I Think That I Shall Never See A Poem As Lovely As A Tree

[anarchist_nomad]

It was a pretty mellow weekend.

Spent yesterday afternoon with C&M driving out to the Harcourt Arboretum. The arboretum is a sibling establishment to the Oxford Botanic Garden, which is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain. Not surprisingly, both are run by the University. The Botanic Garden is in the city centre and, as such, I have been there numerous times. Fans of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy may recall a special bench mentioned at the end of the last book. Said bench is located in this garden.

In contrast, the arboretum is located several miles outside of the Oxford ring road. So I had not made it out there for a visit before this weekend. I am very glad we went, as the weather was fantastic and the arboretum was largely in bloom. There is a Blue Bell Woods, filled with blue bells as far as the eye can see. There are not as many different collections of trees as at the Morton Arboretum (located half a mile from the Event Horizon), but there was still an impressive number to view. As chance would have it, there was also a furniture making workshop going on that day, with wooden pole lathes out in the open. C has an interest, as well as experience, in making furniture, so this held his attention for awhile.

In the evening, the four of us regrouped at Skullcrusher Mountain to play games. We played our staple -- Puerto Rico and I won by a considerable margin: 64 points, second place went to cheshcat with 57 points. For the first time ever, I managed to purchase a factory and a harbor and a wharf. With that kind of advantage, it would have been shameful to lose! Next, we played Carcassonne, which I also won -- albeit by a much smaller margin. Then we played Ra, which cheshcat won. Ra is not my game. In all the times I have played it, I have only won once. Which is why I keep wanting to play it more.

After C&M left Skullcrusher Mountain, cheshcat and I watched the final episodes of the second season of Babylon 5. We continue making progress to remove ourselves from that small sliver of geekdom that has not experienced this show. And we are very much enjoying what we see. For me to enjoy a television programme is indeed rare, and speaks volumes.

Today, cheshcat and I laid in until after 11 o'clock. After spending the early afternoon on mundanities around the flat, we went to see the gardens at St. Hugh's College, which were open to the public for charity in much the same way that the Trinity College gardens were earlier this month.

After spending time taking in the gardens, cheshcat headed north to Skullcrusher Mountain and I headed south to ring bells for the evening services at St. Giles church. After ringing rounds and called changes and practicing dodging a couple of times, the band went to ring Plain Hunt on seven bells. I asked to ring the tenor, and DR let me. I don't believe he has seen me do this before -- indeed, I have only done it twice before. With only seven bells changing, the tenor keeps time (like a metronome) and always rings after the last hunting bell. So, in theory, the job is easy -- just keep a steady pace. In practice, it is good to know which bell will strike last in a given change so that one can watch that bell. I have studied the theory of the Plain Hunt method and so I knew I could do this... and, indeed, I did. That was fun! Things got really interesting a little later, though, when a band was gathered for Plain Bob Doubles. A doubles method involves five bells changing. Often when we ring doubles at St. Giles, the #6, #7, and tenor are all covering. When this happens, the first five bells change places according to whichever method is being rung, but then they are always followed by 6,7,8 in that order. So the person ringing the #6 has to track which bell they follow from the front five, but #7 always follows #6 and the tenor always follows #7. I have done this many times before on either #7 or the tenor, to get extra ringing practice. Well, DR started me off on the tenor, which would have been straightforward enough, but soon told us all to stand (i.e., park our bells). He then swapped me out to the #6 position covering for Plain Bob Doubles. Ever have a dream where you are in a play and have to go on stage... but you don't know any of your lines? This was a lot like that! I have never studied the theory for Plain Bob Doubles and had little to no idea who I was to follow. However, unlike these common anxiety dreams, I had a great time trying something new! I did my best to keep a steady pace, and DR (who was ringing the #7) helped me out a bit at times by telling me who I should be following! So that ended up being quite exciting!

After ringing ended, I stopped by Skillcrusher Mountain briefly before heading to the Ferry Sports Centre to swim another mile. My legs had already gotten a small workout from all the walking of the day, and my arms had received the same from forty-five minutes of near-constant ringing. Nonetheless, it was good to work them out in tandem in the pool.

Finally, I came home and had a good dinner and evening with my darling cheshcat and am now winding down to get some rest before what promises to be a very busy week. There is a cryogenic cooldown in progress -- the grad students should have filled LN₂ into the Kelvinox today -- and I also have to prepare my talk for my interview at Sussex at the end of the week. Should be fun!

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Serenity very much either, although it did flesh out some overall plot details. But they killed off the wrong character(s) (I'm not going to say any more, in case anyone reading this hasn't seen the movie yet.) And, oddly enough, although I did love the character of KayLee, the one I found myself identifying with the most was Inara.