Five Great Gigs

In no particular order.

1 Staple Singers at the Venue in Victoria - 1982? Fantastic singing from Mavis Staples with Pop plugging away on the guitar
2 Ultravox at the Marquee in 1976. Very unfashionable but a fantastic live show. With John Foxx singing.
3 Early music concert in Coustoges in the Pyrenees 1995. Danielle and I walked down from the high mountians, hot and tired. We got washed up at a strange "hotel", ate a fantastic meal [large and tasty] then found out that there was an early music concert in the tiny church at the top of the village. Fantastic and magical, we never did work out why or who.
4 Haydn - Seven Last Words. 1996. Bantry Bay in western Ireland. We had cycled to Bantry from Dublin. The concert was of Haydn's string quartet intermingled with some Irish poet reading his poems. Couldn't really hear the poems, but it did not matter, it was a fantastic gig, in an old stately home that was being used for the Bantry festival.
5 Tom Robinson Band. 1979. Rock Against Racism rally in Brixton [or Hackney]. The huge march had finished, the sun shone, and the band played brilliantly. The guitarist was on fire and the whole gig was flushed with optimism.

Quilt

Danielle and Rowan are in the middle of making a family quilt. This is a bit of a family tradition, Rowan's great grandma has made them over the years, and we have two that she made for Rowan. The one we are making has a double purpose. 1] carry on the tradition 2] allow us to chuck out clothes that are too small for Rowan without screams of despair - we cut them up and put them into the quilt - everyone happy.

Photo is the top of Fairfield last week

Bees

On our way back from Granny's to York, we stopped off at Vegetable Kingdom [again]

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/vegetable_kingdom/index.php

and had a great time again. The way all their beds were neat and tidy, did guilt me into working the soil over in the garden today, after we had all gone to the gym. The photo is another from Bekonscot.
There was a lot of bee activity today, the first time they have been out and about for a long time. One managed to drown itself in my tea [still tasted OK]. The friendly pair of Mallard who come every spring are also encamped by our small pond: so spring is here [shame about the arctic wind promised for next week]

The weather has to be pretty bad to keep us inside. Today it was pretty bad. We went into Oxford on the rib-smacking rollercoaster [aka the local bus service] and had lunch with Sarah at a pancake place http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/food/rest/Chez%20Gaston.htm near her college. It is a great place to eat, really good spinnach pancakes. It was good to see Sarah again, but after that we were straight back to the warmth of mother's house.

Bekonscott

Drove down to mother's last night. Today Rowan and I went to Bekonscot model village in Beaconsfield www.bekonscot.com/ . It was a great trip; reasons being
1 Rowan could use her Blue Peter badge to get free entry
2 There was no-one else there
3 The village is a fantastic thing
4 It had lots of model trains hurtling around
5 It had a good cafe
6 It had a good shop
7 We travelled there by train

all in all a great day.

Half Term

Half term started today. Rowan and I cycled to SlideShops; it was windy but dry so we had a good ride. En route we saw two oystercatchers

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/o/oystercatcher/index.asp

on the Knavesmire: it is very boggy but I still think they must have been a bit lost.

This was the view from the top of Great Rigg on Saturday.

Glenthorne

The three of us spent the weekend at Glenthorne Quaker Centre in Grasmere

http://www.glenthorne.org/

with a group from York. It was a good trip. Saturday we climbed Fairfield

http://www.lakedistrictwalks.com/fairho.html

with Peter and Robert [the sons of Allison and David]. It was fantastic weather with snow and sunshine. The photo is of the three mountaineers on top of Great Rigg.

Veg News

The potatoes are chitting in the shed [when they get around to it] and I have planted seeds in trays in the potting shed - beetroot, leeks, spinach, parsnip and carrot. It always seems to take them ages to germinate and get going, but it does mean that the season is about to begin.

60

Here are the snowdrops, nestling beneath our house number sign - which started life as a Railway speed limit sign. We have also spotted some crocuses on the way to school, and the daffodils are coming out nicely.

Yesterday I had a fitting for another hearing aid, for my other ear. The good news is that I can have one, and that my hearing is not deterioating at all. The bad news; there is no bad news.

London

Sunday I stayed at Victor and Tracey's in London, saw Isabella [5 months old and very cute] for the first time. Went out for an Indian in Wantsead with Victor and had a good old chat. Monday was spent following up various potential work contacts in London - a good enjoyable day.
Rowan carries on with her piano, and seems to enjoy it. Here she is in action...

Running Wild

Saturday we cycled over to Acomb Wood nature reserve where Running Wild was taking place

http://www.yorkshire-wildlife-trust.org.uk/runningWildYork.htm

Rowan spent a couple of hours being taught about animal tracks and making a mold of a print. Very good.

Here is the photo of the triple blue peter badge-fest

Barter

I took some photo's of a friends of Rowan's parents who run an Italian Restraunt in York. Rather than take payment we agreed on a price of a meal on the house. So Saturday we went up to Luigi's for an early evening meal. It was great, and tasted all the better for being free. Rowan was keen to give to Clara her Blue Peter Badge which had been sent c/o Rowan. Rowan meanwhile has now got her Silver Blue Peter Badge

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/content/articles/2005/11/24/badges_types_feature.shtml

which provoked further bouts of joy.

Safe

These are the organic seville oranges prior to being marmaladed by Danielle over the weekend. It tastes great

My nephew William was travelling on one of the coaches travelling to Austria that were invovled in the coach crash yesterday

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4705648.stm

the boy who died came from his school. He is safe and well and should be back home by now. Everyone is relieved.

Smike

Another photo from Buckden.
Yesterday we went to see Smike, at Rowan's school. This was a musical with pupils from Tregelles and the Mount. Rowan was not in it, but very keen to see it again. It is a musical version of Nicholas Nickelby http://www.josef-weinberger.co.uk/weinberger/rep/smike.html and was really good.

Work

The photo is of Danielle and Rowan descending from Buckden Pike.
I had a work session on Monday that went very well, and will hopefully lead to another work-stream.
Have just finished our bookgroup book, Saturday by Ian Mcewan http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-1457118,00.html It was very good, I really enjoyed reading it.

Marmalade and Daffodils

Another photo from the walk in the Dales.
Danielle made this year's batch of organic marmalade yesterday. It tastes great, although it is always scary to see how much sugar goes into the stuff. We also had the first daffodil of the year, so spring is on its way. The name marmalade comes from the protuguese word for quince, from which it was orginally made.

Buckden Pike

We had a family day on saturday. Rowan suggested that we "go up a mountain" so we set off for Buckden Pike in the Dales. It was cloudy and cold, 4 degees [but dry] when we set off. Soon we were rewarded with a beautiful still day with dappled sunlight and a great walk. There was ice towards the summit and plenty of potholes to look into.

Music please

I got the Arctic Monkeys cd today. I'd downloaded a few tracks before and liked them. The album is fantastic http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4660394.stm the singer is a poet [though he probably doesn't know it] really uplifting.
Then in the evening we went to our monthly BMS concert at the university. The pianist Marc Hamelin http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/artist_page.asp?name=hamelin played Beethoven and Schubert. He was brilliant, but it did seem as though he was playing for himself rather than bothering with communicating with his audience; which is what makes bands like the Arctic Monkeys so good.

Snowdrops

We noticed the first snowdrops of the year this week. It is a great boost, to see the start of spring even in the coldest bit of winter. The daffodils are also up, we shall have to wait a while for the flowers to open though.

The photo is of Cliffords Tower in York,

Travellers Tales 1

I was hitch-hiking in Europe, age 19, with girlfriend. We were waiting for a lift on the edge of Munich, trying to catch a truck that would take us south towards Greece. A man approached us "Come and have a coffee with me, then I will drive you south" He seemed OK so we accepted. His flat was musty and stuffy. As we talked, and never got the coffee, it became clear that he was not in the best of mental health. He talked of how he was a boxer [illustrated with punches to the sofa] and how he loved knives [illustrated by producing a big knife and running his finger along the blade "Here, you try it..."]. We tried the "We must be going" line, with little effect. Next thing he was telling us "My girlfriend was killed in a car crash" with attendant tears, "I have some of her skirts, will you try them on?" This last was directed to my girlfriend not me. So bizarrely she had to try on a skirt whilst the knife holding man watched. Somehow we got out after that and I remember walking quickly to a Kiosk, and making contact with normality again. Didn't put us off hitching though.

The photo is in Scotland, I think I was 9 or 10.