Problems as you get older

[Brian]

As I get older my joints seem to stiffen up so my doctor advise me to take up this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ572yL ... r_embedded

[oehrick]

Alternatively you could drive a Field Marshall or other on-lunger from the standing position or if dressing in colourful garb while displaying symptoms of St Vitus dance is the attraction, join the Ouse Washes Molly Dancing Team - much closer to home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta3iiraJ6LE

[Pavel]

Thank you Brian -- I wish you well to wear it.
Thank you too, Ricky. Yours is a little less energetic -- but still beyond my capabilities. At present our paddocks are so wet I think a Field Marshall at idle would just bury itself.
Pavel

[oehrick]

I suspect this is no more than a cunning ruse by Brian & Anne to avoid carrying out too many spares as hand luggage when they leave us in the lurch to join you Dahnundas for Henryfest next year

Is it an unusually wet winter for you this year Pavel ? I know flood can be as disastrous as drought in some areas although I think many of us this side of the equator tend to think mainly of the dry areas.

[Brian]

The first year we went over, 2011, we visited Halls Gap in the Victorian Grampian Mountains, There was only one road in and out of the town all the others had been washed away by flood water and the small creek contained boulders as big as medium sized cars which had been washed down the hill destroying a number of bridges. The river that had done all the damage was a pretty little stream meandering through the forest when we visited and we walked beside it, marvelling at the damage done by such a tiny stream.

When we went back to the same area in 2012 a number of the roads were still closed but they had opened the main through road.

We did not go back to Halls Gap in 2014 but just after we came back the whole area was hit by a wild fire and most of the beautiful town burnt down.

So we should not complain too much about English weather.

[Pavel]

Short answer, Ricky -- yes, very wet. Here in the lower part of the south west the rains, mainly strong showers, started early in the spring -- about April. Good news for farmers able to get the crops early into the ground; and good news for those of us with sheep and cattle as we haven't had to buy in extra hay and feed. Trouble is; it hasn't stopped. In July we had a storm that washed away fences and a bridge, plus brought down trees. This August we've had about 4 inches [100mm] with only 4 dry days.
The ground has been saturated for well over a month now and because we are in a low lying area, with 2 water courses on the farm, all the surrounding higher land from other areas drains down to these water ways. Added to that, 6 or 12 inches below the ground surface is a clay pan which also becomes gooey making driving over it an invitation to practice trench digging [again].
Mind you; the dams are overflowing -- one looks like a mini lake on which our 2 canoes have been exercised [not by me I might add].

All is not doom and gloom, though -- just frustration at not being able to get on with essential work preparing for crutching and shearing in October.

Pavel

[Brian]

Just getting back to dancing for a moment, being involved with a school as I was with Ann being a teacher I used to get involved with things like country dancing and Maypole Dancing (they used to let me erect the pole or transport it to different venues).

One Saturday night, many years ago, one of Ann's fellow teachers suggested that a group of us went to a country dance extravaganza at the Norwich Lads Club on Kings Street,Norwich so about eight of us said yes. None of us were much above kids standard on the country dance floor but, Hey, we were doing it for the fun, that was our first mistake.

All the others present, about forty, were all deadly serious dancers and when, dancing "Sir Roger De Coverly" some one who would like to remain nameless, but was quite good at repairing Fordson Tractors, went the wrong way causing complete chaos, we had to leave in disgrace!

[oehrick]

I think there is a big difference between current and the first generation of Folk revivalists in dance and music Brian, beards, pipes, cord trousers, tweed jackets with leather patches on elbows or cable knit sweaters by any chance ? (and the men may have dressed much the same!) There are still Morris sides about who are a bit 'precious' about the 'tradition' so I can picture it and their reception of your irreverence Good job it was not Wicker Man week up King Street.........

Mind you they do talk about glass houses and not chucking stones and the fount of Country Dances, C# (ask Ann) is now known as a folk song corrector rather than collector due to having "taken out all the mucky bits" as Sid Kipper put it, (ahem removed or edited content to avoid offending his late Victorian / early Edwardian customers who might be a bit delicate) there are now an equally dedicated small band of folk currently trying to find out the original lyrics from other sources to put them back in !

I think there is or has been an element of this amongst preservationists, certainly the rivet counters amongst the railway fraternity would have assisted in the demise of steam had they ever gained enough numbers and organisation to influence the new lines, but things have to evolve, adapt or die out

[blackbob]

On a different note..

I well remember the song, I was 16 and a closet rebel (loved the raw, snarling music, but too shy to do all the safety-pin stuff) at the time; but somehow I don't remember the YouTube video at all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwyXt-F9Ie8

[oehrick]

Youtube thinks I'm too delicate to be viewing it Bob
Youtube clearly doesn't know that when I was at Portsmouth Poly in the '70s I used to do lighting for gigs in the Students Union, which often got 'lively' although not as lively as the night the Stranglers performed and got the wrong side of the audience (almost certainly by the design of their manager), empty beer bottles eventually flew and when full Newcastle Brown bottles joined them, both the Bar Manager & I thought it best that the band cease but they and particularly their manager wanted more, in the end I pulled the fuses for stage and most of the hall lights and the BM locked them in his safe !

It wasn't until a lot of years later when watching a punk retrospective documentary that I realised we had been part of their early marketing campaign!

Never took to their or other punk music but even now I can't listen to Golden Brown without thinking of that night or how they managed a pearl like that ! - Your opinion will doubtless differ, but we won't start chucking bottles at each other as a result