Bryhtnoth - part 1

I was cruising the profiles on Blogger last night just looking for the people that came from Maldon (where I am) it struck me that a disproportionate number of bloggers from Maldon seem to claim that they have an interest in running and swimming.  Really?? Where are ya then? 

I also came across the profile of a certain Bryhtnoth, whose interests are stated as 'Ruling Essex' and 'Fighting Vikings' and claims to be 1049 years old.  I definately think he's lying about his age - by my calculations he should be at least 1079 years old .  Now me being such a dedicated follower of Essex could not fail to look at his blog entitled 'The Battle of Maldon', but I was sadly disappointed to find that there were no posts.  On reflection, this is probably because he died in battle against the Vikings at Maldon in 991, decapitated. I will bring you more on the hero of the Battle of Maldon at a later date, but it's worth a read

We saw the Queen!!!!

On 28th October 2010 we were privileged to experience a Royal visit in our small and picturesque market town of Maldon in Essex.  This time it wasn't a rampaging Iceni queen, but Her Maj Queen Liz 2.  She was actually far from rampaging, for that matter, as the old dear is 84 now, but nonetheless she was doing very well indeed.

(Not too many people there yet)

In order to get a good view of her Majesty, myself, the kids and the mother-in-law were installed in the Tesco car park nice and early and trotting up Market Hill before 9am.  As it turned out we were in good time - the only other folks on scene at the High Street were coppers, streetcleaners, and a couple of obsessive-looking middle-ages ladies.  So we settled the kids into their beach chairs, bought ourselves some coffees & got settled in for a long wait (she wasn't due till 12.45), looking forward to enjoying the family atmosphere.  It was a fun morning - the notorious and shameless self-publicist The Town Crier - Lord of the Manor of ?? - seemed to cotton on to the fact that we had a good spot and  attempted to cosy-up with us.  I've got no problem being sociable and the whole day was a lot of fun, however when the space that we have been saving for 3 hours with 2 kids under the age of 8, gets invaded by a 6ft tall 70 year-old bloke, and the kids get elbowed to the side, just so he can get his face in the paper, I get a bit narked. 

(It got a bit busier)

I was more narked when her Majesty deliberately avoided coming to our place at the railings when she saw that dreadful man (i can't blame her) so the kids didn't get to see her really close up. 

Never mind - it's all an experience, never to be repeated.  God save The Queen (from Town Criers).

Boudica - One angry chick!

When I was growing up my parents took me to The Embankment in London to see the big statue of Boudicca (or Boadicea as she was then called) in her chariot, the one with knives on the wheels. It was an important moment in my life when my dad explained to me that it was an English tribal Queen that trounced the Roman army in Colchester and London. If anyone has to trounce the Romans you'd want it to be a hard-as-nails East Anglian warrior queen wouldn't ya. 

Boudica (hey - there are several spellings and even more pronunciations) was Queen of the Iceni tribe, a celtic tribe which occupied the land quite happily as an independant ally of Rome, in the area that is now Norfolk. On the death of Boudica's husband, the king Prasutagus, the Romans failed to honour an arrangement to leave Boudica and her daughters half the kingdom and instead flogged Boudica and raped her daughters. Understandably this made her a little cross, and her people, allied with the Trinovantes (our Essex celtic tribe) stomped the Romans good and proper. Sadly in the end she was defeated (although not without making a real mess of Roman Britain) and killed herself.

The BBC Horrible Histories website is phenomenal for sharing all this stuff with kids and getting a handle on it. I just love this song, which is not only hilarious, it seems to tell it much better than any Wikipedia page could do!

Horrible Histories - Boudica Song!!!!!

I am proud to have rampaging Iceni Warrior Queens as part of my Essex heritage. Should the Romans ever get too up-themselves again Queen B only has to give me a shout and I'll be sharpening my axe and joining the throngs to march on Londinium. (Is somebody bringing the mead?)

Burnham-on-Crouch 2nd best for quality of life

Isn't Quality of Life the only thing that matters anyway? According to a recent survey of seaside towns, by the Halifax, Burnham has been rated the 2nd best seaside town in the UK for quality of life, after Bexhill-on-Sea. Burnham has higher than average earnings, above average employment levels, residents have better health and longer life-expectancy. Incidently there are also longer sunshine hours and less average rainfall than most other places. Do not confuse the muddy and atmospheric Burnham on Crouch in Essex with the very different Burnham on Sea in the South West, although that Burnham also features on the chart at 27th place.


A few weeks ago my family & I were given a treat by a good friend, who took us out on his powerboat on the Crouch from South Woodham Yacht Club. We had a lovely cruise up the river followed by a good lunch at a lovely Burnham pub on the quayside (whitebait & salad for me, it has to be fish!) washed down with a modest amount of local real ale. Once we unhitched the boat from the town public jetty and continued on our way it was time to get our toes wet, so the most larey watersport of 'doughnutting' was to follow. All in all a cracking and very varied afternoon. (I wish I had copies of the photos to post here).

Let's also not forget that in a survey only a couple of years ago Maldon was also voted 3rd best market town in the UK (Halifax survey again, I think) and the Maldon District as a whole is in the top 15% for quality of life in the country (Experian. So all in all we are pretty happy with our lot around here!

Other Essex gems on the Halifax list include Leigh on Sea (always a pleasure) ranked 8th and Southend on Sea ranked 15th (on a sunny day, I would say). My personal favourite place in the whole of the South West of England - Sidmouths - (having spent most summer Saturdays there as a student) is also on the table , ranked 34th - but hey, least it's on there.
Let's raise a glass of Mighty Oak Maldon Gold or Crouch Vale Amarillo to glorious Essex!

Renamed again

Well, this is the third time I have renamed this blog since I began it. I haven't been able to settle on a name that was particularly appropriate for the content. The last one 'Amber Thread' did seem a bit too arty & pretentious. But as I am a real champion of my local area and believe that rural Essex is one of the best places you could choose to live, then this title of 'Blackwater Mudlark' is very much more doing 'what it says on the tin'. As I haven't managed to acquire any followers, as yet, I don't imagine it's going to bother anyone much anyway.

Well- roll on new title - an hopefully I will start to gather one or two followers, if not for the value of my wit and word, then for my appreciation of surreal and thought-provoking films (mostly recorded from Film 4 and watched when the hubby has better things to do), my literature snobbery, my big paintings or the fact that I totally LOVE Essex and will happily put right anybody who slams our county because they haven't seen what the real Essex is all about.

Wonderful Suffolk

We have also had another little holiday in the caravan recently. I should have updated this sooner so it was fresh in my memory. There are parts of Suffolk that I know reasonably well and parts which were entirely new to me. We have visited the historical towns / villages of Lavenham, Long Melford, Bury St Edmunds before. I have spent a fair bit of time in Constable country as the villages are on the Essex/ Suffolk border - Dedham, East Bergholt, Flatford Mill etc. ---

But the stunning Suffolk Coast has been a revelation to me. I expected Lowestoft to be a carbon copy of tatty, tacky seaside towns like Great Yarmouth and Clacton but, to my surprise, I was blown away by the 'class' of the sea front in the town (well, I didn't go shopping or tour the housing estates). The whole place was spotlessly clean, freshly painted and was thankfully lacking in the usual row on row of Amusement arcades, followed by tatty fairground rides. As far as I would tell - the only amusements were on the pier and the few fairground rides we saw were well presented and traditional (traditional carousel with 'gallopers', helter skelter etc). We had soem fantastic fish & chips too & the beach was lovely soft golden sand.

Next revelation was Southwold. Who wouldn't want to live in a gorgeous 'time-warp' seaside town that also boasts one of the finest breweries on the East Coast?

And then Walberswick... I'm not sure how much we missed of Walberswick, it seems to be a tiny village with (at first glance) not much there except quaint houses & fishermans shacks. Apparently it's home to a plethora of writers, artists and actors. We had a very good, although pretty pricey lunch at the main pub / inn in the village and used the opportunity to sample about 5 Adnams ales between us! The scenery is quite captivating and then you look accross their salt marsh to the large dune and realise that they have a lovely beach too. Walberswick is also home to a national Crab fishing championship. We were there 2 days too early to take part, but I can see why it would be popular with competition crabbers. We caught 79 crabs in a couple of hours and had great fun.

I Said goodbye to Spongebob

We are moving house very soon. As a result I found I couldn't keep the Spongebob Squarepants mural around any longer. I had originally painted it as a panel for our local pre-school but they are having major work done so all superfluous stuff had to disappear over the summer (sadly there was nowhere to store the big stuff). So I had managed to rescue Spongebob from the demolition trucks & bring him home - then one lucky Freecycler was the recipient of my 6ft x 6ft Tryptych (is that how you spell it?). I didn't ever put Squidward on there, which I am a bit sorry about, but that would have unbalanced the theme wouldn't it?

New Mural - hawaiian beach

Just had to pop this on here - finished it today - I could faff about with it some more but I'm not going to - c'est juste.

Creative stuff

My intention was to keep my blog fairly anonymous, mostly because i intended my blog really to be a creative outlet, rather than a "mom blog". I never had any intention of broadcasting this to my friends and family. Also I am somewhat bashful about whether I have any discernable talent in the writing department (thus far I don't think it has evidenced itself but it might actually be there somewhere - touch typing lends itself to shorter words - it's only with a fountain pen that you can be really eloquent. Another reason for remaining nameless was that, should the mood take me (or rather, if the blog proves itself to be a good outlet for ranting about my nearest and dearest) I could write with impunity about my friends, family or neighbours.

Taking into consideration all of the above - and also that I haven't as yet got any followers remotely interested in what I have to say - I though I would share some of my work instead...

I have always painted - working mostly with strong colour gouache, acrylic, pen & ink - and even had a successful 4 or 5 years working with glass painting. When the family arrived (I don't mean en masse at the front door, bearing date-and-walnut cake, red wine and potted hyacinths, I mean when I dropped the sprogs) the small scale fiddly creative stuff got packed up and put in the loft and I chose to work on rather larger canvasses. A few people local to me might recognise some of this, which will rather put the kibosh on the anonymity thing, but I haven't slagged anyone off yet , so que sera...


The murals are all done with ordinary household emulsion blended with artist's (student's) acrylics. I'm working on an new one at the minute, for a specific occasion and hope to post it on here soon. I also owe my hubby another one for the garage door too, but that will ahve to happen over the summer, althoug the chinese laquer does tend to go off a bit too quickly on hot metal doors when the sun shines.

some more musings

We have just enjoyed a week away in our little 'home from home' - a rather basic and ancient touring caravan, which, despite it's state of wear and tear, has everything we need. We spent our week in the little known Essex backwater of Jaywick, which was absolutely delightful and I would recommend it to everyone who wishes to gain a true impression of the real Essex. NOOOOOOOO! ~To quote Willy Wonka - strike that, reverse it. Sadly, despite being in one of the MOST picturesque parts of this country, with it's big open Constable skies and and quaint tidal ports, it's the biggest Sh*thole I have ever had the pleasure of spending time in. For anyone who is also unfortunate enough to book a week at one of the Jaywick holiday parks (which in themselves are perfectly presentable and very reasonably priced) PLEEEEASE don't be tempted to judge the entirety of Essex by the total lack of standards set by the inhabitants of Jaywick. For one point, I have never seen so much litter in my life. As a second point - I don't imagine the ghettos of Sao Paolo to have as many collapsing, wrecked, or run down shacks as Jaywick ... and these weren't beach huts - they were bungalows, many of them actually someone's home! So, in short, I wouldn't recommend Jaywick as a holiday destination.

Despite my critiscism of the locale, the week did redeem itself in that we were able to relax away from the pressures of home, work and school life and we spent time in the delightful little town of Brightlingsea and also a good day taking in the delights of Clacton pier.

I really value my community and do what i can to contribute to community life. I hold Essex in high esteem as its true identity is overlooked and it is often lampooned in the press and on TV for being little more than London-overspill. This is, for the large part, entirely incorrect. It really pains me when people have NO regard for the area or community in which they live and abuse all that they see around them, in the same way as the residents of Jaywick have done. After all, self-respect costs nothing.

Hadleigh Castle

We took a drive down to Hadleigh (Essex) today to take a walk in the country park with the dog. I just wanted to leave a reocrd on here about how absolutely stunning it was there. What a real hidden gem! I hadn't honestly expected to find such an unspoilt landscape nestled so neatly and invisibly in amongst Thames Estuary suburbia. From the main road - and probably most of Hadleigh and Leigh you wouldn't know it was there. We walked as far as some of my accompanying pairs of little leges could manage, from the main car park, however still weren't really within realistic range of the castle. But the view we had of it was absolutely amazing. If I had been John Constable I would have painted it too. (Maybe one day I will, but sketching is about my limit these days, as sitting still for more than about 10 minutes is absolute death for a 4 year old). So today, unfortunately, the whining voices kept us from walking any further and made me overlook taking a picture - but i will definately go back - and hopefully combine the visit with a trip to Old Leigh to take in the salt air and seafood.

Why is the term 'looked after children' now used to describe children who are taken into care by their local authority (another shocking euphemism) or fostered? It's a ridiculous euphemistic use of 3 prefectly ordinary words, which, doubtless will now take on particlar connotations such as those now applied to the words 'special needs'. I can't use the word special about my children any more because the very word seems to imply that they are somehow not developing according to the normal run of things.

But such is our language - (very much) older people used to complain that the word 'gay' had been hijacked by the homosexual community . I have no problem with that, actually, it's a far more economical use of language. I dislike that fact that language becomes muddier as it becomes more politically correct. The whole spectrum of describing people with disabilities has evolved so rapidly over these last 20 years that half the population do not know how to decribed someone with a disability. I find it really confusing.
I understand completely the need for sensitivity towards those people with conditions, but then , for their sake, instead of us lumping all their diverse and very individual issues and requirements under the term 'people with special needs', lets be specific - lets talk about people with autism spectrum conditions, people with tourettes, people with multiple sclerosis, people with ME, why the hell do we have to generalise?

Der Schimmelreiter

In my previous post I listed one foreign novel - or in fact Novella, a short 19th century piece by a north German romantisist named Theodor Storm.
Literally translated the title means 'the rider of the white stallion', but the novella is published as a translation by Denis Jackson as The Dykemaster (and although I haven't seen the translation, it has some excellent feedback). The whole novella is threaded through with mystery and superstition, unmasking of small-town small-mindedness, hope, determination and of course tragedy. The novella is also very cleverly structured to lend the narrators story credibility and has some beautiful characterisation of the stubborn and taciturn Hauke Haien.
I found particular resonance with this little book- not only because I read it first as a German A level text when I was just 17, and I was very taken with the supernatural themes which flow as an undercurrent throughout the book, emphasisiing the eerie nature of the landscape, and also supporting the eventual legend of the Schimmelreiter.

Another reason I was so hugely taken with the novella was its setting. It is set in north Germany in an area called Friesland - which is sited in that small triangle of land at the 'neck' of Denmark and nestling agains the lowlands of the Netherlands. Obviously it has a great deal in common with the Dutch landscape- being low-lying and dyked to protect the land. The fact is, that although haven't visited the area, one day I would very much like to. I grew up in, and still live in an area on the East coast of Britain, that I felt had much in common with Storm's Friesland. We live in a flat tidal landscape, with salt flats and acres of mud exposed at low tide. Our coastline is ringed round with banked sea walls (although nowwhere near as imposing or substantial as Frisian dykes), and the carcasses of Thames barges nestle between the 'islands' of the salt flats. Like Storms Friesland - our horizon is low and flat and our skies are huge and imposing. Our area too has suffered huge flooding at various occasions in history, and foreign wisdom (notably Dutch drainage engineers) was called on by the 18th and 19th century landowners to make their low lying land more profitable and reclaim salt-marsh from the sea for arable land.

I am very attached to this part of Britain, which is unknown and overlooked by most who see our county as an extension of modern London - and forget that our heritage is written in the landscape. By the way - I am speaking about Essex.

intelligent novels

Ok - I like to think that i am an intelligent woman - albeit that that intelligence hasn't been used to its full potential recently and a fair amount of it has gone into hibernaton ...
So lets start with something that may trigger a small amount of interest:

intelligent novels that I have enjoyed:

Well - lets go back some years then:
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 101
Margaret Atwood - the handmaids tale (and almost every other MA novel since, incidently)
Charlotte Bronte- Jane Eyre
Theodor Storm - Der Schimmelreiter
Phile K Dick the man in the high castle
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - JRR Tolkein
The Narnia books - CS Lewis
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
Charles Dickens - A tAle of Two Cities
" " - Oliver Twist

That will do to be getting on with - most of these were read before I turned 22 (some read at least twice before I turned 15) - So we have a healthy mix of classic fantasy and Sci Fi, classic english literature and 20th century classics. at this point I am not sure whether I will go on to expand the list and bring it more up to date (well there's an extra 15 years worth, at least, for me to remember) - or to set forth on what has connected me to each one - if anyone is out there then let me know what you prefer, otherwise wait and see!

Just a little short burst to follow. I have had an absolutely terrific day - my husband is a total hero and the kids have been fabulous. Now the sun is shining on my back, we have a chicken roasting in the oven, potatoes ready to mash and yorkshire puddings the size of cooking apples (thank you Aunt Bessie). Life couldn't be better.

I hope someone reminds me of this the next time I am wobbling on the ragged brown edge of reason.

Well, that doesn't look too bad!

As an initial attempt I think that went rather well!

I have no idea if any of this will ever get read but I suppose I should begin somewhere... Rather stupidly I am a writer who is too bashful to write. I am a literature snob and a bit of a perfectionist (certainly in particular spheres of my life) and often feel that I cannot meet my own exacting standards. Rather vainly, of course, I would like to write that out-of-the-blue mind-blowing, prize-winning first literary novel but fear that I will end up writing cliched paperback pap which no serious literary agent would touch with a bargepole.

Of course, my poor grammar and over-use-of-hyphenation isn't helping me here but it's bastard late and I am venting.

I do fill up more of my time on the PC than perhaps I ought, so maybe a blog isn't necessarily a good idea - but I like to think that most of my PC time is (usually) spent usefully, actually doing research & getting in touch with people with whom a have a real-world connection, for a useful purpose. I have come to the conclusion the Facebook isn't really that helpful. I seem to find that a lot of people have sufficient time to cultivate virtual farms or run virtual restaurants, and yet can't be bothered to cut the grass or cook real food for their kids. Don't get me wrong, I quite like having people I knew really well 15 years ago sitting in my facebook friends, without me really being engaged enough to contact them with a personal message. It's friendly but non-commital at the same time. I'm not so sure about finding out about every move made by those people I am acquainted with, and see on an almost daily basis. It's a shame, but I don't think that I could say that many of my facebook friends are friends in the real world.

I have also been introduced to Twitter, but maybe it's me, cos I don't have an Iphone (or an anything fancy phone), but I can't really see the point of all these anonymous people, who have no genuine connection with each other, just lobbing comments and links at each other. It seems like there is probably a lot of shouting going on, but very little listening. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1st attempt

Well - this is how I start blogging then. i'm totally new to this & have no idea if anyone will be remotely interested in what I have to say - but here goes.

I have just this minute finished watching Walk the line on the about the life of Johnny Cash and June Carter and was absolutely transfixed . I don't know a great deal about Johnny Cash's music (or didn't until a coupel of hours ago) but I am guessing that Joaquin Phoenix did a pretty damned good job in portraying the guy. I seem to remember he was nominated for an oscar or similar for the role?

By the way, I am usually pretty pedantic about grammar, spelling and stuff but I am typing this rapidly at midnight in the hope of getting a first entry under my belt & seeing what it looks like. I may well delete the whole thing & remove myself from the blogosphere immediately, but I suppose I ought to give it my best shot really.
Ciao