Not so Vile

Husband saw a report on the television news about sunflowers at Rhossili, part of an initiative of the National Trust. The agricultural landscape of Britain used to be very different with land divided into small strips with boundaries. (Strip farming - I'm sure I learned about that many moons ago in school.) Modern farming with its great big machines and the need to get the best financial rewards from the land meant that huge fields were more economically viable so much of the old landscape was lost.

One of the UK's few surviving strip farming systems dating from medieval times exists on the headland at Rhossili but even there thousands of metres of boundaries have been lost and it's these that the NT wants to restore.

From NT website Copyright Gordon Howe, Gower Society

As well as the historic value, the strip farming and its boundaries are important  as they provide havens for wildlife. You can read more about the project here.

One of the first stages of the restoration involved planting 400,000 sunflowers and Facebook has been littered with photos of the flowers in their glory. By the time we got there they were past their best but a trip to Rhossili is never a waste of time especially on a day like the one we had.

It turns out that the headland is called the Vile. I'm sure there must be an medieval meaning for that so I'll report back if I find out.

Postscript

It seems that Vile is the old Gower dialect pronunciation of field. (Rhossili is at the end of the Gower Peninsula, the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty [AONB] in the UK to be designated as such.)

Am I who I say I am?

I saw a man today I hadn't seen for a few years. He walked straight past me until I shouted at him. He said, 'I didn't recognise you, you look so smart in your old age.' Then he said, 'I probably shouldn't have said that last bit, should I ?'

'Actually you probably shouldn't have said the first bit either.'

I shouldn't judge though.

In the church trustees' meeting yesterday someone was saying that the main door is sticking. I said, 'Oh, it's fine if you kick it.'

Several pairs of eyes swivelled round to look at me.

'I mean, not that anyone would kick it, of course.'

I'm just the secretary by the way. I'm far too foolish to be a responsible trustee.

The discussion carried on to how much responsibility we should take for educating the young people who use Red cafe, which has computers and internet access, about being safe online. At some point I mentioned that one of my blogging friends is a code-breaking pilot who lives in Germany. More eye swivelling, before the trustees decide that education should begin at home and give me a leaflet about not believing everything that everyone tells you online.

* * * * * * * * * * *

In the evening Husband and I went out in soft-top Brian. We ended up at Rhossili, where we walked and had a drink overlooking this.

Could there be a better place to spend some time?

xx