The Magic of Books...

Tides of  War  a Novel by Stella Tillyard

Page 279/280

...and I Goya do my bit for the illustrious Monarch with my oils and brush...

they demand a crown and scepter...nothing equestrian  to annoy me (Goya did not like to paint horses!).. and I would not honour the King with the loyalty of a dog...and I rushed it out in fifteen  days..eight thousand reals for me...pretent to rejoice and so do I. 

But under the palace runs a river of blood, thick and scarlet...The monster of war will stride over the land, a pitiless colossus who devours all humanity.

And I Goya? I am past seventy, deaf and have money to make.

Page 328

...as he turned the lock in the heavy old door weariness crawled over him...One group of men imposed their will upon another by force. War never finishes...it never will. It simply moves about the world like the ocean current...now one country, now another...Why?...

to declare peace, to think it is ever possible? 

All that is folly.

A great Novel, families affected by wars like it was like it is and continues ..

Sepia Saturday 324/ 2.April 2016

The Gotthard a mountain with a long history.

The narrow serpentine Via Tremola leads steeply up to the Gotthard Pass. Earlier rattled and rocked  the stagecoaches along the  winding road. Today only tourists drive over the historic pass road. 

The Gotthard Pass was since the Middle Ages until the 20th century one of the most important north-south connections through the Alps. This transport axis leads in a north-south direction through the Gotthard massif. It is the direct transport link through the Alps. 

 Gotthardhospiz,  the Inn,  1785

Charles-Melchior Descourtis - Lüönd, 

 kol. Kupferstich von Descourtis nach Zeichnung von Rosenberg

At the summit a chapel  and a hospice was built  very early on. It is not known who built the chapel and the Inn to rest and get sustenance along the way. During excavations in the basement of the old hospice, they discovered  foundations, which date back at least to the Carolingian period or even earlier.

The chapel and the hospice on the pass were mentioned the first time on August 12, 1331 concluded by border disputes and a peace treaty between Urseren and Livinen. 

The Archbishop of Milan Galdinus, has consecrated the chapel in 1230 to the Holy Godehardus (according to Liber Sanctorum notitiae Mediolani).  Since then the pass is named Gotthard. Yet there is  evidence that already decades before  monks of Disentis had a chapel and  accommodation at the same spot, they  also worshiped the Holy Godehardus.In 1431/32 the hospice was enlarged to make more room for the many travellers and pilgrims on their way to Rom.

In the 17th century Archbishop Federico Borromeo  of Milan expanded the hospice again and also added  living quarters for a priest. From 1685 onwards the order of the Capuchin monks were responsible for the hospice.  They received a special permission to wear shoes due to the extremely cold weather.

Before the end of the 18th century the hospice hosted many destitute travelers, up to 4000 a year.

Each person received a piece of bread and a piece of cheese and a little sweet wine. For lunch they also received geschmalzte soup, meaning a soup made with fat. They also were allowed to sleep there and get other care if needed.

 Der Herzog von Chartres, der spätere König Louis-Philipp von Frankreich, asking for entry into the  Hospice.  Gotthard-Hospiz kol. Litho von Horace Vernet nach Zeichnung von Palheri, um 1830

Here is more to read about this famous Mountain Pass;

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-gotthard-pass--a-swiss-national-symbol/28284454

http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/gbt_slider/the-history-of-the-gotthard.html

The Gotthard Tunnel today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Road_Tunnel

Naturally there is also a song  about this  famous Mountain.

Übere Gottard flüget Bräme 1945

https://youtu.be/Z4NcLAWbzy8

Photos were free to use. Text Ts.

Sepia Saturday26/03/2016

Marvelous Marbles;

My grand children and I had a lot of fun playing marbles.

Since they have grown out of it the marbles are somewhere in the garden now merely as decorative objects. I am still fascinated by Marbles.

The game of marbles is common all over the world. From archeological discoveries from Babylonian, Roman and Germanic times, we know that the game of marbles is very old. Marbles were found in the tombs of ancient Pharaohs. The oldest marbles originate from the period of about 3000 BC. The famous painting "Children's Games" by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel,1560 shows children playing with marbles, Anno 1560.

Painting/Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria

The size, material and colours of the marbles were very different. However, real marbles were very expensive. In general real marbles were not affordable for the common people so children played with nuts. The production of glass marbles began in 1848 in the Thuringian city of Lauscha. A glassblower, Christoph Simon Karl Greiner invented a tool, called Marble scissors. This tool was actually made to cut glass eyes for stuffed animals but soon they started to produce marbles too. In September of 1848, Christoph Simon Karl Greiner was awarded a license for the exclusive production of artificial agate and gemstone beads.

 Marbles from coloured clay were widespread in Europe. Today, marbles made from glass are most popular.The rules and options of the games with marbles are as numerous as the colors of the marbles. It is mainly played outdoors on firm ground, to make a fist sized hole and the start lines for the game, and the fun may begin.

Please visit 

  for a game of marbles.

Good Friday....where are thee?

We Wear the Mask

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,

In counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us, while

       We wear the mask.

The world's  global Mafia at work.

please just a few more atrocities...

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

To thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

But let the world dream otherwise,

       We wear the mask!

My verdict; all of  these elegant, suave, well conversed globalists are  lower than a snake's armpit.

Text Ts

Pictures Internet

Poetry from the one and only wonderful Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Wednesday; Simple things...

I am content and happy,  yet some days, happiness embraces  everything and it comes from nowhere, nothing has changed over night that is different from the day before, but here it is this singing feeling which leaves your inner being  completely at peace.…

All love Buddleia..

I watch a butterfly and marvel at its beauty. It dances and sparkles on its wings for a short time, if it is lucky 14 days. It does not ask to be or not to be. 

Since I planted a butterfly garden, the music and delight never stop….butterflies, ponderous fat bumblebees, honey bees, solitary bees, covered in pollen, self absorbed, checking, hum and buzz from flower to flower, cleverly and diligently  harvesting the provided pabulum.

Salvia Waverly is a very attractive plant for bees and butterflies.




Love the Teddy Bear bees in my garden.


©Photos/Text Ts 

Sepia Saturday 19/03/2016

... I can hear the new-born lambs bleating and my very being cries out "Spring". Following that load of nonsense I had better extend my apologies to Sepians everywhere and get down to business - 

Love, whose month is ever May,
 Spied a blossom passing fair 
Playing in the wanton air.
W. Shakespeare; Love's Labour's Lost  Act 4 Scene 3 

Yes, we are ready for the cooler season and I am looking forward to it. 

Back to some long gone spring days.

I have a Photo from around 1976 ; An ewe had twins and she accepted only one. One of the babies had to be bottle fed,  (Where is this darn photo?)

 

My youngest daughter had always a love and special touch for birds or animals.

There was always one who needed special care and she was the one to provide the love and care.

It was a time when colour photos were new and nobody wanted  to take photos in sepia or  black and white.

Photos /Text Ts

Stories from my apple tree;

 When I was growing up  in Switzerland, Apples were the fruit to eat every day.  We took an apple to school, to eat at recess. After school, when we returned home at 4 PM we were given an apple to satisfy our hunger until dinner was served.  From early autumn into early spring, apples were available until the last apples stored in the cellar were eaten.  Oranges and mandarins came from Sicily and were  available only at Christmas time as a special treat. We did not have Bananas or other tropical fruit. Later I lived in a prominent apple growing area in Switzerland. We planted a private apple orchard with many old varieties.Later, new owners did cut down all the fruit trees. They thought it was easier to go to the shops and buy apples.

Apple blossoms

Not  that many years back there were majestic trees in the fields. In the same area today, all are culled, cut down to make room for strawberry fields and some other plantations.

Early History of Apples in Australia. 

I pack the apples to protect them  from all sorts of hazards. The fruit fly is a big menace, it lays the eggs into the apples and makes them  inedible. Cockatoos destroy many fruit in one go.

The first apple tree was planted in Tasmania by Captain Bligh in the 1700’s. Apples were among the first fruit to be  introduced to Tasmania by the early settlers. Planted around the homesteads  were a part of a near subsistence economy. From the 1820's on surplus was exported to new English settlements throughout Australia. By 1860  there were already 120 varieties of apples produced in Tasmania. Concentrated in the urban and suburban fruit gardens of Hobart in the South and Launceston in the North. From 1860 to 1890, fruit production in Tasmania moved from the northern to the southern areas and commercial orchards were established.

Tropical apples;

 By 1883 there were 552 orchards in the Huon which gave the district a dominant position to  production and  quality of apples.  The growers of specialized commercial apples obtained  good prices in British colonial markets in the 1870's and early 1880's. A  great incentive was the beginning of successful apple shipments to England in 1876. Overseas exports in the 1880s were aided by a regular steamship service between Britain and Australia and secondly the adoption of refrigeration. The first shipments to Germany were made in 1901. With the changes to Australian trading regulations, Act of Federation in 1901,  inter-colonial duties and tariffs were removed and interstate trade increased to over one million boxes annually. Commercial plantings reached a peak in 1915 when Tasmanian orchards contained 4,420,000 apple trees. Tasmania now exports Apples to over 20 countries. 

We established a small orchard before the house was finished.

The girls sitting under a young apple tree.


©Photos/Text Ts