Weston-super-Mare and our first C14th feast

We've not been away for a weekend in ages, so a little windfall on our gas bill (the gas company realised they'd overcharged our house by $A650) convinced us to get away for the end of year banquet for our new group, Ye Compaynye of Cheualrye.

They're based down in Somerset, so we hopped a train for our first trip to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. 'Weston' (as the locals call it) is not far from the mouth of the massive Severn River, and is famous for having the second largest tidal flow in the world, after the Bay of Fundy in Canada. This sounds cooler than it is - although it's eyepoppoing the first time one sees boats marooned in the sand and a pier that finishes more than a mile short of the waterline at low tide.

Seaside resorts in England are ghost-towns for about 8 months of the year, shiny gaming arcades and rides defiantly flashing lurid neon lights (Melbourne readers - remember what Rosebud was like in the 70s?) as if vainly hoping to attract someone's attention. Not much chance of that on the bleak old day we arrived - freezing cold, squally rain and blowing a gale.
Some wag on the 'net reckons Weston is always like this, on account of the 'mouth of the severn' microclimate and its proximity to the Gulf Stream.

I'll say one thing for Weston though - it has the Taj Mahal of public convenience blocks, truly remarkable in a country that, as a rule, doesn't particularly believe in public lavvies. These were clean, spacious, naturally lit, and apart from the signs warning people not to leave their handbags lying around and reminders to not shove nappies down the loo, could almost have been considered classy.

It's a wee bit sad that I have more to say about the loos than the food, but that's England for you. After lots of wandering, we did eventually find an old fashioned tea-room, with low ceilings and hand-written menu boards, that served fresh and hearty tucker. The proprietors clearly considered their lasagne (served with chips or a baked potato and free garlic bread!) to be pretty avant garde, and they were truly proud of their range of desserts, which included trifle, spotted dick and knickerbocker glory. Honest!!

Further meanderings after lunch (okay, nobody 'meanders' anywhere when the wind is trying to blow your bollocks off) led us to the posh part of town, which really was quite lovely - all Victorian and 1920s art deco buildings. There was even a craft fair...

All too soon, it was time to seek out the biker pub where we were meeting Anthony's mate Nick, who was giving us a lift to the feast. Now HERE was somewhere I could feel at home. High ceilings, very laid back vibe (once we'd been thoroughly checked out by the regulars and evidently considered harmless) - and downright friendly once folk knew we were mates with one of the regulars.

And then our adventure really began.

Ye compaynye of cheualrye

Ants has been away with this mob a few times over the summer. They do England c.1370 and their kit is really good quality, so they get awesome bookings at castles like Beaumaris, Caerphilly and Farleigh-Hungerford.

They're lots more structured than Nordmannia, or any other group I've been involved with back home - newcomers start as a villein (serf) and, as you attend more events, contribute to the club and gradually assemble the appropriate kit, work your way up to a yeoman after about a year, then a few years later a retainer and, for a privileged few at the top, a Lord or Lady (actually, they're all lords). So I was a mite nervous, but they turned out to be a gorgeously laid back and friendly bunch, and very welcoming of "Ants' lady". The 14th century surcote and shift I'd knocked up over the previous week happily passed muster, Ants and I were awarded free beer in return for some singing, and enthusiastically joined in the food fight at the servants end of the table (what else is one to do with one's trencher after a bottle of mulled wine and some mead?)

Apparently, I'm under pain of death if I tell people that, in this photo, Anthony is wearing my hose and braies. For non-re-enactors, this means my husband is wearing my undergarments!

But back to the feast. Malcolm, the group Vintner, did an excellent job with cooking - his 'grete pye' was something to behold. After dinner there was blindfolded piggyback jousting and other silliness late into the night, and plenty of bacon sandwiches the next morning to soothe bellies and clear aching heads.

I can't wait for the next one!

Abingdon - home of chavs and friars

Working up at Warwick has introduced Ants to a whole new time period, and we're off to a 14th century feast next weekend with some of his workmates. So damn and bugger, but I need a new dress!

We jumped the bus down to Abingdon, where the fabulous Masons haberdashers have just about every fabric under the sun. Given that we start off poor, I was fairly stoked to find some wool in a soft grey twill for £4 a metre. Ants found buckles for his new padded jack (basically a 14thC gambeson) and we could have spent loads more money in there ... there's always another day.

I also wanted to show Ants around town, because the town centre is really very pretty. There was a massive abbey there for centuries, and the streets are still narrow and winding and marked by squares and ancient-looking grey stone buildings. It was not far from here that Robert Dudley's wife, Amy, met her untimely end.

We rounded out our afternoon with a couple of pints (a bargain at £1.50!) in an ancient coach house pub, set off the street in a cobbled courtyard - although judging by the 'no hats inside, the cameras can't see your face' policy, it's clearly not as genteel as it looks.

And thats Abingdon, apparently. Like Nottingham, it's not a place to hang out much after dark, as, according to the Oxon-born-and-bred folks at work, Abingdon is apparently full of chavs and trouble makers.

It is pretty though - next time we go fabric shopping, I must remember to take my camera!

An ‘only in Oxford’ moment…

My blokey is looking for work at the moment, so we’re both spending time trawling noticeboards for potential jobs. This one in particular caught my eye:

Assistant Required for Antiquarian Bookseller. Permanent position part time (15 hours/week) £6/hour. Work includes cataloguing/packaging/general help. Central Oxford. Perfect English and preferably Latin required. No dreamers, skivers or literati. CV to ...

According to three separate dictionaries that I checked, “literati” means 'an educated person', or a person 'very interested in literature'. So this bloke wants someone poorly educated who speaks perfect English and Latin; who isn't really into books; to work in his bookshop.

Hmmm.

Oh dear...

Ants and the lovely Lizzy and I went to the Original Re-enactor's Market near Coventry on Saturday... we don't have ANYTHING like this at home. Imagine more than 100 stalls filling two huge sports halls, making everything from shifts and corsets to shining sallets, hand carved bows, books of medieval music, wax tablets, parchment and vellum, dandelion wine... and home made burgers and fudge for the hungry shoppers!

Yum.

One bloke, who makes beautiful pewter tankards also had informations on various saints, whose images he depicts on the handles of spoons. I wonder if Mikko ever knew that the Patron Saint of Alcoholics is St Mathius. (I'm sure his parents didn't)

Remembering the Finn

Remembrance Day (Armistice Day in the UK) makes Aussies everywhere stop and pause. Not because we want to glorify war, but to mark the suffering of those who fought and survived - and to recall those who didn't come back. Both my grandfathers fought in World War II: on my mum's side, my grandfather was the only one of three brothers and an inlaw to come home. (No saving private Lamble, then.) Living in England has given me a whole new perspective on the impact of war when it's closer to home: every British family paid a price through bombings, rationing and loss of family and friends. (Makes you wonder - if they could mobilise the entire population through drastic measures then, why can we not do the same against global warming, which poses an even bigger threat: the Stern report says so.)

But I digress.

Three years ago, I forgot to stop for the customary two minutes' silence. A phonecall had stopped the clock just after 8.30 that morning: Mikko was dead. The loss of the man who'd described people he admired as having a 'heart size of a continent' left a similarly sized void in the lives of all who knew and loved him.

In the early days I think we friends found a lot of comfort in each other and in continuing to do 'Mikko-shaped' things, from marking Finnish Independence Day to nights at The Dan, and preserving the ban on lighting cigarettes from candles (it kills sailors, honest).

Coming to terms with what my mum calls 'the goneness' has often been helped by keeping the best of him alive in me. When I buy a good red, cook risotto, campaign at election time, pore over a history book, watch certain films, or talk politics into the wee hours, I can't help imagining him, in hat, shirtsleeves and vest, elegant hands always busy, his rich laugh bouncing off the walls, interspersed with giggles, hovering somewhere behind me, peering over my shoulder.

But time passes, and new traditions evolve: the new-format Sunday session 'at Dan' opened up a new musical experience and a new circle of friends; new housemates bred a burgeoning love of rugby (after all the years I gave him stick for watching Bledisloe - sheesh!). And eventually I looked forward to breaking away from Melbourne and setting up a whole new rhythm here in the UK. I needed to do my own thing and resolve some past before embarking on a very different future with the lovely Anthony.

This last 18 months has given me much to think about. My marriage to Anthony is a wondrous thing, but it opened some cans of worms I didnt realise were so undealt-with. Sometimes I've felt as though I'm living two lives: the every-day business of loving Ants, working, travelling, and learning more about music and history; and the world in my head where the Finn need not be quite so absent.

Sometimes those two worlds collide and that still leaves me feeling confused and adrift. The more time passes, the more that sense of 'missing him' becomes a frustration that there's so much he's missing out on. Finland won Eurovision - with a deathmetal song. The Aussies clean-sweep-ed the Ashes. Then there's the small stuff: I wish he could see all the things we've all become - the ways that we've taken the things we shared with him and made them uniquely ours, and the new things we've made for ourselves. It's not always enough that if he was here, I know he'd be proud.

People say that time heals and helps the pain to fade - that's not true. When it wells up, it's just as agonising as the hardest days when he was still here and hurting, or that first numb, aching night of the day he died. I think time just makes us better at dealing with that hurt when it comes. The hole isn't ever filled - we just get better at living with it.

But if we give in to our sadness, all we prove is that he was right to give it up - and for all the crazy mixedupness of this world, and no matter what peace it brought him personally, it'll never really be okay that he took himself out.

At day's end, we can only do so much looking backwards, cos that's not the way we're going. Mikko's life and death will always be one of the most important things to shape my life. Letting other big things in is both healing and scary. Learning to balance things in their place is taking longer than I thought, and it's still not linear. There are days of peace and strength - those five days in Vienna, five more in Helsinki with Jarkko, Chaals, Satu & Hanna, Antti & Anna, a quiet triumph after gigs and sessions and travels and big days at work. I'm learning it's possible to smile through my tears and teach old memories and new to live side by side in my head.

But rakas Mikko, you will never be forgotten, and as I wound a poppy onto my hat this week, I thought less of older veterans, and more of you.

Guy Fawkes - saving us from an extra month of Bah Humbug

I've decided that most Anglo cultures have one last hurrah before seriously settling in to Christmas fever. In the US it's Thanksgiving, in Melbourne we have the Melbourne Cup and spring racing carnival. In the UK it's Bonfire Night, aka Guy Fawkes night. (The Brits need to wise up and give folk a bank holiday for it. If we can justify one for a horse race...)

Ants doesn't find Guy Fawkes nearly so big a deal as I do, cos they celebrate it in New Zealand too, but I grew up in a country where fireworks - or even little crackers that go pop - are banned from public sale. (The only exception is in Canberra, our nation's capital, arguably far more famous for selling dirty movies, marijuana, and fireworks than for governing the country.)

The buildup spans several weeks - off licences and dodgy corner shops put up signs, in various degrees of 'home made', advertising fireworks for sale. About a week in advance, a few over-excited teenagers decide they can't wait for the main event and pop a few off prematurely. News bulletins get filled with stories of innovative 'Guy's that have been made for burning, and diaries get filled with invitations to bonfires, bbqs and other things involving fire and night.

On whatever the nearest Saturday night is, the sky erupts into exploding colour, pops and whistles go off from dusk (about 4.30pm already - yikes!) until the wee small hours of morning, and the air all over Oxford reeks of cordite, or 'fireworks smells'.

I've no idea if the non-specific 'Slavic' family over the road have any idea that what they're actually celebrating is the discovery of a plot to blow up Parliament and the King (James VI and I). The confession of Guy Fawkes is one of the most famously documented examples of the use of torture in Britain by the state, which appears to have been much more rare than folk think. (What individual lords got up to in their private dungeons, on the other hand, has always been not the state's business!)

Technically, Guy Fawkes night (November 5) wasn't until Monday, which explains the repeat acts on Sunday and Monday - albeit on a smaller scale. But I'm sure there'll be random pops and whistles for a few nights yet. After that though, there'll be nothing to stop the stores going mad on decorations, endless carols recordings and exhortations to buy, buy, buy if you want to show someone you really love them.

Poor old Ants - I'm sure he'll be gutted to learnhe may have to settle for some nice home cooking and a song down the pub.