Happy Eostre

This stylised hare sculpture set in the English countryside, is beating a drum. It is set on a hill, which slightly affects the perspective, so that the cows grazing below give an exaggerated indication of scale.

Original photo - sculptor unknown, location unknown, somewhere in UK

Its only 2,000 years or so that, instead of welcoming Eostre the Goddess of the Dawn, of new birth, of the return of the longer sun days, we are instead asked to consider the crucifixion and resurrection of a male figure, and its all down to the Romans. Prior to these last 2,000 years we, in England at least, would have been celebrating spring and venerating the land and its creatures.

Ceiling Boss circa 12th Century
St Hubert's Church, Corfe Mullen, Dorset

Also, thanks to the Romans, we have brown hares. Did you know that the DNA of the European brown hare is closer to that of the roe deer than to the DNA of rabbits. No contest.

Artist Madeleine Floyd

I saw my first hare when I came to Dorset. Walking my Airedale along the roman road near the local hill fort, which was conquered by the Romans around AD43 , she shot off after a hare. I was not worried, its was a game my Airedale could not win, but she did not know that. The hare was fast, and each time my Airedale seemed to be lagging behind, the hare stopped, sat down and waited for her to catch up, then took off again. My Airedale was soon out of sight, but I was confident in her good sense, to return to me, and her sense of direction, to find me. What seemed ages later, she returned, absolutely knackered, and I could see the hare in my binoculars, sat down facing our direction. Here is my Airedale on a more relaxed spring walk.

Wonderful animals hares. Here is one I photographed, across the border in Wiltshire, which regular readers my remember.

Back to the Romans. The hares were introduced for food and, for drink, the Romans terraced the hills both sides of this little river valley and planted vines on the chalk. It must have been a bit warmer then. A few winters ago during a torrential downpour, after weeks of such downpours when the ground was sodden, the grazing field above my garden showed by the rivers of water running down the slope, the outlines of the agricultural terraces and ditches. The effect, similar to information gained from crop marks in summer, lasted only a few minutes, so I have no record of it. Those terraces probably were old medieval lynchets, rather than evidence of Roman viniculture, but interesting nonetheless.

When I lived the other side of the big river (that this little river feeds into) I inherited a vine along the south east side of the barn conversion that was my home. In the 1920s the barn was alongside a kitchen garden and I found fragments of the original planting of cherry, sloes and a cordon pear tree on the short south west wall. In the few short years I lived there, it was never warm enough to ripen the white grapes. The birds were happy feeding off them.

There was a lovely little vineyard near here when I first moved to Dorset and its champagne method was a medal winner, but the family retired to sail off the Scottish coast and the incomer grubbed it all up; said the soil was barren. He is fertilising it in rotation with the help of a small collection of dray horses that he breeds, schools and enters for the Boujolais Run to France and back. Isn't life wonderfully connected when it is lived on the land.

On another track entirely ...
I am brain befuddled recently. I know why; Lupus flare following the skull surgery and current systemic steroid starting to run out. In my head I hear my self making perfect sense. Only by other's reactions do I know it is not always 100% so. My Bump asked: Are you ok ? Why ? You sound a bit spaced out or distracted. No I am fine. As in, not sufficiently befuddled to have to worry about it.

Blogging Mone has kindly emailed me offering to translate some valuable Swedish site info on CFLs - see my light bulb moment below. BMone - I cannot see through the process so please wait for me to catch up. I can react to posts with comments (I think) but I cannot follow a process because its all a bit foggy. I have written about this aspect of Lupus brain fog before, and explained why, and why also I am not stopping to find the link to put it in here, because I will get lost and not find the way back. Yes, I know I know how to do it but I cannot find the route in my brain. I can create stuff, like writing this (spent ages trying to find out how to spell eggsagerate and boujolais/beaujolais, bowjhulay), but not take a planned process of action. Does that make any sense ? Yonks ago Charles called it malignant fatigue. I renamed it Dawson's Fatigue.

Thankfully it is the holiday, so it doesn't matter. I have been nowhere and done nothing for two days, and plan the same for the next two days. After then I will phone the doctors' surgery and book the next steroid assault on my butt.

This, from cartoonstockdotcom, is for Goldfish