Frights & (non) Fireworks

Halloween:

I was rather nostalgically looking at my Halloween blog from last year the other day and remembering all the fun and frights we had at Smallhythe Place. Now  we have our own little house, this year I gave ‘Mini S’ the choice between booking a Halloween ‘ghost walk’ or having a Halloween party at home.

She chose the Halloween party option, so on the night before Halloween our was invaded by a selection of nine year old scary monsters... Knocking on our door in quick succession were a demon; a ghoul, a zombie, a pumpkin, and a witch. What did ‘Mini S’ dress up as I hear you ask ? A black cat of course ! Twilight and her made a great pair at first, but as more and more guests arrived, she (Twilight, not Mini ‘S’) sensibly took refuge under the bed ! 

I think I enjoyed the party as much as they did, though I have to admit, I was a little nervous of running it single handedly... It went without a hitch, and we enjoyed all sorts of games, including apple bobbing, a no handed doughnut eating competition, pin the nose on the witch and spooky musical statues. The evening culminated in a spooky treasure hunt which led the party goers up and down the street and in and out of the neighbours’ houses and gardens !

I can’t take all the credit though... I had help from my unwitting house guest ‘J’ on Saturday night, who was force fed extremely hot curry while being made to write poetic treasure hunt clues; next door neighbour ‘H’ who let us hide a clue and a spooky purple glowing pumpkin in the creepy alleyway to her back garden and opposite neighbours ‘J & J’ who were kind enough to hide the treasure in their house J.

Jerushah gets her core:

Last Saturday I was a very happy lady, as I finally got to take MY core at the submerged forest in Erith...
This time there were research supervisor (you’ve met him before) ‘Dr A;’ undergraduate environmental scientist ‘J’ and (now graduated and here for the fun of it) friend ‘K.’

We had some very heavy duty coring equipment with us, so I decided to pull into the Erith Yacht Club car park to ask if we could unload there. Our sea faring friends there were in fact, extremely kind and rather than risking life and limb wading out through the mud to our usual site, they invited us to walk out to the peat exposure via their lovely concrete slipway... Post field trip, we were so clean, you would hardly know that we had done any fieldwork at all !

We managed to core right through the peat unit into the mud below, a preliminary look showed an interesting oxidised horizon – can wait to get on with the processing !

 

 (Non) firework night :

oor me, I love fireworks, but I seem to have missed out on fireworks this year ! ‘Mini S’ dislikes fireworks and so does Twilight kitty, so we elected to stay in on the night of the biggest local firework display on Friday 4^th  November to keep Twilight company, and go to Ikea on the night of Saturday 5^th.

It was lovely and quiet, with no queues and bargains everywhere !  As it is getting increasingly difficult to dry linen in an environmentally friendly way, I was really pleased they were selling duvet sets for £1.99 ! As for the other things I bought though, I came home thinking ‘Were those really necessary ?’   

I’ll let you be the judge !

 

J’s record of the week :

‘Somebody’s
watching me.’
by

Rockwell

This week ‘Somebody’s watching me’ popped up on a compilation of Halloween music that we downloaded for the party... Reading up a little bit for this blog, I didn’t realise until now that the backing vocals featured both Michael and Jermaine Jackson.  Listening to it took me back to my first year of secondary school in the 1985, when in was released in the UK – my mum used to absolutely love this song and do funny actions to the line ‘When I’m in the shower I’m afraid to wash my hair !’ I wonder if she’d remember it now ? 

Jerushah X

Adventures & Starfish

Cornwall & Devon :

The weekend before last saw mini ‘S’ and me on a short dash, heading for my Cornish homeland.  We arrived on Friday afternoon to a Cornwall bathed in bright sunshine ! ‘I thought your last blog was the sunny blog !’ I hear you say... Which is true, I didn’t expect the sun to still be shining this late in October...
No sooner had we pulled up to the house, then we decided to have an expedition up the wooded valley behind the house. It was lovely, with a stream for wading, fallen leaves for kicking on the path and strewn with rather out of season (climate change again) wood violets. As my farmer uncle ‘P’ is not too well at the moment, we decided to bring the outside in and pick just a couple for him, which he was very happy with.

In the middle of the day on Saturday, we took my grandmother ‘E’ out for lunch, which was by no means an easy task. She has dementia, and although has a few moments of clarity each day, suffers from short term memory loss. It is wonderful to spend time with her though. She is nearly 90 and has such an interesting life. She was able to talk about all sorts of things like her wartime experiences in London, memories of my grandfather and some of her previous cars (including a convertible Jaguar XK something glamorous sounding in the 60’s).  She really seemed to enjoy our trip out and here are some of the best things she said :

•  ‘You see, we have such a lot of ships these days...’ While we were parked up, looking out at the sea. 
• ‘Aaah...  Freedom !’ As we drove over the brow of a hill and looked down into the sunny valley below. 
• ‘Look at their dear faces !’ When we stopped for mini ‘S’ to gaze over the fence at a herd of Holstein Frisians.

Starfish :

After we had dropped my grandmother home, we wanted to do a little bit of rock pooling at Kennack Sands. It actually turned into one of the best rock pooling sessions of my life ! Here are some photographic highlights:

 

We also found a rock pool with 36 (yes, 36 !) hermit crabs living in it, which was strange as would have thought that they would have been in competition with one another. Although unfortunately the photo I took didn’t do it justice, as every time I held my hand over the pool trying to focus, they hid in their shells !

This song is an ‘oldie but goodie’ as they say ! Released in 1970 by Atlantic records. This song has  great childhood memories for me, and involves yet another fabulous junk shop find by my farmer (and soul aficionado) uncle ‘P.’ One day we found a vinyl album at Trader Gray’s ‘Shiver me timbers’ shop in Longrock, entitled ‘Black Magic’ containing this song and many other classics. I heard it on the radio last Saturday and in an instant I knew that it HAD to be my record of the week ! Jerushah X

October Sunshine

There have been plenty of ways to enjoy the October sunshine, but the best two I can think of are fieldwork and a day at the beach in our new(ish) car !

We still love mud:

A week and a half ago a small group of us went to check on the submerged forest site at the Erith foreshore and take some surface samples... Sometimes I feel like a muddy Cinderella, because the mechanical corer is still broken. We have been to the site so many times, and it is still as magical as the first time I visited it. I can’t wait to take a core and start some analysis, I’m hoping that one day my research supervisor will ride in brandishing the newly repaired mechanical corer and say ‘you shall go to the ball!’

 

A day at the coast :

Last weekend there was yet more glorious sunshine, but with a slight bite. My friend ‘Y’ aptly referred to it as ‘the sun with teeth.’ Still it was warm enough for a day at the beach...
On Sunday ‘S’ and me gathered our things together and set off for Dungeness. Our day started at the Pilot Inn, which is renowned for serving fish and chips with gargantuan sized battered cod. I enjoyed watching everyone else chow down while I munched on my salad sandwiches (ever the veggie !). I wondered if they had been genetically modified due to radiation from the local nuclear power station until I remembered it is in the middle of being decommissioned J.

We had a good hunt for shells and brought lots home to add to our collection, on our way back to the car we noticed that the lifeboat station was open and were shown around by some very enthusiastic  volunteers, who explained that at any one time there are about 600 vessels in the English Channel – amazing !
After leaving the lifeboat station we decided to look around at all the little cottages and shacks, with their imaginative shingle gardens incorporating drift wood, fishing floats, old bottles and plenty of other interesting things including one with an old locomotive tank and a big rusty anchor. There were some funny things too, for example; the cottage next door to Derek Jarman’s cottage (which was wonderful -  I wish I had taken a photo), had  a mini version of Derek Jarman’s cottage in the garden which made us chuckle !
Driving down the road towards the miniature railway station, we thought our day was just about finished, when we noticed that the old lighthouse was open to visitors.

Now it would have been a bit obvious if I had chosen anything by the Lighthouse Family, but don’t worry I’m not about to do that ! On the way home from our little jaunt to Dungeness I heard quite a surreal song on the radio. While I was listening I thought ‘this sounds familiar, actually no it doesn’t, but then again may be yes etc. etc.’ Only to find out that it is that latest single from Kate Bush. I’ve never been a particular fan of Kate Bush (even if she is from  Eltham, for all you Avery Hill types), but I rather like the spacey, wild, ethereal feel of this song – perhaps it suited the location ? Jerushah X