Video: Tongues of Fire at the Horsham Festival

Jim and Jenny: re your comment on the Pied Piper post... Perhaps this is the next best thing? It's the best I can do for now, anyway!

Click here.

Things I love about England: #2

The random sights you see on highways...

Apparently pigeon racing is a national sport!

Farewells and fireworks!

Yesterday we went to a farewell lunch for Len and Theresa, who are flying home to Guyana (South America) on Tuesday after having lived, worked and studied over here for the past year. We'll miss them, but definitely hope to cross paths again! The party was hosted by Ian and Sharon, who live about 40 minutes away from us and have two young children – Len and Theresa are staying with them for their last few days here.

There were about 40 people there, including some we hadn't met before. Sharon had asked us to bring wombok salad like we took to the other Sharon's marquee party – it seems to be quite a hit, and we keep being asked to explain what's in it!! There were lots of other delicious dishes too, including Guyanese curry and chilli – and, for dessert, an illustrated farewell cake with maps of South America and the UK, and an absolutely scrumptious looking (and tasting) chocolate cake! (By the way, Sharon's a chef!) The chocolate cake was for Theresa's birthday since that's just after they get home! And we also sang happy birthday to Ben. :)

Most of the guests trying to assemble themselves for a group photo...

Afterwards, we stayed around and went to a Bonfire Night in nearby Lewes with Ian, Sharon, their children, and Len and Theresa. It was held by the children's firework society in the lead-up to the “real thing”: the famous Lewes Bonfire Night I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, which we hope to go to on 5 November. This one was still very spectacular, with a procession of flaming torches and burning barrels, an enormous bonfire, exploding tableaus, and a REALLY spectacular display of fireworks, but I'll save my photos and detailed explanations for after we've been to the HUUUGE one next week! Ian is Lewes born and bred, and his cousin actually builds a lot of the fireworks displays, so it was fantastic to have him there explaining everything to us... the history and politics, the seven different firework society's membership criteria, uniforms, badges etc... But I'll save that for next time! Bye for now!

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Just a quick note relevant to those of you who contact us by phone...

Daylight saving ends here tonight, so from now on we will be 10 hours behind you instead of 9!

Following the Pied Piper's fiery tongue to the hungry fish...

Hello one and all! Since writing about Ireland is going to take a substantial amount of time and I just have a little window of writing time tonight, I am going to tell you about what we did tonight instead. Our Irish adventures can wait until another day. And I promise that the title of this post will make sense by the end of this!...

Tonight we went to the Horsham Town Centre Festival. This is an annual three-day festival that I found out about when looking on the net for upcoming events a few weeks ago. Horsham is about 15 minutes south-west of Crawley, and it's also where we go for meetings.

We got to Horsham a little after 7pm and found a carpark in the middle of town. (Thankfully a nice couple came up and told us we didn't need to pay for parking after 6pm, just in time to stop us blindly shoving our pennies into the “pay and display” machine!)

We then followed the music and people to a street corner where a lively band was playing up a storm. They were excellent!! Tongues of Fire, which we later learnt their name to be, is an eight-piece stand-up male jazz ensemble consisting of a baritone sax, alto sax, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, snare drum, and a bass drum. The bass drum was actually more like a mobile drumkit hanging from the drummer's neck, as it had cymbals and a woodblock attached to the top of it! The group had red and green Christmas lights entwined around most of the instruments, and the baritone sax player also doubled as the conductor, frequently abandoning his playing to walk back and forth in front of the other seven and wave his arms enthusiastically. Anyway, they were absolutely brilliant!!

After a while, the band suddenly began to walk, still playing their infectious music, and, like children following the Pied Piper, the crowd followed them a short distance through the streets of Horsham until we reached an area known as “the Forum”. There, they wove amongst the crowd, still playing relentlessly and following the long-haired, long-jacketed Head Piper with the barry sax, until they ended up on a small stage and finished with a magnificent display of rhythmic talent by the two drummers.

Tongues of Fire then disappeared and “Feeding the Fish” took to the stage! This was, as described by the festival website and read out by the radio guy who introduced them: “a high-energy stage-show where juggling and movement are performed in partial light with illuminated clubs and balls, changing brightness and strobing, emitting a spectrum of colours in perfect synchronization to a dramatic soundtrack”! This was absolutely fantastic – a choreographed performance by a man and woman with unbelievable juggling skills. Instead of balls, they used clubs that constantly changed colour and light sticks that made shapes as they were twirled around in the darkness (due to the programming of the strobing lights inside the sticks) – flowers, fish, stars, hearts, etc! They even juggled with the woman standing on the man's shoulders. Brilliant!!! (Bruce and Curtis, getting any ideas?)

Afterwards, we had tea at a nearby restaurant where the friendly man who carried our meals out stayed and told us lots of places “off the tourist trap” that we should visit whilst over here. He wants to go to Australia someday and travel from Sydney to Cairns, so he hopes someone in Australia will be kind enough to give him similar inside advice. So, Aussie friends and rellies, make sure you look out for him! :)

We then walked back to our car for the drive home, passing en route a merry-go-round, tea-cup ride, ferris wheel, and a number of show-type stalls such as hula hoop tossing and tin duck shooting. All in all, it was a thoroughly pleasant evening and a very enjoyable first-English-small-town-festival experience. Goodnight!

Coming soon...

...What happened when the Bords went to Ireland...


We'll keep you post-it... sorry, posted!

On the road for the next 4 days...

Evening at Strada, London

Hello readers! Last night we went to London for Katharina's birthday dinner at Strada, an Italian restaurant on the Thames. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and proceeded as follows...

We were meant to be there by 8pm, so we "trained it" from Crawley to London Bridge Station, changing at Three Bridges. This was not quite the smooth task I make it sound, as we missed our first train due to our own lateness in getting ready, the next train was delayed by 9 minutes due to congestion, this made us miss our connecting train at Three Bridges, and once we got to London, we had only TomTom and Strada's postcode to point us in the right direction! However, a short walk through very chilly Friday night London, one asking-directions stop, and a phone call to Matt later, we arrived... and we weren't even last!!

The restaurant was lovely - beautifully lit, warm, full of people, and - best of all - with an incredible view of the Tower Bridge all lit up at night! It was magical! We had never seen the Tower Bridge before and it looked like it belonged in a fairytale. My photos can't do it justice, but you might get a rough idea. :)

The meal was delicious (I had char grilled chicken on Caesar salad with parmesan; Ben had something with "funghi" in its title), and so was dessert (warm melting chocolate pudding for me). And the company was great! Most of the people there we had met at Go Ape, so I had been looking forward to a chance to get to know them when I wasn't so preoccupied with fear! Kat's brother Dan was also there; he's over from Austria at the moment. And we had five Aussies down our end of the table, so that was good fun!

We left London just before midnight, and it was amazing how many people were at the train station at that time of night! After an uneventful trip home, we arrived back in Crawley at 1am, tired and cold but one great night and a couple of friends richer. :)

Anyways, it's now school holidays for the next week, and tonight we're flying to Ireland for 4 days! I'm sure we'll have lots of tales when we come back, and we look forward to seeing lots of comments on the blog when we arrive home. :P

PS. A little reminder: it's Ben's birthday tomorrow!

Things I love about England: #1

We have SQUIRRELS!!!!!!!! Where we live!!!!!! All the time!!!!! And they're soooooo cute!!!!!!!!!

Cooking Comp: Round 2: Girls

Round 2 specifications: Prepare a 3-course dinner for 6 people
Formiddable Cooks: Sharon and I
Quaking Competitors: Trev and Ben
Delighted Guests: Terry and Olwen
Unanimous Verdict: DELICIOUS!!!

ENTREE
Siu mai (steamed pork and prawn dumplings)
Squares of Chinese roast pork
Steamed cha sui/spring onion/coriander parcels
Soy and sweet chilli dipping sauces

MAIN
Honey roast duck
Spring onion pancakes
Homemade plum sauce
Broccoli in ginger and oyster sauce
Rice

DESSERT
Lemon tart with honey/vanilla cream

My current record: parking 8 cars in at once!!

There are some minor parking issues at my work...

How to have a great day out with friends in Crawley in 8 simple steps

Step 1: Become Facebook friends with person one has never met, after verifying with another friend in Australia that unmet friend is very fun and is an Aussie living in Switzerland. Establish with unmet friend, via Facebook, that unmet friend is coming to England the very next weekend, is staying Friday night with mutual friends Trev and Sharon who live nearby, and would like to meet up on Saturday! Invite unmet friend to join existing plan of showing Len and Theresa around Crawley on Saturday.

Step 2: On Saturday morning, collect unmet (but now met) friend, Rachael, from Trev and Sharon's place after they have already gone to work. Assume she is actually unmet friend rather than a random burglar in their house. Become acquainted whilst driving to Hove (behind schedule) to collect Len and Theresa.

Step 3: Realise en route that one has left one's phone at home and no one else has Len and Theresa's number. Also realise once on their street that one has no idea of their flat number, and only a vague memory of seeing Theresa disappear into one of the many doorways to choose from after dropping her home one night. Park in middle of street due to no free parking spaces. Beep horn. Check for familiar faces peering from behind curtains in one of the many flat windows in the three stories of connecting apartment buildings stretching as far as the eye can see. Start ringing doorbells with slight feeling of trepidation about doing so. Experience great relief as one sees Len and Theresa walking up the street, Starbucks coffee in hand! Discontinue doorbell ringing and scramble around back seat of car trying to find centre seatbelt. Find previous back seat sitter's chewing gum. Find seatbelt. Get all five occupants of car safely belted in, then drrrrrrive back to Crawley!

Step 4: Find markets on High Street. Browse stalls. Listen to vendors sing and shout about bananas. Eat strawberries.

Step 5: Find shops. Shop shop shop!

Step 5 and a half, for Rachael only: Witness enormous protest march pour into and then out of the town square – hundreds of marching people waving signs about a whole conglomerate of issues, police in attendance and all – whilst waiting outside a shop that the rest of the group is inside. Once the rest of the group meanders back outside, not having seen/heard a thing, try to convince them that this actually happened.

Step 6: Talk to a balloon man.

Step 7: Discover an absolutely fantastic Chinese restaurant, share a variety of interesting and superbly tasty dishes, and emerge some time later feeling very contented.

Step 8: Take group back to flat. Hang out. Drop Rachael at train station in time to board train to London. Have tea at flat with Len and Theresa, teach them Rook (which they are impressively good at due to having played similar games at home), then drive them back to Hove at the end of a VERY enjoyable day.