Halloween or Guy Fawkes?

When we first moved to England, Halloween was not a celebrated holiday. Our American customs were just beginning to get known to the British, which resulted in some confusion. You see, only five days after Halloween is the one native British holiday: Guy Fawkes Day on November 5th (though you don't get off work to celebrate).

Guy Fawkes is renowned as a participant of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament in 1605 in an attempt to return English rule to Catholicism. His capture on November 5th and later death are what's celebrated on Guy Fawkes Day. Traditionally, English children have made effigies of Guy and sat themselves with their Guys on the street, begging "A penny for the Guy" in the lead up to November 5th. On the day itself, at least in our early years in England, the Guys were paraded through the streets in a contest for the best Guy, then later added to a large bonfire structure which was lit in the evening along with a fireworks display.

Well, the advent of Halloween in Britain encouraged some children to start canvassing neighborhoods (neighbourhoods) two weeks in advance to collect sweets (candy), like collecting pennies for the Guy. With no sense that households may not have bought their goodies to hand out yet, the kids were turned away with nothing. Moreover, they had no idea of what the phrase "Trick or Treat" really meant: when we asked for a trick, they were dumbfounded.

With the cross-over of traditions in England, I was therefore surprised on a recent visit to the States to find that effigies are a big thing these days. So this 'Guy' sitting on the pumpkin could well have been taken onto the streets for collecting pennies -- though I think the real Guy, who called himself Guido while fighting for Spanish causes in the nether-lands, was a bit more sophisticated than the straw might imply.

So, Happy Halloween, and Happy Guy Fawkes Day -- the one English celebration that is not high church or purely commercial.

Autumn Colours

Cottonwood in full colour

In my “Northumbrian Voices” blog, I mentioned daydreaming under a cottonwood tree in my youth. Cottonwoods are glorious in the autumn, turning bright gold against the azure sky. These are the colors (colours) I grew up with.

When talking to an English friend recently how wonderful the fall colors are in the States, I couldn't believe it when he said “They're too bright; they hurt my eyes”!! Indeed, I once had a roll of film in my camera (those were the days), half of which I'd taken in Cambridge and half on an excursion to the Shetland Islands. Everyone talks about how the colours are brighter in the Shetlands, but I was amazed when I developed the film to find the first half in muted grey-greens and blue-grays and the second half in bright blues and clear yellows (it was autumn then, too). The gold colours of cottonwoods and aspens are as unlike the tarnished brassy colours of the horse chestnut as you can get. I used to deplore autumn in Cambridge when the leaves just turned brown and fell off the trees.

Rather than hurting my eyes, the golden colours of autumn trees inflitrate my body to the core, pull it apart and scatter it among the leaves. I am there among the twinkling aspen, and the cottonwoods fill my horizon. And the sweet small of wet fallen leaves is wonderful. The same experience can be had among the cherry trees of Japan, when one is enveloped by a cloud of pink. The best place is along Philosopher's Way (Tetsugaku-no-michi) in Kyoto, where cherries line a canal. Walking the canal path at the height of the season, one can only see pink. I suppose my friend would say it would be like being enveloped in candy floss (cotton candy) and equally undesireable. Maybe this is why everyone in London wears black and neutrals ("grey is the new black") -- no colour, no sense of colour, no sense of the fantastic energizing quality of colour. I love colour, I live colour and pity those without colour in their lives.

Note the tire swing in the cottonwood: great place to play!

A Trip to the Seaside

When I heard we were going to Gibraltar Point last weekend, I thought it was an awfully long way to go for a two-night stay. But it turned out not to be Gibraltar itself in the Mediterranean. Gibraltar Point (arrow on map) is in Lincolnshire, just south of Skegness  – one of the many coastal recreational towns in Britain. Usually these towns have a beach faced by B&B accommodation; a main street with common pinball-type entertainment shops, lots of small eateries and sweet shops; possibly a pier with more entertainment / refreshment facilities perched at its end; and sometimes a small circus area with rides for kids. I always find these towns rather 1930s in feel and somewhat forlorn – maybe because I don’t have the memories of having great fun there as a child.

A fifteen-minute taxi ride south of Skegness brings you to Gibraltar Point, a National Nature Reserve, and its old coastguard station which has been turned into a Visitor Centre and Wash Study Centre. These kinds of study centres, which host a variety of naturalist and school groups for day-trips or longer, are an exceptionally valuable feature of English life. While we were there, we encountered a group of schoolkids doing nature studies on the beach, a group of geography students with measuring poles and clipboards practicing surveying techniques, and of course, us birders. But the dunes along the coast brought many local people, their kids and dogs for walks on a last glorious sunny autumn day. The Study Centre also hosted an exhibition for UK Apple Day and a quiz walk through their heritage orchard.

The Point faces The Wash, an embayment of the North Sea that takes the outflow of three major rivers, the Great Ouse discharging near King’s Lynn in the southwest corner of The Wash being the most famous. Looking out from the Point to the east the first day, I saw land and thought, wow! France! But no, it was only Norfolk. The Wash & North Norfolk Coast is a Special Area of Conservation and European Marine Site: a great place to see seals and many sea and shore birds (and we were lucky to see the Chinese water deer, too). Many people also sail The Wash, as can be seen by the presence of the Skegness Yacht Club with yachts tied up in the ‘marina’ formed by a small tributary into The Wash. Well, I guess there are yacht clubs and there are yacht clubs....but it all goes with quaintness of a British seaside resort.

Skegness Yacht Club marina

Skegness Yacht Club & warning
not to bring in animals from abroad

Spotting Wild Animals

Speaking of animal-spotting, we had an extraordinary encounter with a Chinese water deer at a nature reserve in Lincolnshire last weekend. It was supposed to be an RSPB birding trip, but one of the first things we saw was this animal streaking through the coastal scrub straight towards us, then veering off and jumping down into a river. The thing looked like a barrel on short legs, scrambling through the brush like a rabbit more than a deer. You could see its fangs (unique to water deer), which made its snout kind of stubby-looking, like a pig. Someone said it was probably pregnant, it was so rotund.

The fauna book in the nature reserve library said it was an escapee ornamental import, only present in two counties when the book was published in 1964. But since then, it has obviously spread wider across the country. Interestingly, the next deer named in the book was the muntjac, also a Chinese import. I saw one once in a Cambridge college garden, fading into the hedge. The Chinese water deer is only 60cm high at the shoulder, and the muntjac is even smaller. What interesting wildlife can be seen in England if you're lucky.

A Frontier Airlines wood-duck tail

Then recently I passed through Denver (Colorado, not Denver of the Denver sluice in Norfolk), the hub for Frontier Airlines. Taking a page from the book I reported on earlier (Animal London: a Spotter's Guide), I spotted wild animals in art form. Frontier has painted a different animal on each of its airplanes' tails.

An exhibition in the Denver International Airport (DIA) terminal bridge just happened to have a presentation on the creativity of Denver and Colorado, allegedly the 5th most creative place in the US. Well, Frontier shows this spirit. I like the animals because they are humorous, unpretentious, and entertaining -- not like the pompous logos of many other airlines. Also, they bring the wild into daily life, reminding us that we are not alone in the world but there are others we must take care of.

More Frontier tails: from left, raccoon, bobcat, mountain lion and ?ermine

Make Applesauce!!

If the UK has so many apple varieties that they want to save but are not supermarketable, then why not make applesauce out of them? I’ve never understood why applesauce is sold in such tiny jars in England. In the States, a typical jar of applesauce (pictured) is 25 ounces / 1 lb 9 oz / 708 grams or about 1 quart’s worth (that’s not imperial quarts, mind). The large jar weighs 50 oz / 3 bl 2 oz / 1.41 kg. And it’s not eaten by the spoonful as a condiment but by the bowl full like real fruit.

So in England, if you want to eat applesauce by the bowlful, then make your own. You don’t have to use Bramley apples but any kind will do, and it’s dead easy. And if you want all the healthy stuff in them (eating an apple a day is now scientifically proven to be healthwise), leave the skins on.

• core and cut up four larger apples into bitesize pieces

• boil them in an inch of water in a saucepan until soft, about 10 minutes (or longer if quite runny in order to boil off some of the fluid)

• remove from heat and mash up with a potato masher

• stir in ¼ cup of sugar and cinnamon to taste

Voila! You have made applesauce! Now, if everyone used UK apples in all their knobbly, blemished varieties to make applesauce, we would really be helping to keep our apple diversity alive. Then if the companies would follow suit and made larger jars of UK applesauce, we would really be on a roll.

Apple Day in the UK

I didn't know it until Saturday, but October 21st is National Apple Day in the UK. And well should UK apples be celebrated. Among 7500 varieties worldwide, there are over 300+ varieties of apples grown in the UK, but very few of them reach the national marketplaces. They are judged to be too unsightly or too varying in size by the supermarkets who peddle perfectly sized and shaped – and often tasteless – apples from France and New Zealand instead: the usual run of the mill Gala, Red Delicious, etc.

The Cox apple is the most popular of UK apples, the Bramley is the only specialized cooking apple: too tart to be eaten on its own. All Bramleys come from cuttings of a single tree, still alive in Southwell, Nottingshire after 200 years. See the original Bramley tree on BBC! National Apple Day aims to get local apples more widely known and appreciated, before this particular aspect of biodiversity disappears from the UK. Do your bit: now that it's autumn, buy British apples! And if you don't like their looks, make applesauce from them!

Animal Spotting

I like it! I like the idea anyway...haven't read the book because it hasn't yet been published:  "Animal London: a spotters' guide" (by Ianthe Ruthven, Random House UK, February 2012). This is about walking around London and looking at architecture, statuary, etc. to find the variety of animals depicted. It's always useful to look around you in London, especially upwards. Above the shopfronts (depressingly uniform) are often some lively architectural features, if not actually anthropomorphic or zoomorphic then amazing displays of craftsmanship and design. Just don't trip when you're looking up (in Camden, it's better because they've been replacing all the sidewalks (pavements) recently with evenly laid concrete tiles.

Once having learned about this idea of spotting animals in an urban setting, I tried it out in Durham. What I found was one lonely sign depicting a gull. Interesting though; this gull belonged to a group of volunteers who have organized what they call 'empty shops' – renting empty shop space as temporary galleries, exhibitions, and performances. Seeing as how up to 30% of high street shops are now vacant in some towns, this seems a good use of resources and a laudable thing to be doing in these recessionary times.

Meanwhile, I looked up spotter's guide (always singular) on the internet and was surprised to find it is a standard term for animal spotting. Lots of books, but mainly on spotting animals in the wild. One, however, told you how to do it in a zoo. Finally, I ran across an article in Time Out, the premier entertainment guide to London, which listed the wild animals one can see in London itself (including the Thames)*: badger, bats (16 species), Canada goose, common seal, damselflies, dragonflies, fallow deer, fox, grey heron, grey squirrels, Harris hawk, hedgehogs, mice, northern bottlenose whale, otter, pelican, peregrine falcon, ravens, rats, red deer, ring-necked parakeet, signal crayfish, sparrow, stag beetle, water vole. The emboldened ones I'm aware I've seen myself in London, but I must say, whoever made up this list isn't a bird-watcher! And what happened to butterflies?

* See the article for more detail on the animals and where to find them. They also ask for contributions to what you've seen. I'll do the same...