Royal wedding - over and out. Now for the beer festival.....

I succumbed to the wedding enthusiasm and no bad thing in the end.

On Monday, the beat goes on and we are off to a Beer Festival and Pig Roast at a local pub - a perfect country pub that brews its own beers and features guest ales from all around. Dog Friendly, which is a bonus.

It's hardly changed a bit in the last 50 years.

Concerning Hobbits

At the head of this blog I promised to talk about J R R Tolkien and his association with this area and here are some extracts from Tolkien's life and works as well as some interesting co-incidences with my life

Tolkien was born on 3rd January (same date as me - though not the year!) 1892, in Bloemfontein, SA. and when visiting England for a holiday his father, who had stayed behind, died young leaving Tolkien and his siblings in the care of his mother who remained in England.

First they lived in Wake Green Road, Moseley (where I was born) and he was educated and looked after by the priests at the Birmingham Oratory (where I was married) when his mother died. His mother was buried at St Peters church, Bromsgrove (where my fathers funeral was held).

Tolkien also spent much of his childhood with aunt in Rednal, across the road from Cofton Park, where the Pope beatified Cardinal Newman (another famous resident) in 2010. I lived a few hundred yards away from the age of 3 to 21 and played in the Park and adjacent Lickey Hills as a child. Now I am back after years away in the West Country, London and France.

He based much of the characters in the LotR upon Bromsgrove and Birmingham people. One major character was Sam Gamgee - based upon Joseph Sampson Gamgee, the Birmingham inventor of Cotton Wool. Sam's wife to be in the book was, of course, Rosie COTTON.

He also stayed at his other relatives near to Evesham (my great grandmother is from Evesham) at a farm called Bag End - to become the address of Bilbo Baggins.

He first published the LotR in 1954 though 1955 - the year of my birth. The Tolkien Society is a great resource for further study.

Today you can still see the beauty of the Lickey Hills (Anglo-Saxon, meaning the leak-hay - the watershed from which the rivers Rea and Arrow flow to feed the Trent and Warwickshire Avon respectively).

Finally, a view looking from the southern side of the hills towards my house and the Malvern Hills that Edward Elgar so loved - but more of him later.

Royal Wedding

I'm something of a agnostic on the Royal Family, not too keen on privilege but fearful of the alternative (Blair/Brown for President?)

Wish the couple well - but having to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage which is driving me MAD...

Will, however, be breaking out the BBQ on Friday.

PS Do you know that BBQ comes from the old French? Barbe et Cul - refers to sticking the rod throough the Barbe (mouth) to arse (cul). Or so I am told by a Frenchman. Seems logical.

The alignment of the pig v the clefts of the stakes in the picture has a certain Escher-like quality don't you think?

St Georges Day

Beautiful weather and much going on - our national Saints Day day is picking up in peoples consciousness.

Seems the day has been relocated to Monday May 2nd by both the CofE and Catholic Church - thereby giving St George a national holiday.

Great I can celebrate on the 23rd and again in May.

Street celebrations in Bromsgrove, entertainment at the club, a Cider and Sausage Festival (New Inn), Beer Festival (Nailers) and Folk dancing at the Dodford Inn.

Its all going on and the atmosphere is truly friendly. Just great to see many of our people getting into the "spirit".

The bluebells are out and the fragrance is intoxicating. The dawn chorus for the past week has also been deafening.

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Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower, -

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

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Deer sighted.........no mind altering substances found.

Well what a surprise.

At 6:15 am on the 15th of this month when I was enjoying a slice of toast - a movement outside my front window and guess what - a male Roe deer strolling past.

It was a moment that makes you look back to the night before to be sure you didn't take anything mind altering. But no, it was for real. Now I know I live by the Lickey Hills and, yes, there are deer but I never imagined they would regard a residential street as just another thoroughfare

Ah, the Night Garden.

Add that to the mass of dandelions, local buzzard being mobbed by crows, every day, surge in rabbit numbers, masses of frog and toad spwn (now taddies) and some signs of insect life about (though still not enough) and it seems like a wonderful spring is in the offing.