Friends and festivities and the art of the road trip

English people do not understand distance. Not long after I moved to Witney, I was on the bus from Oxford one day and a bloke and a woman were talking. He'd been down to London for the first time in about 10 years.

"Ooh," said the woman. "You'll not find me going to that London. It's too big. And too far away."

Actually, it's 60 miles. It's less than an hour on the train. But when I popped down for an evening for my friend Emma's leaving drinks, her workmates were amazed. 'No, really, what brought you to London today, so you could be here this evening? And where are you staying tonight - you're not going back, surely?"

Hahaha. Fortunately, our yankee friend Kim, coming from Kansas, shares our view on travel. An 80 minute trip to Bristol is definitely do-able for an evening, specially if you can stay over.

So it was that, after stuffing ourselves with food and wine and brilliant conversation at a birthday lunch for our gorgeous friend Sophie, it was a very easy thing to hop in the car, collect Kim and head down to Bristol for a combined birthday-cum-housewarming for Lizzy and Steph.

Bristol, I have to say, is starting to grow on me. It still feels a lot more industrial than, say, Leeds (which is now all inner-city genteel), but I'm starting to like it. And Lizzy and Stephfallie are just the gorgeousest hosts, with lashings of food and booze served student bbq style, with drinking games and singing til the wee small hours. Ants had quite a head on the next day, something to do with 11 cans of strongbow. And opinion remains divided on whether Kim threw up - she reckons not, but can't be certain.

But once we've been and done the Italian Job, the plan is definitely to try to come back to England, and there would definitely be worse places to live, than Bristol...

England and St George

A lot of Brits get miffed from time to time that, unlike other parts of Britain, there is no national holiday for the nation's patron saint. Part of that could be that St George was actually Greek, and never set foot in England as far as we know, but never ones to let the truth get in the way of a good story, the English honour old George nonetheless.

(You should hear them howl when they realise that the Aussies get a long weekend for the Queen's birthday - and they don't! It's worse than our days off for 'dead soldiers' and 'a horse race', in their eyes.)

But I digress. To the folky community, St George's day is a fine one for singing proper patriotic songs about unions and soldiers and the common man. Yes, the old chestnuts get trotted out too - Jerusalem, and 'Swing low', rousing rounds of Rule Britannia from the novices in the peanut gallery. It was a thursday this year, so fairly sedate. But a good night's nattering, all the same.

If it did ever make bank holiday status, there'd be some proper sore heads next day...

Ela and Steve Wassell

It's a very special thing, when you've moved to a new country, to be invited to someone's wedding. Most of our friends here are people we didn't know before we moved to Oxford - to learn that they think us such an important part of their lives is both humbling and heartwarming.

Ela (nee Chrobot) and Steve share a love of music and the same birthday. Their big day was the most perfect expression of who they are. The church service in Abingdon was held in Polish and English, by an Irish priest who struggled over the pronunciation of 'Elzbieta' (Ela's full name) and who made us all laugh at his jokes. The fabulous Ormandys (Darren who works at the Tower of London, Catherine-from-Sydney and their daughter Keira) came up from London, and Keira made a stunning debut as flowergirl (not bad for 'not yet two'), following instructions to the letter ('go to daddy, he's down the front, look!') and cheering endlessly afterwards. Maybe it was because Sophie had brought Tim Tams.... mmm.
Adjourning to the Vicky Arms in Old Marston, we were greeted with fizz on arrival and fiddles were broken out even before we sat down to eat.
There's something extra magical when two people come together through music - you could see their love of it, and each other, shining from their faces. Joe, as best man, gave a cracking speech, which was followed by more champagne and the obligatory (for the Poles), rounds of vodka, which the landlord had put in the fridge 'all night' to make it cold. As the hospitality flowed and tongues loosened, I found my fledgling 'please's and 'thankyous' learned in Warsaw last December, coming more naturally. There was even a smattering of chattering in French, with one of Ela's workmates.
Well soused with free bubbly, my night ended earlier than some, safely cocooned on an airbed at the lovely Phil and Sophie's, who also served up a cracking cooked brekkie the next morning...

Today has been pretty quiet, but it's been a happy, happy day.

The Italian Job

Right, now that it's all official, I can finally post publicly some very exciting news. Some time in the next couple of months, the lovely Ants and I will be relocating to Rome, so that I can take up a very cool climate change job with the UN World Food Programme. I'm so giddy at the thought, I can hardly stand up.

OMG - Rome! Holy crap - the UN.

I was offered the job just before easter. There was a small mountain of paperwork, and I still have to pass a medical (next week) before I can resign, but we're not expecting any dramas there.

Being me, I've shot my trap off with mates already. Lads and lasses at work and friends from round about have all been effusive, excited and just gorgeous and supportive. Which is really good, because after a fairly stressful few months on the work front, I have to own that I feel a real sense of loss about leaving, and an aversion to 'yet more' change that really isn't "like me".

So, bouyed up by our friends, Ants and I are finally starting to get excited about this, more akin to the way I expected to feel!

There's A LOT to be done to effect the move (new tenant, find a place to live, visas, medicals). I'm trying not to sweat bricks over the potential to do list.

But we also have a lot to be excited about, and to look forward to... starting with next month's Morimondo sojourn and fact finding mission in the south... watch this space for further news!

Caerphilly seige at Easter

Caerphilly is one of the most special castles in Britain. Proper fairy tale stuff: when you try to imagine a ruined castle with moats and towers and derelict stonework, you could do worse than to imagine Caerphilly. We do several shows a year here - it's starting to feel like home, and there's nothing quite so cool as driving your car over the drawbridge and through the barbican, so you can pitch your tent in the outer bailey. This time around was special for another reason too: it was our friend Kim's first event. We've spent hours over her kit - underdress, overdress, hood and cloak, because she insisted she really didn't fancy dressing up in lad's kit. Until she realised that was the only way to play with seige engines. And that, I think, was when her event became properly fun. For me, the fun began a week earlier, finalising the menu for the weekend, which I had boldly (recklessly?) volunteered to cook. We were a merry band of 35 or so this weekend, and Liz, Steph and I aced the cooking. Flavours worked, the hot things were served hot, the cold things were cool, and we hardly burned a thing on the open fire - not even ourselves! We used up virtually everything we brought with us, and people kept coming up for seconds. We can't wait to do it again.

Drinking hats!

It's a relatively new thing, apparently, but somewhere along the way in recent summers, the Company of Chivalry have adopted a tradition of 'silly drinking hats' for the rite of 'takeaways, cider and special brew' that preceeds a show.





Mine, btw, came from our recent trip to Edinburgh, and did a jolly fine job of keeping my head warm after I went to bed, too!

Easter - Tintern Abbey

I've wanted to see Tintern Abbey for the longest time, and this Easter, we finally made it. Wow. Well worth both the wait, and the deviation enroute to our show at Caerphilly.

I've read stories before about spring grass 'studded with flowers', but I'd never seen it until today. Even roofless, you can see so much of the majesty that once was. Hard to believe though, that all this existed for just a few dozen monks (maybe 60) and a hundred or so lay brethren. Something I never realised before today is just how many stone cupboards were built into the walls of monasteries. They really were planned down to the last detail.
There was even a 'warming house - the only room in the Abbey (apart from the kitchens and infimary) where heating was allowed. Brrrrrr.
All that remained at the end was to adjourn over the road to a pub for lunch. Kim reminded us all that, being good friday, we really should eat fish. So Ants went ahead with his steak - and Kim and I shared garlic prawns and a bowl of mussels in the most amazing cream and white wine broth... mmmm

Blood on their hands...

The Age has revealed today that eleven 'asylum seekers' who were imprisoned on Nauru by the Howard government (who didn't want them to ever set foot on Australian shores because they were 'queue jumpers'), have been killed by the Taliban since being sent back to Afghanistan.

Human rights body the Edmund Rice Centre has been investigating the fate of refugees who were refused refugee status and says 11 is probably an understatement. They're calling for the Australian government to re-open cases determined by the previous government.

Australia is better off without you John Howard. May Australia never stoop so low again

Swordfighty goodness

Getting back into medieval fighting has taken some time. I didn't pick up a sword in earnest for maybe two years after I first hit England - I was too busy exploring and travelling and singing in pubs.

When I first joined the Company of Chivalry, I started learning the bill. These buggers are heavy - three inch hexagonal shafts with an unwieldy lump o' metal on the end. I've yearned for my 9 foot spear and all my old skill and dexterity, that once had someone (who was no mean fighter himself) dub me 'one of Australia's best' at pole arms combat. Not so in England. Swimming muscles and fighting muscles might live in the same arms, under the one skin, but they are NOT the same thing!

Dispirited after weeks of aching biceps, and turning on the wrong heel in interminable 'drill', I turned back to swordplay. Here, I'm sure, is something I won't have forgotten... And indeed I haven't, but my 14thC blade is half a foot longer than my old 10thC jobby (my first ever joint purchase with a boy, made mine after I bought him a blade of his own). And this new club do edge blocks, and no head blows. It's maddening, and stuff that would have been deemed unsafe back home is de rigeur in CoC, and elsewhere.

It's taken time, but I have persevered, and I think it's finally paying off. This last weapons training, having swapped a bill for a spear, the point seemed to come alive in my hands and targets (bellies mostly) were just easier to hit. Maybe I'm not quite ready yet to retire ...