The village green preservation society

Mud, chiffchaffs and hare lithography

It rain and it rained and it rained, and then it was sunny but blustery and I hung the washing out, and it rained out of nowhere with an intensity that shocked me despite rain being quite normal by now. It seems to have been raining since it stopped being far too hot two years ago, and most of Oxfordshire is a puddle, and seagulls live in the field out back as if it were the seaside because it’s a massive lake now. Doris and her horses are off to pastures new- literally- it’s not just the mud, but the mud is a large part of it. The paddocks have been a swamp most of the winter haunted by terrible mud monsters. It’s the right thing for her and I’m happy for her in that sense, but I can’t help feel a bit glum.

Terrible Mud monsters

I walk to the big post box (thank you for the orders) making sure I go through Sunningwell green, which always cheers me up. Sunningwell green is still undulates with the ancient scars of ridge and furrow farming, which I learned about at school but didn’t really grasp, because isn’t all ploughing ridges and furrows? Walking on the green, I contemplate just how big those ridges and furrows must’ve been to last all these centuries. The church acquired the land somehow in the 1800s as a glebe, land attached to the church to provide a living for the rector; by then it think things had moved on from ploughing to grazing, but the villagers still had commoners rights.

Eventually the need for grazing died out and the land was left fallow by the church until they had the brilliant idea it could be used to generate cash by selling a chunk to property developers. The parishioners were not happy, so they applied for village green status for the land, which the courts promptly threw out on the grounds that no one was using it to have village exclusive events that should happen on greens like cricket or.. maypole dancing. Just any old person from anywhere enjoying the green space in a simple human way wasn’t sufficient.

You’re probably thinking that the house of God probably felt that the needs of its parishioners was more important than money and let them have thier field back but you’d be wrong, which is why it went to the House of Lords. Some years later a similar situation would occur at Radley lakes, where gravel pits owned by Npower were to be filled coal ash from Didcot power station despite the area becoming, in the 50 years since excavation, a biodiverse lake and recreational beauty spot. After three years of bitter fighting (including a failed attempt to register it as a green and some hefty legal fees that were paid anonymously by George Micheal) Npower decided it wasn’t worth the bad publicity, and said the people can have thier stupid biologically important habitat, they’ve  got better places to dump their waste anyway. Does this make evil corporate energy companies better that the Church of England? I could not tell you.

Anyway, the House of Lords decided, surprisingly, that if the CoE had wanted it, they should’ve put a ring on it, and since there were never any notices telling people they shouldn’t be on the glebe, they had a right to be there. That’s why sunningwell green cheers me up; its essentially a postive land grab, and it makes me happy people are prepared to fight for what isn’t theirs, but should be, and in the face of all adversity, win. The sign says ‘Sunningwell green, est 1999’ and by all accounts the parish council takes better care of the land.

I hear a yellowhammer singing about lack of cheese in the hedge, and return home to hang the washing out, not really paying attention to a very familiar sound - as soon as I do, it stops. Did I imagine it? I hold my breath, desperate to hear; no I did not. Chiff chaff! Chiffchaff, in the garden; they have returned! I leave the washing billowing,  happily unaware of the dark clouds gathering over my washing line.

Workings

The owl: I have listed it here

Sketchbook: I have made it, witness the glory:

This week has been exciting because I finally managed a lithography print I really like, using dip pen and ink; I never really enjoyed using a sharpie, so I was nearly ecstatic to find a solution, and even more so to see how faithfully the marks were reproduced. I can’t wait to do more work with the technique, except I am paralysed with possibilities. I have so much I want to do and explore, so I don’t know where to start.

Drawing hares like a geologist

Also my iPad is on its last leg (not a typo, I’m pretty sure it’s on the very last of any legs it had after being on for a solid six years or so) which severely limits the amount of funds I have to explore anything (I’m just waiting for the new iPads be released, but it looks like I will have about -£100 pounds available). The hare will be listed next week I think; it might be in the shop by the time you read this.

Findings

I found something I thought was really good this week, worthy of  a good newsletter like six things or something. I felt quite proud. I had a vague memory that there was a medical reason the art of Van Gogh became extremely yellow in his final years, and on looking it up, found this study where they took the average colour for all his work in every decade- isn’t it marvellous? Just the concept of taking an artists average colour immensely pleases me (I am desperate to know mine, and think it would be quite blue) but it also debunks the theory Vincent might’ve had digitalis poison yellowing his lenses. I think that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading x