Instead of a holiday

Have been decorating the lounge - it's gone from grey to a sort of light terracotta - curtains will be black!

This represents nearly 3 days work, but it does look nice! Need to change the centre light, but can't find one I like. Have decided to swap with the one in the dining room.

However, I'd rather be in Lyon!

The Good News

It looks as though I'll get the cost of the holiday refunded! Hooray!

Home and away ...

We couldn't fly on Friday, of course (and the skies are still closed). Went to Bristol for a long weekend instead. Nice hotel - except for the noise of the band! So moved rooms at 11:30 pm. Moved again the next day for a better room (at least got a free breakfast out of it).

Generally, I like Bristol: full of life and some nice (and not-so-nice) restaurants.

Ate at Riverstation on Friday: good food (quite posh and niceley presented) with some decent ingredients and a good - not expensive - wine list. Pretty much the same story for Saturday at the Glass Boat (well, more Italian, really). However, Sunday was a different story. Went to the Severn Shed (VERY popular) -- terrible sloppy service and I thought the food was poor. Has a semi-open kitchen -- it was interesting tio watch the 'chef' drinking several pints of beer (I think) while preparing food --- not a great advert and my advice is stay away!

Volcanoes?

Due to fly from BHX to LYS tomorrow. So far, Birmingham airport has been closed since about 07:00 today. Current reports are that it may reopen at 07:00 tomorrow. Flight's at 11:30 -- what chance do you think?

I'm probably among the fortunate ones really, chances are that I'll get my money back (booked the flight and hotel together, so it constitutes a 'package holiday') --- however, that won't get me to Lyon.

I thought about a lot of things that could happen to prevent me going (traffic, breakdowns, punctures, terrorists) the idea of a volcanic ash cloud just didn't occur to me!

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

When I was a young man I carried a pack
And I lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said: Son,
It's time to stop roving, there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As our ship pulled away from the quay
And amid all the tears, flag waving and cheers
We sailed off for Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was waiting, he'd primed himself well
He rained us with bullets, and he showered us with shell
And in tenminutes flat, he blew us half to hell
Nearly blew us back to Australia

And the band played Waltzing Matilda
When we stopped to bury our slain
Well we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

And those that were left well we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
While around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
I never knew there was worse things than dying

For I'll go no more I'll go Waltzing Matilda
All around the wild bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

Then they gathered  the wounded, the crippled, the maimed
And they sent us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind and insane
Those brave wounded heroes of Suvla
And when our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity

And the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving old dreams of past glory
The old men march slowly old bones stiff and sore
Tired old men from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question

And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men still answer the call
But year after year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong
So who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me? 

(C) Eric Bogle

(I've heard Bolgle sing this song many times and I have several different versions on record and CD - this is the way I sing it)

Tonight's dinner

It's been a nice day: the weather was sunny (so work in the garden, clearing paths of moss -- we have LOTS of paths), food shopping, sorting out the apartment we're renting and cooking...

I butchered a duck that's been in the freezer for a while: so we had the breasts tonight and the legs will be confit a bit later. Actually, the meal started with scallops in a pea puree ( with some lardons) the duck was served with a cabbagy-thing (thanks to Mr Ramsay) and dessert was brioche & butter pudding. Nice wine and some calvados too!

The smallest things ....

I was reading Captain Dave's aviation blog as I often do and realised (again) how the smallest things can change people's lives. Yet again, I remind myself that many of my students take my words as if they are an immutable truth when, in fact, they may be the product of my use of sarcasm as a teaching aid. Oh Positional power - Stephen Lukes would be proud

Guitars

My guitar collection which was recently reduced by the sale of the Ovation twin-neck will shortly be restored. I await the arrival of a Sheridan classical guitar. Bizarrely, I've never owned a classical (though I've been playing now for more than 40 years - and I hope to get good at it eventually), so this will be an interesting departure ...

ANZACs

25th April marks ANZAC day (the Australian & New Zealand equivalent of Armistice Day) - and I find myself moved again, not just by the bravery of men who fought in terrible conditions and were deliberately sacrificed by British generals, but by the fact that - for some of those who survived, at least - friendships were forged that endured for 60, 70, 80 years.

No-one is still alive who fought at Gallipoli, or the Somne or any of the other terrible battles of WW1, but we do remember them in the (forlorn) hope that it won't happen again ...

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them

They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

Weep no more ...

And it goes on ...

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling, 
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . 
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen 8 October 1917 - March, 1918

CURTAINS!

My mother (who's 87) asked us to help her with new curtains in the kitchen and bedroom - this means new curtain tracks/poles as well.

We did it! Replacing the plastic curtain track in the kitchen with a nice white wooden pole & new curtains (even though they had to be shortened) took about an hour. Replacing the curtain track in the bedroom (bay window) took 5 hours and nearly killed us! Still, it all got done.

Happy Easter.