The place where lost socks go...

Dear friends, today is a very special day. Literally a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

For lack of a better term, today is my "halflife-versary" -- or merely "halflife" for short -- with my beloved cheshcat.

Not familiar with the term? I'm not surprised, as I coined it myself. Allow me to explain:

My relationship with cheshcat began on August 12^th 1994. I was 7092 days old. Today is January 11^th 2014, and my relationship with cheshcat is 7092 days old. (Not coincidentally, I am now 14,184 days old) As you can see, today marks the day where I have been with my dearest life partner for half my life.

If you think about it, this is somewhat of a "lopsided" celebration. I mean, birthdays are clearly about one person -- the birthday "boy" or "girl" -- and relationship anniversaries are generally about a couple. This "halflife" anniversary involves elements of both. The relationship lasting 7092 days is an achievement of both cheshcat and myself... but the "half my life" status is particular to just me.[*]

By the way: If you are aware of an existing term to describe such a day, gentle readers, do feel free to let me know. Otherwise, I am going to continue to use my own makeshift terminology, calling this my "halflife" celebration.

Today is a day that I have been looking forward to for several years, and it marks a significant milestone. After all, from here on, I have spent more of my life in a relationship with cheshcat than not. Not quite sure how to express that transition in words, but it feels like a Big Deal^TM to me.

This is also an achievement that I am rather proud of. It is not unheard of by any means, and I know others who have achieved the same. But not many others. And especially not many who passed this point whilst still in their thirties. So yay for us! Huzzah!

To celebrate, cheshcat and I will be heading into London for dinner in the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, followed by a performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Quidam".

Thus, I will sign off now to spend the rest of the day with the aforementioned cheshcat. I wish all of my dear friends a very lovely Saturday!

---

[*] We will have a different halflife celebration in a couple of years when we reach the point where we have been together for half of cheshcat's life.

As mentioned previously, my beloved cheshcat and I celebrated our anniversary a couple of weeks ago by playing tourist in London. We finally blocked off time to see so many of the things that, because they were so close we could go at any time, we had never made time for.

One of the places that we visited on our anniversary weekend was Westminster Abbey. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that Westminster Abbey is a Christian place of worship that is also the most famous religious building in London, which is one of the most important cities in the world.

Fast forward now to a few days ago. On Friday evening, around sunset, I got my first close look at St. Basil's Cathedral. Of course, St. Basil's Cathedral is a Christian place of worship that is also the most famous religious building in Moscow, which is one of the most important cities in the world.

The parallels may end there, though. I find it striking how two buildings that are so similar in many ways can be so different in others. Take a look for yourself and you will easily see what I mean:



Both pictures were taken by yours truly; both pictures were shot this month. You will pardon me, gentle readers, for not labelling the photographs. Somehow, I have faith that you can tell which is which.

One thing is not clear to me, though: What does "cathedral" mean in the Russian Orthodox tradition?

In many Western branches of Christianity -- including the largest of them all, Roman Catholicism -- a cathedral is named for the cathedra, the throne of a bishop. Unlike a church, which has a priest, a cathedral is presided over by a bishop. As the bishop has authority over a full diocese, a cathedral is the seat of power for that diocese. The Church of England has 42 dioceses, therefore it has 42 bishops and 42 cathedrals. Simple, yes?[*]

To be fair, the Church of Scotland -- which is Presbyterian -- does not have bishops, and yet still has cathedrals. I myself have visited Glasgow Cathedral and St. Magnus Cathedral, in Kirkwall. However, this still makes sense to me. Before the Protestant Reformation, these were Roman Catholic cathedrals, with bishops and all. Although the Church of Scotland broke away from Roman Catholicism -- taking those buildings with them -- the structures retained their original names. Tis historic, with a certain logic to it.

In contrast, I cannot see any such pattern to the Russian Orthodox cathedrals. Between the Kremlin and neighbouring Red Square, I count at least six cathedrals -- all within a ten minute walk! In Red Sqaure, there is St. Basil's Cathedral (above), of course, as well as Kazan Cathedral and the Cathedral of the Epiphany. Next door, in the Kremlin, there are another three: the Cathedral of the Annunciation, the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. Surely there are not six dioceses -- six administrative regions of the Russian Orthodox Church -- in such close proximity; thus, I find myself at a loss for what a Russian Orthodox Cathedral really is. Is it just a case of a particularly ornate church being termed a "cathedral"??

Off to bed now, dear friends. Tomorrow is the final day of the Lomonosov Conference... after which my week of sightseeing begins in earnest. I shall try to post again soon, with pictures selected from my first three days in Moscow.

---

[*] Well, maybe not quite so simple as that. This one-to-one-to-one correlation of dioceses, cathedrals, and bishops within the Church of England was true for a very long time... but it is currently in the process of being slightly violated. The C of E is dissolving three dioceses; the diocese of Bradford (centered on Bradford Cathedral), the diocese of Wakefield (centered on Wakefield Cathedral), and the diocese of Ripon & Leeds (centered on Ripon Cathedral) are all being made redundant. Replacing them is the newly created diocese of Leeds. Presiding over this will be the newly created Bishop of Leeds, who will have all three of the aforementioned cathedrae to himself!

Bought a new bicycle today. Somebody has already tried to steal it.

Seriously!

My first bicycle in the UK was a Falcon Adventurer, purchased six years ago. It served me well for a long time, both for getting around Oxford and also, travelling into the back of the Oxford Tube, in London.

Eventually, however, I began to ride it less and less frequently. It was not a particularly expensive bike to begin with (£180 new in 2007), and I will admit that I did not maintain it as well as I might have done. Even so, I continued to ride it until last Summer, when I offered it to my darling miss_amaranth, who had just moved to Oxford. She had no bicycle, and so it seemed to make sense to pass it on to her -- she could fix it up (if she chose) for less than it would cost to buy a new bike... and I could get a new cycle for my own use.

Well, for a long time, the old bike just sat, and neither of us rode. I'm not sure I cycled at all in Summer 2012, and miss_amaranth did not collect the cycle from my storage shed until about two months ago. Since then, I am pleased to see that she has been getting good use out of it.

I have been using the so-called "Boris bikes" occasionally to get around London -- these are short-term hired cycles available from automatic stations around the city centre. They are extremely useful... when they work properly. Unfortunately, the system that manages them still has a lot of bugs to be sorted. In my experience, less than half the time that I need a Boris bike, I am able to actually get a Boris bike. Not good.

The solution, of course, was simple. Buy another bicycle for my own use. Besides making the commuting and the travel about town easier, having a new bike will also help me train for the cycling portion of the triathlon (40km). So "buy another bicycle" is precisely what I did today. I went for something mid-range, spending £249 on a new 2011 model Ridgeback Comet. Thus far, it seems like a very nice ride!

After purchasing it this morning, I cycled directly to the bus stop and took the bike into London. On my way home this evening, an accident on the motorway caused a very long (~2 hour) delay in getting a coach home.[*] Whilst waiting, I lay my new bike against a nearby post. Unlocked, of course, as I was standing two or three feet away and looking in its direction.

Imagine my surprise, then, when somebody walked over to my bike and picked it up!

Being right there and having it in my line of sight, I acted quickly to intercept the guy, of course! He made some lame excuse about how it had been there a long time and he thought it was an abandoned cycle, so he was going to bring it to the police station. Um, yeah, right. And there's a bridge I would like to sell you, too. "A long time"? I had been standing at that particular bus stop for twenty minutes.

Never actually seen a bike thief in action before. Go figure.

All is well, and I still have my lovely new cycle. I just wish that I had some better response than merely stopping him with my intervention. I feel like there was something else that I should have done... though, truth be told, even now I am not quite sure what that "something else" would be. Any thoughts or suggestions, gentle readers?

---

[*] Actually, the new bicycle came in rather handy in this situation, as the few coaches that made it around the accident were filled to capacity. Using the bicycle, I moved to an earlier bus stop on the route... and then an even earlier one! Thus, I was able to finally catch a coach that had not yet filled up. Helpful!

On my way to work this morning, I encountered an entourage of royals in the park. At least I assume they were royals; all the pieces seem to fit:

• The park in question was Kensington Gardens, adjacent to Kensington Palace.
  
• The entourage was dressed in very posh clothing, riding in two extremely lavish horse-drawn carriages.
  
• Said party had an escort of four cops, two on horseback and two on motorcycle.

As they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I had to pause in my journey until they had passed and the path was clear to cross once again. I had to be careful in my crossing, however. When the royals had moved on, there was a pile of shit in the road, left behind as witness to their regal presence.

Need I say more?

Off to London now to see a production of Henry VIII at Shakespeare's Globe. During original run of this show at the original Globe theatre, it brought down the house -- quite literally -- when a theatrical cannon misfired, setting the wooden beams and thatched roof ablaze.[*]

As exciting as that performance may have been, tis my hope that history will not repeat itself today. According to George Santayana, the fact that I remember the original event should protect me...

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[*] This took place on 29-June-1613. Not quite the same date as today... but close!

As mentioned in my previous entry, Wednesday evening was spent at the "Super K Sonic Booooum"[*] art installation in London. I had a fabulous time!

For starters, the venue -- SHUNT -- was incredible! Located in the tunnels beneath the London Bridge Rail Station, it goes on forever! In the caverns of SHUNT, there are impromptu bars that spring up or move around from night to night, there are elevated stages with musicians wandering on and off, a game room, dark corners, photography rooms, a mattress, random spontaneous avante garde performances. And, in the middle of all this, the "Super-K Sonic Booooum"!

In a room near the entrance, two of my colleagues -- postdocs from Queen Mary University of London -- gave fifteen minute talks on particle physics and neutrinos. The room, which could hold a dozen people or so, seemed to be packed. Further on, at the "Sonic Booooum", I spent nearly three hours giving boat "tours" to two or three people at a time. The event was extremely popular -- there was a long queue the entire time and, at the end, people needed to be turned away for lack of time.

Here is a picture of your friendly neighborhood Nomad, in the "Super K Sonic Booooum". They went so far as to make us wear helmets and Tyvek suits whilst in the installation, attempting to copy conditions in which we really work in the Super-Kamiokande tank. This is me, sitting in the "Super K Sonic Booooum" after about three hours of shouting over the background soundtrack of "sonic booms":



The "tours" took five minutes to ten minutes each -- depending on how fast the boat was pulled -- talking about neutrino physics and Super-Kamiokande. It took me a little while to develop a standard spiel, but I soon found what worked well and discarded what didn't. I don't think that I have ever given a more sensationalistic presentation of physics or astrophysics! On the other hand, I have never presented to a group of tipsy people... on a boat... surrounded by metallic balloons... illuminated by blacklight and strobe... with a funky electronic soundtrack in the background... in a lounge... underneath a rail station... So fair enough, right?

The "Sonic Booooum" part of the exhibition must surely come from the common description -- used by myself and others -- when explaining Cherenkov radiation. A particle moving faster than the speed of light in water emits a "light boom" (i.e., the aforementioned Chereknov radiation) that is analogous to the sonic boom produced when an object moves faster than the speed of sound in air. This description is purely an analogy -- there are never sonic booms in Super-Kamiokande! Still, the installation took the idea literally, with small booms ever present in the soundtrack... and an occasional enormous "BOOM!" where we were all supposed to put our heads between our knees for "protection". I tried to incorporate the largest explosion into my talk -- pretending it was the neutrinos from a supernova reaching the experiment...

It was cheesy, to be sure, but also a lot of fun! Not only for me, but for the people who had come to see it. Folks generally seemed to have a great time, and Nelly[**] said afterward that I had been a big hit. Although there was a boat or two filled with women too drunk to pay any attention, most people listened and asked questions. A couple of people wondered if any of this was real, which amused me. I referred them to the talks being given by "Doctor Ben" and "Doctor Ryan" in the other room for a less theatrical explanation of what I was talking about. There were also a couple of guests worth noting: For instance, the parents of one of my students (SD) showed up. So did our new MA student in the T2K group at Imperial, with his mother in tow. I hammed it up even more than usual for him -- he can get the real physics in the office later; at SHUNT, I wanted to show him a fun time. The artist recently got her MA as well -- not in physics -- and her former tutors showed up for a ride!

At several points during the evening, I was asked if I wanted somebody to relieve me so that I could take a break. I would not hear of it -- I was having a blast! As anyone who knows me can tell, I have lungs... so screaming for three hours was not terribly difficult! I even had my voice intact the next day!

Here is another picture of me at the end of the boat tours:



At the end of the evening, I packed up and made my way back to Oxford, arriving at around one o'clock in the morning. I had the company of a very lovely person to chat with on the coach ride back, which was a perfectly marvelous ending to an excellent day!

The "Super K Sonic Booooum" was indeed quite aesthetic and impressive. acelightning is correct in saying that this is a great way to share some sense of Super-Kamiokande's grandeur with the world. I agree wholeheartedly! Still, as my darling tawneypup noted, it does not hold a candle to the real thing. She is absolutely right. Here is a shot of me in the actual Super-Kamiokande:



The "Super K Sonic Booooum" may not measure up to my first [physics] love... but it was still an experience unlike any other that I have had in my professional life! I count myself as lucky to be in England and working on neutrino physics at the same time that this independent project -- the first of its kind that I have ever heard of -- sprang up!

---

[*] In my previous entry, I mistakenly spelled the name of the exhibit with a "boom" rather than a "booooum". Mea culpa. On the other hand, on the artist's web site, she mistakenly adds an "S" to the front of my boss's last name, deletes the hyphen from Super-K, and never spells out the full name of the experiment. Also, she erroneously states that Super-Kamiokande contains 50,000 tonnes of heavy water, which it does not. SK uses ultra-pure water made from ordinary water. The cost of fifty kilotonnes of heavy water (D2O) would be about $15 billion... and I'm not even sure that there is that much heavy water stockpiled on the planet! All in all, then, if we can forgive her these mistakes, I'm sure Nelly can forgive my misspelling of her installation!

[**] Nelly is the artist.

Yesterday morning, I went to Queen Mary to work with RT. RT is a post-doc there who is also working on the T2K experiment. Although we barely knew each other before last year, we both did our graduate work at Stony Brook, in the same research group, with the same advisor[*]. These days, however, we work fairly closely together, taking turns on having one of us visit the others' institution every fortnight and keeping virtual contact in-between.

We worked until only about two o'clock, then headed out. Why the reason for this early end to our workday? PC and LW, another two former colleagues from our student days, were in town. Both are now post-docs on the MINOS experiment, and had just landed in London on their way to a collaboration meeting in Cambridge. I had never met LW -- she was another Stony Brooker but joined the group after I had left; PC was never at Stony Brook, but I mentored him in Japan during his first year (and my last) on Super-Kamiokande. Although we had kept in touch sporadically, I had not seen him in over five years... and was thus very much looking forward to getting together again.

We met near the Tate Modern, at the Founders Arms. The weather has been uncharacteristically beautiful lately, so we sat outside and watched the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral as we drank, and caught up. Lots of stories were told, remembering some very good times... as well as shared bitching about a certain collaborator that is hated, to various extents, by all of us[**]. At one point, popping inside to use the loo at about four o'clock, I was surprised to see one of my colleagues from Imperial College there, too! I expect to see random people I know when I go out in Oxford. Not so much in London, especially somebody that I work with on a workday afternoon!

When it started getting close to sunset -- and, therefore, cold -- we moved on. As we left the Founders Arms, I realised that I recognised their porch as one that I had gotten dead-ended on last May, during my twenty-two mile urban hike around London. Our next destination was The Blackfriar. On the way, we passed Doggetts, which was the second blast from the past for the day. As the venue for both Polyday and BiFest London, I have been there several times, of course. However, the last time I was there, back in October, was to finalise the ending of a relationship. It was my choice to do so, and I believe that it was the best choice... but it was still sad that things had progressed to such a state that such was the right thing to do. Walking by Doggetts, then, I felt a twinge of loss for something that had once been good but, ultimately, not able to be sustained in a healthy fashion.

At The Blackfriar, we came indoors to admire the unusual interior decor of this pub... as well as get food, get warm, and get more to drink. I, of course, am a life-long teetotaler. However, my three compatriots were starting to get a bit buzzed from all the drinking. Given that the three of them were a generation behind me at Super-K, I really had not been out drinking with them before. Thus, they were all quite surprised to see that I am most capable of getting just as drunk as any of them... without imbibing a single drop. This has been true for as long as I can recall, dating back to parties in high school where I was ostensibly the only sober person. I think that it is because I am somewhat empathic, riding the energy of those who are around me. In any case, I managed a couple of jokes and puns that cracked up the whole party, prompting RT to raise a toast -- the only one of the evening -- to me. If I were prone to blushing, I probably would have blushed at that point... but it was very sweet!

Also sweet was something that PC said after the toast. He told me that the advice I had given him, during our brief months of overlap on Super-K, on what to expect during his graduate career there had proven to be quite accurate. He said that, in the past five years, there were many times that he had thought of me... often as something or other had happened that made him think: "Yes, Nomad said that this would happen like that." It made me smile to be remembered and appreciated... as well as to know that I had helped my friend.

Finally, around nine o'clock, we had to call it an evening. PC and LW needed to get to King's Cross to catch the train to Cambridge for their meeting, which began this morning. I made my way to Notting Hill Gate and caught the Oxford Tube back to Oxford. On the coach, I checked my e-mail and found a note from Mom, containing the third blast from the past. From 1979 to 1985, from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, I attended the Building Blocks Montessori School in New York. A woman named DH had been my first grade teacher, then bought the school many years later when the founder retired. Every so often, I would go back to visit Building Blocks. When I last went, in October 2006, DH -- who still remembered me well -- was impressed to see that her former student had become a research scientist at Oxford. She explained to the secretary, who had never met me, that I was "the smartest student to ever go to Building Blocks."[***] In any case, that was the last time that I saw her... and the last time that I will ever see her, as Mom had written to inform me that she had died of cancer, at the age of only sixty.

Despite this bit of sad news, I can say that yesterday was an excellent day. It was great to catch up with old friends, and to make a new one in LW. I don't often mesh well, socially speaking, with other physicists, for a variety of reasons. There are exceptions, of course, the most notable is gyades, who is my best friend! However, I very much like both RT and PC, and LW seems good to spend time with, too. So, yes, an excellent day!

Now I must be off to run some errands and then, this afternoon, cheshcat and I are heading to Milton Keynes to see Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart perform in a production of Waiting For Godot...

---

[*] I graduated and left the group shortly after he joined, which is why we barely knew each other. That and the fact that, in my last two years of school, I was rarely ever at Stony Brook. Those were the days that I lived in Arizona, worked in Japan, and went to school in New York (i.e., at Stony Brook) -- when I first adopted the name Nomad.

[**] The prson in question being a somewhat charismatic, but vicious and cruel, individual. The degree to which we can't stand him is quite proportional to how much we have had to work with him. Still, in a collaboration of 120 people, having only one such person is probably doing quite well.

[***] Yet another opportunity for blushing!

Friday / Saturday: Thanksgiving Party
Friday evening, cheshcat and I hopped into Peter, our trusty steed, and drove to SouthEast London to visit with our friends D&J. D&J are fellow Yanks -- brother and sister-in-law to the breathtakingly beautiful pomoloco -- who moved to London just three months before we moved to Oxford. Although we didn't know each other well when we all lived in Lawn Guyland, pomoloco wisely put the four of us in touch soon after we moved.

Since then, it has become tradition for D&J to host a Thanksgiving party each November, on one of the two Saturdays closest to the actual holiday[**], and to invite all of their expatriate friends. This year was the third in the tradition[***]. We went out on Friday to remove the stress of travelling out from Oxford on the day of the party... and also to get a little extra time with D&J, who we had not seen since their housewarming party back in September.

The party was good fun: We got to see people that we don't often spend time with, I have an invitation to go boating down the Thames next Spring with the St. Pancras harbormaster, and the food was excellent! In total, there were twelve of us there -- nine expatriated US-ians and three Brits who came along as partners of the expats. Given the demographics, D&J's flat became a temporarily extension of US soil. In particular, somebody decided to forbid the use of British English -- anyone using "top up" or "queue" or "zed" or "bloody" would be penalized by having to take a drink. It was an amusing suggestion... though I am not certain that it is directly responsible for most people ending the evening quite tipsy!


Sunday:
Sunday was a busy day, filled with a variety of activity -- some social, some productive, some fun! Just the sort of day that I like!

We stayed over at D&J's placeon Saturday night as well and had a nice lay in on Sunday. As if making an enormous Thanksgiving dinner wasn't enough, J prepared a lovely breakfast spread on Sunday at around noon -- fruit, pancakes (with real maple syrup), bacon (for the meat eaters), cheese, scrambled eggs, tea, juice! Yum!

After breakfast, cheshcat and I headed out. Before leaving London, we swung by Imperial College and I showed her the building and office where I now work. Then it was back into London traffic as we made our return to Oxford.

Upon returning to Oxford, I headed to St. Giles Church and rang bells for Sunday evening services. Nothing terribly noteworthy here.

When services ended, I met up with cheshcat at Skullcrusher Mountain. On Tuesday, we had moved the last of our belongings into the [as yet unnamed] new flat. However, before leaving SCM for good, we wanted to do a thorough cleaning and perform ritual to release any of our energy -- or that of our kitties -- that still lingered. It took a couple of hours, but we managed to accomplish this. When we left SCM, it was for the final time. Interestingly enough, I think that this is the first time cheshcat and I have moved house without any help from anyone else or a moving van! We did it all ourselves, using Peter as the only transport vehicle. Admittedly, we moved from a furnished flat to another furnished flat, but still...

Next, I dropped cheshcat (and our cleaning supplies) off at home, picked up my new ice skates, and made my way out to the evening session at the Oxford Ice Rink. There, I debuted my new skates. I learned two things: (1) The blades are so obviously superior to anything that I have previously skated on, and (2) The new skates hurt. A lot. My feet were killing me, and it was all I could do to do some basic forward skating all the way around the rink without stopping! I am not entirely surprised -- the lovely danaeris once warned me that new skates feel like that until you break them in. Still... ouch! It was a bit disappointing to not be able to do much on the ice; still the only way to break them in is to wear the things!

When I got home from the rink, cheshcat and I got takeaway Chinese food for dinner. I walked five minutes to pick it up -- I do enjoy living in a much more active area than we previously did!

Finally, it was getting late so I tucked cheshcat into bed, then wound down my own evening with a phone date with the adorable livetbd. It is always nice to hear her voice and it was good to catch up on each others' lives. We made plans to see each other when I am in the States next month; I am definitely looking forward to spending time with her again in the not too distant future! We also need to find a way to see a Broadway musical together, as we are both huge theatre geeks![****]

As I said -- the sort of active and varied Sunday that I like! When my head finally hit the pillow, I was thoroughly ready for it... and asleep almost immediately!

---

[*] One hundred points to the first person that identifies the source of my subject line!

[**] As none of us actually get Thanksgiving Day off here!

[***] Interestingly enough, each year they are living in a different flat from the previous November!

[****] Unless you compare to the spectacular squeektoy42, who is the Queen of Musical Theatre. Even if she cannot identify Into The Woods quotes.

Tonight's meeting was shorter than expected -- only about fifteen minutes long. When it ended, I was a touch shaken, but fundamentally okay. Decided that, rather than head straight home, I would take a walk along the Thames to ground myself.

Some say that things come in threes[1]. I am not sure that I believe this[2], but tonight the Universe gave me three things in a row -- all of which helped me to gather my inner strength, focus, and balance. The first happened as I crossed the Blackfriar's Bridge, just before commencing my walk. I am not sure where it emanated from -- possibly St. Pauls, or maybe the Southwark Cathedral -- but the music of change bell ringing filled the air. It was an unexpected surprise, and the beloved music helped me to find my center once again. Next was the stroll along the waterfront. This was not a surprise; being a water elemental, I knew that a walk alongside water would do me good. I walked until I felt calm and balanced once again. Before that happened, my walk led me to the lion statues near Cleopatra's Needle. Two years ago, resourceress and I walked by these lions -- indeed, I took a photograph of her that has become one of her LJ icons. Upon reaching the lions, I curled up between the paws of one of them and sat for awhile, looking out over the water. I remembered the strength and the longevity of the bond between resourceress and myself. I drew strength from this bond. I also remembered an important metaphor about lions that my dear tawneypup recently shared with me. This, too, warmed the heart. While sitting with the lions, I called on that strength to make an important phone call. Eventually, I left the lions and walked further, until I was ready to come home. I am doing so now, writing this entry from the Oxford Tube[3] on my way back to Skullcrusher Mountain.

Tonight's meeting concerned an ending, and was part of this year's Samhain. My Samhain began last Saturday night at sunset. For one thing, that was the final sunset before we changed the clocks back here in Merry Olde England[4]. Since then, the clocks have been changed and the sun sets before five o'clock. This large increment of lost daylight is an essential part of my Samhain experience, and it signals the coming of Winter. Saturday evening was also when my first Samhain ritual of the year took place; cheshcat and I did a small private ritual to honour some who are newly amongst the ranks of the Beloved Dead.

Samhain is the start of Winter, and the turning of the year. This year has certainly been all about Change[5]. Compared to this time last year, I have a new job in a new city, working on a new experiment in a new country. cheshcat has a new job, too. Her health is also in a new, and potentially better, place. Together, we have a new car, a new cat, and are about to have a new flat. With one exception, all of the significant romantic relationships in my life have changed, too. I won't pretend that it has been an easy year; most of these changes were quite painful when they were happening -- the period from December 17^th to April ^th hurt like hell![6] However, I find that I am in a strong and positive headspace this Samhain season.

Indeed, I find that my current energy makes for an interesting contrast with Samhains of the past two years. In 2006, somebody turned up the Samhain volume too much; that year, the Samhain energy was particularly intense as the Universe chose to beat the crap out of not just me, but also many other people that I know. Samhain 2007 was quite different; possibly due to a cold, or maybe due to the intensity of Samhain 2006, I felt very little connection with the Samhain energy last year. We did a small ritual and went to WitchFest in London, but it all felt very distant. To use the Three Bears as a metaphor, Samhain 2006 was too much, Samhain 2007 was too little, and Samhain 2008 feels just right. I am wrapping up the last loose ends of the year and moving forward into next year from a place of strength and grounding.

In addition to doing our private ritual on Saturday, cheshcat and I celebrated the season on Sunday with a visit to Blenheim Palace to attend their "Very Victorian Halloween" festivities. These included haunted ghost stories, a show from a nineteenth century magic lantern, and a pumpkin train... as well as a more generic stroll in the formal gardens and past the waterfall.

Plans for upcoming Samhain and Halloween events include running our traditional Ancestor Ritual for a group of good friends on Friday (Samhain proper), followed by a visit to a haunted farm, and a walk in Salcey Forest to watch the leaves changing colour over the weekend. Backup plans, in the event of rain, could include the Halloween festivities at the Oxford Castle, a ghost tour of Oxford, or a performance of Sweeney Todd at the Old Fire Station Theatre in Oxford[7].

To all those on my f-list who celebrate this holiday, I wish you a very Blessed Samhain! To everyone else, I wish a Happy Halloween[8]!

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[1] Which may come as a surprise to the lovely tawneypup, given her Halloween costume this year.

[2] Indeed, I probably don't.

[3] Where I seem to write most of my LJ entries of late.

[4] A side effect is that, for this week only, I am a mere four hours ahead of the East Coast and a scant five hours ahead of Chicago. If anyone wants a phone call from their favourite Nomad, this is probably a good week to arrange one!

[5] And not the sort a certain politician likes to talk about, either!

[6] The first date is when cheshcat's knee got injured, starting the period where the Universe decided to use us as a punchingbag. The second date is when we laid our beloved Foxy to rest, which was the last of the large traumas. Much rebuilding work remained -- indeed, it is not yet all over -- but the continuous volley of tragedies finally stopped raining down on us at that point. Which gave me the breathing room to stop doing triage and start on the rebuilding.

[7] I am somewhat torn about this. On the one hand, it is Sweeney Todd. On the other hand, it is OFS -- a venue for [very] amateurish productions. Just out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in joining us for this if we were to procure tickets for Saturday night (Nov 1)? It probably won't happen, as we already have plans if the weather is good... but I am just putting out some exceedingly tentative feelers to evaluate the potential of this as a backup plan.

[8] And, to my dad, I wish a happy 65th birthday! That's right -- my father was born on Halloween and my mother was born on 9/11.

One advantage of working in London now is that it makes the possibility of attending evening social events in London much more feasible. Go figure! Who'da thunk it?

With that in mind, I thought that I would put out a couple of feelers:

Is anyone was planning to attend either (a) the Poly Meetup next Tuesday, or (b) be at Coffee, Cake, and Kink[*] at any point between now and October 9^th[**].

If so, let me know! I am quite amenable to dropping in on one or both of these if anyone that I know is attending...

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[*] Which I am told still exists for a little while longer. I don't think that the delicious tawneypup would forgive me if I let it cease existing without ever having made it there!

[**] Which is when I head off to the States for the Super-Sekrit October Gathering on the Wiggly Bridge. This is why I am not asking about the Bi Underground this month -- I will be in New York City when it happens!