June Jubilee

Ah Britain.  Any excuse for a party.  I suppose I am a royalist, though not a die-hard one, but who could complain about a four day weekend to celebrate our queen's 60th year on the throne?  Surely the holiday alone is enough reason to support the monarchy!  As well as a much needed break and time to get some personal work done, the Jubilee has awakened in Loughborough that community spirit I enjoy so much.

My Jubilee biscuit

Why I don't want to be a Princess

Princess culture is everywhere.  There's this strange notion, and I'm not quite sure where it came from, that every little girl and every grown up lady has a princess inside of her, just waiting to emerge.  Been to a Disney Shop lately?  (Disney, I love you and you are my childhood but seriously, do you have any female characters over the age of 5 who are not, or do not become, princesses by the end of the story?). 

That's what we all want, right ladies?  To be told we are beautiful and to be treated like a princess.  Adverts tells us this, film tells us this, I've even seen 'self-help' books and books about being a Christian woman built around the idea that every woman just wants to be a princess (please note, I have never opened this book and after reading the blurb I'm not going to).  Now admittedly this is partially true - we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, and if God is King then as His daughters we are all princesses by definition - but in western culture the word princess comes with a pretty specific job description.

It's the job description I have a problem with.

Now maybe it's just my tomboyish childhood (oldest of four kids, co-opted for helping Dad with the DIY, tree-climbing, archery lessons, hours spent reading books which statistically have a higher proportion of male protagonists - the very fact that they are protagonists makes them more likely to be male) but the idea of a being a princess never really appealed to me.

This is first image that appeared when I googled 'Princess'. 
It makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a spork.

Small magic

My housemate tells me that this blog makes it sound like I live in a magical fairyland.  Of course this isn't true...  except sometimes it kind of is.  I'm getting adept at finding it now.  Magic doesn't come to you if you sit indoors and hope wistfully, you have to go hunt it down.  Be prepared to look more closely at ordinary things than perhaps you normally would.  Take this weekend for example, when I went back to Norfolk for the day.  It's not often I get to go back to my home county (although my parents aren't originally from the area I consider myself a Norfolk girl by adoption).  I went home for a birthday party, but that wasn't until the evening so I spent the rest of the day at Weird and Wonderful Wood, a small festival in Haughley, Suffolk, that celebrates all things wood, and the folk that make them. 

A Tribute: Mike Booty

Mike Booty taught me clarinet while I was in high school.  He was the peripatetic music teacher, which meant that once a week I got to skip whatever class I was in and go play music with him instead.  Usually it was on a Friday.  My main memories of his lessons were of constant good-natured bickering, where he would demand whisky from me on his birthdays (refused because I was a minor) and me demanding to play Disney music on mine (refused because it was rubbish).  He would call me a woman and a bad driver, and I would retort that at at least I still had hair.  Mike was, and still is, the consummate grumpy old man, and I say that with a great deal of fondness. The kind of person you could have a proper fight with, yet both come out of it grinning. 

 I did my grades with him as well, all two of them.  Mike's theory is that if music should be fun above all things so there was no point my paying to do extra grades just for the sake of having the full set.  Growing up in a musical family and dabbling in a few instruments when I was younger meant that I could already read sheet music by the time I got to high school, and understood intuitively the basic principles of music that most beginners have to be taught from scratch, so grades 1 and 2 were somewhat redundant.  I did my Grade 3 Practical and then, a year or two later, Grade 5, but then couldn't do any more because we both suddenly remembered  that you need a Grade 5 Theory before you can do the higher Practicals and I didn't formally know any.  I still don't.  I'm currently an untested Grade 7/8 clarinetist with an untested Grade 3 in Theory.  I share Mike's opinion of music - that it should be fun first and foremost, so I've never felt the need to go any further, and I get along very well as I am

As well as teaching the private lessons, Mike ran and conducted the Old Buckenhan High School Band and the South Norfolk Youth Symphonic Band (SNYSB), which he formed originally as a marching band of "half a dozen crap brass players".  That was in 1974.  He also spent some time as a Marine, so while his band rehearsals always adhered to the 'Music is Fun' principle, they also contained an amount of good old-fashioned military discipline.  This was much better in practise than it sounds.  I actually don't think we knew it was happening when he did it, but even in my current band, six years after moving away, I still do things the way we were taught in SNYSB.  Things like 'Concert Etiquette', which is how you behave on stage - the way I hold my instrument at rest, when I raise it, how I take applause, keeping quiet between songs (as Mike used to grouch at us "I see no speaking parts in this! We'll take it from letter O. O for 'Orrible!"), and my attitude towards the conductor.  In a band that could have an hundred kids playing in it at once, he demanded professionalism from us. 

Once a year we'd have a weekend away where, thanks to his old contacts, we had the privilege of playing with the band of the Royal Marines.  You'd learn more in that one weekend by just sitting next to one of them than you would in three months playing by yourself.  And because Mike took us so seriously, we did the same to him.  Mike is one of those teachers that manages to balance his job as a teacher with his character as a person, and his sense of fun with a real professionalism.  Our reputation as a band was built on his dedication.  Our progress as individuals was due to his curmudgeonly kindness and the genuine investment he gave to each of us.

I continued to take lessons with Mike through sixth form, but when I moved away to university there wasn't a band I could join that fitted in with my lectures, and I stopped playing for three years.  However, when I graduated and was looking for ways to fill my unemployed time, a local band was the first thing I looked for.  I ended up finding the Loughborough Concert Band and now I play as a 1st clarinet with them, just for the pleasure of it.  Because what Mike said is true.  Music is still fun.  There's something about the dynamics of playing alongside others that you just can't get practising by yourself.  I learned that from Mike.

This year he has turned 70 years old.

On Saturday gone I made the trek down the A14 from Loughborough and wound my way through the tiny country lanes of rural Norfolk to the village hall where Mike Booty's surprise party was being held.  (He was indeed surprised!)  I owe him a lot, so it was wonderful to be there to show my thanks and support, congratulate him on everything he's achieved, and celebrate his birthday with him.  We spent the evening talking and laughing, remembering and being remembered by the other old friends that came to do the same.

Here's to the next decade, Mike.  I wish you all the best.

Bank Holiday Funday

God bless the British and their pig-headed insistance on clinging to holidays they aren't really entitled to!  It's been a funny spring really; a very warm March, a very cold and rainy April, but with May (fingers crossed) the weather appears to be sorting itself out.  Hopefully just in time for my birthday, which is in a few weeks.

This Bank Holiday weekend has been a very full one for me; despite being ill for the best part of the week and not up to planning much for myself, several little adventures have just fallen into my lap so I've been riding piggy-back on those until I'm back to firing on all cylinders.  So in no particular order...

Jubilee Wood

Gouache, 15 mins

The bluebells are out!  I've been keeping an eye open and this week I saw a few so I decided to chance the wet weather and go check out my old walks.  Just as I got here the skies cleared for an hour or so, and returned just as I was ready to leave.

Adventure time!

It was my friend Hannah's birthday this week, so when her brother won some free tickets to Bristol Folk Festival she very kindly asked me and our friend Jamie to go with them!  HOORAY!!!  The first thing that was needed was a birthday card.  I really like making cards that are relevant to the person or what they'e doing to celebrate.  Providing I keep having the time to do these things I don't think I'll be able to go back to buying cards from shops.  These are just so much more interesting.

On the inside I wrote her a Scavenger Hunt, full of all the things (based on my limitied experience!) I thought we might see.  She loved the card, and really took the hunt seriously!  It turns out the whole festival is held in one building in the city centre (a very sensible idea considering the weather we've been having lately) so things like wellies and a waxed mac weren't around but she got almost everything else, including three successively more fantastic beards and a couple of extra items we added to the back.

It was a great day, with loads of interesting things to see and do, and some great acts to hear.  One of our highlights of the day, and a new discovery for me was Luke Jackson, a 17-year old singer/songwriter with a wonderfully controlled singing voice that would trick you into thinking he's older.  Hannah very badly wanted to see him perform but we got held up on the way to the hall and just caught the last two songs.  However we serendipitously bumped into him in the corridor later on and Hannah, being the sociable girl she is, immediately struck up a conversation.  

Hannah meets Luke

Later on, when one of the acts filled out their hall, he agreed to do a second performance for the stragglers, which we happened to arrive for just at the perfect time!  We wandered into a near-empty hall and made a beeline for the very front seats.  His set was great, including a really slick version of Wayfaring Stranger, a selection of his own songs, and the haunting traditional tune Oakham Poachers.  I think I'm now a fan!

Our other highlight was ahab, a three-part band (normally four but one was off having his appendix taken out, which seems a reasonable excuse.  Not that the other lads agreed - they kept fondly mocking him for slacking off) with an American folk feel to their music and some fantastic close harmonies.  They came on after a slightly depressing act and really changed the mood by having great laugh on stage.  Favourite songs were 'Wagon Wheel', 'Run Me Down', and 'Lightning Bug' and ... well actually the whole set was awesome.

Who needs a PA system? Not us; we have manly man voices and a bobble hat!

In between all that there was Morris Dancing to watch, stalls to investigate, and dulcimer playing to learn.  This was my call - I saw the word Dulcimer on a sign and abandoned the others to toddle off and explore.  A dulcimer is a member of the zither family (stringed instruments where the strings are no longer than the sounding box) and they had both types there for us to see and try: the 'mountain' or 'lap' dulcimer and the considerably more complicated 'hammer' dulcimer.  Within seconds of introducing myself I was sat on a chair with an instrument across my knees.  The mountain dulcimer I was shown had two pairs of 'drone' strings that provide the chord, and then one top pair that provides the tune which you play as you would the fretboard on a guitar.  You strum all three together as though they were one string, and the result is a deliciously tangy, buzzy sound which is very distinctive.  Most of the ones on display were made by dedicated hobbyists and each had it's own personality reflecting that of it's maker. 

Dulcimer demonstration by Nonsuch Dulcimer Club

We have a try

Jamie finds a cape!

There was also, as you would expect, a ceilidh to take take part in.  It wasn't even a question as to whether or not we would go.  Both Hannah and I love ceildh dancing, and with at least fifty people doing every dance there was a great sense of energy in the room.  The great thing about ceilidhs is that you don't need any experience to get started because there is a caller yelling out the moves to you, but as you get a bit more advanced you can start adding in your own quirks and tricks.  One couple next to us; a small energetic young woman and a tall man in a kilt (who Hannah immediately decided she wanted to dance with!) had clearly done this many times before, but a lot of enthusiasm and a willingness to look a bit silly from the rest of us goes a long way.  We did well at some dances and failed dramatically and hilariously at others, I taught Jamie to polka, and Hannah's brother Dave does an excellent do-si-do.

We were sitting down to catch our breath before the last song when the man in a kilt came over to our table and asked me if I'd have the next dance with him.  This has never happened to me in my life before:
1) Asked to dance
2) By a man in full Scottish regalia.  I believe a lot of Jane Austen books begin that way :)
Obviously I said yes, not sparing a though for the birthday girl.  The dance was Strip the Willow, which can be a bit... perilous so it was good to have a partner who knew what they were doing. He even thanked me for the dance afterwards, even though I briefly forgot my left from my right at the beginning.  Possibly I was a bit flustered by the kilt-i-ness!

We spontaneously decided to stay late for Karine Polwart and Show of Hands, who were headlining, and Hannah's brother generously put us up for the night.  It was such a great day, and lovely to spend so much time with Hannah.  My life is very busy, and hers is even moreso, so to have a whole 24 hours just hanging out with her was a real treat.  She's one of the coolest, most caring people I know.  Although I'll remember all the acts we saw and the big events of the day, some of the best moments were the little inbetween bits.  The throwaway comments, the jokes, the discussing, the telling of stories, tiny things we'll probably never recall exactly but which make spending time with the people you like best really worth it.

Birthdays are very tiring!

Rain paint

Had some fun painting this weekend.  I've got a couple of drawing projects on the go, but a friend of mine reminded me of the existence of goache paints.  I knocked out some quick colour studies from my walk last week.  I love it when the sky is dark and cloudy but there's still light coming from somewhere and makes such a contrast between the heavy sky and bright earth.

It's still raining here, and has been for over a week (although ironically it won't be enough to fix the drought we're in!) so all my doodles right now seem to include rain.  It does make everything smell good after though.

This one's my favourite

Magical Mark Watson

My extremely talented friend Mark Watson performed his brand spanking new, comedy routine as part of the British Young Juggler of the Year competition at the British Juggling Convention 2012 in Southend.  Most juggling acts you see are purely the juggler showing off their dexterity with the clubs and balls.  Some will have a gimmick, a theme or outfit, usually to a musical backing, but never before have I seen an act that combines juggling and a comedy act!.

So go to Mark's Tumblr and say hi.  He's a a great guy, is completely dedicated to his juggling, and is apparently a bit of a comedy genius too!

Waterbound

Had a hankering to go down Loughborough canal, so I donned my trusty raincoat and walking boots and set off into the drizzle!  Being out of the country for a fortnight, great as it was, meant I've missed a chunk of our own spring so I didn't want to leave it another week before I got out there and saw what I'd missed.  Good thing I did! Taking a leaf out of Rima Staines' book, literally, I took home my pictures to try and identify all the new plants I found.  I did pretty well!

Even the stinging nettles clean up good

Little April Shower

So half of England has officially been declared in drought, and as if the sky somehow heard we've had rain every day for the past week.  It won't be enough to fix everything all in one go, but it's a good start.  

I actually really enjoy rain (moreso when I'm heading home or when I've planned for it than not) and watching it out the window is always a joy.  For some reason this last week it's made me want to draw, and I've certainly had the inspiration!

Uganda Diary Day 10: Welcome back

April 13th – Friday

Today we flew home. The entertainment system was working on the plane this time round, so after more gawping at the extravagant nature of the technology we settled down and blocked out the flight with stories. I managed to make my way through Doctor Who – Let's Kill Hitler, Sherlock – The Hounds of Baskerville, The Lion King (trust me to go for the kids channel!), and The Artist, which I’d been meaning to watch for a while, but this marathon included regular stops to stare out of the plane window some more. With this flight in daylight I could make sense of what I'd seen in the dark on the way over, and most of it was desert. The plane approximately follows the path of the Nile north, so we few over first the Libyan Desert, and then the mighty Sahara. Seeing the empty vastness and the shifting dunes below I felt like a character from a Tintin book. I've never seen anything like it.

Sunrise at Entebbe airport, our last morning in Africa

Uganda Diary Day 9: Goodbye Kabubbu

April 12th – Thursday

Most of this morning was the mad race to finish the posters for Susan. Apart from a quick Scrabble break to give the Sharpies a chance to recover and get the marker fumes out of my lungs I got them all done by 3pm. Susan was out of her office so I dropped them off with a colleague instead. I also got a chance to sneak a peek at Mum and Emma's puppetry lesson.

One of the 10 posters.  There's an 18 letter word in one of them.  Seriously!  18 letters!

The Kabubbu puppetry class, passing with flying colours

Uganda Diary Day 8: The source of the Nile/"Tea anybody?"

April 11th – Wednesday

First, can I just tell you about the nights here? When I learned we would be coming to a rural area I assumed the nights here would be quiet.  Instead they are filled with the sounds of birds, frogs and bugs all ticking and whistling and chirping and chirruping together. Beyond that is the occasional howling chorus of the village dogs and tonight the sound of a loudspeaker down at the trading centre. As for what I can see, the security lights in the resort are still on but every few seconds the sky to the east is lit up with a phenomenal brightness that can only be distant lightning, too far away down the valley for us to hear the epic thunder that will be accompanying it. Above the stars are bright, if a hazy, but I can only spot one constellation I am familiar with – Orion – and he is bent over on his side like an old man.

We stopped en route to the Nile to check out some waterfalls.  An astonishing volume of water.

Uganda Diary Day 7: Boogie on down

April 10^th – Tuesday

Puppets at the assembly today, which went down really well.  Dad was telling the story rather than doing it to a CD track or song, so there was more leeway to react to the audience and make time for comedy.  When the farmer in our story scattered the seed we were able to lob real seed at them, and when he waters the crop we sprinkled real water out of the watering can!

Uganda Diary Day 6: Showtime

April 9^th – Monday

No school today so it's off to the orphanage for decorating.  Two rooms are done now so we were sanding and plastering and putting the base coat on the new room.  We'll add the colour on the lower half tomorrow.

From start...

...to finish

As usual there were kids milling around, most of them with good English despite being only 7 years old.  I find I enunciate more here, avoiding slang and borrowing some of their sounds to emphasise things (“Ehhhh!?”).  Sue and I were chatting and I got to try out some of the words I'd learned from Ruth's kids.

Do-keh  - Banana tree

Nyoomba – House

Gaar – Bicycle

Coco – Chicken

My teachers. From left to right: Nurugambe, Grace, Chiaga, Sandra and Christine

Uganda Diary Day 5: Easter in Africa

April 8^th – Sunday

Enoch gives the Easter sermon

Happy Easter!  Eh Bible eh gamba owakabaka bwa katona boli bo-fe (dodgy phonetics mine!), which means 'The Bible says “The Kingdom of Heaven is within us.”'  Today I went to an Easter Sunday service in Kabubbu, held in the high school hall, and found this to be very true.  Our hosts graciously did the speaking parts of the service in English for our benefit and then translated them over to the congregation.  Most of the songs were in Ugandan, but even though I couldn't understand the words I felt very much a part of the community then as I could easily read their posture and expression – they looked just the same as we do when we worship God back home and it really reminded me that these people are not just my hosts or interesting foreigners to be observed, but my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Although we've never met, we are family.



Enoch did the sermon and he was great.  Very funny guy.  Also this year marked the 6^th Anniversary of him and Lilian coming to Kabubbu.  It was a real honour to be able to join the rest of the church in reaching out a hand and praying for them.  Whatever language we were using, we were all speaking under the authority of the same God.  Felt very privileged.  God is great!

Uganda Diary Day 4: Retail Therapy

April 7^th – Saturday

Lie-in this morning, which was good as we had judged correctly and all had backs aching horrifically.  We did a puppet show at 10am for the kids from the lower school who were brought over specially and really enjoyed it.  Of course they didn't understand most of the words, but they loved all the visual stuff, the dancing and actions and pictures, and Dad was on hand with their teacher to explain what was going on.  They'd seen puppets before but not quite like this and we could hear them all laughing from behind the stage.

Assembly at Kabubbu primary school

The William Parker lot were off visiting the Nile today so lunch was pretty quiet, and afterwards we had to discuss what we wanted to get for Ruth as part of the Development Challenge.  Geraldine was there to ask all the difficult questions and we had asked Enoch, the director of the project, about prices.  In some ways it was good because haggling over what we could and couldn't do with the time and resources we'd been given brought it home to me that this wasn't just an engaging game, we were affecting a real family so we had to do our very best. 

Uganda Diary Day 3: Getting stuck in

April 6^th – Friday

So today we were brick-throwing, forming a human chain from the bottom of the hill where the truck dumps the large clay bricks, to the top of the slope.  They are for the locals digging a new latrine pit for the boys dormitories at the high school.  It's basically a hole the size of the pickup truck that goes down about 40ft.  They are layering the bricks round the inside of it, walking happily along scaffolding made of bamboo and old planks.  We worked from 8:30pm until about 11:30 then went to watch the high school's sports day.  It was good work once we got ourselves organised, although there were a few accidents; blisters, and bricks thrown badly and dropped on toes.  It was the biggest brick team of the week and the weather cloudy and cool today, but I have major respect for the William Parker lot who have been at it for four consecutive days.  I'm not physically tired, but I think I'll feel it in my muscles tomorrow.


Latrine building in progress.



Our brick throwing chain.  Some of the local kids got stuck in too, and hauled clay like the best of us.

Uganda Diary Day 2: Welcome to Kabubbu!

April 5th – Thursday

Attended the primary school assembly this morning and watched the William Parker Sixth Formers that are also visiting this week do a play for the kids. Stories seem to be popular, so it's encouraging for the puppet show we’re putting on later in the week. Still not sure how the songs will go down as they are in English and, although most of the kids can speak it well enough to hold a conversation it’s not their first language.

Inside my shared banda, with mosquito nets above the beds

Our banda is really neat. It's a little hut with a surprisingly large bathroom and mosquito net above the bed. It's strangely nice to sleep under a net, like having your own little tent, although the chance of mozzies is slim here because of the cut grass and lack of standing water.  The water we use comes from the borehole pumps or the rain collection tanks. There are bugs though, lots of them. The main ones are giant flying ants who seek out light and then drop their wings. There are piles of wings all over the place but when they're in flight they're really quite beautiful.

Uganda Diary Day 1: Planes, brains and automobiles

3^rd April 2012 - Tuesday

So here I am 33,000ft above the Mediterranean Sea, heading south to Entebbe airport in Uganda. I've got a wing seat, which is always my favourite – I've not flown scores of times but I do usually seem to end up near the wing. It never ceases to amaze me that those two flat planes of wing can lift a massive metal bucket off the ground.

After 3 hours the TV channels have finally started working, and while this wasn't a huge problem as this is a night flight and we'd kind of got used to the idea, I had just exhausted the dozen or so crosswords in Mum's magazine, so that's good! Chances are it'll break again in a bit [It did.] Either way this will be my last bit of telly for a week and a half, which I'm actually quite pleased about. Although there is phone signal in Kabubbu I won't be using it. In fact there's a couple of things that are already pleasing me about this trip: