Morris and Mortality

It has been an odd week.

Last weekend we were planning to go to Chippenham Folk Festival. Well, the plan was that I would be there for the whole weekend with the morris, camping for two nights, and <3 and the Youngling would be there for Saturday and Monday, and would do somethig different on the Sunday. Plans changed when the Youngling threw up in her bed on Friday night and we decided that a not-entirely-necessary trip out the following day would probably be less than ideal, so we stayed closer to home for the next couple of days -- at least we got some gardening done! On Monday we took the trip to Chippenham and had a great day dancing in the streets and on the arena stage.

Back at work after the bank holiday things were less happy as the word arrived that my office mate, Steve, had lost his 2 year battle with cancer. I didn't know Steve as well as I would have liked, largely as over the year or so we had shared an office, he had spent a lot of time away for treatment. He was a top bloke though, a pleasure to talk with, and a fighter who kept going far longer than expected and who has helped others like him get the treatment he was originally denied. Steve's death was not unexpected, but the sense of shock and grief in the department this week has been palpable. He really made a mark and will be greatly missed.

After that news, the week has had a slightly weird feel to it. We had a great dance out in Grove on Wednesday, and I now have some pretty decent homebrew beer (which should get better with a bit more conditioning) to drink, but all that doesn't seem to be worth writing about at the moment. I'll have a drink to Steve over the weekend and wish his family well. The funeral is next week and I expect there will be quite a few of us from work in attendance.

One Sheet to the Wind

Another good weekend, including a friend's 40th birthday barbecue on Saturday, and then a trip to Swindon Kite Festival today.

<3 and I used to go to a few kite festivals, partly to fly kites, partly (mostly for me) to buy kites and things to make them out of, partly to meet up with friends, and partly to just look at the pretty things in the sky. Since the arrival of the Youngling, however, we just don't seem to have got around to it.

Well, a couple of weeks back, <3 spotted that Swindon Kite Festival was coming up and as we had a day more-or-less free, we decided to take a trip. The venue was a little way the wrong side of Swindon for us, so it took up the better part of an hour to get there, and when we did, we found that the wind was a bit feeble and not much was flying.

Still, we had a cuppa with a couple of friends who arrived at about the same time, the Youngling had a ride on a bus on a kiddies' roundabout, and I took the Youngling along to buy her first kite, a "Super Flyer", a wide-tailed delta kite which I knew from experience was great for kids. With this in hand, we wandered over to a spare area of field, assembled the kite and I launched it. The Youngling wasn't too keen on anything other than watching at first, but a couple of minutes later I heard, "My hold it now!", so I dutifully handed over the handle and relaunched. It flew for a few seconds before the wind died and it fell to the ground. My flying companion was, by this point, jumping up and down and shrieking with laughter. So we had another go. Or ten.

After a picnic lunch, we got the kite out again and there was little to stop our little kite nut. She spent more time flying there (with some good flights when the wind allowed) than I could possibly imagined. We are certainly going to go flying again, and soon. The problem is that she now wants a fish kite. And a butterfly kite. And a...

Sumer is acumin in

According to some of the gents from the team, I have now been officially inducted into the morris, having taken part in my first Oxford May Morning. Up at stupid o'clock we were down outside Magdalen College before 06:00, and shortly afterwards began a couple of hours of dancing at Radcliffe Square followed by 3 other locations around the city. I had my first ale at around 07:15 (well after several others in the side). This is something that seems really bizarre: the mix of people watching were a mix drunken students from the previous night's parties, revellers coming in specially for the May festivities, and bemused people on their way in to work.

Eventually we ended up at St Edmund Hall for breakfast (and more ale plus singing), before a little bit more dancing and then a swift trip down to Grove where we danced for a primary school, and then again on to Wantage market square before finally getting to the pub for lunch and songs.

Saturday was spent pottering around town and then sitting in some friends' garden drinking tea while the Youngling played with their daughter (of the same age). Nice and relaxing. Then on Sunday, while <3 was away for a bellydancing practice, I did the Bad Dad thing and took the Youngling off to a pub where some friends were playing some music as part of a May weekend event thing. All went well.

Monday was another morris day as we had a booking for a May fun day thingy in Shrivenham, which is about 20-odd minutes away from us. We arrived just as a group of the men who had turned up earlier returned from the Prince of Wales, bearing news that the landlord had offered some beers in exchange for us turning up to dance later. It turned out that we had about an hour between the two slots we had been booked for and the pub was only 5 minutes from the event, so after we had done our bit we pottered over, so the WAGs could warm up on the inside (the wind was a bit on the cold side) while the rest of us leapt about outside, egged on by landlord and a few of the punters. We got back just in time for our second spot, making for a generally satisfactory afternoon.

I now have a couple of weeks off from dancing due to Other Stuff getting in the way, but this mini-drought will end with Chippenham Folk Festival, which promises to be a lot of fun and a lot of work. Possibly a lot of mud too, but we'll see how it all works out.