More Morris

An update to my last post, the Oxford Mail has now run a piece about us here.

Which one of you is Morris?

Okay, so this is last week's news, but the Morris Ring, one of the three umbrella organisations for morris dancing, has been proclaiming the imminent demise of morris (see BBC News). It seems that the morris is too embarassing for youngsters, so they don't join in, leaving only old farts who will all be dead soon.

I don't know what the intention of the Ring was with this, I suspect they were trying to stir up interest, but it does make them sound distinctly out of touch. If you go to the website of the side I dance for, Icknield Way and look through the info on the side you will see quite a lot of young dancers. Much of this is due to the fact that the side works with a local scout troup every few years to train up some of their lads, and some of these go on to stay dancing with the main team. And morris can be pretty spectacular when danced by an enthusiastic, energetic, young side.

Of course, our side (and many others, by the sound of it) took this bit of publicity as a golden opportunity to get the local media in and let them know that we are a long way from dying out. Our practice session last week was visited by a photographer from a local paper (I haven't seen the article for that yet) and a fella from a local radio station (listen here), who we had a lot of fun getting involved and showing off to.

The prognosis? Well, I reckon we're not going away yet.

Two Weeks

So we had two whole weeks off work thanks to a combination of public holidays, Xmas closures and a little use of annual leave.

The plan was to fly to Ireland on the Monday before Xmas to stay with the in-laws for a week, having spent the previous couple of Xmases at home. Unfortunately, the Youngling contracted chickenpox with the impeccable timing required to prevent the trip. (It could have been worse: if she'd developed the spots while we were over there, we may not have been able to travel home!) So, a hasty bit of replanning was required.

Meanwhile, our car's recent reliability issues finally got to the point where we couldn't trust it to get us to work, let alone to an airport on time. Getting it fixed, we figured, would pretty much be throwing good money after bad, so we went looking for a replacement in a hurry. Luckily someone at work was selling something suitable at a suitable price, so we managed to get ourselves sorted there. And we have since managed to pass the old car on to someone else who doesn't mind doing some work on it.

Xmas day worked out pretty well for an improvised one: we ate duck and had to bribe the Youngling with chocolate to get her to open her presents. Actually, by the end of the holiday, with several bouts of presents (including a birthday), she was getting a bit too good at opening packages.

On Boxing Day, thanks to a bit of hasty rebooking a few days earlier, we flew out to Ireland to have a shortened visit which was still good. The big discovery here was how much simpler and mellower it is to travel through Knock airport instead of our previous main choice of Dublin. I mean, we get off the plane, walk through the nearest door, wave passports at an immigration guy and, just past him our bags were turning up on a carousel. How cool is that?

New year's eve involved a trip to stay with I&E in South Wales, as per last year. Another great, mellow party with some good friends. We seem to developing new traditions, like substituting the theme from The Archers for the more usual Auld Langsyne at midnight.

Then after a couple of nights back at home, we were off to Wales again, this time to Pembrokeshire for another banquet, this time to celebrate a birthday. And much fun, food, mead and ale was had by all.

So, it's a new year and I'm back at work again. So far, so good...

Dickin Hox?

So it's our last day at work before a full fortnight off, during which we were looking forward to a nice trip over to Ireland for Xmas, followed by other fun back in the UK when what happens? The Youngling gets sent home from nursery with chickenpox.

While this isn't the worst thing that could happen, it means we're due some extra grumpiness in the lead up to her 2nd birthday, and also that we are unlikely to be travelling anywhere. All of a sudden we are looking at having to get in provisions, etc, that we weren't expecting to do, and the whole shape of the holiday changing completely. Hopefully we'll get to see at least some family over the holiday.

Oh well. All we can do is hope that the Youngling doesn't suffer too much.

The Strangest Plum Puddings That Ever Have Been

Last night I played harmonica solo for a morris dance for the first time ever. OK, so it was during a practice session, but a first is a first. This was the Black Joke from Adderbury, a tune I know pretty well and have played plenty of times at home, or in sessions, and even tootling alongside other musicians for dancing, but solo was a whole new experience.

I had to learn to start properly: for many dances you can just play the tune through a few times and the dancers will come in when they are ready, but as is the case with most Adderbury dances, this music starts with a big chord and then we're straight in with a swagger round. After some advice from the other musicians (who were all dancing) I finally got it right and, apart from a bit of a stumble (which the guys gamely danced through) I think things went OK. We got through the dance, anyway.

Our new squire is keen to add some variety into the side, so I suspect now I've been blooded I'll be asked to play more often. We'll see how things go.

The first rule of Symposium is... Stuff that, pass more mead!

Last weekend was the annual Pembrokeshire banquet and for the first time we went down as a family. The theme was time travelling, so I got kitted out in pirate kit (with many thanks to <3 for providing a great costume), <3 in her Victorian ball gown, and the Youngling dressed up as a little girl who didn't want to wear any of the lovely costume options we had taken along. Oh well.

The Youngling lasted for a good half of the evening before being deposited back at the B&B under the watchful ear of a babysitter, and was remarkably good natured given how far past her bedtime it had got by this stage. An abiding memory for me is during our first spot of entertainment (for some reason, the organisers regularly allow <3 and I to make fools of ourselves in front of everyone) while I played some tunes and <3 danced and sang, the Youngling joined in with the dancing and looked very cute and extremely pleased with herself.

The banquet itself was, as always, fantastic, with a spread ranging from "hunter-gatherer" style hors d'oeuvres (pigeon bites, smoked sprats, mussels, etc.) through the now traditional carni-pleaser "beef cooked like bear" to the superbly decadent Edwardian blancmange. And lots of ale and mead, of course.

No idea what next year's theme will be, but I'm looking forward to it already.

Oh, and thanks to Fi for the Photo.

Sing Like an Angel

So on Friday we tried out Didcot's new and shiney Cornerstone arts centre, with its oh-so-interesting orange and grey boxy architecture (it's tempting to refer to it as EasyArts). It's actually quite a nice venue and really ups Didcot as a place to go, particularly given that they have booked some great acts for their first season, several of which we would like to get to. In the end the one act we were able to go to was Mitch Benn star of... well, mostly star of assorted radio shows.

We saw Mitch a few years ago, so knew pretty much what to expect and were not disappointed as he and his band gave us a great evening of music and laughs (and taking the in-laws along, we have a couple of new converts too). It was especially interesting to find that our previous Mitch Benn gig was referred to on several occasions, leaving us to mutter "We were there!" to each other. Clearly it was a seminal evening!

Cafe Culture

I've had something stewing in my head for months about taking a small child to cafes and restaurants for food or snacks. This happens quite regularly for both myself and <3 so we seem to be building up a fair bit of experience.

Very often we grab a snack or a meal at a supermarket cafe, generally being convenient, decent value, and having the "right" facilities (primarily good baby changing spaces). Our experience is mostly with Tesco and Sainsbury's, and some thoughts come to mind...

• In one of the Sainsbury's stores we go to, the till service is usually slow due to a poorly thought out workflow (one person takes money and makes coffee, making for huge queues at busy times).
• Our other usual Sainsbury's has self-service drinks, which speeds things up, but usually has a very limited selection of "kiddie meals" available, even though the full range is still displayed on the menu boards. This can lead to frustration, but at least the Youngling isn't old enough to choose her own meals.
• Most Tesco cafes used to have a fantastic system where most adult meals were available in mini-portions, so we weren't limited to the usual fish fingers or chicken nugget child options. Unfortunately, over the last year or so, Tesco have been replacing their in-house cafes with Costa Coffee franchises, which means nice but pricey coffee and far less child-friendly.

It must be said that most motorway service stations are pretty darn good for dealing with kids (even if they are not that good for adults!) but that's no good when out shopping. We're also impressed with Ikea (though the nearest is over an hour away), but there is little they do that isn't well thought out from a family point of view. Then, of course, there are the independent cafes and smaller chains, but I could probably write a book on them, so I won't bother.

No real point to this, just some musings.

Ideas Worth Spreading

Thanks to my father-in-law, who has mentioned this several times over the last year or two, I have become somewhat addicted to TED talks. Basically TED is an annual conference (plus spin-offs) full of very clever and interesting people speaking (or performing) on pretty much anything they want.

Browse through the archives and you will find Al Gore telling us how to combat climate change, geeks demonstrating spectacular user interfaces, a neuroscientist talking about what it is like to have a stroke, a presentation of images from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and my new hero, Clifford Stoll, talking about... well... pretty much everything and anything.

Inspiring stuff, this, and I've barely scraped the surface so far.

The Definite Particle

Well, we have a beam going all the way around, yay! Looking at the grid monitoring systems our site is still up and running. All good.

Actually, not much work is being done here at RAL — there is a big area in one of the other buildings with a couple of screens showing News24, and this is full of people drinking coffee and eating cake. Elsewhere on site, many of the people not down there have live news coming out of radios and PCs in their offices.

This really is a big deal. While we are some way off actually having any serious results coming out of the LHC (they need to get a beam circulating in the other direction, then get collisions happening, and then ramp the energy levels up to the point where the exciting stuff can actually happen), the media coverage has been phenomenal and despite the rubbish being spouted about the end of the world, we are actually seeing some good mainstream science coverage. It's really difficult to explain just how cool this is, but I think this will probably have the significance of (or exceeding) the moon landings. Only time will tell.

I'm just chuffed (and humbled) to actually be a very tiny part of this experiment. I wish I understood it better, but it's a good incentive to do some more studying.