By the time we got to Woodstock,Words and Music by Joni Mitchell © 1969 by Siquomb Publishing Co.
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.
We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the devils bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Les Paul contributed greatly to the soundtrack of my life so far. Here's Mr Slash (ignore Mr Rose's strangled voice) showing what Paul's kit could be made to do.
While waiting for my Chinese takeaway I thought I'd show the good folk of blogland something of the village of Coxheath. First some context,
Until the 1700's the heath was a deserted tract of land which was the haunt of highwaymen.
The deserted heath remained that way until in 1756, twelve thousand Hanoverian and Hessian soldiers were encamped on the heath. This large influx of foreign soldiers caused bad feelings within the local area.
(http://www.villagenet.co.uk/highweald/villages/coxheath.php)
So now to the present day
This is, as the sign says, the Chinese takeaway. Excellent food at sensible prices.
Here we see the Chinese on the left and, past the bakers, Coxheath Tandoori - mouthwatering Indian food to enjoy in the comfort of your own home.
A European peacock butterfly on the Buddleia. Loads of butterflies sunning themselves yesterday but not easy to get close enough for photographs because the approach is across loose gravel. Other photos are in the butterflies set on Flickr
I'll try to summarise today. Firstly it started a great deal earlier than I'd have preferred - I picked up Cal at 07:20. We arrived at the Denbies Vineyard at 08:30 and hit the queue. That filled the time to midday and we were finally given tickets for the 15:00 session, yes we queued for three and a half hours. Apparently the earliest arrivals were at 04:00 and had traveled from Manchester - we were in Dorking.
The restaurant (posh cafe) had posh food but we're blokes so we went with the burger van and then cakes and hot chocolate in the cafe. Back outside to watch the building work. The task today is to make the big bricks which will be used to build the house. They are hollow and use 272 Lego bricks. They are all the same size (12 long by 5 + 2 halves wide) and are each of a single colour. As the clock ticked down towards our session time the light drizzle turned to rain. Our ticket number meant that we'd be working outside and by the time we went into the build area the bricks were floating on the tables. Working with a father and his twin nine year old sons we set about a crate of white bricks and when they were all done we were restocked with blue. All up we made more than ten bricks in our hour and we were slowed down by me building a brick which was too narrow (because I can't count I suppose) and by the filthy weather - it's difficult to manipulate Lego bricks with cold, wet, pruney fingers. They need about 4,000 bricks, they'd taken delivery of 3 million Lego bricks, and had completed about 3,000 when our session started. The house will be built over the next few weeks.
Check out the Flickr stream for more photos. Oh, and James May? Yes - he shouted at us through a megaphone a few times but one can't blame him for not wanting to stray too far into the rain.
After a week at resi school spending a couple of hours standing in a queue is physically tiring but mentally restful. Nearly fell asleep standing up.
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Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone
Good evening Mr and Mrs America and all ships at sea, the candidate is taking the country by storm!
I've been playing with http://bighugelabs.com/ which I picked up from a tweet last night. Here's my first stab at a motivational poster from one of my images. I'm probably not destined for a life as a motivational poster designer but I think it's a neat tool and I'm sure will be of use to someone at some time.
Regular readers will know about my fascination with manned space flight. Today is the day; the anniversary of an event which delivered Kennedy's promise - "We will do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are difficult." When Neil Armstrong stepped down from the LEM step and that little puff of moon dust was blown up my generation knew that if a man could walk on the moon all things were possible. The moon landing is still a powerful symbol of many things, not all of them good, but I still prefer to think of that one idea; if a man can walk on the moon I can achieve anything.Late breaking news hot from Facebook; "Emma also got a 2:1 in Linguistics and French and will be graduating soon!"
Thanks Sam and well done Emma
Congratulations to Patrick who collected his BA (Hons) Music on Tuesday. He's still useless at recognising AC/DC lyrics or listing winners of the Eurovision Song Contest but I blame Nottingham University - obviously they are dumbing down. I can only hope doing a Masters will fill in these crucial gaps in his musical education.
Congratulations to Sam who collects her BA (Hons) in Linguistics this coming week. Because she has wanderlust she's heading off to yet another university for Masters.
Congratulations to Caz for passing her first year with a First. I'm sure Emma has also done something wonderful but there was no mention - her French is coming along well though.
These folk are members of the residential school team at Sussex so if anyone is in the area make sure you say "well done!". And congratulations to all the people who attended week one - staff and students - it was a jolly week.
End of week one at Sussex. Great time had by most - time for home and the real world
This bloke is currently wowing the crowds near the JMS Building at the University of Sussex. He and his very noisy dust-creating machine are available for weddings and parties - book now for Christmas.
Lilies and fish in the garden behind the Chichester coffee shop. Bit of drama there today - there is a net at the second floor level to keep out larger birds and sparrows flit around feeding their young in the nesting boxes. Today a Sparrowhawk had found a way in but couldn't get out through the net - its presence was keeping the sparrows in hiding and they were sounding alarmed.
