A visit to Westonbirt

The year turns ever onwards and the leaves have turned to glorious flame:
Once again a time to soak up the slendour of autumnal hues in Westonbirt Arboretum

I am here taking the opportunity to make a shortcut, with this link to my facebook photo aibumn, which, on balance you may find more "user-friendly" for viewing than scrolling up and down here on blogger.com!

Give it a try and click this link
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036326&id=1454649011&l=ea50736092

Fields of Gold

A walk through fields of Gold.....

Easter among the anemones

A patch of woodland near Whitfield (Kent) glistens with anemones, and the sunshine on Easter day made a visit to it a must:

At the furthest edge of the woodland a fallen tree was an ideal place to stop and appreciate spring glory of an english woodland

Next we look forward to the beautiful bluebells, now just begining to open out

We had snow

We had snow......
and I finally got to walk out in it on Coaley Peak

A Snowman murder scene..

Last FM

In my surfing and twiddling on-line I discovered the delights of "Last fm" and created a library of music for myself

Visit it Through Here!!

Malvern Country Show

The Malvern Country show made for another diverting day out in which to admire
giant vegetables..

admire the efforts of people who "know their onions".....
or indeed, fruit...

and who delight in their prize blooms...

Other attractions including dog shows, llamas, horses..... tarantulas...
and plenty of opportunities for sampling cheeses, pickles, apples, ginger wine etc etc etc. Another fun day out, and good weather too!!

A Working holiday in South Devon

This year's working holiday took us to a secluded holiday home in the South Hams of Devon, to be found after a twisting, turning and somewhat narrow and hedge-constrained drive down several lanes, such that ideas of just "popping out to fetch fish and chips for tea" were abandoned!

It was a homely home, though.
and pleasingly not too far away from accessing the coast from Dartmouth and around to Slapton

As well as beach visits, our day trips took us to the Buckfast Otter Sanctuary and Butterfly Farm




and we also paid a visit to Paignton zoo

Chameleon tail

A caiman

A stone curlew

By the end of the week, however, I sympathised with these sentiments...

I also realised that I had been bitten by bed bugs......ouch, they itch!!!!

More Kites!!!! (the other ones......)

I took the chance of a sunny day off to go to the International Kite Festival at Bristol

It was fun!

Bristol International Kite festival 2008
Uploaded by agracarter2

Sunday 27th July Womad: Final day.....and out with a bang!

The closing highlights of WOMAD, for me at least, were, firstly the amazing GOCOO (Japanese Taiko drummers) + GoRo (didgeridoo). The "lead" drummer with her wild hair and the whole exhuberance of the performance was enthralling!!!

Here's an extended clip of them performing on another occasion!

The second, equally superb highlight...the final act leading up to midnight, were "Son de La Frontera" - a flamenco group who played and danced with all the usual passion and rhythmic patterns of this style....Here they are, for example, performing in Montreal 2007

Then after a wonderful evening, and a last wander around the stalls to find a bed-time cocoa I returned to my tent, intending to sleep, but there was little chance for that with the excitement of Gocoo and flamenco rhythms running through my head - and the sounds of the Vogon destructor fleet (ie the start of stage and tent dismantling processes!!) rumbling in the near distance. So I got up again, took down my tent and went in search of my black car in a pitch black field......

So farewell to Womad 2008, roll on Womad 2009. I cann't wait!

Sunday: Sunshine, sights, sounds and Sa Dingding

Dance workshops were entertaining to observe....just observe, mind you. The energy levels were flagging by now, after the late night and the chilly pre-dawn.
I particularly enjoyed the tounge-in-cheek Bollywood workshop!!

Later came Sa Dingding- described as a "Chinese Kate Bush" or an "Asian Bjork"(ie quirky and theatrical.....and from China)- who was a winner of Radio 3 World Music awards for the "Asia/Pacific" category: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2008/2008_sa_ding_ding.shtml and her performance lived up expectation.

A Youtube video of one of her performances....

The children's area part of the festival Samba-ed its way around the main area later in the afternoon, adding an extra touch of the Carnivalesque!

and the flags fluttered merrily