Back from Cambridge Folk Festival today... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! It was good!!! but now very tired, very tired indeed as much alcohol was consumed, added to a couple of late nights/early mornings, some great conversations. I am really suffering from the loss of discrimination of what to write, how much to write... suffice to say.. it was good.... and will probably be able to write something more coherent tomorrow. Thanks N for the pictures .... gorgeous!!!

Further thoughts on the HP book... for the first time J K Rowling assumed a level of prior knowledge which was a blessed relief... so this time the first chapter doesn't consist of a potted history of the previous books, which is good, the converse of this is that I really think I should have re-read the Order of the Pheonix before reading this one as its a couple of years since I looked at a Harry Potter book and my memory just isn't as good as it used to be. Another improvement is that Harry seems to have regained his.... ummmm his happier side... he was a little angry and dark throughout the last book... this time he seemed much more philosophical about his 'fate'.... but the one really really inexplicable thing about this book and something that did start to irritate somewhat is that H continued on a course of actions that even he should have known from previous experience was totally totally stupid.....and would obviously have dire repercussions.... and yet JK Rowling continued down a very very similar path to one previously explored....???? Odd indeed

just finished reading a book I picked up in Tesco's yesterday..... bought the child's version as it is after all a children's book... though it is quite a meaty read for all that. Yes I have spent the last 24 hours reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and yes I did enjoy it.... shall I mention who gets killed... well Richard (from Richard and Judy) was right in his suggestion... and his reason for the death was absolutely spot on... by the end of the book Harry experiences love, loss and true friendship.... it was all there and I nearly shed a little tear... for a day's read it wasn't too bad at all.....

now the sun is shining I must get outdoors... a bit of cricket on Jesus Green with J & J might be the answer!

Am getting a little closer to my aim of swimming daily as it has been beautifully hot so I have dived into the lake at every opportunity... getting used to swimming with the fishes and they are remarkably brave and happy to swim around my toes which is slightly unsettling. Have also had a couple of attempts at windsurfing but... there has never quite been the right sort of wind (my excuse anyway) Mostly it has been too little wind which leaves me with another swimming option. I have perfected the technique of placing the sail on the board, lying flat and as far forward as possible and simply swimming arms only.... you really glide along, bouyancy isn't a problem and it gets rid of any possibility of growing bingo wings!!! Excellent!

Need to get back to regular posting on this blog. All the stuff I want to say piles up in my head and then I don't make the time to write it down and it sort of dissipates, gets lost somewhere, floats into some sort of interweb ether...

sooooo firstly I need to have a little rant about car adverts... why is it that manufacturers think they can fuse the use of cars with nature in such a integral way...cars and car-use destroy the natural environment!!!! roads kill off biodiversity, the fuel that we use casually floats off into the atmosphere and destroys the natural balance of things and they are, old or new, ugly unsightly mechanical heaps!! and yet a car advert has a single glistening vehicle in some distant rural setting zipping around as if it was the only 'creature' on the planet... there's a new one that amazed me.. it leaves a vapour trail behind it and people are looking at this polluting smog in wonder as if it was something special??? now what is that all about?????????

ok rant over... that one has been wafting through my brain cells in need of release for some time now and well yes that is what blogs are for is it not????

and so the search for the london bombers continues, the return to a sort of normality takes place, we had a two minutes silence across Europe on Thursday... and my head swims with thoughts.... we have not had any minutes silence for any civilian deaths in Iraq.... perhaps we should??? I was in a little woodland with 10 eleven year olds on thursday and we stopped what we were doing and I found it quite a special moment... just being silent, thinking of the connection of all of those others also standing silent... and it really makes me ponder human connectivity and the power it gives... maybe it brings out the old hippy in me but I am sure there is something beyond individuals and there is 'something' that connects us in ways beyond present day understanding????

Anyway stepping aside from weird new agey ponderings... to the people that planted the bombs... I thought it was very good that good old Ken (Livingstone)did not speak of revenge, eye for an eye type rhetoric but was calm and spoke of the need for understanding and peace... this is not a time, in fact there is never a time, when violence can be answered by violence... it just escalates the whole situation....I truely feel for the bombers families as much as for the victims families... it must be terrible to discover that one's child could be involved in something so awful, to be so committed to a violent ideology that they actually killed for it.... ??? another thing beyond comprehension.... but but but....

listening to R4 the other morning when they announced that it had indeed been British citizens that carried out the bombings, the next news item concerned American officers in Guantanamo Bay being accused of abusive and degrading activites to their 'prisoners', the final main story was about British soldiers possibly being charged with war crimes for their activities in Iraq... and the injustice of it all reminded me of some angry young Irish men that I knew in the 70's who felt so strongly about other acts of injustice that they considered violence as an option...and although I could never condone any act of violence I could understand their anger, (thankfully the IRA have (sort of) come to understand that violence does not help any cause).... it is possible to have some level of empathy with angry young muslims today..... hopefully they too will come to realise that violence just isn't an answer????????

came across this blog and thought you might like to read some of the quotes from Fox News!!

I feel this blog is being sadly neglected of late as I am now spending more and more time at Mepal staying in my caravan and living in a world that appears far from my previous existence of sitting at a computer screen day in day out. But this week events unfolded that brought the two worlds aligned for a while.... we had a group of school children in from a central London school on Thursday and as we were preparing for a day of high ropes, climbing and kayaking news started filtering in of an explosion in London. At first it was simply one text message from a girl's mother but soon there was enough to warrant putting on the TV to discover just what was happening.... it became an unsettled day of listening to news unfold, carrying on as 'normal' and talking and listening to the teenagers as they in turn needed to talk through their fears and worries.... It all felt strange as the world I inhabited last year joined the world I now inhabit as I spoke to friends still living in London and working in the very areas that were targetted..... it felt personal too in an unexpected way... it felt as if it was my London that had been violated and actually Ken Livingstone put it extremely eloquently when he spoke of London as a place were you are free to be who you want to be... this is just how I feel about London and why each time I return I feel as if I am returning home... it is truely a place where you can just be... where you can be yourself without fear or recrimination... and that is what was attacked...There has been a lot of talk of the indomitable spirit of the place which is certainly true but what is also very very special about London is the sense of freedom and home that makes people from all over the world call themselves Londoners and pride themselves in the sense of belonging to the place... this to me is what was attacked... those bombs were aimed at all Londoners with absolutely no regard for religion, race, belief, status... and that's what is so senseless about it all....

so now today I sit at the computer trying to write and I feel as if I have forgotten how.... it has all become a bit meaningless

woke up to the sounds of dawn rising this morning... have seen dawn a number of times over the last few days, this morning was slightly different though, as I awoke to sounds of lorries turning, pulling up and parking .... I was in South Mimms service station, just off the M25, having stopped there late the night before as I was just too tired to drive all the way home from Glastonbury... so simply curled up on the back seat under my sleeping bag and fell immediately into a deep sleep... finally got home at about 7.00am this morning!

What a weekend though! Glastonbury improves with each visit.... maybe it's because I now know all the back streets of this particular urban/rural jungle or the fact that there are loads of lovely people there, many now really good friends.. but each year the treasurable moments increase exponentially... it is just magical!

There is certainly an atmosphere there that is remarkably full of kindness, generosity, caring, supportiveness and one of overall enjoyment but it is an enjoyment that is inclusive, it is not to the detriment of others... everyone has a really good time and is happy to share it with everyone else... I cant really put it into words but there is something luscious about the feeling...

special moments were numerous... I arrived in the company of good friends and was really happy to discover three people I had met last year were also back again... and S & R had got tickets too and it was lovely to see them again.... loved S's reaction to the bins... she is a hardy festival goer but hasn't been to G before and got really, really excited about the number of colour-coded bins that are liberally spread around every bit of the festival in an attempt to keep it as clean and tidy as possible ...there was no climbing wall this year but instead it was a triangular high ropes course... platform 2 became my home and saturday evening I was up there, Brian on platform three, Nigel on platform one and we were all dancing to music from the Jazz world whilst working and thoroughly enjoying every moment of it... had one or two minor rescues but generally everyone that had a go, even the ones that looked absolutely terrified, said they really enjoyed it....

didn't really do the rushing around to see loads of bands thing this year at all and the bands I did see were more by accident than design. Must admit though to being really impressed by Coldplay which was a bit of a surprise as I have always thought of them as a bit too mellow.. but it sounds like the new album might be a bit raunchier than previous ones so I might be tempted to purchase it.. loved their version of Kylie's 'can't get you out of my head' too!! and Brian Wilson!!!!!!!!!! the set was perfect for a sunday afternoon in the sun at G!! Good vibrations indeed!

oh yes I seem to have forgotten to mention the rain....! Bloody scary lying in a tent alone watching massive hits of lighting bounce around the sky, hearing thunder that actually made you cringe and blasts of noise that indicated direct hits and having what felt like a continuous stream from a very powerful hosepipe, turned on full, aimed at the top of my tent, which incidentally didn't let in a drop of water!!, and all the while desperately wanting to go to the loo!!! When the bladder finally insisted that enough was enough I donned poncho and wellies put my feet outside and realised there was what appeared to be a stream flowing all around! The ground was just totally unable to absorb the vast amount of water that had been thrown at it so lakes, streams, ponds, even minor oceans changed the landscape of the site quite dramatically!

Will add photo's later!

wandered around the greenfields a bit, drank pear cider, talked with friends hearing stories of climbing exploits, exchanging snippets of life histories, sharing moments of discovery of similarities of experience until daylight arrived and we had to disperse to various tents and catch a bit of sleep before starting the next shift... ate an inordinate amount of healthy food.. to the extent that I feel in need of a good re-tox of cake, biscuits and crisps!!! Felt more and more confident in my own climbing abilities too which was great. Lost Vagueness lost its appeal but the little garden in the greenpeace field became a favourite spot... and the sun returned with a gentle breeze and by sunday the wellies were put away and it was possible to get around the site in sandals... so many magic moments my head is bursting with it all and I could cry!!

The face is bright pink again, my back aching loads but today I am a happy woman... passed my Level 2 powerboat assessment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok so my 'holding off' wasn't that brilliant but boy did I do my man-overboard thingy well!! So now I hold a usefully recognised paper qualification in boat skills!!!! Hilarious really!

Plus I have taken up the sport of slacklining!!!! and I can see it becoming an obsession... I am even going to buy my own slackline so I can set it up wherever I am and practise!! Maybe a bit of description is required.... ok you have heard of tightrope walking... where the ummmm rope is very very tight and you errrr 'simply' walk along it, well imagine that that tight rope is a ..... slack line! It wobbles like hell!!!I could only manage 4 steps on my first go!!!! and that was after about two hours of getting to that point!

Spending the evening supervising the public climbing session tonight.... there are 12 people climbing at the moment and I feel too lazy to join in so thought I would make the most of the computer and add a comment or two...

Was in London at the weekend... meal at Quecum Bar (yes i know a terrible name!!!) it was somewhere down Battersea High Street... pleasant place and got to see London friends... which was nice indeed...

sad stuff at home though as J & H have split up... will be very sad not to see H again.... she has been part of the family for so long....and this is the first big split up for either J or J....

looking forward to Glastonbury and have had my confirmation from Greenpeace about my ticket... made me laugh though as the letter said I would be working on the climbing 'frame' I know they said it would be a smaller wall this year but how much smaller????? Just hoping it's an admin error...

Have just finished reading The Eternal Child by Clive Bromhall, a fascinating read about human evolution that really does seem to pull together lots of anomalies concerning human development and human behaviour. It is well written and its arguments are clear... it is the sort of book that makes you look at the world differently after reading it!

Now well settled into my new job and the season has really started so it's busy now until September. We had a residential group in this week and I was 'looking after' them so took them for a mixture of activities like climbing but also had to do evening activities so had them playing games in the woodland and by the time it came for them to leave felt I knew them all very well and they were all really sweet saying their goodbyes and thankyous... so this job is more than just the activity. It is getting pretty social too... we have public climbing once a week which I join in although feel slightly intimidated by the group of French blokes who are very loud and quite expert climbers... I always seem to bang my head on the wall or slip off as I am about to start when they are there???

Last Sunday was gorgeous weather...the only day so far ... and the evening was really quiet so I though I would go for a swim. You see in my head I have this plan of getting really really fit and swimming everyday is included in that plan. But it is still May and the weather has actually been quite cold so the lake hasn't really warmed up yet... taking this into account I put my wetsuit on... thank god I did... I stepped into a shallow bit near the jetty and literally had my breath taken away from me... but I was in the water so couldn't at this point turn back, it would look very silly to put a wetsuit on and then stand in the lake up to my knees and then get out...but it was freezing freezing freezing!!!At each stroke I could feel a little trickle of icy water creep into the back of my wetsuit and despite the theory of wetsuits it did not get any warmer!! So I swam up and around the moored powerboats, passed the yacht along to the other jetty and then straight back to the jetty and ran straight into the shower.

The week before all the staff went on a high ropes trainers course which was excellent... very very inspiring and massively confidence building.... by the end of it I was happily hanging upside down rescuing someone 30 ft up... and it has made me more confident generally with all the activities ... I have learnt that I can push myself quite easily to do lots of physically difficult stuff...

Back after 4 days of living in a hut with no electric or heating... my bed is going to seem so lovely tonight! Have just been on an Archery Leaders course ... hmmmm it was actually quite arduous and this was not because of the archery but more the conditions we had to cope with... all very rainy and the site became waterlogged immediately, so have returned as if from Glastonbury with everything mud splashed and grimy!!

so have sat at the computer to check emails and have stayed sitting.... time being sucked away into the ether.... ended up looking at a sight which tells you who to vote for after asking some very basic questions...this is what it came up with for me..

Who should I vote for? v2

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 39
Conservative -71
	Liberal Democrat 129
UK Independence Party -43
	Green 117

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Interesting!

Have been away for a long time... almost back in touch with the world though as I have got a new computer (ish) and just waiting now for ntl to actually turn up when they say they will to sort out the modem...

recent events have been amazing

Last week I turned up at work monday morning all aglow from a lovely weekend, I was expecting to be painting the climbing frame and so had brought suitable trousers for painting. There were no customers in so it was meant to be a time for catching up on the mundane type of jobs that can so easily get forgotten about.... discovered a wonderful change of plan... it was to be a training week for all the staff... so this week I have jumped backwards off a 35 ft timber pole, played kayak polo, learnt to paddle a canoe in a straight line using just one side of the canoe (???) now know how to put together a sequence of moves on the trampoline, and I have won my first dinghy race!!! My body feels like it has been hit on all sides by a human meat tenderiser, I have the most amazing pattern of bruises below my knees and it has been absolutely marvelous!!!

To cap it all off I spent friday night wandering from Brick Lane to Whitehall in the early hours and joined in a remarkable Vote for Justice march passing Downing Street at 7am on Saturday morning



Slept quite a bit of yestrday, am in Southend at Shaun's, alone as he has gone off to organise/run a Non Violent Direct Action day for Greenpeace .... I just felt that finishing the weekend joining in with that would have killed me off completely so declined the offer to join him, instead I plan to catch up with some emails, potter a bit and read a fascinating book Watching the English by Kate Fox that I started a week ago but as I keep falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow I am barely into the first chapter....

Life has changed completely again!!!! Have worked at Mepal for a week now and have gone through a whole gamut of emotions from fear and frustration to pure pure pleasure!!

Turned up Monday having had a most incredible weekend... more of that later....not really knowing what to expect... the day was busy.. full of 16 year old public school boys... worked on the high ropes section... very buzzy... it is a series of 40 ft high timber poles with a variety of activities like a trapeze to leap towards...and similar sort of stuff... it was fun... exhausting.... a sort of confusing day.... hate being new and not knowing where anything ... you feel so stupid.... the week sauntered on... my face getting progressively pinker with each glimpse of the sun.... friday was splendid... got a go on the high ropes so finally it was me 40 ft up throwing myself towards a small metal bar suspended above me... and yes I caught it!!! after that had a chance to go sailing... the weird thing is I was actually more scared of this than the height thing.... and I ended up going out in a Wayfarer on my own!! had a lovely time tacking up and down the lake.. felt more comfortable with being in control and then I had to take it in to the jetty and I suddenly realised I hadn't a clue how to do it.... Les the lovely 78 year old sailing instructor called out instructions from the bank and I awkwardly steered it in... terrifying!!!!

and in amonst all this marvellously new adventure I have met someone gorgeous from Greenpeace.. and have been starting a whole new thing.... we went climbing last weekend... and well it has been brilliant.....feel very warm and content....

and now there's just today and tomorrow left... and more work to do than i can possibly fit in... particularly as I am spending time writing this!! Peter, the cleaner, presented me with a plant this morning and I actually felt quite emotional!! Tomorrow's leaving do lunch might be hard work!!!

Going for lunch in Browns today with Lindsay an old friend who now runs her own outdoor cente... it's mostly mechanical stuff like her monster truck, quad bikes and go karts... will probably help out on occassional days there this summer.... there's just so many possibilities throwing themselves at me at the moment it's all rather difficult to take in...

and the sun is shining, spring is here and life is bloody marvellous!

Three days left working here at the university... ahhhh no more little trips up to Dampt (the Department of applied maths and theoretical physics) no more popping in to Old Schools with porters in ancient costumes... no more stuffy hierarchical unhelpfulness either and pompous blinkered attitudes!!! god knows just what I will be doing after next monday but it will be different!!! Very different

The weekend was splendid... met a lively and interesting group of Essex Greenpeace people... and will arrange to do some joint actions with them and the Cambridge group so that is really positive.... might have found someone to do a bit of climbing and sailing with too but that is another story!!!! Went to Mile End with C and had a bit of a boulder around.... still a very friendly inviting place... lovely to be back really

but feel I want to write about the suitable womb theory again.... think I mentioned ages ago about meeting chappies in their 30's who seemed only prepared to enter into a committed relationship if the woman had a suitable womb, ie if she specifically said she wanted babies.... anyone else just wasn't good enough... have been pondering this a bit... obviously its not all men but it does seem to be much more common than I had at first realised.. having conversations with others slightly younger than me, I find I am not the only one that is coming across this phenomenon... pondering further I think it reflects a massive change in our society and fertility choices... Thirty or forty years ago, prior to efficient contraception, if a couple were in any sort of relationship then pregnancy was always possible... there was limited choice in the matter but now things have changed dramatically... women have the choice and complete control of their fertility, if they chose to use it... and men just have go with it... which is so fundamental a change that I'm amazed that it isn't acknowledged more... so men are now making their choice in a different way .. and rather than selecting a partner because of other needs the paramount choice is one of potential fertility....men seem to want babies more than previously acknowledged...

For the first time ever I have to say I am thankful for existence of The House of Lords!!!!!!!!!! Amazingly I completley endorse their holding up of the Terrorist Bill and am utterly in favour of the sunset clause and feel that the Government is totally totally wrong in it's actions. Tony Blair's assertion that, without this bill going through, the country will be set upon immediatley by a new breed of terrorism is nothing short of emotional blackmail more closely aligned to George Bush's rhetoric than any Labour PM should ever be!!!

Busy weekend ahead, industrial climbing! Party in Hoxton, beer in Shoreditch, a visit to Decathlon in Canada Water, catching up with friends!!! and a day off on Monday!!! Last week at the university next week...

lost the ability to walk downstairs!!! at the moment I am looking like either a hobbled convict or a feeble 98 year old making a last ditch attempt at independence!! It's not a good look at all! So the weekend was spent sailing but more of that later....
Went to see Sideways on thursday and thoroughly enjoyed the film, even if it was about two appalling unattractive characters.... it was very very amusing and you actually found sympathy growing for the depressive unpublished writer Miles! It was set in Californian wine country and the scenery looked as delicious as the descriptions of the wine .... I haven't actually laughed out loud in a cinema as often as I did for this film, and despite the brief story line, the awful characters and the unguessable ending it was a warm and delightful film!?

Then friday another Darwin Lecture in the Conflict series...this time it was Willy Brown, Master of Darwin and someone I have heard speak before... this was actually a vast improvement on Kate Adie as he gave a coherent and fascinating talk on the rise and fall of trade unionism, with only the merest glimmer of hope for the future world in the newly arisen development of ethical trading/fair trade consumerism... interesting!

So saturday I had to force myself out of bed... had the startings of a cold and I felt really heavy and tired.... stuffed massive amount of clothes in a backpack, put an even massively larger amount on and headed for Mepal..... sort of dreaded it really... but of course once we were out on the water I utterly loved it.... even when it snowed!!! Admittedly the time that the boat, a Wayfarer, nearly capsized my heart pinged into fear mode, but god it was good.... the lake isn't big so it sort of felt that as soon as you tacked you had to tack again but by sunday afternoon my brain had taught my hands to shift the tiller and rope (whoops I mean sheet)each turn and we were racing! Probably not good spectator sport as we fluffled up one tack after another but fun to be doing!!

saturday evening C kindly cooked pasta and afterwards we headed out to see The Life Aquatic.... an intrigueing film, decidedly odd but very amusing, wonderful music and hilarious 70's detailing, loved the addidas trainers!!!and the red hats!!!!! definitely a film to see again as I feel I missed sooooo much of what was going on.....

Becoming more and more concerned about what is happening in this country. It has been bad enough with the Americans claiming independence from International law and the goings on in Guantanamo have been very very scary but there's stuff afoot here in the UK that seems to highlight a fundametal change in our supposedly democratic country. Going through Parliament at the moment is a bill that precludes the natural right of any citizen a recourse to the courts and a fair trial, which is so fundamental to what is right and proper about our judicial system that it makes a mockery of what should be a true democracy, a democracy that has taken hundreds of years to develop! Even simple, and non-violent, street protests are under threat! It looks like soon if I hand out a Greenpeace leaflet giving information to a couple of people whilst on the street I will be committing an illegal act! It is getting very very scary!