|
|
Little Orme or Blodwen for Short
Again this year we have moved further and further afield and involved ourselves in more and more activities. On Thursday we drove the Land Rovers to the Coast Guard where Nip began taking photographs of hieroglyphic silhouettes during the sun set, this led to his portrait of Little Orme. According to the local press Little Orme was about a meter high and aged between 54 and |
63when she died, 5,500 years ago, in a cave, near Llandudno. Radio carbon dating techniques, carried out by anarchists at Manchester University, together with the photograph, taken by Nip, has yielded a fascinating insight into life in Stone Age North Wales.
It is thought that Nip took the photograph, using some hitherto unknown, digital, stone age, imaging device, for Little Orme's pass port, just prior to her climb into a bucket, with her pet mouse 'Johnson'. Apparently the object was to sail round to Llandudno, where her skeleton was discovered in 1880, or to Gwyddel for a banana milk shake and banana cake at Val's cafe, the portions, quality of the food and service are enough to make anyone climb into a bucket and sail round the coast. (Further more it is thought that this is where Columbus got the idea to sail to America but that the King of Spain eventually talked him out of using a bucket due to the high taxes placed on sea going buckets at the time and the lack of room for a mutinous crew, he was also thinking ahead to film rights, and associated merchandising.
Derrick Tidball, née Thor Heyerdahl, of Kon Tikki fame, offered to re-enact Little Orme's journey but it is not thought that modern day man, or woman, would be the right shape to make such a trip. "My friends," he said. "I'm so sure Little Orme went round the coast, to Val's cafe, in a bucket that I'm willing to build a bucket, of the kind used by Little Orme myself, and cross the sea just to prove that it's possible." Derrick, née Thor built the bucket, took it down to the sea and promptly fell out of it. |
| It is reputed that Blodwin set sail on Worm Sunday, two days later, she turned to her mouse, Johnson, and said "Can you tell me how the hell we come to be doing this?" Johnson had patent leather boots, with gold buckles, red socks and shirt, a black hat and a darling little eye patch, purely for effect. He made a fine impression, but had to apologise
|  |
for being sea sick down Little Orme's back, a fact that she had hither to been unaware of. While holding a scented handkerchief under his nose in one hand and brandy in the other he replied " The devil I can, you know best yourself. It was your damned concept, but I think the idea of banana cake, at Val's is grand.
In fact I think I will become King of Val's".
With that he climbed onto her head and carried on perusing the menu. Little Orme produced a stone age pencil, and drew a tiny circle on her chart, which hung from the bucket's handle. On seeing this Johnson returned to her shoulder, and confidently announced they were 850 sea miles from the coast of Peru, we have another 3,500 miles to Bardsey.
"And to be quite precise," said Little Orme, "we're 16,000 feet above the bottom of the sea and a few fathoms below the moon." In other words neither of them had the slightest idea where they were. |
|
A study of the bones has shown that Little Orme had degenerative arthritis of the spine and right knee, thought to be caused by sailing in buckets, and there was damage to her shoulder blades, indicating that she probably led a physical and arduous life and was probably used to carrying heavy loads of rocks, from the quarry, in her van, this, combined with a heavy clutch and a stiff gear stick also caused damage to her cylinder head, as can be seen by her short, almost non-existant neck. Taking this evidence along with the fact that she lived in a, comparatively, well organised
|
| community in the Llandudno area, had the decorated jaw bone of a wild horse and assisted in the industrial production of stone age axes and flint knives, led historians to initially believe she was an original New Age Traveller, turned away by the Cornwall Eclipse Society of 3,300BC, having got herself a bad name at the Glastonbury Festival. However further research indicates that she could not have been a New Age Traveller as she also had an agricultural life style cultivating crops on the coastal lowlands. This assumption was further supported by the discovery of the skeleton of a pig, close to the skeleton of Little Orme, although it might have been that of her husband, it matters very little now, local gossip has it that they were apparently very similar, what counts is that she had no flowers in her hair and a mug with the caption "I'm no Hippy" was found next to the pig both of which confirm she could not have been a New Age Traveller.
More information about Little Orme can be found in the book, "Lady of the Little Orme", written by Mr Dibble, or from the Great Orme Copper mines which are older than Stone Henge. |
The Eclipse
The next total eclipse of the sun will be in 2070, the last one was in 1927 and Kitty, who owns our cottage, remembers it well. The draw back she said was that it was very early in the morning so that it was not as dramatic as it could have been.
With the millennium drawing to an end, and most of the population of Britain going to Cornwall to view this phenomenon, we took Gromet to the ends
|
 |
of the earth, well Wales, to view the eclipse of the century for our selves, along with a couple of friends who had wisely brought their own, very dark, sun glasses.
The day finally arrived, a shadow rushed across the country, the skies grew very dark, the street lights came on, but that was on the TV. In Cornwall thick cloud and rain blotted out any special effects while up here our 92% eclipse actually did very little. 104 vehicles ascended the mountain while we gathered at Nip and Gill's waiting for the shadow that never came. Figures appeared on Mynydd Mawr, like indians lining a ridge in a western, the wind died down completely and everything went very quiet, it became quite chilly as the bright sunny day became very dull indeed, suddenly, when around 75% of the sun was blocked out, a very dark cloud crossed the sun showing the eclipse up perfectly but that was all. We tried pin hole cameras in vain, so out came the sun glasses, four pairs, one in front of the other, allowing a very quick glance at the sun. At the height of the eclipse there was only a tiny sliver of sun visible but even so night did not descend upon us. |
|
|
