Mab of Dream

Hi all,

I came back from the Wolves Moot Camp last night, but was too knackered to do anything but go to bed. I don't think I've laughed so hard, so continually, for ages! :-D

One thing I love about when Grovers go on their travels is their descriptions of the places when they come back. I've been around India with Chandan Lohia; I've been all over the place with Morganna Syke; I've been to Ireland with Karen the Flower; and I've rumaged through Powell's Bookshop with Anna. Theses are places which I might never get to see with my own eyes, so I'm going to try to repay the favour by describing this beautiful corner of Shropshire and what it's like camping with the Wulfrun Grovers/Wolves Moot, where I've just spent a couple of nights.

For the foreigners to place Shropshire on a map of the British Isles: http://www.warchronicle.com/ksli/historiantales_wwii/shropshire.jpg

Beautiful doesn't cover it as a word. It's countryside: green, hills, trees, there are wild herbs and flowers everywhere - splashes of purple, yellow, blue and red amidst miles and miles of green. You can look sidewards across the fields, from the roads, and not see a single building until the horizon. The enclosed fields are sometimes the only visible sign that humans have been here. In that area of Shropshire where we stayed, there are ridges of bigger-than-hills-not-as-big-as-the-mountains-of-Gwynedd all over the horizons: the Stipperstones, the Long Mynd, Offa's Dyke. From the castle at Clun, you are looking over Wales, which is the whole point of a castle right there (to stop the evil Welsh invading the Marches). Weatherwise, if you didn't like it, wait five minutes for it to change again! I lost count of the amount of times I piled on several layers because I was freezing, only to take them all off again within minutes, because it was now middle-of-summer hot, only to start freezing within another few minutes.

Historically, we are in the Marches here - march being a Welsh word meaning border. In Norman times, the Marcher Lords ruled this strip of land right down the border between England and Wales, and ended up not listening to the English king, Henry II. For a brief moment in time, this was unofficially another country - England, the Marches, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Marches has had one of the bloodiest histories in the entire of the British Isles, as for centuries the Welsh and English fought over the borders.. Where we were is in England now, and there were plenty of St George's flags around to prove it, but has had it's times as part of Wales. You can see this on the land itself: Bury Ditches - an Iron Age hillfort; Offa's Dyke - a Saxon defensive earthwork; Clun Castle - a Norman castle; Bishops's Castle (now practically gone, but the town of the same name is there) - another Norman castle within a handful of miles from Clun Castle; though we didn't pass it, just down the road, there is also Richard's Castle - same as Bishop's Castle. All of these are within about 6 square miles

Pictures:
http://www.uk-tourist-attractions.co.uk/Attractions/History/Hill_Forts/Bury_Ditches.cfm Bury Ditches
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=clun+castle Clun Castle
http://www.cpat.org.uk/offa/visit.htm Offa's Dyke
http://www.castlewales.com/bishop_c.html Bishop's Castle
http://www.castlewales.com/richards.html Richard's Castle

We camped here: http://www.stilwell.co.uk/show_town.asp?Q=camps%7CL4076484 at the Bush Farm in Clunton. http://www.cluntonvillage.fsnet.co.uk/mainframe.htm There will be pictures to follow, as several people had cameras, and Simon's was a digital camera. However, Simon is still there. There are quite a few Grovers still there: Mr and Mrs Polley (formerly known as Phoenix and BS Kate, but they got married on Saturday. *grin* *grin* *grin* I'll let them and Cabochon (his first official engagement as a High Priest) tell you all about that.), Aud (and Alan), Juell (and Biscuit <------ a person, not a cookie), Jamie (and Jason), Cabochon and Simon, Karen the Heathen and Andy the Heathen, Robbie (who's been lurking), and Roger. Mandy and Andy Charnelle are also still there, they aren't Witchgrove, but should be. Mandy is Honorary Witchgrove, as I think she reads us from Magenta or Robbie's computers, but she isn't on-line herself. Andy Charnelle - just a matter of time and me getting his e-mail address, methinks...

The camp site was great! It was in a tiny U shape of the River Clun, so we had to pile all of our things into a trolley to wheel them over a footbridge, in order to get to the camp-site. Just to be different, I, of course, carried all of my things, but there was method in my madness - I wanted to see if I could, as I will have to for the Glastonbury Festival in 23 days. *pauses to get over-excited* *bounce* *bounce* *bounce* I think I'll be ok. Though this was 50-100 yards, rather than the mile I'll be walking in Glastonbury, it didn't pull too much on my neck. :-D

We all sat around a reproduction Viking barbecue, in front of a recreated Viking tent, grilling burgers and sausages, while catching up and getting drunk. There were midges, but the incense saw them off and made us all smell beautifully! ("I've brought my incest." Aud, wielding her incense.) There were animals in all of the fields around - to the South, a steep slope covered with sheep and lambs, which provided a lot of cute attacks and also the intermittant cry of 'EGG!' (before we got there, there was an attempt to teach them to say something other than 'baaaaaaa', which we all joined in); there was also the discovery that sheep are solar powered. They shut up at night, UNLESS someone shines a very bright torch at them, then they go 'baaaaaaa' (sadly not 'egg', but we're working on it), therefore it stands to reason that they are inanimate unless the sun is shining on them.. This should make sheep hustling very easy.

To the west, there was another animal - "Is that a goat or a cat?" Mandy, who hadn't brought her Book of Animals Not Found in Wolverhampton with her as reference. (It was a horse when I looked, but I'm assured that it was a cat at the time.) A guess at what that creature was up on the hill prompted Andy the Heathen's classic, 'Yes, because you often see velociraptors running around Shropshire, don't you?' (It was a pheasant, though Mandy and I only have Andy's word for it; and despite the fact that he and Karen have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Shropshire wildlife, I've watched 'Jurassic Park' and it definitely looked like a velociraptor to me.)

Flying over us, there were bats. I thought this was a wind up for ages, as I was facing the river. There would be a cry of 'bat!', and we'd all turn round to find sod all there. Until I moved chairs and suddenly I was seeing bats all the time too. This led nicely to BS Kate's story about the time she found a bat in her bedroom, but her Mum didn't believe her; she reckoned it was a pop sock. BS Kate took photos and escorted the bat outside.. Only when the pictures were developed did her Mum decide that it was a bat after all. We now have the Pop Sock Vampire to add to the pantheon of monsters. Pop sock by day, vampire by night. Dangerous.

We also had the inevitable talk about what route we'd taken to get to Clunton. "I came really easily, because Mandy helped me." Robbie, in all innocence. "With the map-reading!" Mandy, after she'd finished choking on her beer. (Later, Robbie outlined his plans for the next few hours: 'Go to bed, wank off, catch breakfast' He maintains that he said 'go to bed, wake up, catch breakfast', but we know what we heard.)

On Saturday, after Aud said some magic words to get me out of my tent, 'I'm making tea and coffee', we toddled off to Bishop's Castle (or Bishop's Car-sill, as BS Kate insists it's pronounced, being from Essex and all). I overheard a hilarious conversation in Naiad's Well (a Pagan/New Age shop http://www.naiadswell.co.uk/), wherein the shop's owner was trying to arrange a ghost tour of the village, but had had opposition from the council on account of the fact that it was Pagan. Is the ability to see ghosts a Pagan thing? It turned out that it was the local newspaper twisting something that a counsellor had said. He'd basically been 'phoned two seconds after waking up, and was shaving at the time, but he'd said nothing of the sort and actually supported the idea.

Quick scut in google: http://www.wiccanweb.ca/article-4210.html http://www.wiccanweb.ca/print-4225.html http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/publish/article_18068.shtml (ah! Reading this, I think the conversation that I overheard was actually Abbie talking to the papers)

The Awareness Shop, one which Andy the Heathen informed me was trying to be as authentically Pagan as Trevor's shop in Glastonbury, has re-opened. I got a red jasper necklace for Mum in there, and Aud bought oil for Kate and Phoenix's handfasting. I also got a tiny cauldron, in which to put all the herbs we were buying for Kate's cough. It was eventually used (though Mandy let it boil over... *grin* and Kate nearly died drinking it. She was grassed up on the fact that she didn't finish drinking it, which goes a long way to explaining why she's still got a very bad cough. ;-))

After Bishop's Castle, we drove into Clun, to have a drink at the White Horse pub. Mandy went to the toilet there and was cornered by the pub's dog. It didn't stop barking at her the entire time she was in the loo, and she mentioned this when she finally made it back to the safety of the bar. "The dog's very protective of his back passage." The Landlord reassured her.

At this point, Mandy was knee-deep in wildlife issue's. As she'd got into Robbie's car, in Bishop's Castle, she'd heard an almighty THUD. This turned out to be a sparrow colliding with a shop window. Stunned, it was trying to fly about a foot off the ground, along a busy street, with traffic everywhere. In the finish, Mandy had to crawl under a car to rescue it. An inspection showed that it had no tail-feathers, so she and Robbie scuttled off into a pet shop. The owner gave them a box and half a pound of bird-seed, but could offer no other help. The pair of them arrived in Clun to inform us that the said sparrow was still in the box in Robbie's car.

Mandy, Robbie and I went back to the car to find the bird chirping away, but very thirsty. Mandy held it in her hand, dripping water from a tissue, and the cute little thing had it's mouth open like a baby bird, quite content. Later on, we sussed that it recognized Mandy's voice over everyone else and so we decided that Mandy was now Mummy. While most of the gang were saying to let it go, I knew from the raven incident that it would die. It was too covered in human. No amount of canting about cruel nature was going to convince Mandy that letting it die was a good thing, therefore she opted to come to Church Stretton with me and BS Kate, in our quest for mead. Now a quest for mead and advice on injured sparrows and/or a bird cage. Andy Charnelle chose to come with us, mainly because he's mad or masochistic, or perhaps going on an adventure with me, BS Kate and Mandy is preferrable to sitting in a camp-site getting drunk. :-D

Oh... that adventure. *huge grin* Halfway to Church Stretton, 'Mr Bo Jangles' started playing on the stereo, and the bird chirped away, moving the box like a dancing thing. It was mutually agreed that he was obviously a fan and therefore should be named Mr Bo Jangles from hereon. Andy had bought a stang in Clun and every five minutes or so, it fell over and clocked Mandy one on the head. She survived and so did the bird. We wound up in a dog rescue charity shop, where there were no bird cages (nor any tea strainers, which we also needed; though I did get an ash-tray and Kate got a mug and a couple of books), but the owners were fascinated by our story. They had a contact for someone who took in injured wild mammals. Mandy 'phoned her, and was put in contact with the person who takes in injured wild birds. Unfortunately she was in Much Wenlock (ie halfway back to Wolverhampton). Not a problem, we were Pagans on a Mission.

However, first the mead. Andy said it's in the half-timbered building up there, then promptly went off on a tea-strainer quest with Kate. Mandy and I toddled into the first half-timbered, Tudor building. It was a pub, where everything stopped the second we walked in the door and everyone turned to look at us. There was a fog of cannabis smoke to navigate through to get to the bar. The landlord said, 'We don't have mead here!' in the same panicked tone that most people use when informing the police that they haven't got any drugs or guns. We toddled out again and found the second half-timbered building.

It was 'Entertaining Elephant' - a health-food, green issues, organic produce type of place, but we were left feeling like it was in Royston Vesey. The shopkeeper had to go scutting into his Christmas stores to find enough mead to make up the seven bottles as we were after. All should have then been well, he could have rung it through his till, I could have given him money, put the bottles in a couple of bags, and we'd have left. End of story.

*cough* The conversation went a bit like this:

Shop: 'That's a lot of mead, may I enquire why you need so much?'
Mab: 'It's for a handfasting... a Pagan wedding.'
Shop: 'How wonderful! Terrific!' (lots of faffing around behind the counter, moving things, looking like someone who'd never seen a shop before) 'Wonderful! May I ask where?'
Mab: 'In a field... near Clun.' (suspicious that he wanted to come too, judging by his tone, and not sure how the rest of the Moot would take that)
Mandy: 'Clunton... we're camping there.'
Shop: 'Would you like a CD? We've got Celtic music.' (scuts in a box, full of 'not for resale' Celtic CDs) 'Just the thing for a Celtic wedding.' (I had 'Celt' on my t-shirt, emblazoned across my breasts, presumably that's where he'd got 'Celtic' instead of 'Pagan' from.)
Mab: 'Er... no thank you.'
Mandy: 'We're camping, we've got nothing to play it on. But thank you.'
Shop: 'You could play it in the car. Let me just put it on for you, so you can hear it.'
Mandy: 'We're not camped by the car, thank you though. We'll just have the mead.'
Shop: 'It's a fantastic CD. Just the thing.' (starts playing it for us) 'Haven't you got a ghetto blaster?'
Mab: 'Honestly no, it is lovely, but we haven't anything to play it on.'
Shop: 'Don't you worry about that. We can sort that out.'
Mandy: 'Really, we only want the mead.'
Mab: 'Ooh! Kendal mint cake! Could I have 100g of that as well please?'
Shop: 'Oh! Erm...' (gets jar down) 'Is there 100g in there? It looks a little over to me.' (the jar was a quarter full)
Mab: 'If it's just over, I'll finish it off for you.'
Shop: 'Right... erm...' (catches sight of another customer) Would you go upstairs for me and get the second hand bags? Not the new ones, the second hand ones.'
(customer looks startled, but goes upstairs. The shopkeeper empties the jar of Kendal mint cake onto his scales.)
Shop: 'It is a little over 100g, would you like it? I can give you the jar as well.'
Mab: (thinking that the jar would be great for camping, as bags get damp) 'Yes, thank you.'
(Shopkeeper empties the kendal mint cake into a bag, seals it up, then tried to get the bag into the jar. Fails. Hands over the huge bag and the empty jar.)
Shop: 'It was 500g, but I'll only charge you for 400g. Would you like any other jars? We like to get rid of them. This is nice.' (touches a random jar)
Mab: 'No thank you. That's fine, thank you.'
(customer returns with bags)
Shop: 'These aren't the right bags.'
Customer: 'I only came in for salad cream'
Shop: (putting the bags to one side) 'I'm all flustered now.' (stares at the till like it might bite him)
Mab: 'Ok, just breathe.'
Mandy: 'Ring the mead though and put them in the bags, then we'll pay for them.'
Mab: 'And the Kendal mint cake.'
Shop: 'I can't think with that music on.' (switches the CD off, tells the other customer) 'I'm trying to get them to buy a CD, it's lovely, isn't it?' (turns back to Mandy and I) 'Are you eating kangaroo?'
(silence)
Mandy: 'We can't. Mab's a vegetarian.'
Shop: 'Kangaroos aren't animals. They have little arms.' (demonstrates by miming a kangaroo's arms) 'Like thalidomide arms.' (continues miming a kangaroo) 'Are you getting married? Which one of you is the bride?'
Mab: 'Neither of us, she is...' (turns to find that BS Kate and Andy, who had been there shortly after this all began, had now disappeared) 'She's gone.'
Mandy: 'The one in black was the bride.'
Shop: 'I'm just going to charge you the same price for the Christmas mead as the other mead.'
Mab: 'Thank you very much.'
(Mandy by now has added a soft drink to the counter)
Shop: 'This as well?'
Mandy: 'No, that's mine. It's separate.'
Shop: 'Ok....' (long assessing pause) 'Ok...'
Mandy: 'You need to add up the price of the mead and kendall mint cake first.'
Shop: 'Right' (rings them through and puts all 7 bottles, the 500g of Kendall mint cake AND the huge jar in the same carrier bag. This cannot now be lifted, as there was only about an inch length for the jar and so it's taken up the handles; that's before you even get to the weight. Puts Mandy's drink into another bag on its own. NB Neither of these bags were those fetched by the customer previously.)
Mandy: 'Let's put some of these things into my bag.' (takes out the jar and reaches inside)
Shop: 'No!' (takes them off her, then pinches the full bag) 'It's a strong bag!!'
Mandy: 'I know, but it would be better if we...'
Shop: 'It's fine! It's fine!' (turns to me) 'That's alright for you, isn't it?' (Mandy takes the jar off him and holds it)
Mab: 'Yes, perfectly fine, thank you.'
(Andy Charnelle appears, as if by magic, bright red and looking precisely like someone who's been hiding out of view in an aisle trying not to laugh out loud.)
Andy: 'Would you like me to have that, Mab?'
Mab: (feeling like a weight lifter, hoisting it off the counter) 'Thank you' (Andy disappears with it)
Shop: 'That will be £48 please'
(Mab and Mandy pay and run away very quickly! Sorting out the shopping in the carpark around the corner. I'm very proud of me and Mandy that we did all of that completely straight-faced. *grin*)

Of course, this made driving to Much Wenlock harder than it should be, on account of the driver (me) laughing hysterically all the way there. So much so, that I nearly knocked over a low-flying bird, which would have been the ultimate irony when you think about it...

We reached Cuan House and were awed into not laughing anymore, when we saw what Megan, the owner, does there. http://www.old-pound-vets.co.uk/wildlife/index.shtml We walked through her garden, which had more wild birds flying freely around it than I've ever seen in one place in my life; into her shed/aviary/hospital. In there were fifty odd boxes and cages, with notes attached to them 'Blackbird, fallen out of tree and bruised', 'Crow, knocked over by a car' etc along with dates, places, who found and reported them.. All of the dates were from the past fortnight. She informed us that she treated over 1000 wild birds last year. She took Mr Bo Jangles out of his box and informed us that our sparrow was actually a greenfinch. (Bear in mind that Mandy and I, of goat/cat velociraptor/pheasant fame, had pronounced it a sparrow in the first place...) Greenfinches are reasonably rare amongst the British birds, so Mandy had done a doubly good deed for the day here. Megan agreed to take him in and also assured us that she saw no reason for him not to make a full recovery and then be released back into the wild.

We left there feeling very bigged up, but wishing we'd had more money on us for her collection box on the wall. She must spend as much as Pixie does a year, on giving her charges a chance to survive. We're going to ask at the Moot if folk would like to contribute to a donation, then post it to her on behalf of the Wolverhampton Moot.

Of course, we'd only gone ten yards up the road, when BS Kate thought of a practical joke to play on Robbie; then we saw a woman in her pyjamas (I think it was actually posh clothes, but they did look like pyjamas) sitting on a bench. Because Kate couldn't tell what Mandy was trying to whisper, Mandy eventually gave up and practically shouted, 'That woman's wearing pyjamas in the street!' Which didn't impress the woman at all. Then, about a mile up the road, we were driving up a very steep road, when the road-sign warned us that this road was 'liable to flood' 'Uphill!' Kate spluttered shortly before dying in a fit of coughing and laughing at the same time. By now, I was swerving all over the road, because my eyes were filled with laughter tears and I couldn't actually see anything. People asking, 'are you eating kangaroo?' every two minutes didn't help matters at all.

About five minutes away from Clunton, and half an hour away from the wedding, it occurred to me and Kate that we really ought to get around to working out the ceremony. By the time we were back at camp, it had a basic form. Phoenix agreed to it, and added his ideas. Ten minutes later, we had it all worked out and just needed to add one Cabochon into the mix. Nowhere to be found. The next half an hour was a frenzy of organization, and beer. Cabochon tottered out of his tent, so was asked to memorize a ceremony within five minutes of waking up. Needless to say, we ran through it again ten minutes later, when he was more awake. That was around the time that I discovered that I'd left my athame at home... fortunately, Cabochon hadn't. We re-wrote the whole ceremony for the tenth time, with him taking the lead role, then Phoenix turned up with Andy Charnelle HUGE and VERY SHARP knife. I swear that I've seen smaller, less lethal machetes... but there's my athame, after he'd assured me that no-one had been killed with it. There wasn't time to re-write it again semi-officially, so Cabochon and I largely made it up as we went along.

I won't say more about the wedding, because that's Mr and Mrs Polley's story. It's also Cabochon's debut as initiated High Priest and officiating at a handfasting, so it's his story too. I was there mainly as safety net, cement and High Priestess. :-D

Laura was also present by proxy. She had given Kate a teddy bear to represent her. Needless to say, if we weren't invited into the bridal suite (the biggest tent known to humanity... any bigger and it would have been a marquee; but considering the amount of stuff as Kate thinks is necessary for a camping trip, this was a perfectly sized tent for her and Phoenix), neither was the teddy Laura. She slept with Mandy of the Little Tent ('You're absolutely positive that's not a child's play tent, aren't you?' asked Mab, dubiously. 'I'm sure it will be alright...'). Which led to musing on what if the teddy was full-sized Laura, 'I'd have to bend Laura over double before she can get in my tent!' Mandy.

Just in case you have any doubts about the size of Kate and Phoenix's tent. On the Sunday, it started to rain, so we were all invited in there. Only Mandy, Karen the Heathen and I have been called little people in this entire posse, as everyone else grew into full-sized adults. On this occasion, Mandy, myself, Biscuit, Juell, Karen, Aud, Alan, BS Kate, Robbie, Andy the Heathen, Phoenix, Laura the Teddy Bear and Andy Charnelle were all in there, and not only did we have room to lie down, but Robbie also had room to stand up and river dance in the centre of the tent. (This was also the occasion when Robbie piped up, with no warning, 'Has anyone got any vaseline?') (This was also the occasion when chainmail condoms were discussed, 'They're grate!' exclaimed Andy C. 'Especially if you've got a cheesy knob.' mused Biscuit.)

Talking about tents. Mine collapsed big time on the Saturday evening. Instead of getting very, very drunk at the barbecue side, I stood there for two and a half hours, with Simon's Davy lamp on, trying to cobble a repair job. Andy Charnelle ended up having to whittle some poles down, then, bless his cotton socks, he was there for at least half of that time, with the pair of us coming up with idea after idea as to how to fix this. We'd have left it, but it had tipped it down the night before and I would have been saturated if that had carried on that night. (It hadn't looked right the night before, but in making a couple of adjustments from the inside of the tent in order to keep dry, I knocked over my bottle of beer...) We did a grand job, though all the light-weights had gone to bed by the time we were ready to party. Robbie couldn't see me sitting on my own by a doused barbecue, so he joined me; then Andy C decided to join us too; and two seconds later, Aud and Alan were back out to play. As Aud made us cups of tea, I tried to show everyone the Great Bear, but it was too cloudy to see much of it.

After breakfast, on the Sunday ('This is just like any Sunday, Scott saying 'will you hold my sausage for me'' Simon), I packed up my tent, then some of us drove off to Aston-On-Clun, for the Arbor Day. We naturally had to stop in the Kangaroo Pub, where we found someone dressed up as a kangaroo, before making it to the Arbor Day itself. After seeing Arbor Day, in 'Oh My Gods!', mentioned so many times, I really wanted to know what it was all about. However, Aston-on-Clun's Arbor Day is so frightfully English, that I'd be surprised if it was the same as the American Arbor Day. http://www.arbortreeday.co.uk/ There were speeches and presentations, with everyone getting a CD, which prompted Juell, on the last one, to say, 'I wonder if they'll be getting a CD...' Then a song. As we'd been given the song-sheets, and the tune was simple enough, Juell and I joined in with great gusto. It was only afterwards, at the fete, that I spotted a CD of the Arbor Day song and realized that Juell was possibly only jealous because she didn't have a CD. So I bought it for her. :-D LMFAO

Another corner of the fete had a tiny pen with a sheep in it. The notice read: '30p a go'. You can imagine what the Wulfrunians made of that one.... ('They're a bit primative here, aren't they?' Mandy. 'You'd have charged at least 45p.' Mab) It was only when you turned the corner a bit that more information was given - 30p to GUESS THE NAME of the sheep. Ah! Fortunately, as many of the stall-holders had trouble understanding a word I was saying, I'm assuming that a conversation held in broadest Black Country didn't offend any passing Salopians.) The others had long since abandoned BS Kate, Mandy and I for the hospitality of the Kangaroo Pub, when we discovered the owls and hawks. Having entertained ourselves with bubbles and owls, we all had our pictures taken. Mine was with a Harris hawk, Mandy's with a Segar hawk and Kate's with an African Owl. In lieu of our parents to show them to, we took them to Aud, Alan, Juell and Robbie. They looked suitably impressed. I'll get them on the web-site eventually so you can be suitably impressed too.

At the camp-site, there was a game of rounders. Heathens v Wiccans. It was vicious! I doubt that there was anyone who didn't end up arse over tit or rugby tackled by a member of the opposition. Though none more spectacularly than Aud, who was brutally attacked by the heathens (one of which was her husband, Alan, who hasn't got a religion (except for the Wolves), and who opted to join the Heathens ('You going to live to regret that, dear...' Aud, an Aries) Aud slid most of the way from third base to fourth and rose with grass stuck to her face, spitting it out of her mouth. Gits wouldn't give us a penalty on account of penalties are football, not rounders.

Then there was Phoenix's... everything... He was very drunk. He and Biscuit had been left with several bottles of mead, while we were all out. There was only one bottle of mead left, which Phoenix had hidden down his top, under the vague impression that that meant it was safe from his wife... *shakes head* ANYWAY, Phoenix decided that seeing triple and hardly being able to stand didn't disqualify him from playing rounders for the Heathens. As Mandy pointed out, 'If it wasn't for the bloody Carry On team playing for the Wiccans, he'd have been out!' *cough* As Andy the Heathen pointed out, 'He's running like a diver with weights on his feet, underwater!' (and still managed a home run) But his second run, where he just dived onto the third base and lay there face down waiting for the ground to stop... I guess you had to be there...

Jamie and Jason turned up just before that, bearing chocolate. Jamie discovered that pillows and sleeping bags don't float... at one point in the rounders match, one of the Wiccans did something which caused BS Kate to yell, 'Heathen in denial!' I had just noticed Jason knee deep in the river, fishing out all the things that Jamie had dropped from the foot-bridge, so I called back, 'Nope, Heathen in de Clun.' No-one laughs at my jokes. :-(

We were quite civilized after that, going to the Sun pub in Clun for a meal.. Jamie brought us up to date with Grove news; Aud explained what it's like being 8 months pregnant; the Heathens (and a couple of Wiccans) on the next table ate all of the posh puddings before our table could order any, so Simon was guilted into giving Cabochon a bit of his. Mind you, after Cabochon got his own pudding, Simon was there with a fork, tasted and announced that it was worth dedicating his life to pudding thievery.

Then I went home. I saw a badger en route; saw an amazing sunset; and nearly fell asleep on the M54.

So, after all that, do you feel like you were there too? My work here is done. :-D

yours
Mab
xxxxx