Kilpeck

It is no surprise that we have long wanted to make a pilgrimage to Kilpeck to see the cornucopia of delights there; so as a Christmas present to ourselves, we made a small detour en route home for Christmas, to the famous village.

It was one of those bright winter days where the sun is low and the light is golden. With my finger glued to the map as we headed towards our destination, I remarked that the light would be perfect for picking out the carvings. As we were musing on this, I pointed out a sudden pocket of low-lying mist, hanging in a valley over to the left. "By the way, where is it we're going?" my sister asked. "Over there," I replied, pointing at the mist. It was too strange. And rather disappointing! We had no hope of seeing anything if the wonders of Kilpeck were shrouded in fog. As we crept forward through the blanket of white, we got to a crossroads. "Where do you think it is?" my sister asked. All of a sudden, the outline of a church tower rose out of the mist straight ahead of us. It couldn't have been more like a film. Was it the mystic creatures of Kilpeck keeping themselves hidden?

Kilpeck has so much to enjoy - and is so well preserved. The stone looks red and softer than some, but the carvings are in excellent condition, both inside and out. We went inside first - there are very unsual carvings on each side of the arch, three figures each side. The entrance into the church is amazing. A whole host of wonderfully comic beakheads, some most unusual, flanked by another arch of eyes and designs very like those in Stottesdon. The columns either side of the door are also very well preserved, all of it seems like it could have been carved last century. They are not like any I remember, but have a complicated design of interlacing foliage, figures and creatures.

The corbels are amazing. They go all around the church, not a space is left - although a couple are missing. The creatures are most amusing and full of character, who could fail to love them. The hare and hound pairing looks so modern.
 Rams, pigs, horses, people.  The back of the church looks out across the graveyard and across a field. A large tree was rising out of the mist that hung low over the fields. It all looked quite mysterious.

Others came to visit, one over-confident man striding around with his girlfriend, lecturing her in a boring manner and saying "there's nothing interesting inside". Hopefully she would make up her own mind.

The mist began to clear and the sun lit up the corbels in gold. As we got ready to leave, a few beams of golden light shone through the yews in shafts.

Deerhurst and Upleadon

Once in a while we are on route somewhere other than a church and are tempted to squeeze some fonting into the journey. Well if we are passing near to a known site, it seems silly not to visit. Happily the Blue Book makes it easy to find somewhere not ludicrously off course.

One such stop-off was the village of Deerhurst. Luckily for us, it was well signposted as in addition to the village church and the delights therein, it has an extra building of Saxon origin, Odda's Chapel, now cared for by English Heritage. This was apparently built by Earl Odda for his brother Aelfric. Strangely someone had incorporated a farmhouse into one end in Tudor times, which looked rather odd. But the building itself held less interest for me than the contents of the nearby church, St Mary's. The existence of a second Saxon building is quite unusual. So it was not surprising that both are clearly signposted, which saved us our usual trick of hunting down every side road. In fact the church had no end of signs, with one taking us all the way round the building to the "angel" high up on the back wall, another pointing to the toilets (a rare and welcome facility for the travelling fonter) and even an array of labels inside the WC in case you weren't sure how to identify a hand dryer. But it was a joy to see that someone evidently welcomed and expected visitors.

Inside the church (diligently being cleaned by someone) we were greeted with a wonderful sight. You may think you have seen something already when you have seen a photograph, but it does not beat seeing it for real. Deerhurst's font is one of very few surviving Anglo Saxon fonts... if indeed there are any. We bought a pamphlet (one of many) on the Anglo Saxon features of the church and it suggested that Deerhurst is the best example, if it is indeed a font, which the author thought it was. It seems to fit the dimensions of the fonts we have seen, and the base, if it is the original base for a font, has the same intricate spiral/scroll pattern which decorates the top bowl. It is an elaborate pattern which suggests that it must have been an important place to have such a lovely font. We sat ready to draw. R went to look for lights to that area of the church. To my sheer amazement, sensitively done floor lights came on all around the base of the font and lit it up so you could best appreciate the carving. I have never seen a font so well appreciated and cared for by its parish and being as fond as I am of them, it felt like the pinnacle of font appreciation - if only every beautiful font could be appreciated and valued in this way. Some cost and consideration had gone into presenting this font and it is so nice to know it will be looked after.  Unlike in times gone by when it was found being used as a drinking vessel in a farmyard and rescued by a bishop.

Drawing the pattern proved more difficult. We would have needed a lot more time than we had to make any decent attempt and mine was more of a rough representation. It turned out that the swirls were quite complicated and not all the same and it made your eyes go funny looking at them for too long.

The church also has beast heads, two wonderful ones by the main door, with fangs, pointy ears and a prominent snout, not so much dragons but a cross between wolves and something else, and two at the back of the church, which according to the pamphlet, could have been adorned with paint and jewels for eyes in their time, one of which looked like a hippo to me.

Upleadon
Upleadon is not far from Deerhurst and provided a good stop-off point on our return journey. However, it was not so well signposted, as usual, so we found ourselves in familiar territory driving into the village and then having to go back on ourselves, ask a stranger and then keep our eyes peeled. It was a little way out of the main village next to a large house and farm. It is very unusual with a tower of brick and timber. This one boasts a rather fine tympanum over the main door, with nothing less than a Lamb of God, complete with jaunty foot, and flanked by two "lion-like" creatures, with the requisite tails curling up under their bodies. It was not unlike the design at Pen Selwood, a thought we both had, cheeringly - we are now a walking resource on these things.  I loved it - it had a pleasing simplicity but with some unusual details such as the rather attractive circle around the lamb, which was a plain and a beaded band intertwined. As I drew it, mine seemed to go a bit haphazard and I think the carver found the same difficulty.  The animals had rather humanoid features.

There was another creature on the left hand capital of the door, with an interesting tail, and a design on the right hand one.

It may have been out of the way and harder to find than Deerhurst but it was equally pleasing and quite a peaceful spot.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

All in all it was a nice day, as my classes went okay and I think the teens even might have had fun. We are doing "zoos" in both the teen group and the upper-intermediates; it's probably no coincidence as the books are by the same people. But obviously you can discuss a bit more with the adults, if at the very least because some of them had actually been to a zoo and were old enough to remember one that was here 20 years ago. The teens, sadly, have not been to a zoo and so for me I felt sorry that they have not been able to see all the fabulous animals we were talking about.

I felt a bit weird during my teens class, so I needed something simple to do and luckily for me, there was an activity in the book about lists of things. You know, you make a list with commas and say "and" before the final word. So the perfect way to practise this (suggested, happily, by the book) was a zoo version of "my grandmother went to Spain" - "I went to the zoo and I saw a ...." For example, monkey, elephant, lion and a goat.  We went round the class twice, and I thought perhaps they would be tiring of it by then, but they insisted on going round a third time, so by the end we had a list of about 20 animals to remember. And everyone did very well. They helped each other by making some of the noises occasionally. Giorgia even mentioned a unicorn and Bernardo said "kiwi" so sometimes they surprise me with what they know. It was fun because they were remembering things without it being a chore and the challenge was in remembering rather than filling in gaps in exercises, as usual.

I am beginning to find that groups are now very relaxed in each others' and my company, and this week has been nice as probably I have begun to think of different and more interesting things to do, finally. The books give you the basics but for bright students you need something extra and also it breaks the monotony of the same sort of exercises, which they soon get through. I would say that the teenagers learn a lot of grammar at school and they seem to know it well. Jo and I think that perhaps schools do not teach any of them to offer an opinion on much, because we find it hard to get them to say what they think about things. I hope I am discovering the things that make them tick now. The teens enjoy creating things too (we did a zoo poster and a "new" animal). For one of my adult classes, they seem to like more practical things (piecing things together, drawing something which you describe, that sort of thing) and the upper-intermediates revealed a bit of a competitive nature last week when they were searching for words in the dictionary.

So we did endangered animals tonight and as zoos and conservation and animals is one of the most important subjects to me, I found myself getting quite passionate about it and asking them what they knew about issues, what was happening that was affecting animals and why. They knew a little bit, one man whose daughter loves zoos knew loads, which was very impressive. He even told me a place to go in Sicily to see wild horses. But I was soon beginning to rant a little about chinese medicine, poaching and other issues. I could hear the emotion creeping into my voice but perhaps this was good so they know I am human and don't just talk about nouns and adjectives. It was clear to me while I was talking that this is one subject that means the most to me and I would love to work in that field; I have been thinking about my time at the Nature Centre and how much I enjoyed it.

I am forgetting my English though; tonight Mattia asked me whether another word for a tank (as in a vat) was a receptive. Something in the far depths of my brain was saying do not dismiss this, he has something here. I looked in the dictionary. I thought. I had to defer him and say I would look and come back to him; I knew there was some word like it but could not for the life of me think what. The internet kindly reminded me, receptacle. What is happening!?

Tomorrow I have a new class of adults and I have the kids' class. Despite picking up lots of hints and tips this morning from other teachers, I still need to learn a lot about how to teach the kids. Maybe we can do animals (but we are supposed to be using the book. Well, at least I have "revised" animals myself this week!)