So yesterday housemate Dave and myself got up at 4am and headed to Oxford (we cycled there in the pouring rain, which was as you can imagine delightful...). The rain however subsided and it was all worth it as I finally got to hear the Magdalen hymn, which despite going into Oxford on May day for the last 4 years as early as I could, I managed to miss. This year as we cycled in we were early enough to get the right side of the barriers and hear it. It was pretty special, the hymn itself
has an erie quality and I think it's made all the more weird/special by the changing light. Unfortunately at this point I mislayed Dave the housemate but managed to bump into another friend (also called Dave and quite a few Morris folk).
After we had heard the Magdalen hymn, a few other hymns and a short sermon type thing from the college rector (who thank goodness kept it short) we wandered off into the city to check out all the Morris men. My friend Andy (from awesome local band telling the bees) seemed to have put together some type of green man band and they were playing just outside the Sheldonian.
I also ran into Lizzie from my old rapper side Mabel Gubbins and me and t'other Dave headed to the Kings appendage to watch them dance and imbine our first
pint of the morning. Dave had decided to keep a few May day traditions alive himself and had stayed up all the way through the previous night, so by the time I found him he was (understandably) flagging. He managed till 8am then went home to bed and I found my friend Nicola and her American boyfriend Eric, and we all went for tea at Blackwells (you can never get in the cafe there at lunchtime but we had our pick of the tables as it was horrendously early). An earl grey revived me enough to be able to cycle to Botley to dance with my original morris side Cry Havoc. I wasn't planning on going home so I was walking around in my morris whites all morning and was quite suprised by the number of people who found the need to tell me they loved me cause I was a Morris dancer (I think I've missed something here???). It was brilliant fun (Nicola has never seen me dance before and seemed really suprised that I was grinning broadly throughout).
Sadly after the dancing was over I found out I had a flat tyre on Sven my bike (meaning the 6 mile cycle back to Abingdon would be hard, if not impossible). I managed to walk 2 miles but finally conceeded I needed help. I phoned housemate Dave but he was still in Oxford with his bike (and hence carless), I phoned my friend Trish who has a fairly big car but she was in Winchester shopping , she did however suggested I phone her husband Malcolm the physist. Malc is awesome, so I phoned him, the only car he had access to was the mini so it was all about logistics, could we get me and Sven the bike into the mini? The answer thank goodness was yes. I have to admit I didn't do much when I got back, it's been a week of fairly intense Morris practices and the back of my knees hurt quite a bit cause of the jumping. So myself and witchcat sat and watched the snooker and then caught up on our Dr Who and The Vampire Diaries. My sleep patterns definitely back to normal this morning as I somehow managed to steep in till midday! Lots of rain going on in the Oxford area however so I've been trying to get some writing done while witchcat continues her attempts to invade my desk. Happy 1st of May everyone, I hope this spring brings you joy.
So after fully exploring the wonders of inside we moved outside to look at the show gardens. Almost immediately I was confronted by this sight. Yes dear readers it is ethnobiologist and herbal fox James Wong (he is the one in the black shirt for the uninitiated), reclining gracefully in his hut/thing in the middle of his Chelsea garden (I have to be truthful at this point and say I didn't really like the garden, it was pretty much all tree ferns and they have never really done much for me, I'm sure though the design 
was fabuous though despite the lack of flowers...). Anyway I made mum stand for a good 10 mins while I just looked longingly from behind the fence, then we went off to find other wonders. My favourite small garden (regular readers of this blog will probably be able to fathom why) was this one, planted with all bee friendly flowers (pay attention Monsieur Wong, flowers) and with this fab/but quite scary quote from Einstein which is pretty much what the book I've just finished reading (a world without bees) is all about. After we had done all the gardens we got down the the serious business of looking 
round the stalls. I had by this point already reserved by orchid but if money were no 
object I could have quite happily bough a few things like these (yes fake bits of
castle to make it look like you have ruins in your garden. How cool are they? They did look quite realistic so I guess if at some point I have a couple of grand to spare but not the millions required for the castle I could just get this man to build me a replica (kind of defeats the point though doesn't it?). The other things I was really taken with were the garden ornaments, they had the most beautiful metal trees that were actually fountains, this weeping willow had water trickling all the way down over it's branches. It was really really pretty and there were loads of them all different types of tree, but the weeping willow was definitely my favourite until we found this. It's the ringing tree from the story of Hansel and Gretel (where it resides in the garden of the witch). It too had water that ran down and filled up the cups casing them to knock the bells and make ringing noises everytime they were full and tipped to empty. By this time it was quite late on in the day, we had sat out on the lawn in the rain with an umberella eating our lunch and looked round all the different parts. Soon it would be time for the bell to be rung and the mad scramble of people trying to buy the plants you couldn't put reseves on would start. We were just walking back to pick up my Orchid (walking pas the garden of Wong) and I happened to check to see if he was still there. There was alas no sign of James or any of the others in the garden and that dear readers is because
he was stood by the pathway fishing leaves out. It was at this point I made a noise simular to Mabel when she can see somethng she wants but can't get to and before I knew what was going on we were beside him, mum asking knowledgeable questions about tree ferns supplied by me (knew that environmental science A level would come in handy at some point) as a prologue to this (I'm aware I look delerious in the photo, I was, the only words I managed were "I think you are awesome", to be fair however that was an improvement on aggrrhhhhhh so shouldn't be too harsh). What a fantastic day the TV hightlights (with copious amounts of Alan Tichmarsh) do not do it justice, I would very much recommend going & def go on the last day, watching the sell off (and then the trees and plants walk their way back to the tube) was great fun. Same time again next year? We'll see...
