The Early Bird Catches The....

This early bird thankfully caught the first beautiful colours of the day and is grateful that she didn't catch the worm! Yup it's the weekly delight from the weekly shop...this time I hadn't even got as far as the trolley park before I was reaching for my phone.....

'Twas a busy, but exciting weekend [well from my perspective anyway!] Another apple howling.....I'll not dwell on it except to say that when we performed at this particular one a few years ago there was about 100 people there [it's only a small orchard], but we were up to over 200 this time around. The audience were really throwing themselves into the proceedings and at one point I took a moment just to listen to people singing their hearts out and watch them dancing away. We're a buttoned up lot us Brits yet if it's dark and there's some music playing we lose our inhibitions. As a thank you the organisers booked the back room of the local pub for us and bought us all a drink. The musos played a few tunes whilst the rest of us gossiped swapping tales from the evening....there was the little brown dog who caused much mirth as it very quietly sneaked round the base of the fruit tree tidying up all the bits of cider soaked toast which had been dropped or hung from low branches it could reach [I wonder if the cider had any effect?] or the friends saying farewell in the carpark at the end who were shouting waes hael/drinc hael at each other rather than the usual goodbye, but my favourite was the little laddie who wore his saucepan on his head with the handle sticking out on the side and with great gusto clonked the pan with his wooden spoon whenever it took his fancy!

Having spend a goodly chunk of my Saturday with the side four of us met on Sunday morning for a reccie on private land. We are hoping to run a completely new event which will see the revival of some Sussex folk traditions and the invention of some completely new, but needed to see if the offered site would be suitable. It looks to be so and although it's early days the prospects are exciting. Whilst I can't say where it is within the county we met the landowner who gave us a guided tour. From my point of view one mention of neolithic burials [including one which has never been excavated] and you've got my attention. The mounds themselves have long since been ploughed out. Across on the next hill [Cissbury] one of the archaeological digs found a female skeleton who was buried upside down. This is what's termed a deviant burial when it veers away from the usual death related practices of the period. An examination of the bones have shown that this individual had abnormally short arms and the thinking is that she was venerated. We obviously can't tell whether this would have been during her lifetime or post her passing, but it's all fascinating stuff. Currently the results of the radio carbon dating of her remains are awaited. Meanwhile in the field next door there is the footprint of a Roman temple at which lots of models of legs have been found. It's thought that those with damaged limbs were leaving these offerings to their Gods in the hope that they would be healed. A thousand plus years later archaeologists have found wax model legs left as votive offerings at saints shrines in places like Exeter Cathedral. Those they were worshipping may have changed, but the human behaviours remain the same. 

I have booked tickets for an upcoming adventure with a friend in a few days time so am looking forwards to being able to share some new material with you. Unfortunately Blogger is up to its devilish tricks again so my attempts to reply to comments have fallen at the first hurdle!

Arilx