Author: GymCee

GymCee is an engineer, rugby player and general Good Life enthusiast. He has a wife and two children and enjoys trying out new crafts and hobbies firmly ensuring he masters none.
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Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival 2023

A famous Whittlesey Straw bear

A new year and a new experience, the Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival. We have been in West Anglia for about a year now and recently heard of a new Old Twelfth Night custom, the Whittlesey Straw Bear. It’s similar to some of the Molly and Plough Monday traditions found elswhere in the country but may be unique in having a parade with a straw bear. From limited research this may be a European tradition that has migrated to the area which has it’s very old links to Holland in the Netherlands

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Autumn Update

Apologies to the thousands of loyal readers ;-). This year seems to have been a bit of a stretch so far and ths Autumn is no different. Having moved into the the new Fat Cat’s Patch HQ in December 2021 we seem to have been on the go ever since. Our recent work including replacing the oil fired boiler, after a mere 6 weeks without hot water. We are currently in the midst of a full house re-wire. No stress their then. Because no Autumn is complete without 4 weeks of disruption and repeatedly moving boxes of belonging you don’t need or want from one room to another. Then back again!

In the garden EmmCee has gone all Hannibal Lector or some other metaphor. And has been chopping back years of overgrowth from teh borders. The ducks are still as disagreeable as ever and productivity has dropped to Longbridge in the mid 70’s levels. The chickens remain chicken-y and whilst egg production has slowed a little they still show the dusck a clean pair of heels,

The Autumn higlight so far though is Jupiter. I finally worked out what that bright light in the sky was I gave up on my death cult and got out the telescope. It’s only a cheap little thing EmmCee picked up in a charity shop but with little fiddling we got a decent view of Jupiter and more astonishingly could see 4 moons. The Monsters loved this and it was a little bit of a family first.

As I’ve probably promised before I’m going to try and be a little bit more diligent in my posting. We have a few projects in plan Stir Sunday being foremost amongst them but a variety of others too.

Enjoy your Autumn.

Or read more good stuff here.

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Jubilee Update

So the Jubilee weekend is upon us and life has been all go.

The Terminator has a lovely case of Jubilee chicken pox. The ducks and chickens are producing eggs at a prodigous rate. So far I’ve cooked a BBQ outside on the coals. A pork and aubergine curry accompanied with cauliflower and beetroot curry and home made naan bread. A beef pot roast and home made vanilla ice cream, but not together. That would be horrible.

The A-Bomb prepared a little Jubilee tea party in the living room. The weather took away thoughts of holding it outside. Which included tea cakes, rose infused tea, strawberries and scones.

These were all nice variations on life as normal. But we have also started off a 10 litre batch of elderflower champange. It’s been a long time since we did any home brewing so this is a nice return and hopefully the product will be up to scratch.

There has been a lot of preparation work taking place to get the house tidier and unpack further following our move. We’re hoping to get some substantial jobs done this year including air con in the bedroms and a complete re-wire of the house.

We have some new arrivals in the form of 3.. no! 4.. no! 5 guinea pigs. Which apprently don’t hunt and eat rabbits to my great dissapointment. Other solutions for the rabbit menace may be needed.

I have a new toy, a lovely red tractor and I’ve enjoyed taking it out to mow the paddock. It’s only small 16 hp 3 cyclinder with a flail mower. But it’s easy to use and does the job in keeping the paddock in check until I can get around to making a wildflower meadow out of much of it.

I’ll try and follow some of these up with dedicated posts in the near future.

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We’ve Moved

Goodbye South Wales and hello West Anglia. We have moved house after 6 plus years in South Wales and are now on the Fens. Hopefully with the inconvenience of working away from home all summer and buying and selling houses we can now settle down and maybe produce a few more posts. Here’s to the new home and the New Year.