Roper's Miscellany

This mouse lives under a cupboard in our front room.  He, or she, appears to be a hermit mouse and only ever appears alone.  I give it bits of bread crust but it remains unfriendly. it reminds me of that lovely, 9th C Old  Irish poem Pangur Ban about the stand-off between a medieval cleric and his eponymous cat.  I have adjusted one of the verses to apply to me and the mouse, Luch Beag (Irish for Little Mouse). 'Gainst the wall he sets his eye Full and fierce and sharp and sly. 'Gainst the wall of knowledge I All my little wisdom try.

  A visit to Canada, 2nd to 10th November 1984 Patrick Roper revised 21st September 2013 and 30 th December 2023. In late October 1984 I flew to Toronto in Canada for an Association of British Travel Agents annual conference.   I also took a few days holiday with my Canadian relatives in Ottawa.   The long, dull flight across the Atlantic was alleviated by a large group of First Nation people (Huron-Wendats maybe) who had been to Britain to try and solve some long-standing land dispute with the Crown.   They were wearing First Nation outfits which made them seem very exotic, but they spent much of the flight chatting to us like normal mortals.   It seemed however a good, and somewhat unexpected, introduction to Canada on this my first trip. I changed planes at Toronto and took a smaller aircraft on the one hour’s flight to Ottawa where my cousin Pauline had agreed to meet me. Pauline was the daughter of my aunt Doris (Carlé née Roper) and, although she wa...

  Calderdale, Yorkshire.  22 and 23 August 1984, revised 2023. Patrick Roper (December 2023) In 1985 I started a series of visits to Calderdale in West Yorkshire.  They were to help the local authority, Calderdale Council, develop a tourism strategy for the area.  Perceptive readers might notice that I have a particular interest in food and drink. That’s partly because I was also  in charge of the national Taste of England scheme at the time. Calderdale is on the river Calder which crosses the area from east to west to form the dale on   the southern part of the Pennines.   It was a major wool production centre and while much of this activity has gone there are still a few manufacturers of quality   woollen goods in the area. The main towns are Halifax, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden and there is much attractive stone-built architecture, mostly industrial or post-industrial, as well as extensive stretches of moorland hill country and other outd...

  Remi’s helping hand Patrick Roper, 7 December 2023. We arrived back from the hospital in Hastings and Sammy, my granddaughter, parked her black VW car in the parking space at the front of the house.   It was wet, there had been much rain, and shallow puddles spread over the greyish brown grit among the sparse flora that had managed to grow there : pineapple weed, smooth hawksbeard and annual meadow grass. I opened the front left hand car door where I was sitting far enough forward to get myself out.   I knew it was going to be difficult as I was bundled up in many layers of clothes to keep myself warm while my legs had just been tightly bandaged at the hospital. I swivelled sideways to start levering myself out when I noticed a small pink hand on my black puffer coat.   Remi, my 35 month old great grandson, released from his child seat had made his way round the car to where I was sitting.   “I’ve come to give you a helping hand grandad” he announced and...

  The Isle of Wight and south Hants in June 1984, revised 2023 Patrick Roper, 20 June 1984. I took the car by ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne then drove round   the back of Ryde to Bembridge, stopping on the way at a curious sandy peninsula of scrub owned by the National Trust and called The Duver on the north side of Brading Haven. It Looked worthy of brief exploration in the future, but I have never managed to return. The word ‘Duver’ is interesting and I have not found any explanation for it.   I wonder if it can come from the old Brittonic word for water, ‘dufer’ or similar.   I can’t help noticing that this old Celtic word for water also occurs near a places that were important in Roman times: Dover in Kent for example. The Duver at Bembridge is quite close to the Brading Roman villa which lies near the river Yar that runs into Bembridge Harbour.   The Romans could well have adopted a local term used by the natives. In Roman times Bembridge was an i...

A tour of the Midlands in May 1984 2 May 1984 Drove from Sedlescombe to Stoke via the M25 and A5 for the Great British Holiday Exhibition.   Took a walk in Wicken Wood in Northamptonshire, now Forestry Commission but part of the old Whittlewood Forest.   Just over the county boundary to the east in Buckinghamshire there is an adjoining natural area, Leckhampstead Wood, which I also visited: mostly oak, sallow and Midland thorn and very different from The Weald.   Heavy clay with tufts of bright green grass, few brambles and only a scatter of woodland flowers - primrose, bluebell, wood anemone.   On open banks there were cowslips, but perhaps introduced.   It could be a fine place for butterflies (years later I found it was a location for the wood white).   On the way out I saws a small deer grazing in a ride, perhaps a muntjac. In the sunshine the drive through England could not have been better.   The blackthorn and cherry blossom were drifting ...