When I was putting together my stock for the shop at the Sustainability Centre recently, I was asked to create some price tags for my items. Whilst it would have been relatively simple to use a photo of one of my items, I thought that could be a bit limiting in a weird sort of way, because there’s such a diversity to the stuff I produce, depending on where inspiration takes me.
So I’d been on the look out for something ‘Ramtops’ related – ideally a ram doing something creative, or similar. That’s the name we gave our house nearly 25 years ago, and comes from the name of one of the mountain ranges in the Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Being ‘Ramtopsrac’ has been my nom-de-plume ever since, across all sorts of social media. I’d kept my eye out, searched various label and stamp making companies, and nothing had seemed to quite fit the bill.
Then among an online network of creative clergy a lovely priest in the Nadder Valley in Wiltshire called Jo Naish produced a series of sheep related cartoons for ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ (Fourth Sunday of Easter, when the reading is John 10:11-18)… one of which was a ram, on top of a mountain! I love it. I realise it doesn’t reference the ‘making’ process of the variety of items I produce, but it was suitably quirky and distinctive enough to fit the bill, at least as far as I was concerned. Whilst I wasn’t going to use it for the purpose it was shared, Jo was very happy for me to adopt it as my logo, for which I am hugely grateful.
So, here’s my logo, and the blurb I created to go with it. I hope I will get the opportunity to make more use of it in the future.
Here’s me playing catch-up on the exciting thing that happened for me in June: my handmade items are now in stock in a shop! (They have been since 10th June, but one or two other things have happened since then too!)
Some of my work available for purchase at the shop at the Sustainability Centre on the South Downs Way near East Meon.
I’m so grateful for the opportunity and encouragement provided by the Sustainability Centre near East Meon in Hampshire, who also supplied the Willow for the woven framed wallhangings that I’ve been developing.
It took a bit longer to make this happen than originally intended, but given so much of my stuff is natural fibre, upcycled, recycled, or ‘found’ in some way, I think the ethos of the Sustainability Centre and what I’m trying to create are a great fit for each other.
There’s a whole range of items which I’ve made including earings, keyrings, pendant necklaces, brooches and wallhangings. It was lovely to be able to make use of an old basket, inherited from my Mum, and carefully stored for the last 25 years. She had a bit of a hoarding tendancy, which in part is what much of my creativity has been based on!
The eagle-eyed will also note the new logo on the tags! This was the first opportunity for my new ‘logo’ to be pressed into use. More of that in the next blog-post!
I’m very grateful to Lyn the shop manager at the Sustainability Centre, for giving me this opportunity. I wonder if anything will sell?
A close-up of some of the items available at the Sustainability Centre Shop.
With the end of the holidays we’re not being quite so regular in our setting of the trail-cam.
However, I’m pleased to report that the regular hedgehog (what we first thought were leaves stuck on it’s bottom may perhaps be scars but make good identifying marks) is apparently now using the hog-house that we cleaned out Bank Holiday weekend. Our first video of this was 4th September, but we had a second video last night 10th September, so we’re thinking the ‘hogfather’ may now be resident?
Look closely – two hedgehogs again!
Last nights other exciting hog news was video of two hedgehogs, the ‘resident’ hogfather, and one other (on the left in the video). The first time this happened, the second hedgehog seemed much smaller than the other. On this occasion the second hedgehog seems of similar size?! Wondering if that means there are three hedgehogs using the garden?!
Planning additional protection for the hog-house from the elements – we need to prune a large bush out front, and think we’ll use some branches to cover it for the winter. However the question is, do we need another hog-house as well?
Male Peregrine, Winchester Cathedral, 16th April 2018
I’ve been keeping a secret, and finally I can share it.
Back on 21st March, I had finished a meeting at Winchester Cathedral, and got in the car, when I heard an incredibly distinctive noise that had me behaving like a terrier on ‘point’. It was not a sound I’d expected to hear at the Cathedral, but it had me out car and over to the iron railings with the binoculars that live under the car seat, faster than you can “Church of England”!
There, sat on the roof of the north aisle, flying to the west and end and back, were two individuals of a species I’d only ever seen briefly and at great distance on Cornish cliffs, or in organised, camera assisted watches at Salisbury and Chichester Cathedrals. Peregrines. I only had my phone, pictures on which showed but specs on the roof, but the video of the distinctive calls were good enough to send to Keith Betton of Hampshire Ornothological Society (HOS), to check that I wasn’t going mad. Returning to my car, a passing bishop seemed rather bemused to see me peering at the architecture with binoculars, but thankfully didn’t query the behaviour of one of his junior clergy!
Male Peregrine, Winchester Cathedral, 15th May 2018
Keith assured me I wasn’t bonkers, that a nesting tray had been freshly inserted into the (cathedral sized) gutter that had flooded in these birds 2017 attempt at nesting, and that fingers were crossed (and perhaps prayers being said). These were birds that HOS had been aware of for years, and which had been ousted from their previous site by the demolition of the old Hampshire Police HQ in winter 2016-17. The news that they were nesting on purpose built, hopefully flood proof, accommodation at the Cathedral this year, was however to be kept quiet at this stage, at the request of the Cathedral staff. So I stayed ‘stum’.
My camera has accompanied my two excursions to the cathedral since, nestled among my robes when arriving to volunteer as a Cathedral Chaplain. I’ve taken what photos I could: the male showing well on the first trip, male and female visible most recently. Quiet conversations with the birds guardians (the virgers) were had. I also reported in to Keith when I saw them.
Female Peregrine, Winchester Cathedral, 15th May 2018
Last week Keith did me the courtesy of letting me know there were three chicks that needed ringing, and this was achieved on Monday 21st May. At that point the Cathedral staff also agreed the news could be made public, so you may have seen it on their Facebook feed, or on the local TV morning news on Tuesday 22nd May. I hope this success story might encourage Winchester Cathedral to work further towards become an Eco-cathedral as the diocese works on become and Eco-diocese.
To be able to photograph Peregrines on ‘my’ cathedral, in the city my father grew up in, and in which my grandmother lived all her life, was thrilling. Then I was offered the chance to be among a small group who could watch the chicks on a different nest in south Hampshire being ringed 22nd May, and the diary was flexed to make it possible. So this week I watched four chicks of these Schedule 1 species, having their ID fitted under license, so that they can be identified, and their future distribution and success tracked.
The population growth since the first Hampshire pair in the 1970s, is one of the success stories of conservation post WWII (when they were shot so as not to stop the passage of vital carrier pigeon messages to the resistance in continental Europe) and post-DDT. I’ve now witnessed two of the nineteen successful Peregrine sites in Hampshire this year!
Three of the four Peregrine chicks I witnessed being ringed in south Hampshire, 22nd May 2018.
It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post about wildlife sightings, largely because they have been few and far between – not so much the sightings as the time to make them in the first place! However, having spent both my husband and my father’s birthday’s on Noar Hill, near Selborne in Hampshire, I thought I’d share our increasing love of the place.
At the very end of April my husband and I spent a rather cool day in this nature reserve which boasts among other things great views, and a friendly throughput of knowledgeable wildlife experts happy to stand, talk and share their expertise. Though we met people who had seen a Duke of Burgundy (a rare butterfly for which the hill is known) and also Green Hairstreak, we drew a complete blank, notching up only more common species like a Peacock and an Orange Tip.
Chiff Chaff… or Wood Warbler?
We did however see emerging Twayblade orchids, early Common Spotted Orchid, and got some good sightings of singing Chiff Chaff and I photographed this little warbler at close range, which I assumed was a Chiff Chaff (it wasn’t singing so I couldn’t be sure). I’ve since been told by a chap on a birding Facebook group that it might be a Wood Warbler because it has brown legs, though it would have only just arrived on migration if that was the case. Any guidance or definitive explanation would be most helpful via the comments please!
The end of May is my father’s birthday, and leaving poor husband to an INSET day in school, I took Dad to Noar Hill, and this time came away with a list of 7 butterflies seen (Duke, Orange-Tip, Green Hairstreak, Dingy Skipper, Large White, Green-Veined White, Speckled Wood), 4 species of moth (none rare), a Dark-Edged Bee Fly, Twayblade, Common Spotted (including a white one) and Early Purple Orchids, and a Wood Warbler heard (but not seen – Dad’s warbler id skills stretch to song, and certainly wasn’t a Chiff Chaff singing that beautifully!)
Here are a selection of the treats from the day, though not including father’s fab photo of a Yellowhammer taken out the car window before I’d even managed to park!
Duke of Burgundy
Early Purple Orchid
Twayblade Orchids
Green Hairstreak
Dingy Skipper
I thoroughly recommend a visit to Noar Hill, but don’t miss out on Selborne. There a great public loos at the free car park by the pub, and of course Gilbert White’s house and it’s associated walks, but there is also The Selborne Tea Room and it’s lovely cheese and watercress scones that aren’t to be missed, unless they’ve sold out (again)!
For Winchester Diocese, like Portsmouth, ordination retreats are held at the beautiful Park Place and Wickham in the Meon Valley. Last week was my Diaconal retreat, shared with those being ordained to the priesthood in our diocese. There were periods of silence, reflection and free time to restore the soul and focus on the role to which I am called.
Anna Norman Walker, Canon Mission of Exeter Cathedral was our excellent retreat conductor, and for me managed just the right balance of humour, Biblical reflection, personal stories, poetry, images and music. Using the ‘scaffolding’ of the Eucharist our 5 reflections focused on the words “take”, “thanks”, “blessed”, “broken” “shared”. I would particularly commend the poetry she used, which was by Gerard Kelly (“Spoken Worship” was the recommended title – something I shall be buying for future use).
Anyway, before succumbing to a lurgy that meant I would have to be nursed with prayer and paracetamol through the ordination day itself, I took a couple of lovely walks in the afternoon free time we were given, along the edge of the neighbouring Wickham Park Golf Course and down to the River Meon at the bottom of Wickham itself, before winding back along the disused railway line to the golf course and pastoral centre. The golf course, it’s bramble and grass lined edges and it’s water features in particular, were a haven for wildlife, and alongside the insects shown below, I also saw Ringlet butterflies, Beautiful Demoiselle damselflies in courtship chases by the Mean, an Emperor dragonfly and a Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly that took a Meadow Brown butterfly on the wing over a pond before taking it high into a will to shuck it’s wings and eat it!
Pale, female, Meadow Brown at rest
Freshly hatched I think – a Marbled White. There were literally dozens of these on the edge of the golf course.
Pair of Small Skippers – lots of these common but often un-noticed butterflies around.
Male Meadow Brown – much darker than the female
Large Skipper – a first for me, at least of a confirmed photographed sighting. Slightly bigger than it’s small cousin and with more marbled wings.
Azure Damselfly – but you can only tell this by looking very closely at the markings after taking the photo and downloading it!
Unexpected update: delighted that this post appears to have inspired Archdruid Eileen to the most wonderful parody of the wild life to be had on ordination retreats; Ordination retreats and their wildlife
Theoreo means, in New Testament Greek, to wonder, ponder, or 'chew over.' Theore0's are my reflections on current issues, facing the Church and Christians. I frequently consider issues such as the relationship between faith and economic life, Christianity and leadership and, other ethical issues. Many of these issues are covered in a book I co-edited called Theonomics (available either through Amazon or direct from Sacristy Press). All views are my own. I aim to provoke and stimulate wider debate, for the common good and hope not to offend.
Because God Calls 