Forwards, backwards

It's New Year's Eve again.

On the one hand, it's a milestone.  We did it.  We made it through another year.  Maybe it was a good year for you, or perhaps it was a year of struggle and difficulty.  Maybe you're hoping next year will be better, for whatever reason.  But on this night we lay down a marker and say that as we begin our new orbit around the sun a line can be drawn under the old things, and the new will begin today.  Some people will choose tonight to discard old habits and memories that they feel have been holding them back, others will take the chance to recall and appreciate the good things that this past year has brought into their lives.  New Years Day is special...

...but on the other hand...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the seasons and cycles of the world.  The way things roll on, how bright summer sinks into majestic autumn, and cold winter lifts into the joyful spring.  How living things are born, grow and flourish, then wither and fade away, and their children are born from their bones.  And beyond that, how the most minuscule of particles orbit their atoms, our Earth circles her Sun, innumerable stars move about each other, the universe rolls and turns in endless falling spirals, everything intertwined with everything else, and all held together in it's ever-shifting balance.  Within all that, when the sun comes up tomorrow, however we choose to mark this particular sunrise, it will just be another day.

A day, just like every other day we have.

But then if this is the case, if I remember what I'm part of, then it won't make a difference to how I feel about New Years Day.  Every turn of the world is the step of a cosmic dance.

Every day is remarkable.

Happy New Year.

Computerisation of the pattern of visible matter in the universe

Joyeux Noel!

Here's the Christmas card I made this year for my family (to help you figure this out, I'm the eldest of four siblings, and my parents both wear glasses).  I thought I was done with this but there was something missing from it.  Silly Michelle, clearly it was supposed to be snowing!  A few downy flakes letter and I think I fixed it :)

We're big Narnia fans in our house, we have all the books, and the movies (all of them) and when I was younger I remember repeatedly renting out the audiobook of Prince Caspian from the local library.

There do seem to be some weird parallels between my sisters, brother and I, and the fictional Pevensies, but in the end I suppose it's only the parallels any family could find.  A group of people, still growing and changing and figuring out how to get on with life, finding themselves on a journey.  Sometimes separate, sometimes together, a united team or squabbling and at odds, sharing good times and facing impassable challenges as we stumble along towards the intriguing, mysterious (and sometimes rather alarming!) figure of a Lion we have never yet met face to face.

I didn't leave anyone out either; on the inside of the card is my brother-in-law as Caspian and our dog wearing a bushy golden mane.  I don't think the Aslan would mind :)

Never mind Christmas, I'm having these all winter long...

Ok, first thing's first.  Before I do anything else I need to write down the recipe for the pastry I made mince pies with (my Mum wants to know what it is).  These are the ones that were proclaimed 'Most Like Grandma's' at the carol night competition so they ought to be pretty good.  The mincemeat was shop-bought this year, although I'm keen to try making that myself next time as well, but it seems that doing the pastry yourself is the clincher to making some seriously yummy pies.

To make 12 pies you will need:

225g butter/margarine (cut into chunks about the size of playing dice.  You'll see why in a minute)
350g plain flour
100g caster sugar
280g mincemeat
A handful of milk
A pinch of salt
A rolling pin, pastry cutters/drinking glass, and one of those baking trays with dips in it for doing little pies and cakes.

1)  Preheat your oven to 180C/ gas mark 6.

2) To make the pastry you start by mixing the flour and butter together.  If you have a blender you can put it all in there but I think that's just boring!  Instead, make sure the butter is in small chunks, roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, using your fingers to pinch and rub the two together.  It will stick all over your hands but that's why it's fun!

3) When you're about halfway done with the rubbing, throw the sugar and salt (trust me) in and keep going until you get a firm dough.  If it's cracking too much don't add liquid, just put a little more butter in there to stick it all together.

4)  Throw down some flour on your worktop and roll out your pastry to about 1/2cm thick, maybe even less.  If it starts to stick to your rolling pin then throw some flour on that too.

5) Cut out your pie bottoms and tops.  If you don't have pastry cutters just flip a glass upside-down and use that.  The bottoms go straight into the baking tray, and when you've put 1-2 teaspoons of mincemeat into it you can put the top on.  Press round the edges with your fingers to join them.

6)  Dip your (clean!) finger in the milk, and 'paint' it over the top of your pies.  This glazes your pie and will go brown in the oven, helping you to see when they are cooked.  If you have spare milk you can have it with your pies when they are done!

7)  Stab your pies with a fork - for luck! (just kidding, for steam to get out)- and then they go in the oven for about 20mins or until they look a nice golden colour with some brown on the crust, whichever comes first.

*SECRET KNOWLEDGE!*:  Before you try and pull the pies out of the tray, put your fingers round the edge of each pie and give it a sharp twist.  That way you shouldn't pull the top off when you try and lift it.

8)  EAT THEM!!!  HOORAY!!!

Tis' the season: 2 of 2

Christmas Service

The church I go to, Open Heaven, has a large number of students in it, so we have our Christmas service before the end of term.  My friend Amy and I were asked to do another doodle slideshow to accompany the reading about the Wise Men, but on very short notice so it's not as well thought-through as I'd like.  Scraps of ideas are there, but we missed a lot as we were in a rush.  One day they'll give us longer than a week to make these things, and I'll put together something really beautiful!


Wise men from Michelle Barnett on Vimeo.


Enjoying the weather

On my way to work I often see the sun rise, heavy and golden and massive, but only in snatches as I have to keep my eyes on the road!  So I made a decision, to sit and watch the winter sun come up with no interruptions from the top of Beacon Hill. just outside of town.  My friend Matt came with me and in the semi-darkness of pre-dawn we began our climb.

Movie news

This makes me exceedingly happy!

They are filming The Hobbit!  I mean, we've all known for some time that they were filming the Hobbit, but now there is objective proof and it's looking awesome!  This was one of the first 'proper' books I loved as a kid, I read it around age 12, and I really want to see how they bring it to the screen, especially after the great job they did with Lord of the Rings.  The Hobbit always felt more like a fairy tale to me, in comparison to the epic pseudo-historical fiction of LotR, so I'll be interested to see if they manage to do that, making the film that should have come first, come second (and in two parts), and how they dovetail the two together.

Martin Freeman is playing Bilbo, which is very encouraging.  I wasn't very aware of him until the miniseries of Sherlock aired on the BBC last year, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.  I really enjoyed it and was a bit miffed to hear we'd have delays before the second season, but when it turned out that this was because both of them were working on The Hobbit it more than made up for it!  Freeman, as I said, is playing the aforementioned hobbit, and Cumberbatch is going to be the voice of Smaug the Dragon!!!

Edit:  THERE'S A TRAILER!! THEY RELEASED A TRAILER!!  OH OH OH!!!

I have so many things to say!:

1) Young dwarves! (and Northern dwarves)  So far the only dwarf we've seen is Gimli, but now we get all thirteen dwarves!  They're all so different looking too, which is good. Easier to tell them apart in the dark :)

2) Young Bilbo! (and doesn't Freemen just look the part)  I'm loving watching him try and ride that pony.  Hahaha...

3) 13 dwarves attack 3 trolls, now there's a fight I'd like to see, bearing in mind that we do see the trolls again in LotR, or what's left of them (I may call that a Dovetail Alert, where they have to make the two fit)

4) Cameos!  In this trailer alone there's Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, and did I miss anyone?  I'll have to check.  On a really big screen.  Multiple times.

Ok, I'm officially a teensy bit excited... !!!

'Tis the season: 1 of 1

I often leave it a bit late to get into the 'Festive Spirit', mainly because I still get pretty excited over Christmas, and I know I can't sustain that level of anticipation for an entire month (incidentally, if you are also one of these people that doesn't thrive on sustained hype, Charity Bishop has an excellent article on her blog about retaining your sanity during what can be a very chaotic time of year).  However, once I do get in the mood I'm equally slow to get out of it, so I've been feeling contentedly festive for the past week.

The past two years' Christmases have been a bit quieter and more contemplative for me - since the introduction of Secret Santa into my immediate family of seven people (plus dog) and both my friends and work colleagues, much of the rush, stress and money issues have been eliminated and there has been more time to simply enjoy the benefits of the season and all the unique events that brings:


Mulled wine

Quick mention of this, because as a general rule I do not like wine.  I never have... Unless, as it turns out, it's hot and spicy and and has had an orange thrown in it for a while.  That I find amazing and warming and tasty and delicious.  I had one Mulled Wine Party at a friends house, during which we mainly sat about watching The Snowman, nattering about nothing in particular and seeing if we could get After Eight chocolates from our foreheads to our mouths without using our hands.  Then, only two days later, some more from an entirely different friend.  And on Thursday we shall have yet more!   ...I do realise how this makes me look you know.

Carolling

I play clarinet in Loughborough Concert Band and every year the local council has bands from the region play on rotation in the town centre, during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  We did a couple of sets in the town's mini-mall (I'm second from the right on the front row, in those extremely attractive reindeer antlers.  My favourite of the other performing groups were the mellow tones of the Hathern Brass Band.  I took time out of my shopping to listen and chat with them for about half an hour, and they even played a couple of my favourites!

Our band has one more Christmas concert to go, on Wednesday, and last Saturday evening we did several hours at Kegworth village's Christmas fair.  Let me tell you, I now have a new appreciation for the lyrics of "In the Bleak Midwinter".  By the end of it, despite multiple layers and fingerless gloves (you can't handle the clarinet keys in regular gloves) my fingertips has gone through three stages of increasing pain; freezing cold, blessed numbness from the freezing cold, and then actual aching agony.  At the start of the second half I was literally shivering where I sat.  But despite it all we persevered and even managed a couple of rousing choruses alongside the local choir.  Score!

The second lot of carols did involve singing, at the 'Carols and Beer' evening held in a local Loughborough pub, the Swan in the Rushes.  Some of the band I already knew and they put on a cheerful and good-humoured performance with a couple of split parts for the audience and a kazoo for everyone!  I couldn't tell you what the audience thought, since I was too busy enjoying myself and belting out carols at the time.  Also there was a raffle and a mince-pie making competition which I entered, having only recently attempted hand-made pies for the first time.  I came second (the winner had their own cranberry, orange and port mincemeat.  That's pretty unbeatable!) and got a special mention for having pies that were "Most like Grandma's"!  For my second batch ever, I'm pretty happy with that :)

My third and final lot of carolling (so far!) was an entirely new experience.  I was invited to the Grand Union Folk Club's Christmas Singaround.  Basically it is what it sounds like.  Everyone sits around the edges of the room, facing the middle in a rough circuit, and everyone has a copy of the Club's songbook.  There are no instruments.  If you want to sing something you yell out the number, lead the first verse, and everyone joins in as they can, adding whatever harmonies they want.  The result is about thirty people, most of them pretty seasoned at this, belting out their favourite folk carols at the top of their lungs, and it is an incredibly powerful sound to be part of.  Sure, it's not always the most tuneful of strains, but it's got real feeling behind it; and that's sort of the point.  Not everyone 'can sing' but anyone could feel completely at home in this setting, and would sing regardless of whether or not they could.  Most of the tunes I didn't know but I can usually pick songs up pretty quickly and soon I too was trying out harmonies of my own, fitting in with the people around me.  I and the two friends who invited me were the youngest in the room by a good decade or two (and seriously, I have never seen such a concentrated and fantastic array of beards as I did over those few hours) but everyone seemed pleased to see us and we were made to feel very welcome.

Weird Carols

I love Christmas.  Christmas is brilliant.  I love British Christmas particularly, just because it's what I've grown up with; I love the juxtaposition of darkness and light as the days grow shorter, the biting cold that forces us indoors and into each other's company, and I love the rousing choruses of the old carols.  I'm not so keen on some of the newer songs, the commercial hits that get pumped out every year on the radio; I tend to prefer the old stuff, the more traditional tunes and poems...  Even though some of them are just downright weird.  Like 'I Saw Three Ships'.  As a friend quite rightly pointed out to me the other day "Why are Jesus and Mary on a boat?"  Good question.  And where's Joseph?  Is he on boat too?  If not, who's on the third ship?  Do Jesus and Mary have a ship each or are they sharing?  Because if they have one each isn't it really irresponsible to let a baby steer a ship on it's own?

My current favourite piece of Weird Christmas verse is from 1595, Elizabethan times, and was written by a man named Robert Southwell.  He was a Catholic, at a time when Protestantism had only recently become accepted and being a Catholic priest in England was no longer a very popular thing.  Recently ordained priests were banished from the country in 1584, only two years after he attained his priesthood but he volunteered to come back illegally and perform ceremonies and rites to the Catholic families still living in England.  He also wrote and published tracts and other writings, including this verse, The Burning Babe.  Basically it's a made-up story about a man walking in the snowy woods when he comes across a pretty disturbing vision - the baby Jesus, on fire, hovering in mid-air, in the middle of a deserted forest.  Of course.  On-fire-baby-Jesus explains why he's there, and what the fact that he's on fire symbolises, and then vanishes.  Only then does our poet realise that this all makes perfect sense because it is, in fact, Christmas day.  And then the poem ends.

It's all very bizarre but I had to draw it.  Mainly because the image of an levitating flaming baby does tend to stick in your mind quite a lot!

A walk in the Park

A short drive (or a long walk) from this town is Bradgate Park, a large area of hilltops and woodland set aside for visitors, walkers and light activity-makers, and little else.

It was pretty windy, but we happily tramped about for several hours, enjoying open air, babbling streams and spiky mushrooms.  Really.  Spiky ones.  I didn't even know you could get spiky mushrooms!

Later we came across some fantastic old oaks (my favourite tree) that were hollowed out by wind and time.  The years had worn the wood that was once rotton inside into beautiful smooth patterns, and forced the cracks wider and wider until they were big enough for several people to climb inside.  So (because who wouldn't want to live inside an actual tree!)  I immediately did climb inside...

...and eventually my housemate joined me.

 But the best thing about that day for me were the deer.  Now, Roe and Muntjac deer are pretty common in my home county, but Bragate Park is rather famous for it's deer herds and has Fallow and Red deer living there full time, they even do deer walks in the fawning and rutting season (which it was at the time, meaning all the bucks and males had their biggest and best antlers on for us.)  Some areas are set aside for deer only, but they wander in and out as they please and they're quite used to seeing people going past so as long as you don't wander too close they'll just carry on with their business, admittedly while keeping a weather eye on you.

These are Fallow deer (see the spots and the way the antlers have that big flat section in the middle instead of being separated like branches), and it was a privilege to get to see them so close without them turning and dashing off.  Deer where I'm from are usually very shy, so you don't often get a chance to appreciate what beautiful animals they are.

We carried on walking up over the hills and back down to where we'd started, when suddenly the land opened up, and right in front of us, in the middle of a wide section of heath, sat a massive Red deer stag, silhouetted against the bracken and ferns.

It was easily the biggest deer I'd ever seen, - Red deer are the largest British deer - with a huge set of antlers, and there was something incredibly striking and timeless about him sitting there so royally, lord of all he surveyed.  There's a reason they call a mature stag a Monarch.

The impression this sight had on me got me thinking about how much of an impact seeing a deer of that size must have had on our ancestors.  Nowadays we have a lot of things in our world known for their size, cities, buildings, vehicles and machinery, even some bigger animals now that we have a greater shared knowledge of the world, but to the people that hunted these lands thousands of years ago a Red stag like this would have been one of the largest living things they would ever see.  An animal of this size would have been dangerous, but also a valuable source of food, and highly respected for both.

We know what the Celtic people living here two thousand years ago felt about the deer as a pillar from Roman-occupied Gaul (north-east France), a first century cauldron, and some ancient cave paintings from Europe and beyond all have depictions of deer, or of men and animals with antlers or horns.  Some scholars believe this could be a god or a spirit of forests and their animals, referred to as Cerunnos, although it is impossible to gain anything more certain more than that from the records we have.  It's all a bit of a mystery, but it's clear people have held the deer in great regard for ages past, and it's not difficult to see why.

An Evening with Friends

The other reason I spent Bonfire Night at home was because some friends of ours, brothers Karl and Alvin Allison, were in the area to play an evening of songs from an album they produced recently, 'Songs that No one Taught Us'.   On a Sunday afternoon, once church was over, the crew set to re-shuffling the room, trailing cable and setting up impressive looking switchboards with lots of shiny sliders on them.

Here's what I was put in charge of...

Needless to say, I enjoyed that job!

The Allison's have a background in the Salvation Army, but this album may not be every traditionalist's cup of tea!  It's a lot more current and energetic, with elements of rock music (I can post a large number of photos from their days in a rock band with my father, who was and still is very much a drummer!), pop, ballads and urban as well as the brass band you might expect to hear (one that come to mind is about their childhood Sunday School teacher, which includes audience participation!)   Actually, several of the songs had a comic element, with audience members on stage, hugging each other and singing along, and some short skits between songs and some props to keep us on our toes.  Karl (on the right) does the majority of the singing, while Alvin (left) is a dab-hand on the keyboards, and provides the harmonies.  

The night was entitled 'An Evening with Friends' and that's exactly what I feel I had.  The overall atmosphere was as if I'd popped round a mate's house and we'd just got talking about what made them tick; their history, the things and people they cared about, and the beliefs they'd built their lives upon.  The kind of stuff that really lets you get to know someone.  All contained in some musical chat with a cup of piping coffee and some rather awesome chunky-choc-chip biscuits that you'd never considered buying for yourself, but actually are ssurprisingly tasty. 

I actually knew about all this several months beforehand as Karl contacted me asking if I would do a set of images to be used as an accompanying slideshow on one of the songs.  I agreed and some of the images are scattered throughout the insert booklet. However they liked one image in particular so much that I was asked to add both brothers into it and it became the main image for the album and ended up on everything.  And I do mean everything!  I now have a little collection of merchandise which I shall hoard with pride and bring out on special occasions.  Except for the album.  That's going in my car.

New Brave trailer

Ooh, I'm so looking forward to this.  I really hope it's good.

Card update

Last month was my Mum's birthday, so keeping with my idea of trying to make all my cards this year, I constructed this:

The idea is that once a year, on her birthday, everyone will do exactly as she asks for the whole day... and for the rest of the year she can use this little puppet theatre.  Behind each of the stage levels is a stack of cardboard squares, one of which run alls the way along so that you can slot the puppets on (just for reference I'm on the top right).

The only one I didn't include is my brother-in-law.  I'm pretty sure it's my sister's job to tell him what to do!

Autumnsong: 2 of 2

I went home to Norfolk for Bonfire Night, and spent it at the house of someone I had never met before! An employer of a friend of my parents'.  Somehow, and I'm not sure how, within ten minutes of arriving I found myself in a garage containing half a dozen classic American cars from the 1950-70s.  They belonged to this man, and every year he goes back to America to hunt down new projects and buy the authentic parts which are used to repair them.  I'll freely admit to knowing very little about classic cars, but I can tell a beautiful piece of design when I see one.

We spent maybe half an hour marvelling and discussing them, although I barely knew what to ask.  I would not have minded spending a bit more time with that little yellow Corvette though.  The sound when the cars were started up was pretty thunderous and terrific.

Eventually we did make it outside and enjoyed the fireworks.  All the guests were asked to contribute a firework, so it was quite a show including some of my favourites.  (Oh come on, everybody has a favourite!)  Here's one of them.

It reminded me of last year's Bonfire Night when a few friends and I, with no display to watch, decided to make our own from the living room.

After the fireworks were over the immense bonfire was lit and we all stood about it, simply talking about nothing in particular, although as time went on some of the topics became a bit more profound..  It's amazing the things that come out with a bonfire present, something about the agelessness of fire that brings bigger notions to the surface as well as the usual small talk.  Even if everyone had been silent, I'd still have enjoyed just watching the flames.  There's something about the beauty, threat and alien nature of fire that I've always found fascinating.

Autumnsong: 1 of 2

So it's that time of year again, the season burning itself out in a blaze of glory, darker nights closing in about us and nature closing up shop for the winter.  But still there are reasons to be out and about; it may be cold but there's been lots to see and do.

On the sunnier days I've still been canal walking, mainly to see how far I could get in a particular direction.  On the first week I set out north, towards Normanton-on-Soar.  It's a nice walk, you get out of town fast and the fields open up quickly.  There's a great feeling of space.  Even when you reach Normanton there's no way to cross the canal while you're in the village, so you walk past it on the other side.  There's a church there, encased in scaffold and looking less like a Norman tower and more like some strange platformed treehouse.  On the way home I stopped to talk to some fisherman and a couple of day-trippers working the lock below.

The next weekend I headed the other way, south to Barrow-upon-Soar.  It takes you a little longer to get out of Loughborough and Barrow represents a very finite end to that section of the walk, but there were some very interesting things along the way and a lot of adjoining paths you could wander off on.  I saw a line of narrow boats up against the side of a bridge, with the underside of the arches turned into their own back gardens, with hammocks, log piles, and even chicken enclosures. Also, I was accosted by a projectile-acorn-wielding squirrel.

A week or two later I did this walk again with friends... and at night.  It was cloudy so the light from the surrounding towns was diffused through the sky well enough for us to see by and we didn't even need torches.  After some debate we stuck to the path we knew, along the canal bank, although on the map we could see a couple of routes we could have taken.  The weather was cool but not cold and the company was very welcome.  I'd highly recommend it.