My favourite tradition of the year - heading over to Clearwell Caves' Christmas Display.
After a beautiful night at Westonbirt Aboretum's Enchanted Christmas on Friday, we kicked off Saturday in the other direction. We headed out to the Forest of Dean for yet another substantial breakfast (this time in a bap) at Gavellers Cafe.
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| English breakfast in a bap. Less cutlery involved. |
Hadn't been to this place before. It's right out in the forest, and keeps some lovely secrets.
First off, take a look at their website for an example of Forest. As with Scots, Cockney and Strine, this is a version of English incomprehensible to 99% of its speakers.
I believe "Ow bist guain butty! I daim thou bist looking vor zummit tu yut - if thou bist read on," probably translates as something akin to: 'How are you friend! I guess you're looking for something to eat - if so, read on.' In this case 'bist' stands for the archaic 'beest', 'butty' for the same affectionate Welsh term, and zummit for the modern abbreviation of 'something' - 'summat'. I'm guessing with 'yut'.
One article: Mining in the Forest, explains:
Our dialect goes right back to Celtic times, that's when it started. A lot of the words we use come from that time. Then you got a lot of it which is pure old English - the use of the pronouns thee and thou is pure Old English. But a lot of words came out of the mines and the pits during the forties, fifties and so on.
The café is situated at the start of several miles of woodland walks, including a sculpture trail.
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| Giant Chair |
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| (click to enlarge) |
We don't have any native bears, wolves or boar in the UK anymore, so this was rather unexpected. Turns out:
The boar were illegally re-introduced to the Forest in 2006. A population in the Ross-on-Wye area on the northern edge of the forest escaped from a wild boar farm around 1999 and are believed to be of pure Eastern European origin; in a second introduction, a domestic herd was dumped near Staunton in 2004, but these were not pure bred wild boar - attempts to locate the source of the illegal dumps have been unsuccessful. The boar can now be found in many parts of the Forest. - Wiki
'Boar dumping,' is that a bit like 'cow tipping'?
Finally, I popped into the shop and ended up leaving with a lovely necklace by a very talented local artist. Jeanette Hannaby creates beautiful pieces of etched glass and enamel. You can find some examples on her website.
From there, we headed up the road to Clearwell.
I love this place. If I could live there, I think I would. It is one of the last places you can see the tradition of freemining at work, and is still worked by Free Miners.
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| Free Miners of the Forest of Dean |
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| A lump of iron ore from the mine, and what it was used for.
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Every Christmas, Clearwell pull out all the stops and turn the labyrinth of caves into an underground yule tale. This year it was the story of The Hungry Polar Bear.
After that, it was back home for some festive spirit. Homebrew, a swift toddy, and the crowning glory: home-made Sloe Gin.
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| Followed by pink champers and Christmas cake. |
Good cheer one and all. Let the festivities commence. Stay safe, stay warm - eat much.
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