The quest of quests

3 weeks in my quests are nicely pottering on. Quest 1 reading a chapter a week of the wonderful :" A History of the World in 100 Objects" is a treat. I have read my share of history books but I have never come across one like this one... it simply invites you in. Neil MacGregor who has written it is obviously in love with both history and with his museum ( yes, he runs the BM) and I am in awe of his talent of sharing his passion! Today, after having read 3 chapters I will go to the British museum and see these first 15 objects covering humans from the very beginning from some 2 million years ago up until 4-2000 years ago when we build the first big cities and societies.  I have learnt that back then there were cities in 4 areas of the world. 3 of these were build on a structure of central control and power and war and 1 was peaceable.  The last one in the Indus Valley was a large city state with as many as 40.000 people in a city - not much social inequality detected, few weapons were found, no fortifications and no central monuments of buildings to glorify a leader. It is nice to see that there are alternatives how to chose to build our world.

Quest #2 which will se me bake a different cake each week obviously get more followers than #1 and I truly appreciate all the applause and willing eaters of my cakes :-) It is wonderful with such help and support!

And Quest #3 visiting one of England's Nature reserves a month came off to a great start last weekend when I spent 4 days in the Lake District in Buttermere. What a beautiful place - as quaint as it's name suggests, and I loved camping out, loved the amazing fell walking, loved the pubs and their beer - in short I had a wonderful time. I have never been camping alone before and I must admit it did get a little bit boring in the evenings. So if I go off on my own again I will have to think of things to do. Maybe I should bring a little cooker, since preparing a meal will make for a lovely pass time...?

... And then there is the Quests of the quests, which I suppose in essence is what it is all about: The challenge of actually getting these things done. It is already proving a fine reminder for me on a weekly basis to pull myself together! But there are certain challenges:  First of all I realise I was maybe a wee bit quick defining them and some pondering on their definitions might have been helpful... Could I for instance have included bread in the baking, since a cake a week already after 3 weeks seems a lot - Thankfully there are always lots of happy takers, so maybe that's ok - it's just that I really like baking the bread too, and it is a lot of work doing both especially if I am travelling in the weekend....
And the nature reserves... well, I should have certainly thought about that one... some of these areas are on the outer Hebrides and places like that, where even goats are scarce. And could I go to the same nature reserves more than once, or would that be defying the purpose? Did the original gail seeking "questers" refine their goal on the way? Or did they simply set out to find the gail or the Holy Land, and then along the way stumbled on a war or a dragon or damsels in distress which too them off track?
Well, so far, after 3 weeks, I intend to stay on track! 20 weeks of quests laid out so far ahead of me - with only a couple of Christmas weeks exploring the Canadian wilderness of interruption.

Cool nerdy stuff and some gooseberries

There exists such a thing as knapping (yes, with k) , and it has been around for more than one million years. It is shaping a stone, making it into a tool by chipping or flaking it. When you scan the brains of a person knapping today it shows that the active area is close to overlap with the area which represents speech.  So a million+ years ago humans created the handaxe and maybe at the same time developed speech.
This is truly interesting, and my Quest#1 reading " A History of The World in 100 Objects" is turning into a treat! I must admit that I set out on this Quest#1 deciding that it would do me some good reading a World history, since One should probably do that at some point in life. But I must also admit that I had not imagined that it would be this exiting. Neil MacGregor, who is the director at the British Museum, wrote this book after having been set the challenge by Chanel 4 to choose 100 things in his museum which would tell our entire history. 20 chapters with 5 objects in each - where would you even begin to make an unbiased tale of human history? What would you for instance choose from the 20th century?
Among the objects chosen to tell our earliest history was the handaxe. It could be used for drilling, cutting of wood and meat,  and scraping of skin and bark and with such a versatile tool man spread north out of Africa into Europe and Asia, - even reached England. A handaxe such as this one has been found near Heathrow airport.
Now I have to see if I can properly work this tool of a blog programme and inset a beautiful photo of a handaxe, so that you can actually see what I am talking about. (Till I figure that out, check out this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pwn7p )

Re Quest#2 it is on track beautifully, if anyone wondered. I made clafoutis yesterday - 2 of them.  And being short of a cherry tree I made a beautiful one with black currants and a lovely one with gooseberries. I went berry picking recently so I am fortunate to have ample supply! ( Once a hobbit...) Now, I feel it is in it place to take a stand for gooseberries. They get far too little attention and have undeservedly become quite extinct! Danes have taken to eating ants lately - and won awards for it - but have entirely forgotten the genuine flavour of childhood summers: that of the gooseberry. I am sure that were HC Andersen still among us he would have narrated a fine little Ode to the Gooseberry. They  grow on such a small scrawny bush with flimsy leaves and long thorns and only the children see the red hairy berries hiding away. The finest beds in the fruit garden are taken up by the proud raspberries and the snobbish blackberries, not to mention the arrogant currants! The currants know that even though they are rarely anyone's favourite, like the raspberries, they are irreplaceable for jam making. But what is the place of the gooseberry? Does it have a remarkable quality... hardly. Except, naturally, that no child will ever forget that sense of the sun-warmed furry gooseberry, mildly sweet and forever tasting of one more berry.

Quest #3 is in the making... Trip being planned for this first coming weekend. Watch this space.

The Ease of August