The wettest Caerphilly ever...

... well, in ten years of shows there, anyway. At least, that's what the knights at the Companye of Chivalry said, after two tents had blown down in the screaming wind, with the ground so sodden that even our fat wooden pegs were just sucked out of the squelching mud and sent flying.

So it wasn't the most glorious 'first event with new club' that I could have imagined. On the upside, Caerphilly is massive and impressive, with huge water defences (the source of much jesting, given the weather), and a gloriously restored Great Hall (it's even heated!) that we moved into for our displays. We scored enough fine weather on the Monday (it being a bank holiday weekend) to fire the trebuchet and the mangonel a couple of times (I was allowed to wind the mangonel, and fire the treb - haha!), to the enormous glee of the thronging crowd of approximately seventeen lunatics who had braved the weather to see us do our thing.

Ants has been playing with this mob for nearly a year now and to my embarrassment seems to have been singing unfair praises. Far too many people were strangers to me but knew who I was, which I'm not used to. But I'd turned up bearing some vego pasties that seem to have gone down well, and my 'bob' kit (boy costume) passed muster so I was allowed to play with my first bill. (For the re-enactors reading this, think polearm that's fatter and longer than a two handed spear and top heavy, so bloody hard work to wield!) They seem like a fun bunch and I was made to feel very welcome and I'm looking forward to getting to know folk, starting with trying to remember everyone's names...

I was too busy trying to stay dry to take photos (although my shoes held up a treat and my tootsies stayed dry!). Pix below are from Anthony's and my adventure in January 2007. We'll be back before the end of the summer, and I can test the knights' claim that Caerphilly is usually nicer than this.

The heart with two homes...

I'm now back on English soil but I can't go back to the daily grind tomorrow without a word of thanks to all the amazing people who turned out to say hello during my madcap week back home. I never realise how much I've missed you until I see you - and I'm not in touch nearly as much as you deserve.

Over the past two years I've done a great deal of meeting new people. As the months passed and friends from Aus who were here to smoothe my early way went home, I forgot what a simple and delightful thing it can be to talk about the present with people to whom you don't have to explain your past. In my rush to see and do things for myself, I think I've forgotten sometimes how cool it is to share stuff - even simple daily stuff- with people you've shared stuff with before.

So to Alex, Craig and Milly, who arrived at Southgate as strangers to one another and never once ran out of things to say while we ate and drank our way through a long Friday lunch - thankyou.

To Dave, MsHelle, ReBECCa, Maggie, Josh and Fathma, who took me for a trip down memory lane at the Carlton Yacht Club, dinner in Lygon St and lashings of chocolate at Koko Black - you are the best, specially MsHelle for letting me crash at hers (even if she DID try to spoon at 4am!) and Dave for driving me and my medieval costumes back to my Mum's next morning.

DT and Ros and baby Lily, thankyou for lunch and extra best vibes to Jamie who drove us there, even though he made me feel like someone's mum, sitting in the passenger seat of their 'family car' with a pair of toddling girls in the back.

Rach, tell Linds I had a lovely time and wasn't fazed by any of his questions - and that Anthony was dead impressed that someone else had seen 'the World's Fastest Indian'.

Rich and Trine, I hope Queensland was everything you deserved, and that your beautiful boys gained their wings with a minimum of squawking on takeoff.

Liam and Kat (and Sparkles!) and all the the Cliffy; and Pete, Marilla, Mandy, and everyone else at the the Dan - you I miss every time I head for a Sunday session in any other pub. I wish we all knew the songs we've each learned since I've been gone - but damn it's good to go over the old stuff that I can't sing in an English pub!

As for my family, there aren't enough ways to thank you as you deserve, and 'I love you' doesn't say nearly enough. I do believe that, for the first time since I've been here, I'm tasting something like homesickness.

Gonna go now before I make a sook of myself. Life here has much to offer - there's a full summer of stuff to fit in around my working hours, and a fella here who probably deserves my attention for a bit after my travels without him...

Jus and Susan's big day

Like so many things my brother Jus has dared in his time, his marriage to Susan was always going to defy expectations. The bride wore redthe groom was in blue and the bride's dad sported both at Sue's request for Melbourne Football Club colours. Our brother Luke was still in hospital, so we headed off via Warringal so the boys could wish each other well. Pooks was a trooper, getting up for the first time in days - and yes, that's his bedcurtain in the background of our photos, flanked by my Aunt Cheryl, who flew in from Perth, and my darling cousin Bennie, who stood in admirably as best man.

The church in Blackburn had for years been frequented by Susan's beloved Grandma Kath, and the congregation turned out in droves to offer congratulations and a fine spread for the nuptials of a special little girl who so clearly captured their hearts throughout her growing up. Their generosity was amazing: even the church was decked out in flowers in Melbourne Demons' colours, almost impossible to find in autumn.

Sue wowed us with her poise, and her gracious speech delivered entirely without notes. Jus and Sue's Dad, Mal, both overcame their reluctance for public speaking to welcome one another to their families. I remember my gorgeous pal Rich saying at his engagement that he couldn't remember ever feeling quite so loved by so many people, as he and Trine looked about the room at their party, and I couldn't help thinking of them as I contemplated just how much love was in that room that day.

Mid afternoon we adjourned to my Mum's, where I was overwhelmed by the turnout of family and friends, united perhaps by a nervousness at the very grownup steps Jus and Sue are taking, but just as bound by a shared determination to respect their right to try, and to celebrate their determination to walk this shared path.
My head was spinning as I moved among cousins who were babies when I left for England and are now small boys, aunts and family friends who had known me since the same age, and on to other cousins I'd not seen in nearly a decade (when they were barely teens!). We exchanged major news and milestones at lighting pace, but mostly just revelled in a sense of satisfaction that, despite the copious quirks, hurdles and tricky shite that life seems to send our way, all present were in health and at peace with their place in the world. That's no mean feat among our lot.

We missed the absent friends: grandparents, Mikko, and Big Chris - my aunt Dee's partner who had battled cancer and slipped away as the tide turned at dawn just a week before I came home. All have stood Jus's corner in different ways through the years and I know they'd have been proud today.

By evening there was just the nuptial couple, Luke on the phone, and me, mum, Mal and the neighbours around the open fire. We chauffered Jus and Sue off to the B&B we'd found for their wedding night, whose landlady 'got it' about the kids' big night in and was warm and welcoming and made sure they had a lovely brekkie the next morning. We're still eating our way through the leftovers and mum will go sharing the left behind booze with guests for some weeks.

I can't quite believe my week at home is nearly over. I have shared some special moments with family and friends, and couldn't possibly have crammed any more in, and yet it's not nearly been enough. I'm already looking forward to the next time I come home.

A quiet visit to a special place...

Three years of effort came to fruition today. The Mikko Sikstrom Memorial Fund was set up in early 2005 with the proceeds of Mikko's estate, in conjunction with the Leukaemia Foundation, for whom Mikko shaved his head and raised nearly a thousand dollars in the months before his death.

Mikko's fund was to be put towards the purchase of a unit that leukaemia patients and their families could stay in when they had to travel to Melbourne from far away for their treatment. For the man whose first home in Australia was the remote hamlet of Mallacoota, 7 hours drive from the city, it has always seemed a very fitting way to honour his altruism and his beginnings here.

Finding additional funds and the right premises took time, but in October last year the unit was opened and received its first residents.

Mikko's parents, in their wisdom - or whatever - decided not to share this news with even his closest friends and family in Australia, so none of us was able to go, but such a milestone was never going to stay secret forever, and today, Mikko's friend Ned and I met LF representatives in East Melbourne for a short tour.

Mikko's inner city soul would revel in the location, an old brewery opposite the Fitzroy Gardens just minutes from town and - most importantly for residents - the hospital. His eye for groovy detail would adore the compact and crafty design, done in that way that usually only Europeans do so well, and the funky modern decor in chocolate brown and cream, with bright prints on the walls.

We were there just a few minutes, chatting briefly with the man from Deniliquin (some 500kms away) who, after 3 months of treatment, would next week go home well, and his wife who has been able to be at his side throughout, thanks to this place. It was enough.

Ned and I went for a quiet one at Dante's to salute what we'd seen, catch up on one another's news and silently toast our absent but still much loved friend.

In the two years since I left Melbourne I have often felt a sense of relief at being able to escape the memories, people and places that pervade every inner suburb of my home town and the sorrow that has tinted the lives of everyone I hold dear.

Moving to a new space has helped me learn to live with my grief in ways I think I wouldn't have if I'd stayed. And it's enabled Anthony and I to grow into our shared life out from under Mikko's sometimes formiddable shadow.

The last time I came home I confronted endless agonies in every turn, every street, and still in the faces of so many friends. This time it's different. Mikko is still missed - often sorely, and not least by me - but Melbourne is finally becoming a place where I can do more than merely mourn that he is lost. In every cafe and bar, in gardens and by riverbanks, on trams and in sports grounds, in sunshine and in rain, I can celebrate that he lived. I can help keep the best of him here in the world, long after he has left it.

And Melbourne feels more like home than it has in years.

Homeward bound...

There have been times in the past year where home has felt a million miles away and I just wanted to be there. There have been other days where Melbourne was the last place on my mind.

For seven weeks now I've been counting the days 'til I flew back to Aus, and now that I'm here I just know that my time - 8 short days - is going to pass all too quickly.

My mum, ever the trooper that she is, soldiered out to the airport to collect me, bleary eyed but buzzing, taking me to meet Susan, who my brother Jus will marry in just over a week's time. Their daughter, who they've already named Chloe, is due to be born in September. Jus and Sue both carry 'stuff' that could affect Chloe's genes and development, but so far, early scans haven't shown any problems. Keep your fingers crossed for us all, because one way or another this could be a complicated old road for our turbulent family.

On the way home we stopped to pick up supplies for this morning's brunch with Rich and Trine and their gorgeous wee boys, Lachie and Gus. Gus and I hadn't even met yet, and this was our one big chance, as Clan Wilkins was on their way to Queensland for a well earned holiday this morning. I still can't believe they made time for me and my humble homecooked corn fritters and classic chatter.

More grounded parents one could never wish to meet: nor truer friends. There have been days where just being around these two and their little family has helped me to feel as though I could find peace even in a world gone mad. When I'm away, Rich (who I've known since I was ten) is in the habit of sending 'proud dad' emails in which he explains how his three year old bullies him mercilessly and extracts great deals, like going for a sleep in mum and dad's bed, or describing how broccoli is 'not perfect for me' (which seems to somehow still lead to cookies. I'm not sure how that works... it didn't when I was little!). I don't know any other family that is more full of love.

Once they'd winged their way out of Tullamarine, Mum and I both needed a nana-nap ahead of a packed afternoon. The call that my other brother Luke's spinal fusion surgery was about to start came some hours before we expected: we'd hoped to get in to see him and wish 'good luck' in the early afternoon. But by dinner time he was done and dusted and back in his ward:, drowsy, but o-so pleased to see us. My 'baby' bro (said with some irony, cos he's almost 30, and 6 foot 3) has been a trooper, living and studying for his PhD in Japan, battling chronic pain for two years before his condition brought him home, still undiagnosed and terrified that this is as good as it gets. It's not fair that such mighty intellect should be subdued by such a wracked and wretched body, when as a teen he was so athletic and bursting with ability. We have all our fingers and toes crossed that this surgery will bring relief, and enable him to walk comfortably and return to work and study.

I'm writing all these things as in a daze... jetlag is biting hard, but to be back in the presence of family brings a second wind in every smile and hug. Even in the chill before winter, the light is brighter here, the roads wider, the trees taller, the sky more blue, because Melbourne has one thing that all the world can't hold a candle to: my family, and home.

Miss Lizzy comes to town...

The less said about the start of Lizzy's visit to Oxford, the better...

Having estimated she'd hit town at midday, I woke at 9am to the sound of battering on my door and a bellowing 'hello, is anyone home' from below my window. Yes, she'd cleared customs in record time, the bus had hit no traffic problems and after 24 hrs on the plane from Melbourne she wanted a shower, dammit.

I found clothes, but no shoes, opened the door, walked into the loungeroom and promptly skidded through a massive pile of cat-shit on the carpet, thanks to my charming housemate who had, once again, left her cat locked in the house for more than 24 hours while she was away...

Did I mention I was in bare feet?

A more ungodly smell I never did encounter. After much retching and copious gloved handling, I managed to make the room presentable. But it wasn't a good start.

We made amends - walked into town through the scenic 'back way' that meanders through a meadow, over the Cherwell, past the immaculately tended University Parks.

At length we arrived at the Pitt Rivers museum: tucked away behind the dinosaur skeletons of the Natural History Museum, and home to immaculate ethnic textiles, shrunken heads, and other 'stuff we nicked'. It's like a baby british museum...

Off to the Eagle and Child afterwards for pintage, via the leafy hollows of Lamb and Flag passage, down the high street, past King Henry's stables and Christ Church meadow to the Thames and the Head of the River pub... I was soooo impressed with Lizzy's stamina, cos it's not like she slept much on the plane...

Our time was all too short. Our clever girl is off to teach the English all about customer service up in Birmingham (something many English people could definitely benefit from even an introductory course in!!). But we're hoping to catch up in Wales in a few weeks, when Ants and I head down to Caerphilly for my first show...

A very oxford day out

My friend Dan-of-the-geeky- but-impressive-encyclopaedic-knowledge-of-diverse-stuff and I have been planning for ages to tour Oxfordshire's lesser known amazing places. Yesterday we finally made a start...

We started with lunch (above) at the Falkland Arms pub in the osopicturesque village of Great Tew. The pub is named after a one-time local lord, who also gave his name to a wee set of islands that 25 yrs ago gave Britain a whole lotta trouble... The Falkland is scenic and gorgeous and serves a huge range of fruit wines (my favourite is still the elderflower) and meads, and does great grub. If you are reading this and planning to head to the UK any time soon, remind me to take you there.

Next up was an unscheduled stop at a neolithic burial chamber (below). It's one of those things that we have absolutely no idea about, but apparently it's some 5000 years old, so it's dead impressive.
Dan grew up in Oxfordshire, so the next stop was a trip to his home village of North Leigh. The church there is saxon, predating the invasion of 1066 and boasts this 15thC "Doom" (a painting of the apocalypse), the tomb of a bloke who died at the Battle of Agincourt, and a memorial to a bloke whose son, William Lanthall started the 17th Century civil war (he was speaker of the house of commons when he uttered the words "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here,", placing parliament above the King, and overturning the notion of the "Divine right of kings".)

It blows me away that Oxfordshire, indeed all of England, is studded all over with these gems of history, so numerous that their tales are at risk of being lost for all time. Every village church, any crossroads, innumerable pubs, all have walls that, if only they could speak...

It took til mid afternoon for us to reach my number one destination for the day - this is the Roman Villa that Bill Bryson writes about in is book 'Tales from a small island'. It's huge, boasting more than 50 rooms, and including (in the area covered by a shed roof at the end of this picture below), one of the most complete mosaic floors of anywhere in Britain. There's also a massive bathhouse (so of course, I had Dan take a photo of me in the bath...)
The villa lies about a mile down a lane that cars can't go down - we took the lane in and then hiked cross country back to Dan's car, finding lashings of wild garlic along the way (I learned later that this is called a 'garlic wood'). We left with plans to haul some roman recipes out of a cookbook I have and bring a picnic to this spot durin the summer.


Last stop for the day was the bluebell wood at Boar's Hill. Wow. I need say no more - just look at this!

We were nonstop chatter about the day as we hauled ourselves off to the local co-op to pick up some dinner fixings - snausages with wild garlic, home made chippies and a bottle of red. By the time I cycled home at midnight I was knackered, but osohappy!

Thanks Dan!!

Merry merry May!

There were rumours that Dave, the landlord at the 'Viccy arms' (more properly known as the Victoria Arms, Old Marston, and the scene of Part 1 of Anthony's birthday shennannigans last Sunday), had cancelled the 'cooked breakfast for a fiver' part of festivites, but that didn't stop us turning up at 6am, fiddles and flutes in hand, demanding pints to lubricate our voices for the annual May Day celebration. Then it was full swing into a serious session, laden with the songs I have come to think of as "May Day" and "spring" songs - Hal and Toe; Sumer is a Cumen in; John Barleycorn (both versions!); and a long playlist of tunes and reels that get a regular airing down at the Half Moon on Sundays.

I'm learning gradually that this way of celebrating is probably a uniquely Oxford thing - the lads and lasses I work with all come from places other than Oxford, and they were mystified that people did anything with May 1, but professed to admire my dedication.

Naturally, as I had the day off and they didn't, they rang me at 9am to check how merry the boss was at such an ungodly hour... Luckily, by then, the landlord's wife had relented and cooked us all brekkie (for a fiver). And I was, after all, still only on my second pint

My stamina gave out early this year - I pedalled home and back to bed before lunchtime - but I did better than Ants, who still wasn't up when I made it home...

Happy May all!