So many things so little time

This will probably only be a short post, but there is so much going on I thought I'd better pause & reflect before I do myself an injury. This week has been busy! I'm slowly upping my word count on the nano writing but major revisions need to be made to the starting plot if I'm to progress with the story in any resonable fashion. This is planned for the weekend (I get paid on Friday so should be able to afford cheese, crackers and wine to get me through some serious novel tackalage). I now actually have the will to finish it though, which was badly waining at the start of this week. This was greatly helped by Andrea over at very useful and lovely blog A cat of imposible colour http://acatofimpossiblecolour.blogspot.com/ who reflected that sometimes you just need a break to step away, get a bit inspired again and then go back. Thank you Andrea much appreciated, I am ready to tackle the beast once again!

My cureall (not just for the novel but a horrid spiky sore throat) seems to have been the combined talents of Mawkin:Causley, who I saw at the Nettlebed folk club on Monday (the large amounts of tangerines may have helped as well but I want to believe it was the healing power of folk). The band were great, if you have not yet heard them and like to hear traditional songs with a hint of fun I'd def recommend them (I am slightly in love/awe with one of their number, but even if this was not the case they are very talented!) . Sticking wit the music theme tonight it's violin. I have now got a date for my exam (11th Dec) which looms ever closer. Robin is def feeling the strain and is being quite harsh at the moment under the pretext that 'it's for my own good'. If I survive him I will be starting work on my dress for the Christmas ball. I found the pattern ages ago but had quite a job finding material that was the right colour and drape (the pattern asks for velvet or stretch knit, for an evening dress? I think not) so I've replaced it with some dark blue satin. I guess the acid test to whether this will work will come when I start cutting, everything crossed till that and the first couple of long seams are done.

Next years diary is filling up fast and it's only November, my 'new' morris side Lumbawakk (don't worry I haven't abandoned Havoc, just gained another side as well, although it's border and rapper, rather than cotswold) have been invited to Sidmouth which I'm ashamed to admit I've never been too (I know slapped wrists, call yourself a folkie etc etc). & we have to book the campsite now for August! I made the point that I didn't know what I would be doing in August and our squire said "Well now you do, Sidmouth". That's on way of looking at it I suppose...

and then there was nano...

This blog is causing me serious trouble & strife at the moment. Behind the scenes are a load of posts from the time I went missing a couple of months ago (it all started with Italy, I wrote the posts, I just didn't publish them because I had no pictures, now that I have the pictures it doesn't seem to want to let me post them). Technology you and I clash horns once again... might have to get Dave to take a look.

Anyway back into the present, the main worry at the moment is unusually not keeping this blog up to date it's the novel that I promised I'd write for Nanowrimo (more details here http://www.nanowrimo.org if you, havent got the faintest what I'm talking about). So far I have a grand total (that's unfortunately ALL the words added together) of 3,000, this isn't what I'd hoped (I've got a weekly target of 12,000, but looking back to my university writing days (undergraduate minor in creative writing) I always spent way more time doing the ground work and then zoomed to the finish, so I hoping it's redeemable). Had time to write last night but wasn't really in the mood so switched my laptop off and went to bed with hot water bottle. My task this lunchtime was to plot a 'what happens in which chapter' plan. I've decided against that however, as writing spontaniously was quite fun and gave me an extra character who I hadn't planned for, but who could end up being quite useful. So spontenaity seems at the moment a very good thing.

The other slight pronlem on my mind which may or may not be affecting my word count/creativity is my ongoing fight with my demons concerning anxiety of influence. As some of you may know my friend Ali published his book The Girl with the Glass Feet a while ago and is now working on his second novel at the moment (his website is here & very pretty http://www.alishaw.co.uk/). I read Glass Feet within a couple of days of getting it & it is just brilliant, Ali has this amazing talent of setting his scenes in such a wonderful way, his language is quite simpy magic (and it's a good looking book too, I heartily recommend it). But back to my point, its set in a similarly bleak northern landscape to mine and that worries me somewhat, not enough to consider seriously changing my setting but enough for me to feel Ali's prestigeously talented shadow standing over me as I write. I guess I just keep going? Any advice on tackling this one much appreciated.

Home is where the hard work is

So I've been to Liverpool to do the build and have just written it up for our work magazine. I'm going to post the article here as right now all I need/want is sleep, apologies for the slightly more journalistic style but have triple checked & everything is included :-)

It’s 1am on a Saturday morning and myself & two friends from work are stood at a windswept Park and Ride in Oxford waiting for a minibus containing colleagues from our London offices. The obvious question is: why?

To answer this, I must go back to a few months earlier, to a fairly average Thursday afternoon when an email came round work. The email asked for volunteers to help with an ongoing project for ‘Habitat for Humanity’, a charity that, using donated funds and (as we are about to experience first-hand) donated labour, helps people all over the world to literally build themselves a better future.

But that is all to come; first we have to get there. Habitat currently has two UK sites, the closest to the Oxford and London offices being one in Southwalk, but unfortunately for us no work is going on there at the moment so it’s all hands (and bodies attached to them) to Liverpool).

After a long drive and a couple of snatched hours sleep in a service-station car park (during which there was definitely snoring, from who is a debate still raging). We pick up a final recruit from the Manchester office at Liverpool station and arrive to a warm greeting by Sarah and her team at the site. We are taken into the site office and while we eat breakfast the rest of the permanent team arrive. Two of the staff (William Walsh, Construction Manager, & Paul Taylor, who is Health & Safety, Construction Co-ordinator) are employed permanently by Habitat for Humanity to supervise the volunteers and offer their expertise on the build. As well as these employees there are also regular local volunteers such as Jessica Meikle, Michael Otchie, Fabienne Matthews & Neil Wilks. Michael & Jess are architects & Neil is a building surveyor. They all initially started volunteering to gain some hands-on experience on site. And Fabienne & Neil help out as team leaders on team build-days like today. Last but not least in the teams are the home-owners themselves. Instead of putting down a cash deposit the potential homeowners instead complete five-hundred hours on their own and neighbours’ homes and the charity provides an interest-free loan to cover the cost of the build. Today we are joined by Chiz and our nerves mount as we find out his house is one of the ones we will be working on (no room for error then).
After breakfast we are given a quick tour of one of the houses which is nearing completion. It is stunning and half the team want to move in! But enough of the admiration, the hard work starts here. Paul gives us a health and safety briefing as well as some quick safety advice and tips on handling tools. As soon as the briefing is over we are sent off to don protective clothing and grab our tools. We are split up into three groups; the blue team and the white team will be working on the first level of the scaffold on the sides of the house, attaching damp-proofing course where sections of wood overlap and fixing exterior cladding to retain heat and protect the wood frame. The red team are on the next level up, getting on with the walls directly below the roof.

At first, everyone is a bit cautious, especially one of the girls on my team, Adora, who doesn’t like heights. The regular team are however great, helping us out by suggesting easier ways of doing things whilst still giving us room to work things out for ourselves. My revelatory moment comes when I start getting my screws in straight (and not a moment too soon as Chiz is stood watching me; “this is the one you’ve got to get right” he grins, and I think I’m probably more nervous than he is to be honest).

The morning flies by and soon the klaxon for lunch has sounded. A few of the team have to be dragged away from their bits of wood but lunch provides a great chance for everyone to chat about what they’ve been doing and also to get to know each other and the team in Liverpool a bit better. One of the residents who is already living in her HFH house has made some fantastic hearty fare and Sarah’s been busy in the kitchen too – it’s just what we need.

The hour is soon over and everyone sets about their task with renewed vigour. The afternoon sees us get a lot more done as everyone knows what they are doing and has a lot fewer questions to ask, as well as gaining a lot more confidence in their own abilities. The once height-terrified Adora is now striding about like she was to the scaffold born. All too soon it’s time to down tools for the day. As we stand back and admire our handiwork I can’t help wishing we had longer here; what HFH are doing is so vital I just wish we could have finished it for them. Despite this we are all presented with a certificate proclaiming our achievements and a photo signed by the team of us working hard (or in the red team’s case rocking YMCA chic).

We wish a fond farewell to the team and head off for some dinner at one of the local restaurants. It’s a further chance for the different offices to interact but looking around the table you would never believe that we only met this morning. Even though everyone is pretty tired there is a smile on every face. Dinner over we wave goodbye to Liverpool and start the long drive home. Sarah drives as far as Oxford and then Emeka takes over for the final leg back to London. By the time I get home I realise I’ve been awake for 22 hours, but my experience in Liverpool will stay with me far longer than the current feeling of tiredness.

HFH are a brilliant charity with some really great people working with them. I would urge everyone reading this to volunteer for them, I know the party that went definitely have plans to return and for me the time can’t come soon enough. For more information please visit http://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/

Door time

So I have neglected this blog yet again, but the times they have been a changing and I've been very busy, too busy in fact to type a single word that wasn't work related. Fear not however as in this time away from the keypad I have been taking photos and I will try and update the castle archieves shortly. The attached photo shows Witchcat indulging in one of her favorite hobbies, Door Time. This was something that started off when she was a kitten and we thought as she grew up she would grow out of it (like, thankfully, the climbing the curtains 'phase') but because se is a relatively small cat she can still get on top of the door with relative ease. She does it when she is a bit bored of me (which usually happens when it's wet outside (she still doesn't like the rain either, some things never change)). I think I should maybe take a leaf out of her book and have my own door time next time I get fed up of the world (mine usually happens in the bath however...)
So back to the present, this week, it's going to be relatively short as I stayed at Towersey for the bank holiday Monday and I've got Friday afternoon off to play rounders for my office (yes that rounders, the one you played at secondary school, I thought it would stop after I left secondary school, clearly I was wrong). This weekend is also looking pretty hectic. On Saturday its the brilliant Wallingford Bunkfest, if you are local (or even if you are not) and you haven't got plans go along, most of the events are free and its a really great little festival. Further details http://www.bunkfest.co.uk/. Sunday I'm doing sound for an all day gig, which is a real shame as a couple of my friends were proposing a proper pub lunch :-( I will be sad to miss it that's for sure...

Also coming up is my placement with a bulding contractor in Liverpool for charity habitat for humanty (more info on them can be found here http://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/) I've included the draft schedule below so you can judge for yourselves what kind of day awaits me) but yet again there are clashes. Unfortnately my attendance in Liverpool means I'm going to miss someone very special's birthday (he know's who he is ,and I know he reads this as he was berating me for not updating it), hopefully I'll get the chance to make it up to him at some other point). On the Friday before I'm also playing at something that I think might go on quite late. Is it more sensible not to go to bed I wonder... and so it goes on. Normal service should be resumed shortly :-)


September 12th


1am - Meet at central London meeting point


8am – arrive Liverpool Habitat for Humanity site


8am – 8:50am Team breakfast, location to be confirmed


9am – Meet on building site


9:15am – Welcome and registration (Health & Safety briefing)


9:30am – collect boots, hard hats, high visibility vests etc


10:30 – 10:45am – Tea break (provided by Habitat for Humanity)


12:30 -1:15pm Lunch break (provided by Habitat for Humanity)


3:45pm Clear site, tools down, return boots, hats, vests


4pm – finish working, leave Habitat for Humanity site


4pm – 5pm Team dinner, location to be confirmed


5pm – drive home! Depending on traffic we should get back sometime around midnight

Truck fest

We went, we saw and we had an awesome time. This pretty much sums up this weekend’s experience at the Truck festival. The morning started with quite a leisurely pace Dave & I both getting a reasonable lie in (& quite a few cups of tea) before starting the cycle to Steveton. Dave is a bit of a biking enthusiast & I was pretty sure that he was going to speed off and leave me huffing & puffing behind him. This prediction turned out to be quite accurate, so it was a good job we had agreed to stop at café Gia’s on the way there (below is Dave heartily enjoying one of their famous breakfast baps).

Breakfast over it was time for the rest of the cycle. We finally reached the site at about 11am just in time to have a quick look round & decide who we wanted to see for the afternoon. On the way to the beer tent we bumped into my friend Mark who is currently drumming for a band called From light to sound. This is them in action

They were in fact so good that I am a proud owner of one of their numbered ep’s. Most excellent! We wandered around for a bit looking at some of the stalls and seeing quite a few bands (not really anyone worth mentioning here, they were all good, just not quite my cup of tea…) before accidentally stumbling across Ash in the signing tent (I must have been quite annoying at this point as I kept repeating Dave it Ash, look Dave Ash! but to be fair they were pretty much my idols when I was younger & they were just sat there!). Wasn’t brave enough to go ask for a signature so took a surreptitious photo (included below)and ran away. Once I’d calmed down we made our way over to the tent near the bar to catch the fantastic Stornoway (band not the island, I apologise in advance for these photo’s the tent was rammed and I am pretty small). They were in front of a home crowd and although the sound wasn’t great the band really threw themselves into the set, it was just brilliant.

All too soon it was over, so I was really pleased when I managed to bag a copy of their first single Zorbing on 7’’ on the way out of the tent. We sat & enjoyed food from the round table food stall (Pasta with great big chunks of goats cheese for me and Dave had yet more fried stuff, yuk!) and then spotted the truly awesome truck monster.

Darkness fell & Ash came on, the set was great, they basically played all the hits plus a couple of their new singles (apparently the band have come up with a cunning new plan to revive singles sales, they are releasing 27 singles in a year, each with a limited run of 1000 copies worldwide) it was great & totally took me back to sixth form when I really did think I was gonna be able to get away with playing guitar for a living….

What a great festival, if you live in Oxfordshire you should def keep an eye on this website http://www.thisistruck.com/ as I believe the Truck gang are planning more events just as great as Truck throughout the year.

Touch down

So back on English soil for my first full week. Alarmingly its only Wednesday & I'm cream crackered already (I think its all the intense catching up I'm trying to do). Fortunately all the deadlines I was panicking about before I went away were met and I'm starting to see the results. Firstly the article that the knitting group wrote ages ago is now in print. Yes rush to your news agent and demand this month's knit today, we are lurking near the back I'm really proud of my girls. The lovely folks at knit today also sent us a big bag of single balls of wool which I'll be handing out at the knit meeting tomorrow. Second up (and also publishing related) my 10 top gigs article is in this months Ice Cream for Quo, which is a brilliant issue (as random as usual, but all the better for it). My birthday present has arrived early (its a second hand desk that my parents have bought me). This hopefully means that instead of lieing awake at 2am with writers block/the urge to make a garment/piece of jewelry I can slink off to my desk, without disturbing long suffering housemate Dave from his slumber. Fourthly (and indeed finally) Captain hook made his debut in the coat of much pain (the pattern was so so wrong). Below are some photo's,the first one is of me wearing it (might have to work on the pirate wench look) and the second s the man himself. Sadly I haven't got a photo of the amazing last minuite bunting but I got a really nice thank you note from the wardrobe mistress. Hurrah!
But as they say there is no rest for the wicked, I got the official email from work today to say I've been accepted on a volenteer scheme to build council houses in Liverpool (its happening in September, I hope I can do my best for them, I've never been to Liverpool before, it's exciting!). Tonigh after my lesson Robin also bought round the cello that he bought for me (£40 in a junk shop, it's not the prettiest thing in the entire world but the sound it makes is us lovely, so much richer than the violin). So I think a few nights practice in with that could be in order. That's not going to happen this weekend however, as I'm doing sound for a gig at farmers choice of pub The North Star on Friday and its Steveton's finest Truck festival this weekend as well (http://www.thisistruck.com/). Dave and I are only going for the Sat this year for financial reasons but it should be a good one! I've also got to try & see he new Harry Potter flm at some point I've missed loads of the later ones & I really want to have a good look at the costumes.

There is of course all the normal stuff to do, garden to weed, veg to take care of, jam to make, bees to check. Italy was fantastic but I have to say its good to be home!

Onto Dartmoor we go, holiday part 2

So I left you intrepid readers at the close of the day on Friday with a full two days of adventures still to go. Saturday morning we awoke to see overcast skies and the promise of rain. Hey we thought, it only looks like rain and we are on holiday it won't rain.

Yes, I admit it, we were wrong. We had walked into Torquay and the heavens opened. As my boots filled with water and Sam whipped her pac mac out we decided even with shops to shelter in enough was enough, we beat a hasty retreat back to the house, only stopping to sample the local cream tea at cafe Driftwood (essential, when in Devon...). In the evening (it was very much still raining) a girlie film was selected (in this case the excellent romance and clothes drama, the devil wears Prada, and we took the car to Drakes fish & chip shop and acquired some most excellent fish & chips. An early night was decided upon as it just wouldn't stop raining. After a night of blissful rest (I think it was the food, or the bottle of red that somehow mysteriously appeared next to it) we awoke to clear skies (hooray, house high five). We decided to make the most of the day and headed off to what my father refers to as 'the Blackpool of the south'. Ladies & Gentlemen I give you Paignton Pier in all its glory.





















And what a time was had, we gained (and lost) a fortune on the 2 penny slots, had our fortune told by a wind up gypsy (who I was clearly a bit too much for as I broke her and had to go and find a repair man) and had a go on the infamous grab machines. Our kid (my youngest brother) is a dab hand at these things and his absence was keenly felt at Paignton, I was useless but Sam managed to bag a care bear for herself and a pilchard cat (its the blue cat from Bob the builder) for me. Clutching our new prizes and a handful of rock/clotted cream fudge for housemates and workmates alike we headed into the wilderness of Dartmoor.





















Our first destination (and pretty much the only destination I know how to get too on Dartmoor) was the excellent Rock inn (http://www.rock-inn.co.uk/). Its quite near the outskirts but its still pretty desolate. It was a 16th century coaching inn, and the character has remained despite the changing times (when we were outside the low light made us wonder whether it was actually open). It is also reputedly the local pub of choice for folk heart throb and local lad Seth Lakeman, although I've been in there a few times (and embarrassingly my mum asked if the barmaids knew him) we've had no luck from either tactic. Not sure what I'd say to him if I did see him in there to be honest so we won't dwell. After having a drink (Jail ale, which is brewed on Dartmoor for me and a ginger beer for the lady/driver) we headed off in search of Sunday afternoon's goal. Jay's grave. This story has been told many times, most recently possibly on the aforementioned Seth's 2nd album, Kitty Jay.The story goes that Jay was a local orphaned baby back in the late eighteenth century, 1790 is the most common estimate. She was taken into the Poor House at Newton Abbot where she was named, as was the custom, with a surname beginning with whatever letter the Poor House had progressed to, in this case 'J'. As many of the commoner letters had been taken the baby girl ended up with 'Jay'. In those days the word 'Jay' was also a slang term for a prostitute so the Christian name of Mary was added. She was taken in by a local farming estate to work for them, which reputedly is where she got the name of Kitty. However trouble was afoot, the landowners son took a bit of a shine to her and had his wicked way. With a name like Jay it was easy for the farmer who was her employer to condemned her, saying she had thrown herself at his son. Before she knew what was happening she was pregnant by the farmers son and being cast out onto the moors by his father. Kitty knew that her prospects of future employment were ruined, she would have to go back to the poor house. She wandered for a while cold and alone, before taking the only route left apart from the poor house and hanging herself in one of the barns. She was buried, as all suicides of that time were, at a crossroads, so that if her spirit came back to haunt those who had caused her suicide it would be confused by the crossed paths. We took a few flowers from my parents back garden and went to pay our respects. After quite a few wrong turns we found what we were looking for





















The grave of a young girl.




















By this time the moors were brooding and it looked like more (ohh I've done it again, more/moor, this time not intentional, honest) heavy rain was on its way so we escaped while we still could.




















Back to the comfort and dryness of the house to do the washing up, packing up and enjoying our final night in Devon. Monday morning dawned at last and we packed the car, but there was one more treat to brighten our way back to the heartland of Oxfordshire. On the way back we stopped off at Glastonbury and visited Glastonbury Abbey.





















The ruins at the Abbey are really special and there was a lot more information there/things to see than at Berry Pomroy.






















Although once again we got lost looking for graves (the body count on this trip really was quite high now I think of it). Anyway here is the supposed tomb of King Arthur (my old medieval teacher would have you believe he's was, and in fact still is in Glastonbury Torre) . The sign says the following "Site of King Arthur's Tomb. In the year 1101 the bodies of King Arthur and his Queen were said to have been found on the South side of the lady chapel (the corner pictured above). On April 10th 1278 their remains were removed in the presence of King Edward and Queen Elanor to a black Marble Tomb on this site. This Tomb survived until the dissolution of the Abbey in 1539."




And here it is marked by an outline of stones.








And that concluded our trip of the South. We returned home Sam to her houseshare, me to Dave the housemate and a very put out Mabel cat. It was a great holiday though.