It's all been happening!

There has been all sorts going on in this my already quite full life these last few weeks (hence the lack of blogging, sorry but most of these seem to have required pen and paper rather than internet) so it seems only fitting to recap...

Last Thursday the fabulous and very talented Jayne from over at a Novice Novelist came by train (the 4.50 from Paddington  no less) and we hotfooted it down to Oxford Blackwells where author extraordinaire/the crabbit old bat Nicola Morgan was giving a talk on how to get published/write your pitch for your novel (there is a lot more of that kind of advice on her blog here). Jayne writes up the whole thing fabulously here and all I can add is that the workshop was incredibly informative, Nicola was lovely and we managed to drag her out for a drink afterwards (photographic proof of us muchly enjoying the Grande cafe, when in Oxford etc).

I had the Friday off as I wanted to take Jayne to the station & the plan after that was to write but I mostly just sat down to enjoy my friend Ali's second book The Man who cried Rain, its really good, so good in fact that I'm trying to ration the chapters else I'll speed read it which is glorified skimming and I'm enjoying this book too much to miss any detail (plus look how pretty that and his first novel look on the speculative fiction part of my new bookshelf, indeed!).

Tuesday evening saw me head back to Blackwells (if I'm there enough maybe they will let me move into poets corner?) for the launch of group 2012 the new writing group. The aim is to help with your writing. Having got two novels in first draft (written in the undergraduate years, obviously, when I had time and was doing my creative writing minor) I'm finding it really hard to find the motivation/time to re-write/improve them so the plan was to find some support and some other writers to share my thoughts/time with. I managed to meet some lovely people (quote of the evening: "It's really exciting, like we are the new Inklings. You can be Tolkien" me "Why do I have to be the weird one with elves...", and there was more wine, most excellent) and the next meeting is in a month (by which time I have pledged I will have revisited at least one chapter, gulp). I also managed to find out the dates for this years Oxford Literary Festival at which the author of my favourite novel of all time (An Equal Music - Vikram Seth) will be speaking alongside the literary greats and um Alex James (who is talking about cheese). I'm so excited I may have to take an afternoon off to go and sit in the same room (although they say you should never meet your idols).

Last night was spent at Wood school, trying to finish something I've been working on for a while (I can't really post it on here as I know the person its for is a reader of this blog, ahh the problems) but here is a sneaky peak.

This morning was freezing and my bus didn't turn up (booo) so I was in a pretty cold and bad mood by the time I got to work (after being rescued by one of our lovely neighbours), that was until I found out one of my close work friends James (indeed we used to be desk spouses, until I cruelly moved upstairs) keeps a blog on Dr Who (I'm a massive Who fan & the site is brilliant) and indeed had taken the time to create a pretty epic Sherlock/Dr Who script which you can find here, I also got sent this piece of genius, music students take note!

This year I will be mostly listening to....

Well it may have only just started but 2012 is already looking like a great year for folk music. These are some of the very exciting albums I will be listening to this year
Jim Moray - Skulk

It's accoustic, it has a fox on the cover, what's not to love??? The Moray returns with a fantastic album of new material, all of which is available for your listening pleasure here but please buy the cd or pre order the (hopefully it's happening vinyl because its that good and to quote loreal he's worth it (oh extra fox footage for your pleasure can be found here, I'm talking about Sorrell obviously...)

Mawkin  - Crow

Not to mistaken with the Ralfe band tune of the same name, the Delarre double are back with the additon of Nick (Cookie Monster) Cook and a guy hitting stuff for an entirely new album. If its as good as the single Skymningspolskan / Betsy Likens (which you can listen to here) it should be a scorcher (oh and if you missed any of their previous output its all on the website for a tiny fee too, so hook yourself up!)

Seth Lakeman - Tales from the Barrel House

After the disappointment and lack of tunes of offerings like Hearts and Minds (I would have thrown cabbage but its best not to waste good food) Mr Lakemen returns to his roots (yey) and heads off recording down an disused copper mine to record Tales and it certainly seems like he's mining the tunes again (collective groan) it isn't as good as Kitty Jay but a definite step back in the right direction.

Moss, Moore, Rutter - Moss, Moore, Rutter

Okay technically not released this year but they won the young folk award last year and now being back in the spotlight thanks to Jack Rutters unlikely appearance on ITV's Take Me Out (???). I think I might have heard most of this album thanks to the delights of free musicy listening places but its very very good so this year there will be a concerted effort to find the cd and play it many many times, I recommend you do the same.

Message to Bears - Folding Leaves

Sadly Jerome (who writes all the music for this collection of musicians) has now moved back to Bristol, which means less local gigs for us Oxfordonians. Awesomely however there is a new album of tunes (after getting funding sorted via this site). I've got their last release Departures ad having seen them live quite a few times can confirm that yes they are brilliant, fantastic music to chill out to or watch snow fall, make sure you grab a copy.


And now a couple that are hopefully on the way
Bad Anna - Debut

Uiscedwr split up, I'm devastated, Bad Anna form, I am slightly pacified. Described on their page here as new kind of folk music for our generation, if its got Anna Esslemont playing fiddle it will def be worth a listen

Writings on the Wall - suggestions for a  title welcome!

The idea has been mooted that we attempt a recording, we were going to try a six track until we realised we probably have quite a bit more material than that... Anyway after we play the fringe event in April we should be locking ourselves away and trying to record something. In the meantime however for more informative updates you can like us on Facebook here.

New Year 2012

With Bellowhead uncharacteristicaly not at the Royal Festival Hall we thought we would spend our New Year in Oxfordshire, celbrating with our usual shuffle out onto the grass with the neighbours for sparkly wine and rockets at midnight. These carefully laid plans were however shattered when Jam got invited to his friend Sam's party in Newbury (Sam & Jam went travelling together after college to worldly places lik Japan, this however is Sam in his natural habitat).

We arranged a chicken sitter and soon were having sock off's with the best of them.

 

(that's me on the right in the stars), as well as inpromptu sock showings we played trivial persuit (and lost) and ate and drank many nice things as well as me getting the chance to get to know some of Jam's friends a bit better. (This is Sam & his girlfriend Beccy counting down the moments)

After all that fun there was nothing for it but to go home and sleep for quite a long time. Happy New Year to all the readers of this little corner of the internet, I hope this year makes all your dreams come true. 

The arrival of our new chickens

After what seemed like weeks of anticipation we set off to collect our new chickens from the British Hen Welfare Trust on the 28th December. Our pick up time was 3.45 so we knew we probably wouldn't get to see much of the girls that night but could look forward to getting to know them over the remainder of the Christmas holidays. We turned up at the collection point and after picking up another bag of food (as the shops wouldn't be open) and some bedding we made our way into the collection shed. We had put down to have 5 new girls, and as our eyes adjusted to the shed we got our first glimpse of them as the volunteers brought them out and put them into our carriers. First impressions were that they didn't look too bad but there were two who were in a bit of a state, one with just the quills of her feathers remaining on her wings and a smaller girl who seemed to have lost most of her body and tail feathers with just the white downy under feathers showing. The journey home took about half an hour and then we lifted them into their new (or as one of my friends refers to it their forever) home. This photo was taken wth the hen who made the biggest impression, Bellatrix, top hen as far as she was concerned she had a good go at pecking my jacket and Jam's finger when he tried to move the ramp for her the next day. She was also definitely the noisyest when we were getting the back door open. After spending the following day outside talking & generally watching them names were quickly decided, I stuck with a Harry Potter theme for all but one, so let me introduce you to them.

Bellatrix/big bird (also the chicken I'm holding in the top picture)- Bellatrix takes no nonsense from anyone and as well as being one of the biggest is also definitely the most noisy. Upon hearing the back door unlocked in the morning she starts chatting to be let out immediately, also if you say hello to the girls its usually Bellatrix who will answer for all of them. 

Completely different is Ginny, the baldest girl we have, Ginny is a meek little thing but already great improvements have been seen in her comb and plumage plus she was the first one of the girls to find a worm and successfully deal with it, clever little Ginny, she is usually second out of the coop after Bellatrix (because they have both worked out they get mealworms in the morning) and makes soft coos if she hears you outside the coop.

Next up we have Aurora, named after the goddess of the dawn as when she spreads her wings it looks like a golden sun, her damage wasn't as bad as Ginny as she at least had some tail feathers but her wing feathers have very much been reduced to quills. Despite this she is quite cheeky and spends most of her time trying to work out ways to test the coop defences or 'helping' me when I go into the coop.

Mineva - very similar in looks to Bellatrix but not as noisy, can usually be found near Trelawney after having a bit of a disagreement with Bellatrix on the first day. Mineva is really handsome & we've seen great improvements in her comb as well as her initial shyness.

And finally last but my no means least Trelawney, Trelawney worried me a little at first as she didn't seem to want to come out of the coop and was snicking (its sneezing but apprently chickens can't quite sneeze the same way as humans). I phoned the vet and he said it was likely a cold and dispatched instructions that we were to keep her fed and warm & keep a good eye on her. Having done so the snicking seems to have stopped but she still likes to be in the hen house if given the choice. So there they are my little brood, we are getting  2-3 eggs a day but my main concern is that the girls get back to their beautiful selves as soon as possible. At the moment they get mealworms in the morning and corn at night, I can't wait for the days to get longer so I can see them properly when I get up and spend some time with them after work. Some of our first external visitors were my friend Fi and her son Alex. Alex wasn't too sure of the chickens (recognising their dinosaur roots maybe?) but was prepared to be convinced when we told him there might be an egg in the nest box). As luck would have it there was so Alex took it home for his tea and here is Alex complete with chicken cusion holding his egg carefully!

This year in pictures

So things I was aiming to do this year were roughly as follows:
1. Go on a date with a least one nice chap (having had my heart broken yet again late last year this was definitely top of my list to regain faith in men-kind). January came and I met this chap:

This quickly followed:

:-)

2. Having spent last year playing with the frankly Awesome Stanger Things Happen at Sea (and then disbanding the band due to the sheer distances between its members)

 the search was on for a new band. This started off with a chance encounter with Sreeves (and a good deal of discussion over pints about the kind of thing we wanted to do) followed by our debute gig in April.

After the gig we decided a larger sound was called for, I'd invited my friend Emily (who I'd met through voluntering) to our 1st annual carol jaunt, we'd kept in touch and as soon as I heard she also played the cello Chris & I invited her and former Stranger member Kevin to become our fellow minstrels. The quartet was complete and we've now played a couple of gigs together with more I hope to follow in the New Year!

Some of my intentions weren't as sucessful: update and redesign the blog being only partly achieved (my friend Lea very kindly did some editing on my current template but I think a blog redesign may be called for in the new year). Also there are quite a few blog posts still missing as my hard drive died a coupe of months ago leaving me with many posts sans pictures. All this should be fixed come the new year so I guess I'm carrying this one over.

4. To start doing more of the things I love. This one was definitely achieved, 2011 if nothing else was the year that this was created:

 I also taught violin/viola at a kids ceilidh workshop at Towersey again, stage managed the Bulverton Marquee at Sidmouth (one of the largest stages I've ever worked on, there were a few hairy moments I can tell you), went on holiday to Turkey (first foreign holiday for quite a few years, while there I relaxed, read and appreciated the local wine), started attending woodschool/attempting the carving of many hours and kept in touch/spent more time in the same room as my friends.
5. Start writing more tunes/finish the novels: because of the band I've found it quite easy this year to write music, more difficult was finding time to do the serious editing thats needed on both novels (part of the problem is I think that I'm not sure what I'd do with them if I did finish them, not sure I have the stomach for agents rejections...). So although this is being carried over I'm going to first set myself the mini goal of getting a poem or another piece of writing published (this excludes work where I edit a magazine and this blog). I'm hoping a the moment to publish with the wonderful Goblin Fruit but we shall see.

What about you guys any plans/goals for next year?

Barmaids mince pies

A true (but not often known) fact about me is that I used to work as a barmaid in Soho London. The streets of Soho have a bit of a reputation for *blushing* other things and while there was a lot of that about there was also the pub I used to work in, the (sadly not there any more) Moon & sixpence. I only worked there for a couple of months but during that time I learnt a lot. Working behind a bar also gave me the inspiration to add booze to my mincemeat when making mince pies. So without any further ado I present you with the receipe for Barmaids Mince pies! 

You will need
150g/5oz butter (cut into pieces)
225g/8oz plain flour
50g/2oz ground almonds (don't be tempted to skip these they absolutely make the pastry)
25g/1oz caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of water
225g/8oz mincemeat
booze of your choice I've used sherry/brandy and rum sucessfuly in the past
a non stick 12 bun tin
*Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6. Rub the butter into the flour. Add the almonds, sugar, egg yolk & water and mix to form a firm dough.
*Knead briefly on a floured surface, then wrap and chill for 30 mins. Roll out thinkly and stamp out 12 rounds (about 7.5 cm/3 inch, I use a mug for this).
*Open your jar of mincemeat and pour a tabkespoon of your chosen booze in, mix thoroughly and put the lid back on till you need it.
*Once your pastry has rested use it to line the 12 bun tins. Spoon in the mincemeat and use the remaining pastry to cut into seasonal shapes such as holly or Christmas trees to place on top of the mincemeat (you can cheat and use cutters if you are pressed for time).
*Bake for 20 mins until golden brown and enjoy.

Many many cakes

We had a birthday to celebrate this week as well as Christmas calories to consume, Jam turned 28 (or as he prefers to think about it 18 &10) so I made him a chocolate birthday cake filled with chocolate chips and complete with chocolate icing. The night of his actual birthday we went out for a meal at his local restaurant so no cake was required but the cake got eaten later that week   

Yet again I had problems with my icing lettering but it did work out okay in the end. My cake skills however pale into comparison next to our neighbour (and former landlady) Trisha. Trish has made 2 wedding cakes this year and with time and icing on her hands got to work on this lot. This was the cake she made for her family

 

Whereas these three were all presents. 

I got to choose one and it had to be this guy, the snowman (how cute is he!) 

Just to put it into perspective here is an undecorated one.

What a lady!