Weekends and that...
Jun. 16th, 2003 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaWell, Friday night was pencilled in for staring blankly at the wall. However, it was much enlivened by the unexpected arrival of a ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davefish and a keris. Got to catch up with them for a while - especially keris, it's nice to see her back on the right landmass again - to a background of clanking and cursing as Andy crawled round the floor trying to sort all his tools back into the right boxes.
Saturday morning, I did normal things. I got up, and pottered about doing bits of shopping and that. Like you do on a Saturday morning if you're not me.
Then I went off for Kirtlington Morris' Lamb Ale. Which is kind of half way between a folk festival and a private party. I've never been before (my rapper team's never been invited before), so didn't have much idea what to expect.
And...well. Recounting the weekend to Frances drew enquiries about whether I had, at any stage, seen Christopher Lee in a dress[*]. I hadn't, but Frances tells me this is because I was one of the weirdos rather than one of the outsiders.
Kirtlington appears to be a village made from the airfix Build-Your-Own-Cotswold-Village kit. It has village hall, village church, cricket pitch, cedar trees, village pub, all plonked in unlikely proximity to each other. And a morris team. Who even wear white, and look like every picture you've ever seen of a morris team, ever. During the Lamb Ale, there are even small girls in ribbons and white dresses who do some strange dance round the elected "Lady of the Lamb". Apparently said Lady used to lead a live lamb; these days she has the fluffy acrylic kind in her arms.
And it's all a little bit odd. And despite some noticeably pagan overtones, it's somehow got a church service tacked onto it, and the local vicar seems quite happy to have dancers (and indeed dancing) in his church. One of the hymns during the service was Bread and Fishes, which kind of surprised me, as it also departs quite a lot from your standard C of E canon. (In that it tells of Mary, Joseph and Jesus wandering through Europe preaching). It was one of my favourite songs when I was little; I probably haven't thought of it in years.
Mind you, my Sunday had already got off to a good start - I had the pleasantly serendipitous breakfast of peaches, Sauvignion Blanc and fried potatoes. Try it some time, it's a fine combination (though possibly not all on the same plate). It improved dramatically later, when one of Kirtlington Morris showed me where to find the free beer... my virtuous tankard of tapwater found itself inexplicably upside down shortly after. Then someone reminded me I was driving home in the evening. Grr.
The afternoon ends with all the dance teams dancing for each other - on a nasty asphalty open space. Which is wholly unsuited to rapper. So we decided to piss about instead, and did a traditional fishermen's dance (truly, the most boring dance known to modern man) in a paddling pool (to represent the North Sea, y'know). Which, in view of the excessive weather, was lovely.
And there was pig roast. Much, much pig. In buns. With apple sauce. Mmm.
[*] in case anyone is as ill-educated as me, this is a reference to The Wicker Man.
This week's designated hero is the unknown-to-me ex-boss-of-my-friend-Bernard, whose fishing trip provided large amounts of trout for our Saturday barbecue. Last week's DHW should know who they were.
davefish and a keris. Got to catch up with them for a while - especially keris, it's nice to see her back on the right landmass again - to a background of clanking and cursing as Andy crawled round the floor trying to sort all his tools back into the right boxes.Saturday morning, I did normal things. I got up, and pottered about doing bits of shopping and that. Like you do on a Saturday morning if you're not me.
Then I went off for Kirtlington Morris' Lamb Ale. Which is kind of half way between a folk festival and a private party. I've never been before (my rapper team's never been invited before), so didn't have much idea what to expect.
And...well. Recounting the weekend to Frances drew enquiries about whether I had, at any stage, seen Christopher Lee in a dress[*]. I hadn't, but Frances tells me this is because I was one of the weirdos rather than one of the outsiders.
Kirtlington appears to be a village made from the airfix Build-Your-Own-Cotswold-Village kit. It has village hall, village church, cricket pitch, cedar trees, village pub, all plonked in unlikely proximity to each other. And a morris team. Who even wear white, and look like every picture you've ever seen of a morris team, ever. During the Lamb Ale, there are even small girls in ribbons and white dresses who do some strange dance round the elected "Lady of the Lamb". Apparently said Lady used to lead a live lamb; these days she has the fluffy acrylic kind in her arms.
And it's all a little bit odd. And despite some noticeably pagan overtones, it's somehow got a church service tacked onto it, and the local vicar seems quite happy to have dancers (and indeed dancing) in his church. One of the hymns during the service was Bread and Fishes, which kind of surprised me, as it also departs quite a lot from your standard C of E canon. (In that it tells of Mary, Joseph and Jesus wandering through Europe preaching). It was one of my favourite songs when I was little; I probably haven't thought of it in years.
Mind you, my Sunday had already got off to a good start - I had the pleasantly serendipitous breakfast of peaches, Sauvignion Blanc and fried potatoes. Try it some time, it's a fine combination (though possibly not all on the same plate). It improved dramatically later, when one of Kirtlington Morris showed me where to find the free beer... my virtuous tankard of tapwater found itself inexplicably upside down shortly after. Then someone reminded me I was driving home in the evening. Grr.
The afternoon ends with all the dance teams dancing for each other - on a nasty asphalty open space. Which is wholly unsuited to rapper. So we decided to piss about instead, and did a traditional fishermen's dance (truly, the most boring dance known to modern man) in a paddling pool (to represent the North Sea, y'know). Which, in view of the excessive weather, was lovely.
And there was pig roast. Much, much pig. In buns. With apple sauce. Mmm.
[*] in case anyone is as ill-educated as me, this is a reference to The Wicker Man.
This week's designated hero is the unknown-to-me ex-boss-of-my-friend-Bernard, whose fishing trip provided large amounts of trout for our Saturday barbecue. Last week's DHW should know who they were.
