The Sunday Service

A bit more catching up: on Sunday 3rd May, I took my girls to The Sunday Service - no, nothing to do with going to church, I'm afraid, but one of a series of musical afternoons hosted by the Love Bistro at the Minories in Colchester.

In the blossom-filled Minories gardens, and against the picturesque backdrop of the eighteenth-century folly, six local musicians entertained a relaxed, 200-strong audience for three hours.

There was a lovely inclusive atmosphere, with an excellent barbecue, a bar and plenty of tea and cakes - something for everyone, from dancing toddlers to persons of maturer years (ie even more mature than mine!) reclining on tartan blankets.

Ev and Mary, aka 'Dog Friendly' - a guitar and flute/sax duo - set a wonderfully upbeat tone to the afternoon.

Tony Gibson - trombonist with Colchester Ska/Reggae Band the New Town Kings , but playing here in his singer-songwriter guise, was accompanied by Andrew Poonian on tabla and joined for a couple of songs by singer Adrian Johnson.

Young Colchester singer-songwriter Laura Younger rounded off the day's music making.

It's so wonderful to see the garden and folly being put to such good use. Altogether a jolly good way to spend a Sunday afternoon, albeit a disappointingly chilly one (but that's May bank holiday weekends - at least it wasn't tipping down with rain).

The next Sunday Service at the Minories - and let's hope it's bathed in summer sunshine - is on Sunday 31st May at 3 pm and will feature Ragged String Band, Dionysus (Rob, Chris and Tony from the New Town Kings playing dub), Animal Noise and Tony Gibson. Andrew Poonian will be providing an African drum workshop, too. Tickets are £5 on the door. See you there!

Catching up I

Hello!

It's been a while - nearly a month, in fact - since I last posted anything here. Work often overtakes my life in March, and this year it has done so with more of a vengeance than usual. So, mindful of the enormously distracting influence of the blogosphere, I have given it up for Lent, to be on the safe side. Apologies, therefore, to all my favourite bloggers whose words and pictures I have not visited, and also to the very kind readers of Musings who have been enquiring after my well-being. All is well, I can assure you - I've simply needed to concentrate my entire attention on the less entertaining business of meeting deadlines and earning a living.

There is still much to be done but, having accidentally found myself taking much of the day off in order to do some essential shopping, entertain some essential visitors, and run some essential errands, I thought . . . oh what the, er, 'heck', I'll end this less than work-productive day by catching up with the old blog before the Easter break.

Today, my elder daughter's only non-ripped, non-paint-spattered jeans were declared unwearable, the zip having 'gone'. We are visiting Grannie and Grandpa tomorrow. Grannie and Grandpa don't really 'understand' ripped jeans (in fact, they don't really understand jeans per se and have never been seen anywhere near, let alone IN, anything made of denim themselves). A trip into Colchester was thus urgently called for, and a pair of 'respectable' jeans purchased (together, I regret to say, in a manner which reveals my Great Antiquity, with a pair of 'ready-ripped' jeans . . . I can't believe I've spent good money on such an item, but ho hum, that's progress and the Modern Age, I suppose, grump grump).

The time-consuming and spiritually exhausting process of finding exactly the right size, length, fit, shape, colour and label of said jeans successfully completed, a trip to the Colchester branch of James and Maggie's Art Cafe was more than called for.

And a cup of their highly recommended Hot Chocolate with Chilli was duly consumed. Here's a horribly out-of-focus snap:


A few errands later, and supper (cooked by SD#1, who's becoming very competent and useful on the catering front) consumed, My Boy and I set off with the dog for our evening's dog-walk. This started well, with a Nice Cup of Tea and Sit Down on the old jetty to watch the sun go down and listen to the birds settling for the night. But our peaceful companionship was disturbed by a party of people for whom quiet musing was clearly not on the agenda, so we retired gracefully to walk the sea wall until darkness fell.

Colchester Castle

Colchester Castle, built by order of William the Conqueror, stands on the foundations of the Roman Temple of Claudius. This was the main target of Queen Boudica, when she led the rebel tribes of the Iceni and the Trinovantes in an attack on Colchester in AD 60. The town's Roman citizens barricaded themselves into the temple but after a two-day siege, they were all killed.

The keep of the castle was the largest ever built in Britain (to the same design as the White Tower of the Tower of London) and is an early example of recycling, incorporating as it does - and to splendid aesthetic effect - a huge number of Roman bricks.

For much of its post-medieval life it served as a prison, but in the eighteenth century passed into the private ownership of Charles Gray, MP for Colchester. Gray turned the surrounding land into a garden, now the attractive Castle Park, a pleasant place to stroll (as I did on Sunday morning), which also provides a great venue for all kinds of open-air concerts, fairs and other events over the summer.

The pretty Victorian bandstand is still used by (appropriately enough) bands of one sort or another, too.

The castle itself is now an excellent museum .

Enjoyed brunch at the Life gallery cafe, eating succulent, peppery Proctor's Cumberland sausages while gazing at the paintings of Mel King.

Race for Life - Essex University 27 July 2008

Today's Race for Life at Essex University was the last one of 2008, with over 2,000 women from the Colchester area taking part to raise, we hope, in excess of £128,000.

Race for Life is the UK’s largest women-only fundraising event. In 2007, 665,000 of us walked, jogged or ran 5k and raised £40 million for the vital work of Cancer Research UK – the world’s leading independent organisation dedicated to cancer research.

The sun beat down on us relentlessly today. 30 degrees, with no shade and no breeze (hazard of venturing inland!). Even by the end of the gentle aerobic warm-up I had a thumping headache and it was clear that (a) I should have brought a hat, (b) my nocturnal so-called training had not really prepared me for this, and (c) my bottle of water was far too small!

But the tremendous atmosphere banished any qualms about striding out in the heat. I had planned to part-run, part-walk the course, but as it turned out I ran for longer than I'd intended. As last year, I found myself carried along by the wonderful sisterly esprit de corps; the overwhelming sense of purpose displayed by all the participants - from ages 5 to 75, and of every size, shape and fitness; the deeply moving two minutes' silence before the race; reading the names and photos on the other runners' backs; and thinking about those known to me who have won, and those who have lost, the battle against cancer - and most of all, those who are fighting right now.

Here are some pics.

Anyway, I got round in one piece, received a medal to prove it, wolfed down a very welcome ice-cream, then came home for a soak in a refreshing lukewarm bath. Put my feet up with a large pot of tea and a good book . . . and woke up several hours later!

A million thanks to all my sponsors. My fundraising page stays open until the end of September, so if you haven't yet, but would like to, you can contribute to the life-saving work of Cancer Research by clicking here.

Oyster Fayre II

Following on from the previous post, here are some more images from Colchester's atmospheric festival of medieval life.

Colchester Oyster Fayre 2008

The children absolutely love this annual festival of medieval life in Colchester's Lower Castle Park (and so do I!). On Saturday the foul weather was most offputting, so we decided to leave it until Sunday. Fortunately, the weather had done a u-turn and was glorious, though the conditions underfoot were still pretty squelchy. You can read all about the Fayre here.

Here are some of the pics I took with my little pointy-clicky camera. More to follow during the week.