Edible Anzac Day

There's a lass at work called Trisha the Crazy Queenslander. She had a stroke of genius this year - let's show the Brits what Anzac spirit is all about... by cooking for them!

Don't laugh - it worked! As folk chewed through plates of Anzac Biscuits, TJ explained that the food had to be hard-wearing to last all the way to the trenches, and then survive a warzone. And the kiwifruit on my pav was, clearly, a reminder that Galipoli was a proving ground for New Zealanders as well as Aussies - two young, newly independent nations making their debut on the world stage.

Nah, actually, it was just an excuse for a yummy morning tea. But given that a lot of Brits and Europeans don't even realise Australians were even IN the war, let alone dying in their thousands, I think we made our point, quite deliciously.

Woodstock to Wooton - on foot

Spring has come early, and my inconquerable friend Lizzy decided we should celebrate by mustering a small troup of walkers - to go tramping across the countryside. We started in pretty Woodstock, famous for two births: Edward 'The Black Prince' in the 14th century and, rather later, Winston Churchill, whose ancestors were the Dukes of Marlborough, who still live in Blenheim Palace.

Ordnance survey maps firmly in hand, we made our way down pathways, through fields of canola (which the english quaintly persist in calling rapeseed) and down right-of-way trails, which cut through private lands but, if they're traditional thoroughfares, the owners have to maintain them for the general public's access.

My fabulous geek-pal Dan turned out to be a fountain of random knowledge, spotting aglow-worm beside the trail (and showing us how to determine its sex! It was female...), then dating a farmhouse to the late 15th century by the shape of its windows.

My favourite vista though, was this wee warning sign...

We returned to Woodstock for lunch in a rather gorgeous little 'gastro-pub' called The Black Prince, and left some hours later with happy tastebuds. Must do this again some time...

Time to throw sticks at Aunt Sally

Now that the sun has started to shine, pubs throughout Oxon (that’s English shorthand for ‘Oxfordshire’) have started sprouting notices calling for ‘Aunt Sally’ participants. No, it’s not a fancy dress thing, nor is it technically a drinking game. It’s a pub game - although like pool, or darts, or any other game played in pubs, a pint is generally a required accessory. You can find the rules here but basically it involves throwing sticks at a wooden dolly. Bit mad, really. But in Oxfordshire, people get REALLY serious about it. Good to know my adopted county has contributed something stoopid to the culture of this country…

Easter: A tale of two cities - Kenilworth

The next day, I hopped on a bus 6 miles to Kenilworth, to check out the competition. Kenilworth castle was a royal residence - King John was one of many who made major renovations here, as did John of Gaunt and Henry VIII - and later the home of the Earls of Leicester. It was most famous as the home of Robert Dudley, the reputed lover of Elizabeth I, who hosted the queen here no less than three times.
This weekend though, it was all about earlier times, courtesy of a series of cracking shows by the Plantagenet Medieval Archery and Combat society. I arrived just in time to watch the ladies in all their finery shooting at 'pheasants' - each one re-enacting an historical character from the period, from 'Black' Agnes Randolf, daughter of Randolph, Earl of Moray, who held her castle at Dunbar for 5 months against the beseiging English in 1334, to Elizabeth de Clare, who I later learned endowed Clare College at Cambridge.

It was the lads, however, who stole the show with their awesome "Crecy" display. The Battle of Crecy is one of England's most famous victories against the French. Under Henry V (to whom Shakespeare gave the famous 'on St Crispin's day' speech), an estimated 900 men at arms and 5000 archers held, then routed and crushed, a French army of up to 36,000.

How did they do it? The boys at Kenilworth showed us. A longbowman had to be able to loose at least 10 arrows in a minute to be considered worth his salt. That requires practice but is possible. Six lads took up places, sending between 10 and 17 (!) arrows each into the target. In 60 seconds, it looked like this...

Now, they said, imagine that there are not 6 archers, but 5000. So not 80 arrows a minute, but at least 50,000. One begins to understand how arrows can fall 'like rain' and 'blot out the sun'. The French, unlike the legendary 300 of Sparta, could not fight in the shade - they couldn't even reach the English, over the boggy ground (miring their heavily armoured horses and footsoldiers) and they were cut to pieces.

The English didn't have it all their own way at Kenilworth though... the afternoon finished with a splendid foot tourney, complete with noble lords, an evil knight (the evil ones are always called 'Sir Guy'... why is that), lewd humour and loads and loads of biffo. The crowd loved it. I laughed so hard I nearly cried.

I spent too much money on mead and sweeties and books in the English Heritage shop before heading back to Warwick to gloat.

For the record, this takes my UK tally to 18 castles, 7 Cathedrals and 4 abbeys, four 'henges' and Britain's oldest chalk horse. Not bad for 12 months work.

Easter: A tale of two castles - Warwick

Now that we know someone on staff, we had to check out the seige action at Warwick over Easter, so Nicola, Lara and I boarded trains and met up for Easter Saturday.

Some of you may remember that I’ve actually been to Warwick castle before – one of the things that inspired Anthony to apply for the job was the wintry day we’d spent in November, wandering rapt from room to room all day, finally watching the sun come out just long enough to throw pale fingers over the battlements before sinking below the horizon… at 4pm.

It's even more gorgeous when the sun's out. See...

We arrived just in time to be drafted into donning tabards emblazoned with Warwick's 'ragged staff' emblem (which made us resemble nothing so much as Santa's little elves), jumping inside the trebuchet's massive hamster wheels to help wind back the arm before Nicola won the honours of helping pull the trigger. (We later gave out prizes to some of Ants' workmates for guessing correctly which of the three of us was 'the sister' and which was 'the missus'.)

I have to bore you with a few facts, because even after 3 weeks in the job, Ants has his spiel down pat and looks totally in his element. Ursa (the bear, taken from the Warwick arms of the 'bear and ragged staff') weighs 22 tonnes, plus a 5 tonne counterweight. She throws 15kg concrete balls a mighty 200metres or more - if fully loaded (she is rated up to a 150 kg payload) she could send it the best part of half a kilometre. And don't the crowd go 'oooh' and 'ahhh' when she lets rip. The fine folks at Warwick say she's the biggest historically accurate trebuchet in the world, made of solid English oak worth £500,000.

And I can't rave about seeing my blokey in full flight without showing you how much he looks the part....
Warwick also keeps its own birds of prey - and didn't we all duck when the vulture swooped over our heads! Although it was the regal eagle that really stole the show.

Of course, it wouldn't be a seige weekend if there wasn't some fancy display combat - England really is a re-enactors' paradise during 'the season', and competition is fierce for gigs. The Wars of the Roses was the theme of the day - unsurprising, since the most famous Earl of Warwick was Richard Nevile, aka the Kingmaker, who famously switched sides, putting both York and Lancaster on the throne in their turn. Naturally, when the crowd was coaxed into shouting for 'A Warwick, A Warwick', some of us just HAD to put in a cheer for 'A York, A York'... And a good day was had by all.

No joke: I had my shoes shined by a priest this morning...

I was bolting through Cornmarket on my way to the bus when a woman in a long robe asked me if I’d like my shoes shined for free. I was running late so I muttered a quick ‘no thanks, gottagettabus’ as I marched past and thought she was a bit weird.

Karma intervened (see, all gods ARE the one god) and I missed the bus.

So with 15 minutes to kill till the next one, I wandered back into the river of thronging pedestrians. There, outside the church of St Michael at the North Gate (the oldest one in Oxford, apparently) were the parish priesthood in their full frock coats, merrily shining shoes. They explained, as I took a seat and proffered my trusty, dusty Combat boots (it was dress-down day at work) that they'd figured that shining shoes would be far more acceptable to Oxonians - and more sanitary - than washing feet.

I'm not sure what was more impressive, the mirror sheen on my boots, or the fact that at least 3 people at work, when I said "a priest shined my shoes this morning", replied: "Oh like Maundy Thursday, where Christ washed the feet of the disciples before the last supper. Cool."

No, really.

Folksongs of the Upper Thames...

Just when you thought that the parochial regional-ness of this country was all a big outdated exaggeration, there's all the proof you need: there really is a book called ‘Folksongs of the Upper Thames’. It was published in about 1918 but local folkies still love it, I’m told.

I first heard about it this weekend when local folk heroes John Spiers and Jon Boden (voted best duo in Britain by the BBC last year) took the stage at the Oxford Folk Festival with a joke about it being called “Folk Songs of the Swindon district” until PR got hold of it.

(Melbournites, that’d be like taking songs from Croydon or Ringwood and renaming them ‘Folk songs of the Upper Yarra’).

But I digress – the BBC has a great rap for it here. I confess I didn’t make it to the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, but I wouldn’t have missed Metcalfe, Giles and Woods (aka Graham, Ian and Ian from the pub) for quids, nor Renbourne and Williams (below). The Saturday and Sunday night sessions at the ‘Moon were awesome – sadly, so were the hangovers the next morning…

*progeny of two English folk heroes, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, and something of a hero to lots of folky women everywhere. NOBODY should be able to sing so beautifully AND play the fiddle like a demon – and never at the same time!!