Cockermouth is a pictureqsue town in England’s stunning Lake District, and Bushy & Rach have set up house not far from there, in a small village called Brigham.

The nearby area’s replete with interesting hilly bits, so given my lack of any sort of physical activity in the previous week I felt a bit of a prick at the idea of not acquiescing to Bushy’s suggestion that we go for a walk up some scenery.  I didn’t catch the name of the one we picked (although it was close to something known as Skiddaw, I believe), but it was a clear & present reminder of how out of shape & touch I am with the whole “outdoors” thing these days.  Luckily Bushy had a spare polar fleece, so hastily donning it we set off up the hill, and as time wore on the sound of my wheezing & puffing got more Stephenson-esque (and the polar fleece came back off again).

Nearing the top we stopped at the snowline (totally awesome panoramic shot here) -- I’m hoping the reason for that was because we were all getting cold, and not just because of my slipping about in my gripless, impractical shoes.  There was, however, time for Bushy to build a snowman(ish) and for us to perform a quick rendition of our new favourite song for the weekend -- Trololo, by Mr Eduard Khil (Эдуард Хиль), which we luckily captured on video.  How marvellous.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVvECjVS-Bk

The evening’s entertainment was to head into Cockermouth proper -- aside from being a lovely little town, it also has an excellent beer pedigree, boasting not only the widely renowned Jennings Brewery, but also pub microbrewery The Bitter End.

I’m just going to come out and say it -- they make AWESOME beer.  We each tried a pint of one of their available varieties before heading off for dinner (short story- dinner was meant to be at a nearby pub at 8:50, but when we arrived at 8:47 they said the kitchen was closed.  They know what THEY are. So instead we had the worst Indian takeaway meal in the world), and found each brew to be flavoursome & refreshing.

As well as sipping an extremely tasty Golden Ale I got to chatting with some locals, who told me a bit about the rebuilding that’s going on following the big floods Cockermouth had in November last year.  Most of the town’s bridges were taken out, along with loads of houses & businesses.  On our way up the hill to our final pub of the night we saw evidence of just what kind of upwrenching disruption a flood can do.

We almost had damage of our own to cope with following Bushy & Belinda’s spectacular-yet-ludicrous piggyback-turned-faceplant effort.  How the hell nobody ended up spitting out tooth bits after that episode is anyone’s guess.

On Sunday we were rejoined by Lizzie & Colin and ventured in to the wee town of Keswick.  Clearly a favourite with the tourists (judging by the preponderance of teashops & pubs), it looks like it’s been built based on a particularly pleasant and English postcard photo.  So what in the hell Adelaide’s pioneers, planners & forefathers were thinking when they named the corresponding suburb (chiefly noted for its railway terminal) I can only wonder at.

Our first port of call was the Cumberland Pencil Museum.  I don’t want to say too much about that place, other than if you give me opportunity to go to a pencil museum I’m damn well going to take it, aren’t I?  They certainly had a lot of information about how pencils are made.  And they provide helmets.

I bought a souvenir pen.

Lastly we wandered around Keswick town and -- as all picturesque village wanderings demand -- had a spot of afternoon tea.  I managed to fend off the subliminal advances of the excellently-stocked whisky shop (which had some marvellous decanters in the front window), however we did manage to find a beer shop which stocked bottles of Bitter End ale -- and though it was a little awkward schlepping a carton with 12 bottles in it back through town to the car park it was worthwhile to be able to share these excellent brews with m’chums.

Mitch & Bill from our morris dancing team have been heading down to Padstow for years now -- like 30 or so years -- and effecting roughly the same routine: they, along with their chums Roy, Mac, and over time other local folkies, set up in the front bar of The Cornish Arms in St Merryn nightly for most of the week leading up to May Day and get cranking on a session of folk tunes & songs.  Some of it’s traditional Cornish music & song picked up over time from the locals, and then they also do all manner of other music, including the odd Elvis tune.  They invited me to join them & experience this cultural gem, and with almost no thanks to First Great Western trains & in spite of their curious bike-carriage booking policy (whereby you book space in the carriage for your bike, and then when you get off the train and open the carriage door to get your bike out learn that about 80 people along the way have jammed their bikes in & around yours, and narrowly avoid getting slammed shut in the bike carriage whilst trying to wrestle yours from the bottom of the pile) I managed to make it down to the westernmost end of the rainy island.

Cheating slightly: this isn't from The Cornish Arms. It's from another pub a little way around from there. But it DOES show Roy on the left and Mac on the right.

The main event, however, is the ‘Oss parade.

This annual event has been traced back to the 1800s according to written accounts, however there is proof that as far back as the 1600s the Padstonians have held great May Day celebrations.  The locals of the fishing village of Padstow decorate the streets with flags & foliage; the main colours used are red and blue, as there are 2 ‘osses which process around the town.

As it was, we had timed our visit to be about the place for the red ‘Oss, known as The Old ‘Oss, or The Original ‘Oss.  The Blue Ribbon ‘Oss -- known also as The Peace ‘Oss -- processes around the village earlier in the day.  The procession consists of a large group of the ‘Oss’s supporters -- bedecked in white and their ‘Oss’s colour -- gathering outside the stabling place of the ‘Oss (in the case of the Old ‘Oss, it’s The Golden Lion Inn), and waiting for it to emerge.

“What’s an ‘Oss?”, is probably a pertinent question at this juncture: the name is a regional contraction of Hobby Horse, although the ‘Oss itself doesn’t particularly resemble the child’s toy of the same name.  This ‘Oss is a large black lacquered disc with a black fabric “skirt” around the circumference.  On one side is a protruding horse head, opposite, a tail.  In the middle the wearer’s head pokes through, wearing some sort of conical hat & mask arrangement.

Once the ‘Oss emerges from the stable it dances around -- cavorting and pitching erratically back & forth in a space made by the crowd -- following the agitations of a person designated as the “teaser”.  As the ‘Oss dances the song is played, and periodically as directed by no hand that I could discern the villagers strike up the accompanying song.  In addition to singing, often you’d hear the cry of “Oss! Oss!”.  It wasn’t readily apparent to me whether this was to get the attention of the ‘Oss and beckon it towards you, or just a general bark of enthusiasm.

And through the magic of YouTube I managed to track down a video of the ‘Oss emerging from the stable, to give you some idea of what’s going on.  The tune of the song’s quite clear:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_i2rp9k22E

Once the ‘Oss is out, the band of musicians lead their way through the streets with teaser & ‘Oss following, and then the rest of the paraders follow up.  They make their way around some sort of predetermined parade route, which must take in a series of relevant or historical sites -- buggered if I know what was going on.

One of the exhilarating features of the thing is that everybody seems to get involved: Mitch pointed out the “accordion army”, comprising -- it seemed -- nearly every bloke in the whole town, all playing the ‘Oss song.  To see this gives some sense of how important the event is to the people -- many of them go to the trouble of buying an accordion (not a cheap instrument, at all) and learning this tune (and in many cases, this tune only!) in order to be a part of the festivities.

People of all ages are involved, and the vibe in the town is a very happy one.  Mitch explained: “To a lot of these people, this is bigger than Christmas”.  The weather’s certainly better, for starters.

Tradition & legend dictate that if a young lady gets caught ‘neath the ‘Oss’s “skirt” then this will bring beneficial fertility side effects, and as with so many allegedly fertility-based customs, she will soon fall pregnant.  You may call me a cynic, but one can’t help but wonder if this rumour isn’t due to a statistical increase in pregnancies culminating in early-February births: certainly it correlates with the arrival of the ‘Oss, as well as coinciding with a large festive celebration where people are probably happy, drunk & keen to… errm… celebrate.

Without talking to many of the people (they seemed fairly wrapped up in their celebrations, to be honest) I didn’t really get to find out much about why people follow one ‘Oss or the other.  There didn’t appear to be any sort of competitive element to it, or any signs of rivalry (other than that everyone appeared to have picked one to support).

The tune’s quite catchy, if a shade repetetive, and has many verses -- all of which end with “In the merry morning of May”, and is therefore more than likely the only lyric you’ll discern from the video, and indeed the only one that half the people are joining in with.  The full lyrics are found at the Wikipedia entry, but the first 2 verses, bridge stanza, and final verse are:

Unite and unite and let us all unite,
For summer is acome unto day,
And whither we are going we will all unite,
In the merry morning of May.

Arise up Mr. ….. I know you well afine,
For summer is acome unto day,
You have a shilling in your purse and I wish it were in mine,
In the merry morning of May.

O! where is St. George,
O!, where is he O,
He is out in his long boat on the salt sea O.
Up flies the kite and down tails the lark O.
Aunt Ursula Birdhood she had an old ewe
And she died in her own Park O.

Now fare you well and bid you all good cheer,
For summer is acome unto day,
We call no more unto your house before another year,
In the merry morning of May.

And again, through the magic of YouTube I found a live recording of folk band Steeleye Span singing their song, “Padstow”, which bizarrely enough is centred around the same lyrics and tune.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytfDpzn6Qys

So, that’s how that all worked.  Part of the fun was that everyone was involved, and like so many of these regional traditions it gave off a sense of vibrancy, counterbalancing the ever-present assertion that folk traditions are dying out.  Happily, there doesn’t appear to be any lulling in the energy of the ‘Oss Festival.

Other than that, we spend the days looking around that end of Cornwall -- Mitch, Bill & I went & had a stickybeak at The Flambard’s Experience --  an amusement park which bravely advertises that it’s fun “come rain or shine”, however the queues of people not there spoke out for the favour of people not wanting to ride water rides in drizzly May.  It featured an excellent museum of London during the Blitz, as well as a recreated Victorian village, and a large section on Aviation (including a section of Concorde fuselage/cockpit that you could walk through!).

Another day we drove down to river inlet town Boscastle, and the muso’s had another session at The Cobweb: a spectacularly dingy pub with an eclectic bunch of stuff shoved in & stuck to every surface.

I mentioned pushbikes earlier -- one of the other things we did was saddle up on the bikes we’d all hauled down there and go for a lovely ride from Padstow along to Wadebridge.  It was both brilliant fun, and completely an unjustified amount of riding to necessitate hauling a bike all the way down there from London, and back.

That’s enough of the slide night for now: as usual, I’ve got a Flickr gallery of all of my photos from the Padstow trip.  It really is magnificent country, and somewhere which I’m extremely keen to get back to at some point soon!

One final thing worth mentioning though -- the beer.  Mitch & Bill tell me that for a long time Cornish beers weren’t exactly excellent, but happily in recent times this has been adequately corrected, and we spent a goodly chunk of our evenings sampling the local brews from St Austell, Sharp’s and Skinner’s breweries.  As well as the handpumped cask ales we also got our hands on the Rick Stein inspired bottle beers from Sharp’s -- Chalky’s Bark and Chalky’s Bite.

Of the varieties we tasted, I found the Bark & the Bite interesting as an exercise, but ultimately not an enjoyable thing to settle in to a session of.  That honour went to St Austell’s Proper Job -- a fresh, hoppy & citrussy IPA.  I’ll readily confess that one of the selling points was that every time I asked Mitch to buy one he’d say “Praaaper Jaaaab” in an hilarious mock-Cornish accent.  A very close second place was the excellent bitter St Austell’s Tribute.  We’ve longtime been a fan of Tribute, and to get it this close to its home was an absolute pleasure.

I can’t remember much about Tinners.  Perhaps I ought to schedule another trip down there to take some more notes?

Organising relaxing holidays has never been my special subject, and this was no exception: there were only 19 days or so available to catch up with everyone, and so the mission was timetabled rigorously.  At this point it should be obvious that I intend to describe more or less what I did, and you may be thinking “Oh bloody hell, do I have to read about every single person that idiot went for a beer with for 19 days?!”.  And of course the answer is “Yes”.

• Upon arriving in Melbourne my chauffeur was the ebullient Mr Brian Polli, who was kind enough to let me crash in the spare room overnight.  As befitting any welcoming home from the upper regions of the globe, Brian & Olivia spoilt me with a steak dinner at Footscray’s Station Hotel -- a mighty fine steak, and happily they had Little Creatures on tap also: a sight for sore eyes!
• On my first evening in Adelaide a band of distinguished gentlemen gathered to celebrate Mat’s buck’s night -- starting off at Chessar Cellars, we made our way through a few pre-dinner refreshments before moving on to one of Adelaide’s best Indian restaurants -- the Jasmin -- for an excellent Indian banquet.  They’d put us in the upstairs section, which I’m not sure whether was for reasons of privacy, noise control, or just because they thought a buck’s night implied the venue needs hosing out afterwards, however we conducted ourselves with dignity and civility becoming of our station.  Finally we moved on to Hindley Street bar The Apothecary to see what their whisky selection was like.  Not bad, for the colonies -- I made do with demolishing their bottle of Macallan 18, before discovering a new dark rum which I’ve fallen deeply for -- Ron Zacapa 23.
• The Saturday involved a quick trip up to Bridgewater to join the Adelaide Morris Men for their Christmas party, but this was to be a fleeting visit as I was required at the wedding rehearsal in town.  After this, Bruce required a lift back up to Bridgewater, so then we returned to the AMM party, then buzzed around to Belair to collect Patrick, went back into town again to share some homebrews with Alex & Mat, then out for the time-honoured custom of a yiros, and then dropped Pat back in the hills again.  So we managed to see a lot of the Freeway that day, anyway.
• To follow any buck’s night of course there’s a wedding, and Mat & Gemma picked a gorgeous day to be wed adjacent to the Adelaide University footbridge.  It was a very nice ceremony, with the Bride & Groom looking well turned out & happy, and it was a huge buzz to see so many old friends together for the first time in ages.  We moved on to the Mortlock Library for the reception, at a grand banqueting table where we enjoyed excellent company, very nice food, and some absolute class-A plonk.  Well done there Matty.
• Dad & I went out for coffee and were joined by his former teaching colleague & my long-time drinking buddy, Whisky Bill.  Couldn’t get a word in edgewise with that pair about, but it was interesting listening to their various analyses of South Australian politics in the 1970’s.
• Marty took up the co-pilot’s seat in the Getz to pop in to The Tivoli for lunch with the ever-effervescent Daniella.  We only really get to catch up for lunch sporadically (every 3 years or so!), but it’s always good to spend an hour or so shooting the breeze with her.
• Nicko, Luko, Marty, Roie, Rohan & I met up for a couple of beers and what turned out to include some excellent pizzas at the Griffin’s Head on Hindmarsh Square.  It was a little unsettling that the Academy Cinemas had closed down, but then progress is like that.  At least they’ve turned the Griff back into a pub again (as opposed to the neon-fronted atrocity it was for so long).  Coincidentally we ran into my Uncle Alan, who I’d only been trying to track down a phone number for that very afternoon.  Spooky.  But then, Adelaide’s like that.
• Not much happened in Adelaide on Tuesday, other than me sodding off to Canberra for a couple of days -- but that’s another story.
• The Adelaide Morris Men, having not already had enough of me, invited me to join them at practice on Thursday night, which was fun and educational -- a stark reminder of how much my style has changed since dancing with Westminster.  Fairly early into the piece I felt my left calf muscle pop (not badly, thankfully), so was rotated out of dancing duties unfortunately.  Happily though I managed to convince them to have a post-practice beer at The Wheatsheaf: our former regular haunt, and a place where Many Excellent Beers are sold.  Another Adelaidean coincidence was to run into Kylie, thus saving me another phonecall.
• Friday afternoon meant lunch with Trudy at Rundle Street vegetarian mecca, “Vego & Lovin’ It!”.  Haven’t been in there in years, but the place still maintains its charm, style and quality.  And more importantly, I got to spend a couple of hours chatting to Trudy.
• Couldn’t spend all day there gumflapping however, as the next job to do was go out to cousin Judith’s place to retrieve a load of boxes of stuff which I had in storage: when we packed it all I was uncertain how long I’d be in the UK, but now -- 5 and 1/2 years on -- it seemed silly to keep a huge collection of mismatched bedclothes, towels, kitchenware, and who knows what else.
• There was a few minutes to pop in at Alex & Leanne’s place to test out his latest homebrew, as well as getting to chat with Mat, Gemma, Bruce & Ange as well.  Alex’s beer is nothing short of phenomenal, and I’d like to record here publicly my willingness to assist with any further tasting required, should practicality dictate.
• Finally (it was a big Friday!) I was invited for dinner at Chateau Eldo, and once again had the pleasure of spending an evening chatting with Brett & Louise, and learning of what they & their family have been up to of recent years.  Needless to say, there was also an epic amount of Star Wars quoting going on, as befits such an occasion (Brett & I were once bet a large sum of money that we couldn’t go a full 30 minutes without quoting a line from the Star Wars trilogy -- we made it, but only just… in fact we mainly sat silent for naught but a whimper for most of it).
• Saturday was something of an epic: Spiro & I decided that a fairly economical use of time in the interests of catching up with people was to install at a pub for the afternoon and whoever had time could swing by & say hello, so at 12:30 in the afternoon we took up position out the from of North Adelaide’s bru-temple, The Wellington, and waited to see what would happen.  We had what seemed like a smallish horde through, and left the premises a full 12 hours later.  I managed to rack up a bar tab that was over a foot long, and we played on with whisky & YouTube videos of Daffy Duck cartoons (and, of course, The Three Little Bops) at Nick & Kelly’s place.  It was AWESOME.  I can’t even begin to list who turned up -- partially for space, but also in part because some of the latter sections of the evening are a little hazy -- but it was an absolute riot to see so many people, and my favourite phrase of the afternoon was “OH MY GOD?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN YEARS!”.
  

  

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33g5jn7p18

• Sunday, by necessity, was a far more subdued effort -- however there was still a bit of partying to be done, so off to Spiro’s Dad’s 80th birthday bash I went.  It was the tail end of things, but it was good to see John & have a beer with him.
• Wasting no time on this brief-but-spectacular holiday I raced back down into King William Street to see Jamie’s band “Gracewood” play in the Battle Of The Bands at the Bull & Bear.  I knew Jamie was a neat little bass player, but I was genuinely blown away by the professionalism of this band.  Happily, they won the contest -- and too bloody right too, with the quality of those tunes.  Plus, as an extra bonus, I randomly ran into Fluffy Sarah: who I hadn’t seen since Tim & Chelsea’s wedding!
• The night was still young, so I returned to Spiro’s place for another beer, an Iced Coffee, and a quick easy jaunt into the Adelaide foothills.  We dispensed with the tradition of hoiking it up to Mt Lofty or Woodhouse, but instead climbed up to a water tank with views over Adelaide & took some photos, waxed philosophical, and passed over to the relief shift who arrived with a laptop loaded with Cheech & Chong movies.  The future’s in safe hands.
• Monday morning despite temporal ineptitude I managed to make it into Najjar’s for a coffee with El Gringo Browny.  Seemed silly to have breakfast beers, after all.
• Later that day Marty & I saddled up into the mighty Blue Falcon and cruised back up the Freeway (again) to Ryan’s hillside lair, and met with Kieran, Mike, Rob and Whisky Bill: part high school reunion, and part shithouse-philosophy session, it was a genuinely top afternoon and we genuinely made a hole in a couple of cartons of beer.
• As man can’t live on bread alone (even if it is one of the more liquid interpretations of the same ingredients) we decamped up to the Aldgate Pump Hotel, and semi-randomly ran into Nikko & Tine in the beer garden.  We also met Mark & Tanya, who we had arranged to see and were thus less surprised by (although I was a little surprised, given how many failed meetup plans Tanya & I had made already).  The pub grub in Aldgate was marvellous, and I was at last given the opportunity to order something called “a small Parmageddon”.
• On Tuesday my health-conscious diet continued, with a schnitzel with the old Aspect lads (Big Stevie V, Captain Duregon, and Wild Crazy Mad Dog Nicolitsi).  At this point I was fearful of cutting myself shaving in the next day or so, lest melted mozzarella start seeping forth from within my veins.  As Sam & I were the Gentlemen of Leisure for the day we thought we’d stick around at the Earl of Leicester a little longer and sample some more of their choice offerings.  And a fine thing it was/am/were.
• Next stop was out in the mystic North Eastern Quadrant to visit DB: a personage I’ve not seen for quite some time.  We did the Grand Tour of his excellent new home, and of course held a free-ranging discussion on many topics, such as is our wont.  Dave offered me a Coopers Pale Ale, and it seemed foolish to refuse.  The lovely Samantha arrived home after a shortish while, and I finally got to meet her too.
• There’s no point in doing things in a logical sensible way, and to that end the next step was obviously to head to Prospect to collect Martacus, then down to Glenelg for a mexican feast at Gringo’s with Kerri & Kelly.  After dinner we retired to a nearby hostelry for a few refreshments, and to watch the local youths embark on their tribal courting rituals.
• Wednesday’s mission was to head to the Southern side of town to visit my partner-in-crime from our old I.T.&e. days, Commander Qüntley Fortescue.  So that was cool -- a trip to the Clarendon Bakery for some health-conscious grub, as well as a couple of beers, and a load of prattling & swearing.  Truth be known, I only set that all up as an excuse to see his wife Sarah, cos she’s lovely.  Their new kid’s cute, too.
• But it wasn’t long before the time came to head back into town to meet up with Lee & Kerry for a pre-Christmas aperitif: there just really isn’t enough time on these holidays, I swear.  As always, it was excellent to see them and touch base -- an opportunity we’ve not had since they came to England a couple of years ago.  Nicko & Kelly joined us as well, and as was customary by this point I was late to arrive as while I was parking the car I encountered my old high school mate Mr Benji Callen.  Or maybe it’s Dr.
• The high school coincidences weren’t to end there however: The Lovely Virginia invited me out for a splendid Thai meal on Unley Road, and as a followup maneuvre we walked up to The Earl of Leicester (again) for post-dinner beverages -- somehow convincing her flatmate to join us.  Upon arrival at the famed boozer, who should we run into but Mr Giulio Harding -- from the same vintage as the good Mr/Dr Callen -- freshly arrived back from Tokyo!  He was accompanied by some mates, including Mr Daniel Hardy, who I’d seen at the pub session at the Wellington earlier but not really had a chance to chat to.  Similarly here I don’t think we talked extensively, but then I’m still feeling sheepish about having not returned his CD of Polish Sea Shanties for about 10 months.
• The main event of Christmas Eve (day) was -- after a slightly delayed start -- jumping in the car with Winnie, Lou & Suzi and heading down to winelovers’ paradise McLaren Vale for lunch at d’Arenberg Winery.  When I sing the Australian national anthem and get to the phrase “beauty rich and rare”, it’s things like this that spring to mind -- the food was amazing, the wine was breathtaking (we knocked over about 3 bottles of The Peppermint Paddock Sparkling Chambourcin), and the company was just the sort of group that I enjoy spending an elongated summer lunch with.  After lunch we rolled out and mosied up the road to another oenological gem, Samuel’s Gorge Winery.  It’s moments like that which really make a guy lament the wine carriage limit back to the UK.  And that afternoons can’t last forever.
• The final instalment of Christmas Eve was to head out North East again to the excellent Anglo-styled environs of The Fox & Firkin, to join the old Anstey lads (TimO, Westy, B2, etc.) for a bit of Christmas cheer, and then relocated up to Gav’s place to press on into the small hours.  We were joined by Martacus, and Mr Ling, and we picked up Mr Brooker along the way too -- a thoroughly excellent way to carry on.
• (At 2500 words, we’ll give Christmas Day a miss here & press straight through)
• A tradition on Boxing Day is Ange’s Birthday Picnic in the Botanic Gardens, and seeing as Ange & Bruce were over from France it seemed like the perfect opportunity to continue the tradition -- and that’s where I went!  Quite a cheery little gathering: I wasn’t organised enough to bring picnic food, but with some deft phone work I managed to convince Martacus to pick up a couple of The Falafel House’s finest on his way in.  Another fine collection of people I’ve not seen in a while, and the rigours of time made the whole thing far too rushed an affair.  Kylie J happened through, so it was good to see her, and a bit of a highlight was getting to spend a bit of time chatting in person with Katie (who was breezing through Radelaide and our paths chanced to cross).  And across from New Zealand was Doc Brown, who is always one of my favourite people to exchange notes with -- even better when there isn’t a keyboard involved.  Young Toby made an appearance too, so there was a nice convergence of people returning from their various meanderings around the glode.  ”Travelling Dillberries”, my mum might say.  And for a 3rd lucky spotting, Mr Hardy was in the vicinity.
• Another Boxing Day tradition is the BBQ at Chateau Davis, so back to the southern hills it was -- but as always the experience was worth the trip.  Even though we were pretty late to the party there was still opportunity to see Karen & Spewin’, Aunty Jean & Bill, Bret, Dylan, Andy, Captain Cam, Bec, Lucy, and the ever-gorgeous Miss Julie.  Oh, and we had to put up with Scott, too.  Still, credit where credit’s due -- he managed to pull off *the* most incredible stack as he descended the stairs to the pool.  No idea how he fell over on such a flat surface, but that’s part of The Joy of Scott.
• With excellence of forethought, the next step was to go back into town to The Grace Emily to see Fi & Ben, who were just over from Canberra.  Any night in the ‘Grace is a good one, and none moreso than this!  Happily it turned out Winnie was also there occupying his usual corner, and Mr Hardy and Mr Corkindale both turned up as well!
• On the 27th, with sunset metaphorically dawning on my trip, the Fewster Clan announced that they were gathering up at Belair National Park, and as my only window of opportunity to see them I raced up there with abandon to spend a little time with Andrew & Sarah.  Upon arriving it was also a pleasant surprise to see Mike & Cath, Matt & Taara, Kirrily -- and all of their assorted progeny -- and Helen & Johan (who I’m still not sure whether we encountered randomly or not).  The phrase which summed up the afternoon was by now the well-worn “brief, but spectacular”, and it left me truly grinning like a Cheshire Cat to see everyone looking so healthy, happy & content.
• No time to lose however as the next step was dinner in Gawler with Joann & Dave.  If there was ever a point at which my lack of spatial awareness was illustrated, it was here.  Not since the great Bridgewater-to-Salisbury dash have I made such a ballsup of timing, but it wasn’t the only ballsup of the evening, as Joann had forgotten that she’d invited me for dinner, and so everyone had eaten already… meaning I was rewarded with KFC.  That splendid fellow Jomartz & I nipped into the heaving centre of Gawler for supplies, and managed to procure 6 Pale Ales to take back, so it wasn’t a complete epicurean failure.  Just as well it’s a good job I enjoy hanging out with those guys…
• The 28th was my little nephew Harper’s 4th birthday, so hanging out with him & his mates was a bit of a trip.
• The next part of the plan was originally to pop in & visit Catherine Campbell, but in an organisational stuffup she wasn’t home, so I took the chance to pop over to Nick & Kel’s place to see Bob and Billie and their lovely kids. Convert to WIN!
• Afterwards Mum & Dad & I went out for a spot of dinner at the same place Virginia & I had gone a couple of days before.  Dad was clearly in the mood for steak, but with a Mighty Steak lined up for the night I got to Melbourne I was having a bit of a red meat hiatus.
• Another pub I’d been meaning to check out at some stage was The Coopers Alehouse -- which anyone of my vintage or older would habitually refer to as The Earl of Aberdeen, because that’s what it was called, dammit! -- because I’d heard that they had aged Coopers Sparkling Ale on English-style handpumps.  Fortuitously, Fi & Ben were in session at that very place, so my post-dinner sharpener was sorted!  I was quite disappointed with the Sparkling Ale: it was more than likely the “flatness” of it, because after all -- it’s meant to be SPARKLING…  In either case, we had plenty of chatting to do to take our minds off weirdo beer, and we were transfixed by the sight of the MASSIVE cockroaches that were running around on the road.  You could ride one of them home, seriously.
• The 29th, being my last full day in Adelaide, was fairly heavily taken up with sifting through boxes of my stuff that were in storage and earmarking most of it for the tip or the Salvo’s.  There was time, however, to pop out that morning to North Adelaide for a coffee or 2 with someone I’ve not seen in a *very* long time -- Ms B Warnes!  We kinda let catching up run away with us, because a “quickish” coffee turned into 2 hours in no time.  Just as well we didn’t go for beers, although at that time of day I guess you’re unlikely to…
• And just because it was a nice day and not quite enough people had paid full attention to me yet, that night we fired up the barbie and burnt some meat in the back yard in the traditional Australian way.  And just for something different, we threw a couple of beers back with it!  Now, one of the drawbacks of writing this out over a month after the event is that remembering exactly who was there is a bit of an uphill push: I know for sure that we had Martacus, Nicklearse, Kelly, Roie, Mr Ling, Mike, Doc Brown, Rohan, Mike, Cath, and a late appearance by Ryan…  and my earlier assertion of a red meat hiatus was immediately proven incorrect, with happily massive amounts of bangers, kangaroo, and lamb shaslicks, and Nicklearse invoked the Aussie Cliche by putting -- for the first time at one of my events, I’m sure -- some prawns on the barbie!
• About the only things I’ve glossed over, and again it’s largely because my memory of when it took place is sketchy at best, is the various evenings when I was staying at Nicko & Kel’s place and would stumble in around midnight, then we’d crack open a nice red or something and fire up the Wii for various contests of gaming prowess -- the dancemat thingo was tantrum inducing, the zombie shooty game was a bit boring for me because I didn’t have a gun-shaped holder for my control so it felt like zapping hordes of the undead with a remote control, but by far the best thing was the film trivia game -- Scene It! -- where Nicko & I faced off like Chuck Norris against Bruce Lee.
• And then the nights I was staying out at Martacus’s place would typically finish in that time-honoured way: sitting around in the backyard in deckchairs, talking philosophy and sinking back bottles of Coopers Dark Ale.

Now, aren’t you glad I decided to do the short version?

There’s a fullsize Flickr photoset of my visit as well as a set of photos of Mat & Gemma’s wedding, on the offchance you’re short of things to do.

Upon leaving Adelaide, I headed to Melbourne for a few days.  But that’s another story.

I’m presently parked in the BA lounge at JFK, having been dragged from my 9:00 flight to the 18:00 one.  They offered me $800 by way of compensation for my trouble, and by smiling at the lady I managed to wangle a day pass to the lounge and a meal voucher too… so that rather solves the problem of what to do for the day.  Can’t say that it was a smooth ride in – the chauffeur car that my “hotel” organised was falling asleep at the wheel coming in along the Expressway towards the airport.  I assume he was my driver.  His English wasn’t particularly good, although far better than my Spanish.

The last few days have been nothing short of excellent, and I suspect they’ll make a couple of long-promised & hinted-at blog posts that don’t actually materialise for a month or 2.

By way of a teaser though, it’s important & relevant to say that New York’s Halloween parade is one of the most bewildering and yet fun things I’ve seen in recent times. Lets hope the videos turned out OK, eh?

So, holiday now more or less over – back in London by around 07:00 Monday, and then life resumes more or less as normal!

Right now, however, I’m off in search of coffee & a croissant.

Man I’m sleepy.

I arrived here yesterday, and it’s been great to have a chance to catch up with these two – I’ve not seen them in ages!  We managed to sneak a beer in pretty much instantly, you’ll all be relieved to know. Fresh into my constant quest for nice beers, we’ve had Fat Tire, Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale, Alaskan Amber, and a bottle of something called Arrogant Bastard Ale.

The TV bloke eventually left, but not before Tanya had started trying to make canoli (here’s a picture of Aaron pretending to help):

They’ve just moved into quite a nice new house just out of Seattle:

And Aaron’s pretty chuffed about having a shiny yellow Porsche to drive around in, too:

That ought to do for now.

Does anyone wanna write me a special guest top ten for Tuesday? Something tells me I’m gonna be a bit short of time & opportunity…

I love holidays.

September? Yeah, that seems like an appropriate time to write about what we did in January!  It was bloody good fun though, as snowboarding always is.  This time, off in the frozen north of Sweden, in the town of Åre.  Whilst only about half way up the landmass of Sweden, it’s definitely the furthest north I’ve ever been, and its latitude helps to explain its snow-cover.  Unfortunately it’s got a little circle over the “A”, which I can’t figure out how to type without copy & pasting, so if it doesn’t appear in the rest of this post, that’ll be why.  Sheer laziness.

Back in the dawn of 2009 we were lucky enough to have a week of mucking about in the snow “we” being Richie, Hilary (plus their new baby), Helen & Johan, Marty, Mark, and the Swedish Crew – Anna, Goran, Per, Rita, Jojo, Bjorn.  There were 13 though… oh yeah, and me.

Getting there seemed the biggest challenge for some of our party… well, one of our party.  Young Mark, having elected to interpret my instruction of “meet at Heathrow at 6am” as “leave your house at 6am to head to Heathrow”, made it in time for checkin, and managed to collect his ticket from the nice company rep we’d left it with near the desk, however the airline staff wouldn’t check him in for the flight because the laminate on his passport was peeling.  Opting for a quick bit of pritt-stick D.I.Y. on it and returning to checkin with it looking good-as-new, the same woman recognised him and threatened to call the cops on him for passport tampering.  Leaving the airport in short order seemed sensible, so we wondered if we’d be seeing Mark (our flight to Ostersund airport was a charter flight, and as one of the world’s less-popular destinations you’re not overwhelmed with options to get you there).  He proved his resourcefulness though by finding a cheap flight to Trondheim in Norway and then getting a train across into Are: final analysis was that he only missed a day of snowboarding!  Clever bugger…

Last 3 days of boarding weren’t so good – penultimate day temperature crept above zero and snow got slushy.  Apparently. I’d spat dummy from previous day, where Marty & I spent 2 hours wading out of thigh-deep powder.  Final day back to -2, so slush froze into ice, and all you could hear was the sound of edge grinding against hard ice.  The other 4 days were magnificent though!

We stayed in 2 apartments around the town square, and only a short walk from the base of the ski area (piste map here).  Typical programme for the day would be have breakfast together, head out to the snowfields & split up to check out whichever area you fancy, then head back to the apartment about 4pm for relaxing.  We designated teams of 2 or 3 to do the catering each night, meaning a nice cheap & varied menu.  Finally, a few card games before passing out in bed and repeating it all the following day.

On the topic of food – Marty, Mark & I were the designated chefs one night, and the end result was one chef (me) with two (capable) assistants.  There seemed to be an air of trepidation about the apartments that night, but reassurance went around that my cooking hadn’t actually killed anyone to date.  We needed a little help with the shopping, as my conversational Swedish is a little deficient: we took Goran along, who did a standup job of interpreting my requirements into what you would find in a Swedish supermarket.  The only point at which we became stuck was when I was looking for corn (kernels, tinned), and he thought I said “quorn” (which seemed feasible, as we were making one vegetarian dish as well).

The three of us were to cooking as Margot Fonteyn was to arc welding

Snowboarding in Sweden’s slightly different to our experiences in the Alps – the hills are smaller, with the snow being largely a product of the latitude rather than the altitude.  Consequently there’s no need to haul people thousands of feet up the slope for the sliding back down to happen, so the lifts are mainly T-bar and some chairlifts, rather than the great big gondolas.  T-bars aren’t my favourite thing ever (although moreso than button lifts), so my itinerary would mainly be from the top of one chairlift to the base of the next one along, then from the top of that over to wherever’s next most useful – sort of longish tracking runs rather than several repeated downhill sections.  Marty – whose balance appears immeasurably better than mine – improved his boarding immensely, and pretty well owned that skifield after a couple of days.  And of course as usual Richie’s just a complete maniac.

The one exception to our general progress was the day Marty & I followed the Swedes across towards the Bjornenomradet area (38 on piste map), up that (lengthy) T-bar, then down the sadelvagen to the bottom of  39, whereupon we’d mount another T-bar to the top.  One of the unfortunate weather artefacts of our trip was strong winds on the upper slopes, and this became readily apparent one we’d left the line of tree cover on the second lift.  Between Marty and I we present a reasonable surface to any prevailing breeze – him from being quite tall, and I also present quite a surface.  We were blown from side to side of the T-bar run, shaking unsteadily all the while, then Marty let fly with his telltale exclamation of “Awww HELL-DIDDLY-DING-DONG-CRAP!” and executed what can only be described as a windmill dismount.  This disrupted my centre of balance too (which was largely me using him as a stabilising outrigger), and through a process I don’t fully recall I found myself being dragged backwards up the T-bar run by the scrotum.  Having sworn loudly several times and then dismounted similarly, we had a short but educational session on the difference between nice, packed, piste snow, and powder.  For 2 sweaty, exhausting hours.

Other than that – good bit of progress on the ol’ boarding…  managed to ride switch for a few runs; gave the Goliath (pictured here) a bit of a punishing.  Additionally if I’m going to reminisce comprehensively about the experience, it’s also worth mentioning that conveniently while I was away the whole “Morris Dancing will be extinct within 20 years” controversy kicked off, and a flurry of phonecalls directed themselves towards me, leaving me in the unique position of having to give interviews about morris dancing while knee-deep in snow halfway up a Swedish mountain.  Plus my photo appeared in The Sun.

Top company, good snow – a belated but heartfelt thanks to all involved!

This photo has little relevance - I just thought the word "puckelpisten" was hilarious.

The unnecessarily large photoset of 227 shots can be viewed by the keen on Flickr.

Incidentally, I know in the post’s title I promised “Taxi Slap”. I’ve no idea what it is, but we saw that on a sign at the airport as well. Naturally, capturing an image of it for historical accuracy. Please enjoy with me now.

We went to Paris in May.  “We” is the trio of Bruce, Ange & myself.  We didn’t all start in the same place – I started in London, and Bruce & Ange started in Agen, the part of the south of France where they live.  I got to Paris before they did, so I had a bit of time to do some wandering around.  Paris is a city which lends itself to being wandered around, and before I knew it I’d wandered about 6 miles.

Anyway the interesting bit was that we’d decided the first thing to do would be to go to the Paris Catacombs and check them out.  “Interesting”, that is, if your idea of a good time is standing around queueing in the rain for a couple of hours.  The rain, and the standing around, ceased eventually and we descended the stairs into the catacombs – I was hoping for a labyrinthine honeycomb of chambers, however it turns out that this is a former quarry which has been covered over, making it not so much “catacombs” as a big long subterranean tunnel.  It is, however, completely chock-full of bones though – thousands upon thousands of thigh and arm bones stacked up nice & regularly, and garnished with skulls.  The former owners of these were all plague victims buried at Les Innocents cemetery, who were then relocated to this former quarry after the cemetery started overflowing.

It’s Very Odd Indeed to be walking around amid the remains of so many people – it really gives you a sense of both your own mortality and statistical insignificance in a far more acute way than walking around in a massive crowd does.  The de-individualism of individuals: thousands, maybe millions of people, not only removed from personal recognition by sheer volume, but also from their reduction to humanity’s very infrastructure – the skeleton.  There was something beautiful about the way that the people tasked with stacking the bones had elected to arrange them in a decorative but not ostentatious way, such that you got the impression it was a respectful and compassionate means of interring these people.  And as usual, respect & compassion were 2 qualities somewhat lacking by our fellow tourists, who were eschewing the direction to not use flash photography, and snapping away at each other posing in front of the stacks of bones.

After wandering amid human remains, we did what anyone would do as an intuitive next move – went in search of lunch!  In this case, a very nice outdoor-seated environment for Heineken and tagines.  Sadly they weren’t able to come up with a pigeon tagine, as their menu had (emptily) promised.

For the rest of the afternoon we ambled about, looking at some of the variety of Parisian architecture & pretty stuff.  There’s no two ways about it – the place is frigging beautiful!  It’s got some weird aspects to it – such as the amount of gravel you seem to walk over – but it seems that every turn of the corner in the middle of Paris reveals some beautiful bit of architecture, or quaint scene.  You can really see why people fall in love with the place.

Speaking of beautiful arcitecture, we thought it a good idea to swing by Notre Dame seeing as Bruce & Ange hadn’t seen it before.  Managed not to fall asleep on a bench out the front this time, too.

The focal point & justification of the excursion was to head to Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet to experience a concert by the incomparable Bobby McFerrin.  I might have mentioned him a few times – it’s safe to say that I’m a bit of a fan.  This evening’s concert was no exception, with McFerrin starting out in his typical way by improvising a few tunes; at times involving the enthusiastic Parisian crowd.  The gig pretty much followed the same format that the South Bank one did, involving musical guests, audience participants, and both improv & rehearsed numbers by McFerrin.  One of the things he did was the piece which appears to have taken the web by storm recently, described as “The Power of the Pentatonic Scale”.

Powerful or not, it was sure fun to be a part of.

On Sunday after a lazy breakfast on the Boulevard du Beaumarchais we found our way over to the Pompidou Centre to get our fill of contemporary art.  I was particularly hoping to show them my favourite sculpture ever, a mirrored box by Man Ray, however I couldn’t remember where it was and I have a sneaking suspicion that bit was being renovated.  A whistlestop tour of the galleries was the order of the day, but we couldn’t resist the pull of the sunny weather outside and the opportunity to sit by a fountain & sip a cold beer or 2.

And of course what’s a trip to Paris without a quick buzz over to La Tour Eiffel?  As far as temporary structures go, it’s pretty impressive.  We started up at the Ecole Militaire, which I’d mistaken for the building on the other side, because I was thinking that photos from the steps would be good, but photos along the grass were just as nice.

With departure in sight I escorted the Alcorns back to the train station, before finding my own way back to Gare du Nord, and grabbing the Eurostar back.  Must go back to Paris soon.  Lovely spot.

Also, a good tip for young players is that if you’re going to buy your Eurostar tickets using Nectar points, it’s a good idea to double-check whether the Monday immediately following your weekend is a public holiday, because that means you can get an extra night on your free trip.  As it was, I didn’t, it was, so I didn’t.

(the rest of my photos are in an appropriately named Flickr gallery)

When we last left our intrepid heroes (in December) they were hurtling through the Swiss countryside aboard one of the many big, shiny, roomy, timely, tidy trains that abound in that country – trying to ignore our way out of a matching pair of hangovers.

Armed with the knowledge from the friendly cafe lady in Romanshorn, we decided to take the opportunity of adding another country to our list: the tiny tax-haven of Liechtenstein.  It’s one of those countries so small that only rich people have heard of it, although I’d learnt of it in 1995 at a Rover Moot in Sydney where 2 blokes from there had unexpectedly turned up.  To get there we got the train down from Appenzell to St Gallen (windy windy, not so good for headachey-wakey), then got on a big straight train to Buchs, then finally boarded a bus to Liechtenstein’s capital, Vaduz.  The bus was a little odd – once the bus started moving the lady who had sold us the bus tickets walked around the bus impatiently demanding to see everyone’s tickets.  She meant business, too.

For some reason I've photographed the bus.

Vaduz was a nice, small place, featuring a castle on top of the hill (which we elected not to climb, largely on the basis that you’re not allowed in it, and in small part due to laziness), a large museum (which I giggled at childishly because it was called the Kunstmuseum), and… A CHRISTMAS MARKET!  There’s also a calculater museum in Vaduz (stop drooling Dan), but as we’d failed to book in advance we didn’t get to see it.

We opted for a schnitzel and a tentative glass of white wine, and ended up – for about the first time in recorded history – leaving the wine on the table.  Eeeeeeeurgh.

Next stop was back up to the eastern side of Bodensee to Bregenz, in Austria.  The journey took a little while, so we arrived in the dark & from the train station bridge thing Bregenz was really pretty. We had a slight adventure finding the hotel owing to a disparity in nomenclature – or to put it another way, the name I’d written down wasn’t the name on the front of the building.  Whether this was my cockup or theirs remains shrouded in mystery, but I’d prefer to blame them.  People who travel around Europe inevitably wind up talking about architecture, so my contribution is: we had a slanty room.

Slanty room

It was getting on towards dinner time so we thought we’d take to the streets in search of cuisine.  Imagine our surprise when we rounded the corner in the shopping mall and discovered that the locals had set up some sort of Christmas Market!  Dinner was at a passable italian restaurant which allowed dogs inside, and between courses we were sporadically talked to by insistent local.

Departing from Bregenz was a slightlier trickier proposition than usual.  We were aiming for Lindau, just around the lake.  The train goes straight there, but non-usefully we missed it by seconds.  We then looked on a nearby map & saw a boat route to Lindau, which seemed reasonable, so we trudged through the snow to the ferry terminal.  Not finding any signs of life there, we went to the attached cafe & asked the somewhat belligerent man how to get the boat – it turns out boats only operate in summer, so we had to retrace our snowy steps to the train station & wait after all.  No escape from Bregenz.

Lindau, once we’d battled our way there, was a pretty little town situated on an island – quite touristy, but if you build something that pretty people are bound to want to turn up and take photos of it. We wandered about twee streets and starved, eventually found place for lunch. The menu was all in german, so we weren’t 100% sure what we were ordering.  By this point of the trip I was tired of Spaetzle (the cheesy-noodle type substance which appeared to accompany EVERYTHING), so ordered something else.  This turned out to be spinach spaetzle.  This restaurant had classical music being played somewhat vigorously into the room, and I remarked that the owner might know K’s landlord (owner of a classical music label), when a random german woman lifted herself out of her seat, walked over, and said hello – turned out she was scottish, and had been semi-eavesdropping on our English conversation to try to work out where we were from… so just as well we hadn’t said anything controversial.

A building in Lindau, which for all intents and purposes was the Town Hall. You're not likely to know any different, so let's say that's what it was.

After lunch we did the obgligatory post-prandial wander about, and stumbled across a Christmas Market.  More gluhwein.

Completing our circuit, we took a train back to Friedrichshafen, finishing the day with a snooze and a bite for dinner in the hotel’s eerily silent restaurant.  I’ve also noted down for some reason that I bought 6 pairs of red Explorer socks from a market stall cos they were cheap. I can’t expect you, dear reader, to hold the same fascination with red Explorer socks as I do, however it may prove interesting that these ones turned out to be knee high.

On our final day, as we had time to kill before our evening flights home, we thought a bit of a train-based explore might be a good idea.  We hopped on & wound up in Ravensburg: a nice enough little place, with an excellent cafe serving goulasch and (will wonders never cease)… A CHRISTMAS MARKET!

Pressing advantage now and determined to use up our last few hours doing anything other than sitting in a departure lounge, we got on another train (using the tried & proven “where can we get to from here?” method) – this time to a town called Aulendorf.  After the random luck of Appenzell, Ravensburg & Vaduz, we learned that not every town on our trip was to be an undiscovered gem.  Nice enough, but not much going on.  Didn’t even have a bloody Christmas market.  I can’t tell you anything else about Aulendorf – not even by cheating on Wikipedia, as the article only has 4 lines.

I'm pretty sure this was the scenic highpoint of Aulendorf. I don't remember anything about the place, so my logical conclusion is that this must have been it.

That’s pretty much it.  I don’t recall anything else of incident happening at Friedrichshafen airport.  In my notebook I’ve written “earnest & robust frisking”, but I suspect that was just some Germanic work practice.  I recall being primarily concerned that security scanning would cause issues with me carrying 11 pairs of red socks, or that they’d want to look in my bag & I’d be unable to get it shut again.

There you have it: 6 days, 4 countries, about 100 litres of beer, 5 schnitzels, 2000 christmas markets, and 1/4 of a tonne of spaetzle.

Anyone wondering what I’d gotten up to in mid-December 2008 can consider themselves updated.  In a manner slightly less gripping than a slide night.

For knowledge-completists, the full set of my photos is in my “Germany Wander” Flickr set, and if you want to see where everything is on a map, please be my guest to have a look.