Anteros

Happy Birthday my dear friend katriona_s!



I hope you have a splendid day my dear, filled with fun and friendship and snuggles with Mr Uma :)

Btw, in case you're wondering why I'm sending you a pirate flag for your birthday, please be aware that this is not just any old pirate flag. Oh no. This is a very special, official pirate flag flown by the National Library of Scotland to celebrate Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday last November. Note RLS's characteristic moustache :} There are actually very strict rules about what flags can be flown from national public institutions in the UK so how the National Library got away with this I have no idea! It brought a smile to a lot of faces all over Edinburgh that day :) Even the librarians were excitedly tweeting pictures of it!

( Couple more pictures under the cut )

I was going to post a link to the BBC Radio 4 Making Histories programme on naval memoirs and despatches that was on earlier today, but latin_cat beat me to it, so you can find the link and read her lovely little review here: BBC Radio 4: Naval Dispatches and Memoirs.

Instead here's a link to a Canadian History Channel programme that's on later this week: Museum Secrets - The National Maritime Museum. The programme features six artefacts from the museum's collections including a balloon despatched in search of the missing Franklin expedition, an "infernal machine" used during the Crimean war, a pirate sword and, inevitably, Nelson's Trafalgar jacket. There's also a trailer for the episode here:

When I got home from nodbear's last night I discovered that daughter had "decorated" her bedroom door with pirate posters in my absence. Luckily we have our naval schooner on blockade duty outside daughter's room ;)


The pirate posters are from a pirate activity pack I picked up for daughter in a second hand book shop so I suppose I have to accept some responsibility :}

This afternoon we took daughter to the panto. You have to, it's a Glasgow institution. We usually go to the Kings but this year we took toots to the SECC to see Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates with John Barrowman and the Krankies. You probably have to be Scottish to appreciate the sheer WTF???! lunacy of that double billing.

Needless to say the whole thing was camp as mince. So camp in fact that it made Cosmo Jarvis' Gay Pirates look like Das Boot. There was lots of improvising, giggling, corpsing, innuendo and Barrowman flirting outrageously with his very statuesque Man Friday. Considering we saw the matinee, I can only imagine the depths to which the evening performances sink! Daughter had a whale of a time and was sufficiently taken in by the 3D effects to squeal and duck under her seat.

All very silly but very entertaining. Although I fear I will be haunted by the fearful image of Barrowman's red crushed velvet breeches. Eeeewwww!

Continuing the pirate theme. Conversation with daughter this morning while getting ready for work...

Daughter: Mum why is that glass in the bathroom?
Me: Because I took my glass of wine up when I had a bath last night.
Daughter: (laughing) That's what pirates do! You're so funny mum!
Me: It is? I am?!
Daughter: Yes pirates drink lots and sing really loudly! In the bath.

No comment...

I relayed this conversation to nodbear earlier and she suggested I ask you guys what do pirates sing in the bath then? (Apart from Yo Ho Sebastian obviously...)

Hello from The Far Side Of the World!

Arrived safely in New Zealand last weekend. I still can't figure out exactly how many days I spent on that damn plane but I did remember to text sarlania when I passed through Melbourne. I spent most of the flight watching Pirates of the Caribbean films on the basis that they were the only thing on offer with boats and sailors in; and reading charliecochrane's Lessons in Power which I thought was excellent.

Since arriving in the Bay of Plenty I have done a great deal of nothing. The main reason for this trip was to let daughter spend time with family so we haven't really done any traveling, we did the big tour down to South Island last time we were here anyway. Highlights of the holiday so far have been the gorgeous view of the Pacific from FiL's farm, daughter's birthday party, wine tasting at the local winery, and the discovery of an antique print shop with the most eclectic collection of prints I've ever seen. Partner and I spent a very dusty afternoon rifling through the collection and came away with a fine collection of boaty pictures and some very fetching prints of men in breeches. We also went to see a Super 14 rugby match tonight, the Hamilton Chiefs played the Natal Sharks in torrential rain on over on the west coast. It was a pretty scrappy game given that neither team could hang on to the ball because it was so wet but it was very entertaining to see some proper kiwi rugby and both teams had pretty players.

Low point of the trip has been mosquitos, sandflies and weird family dynamics, but the less said about that the better.

Age of sail related landmarks are few and far between here though I did spot a farm called Archie's Orchard just up the road and the 50 cent peice has a lovely image of Endeavour on it. Otherwise that's it. I haven't been idle though! I've fnsihed reading Escape from France which is amazing and inspiring and Flying Colours which is less so :/ and I've also written one and a half fics which I'll inflict on you when I get back.

I've only got occassional internet access here but I have managed to keep an eye on LJ and was imensely entertained by esmerelda_t's post about dreams on following_sea. I very rarely remember dreams of any kind and the only Hornblower character I have ever dreamt about is Mr Bush! (wtf?!) But what do you know, last night I actually dreamt about Horatio and Archie!! I was below deck on a ship with them, Horatio was doing up his jacket with Archie standing behind him, the ship lurched and I caught Archie round the waist to stop him from stumbling. They were both wearing 1920's style uniform jackets but still looked very smart. When I went up on deck the dream had turned into a film which partner and I were watching. I asked partner what had happened to Archie and he said he'd been eaten by a crocodile (!) The end. Don't even begin to analyse that one ;)

Hope you guys are all well, miss you all and will look forward to catching up properly when I get home.

And now for something completely different! venusinfurs90 and I have been exchanging Age of Sail related music for a while now and thought it would be fun to share some of it with you guys :)

Some of these songs are contemporary with the period, others are more modern but in the spirit of the tradition. All the songs here are in the English folk tradition (and we're talking proper hand-knitted finger-in-the-ear folk music here ;) so I haven't included any of the wonderful classical music including Britten's Peter Grimes and Billy Budd and Mendelssohn's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, but don't let that stop you from listening to them! The songs I've chosen aren't supposed to be "representative" of anything in particular, they just happen to be songs I'm very fond of. However you'll notice one or two obvious omissions, most notably Hearts of Oak. I'm sorry but I just can't find a version online that doesn't make me cringe :(

( Hope you enjoy! )

Cross posted to following_sea and anything_aos

First politics, now pirates. Well seeing the Navyboys are off in Gibraltar with nodbear. I fear Sir Edward would be driven to despair! Picked this up from my flist this morning and can't resist sharing it. I haven't grinned so much since hearing Matt Fishel's Football Song. Allow me to present Cosmo Jarvis and the Gay Pirate song. I think Archie would approve.



Needless to say daughter adores this song and is leaping around the house singing "Yo ho Sebastian". I'm never going to win any prizes for appropriate parenting am I?

Hughes, R., (1929), A High Wind in Jamaica, Penguin Books.

After two week's of determined reading I have finally finished A High Wind in Jamaica. I can't remember the last time it took me so long to read such a short book. Seriously, this is one of the grimmest books I've read in a long time.

( It makes Lord of the Flies look like a Sunday school picnic. )