Catching Up 2: Getting Older

Time is ticking away since this, but a couple of weeks I had the first real birthday party I have had since, well, I can't remember. Probably the last for just as long too, but as it was one of those things that people label as a landmark birthday, it seemed a good excuse. So <3 hired a nearby village hall, ordered a cask of ale, invited a lot of people, bought a heap of food, and then we waited for people to turn up...

...Which they did.

So we ended up having a fantastic evening, kicking off with an enormous amount of food and drink to get people started, followed by a series of entertainments. I can't remember the precise order of things, so I'll just blurt out some of the highlights.

First up we had the maiden performance of Lepton Morris, a mongrel morris side (some borders and some Cotswold dances so far) based at work with lunchtime practices. For our first time out of the practice hall, we managed three dances which went pretty well over all. Great for morale.

We were also entertained at a couple of times during the evening by V and K, who had brought some lovely kites to float around the hall. Good fun.

A scratch band played for us while J called a few ceilidh dances for us, including the ever-daft Orcadian strip-the-willow.

We had more morris from Icknield Way, doing a few dances — and later on, G and I danced an amateurish but enthusiastic (and seam splitting) Bampton jig.

Another maiden performance came from Rose Hips, <3's new bellydance troupe using live European folk music for a fun set that really impressed us all. We're looking forward to their next performance at White Horse Ceilidhs at easter.

Then later, things calmed down for a little while before a session kicked off with a good few tunes and songs. This could easily have gone on for several more hours, but we had to be out of the hall by midnight, so had to call it all to a halt as everyone was warming up. A pity, but then again, it's always good to leave 'em wanting more.

That was great fun, so thanks to everyone who came and contributed.

The search for the polos

This weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Pembrokeshire for the banquet. We started driving straight after work and after several stops for food, toilet, and getting Miss B into her PJs we made it to our B&B and went straight to bed.

This gave us all Saturday to potter around and get ready, so we took Miss B to run around on a windswept beach before going back for a dose of CBeebies and sorting out our costumes. I don't have any photos of us all though.

This year the theme was the travels of Marco Polo, so dishes served were taken from China, India and Venice, with one return taken from each. As always the food was superb. From China we had mutton dumplings, crispy duck, plum balls (drool!) and "clairvoyant biscuits" as a subtlety. From India it was breads and chutneys, a fantastic "pre-Columban" (i.e. no chillis) chicken curry, a lovely coconut desert thingy, followed by an (un-) subtlety of a very daft Kama Sutra inspired cake. Finally, the Venician return was pigeon and mushrooms in cream (fantastic), salt fish and bread (wow) and a gorgeous lemon torte, with little chocolate thingies as a subtlety to finish off. Of course there was plenty of mead and ale to wash it all down.

<3 and I were doing entertainment again this year as they haven't worked out how to stop us yet, but at least some quality was introduced into the procedings with one of the other banqueters putting her lovely voice to good use. So <3 wowed everyone with a very delicate performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I got everyone standing up (mostly on chairs), and for this year's firsts: I danced a solo jig in public for the first time (Princess Royal, Bampton — inexpertly, but it went OK) and then drummed (on my djembe -- again inexpertly) for <3 to dance.

Lots of fun. The discussions have already begun on what next year's theme will be.

Another bank holiday weekend

Well, we had our annual house/garden party on Saturday and were lucky enough to have good weather and heaps of friends turning up from all sorts of parts of our lives. Quite a lot of ale (and other stuff) got drunk, a great deal of barbecued food (including the fabulous flatbreads) was eaten, and we went into the evening with a nice conservatory tunes session. Win.

Monday was fun too, with a recovery day behind us. We went off the the Uffington White Horse Show, where a strong turnout from the morris performed four spots in various parts of the showground. This was hard work given how warm the day turned out and how out of practice I, at least, had become over the last month or so.

Now, this coming weekend, we have the last really big event of the dancing season (for us, at least): the Icknield Way tour. To celebrate the side's 50th anniversary, we will be travelling along 50 miles of the Icknield Way (using motorised transport, thankfully), dancing at 14 different locations in a single day, before collapsing into a pub back in Wantage for dinner. Wish us luck.

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.

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.

Munchus Maximus

That was quite some weekend... Friday after work <3 and I drove to Heathrow to pick up F., then zapped over to Blackwood to crash with I. & E., who welcomed us with a log fire and a big bowl of chicken soup. Saturday morning we set off in convoy to Little Haven, a Pembrokeshire village, nestled in a tiny valley on the coast near Haverfordwest, where we were attending this year's banquet.

This year was set in the Byzantine Empire and presented more-or-less Roman style, with a series of tables carried in, each laden with food and placed amongst a group of reclining banqueters. Food was plentiful and included the now legendary beef-cooked-like-bear, baby octopi, quail, stuffed squashes, venison, cheese, baklava, and more other stuff than I can remember. Drink flowed freely, and due to problems related to everyone eating from the cushion-strewn floor, occasionally flowed across said floor, which got a bit sticky from mead and ale in places. Songs were sung (I'm pleased to say that we managed to find the words to "Old MacDonald" and other songs in Latin) and much silliness occurred.

The next day we had to leave fairly early in order to get F. back for her flight from Heathrow, but managed to do this in good time, introducing her to almost the entire length of the M4 and (including the trip down) no less than five service stations (note: we even got free steamed milk for <3 at the Swansea West services, which shocked and pleased us in equal measure). A great weekend, though I still need a couple of days to relax.

Milling and chatting before things got started. Thanks to F. for the pic.

Ryan's Crib

The last weekend was a good opportunity to unwind and smell the coffee a bit. An old friend of ours came visiting, ostensibly to drop in on Friday's pub session where he wanted to listen to the music and hopefully pick up a tune or two to play on his flute.

<3 was too tired to come out with us (less than 2 months until the due date, so no surprise really), so G. and I want to the pub and listened, chatted, and even managed to join in a bit. This month's session had a rather more eclectic selection of instruments than last time; alongside the usual fiddles, mandolins and squeezeboxes we had a hammered dulcimer and a didgeridoo. Some magic moments, including a rousing rendition of John Ryan's Polka, which the group plays as something of a game with musicians "tagged" in to play a few bars (almost) solo. Lots of Fun. G. then spent some time the next day learning the tune.

The following night, with <3 away elsewhere (I'm giving the impression that she wasn't around all weekend, which wasn't the case at all), G. and I sat chatting and playing cards well into the night, something I haven't done for far too long. It's the little things like this that make life worthwhile.