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.

Angels and Positrons

So we will shortly be having another film based on another Dan Brown book: Angels and Demons. I'll say now that I have neither read the book of or seen the film of The Da Vinci Code and have not read Angels and Demons and strongly doubt I will watch the film. Nothing personal, but I only have my allotted span and suspect I would rather avoid spending the requisite hours getting annoyed.

Anyway, the plot of the forthcoming film involves antimatter created at CERN (and, so I understand, a man-portable antimatter bomb), and members of the cast and production team have recently made a publicity trip to CERN itself. Seeing as the people at CERN know a thing or two about antimatter (yes, it does exist and, yes, they do create it at CERN) they have a web page explaining some of the science, which was initially published a few years back (after the book came out) and has been updated more recently. Great stuff.

Back in the Garden

I have a good feeling about the garden this year. 2007 was a dead loss (horticulturally speaking), with a new baby plus an OU course leaving me with precious little time or energy to do anything much outside. 2008 was not much better, having fallen off the wagon the year before what little effort I did put in was in trying to prevent the garden from reverting to Ancient Forest. This year we are off to a decent start though.

We've been discovering that the Youngling, now past her 2nd birthday, is interested in helping out with things outside. Of course, this sort of help tends to slow things down somewhat, but them's the breaks. So a couple of weeks back we took a few bits of 6"x1" and built a raised bed (my assistant happily dropping nails around the place and occasionally passing them to me at useful times), which is still only half filled with soil, sand, compost and the like. The plan is to add another raised section or two and pave around them (for non-muddy access) using the slabs that came off our patio when the conservatory was being built.

Last week we planted some broad beans, with me poking holes in the ground and the youngling dropping beans into the holes. She loved that — it's just a pity she will have to wait some time for seedlings to start to appear.

Then over this weekend we planted some basil to grow indoors (I pledge this year to start a fresh pot of basil every few weeks to feed my herb habit!) and sowed some seed trays with broccoli and parsley to plant out when the weather gets warmer.

This is turning out to be a very equitable arrangement: the Youngling gets to help out, spend time outside, and hopefully learn some stuff, and I get to do some gardening while still spending time with my daughter. Hopefully we'll be able to continue this for years to come.

In the meantime, the rhubarb is just starting to show its head. Give it a month or so and we'll be able to take a crop. I'm looking forward to that.

Life With Bells On

Yeah, I know I have been going on about morris a bit lately, but this film has just come to my attention. The website has a fantastic trailer and the film has Derek Jacobi in it, so what could go wrong? I'm hoping someone puts it on where I can go and see it (it's not exactly on general release), or at least that it gets on to DVD in the not too distant future. Cracking stuff by the looks of it.

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.