I Want To Ride My Bicycle...

And today, I actually did!  Fifteen miles in total, in lovely glorious weather.  That stiff north-easterly was still very much in evidence, however.  We used to get a warm west wind which meant a tail wind home from work.  Now, it's inevitably a head wind.

It's the first opportunity I've had to do a cycle-commute this year.  And it's the last opportunity for the forseeable future, since I'll be trailing around various archives next week.

This attempt at keeping fit is not without its difficulties.  Last night, the clegs were very much in evidence when we took the horses out into the fields.  We're not talking Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Ministers here - it's the Scots term for the dreaded horsefly.  Long, brown, torpedo-shaped and mean!  I' ve seen them draw blood from a horse before...  Molly was driven demented by the brutes, I managed to swat four (I don't normally advocate violence against mindless mini-beasts, but I make an exception for clegs and mosquitoes).  I thought I'd escaped, but I found a great big red blotch on my knee today (about the size of a 50 pence piece) and I knew I'd been well and truly clegged!  It had to happen, I suppose.  Last year, they got me on the face.

It's been an exhausting night.  After cycling 10 miles home, I had to water all the various pots and one of the flower beds.  It took me one and a quarter hours.

So I am now officially knackered...

I Want To Ride My Bicycle...

And today, I actually did!  Fifteen miles in total, in lovely glorious weather.  That stiff north-easterly was still very much in evidence, however.  We used to get a warm west wind which meant a tail wind home from work.  Now, it's inevitably a head wind.

It's the first opportunity I've had to do a cycle-commute this year.  And it's the last opportunity for the forseeable future, since I'll be trailing around various archives next week.

This attempt at keeping fit is not without its difficulties.  Last night, the clegs were very much in evidence when we took the horses out into the fields.  We're not talking Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Ministers here - it's the Scots term for the dreaded horsefly.  Long, brown, torpedo-shaped and mean!  I' ve seen them draw blood from a horse before...  Molly was driven demented by the brutes, I managed to swat four (I don't normally advocate violence against mindless mini-beasts, but I make an exception for clegs and mosquitoes).  I thought I'd escaped, but I found a great big red blotch on my knee today (about the size of a 50 pence piece) and I knew I'd been well and truly clegged!  It had to happen, I suppose.  Last year, they got me on the face.

It's been an exhausting night.  After cycling 10 miles home, I had to water all the various pots and one of the flower beds.  It took me one and a quarter hours.

So I am now officially knackered...

Minoan Palace No. 2...

I never did finish my Minoan posts - there's one or two more before I finally exhaust the subject!

I'd wanted to highlight the theory that Minoan society was intrinsically fair, and peaceful, because they didn't feel any need to defend their palaces.  There are no massive walls and substantial gateways.  This may be illusory - I managed to track down a Minoan community on LJ - evidently, one or two defended settlements have now been identified, but this still seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

Now, I'm not convinced by the pacifist argument.  They had daggers - they buried them in graves.  That panther axe/sceptre doesn't look particularly friendly, either.  Perhaps they had a similar attitude to the Spartans - why build a big wall around your town, when you' ve got a living wall of competent soldiers (not to mention, in the Minoan case, a competent navy) to defend you?  Thia nice, cuddly picture of Minoan civilisation doesn't quite ring true.

Phaistos is the last of the great Minoan palaces, and I haven't really talked about it much.  In a way, it was my favourite.  It was better preserved than Malia, and less mucked about with than Knossos.

Here's a general view:-

 

The terrace overlooking the courtyard was particularly stunning:-

 

And, of course, there were pithoi.  Lots of pithoi...

It's suggested that the recesses were where sentries would have been stationed - a nice show of strength from a supposedly pacifist society!

The room shown below is the megaron, which had an arrangement of multiple doors which could be opened or closed as required.  The stone blocks show where the timber door panels would have been inserted.

 

And now here's a photograph posted for entirely selfish reasons:-

 

The key thing to try and identify is the greenish blob in the corner of the feature.  If you know anything about metalworking, you'll figure it out straight away: it's the site of a copper-smelting furnace.  Which for somebody who's fascinated by Bronze Age metalwork, is an obvious thing to be fascinated by, even if it doesn't really look like much.
 

Minoan Palace No. 2...

I never did finish my Minoan posts - there's one or two more before I finally exhaust the subject!

I'd wanted to highlight the theory that Minoan society was intrinsically fair, and peaceful, because they didn't feel any need to defend their palaces.  There are no massive walls and substantial gateways.  This may be illusory - I managed to track down a Minoan community on LJ - evidently, one or two defended settlements have now been identified, but this still seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

Now, I'm not convinced by the pacifist argument.  They had daggers - they buried them in graves.  That panther axe/sceptre doesn't look particularly friendly, either.  Perhaps they had a similar attitude to the Spartans - why build a big wall around your town, when you' ve got a living wall of competent soldiers (not to mention, in the Minoan case, a competent navy) to defend you?  Thia nice, cuddly picture of Minoan civilisation doesn't quite ring true.

Phaistos is the last of the great Minoan palaces, and I haven't really talked about it much.  In a way, it was my favourite.  It was better preserved than Malia, and less mucked about with than Knossos.

Here's a general view:-

 

The terrace overlooking the courtyard was particularly stunning:-

 

And, of course, there were pithoi.  Lots of pithoi...

It's suggested that the recesses were where sentries would have been stationed - a nice show of strength from a supposedly pacifist society!

The room shown below is the megaron, which had an arrangement of multiple doors which could be opened or closed as required.  The stone blocks show where the timber door panels would have been inserted.

 

And now here's a photograph posted for entirely selfish reasons:-

 

The key thing to try and identify is the greenish blob in the corner of the feature.  If you know anything about metalworking, you'll figure it out straight away: it's the site of a copper-smelting furnace.  Which for somebody who's fascinated by Bronze Age metalwork, is an obvious thing to be fascinated by, even if it doesn't really look like much.