Bank holiday weekend
Apr. 14th, 2009 12:08 pmBack at work, in a nicely empty office. I intend to take advantage of this to tidy up the appalling morass of paper that is my desk and surrounding area. I suspect that this will consist of sending much of it to the round filing cabinet.
I had a very enjoyable Easter weekend, attending my cousin’s wedding in Warwick on the Saturday. The wedding was held at the Lord Leycester Hospital*, and we spent much of Sunday and Monday wandering round small towns and villages in the area (if you are ever there, don’t bother with the NT’s Charlcote Manor**), and generally admiring little lambs and primroses – and seeing wild deer, which is always exciting. The wedding itself was more enjoyable than anticipated - I managed to fit into the dress my sister had leant me, the food was good, and the relatives on good form. Different cousin’s wife J proved as ever how c/Conservatism can connect at least in part from severe lack of imagination, but though a woman of limited interests (and interest) she is at least friendly and jolly in person. My uncle revealed an unexpected enthusiasm (and indeed talent) for dancing.
Easter as religious festival seems to have got a lot more “coverage” on my Flist than Christmas did, despite the personnel being largely the same. Though this may be down to computer access. I don’t find Easter very exciting myself. We have not yet worked out how to celebrate it effectively as a secular festival. Christmas is easy: everyone enjoys a party when the weather is grim, and celebrating the returning sun through dressing up, feasting, and fêting vegetation, is generally agreed to be a Good Thing we can get behind. Easter is trickier: chocolate eggs don’t quite cut it. It is a lovely time of year, with lambs in the fields, trees coming into leaf, primroses and cherry blossom, the certainty that winter is over and spring is come, and it’s an understandable desire to want to mark it. Going to the garden centre doesn’t quite have the necessary ritual satisfaction. The chief memory of Easter in my childhood remains the hymns in school assembly and the annual purchase at school of a small hand-made chick or rabbit sitting in a paper basket. We were taken class by class into the hall where we made our choice. Naturally, I was extremely picky and would examine table after table before selecting the perfect specimen.
*An ancient charitable foundation for ex-servicemen, still in use, with rather nice medieval buildings, as opposed to the civil wedding of a friend in Ireland, where the civil General Registry Office was at the mental hospital, an interesting choice by the authorities.
**Not only a rather dull building, with unexceptional gardens, but suffering the irritating habit of the Trust, which seems to be increasing, of not actually providing any written information or catalogues as to the content of the rooms. An email shall be sent. I did pick up two Heyers at the book stall, though.
I had a very enjoyable Easter weekend, attending my cousin’s wedding in Warwick on the Saturday. The wedding was held at the Lord Leycester Hospital*, and we spent much of Sunday and Monday wandering round small towns and villages in the area (if you are ever there, don’t bother with the NT’s Charlcote Manor**), and generally admiring little lambs and primroses – and seeing wild deer, which is always exciting. The wedding itself was more enjoyable than anticipated - I managed to fit into the dress my sister had leant me, the food was good, and the relatives on good form. Different cousin’s wife J proved as ever how c/Conservatism can connect at least in part from severe lack of imagination, but though a woman of limited interests (and interest) she is at least friendly and jolly in person. My uncle revealed an unexpected enthusiasm (and indeed talent) for dancing.
Easter as religious festival seems to have got a lot more “coverage” on my Flist than Christmas did, despite the personnel being largely the same. Though this may be down to computer access. I don’t find Easter very exciting myself. We have not yet worked out how to celebrate it effectively as a secular festival. Christmas is easy: everyone enjoys a party when the weather is grim, and celebrating the returning sun through dressing up, feasting, and fêting vegetation, is generally agreed to be a Good Thing we can get behind. Easter is trickier: chocolate eggs don’t quite cut it. It is a lovely time of year, with lambs in the fields, trees coming into leaf, primroses and cherry blossom, the certainty that winter is over and spring is come, and it’s an understandable desire to want to mark it. Going to the garden centre doesn’t quite have the necessary ritual satisfaction. The chief memory of Easter in my childhood remains the hymns in school assembly and the annual purchase at school of a small hand-made chick or rabbit sitting in a paper basket. We were taken class by class into the hall where we made our choice. Naturally, I was extremely picky and would examine table after table before selecting the perfect specimen.
*An ancient charitable foundation for ex-servicemen, still in use, with rather nice medieval buildings, as opposed to the civil wedding of a friend in Ireland, where the civil General Registry Office was at the mental hospital, an interesting choice by the authorities.
**Not only a rather dull building, with unexceptional gardens, but suffering the irritating habit of the Trust, which seems to be increasing, of not actually providing any written information or catalogues as to the content of the rooms. An email shall be sent. I did pick up two Heyers at the book stall, though.