crowbelle's Diaryland Diary

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How I Spent My Spring Holiday

HOW I SPENT MY SPRING HOLIDAY

Granted, it's only half way into my holiday today. I'm only taking a week off. It's good to rest the weary fingers, and get away from the never-ending medical words that invade my brain around the clock while I am in work-mode. I'll take another week off in the fall, too, but for now, I'm just here at home, not doing too much, and wanted to report in on that.

Today, it's been a month since Emmalee came to live with us. She has proven to be a joy and has given our little household a real lift in spirits. She plays with Whitby a lot, and keeps things lively around here. We are grateful to Dennis and Mary Caldwell for offering her to us in our time of need when our dear Jasmine left this world in March. Sometimes I see a little jealously in Whitby's face when we are cuddling and smushing with Emma, but overall, I think they are good pals now.

For my vacation this month, I have chosen to just rest up. I woke up a few weeks ago with a very hurtful right knee area, and since that time, it has lingered, and has made me quite immobile for the most part. I believe it's something to do with a nerve in the back of my right thigh, and it affects the whole anterior portion of my right leg so I can't really do much with it. So that's the main reason I'm laying low this week.

Paul and I did some yard work the other day, and I got quite sore after that. We got a lot of weeds pulled up and some trees and bushes clipped. The picture you see at the top of this page, of our house, was taken this past Sunday when we were working outside. Things are blooming and growing like mad here. It seems we mow the grass and two days later it needs mowing again!

We had the dogs out with us for a while playing, getting Emma used to playing nicely in the yard and not straying past the perimeters. But I have a plan for a "fence" across the front property line by the street that I am working on. I will go into that in detail at a later date.

I've had a chance to do some reading that I don't ordinarily get to do when work is consuming my thoughts. It's a book called "Yorkshire Cottage" published in 1942 (in London) by Marie Hartley (Note: read more about her at the end of this entry) and Ella Pontefract. Paul has been collecting Marie Hartley's books (some written with Ella P. and others written with Joan Ingelby after Ella died in 1945) and they are all about Yorkshire. This one particular book, along with one other called "Yorkshire Heritage - A Memoire to Ella Pontefract" - Paul ordered through an antiquarian bookseller, R. F. G. Hollett and Son, located in Sedbergh, Cumbria, England. We receive their beautiful catalog of collectible books a couple of times a year, and he found these two books which he had been interested in acquiring and ordered them as a Christmas present to himself with the money he got for Christmas. They cost him �35 and �30 respectively, and then there was shipping, etc., from England. So if you do the math, that's about �65 plus shipping, which turns into about $120 give or take a few dollars in US money. For two little books! But after he finished reading Yorkshire Cottage, I began it, and am in the midst of reading it now, and it has been absolutely wonderful. I had never read any of her books before, even though Paul has a slew of them upstairs... so I've had the chance this week to really get stuck into them, and have them scattered all over the place.

It would be lovely to be retired and have the chance to read all the books I've acquired at will, any time of the week, but I'll have to wait a few more years for that to happen.

Yesterday, Paul's folks came by to borrow some gardening tools. They were heading out to buy some geraniums to plant on their family grave at Waterside Cemetery in Marblehead. Since I was just sitting around reading, I thought that would be a good thing for me to get done too, so I washed up and headed out to do the same thing for my family's grave at the same place. Paul came home just then, and asked if I wanted some help... so I took him up on it! We went and bought two red and two white geraniums, and went over to my family's grave and dug up the little grassy area in front and planted the geraniums - mainly to look spiffy for Memorial Day when the annual Memorial Day parade marches through there.

We drove around the cemetery for a while, looking at all the familiar old Marblehead names on the gravestones - it's like reading a history book of that old town, seeing all the names that we'd grown up with, a lot of which go back to the 1600's when the town was first born. There is a lot of history in that little seaside fishing town, and it is fun now and then to just be a tourist over there and toot around and see the sights.

Enough. I've gone on too long already. Have a safe Memorial Day, friends, and take a few minutes to remember those loved ones who have gone before us.

Memorial,

Bex

[Note: Here's more on Marie Hartley from Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority ]:

"End of an era as Dales historian dies Grassington, 11 May 2006

The well-known and highly respected Yorkshire Dales author and historian, Marie Hartley, has died at the age of 100.

Miss Hartley, who was born into a family of wool merchants in Morley, Leeds in 1905, was the founder president of the Friends of the Dales Countryside Museum and the co-author of a number of books about Yorkshire which she wrote between 1934 and 1998, firstly with her friend Ella Pontefract and later with Joan Ingilby.

She first visited the Dales in the 1930s, and was living at Askrigg in Wensleydale when she died.

In 1997 she and Joan were each awarded an MBE. Both also received a Silver Medal award from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society for their contribution to Yorkshire history.

The beginnings of the Dales Countryside Museum � which is now owned and managed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) � go back to the 1940s when Marie and Ella attempted to stop the region losing an important collection from a private museum at Leyburn by buying 13 lots. Over the years, other items were bought and donated, providing an insight into personal, domestic and working life in the Dales.

Marie and Joan researched the Dales knitting industry and wrote 'The Old Hand-knitters of the Dales'. This resulted in the amazing collection of knitting sticks that can be seen within the textile section of the Museum.

In 1964 Marie and Joan decided they "would record in book form all the old ways of life in the dales on the farm and in the home". Their pioneering work produced photographic records of Dales people at work and the collecting of artefacts began in earnest as they acquired objects to enable Marie to produce drawings for their books.

By the late 1960s it had become widely known that Marie and Joan had created a "sort of museum" and the donation of objects by local people continued.

In 1972 Marie and Joan offered their collection to the then North Riding County Council and, after many years in store, a collaboration between the National Park Committee and the County Council resulted in premises being acquired at Hawes to house the collection. The UpperDalesFolkMuseum finally opened in 1979. This partnership continues today, with the collection now owned by North Yorkshire County Council but housed and managed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority at its facility, re-named the Dales Countryside Museum. YDNPA Chief Executive David Butterworth said: "The Dales Countryside Museum has lost one of its greatest supporters.

"Marie's death is the end of an era for the Yorkshire Dales but her enduring legacy will be a collection of local, regional and indeed national significance. �

Her combined skills as photographer, writer and artist created a unique record of the past way of life in the Dales, often showing the exact context within which artefacts we now hold within the National Park Authority's Museum collection were used."

Museum Manager Fiona Rosher said:

"Few curators are able to draw on the knowledge and expertise of the founder of the Museum collection and I feel extremely privileged to have been in this position over recent years.

"Marie was an inspiration to all who work to preserve and interpret the cultural heritage of the Dales and beyond and the creation of the Dales Countryside Museum must rank as one of her greatest achievements.� It is a legacy that we value and we will work to ensure it goes from strength to strength."

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority celebrated the life and work of Marie Hartley at an exhibition held at the Dales Countryside Museum in September 2005."

8:48 am - 24 May 2006

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