A Drop of Nelson's Blood

This weekend was a blinder. On Friday night I went up to Bromsgrove with about 20 other guys, mostly morris men (from various sides), for the stag weekend of our side's squire, who is gets wed in a few weeks' time.

So Friday night involved a load of driving, increased by the fact that the best man (or rather one of them!) had had a flat tyre, broke his jack, and was stuck in the middle of nowhere with four polypins of local ale. We went off to rescue him, hindered by the fact that he was on a road and near a village both small enough that they didn't appear in my road atlas. After eventually homing in, he fixed his wheel and we moved on to the scout hut in which we would be staying and had pies, peas and ale for dinner before heading in to town to a fine pub where we stayed well past midnight, singing and playing, much to the amusement of the landlord and staff, who actually said we'd be welcome back — even after we performed the Upton-On-Severn Bendy Straws dance in the bar.

Saturday was mostly taken up by a trip on the Worcester and Birmingham canal (dressed as pirates), during which we were split between two small narrowboats on a sedate cruise northwards, which took us through two tunnels (the second being some 2.5 km long) and back again. This being a morris outing, there were tunes and songs and much fun had by almost all (the exceptions being a couple of casualties from the Friday night who were struggling somewhat). A few jigs were danced (including one on the roof of a boat), and I have now discovered the joys of tunnel sessions. Playing tunes in a tunnel has an amazing acoustic, but what was really awesome was singing shanties, with 20 men all belting out the responses for all they were worth. Great stuff.

After a curry we were back out in town and ended up back in the same pub as before, where even more dances were performed, many songs sung, and the pub pretty near ran out of ale.

By the time we had got home on the Sunday and I was delivering the stag back to his house, we discovered that he had lost his house keys, so the trip was extended to drop him over at another nearby friend's house until his fiancee got home. You can't beat a bit of excitement like that.

Top weekend.

Hankies at Dawn

So a couple of weeks back I went to my first ale of the year, hosted by the Kennet Morris Men, who organised a stomping evening of pickles, ale, chili, dancing and singing. There was a decent contingent of our side, despite which, I (of all people) was elected to sing on behalf of the side after dinner (the standard etiquette is that each side who has a reasonable turnout provides a song). It all went pretty well apart from me forgetting an entire verse. I don't think many people noticed.

Anyway, the picture is from a massed dance (ales generally involve alternating between one side showing off and massed dances where everyone who wants to gets up and you end up with sets made up of men from mixed sides, which can prove amusing) of Queen's Delight (Bucknell). Now, my first thought on this photo was that I must have been on the wrong foot as I should have been on the same foot as my partner (who is a lot more experienced than I am), but seeing the guys in the next set are also on their left foot, perhaps I was doing it right after all!

What I Did on My Holiday

So I was back at work today after a week off during which the father-in-law was down to install a new bathroom suite for us. It took longer than expected, largely thanks to having to interact with cranky half-century-old plumbing, but after some valiant efforts, it is all plumbed in. We still have tiling and other decorating to do, but the end is in sight and soon we will be able to enjoy a lovely, new bathroom.

During this week I just provided a spare pair of hands where required, acted as a taxi to various shops and spent the rest of the time in the garden with a saw, a hammer, a bag of nails, a spade, a pile of old paving slabs and a few bags of sand. The results (a set of raised beds and paved surround) aren't exactly fine architecture, but I'm pleased with it so far. There's still a bit more to do, but we've already started planting things.