ROSA MUNDI

QUINCE O'CLOCK

ACER

LEOPARD'S BANE

Photo: Leopard's Bane (Doronicum orientale) lighting up a neighbour's garden

IT'S A RAT TRAP & YOU'VE BEEN CAUGHT

You know what they say:

'You're never more than six feet away from a rat.'

'Rats desert a sinking ship.'

Or what they sing: 'There's a rat in mi kitchen, what am I gonna do?'

Whether scientific truth, song lyric or urban myth, rats gravitate to human habitation.

No wonder. Humans, who throw away perfectly nutritious scraps as waste, feed birds, scatter seeds, must seem generous, even extravagant hosts to your average hungry rat.

Round here in South Yorkshire, the Brown Rat (Rattus Norvegicus) is our most frequent guest.

As regular readers know, I grew up in a nineteenth century railway cottage sandwiched between two farms, surrounded by farmland in a little mining valley. No surprise that rats featured in our daily lives.

We once found an overflowing nest of rats wriggling under my dad's garage where his motorbike and sidecar lived.

I'd read a storybook where the Rat King was a villain. The name "rat-king", I later learned, referred to a mysterious ring of rats stuck together by their knotted tails. Mythologised in folklore, preserved in museums and cabinets of curiosities, a 'rat-king' was once thought to be a cryptozoological phenomenon, taken by the superstitious as a bad omen.

These baby rats in the nest didn't seem very villainous to me.
Just tiny and vulnerable.

But for adults, they seemed much less welcome than other wildlife. The rats were disposed of without recourse to ratcatchers or environmental health. They had lives and needs and stories just like every other creature in the garden and fields beyond. It's just that humans recognise rats as a source of disease and danger. We discourage their residency, unless they're "fancy" and so kept as pets. We reject wild rats as enthusiastically as we welcome other animals to share our living space.

Our cat, also a refugee from a neighbouring farm, would often arrive at the back door, making that eerie gargling yowl of sadistic menace every cat owner recognises. She had a trophy in her mouth, preventing her from making a more musical miaow. If it was still fluttering, it was a bird. If it was small, a mouse, shrew or vole had met its fate in her jaws. Anything more cumbersome was invariably a rat. The birds and smaller rodents were rescued and freed. A captured rat was more likely to meet the wrong end of the coal shovel before being disposed of in the dustbin.
Much to the cat's disgust.

In my garden today, I see all sorts of welcome wildlife. Bank Vole, Field Mouse, Hedgehog, Grey Squirrel.

Then there's the Rat.

His arrival is less an occasion for reaching for the camera and notebook, and more for clapping and shooing. He's quite large, but predictable. He always follows the same course, his "rat run" between my garden and the neighbours'. He stops to feast under the bird feeders until he sees me move. Instantly he's off, often before any serious clapping and shooing can ensue.

One day I hurried to the spot under the hedge where he'd disappeared. I stamped my foot and did my best impression of a strangled cat, followed by what I hoped was a bloodcurdling growl. Then I became aware that my neighbour was out washing the patio and decided that strategy might well get me certified. Still, the rat didn't return. For half a day.

I'm quite envious of my mother's rats. They seem to live fast and die young. She lives in a middle terrace in a row of two-up-two-downs in a mining village ten miles away, not far from where I was born. No farms now, but more people. Rats are thriving. Her loft, where the electrics and water tanks are, joins on to the houses on either side. The rats have a clear run along the length of the terraces, at roof-level.

Most of the time they leave no evidence. No obvious droppings. No sounds of scratching or scampering. Their shenanigans are only exposed when the lights go out. When the electric cuts out altogether, that is.

Three times over the past couple of years, when the electric has unexpectedly gone off, a local workman has climbed up to see what's caused the power cut.

Short circuit?

Surge in the electric current?

No. There on the rafters lays the culprit.

Dead.

Electrocuted.

A rat with its teeth still clamped onto the wire it had been chewing.

Recently the firewalls between the old loft spaces have been plugged, the electric wires reinforced. The rats will have nowhere to run.

But like us, rats are evolving.

They'll be gathering round in their mysterious rat-king huddles, having a quick snifter from the birdbath and plotting their next move to outwit those pesky humans.

Still have no idea how this little rodent ended up dead in a hanging feeder.
I suspect it might have been dropped by an owl or other flying predator.

Chatsworth's "Revelation" Fountain: The Rhythm of Life is A Powerful Beat!

A couple of posts ago I was rambling about Blanche's Vase at Chatsworth.


Chatsworth House has other hidden corners just as restful but a bit more modern. The Revelation Water Sculpture is a hypnotic and stunning fountain, designed by sculptor Angela Connor, installed at Chatsworth in 1999.


The most famous water feature at Chatsworth is definitely the Cascade, 300 years old, a picturesque liquid ribbon flowing down 24 stone steps cut into the landscape above the House.

The Cascade in the grounds of Chatsworth House originally completed in 1696 and fed by four lakes

The 'Revelation' is less well known, but is a piece of simple modern engineering that will stay in your heart forever. Like a well oiled piece of organic clockwork, it sets its own rhythm. As you stand or sit to watch its elegant, unhurried cycle, perhaps it has something to teach us about the pace of our own lives.

Its in the form of a flower bud opening and closing its petals. Its motion is down to the pressure of water flowing from the sculpture. These photos I took show the stages of its dance:

Closed bud with water flowing over its shiny surfaces

Gradually the weight of water within causes the petals to unfold outwards...

...revealing the golden heart within.

As the flower fully opens, the water drains back into the surrounding lake

Letting the flower close again

Ready to start the cycle again, drawing visitors away from the rush of life to share the healing heartbeat of nature

Chatsworth's sculptures blend with the natural landscape beyond

Water and stone in harmony

Chatsworth's formal and natural gardens and buildings set in the splendour of the Derbyshire Peak District

Pseudoacacia Robinia 'Frisia', an Australasian visitor holds its own special sunshine at Chatsworth

Blanche's Vase: Urn-ing a special place at Chatsworth

Blanche's Vase (or Urn) at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire UK

You may feel you already know Chatsworth House in Derbyshire's lovely Peak District.


Even if you've never been there!


Chatsworth House has become famous on movie screens all over the world, wearing its film star face!

In 2005, it became Mr Darcy's home, Pemberley, in the film adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".


In 2008, it starred as itself in "The Duchess" telling the tale of its most glamorous and famous former occupant Georgiana, the 5th Duchess of Devonshire.


In 2010 it again featured on the big screen, when the cameras filmed "The Wolfman" there.

Chatsworth House, or the 'Palace of the Peak', Derbyshire, England

 I've been coming to Chatsworth since I was a kid. Getting familiar with its nooks and crannies long before I was old enough to know its history or read the maps and guidebooks. One of the first sights I remember belongs to the memory of one of Chatsworth's lesser known occupants, Georgiana's granddaughter Blanche, the 7th Duchess.

Blanche's Vase - a lasting memorial to a life ended far too soon

The first time I held a guidebook in my own hands (as opposed to visiting with my parents on their motorbike and sidecar), I noticed the words "Blanche's Vase" next to a spot at the end of an avenue of my favourite beech trees, sometimes referred to on maps as "Broad Walk" or "Long Walk".


I walked up the long avenue flanked by these stunning beech trees towards what looks from a distance a very ordinary stone pot, positioned on the highest point of the path. There are many different statues around Chatsworth. I wondered how exactly I would be sure this was what I was looking for.

From the back, nothing but bare stone. I started to walk round the huge pot and made out the letter "E". Then an "H" carved next to it. Then a "C". I was doubled up with laughter as I saw that, of course, the monument is exactly what it says in the description. A giant flowerpot crafted from local sandstone with the name of "Blanche" chipped into it by a stonemason back in 1840!

Blanche did not live a memorably glamorous life like her famous grandmother Georgiana. Her mother, Georgiana's daughter, also called Georgiana, was married to George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle. Young Blanche was born on 11th January 1812, full name Blanche Georgiana Howard. Blanche became the favourite niece of the 6th Duke of Devonshire, her mother's brother and the famous Georgiana's heir.

Blanche Georgiana Cavendish, nee Howard, standing by a column not unlike the pedestal of her vase!

Known as "Hart" because of one of his titles, Marquess of Hartington, William Spencer George Cavendish, was also called "The Bachelor Duke" for obvious reasons. He was a close friend of the Prince Regent and a prominent Whig politician. He doted on Blanche and when she married another of the Cavendish clan, Hart's cousin once removed, William Cavendish 2nd Earl of Burlington, they were very close to him and became his heirs at Chatsworth.

Hart, (William Cavendish), the 6th Duke of Devonshire, and Blanche's devoted uncle

 However, Blanche sadly died aged only 28 on 27th April 1840. Hart was devastated.

He had the vase placed in the grounds  so his niece would never be forgotten. He also left an inscription to her memory in Chatsworth's Painted Hall. It says that he completed the restorations to the House in the year of his bereavement. Neither her uncle nor her husband ever really recovered from the blow of losing Blanche. That's an amazing testament to her character and lovable nature, more than can be graven in stone.


Her uncle Hart once wrote:

"There are many things at Chatsworth that I should not have allowed myself to do had I not reposed in the thoughts of being succeeded by a person so indulgent, so much attached to me as Blanche." (Quote from 'The Garden at Chatsworth' by the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire).

A play on the Cavendish name in the family motto "Cavendo Tutus" meaning "Safe through Caution", graven in gold around the outside of the house

 
 Some speculate that Hart's fondness for Blanche and her husband William influenced his decision not to marry. Chatsworth House mounted an exhibition about him recently, calling him: 'Britain's Most Inspirational and Eligible Bachelor'.  Hart certainly is reputed to have had his fair share of mistresses positioned at handy distances from his ancestral home! He was known in contemporary accounts as 'the most princely of England's nobility'.

Certainly, if it wasn't for Hart's lasting tributes to Blanche, we would know even less about her than we do. She has always fascinated me since I first discovered her vase perched at the end of the beech avenue. The impression she left in this most beautiful corner of England, echoes sweetly from far beyond the grave.

Stunningly lovely Chatsworth House and Gardens

If you haven't had the joy of a visit to Chatsworth yet, and even if you have, there is always more to discover. You owe it to yourself. Blanche and her kin will be waiting with the warmest welcome!


Chatsworth House Official Website

Baby hedgehog's mealworm munchtime

Nom nom nom! Must admit, the dried mealworms I put out for the birds do smell surprisingly appetising! I scatter them on the raised pebbled border just outside my back door.

The yummy smell comes as a bit of a surprise, actually. It's in direct contrast to the infernal stench of the "Maggot Factory" at the end of my lane when I was growing up, where maggots were bred for the fishing and angling trade. The horrific stink that wafted over the fields to my house at the edge of the village was truly gut-wrenching on hot summer evenings!


But these days, I didn't realised these little dried buddies' aroma would attract the baby hedgehog so close to the house. This delightful close enclounter happened yesterday lunchtime. I saw the little hedgehog toddling along towards me over the concrete patio. As I went out with my mobile phone to capture him on camera, keeping downwind so he wouldn't ball himself up in fright, he clambered up onto the mealworm-scattered pebbly "bird table."

There his little face took on an expression on bliss. Gourmet fare! All for free! The photos here show him enjoying his outing to my humble local restaurant. One of his parents visited again in the afternoon, but didn't venture quite so close. Enjoy!