Hay on Wye

The Never Fated Visit

For many years now it has been my ambition to visit The Literary Festival at Hay on Wye, but for some reason or the other we have never been able to get there. This year I checked the dates and found that we could take a trip down today, so we decided to go. When I went on the website this morning I realised that the festival is currently in Budapest and comes back to this country next week, but we decided to go and visit the place anyway since we both love books.

We set off at 8.30 this morning and drove down towards the Welsh Borders. Everything looked so promising, the weather, that was cloudy up here, became brighter and sunnier as we drove down, there was very little traffic on the roads, and the countryside looked lovely and green. As we were driving along the car lost all power and we had to limp along and find a little roadside pub where we phoned the insurance and got a tow back. So here I am on a Sunday afternoon sitting at the computer detailing my sad life, when I should be walking around Hay eagerly fulfilling a dream. I am fast coming to the conclusion that I am not fated to ever see Hay let alone attend the Festival. 

bi centenary of the tin can

A Canny Invention

The humble tin can celebrates its two hundredth birthday this year, it has changed the way people eat and given us a much healthier diet. These days when billions of cans are sold every year across the planet, and Andy Warhol chose the baked bean can for its 'ordinariness' for his poster; it is hard to believe that the can was once at the cutting edge of technology, and employed the thoughts of some of the cleverest scientists of the age, and that it owes its existence to warfare and Colonialism. Napoleon offered a prize of 12.000F to anyone who could solve his problem of feeding large numbers of people on the move, and Nicholas Appert came up with the idea of canning' though his method used glass jars instead of tins. But. it was in Britain that Bryan Donkin opened the first tin can factory on 3rd May 1813.

Prior to canning the main methods of preserving food was by salting or covering in fat, since food rations on ships consisted of salt meat and biscuits many sailors died from illnesses resulting from malnutrition. So it was the Navy who first adopted eating from a tin can. While the race had been on to find ways to preserve food not much thought had gone into how to get at the food out of the tins, and it was not until the 1920's that the first modern can opener arrived on the market. Before that cans were opened with rocks, hammers and chisels and Fortnum and Mason even published a pamphlet showing customers how to open a can with a knife.

The tin can still seems to be holding its own despite competition from freezers and plastic tubs and pouches. When I first got married I was sniffy about tinned food but through the years I have come to appreciate the value of the emergency cupboard. Looking through my emergency cupboard it contains baked beans, tinned tomatoes, a few cans of tinned fish, and although I usually make my own soups, there are a couple of cans of soup, a can of condensed milk and the much loved Spam. I think it would be hard to find a replacement for the aluminium can because it holds up well against its competitors on price and ecological grounds. Plastic pouches and tubs may be lighter and easier to transport, but tins are more durable and have a longer shelf life,and are recyclable. Food stored in fridges and freezers have a limited life span, after which they start to deteriorate, they also need electricity, so cost money to run, and are not that useful in a disaster or when power lines are down. So, here's to the aluminium can and long may it continue.

May Day Traditions

Celebrating the First of May

The Maypole

In many villages and rural areas in Britain May Day celebrates the coming of summer and many traditional activities still take place. Maypoles are set up on Village Greens, with brightly coloured streamers, each person holds a streamer and dances around the Maypole, intertwining the various streamers, as demonstrated in this video

The May Queen

Every May Day a young girl is chosen and crowned May Queen she is crowned with a garland of flowers and sits on a wooden throne. I am never quite sure of the purpose of a May Queen as she does not join in the revelry or dancing but just sits and oversees all the festivities,

Morris Dancing

 

The first time ever that I saw Morris Dancing was in the 70's on a comedy sketch by Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett in 'The Two Ronnies'. I didn't realise that people did Morris Dancing, I just thought it was something from the fertile mind of Ronnie Barker., but I was wrong. Morris Dancing has been going for hundreds of years and although it is popularly thought to be part of British country folklore, there are groups, or troupes? all over the world.. In the time of Shakespeare Morris Dancing was associated with the festival of Whitsun, and William Kent, a contemporary of Shakespeare is recorded as having Morris danced from London to Norwich. Oliver Cromwell banned all such festivities, but they were reinstated when the monarchy restored under Charles11. In Blackpool we do not seem to celebrate any of the May Day activities, though I do remember some Morris Dancing Championships taking place in the Blackpool Tower.

Finally, here is my introduction to Morris Dancing the sketch from the Two Ronnies that I have always enjoyed

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First of May

Mayday

For a large part of my life I associated May Day with military Parades and workers marching and always thought that it was a celebration of the working man. But, then I discovered that May Day has been celebrated for over 2,000 years in the Northern Hemisphere, it is a day that is supposed to mark the first day of summer. In the rural areas of Britain there are many traditional celebrations from Morris Dancing to dancing round the Maypole. The celebrations begin very early in the morning, and end in the crowning of a May Queen. These days in urban areas in Britain  there are no special celebrations for May Day, but the first Monday in May is designated a Public Holiday.

When I think of May Day, the mental picture I have is of a beautiful warm, sunny day. But where this came from I don't know because if my memory serves me correctly, it is usually cold and windy, and more often than not people are walking around complaining about the first day of summer!

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Mayday Traditions