rock. And if you looked deep within rock you would see that it is energy and you would see atoms moving and because they do there is a 600 billion times the current age of the universe to one chance that you might see it disappear to somewhere else. So says Brian Cox, when he put a  3 billion year old diamond gemstone in a box.

Out in the sky, about 10 light years away, in the middle of the Centaurus constellation there is a big, 10 billion trillion trillion carats planet of pure Diamond born out of a White Dwarf.
.