I met my sister Pam in London for ten great days. One of the best parts about traveling with family members is that you’re guaranteed to do things you’d never have thought of on your own. Like, going to meet the mudlarks….
Pam follows several mudlarks on Instagram and she was beyond excited to learn that the Museum of London Docklands was hosting the city’s mudlarks for two days when we were there.
Pictured here is mudlark Sean Clark, who takes part in a long-standing (and previously grim) activity. The term ‘mudlark’ is from the Victorian age. Early mudlarks were poor and hungry Londoners, almost always little kids, who combed the riverbanks for items they could resell. They darted up and down the shore like mudlark birds. Now they’re history buffs finding objects that reveal how people here lived, some items going back to the Romans!
Sean offered us a wax imprint from a 17th Century Matrix Seal. I was holding the imprint of a stamp that had rested in the water for four hundred years until Sean found it.
It could have been made in Shakespeare’s time.
York Museums Trust has this to say: “Seals were a common part of everyday life of Medieval England. They were used by a variety of social classes to authenticate documents such as land agreements, business exchanges, official court documents or charters, which needed a proof of identity or a royal seal of approval. They could also simply be used to keep a document or letter sealed or closed. Therefore owners of businesses, merchants, farmers, members of the clergy, government officials and kings all used seals, which they would imprint using their own unique seal matrix.” [1]
Sean discovered this wonderful seal on the foreshore of the Thames River. As a registered mudlark he gets to keep whatever he finds after reporting it to an official, historical registry at the Museum of London.
Pipes prefilled with tobacco were sold and then tossed away after being smoked. Now mudlarks find them on the foreshore of the Thames. For more on the clay pipes, go here: Mudlarking-the-art-of-smoking.
Mudlarks are an exuberant bunch. They aren’t allowed to dig into the banks of the Thames, so finding an exposed object is really a fun event. Every lark we talked to was more than happy to tell us about their finds and let us examine the objects more closely.
NOTES: ©Jadi Campbell 2023. [1] the-world-of-the-matrix-and-medieval-seals-in-york/. I’m sorry my mudlark photos aren’t clearer. For more info and better pics, go to thamesfestivaltrust.org. To see Uwe’s photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.
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It’s an easy bus ride from the capitol Riga to the museum. Go to my post 
Existence was harsh and hard, like the overcast skies much of the day we visited. [2] Along with simple huts, the site includes windmills.
A store building is filled with dowry chests and traces of Latvia’s long history serving in the Hanseatic League.
The town to see whales is Hermanus. We walked from our hotel to the jetty where we’d catch a whale watching boat. The scenery included local art.
The garter snake is Massachusetts’ official state snake, and is endemic to most of North America. It’s the most common snake species, and closely related to water snakes, the genus Nerodia.
I find snakes fascinating. [2] Sacred snakes were used by the Oracle at Delphi and in ancient Minos. Recall the cobra, who spread its hood to shelter the Buddha. St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. [3] On a practical level, the garter snakes in Barb and Javier’s yard will eliminate any pest threat from rodents. (They also eat snails and slugs, common garden problems in the wet Northwest.)
As I admire the yard and go look from time to time for the two snakes I’ve seen in different parts of the garden, I think mostly about the fact that the presence of snakes means the small biosphere of my sister’s home is a healthy one. It’s not a coincidence that garter snakes are often referred to as ‘garden snakes’.
March 2019 Journal entry: Just returned from an exhilarating 2 and ½ hours night tour with nature guide and tour guide at Kubah National Park. We saw frogs on trees, leaves, vines, boles, the sides of the road…. Two rare horned frogs! Mahogany frogs! A teeny pitcher plant frog – just one – it jumped away before we could look more closely but I did see the tiny thing leap (the narrow-mouth frog first described in 2010). Three different lizards. White-lipped frogs. Cinnamon frogs. Firebelly toads. Harlequin tree frogs. We had to head up to 1,000 feet up a road in the dark, the ranger with a head light. Unreal how he could spot the frogs. Glorious sounds of running water and night sounds of the jungle all around, my glasses fogging over with the heat and humidity, a large frog pond formed by wild pigs’ rutting. The frogs surprisingly calm, not jumping at our presence, just hanging out in their domain. I was in the moment, totally blissed out, just there, present with each frog we spotted. The guide and ranger and I backlighting each critter with our flashlights so Uwe could photograph it. The deep jungle trees and vegetation and clicks and buzzes and calls of frogs all around us. Nature’s Symphony. Glorious. An Australian recorded just this place and won an international competition for the most beautiful sounds in the world. Borneo’s really promoting sustainable growth, they recognize what they have here. The Malaysian part of Borneo, that is. I feel hopeful about a corner of the planet for the first time in a very, very, very long and sad time. Man, I like Borneo.
