Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
It’s time to get those boots muddy again. My regular ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary in February’s ‘The Yorkshire Dalesman’ on the alleged benefits of yomping through mud and splashing through puddles. No, honestly, you’ll enjoy it . . .
A heist, a tapestry and a flood. Councillor Oddie and novelist Stan Barstow feature in my article in February’s ‘Dalesman’ magazine, ‘Stones, Stitches and Stories’ celebrating 120 years of Horbury’s Carnegie Free Library.
To hear more – including the connection with the formidably talented Marie Corelli – you’re welcome to my short talk, admission free, at the library, 10.30 am, Friday 13th February.
Le Havre, Easter, 1968: Café des Amis stood just a few yards from my school penfriend Philippe’s house in Le Havre.
I was in my first year at art school but Philippe was still attending school.
The Lemaires lived on Rue Roger Salengro, not far from a small park overlooking the town and port of Le Havre, so these long flights of steps were a feature of any walk into town.
I haven’t added any sepia toning to these photographs, that’s down to my poor skills at developing and printing the 35 mm film. They still have a whiff of fixative about them.
In sepia my room at the Lemaire’s has a nineteenth century look to it.
On the homeward journey, after a sleepless night on the ferry, I explored Southampton.
I was met at the station by Mother and Father and the Deacon’s in their new car. We had a Soirée in the evening with Dave on the Guitar, Party games, a Sing-Song and Mrs Odo Ardi singing and Uncle Jack hid father’s Pyjamas* and left his glasses and I went to bed under the kitchen table it being 41½ hours since I got up.”
*My dad once appeared in pyjamas and dressing gown winding up an alarm clock as a gentle hint that it was time to wind up the party.
In February, Valentine’s Day, we’re celebrating the 120th anniversary of Horbury’s Carnegie Free Library. This 1902 reprint of The Origin of Species might have been part of the original stock, although as it has been trimmed and rebound there are no original labels or stamps to confirm that.
With its photogravure sepia-toned portrait of Darwin as the frontispiece, it’s identical to the book that I borrowed from Horbury Library when I was a student at Batley School of Art in 1968.
At that time I was trying to read through some of the ‘great books’ – Greek myths (in a two volume compilation by Robert Graves), the Bible, Plato’s Republic, etc – and I took it as my holiday reading when I visited, for the first time, my French penfriend, Philippe, in le Havre.
It wasn’t the best choice for what turned out to be a 40-hour stint without sleep on my return journey by ferry to Southampton and train:
I attempted to Read Origin of the Species but heard voices and saw faces in the corridor out of the corners of my eye and the spaces between the type on the page formed figures suggested by the narrative”
As part of a revamp of our front garden, I’ve just replanted half a bucket of daffodils, which, as they were all tête-à-tête, amounted to several hundred. I split any that were ready for splitting. They were already just starting to sprout so they should be in flower in a month or two.
Meanwhile I drew these larger shop-bought daffodils opening, using the Bellerive Pen in Procreate, drawing with an Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro.
As usual, some of the star birds we’d hoped for, such as the great-spotted woodpecker and the sparrowhawk, didn’t put in an appearance as we completed this year’s hour of observation for the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch.
All but three of the eleven species that we recorded visited the bird feeders, currently stocked with peanuts, sunflower hearts and Peckish bird seed. A cock pheasant and a blackbird foraged down the garden while a dunnock hopped about at the foot of the hedge.
Around 50 wood pigeons suddenly flew up from the wood, perhaps disturbed by a sparrowhawk, but not one of them visited the garden.
On our circuit of the lagoons at RSPB St Aidan’s this morning we saw a sparrowhawk at Astley Lake and, over the ridge, kestrel, buzzard and red kite – the latter two being mobbed by a crow, which couldn’t decide which one to go for.
As we returned to the car park we got a chance to see a little owl in a bush behind the dragline excavator: a grey streaky shape against the brownish gnarled trunk of the bush. We wouldn’t have spotted it without the help of an observant bird-watcher.
House spider and logs at Nostell.
The hill sheep I saw on an an archive ‘Look at Life’ film on Talking Pictures TV looked strikingly grey. The round-up was filmed in the Peak District, c.1960, so I don’t think these were some rare breed that I haven’t come across, it looked more as if they’d been downwind of the smoky chimneys of the Manchester’s textile mills and picked up a good sprinkling of soot.
The days are getting longer but by the time I get around to painting this in the late afternoon, getting on for half past four, the light is fading fast.
