Monday 7 November 2011

Stanton Moor



The Nine Maidens Stone Circle,










Modern offerings to Old Gods on the Oak Tree just outside of the circle


Wednesday 2 November 2011

Saturday 29 October 2011

Friday 7 October 2011

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Thursday 29 September 2011

Not Beige






The bride wore a blue/green dress and the groom sported a felt hat he had made himself.

And that wasn't the only alternative feature of the wedding of Nailsea couple Sara Ellis and Paul Reid.

The newlyweds who meet in Bristol three years ago actually got married at the Chippenham register office before holding a second 'handfasting' ceremony at a woodland campsite near Bath called Rocks East.

This all happened on Friday, September 2.

Handfasting is a traditional European betrothal dating from the 12th century.

The term is originally from Old Norse hand-festa 'to strike a bargain by joining hands' and is popular with modern day pagans.

It involves the tying or binding of the right hands of the bride and groom with a cord or ribbon for the duration of the wedding ceremony.

When Sara married Paul they used a length of bright red felt they had spun themselves.

Sara, aged 28, and Paul, 27, live at Heath Road, Nailsea.

Paul, a former pupil at Nailsea School, and Sara, who went to Parkside Community College, Cambridge, will be known as Mr and Mrs EllisReid.

Best man Jason Parker went to school with Paul and best woman Cazbah Sargeant is a long-standing friend of the couple.

The bridesmaids were Ros King and Bex LeFey.

Many of the guests wore flowers in their hair and brightly coloured clothes, as requested on the wedding invitations.

Paul is the son of Tess and Chris Reid, of Nailsea, and the bride's mum Sue Ellis and her twin sister Jo Watters travelled from Nidri, Greece for the special day.

Another long distance guest was Paul's sister Fiona Rudolph who came home from Texas where she is now living.

The couple who trained as playworkers run their own business.

Sara said: "Our business is two-fold - we run a wool art design studio called Innerspiral but we also run hula hoop party workshops.

"We make and sell hula hoops from our market stall at different events including Nailsea craft market.

"We have just come back from a summer of touring the UK festivals with both our fibre art workshops and our hula hoop party."

This year their tour included St Paul's Festival and Priddy Fair.

Paul and Sara also have an online shop called Etsy selling yarn they have spun and dyed by hand which they make into jewellery and one-of-a-kind artwear accessories.

The couple spent their honeymoon in a yurt in Cornwall.

Nailsea People

Monday 11 April 2011

Pagan No Fly Zone


The Ministry of Aviation has declared Stonehenge a 'no fly zone'

Saturday 26 March 2011

Friday 18 March 2011

Monday 7 March 2011

Goings On At Craggy Island


An Island Parish, the scottish TV successor to its cousin in the Scillies has been more than a little creepy at times following the three priests on Barra and the surrounding islands.

Last week was far more interesting watching a local wedding, which could have taken place on the islands going back 3 000 years.

After the Catholic marriage ceremony, the newly wed couple came out of the church to the firing of shotguns. We have just had the samehere in somerset, the firing of guns to scare away the bad spirits and to bring fertility to the apple orchards. I suspect before gunpowder it was drums and shouting.

The wedding party retired to a Holy Well, for a blessing and for luck, again a ritual that predates Christianity, then to a communal feast for the whole village.

Continuity and change, the assimilation of the old ways into the new.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Friday 18 February 2011

Thursday 17 February 2011

Friday 21 January 2011

Sunday 2 January 2011