You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2008.
It’s the last day of Muncaster Castle’s Festival of Fools. It’s the most important day of the Festival, too … when the new Fool of Muncaster is chosen … and is thus the day that attracts the biggest turn out.
Sunday through Wednesday were bleak, windswept, rainswept, drizzle-soaked washouts, basically. The final and crowning day should be accompanied by raging hurricanes at the very least. I should be sitting up here in my nice dry office smirking as rain pelts against the glass and gale force winds shake the casements.
It is, in fact, a calm and sunny day.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
It has nothing (much) to do with the Centre, but if you cast your eyes to the left, you’ll see a link to ‘Vulpes Libris‘, which is a book review site I’m Co-Admin of. It keeps me off the streets and pretty much out of harm’s way while I’m not at The Chase, or labouring in the garden at home, dontchaknow?
We’ve been bumbling along, amusing ourselves and wittering about books and stuff for about 7 months now, then all of a sudden on Sunday we noticed that our site statistics had gone ballistic.
Why? Check out this link: Chapter 8, paragraph 4 …
Oh help.
Real people are reading the stuff. Hundreds of them … 
They’re all down at Muncaster, holding on to the gazebos with their teeth as a playful breeze plucks at the azaleas and tosses our gaily-coloured craft materials hither and yon. They’re also probably covering everything with polythene on account of the teeny-weeny amount of drizzle that’s pelting down.
From my choice of pronoun the more astute amongst you will gather that I’m not there with them.
Too right.
I’m not a masochist, I’m not gullible and I’m not going.
As I believe I may have mentioned in passing (or possibly ad nauseam) Gretchen and I are working on funding applications. At least, I say “and I”, but up until today, my part in proceedings was limited to waiting to see how many “Absolutely, totally final, final, FINAL and please delete the others” versions of the application popped up in my email inbox.
It was three when I went home yesterday evening. It had become four by this morning.
Working on the (probably erroneous) assumption that:
(a) She was out shopping and therefore unable to amend anything else.
and
(b) She wouldn’t DARE anyway …
I started tidying the thing up, preparatory to sending it out to its lucky recipients.
That ‘tidying up’ process has taken me MOST OF THE BLOODY DAY – not through anything Gretchen did, but because in moving from her computer to mine, all the formatting was shot to hell and had apparently become indelibly attached to the document. I had to retype large chunks of it, because even copying and pasting just the words resulted in the mysterious transfer of the maverickformatting – specifically big thick horizontal lines that bore no relation to anything on the page, and refused point blank to be deleted.
Is it any wonder I like fountain pens?
Gretchen and I are on the hunt for funding again. We’re always on the hunt for funding. It’s a permanent state of being for us.
No, no … really – no sympathy necessary. We’re used to it and it no longer hurts. Much.
Anyway … further to said pursuit of funding, I’ve been cruising the internet in a forlorn attempt to unravel who is who over at Sellafield, and who are, therefore, the best people to approach with the begging bowl.
In doing so, I stumbled upon a newspaper article from – well, let’s say a town in Texas to avoid possible insult to someone we might want to like us. It’s about one of the senior bods at a big local scientific establishment there who was leaving to take up a position as Managing Director of one of the various bits of Sellafield that’s being hived off. The article said he was moving to Cumbria. It then went on to explain, helpfully, that Cumbria is “north of Wales”.
If I should ever happen to meet this gentleman, I’ll make a point of asking him where he comes from.
When he replies “Texas”, I’ll screw my face up prettily and say,
“Texas … Texas … That’s south of Canada, isn’t it?”
I spent a goodly chunk of the weekend breaking off from thrilling gardening tasks (mowing, digging, weeding …) to peer into the pond in the hope of seeing happy, carefree tadpoles.
I didn’t see any. Nary a one.
I did, however, see a very fat newt.
I headed up Brankenwall again this lunch time … only this time, I Went Equipped. The puddle had all but dried up … and I thought the remainder of the taddlers were history, until I spotted the movement in the wet mud in the middle. I scooped them out, put them in the bucket … and to my amazement, nearly all of them were still alive.
I tipped a little water on the rest of the mud in the puddle, and a few more swum to the surface – so I waited around a little while longer until I was quite sure I’d got all the live ones, then returned, bearing my bucket in triumph. Of course, it’s odds on that all I’m doing is feeding the newts in my pond … but it’s got to be better than dying in hot mud, surely?
This time, of course, I was properly dressed for my little adventure. I looked like a proper naturalist. (Think Kate Humble here rather than Bill Oddie, please …). So, guess how many people passed me in the 30 minutes I was there?
Right.
None.
It’s a nice day, so I thought I’d take myself out for a little saunter at lunch time, down Brankenwall, the wooded valley that
runs alongside the Centre. My plan was to take a few leafy, bucolic photos, perhaps stroll up as far as the bluebell woods … chill out … you know … stuff like that.
Part way up the path, I get to a boggy bit. I notice that a small, rapidly drying puddle appears to be moving. When I look more closely, there are tadpoles in it.
Cursing the stupidity of toads (for they it is who spawn in puddles, being the World’s Worst Mothers) I ponder my position. I’d like to go on and look at the bluebells … but I know perfectly well that the suffocating tadpoles are going to haunt me. So … I turn around, walk all the way down to the Police House, get a bucket of water, then walk all the way up Brankenwalls again, where I set about scooping up as many tadpoles as I can catch.
While I’m engaged in this (admittedly slightly odd) occupation, I’m passed by no less than 4 sets of walkers. Being British, only ONE of them expresses any interest at all in what I’m doing. The others greet me politely and carry on … behaving for all the world as if they come across neatly dressed middle-aged women scooping mud from puddles and putting it in buckets every day of the week. Perhaps they thought it was some bizarre local custom?
Anyway … ignoring the peculiarities of the walking fraternity, I lugged the bucket back up the hill to the Centre.
It now stands outside the back door, ready to be transported home to my wildlife pond.
Those tadpoles will never know how lucky they were … or how many people thought they saw the local fruitloop that day.
It was like this: Gretchen was taking a ‘phone call and I was perusing my emails (you know … the ones from those nice Nigerian gentlemen …). It being warm and sunny, we had the Centre’s windows and doors open to take advantage of the dust and tree pollen.
Gretchen was just warming to the subject of why we weren’t interested in changing our telecoms supplier/buying double glazing/stocking up on dodgy inkjet cartridges when her Centre Manager (that would be me) galloped from her office and hurtled down the front steps like a one-woman elephant stampede.
When Gretchen finally managed to hang up on the cold caller, she appeared at the front door and gazed in some bemusement at her Centre Manager (which would still be me), who by that time was in the shrubbery up to her armpits in a magnolia bush.
“You flew out of the door”, she said, stating the obvious.
“That’s because Singing Games flew out of the window” was the somewhat breathless retort as said Centre Manager retrieved pages 10 to 14 of the songsheet …
One day, I’ll probably put Singing Games on eBay, but for the moment, I’m just too fond of it …
The Attack of the Singing Clones …
A local charitable organization very kindly bought us a sit-on mower the other day.
I say ‘very kindly’ but I’m not convinced that it was an entirely good idea. The thing is, you see, that our gardener – let’s call him Richard (mostly because that’s his name …) – is now like a dog with two tails. (There’s a less couth expression than that, but for the sake of propriety, we’ll stick with the two tails.) He LOVES his little tractor mower. It seems to my (admittedly fevered) imagination that every time I look out of the window, there’s Richard, chugging round the garden mowing stuff.
I fear for our lawn.
