It’s a topsy turvy kind of life I lead sometimes, so while the rest of the nation were contemplating how best to relax over the bank holiday weekend, I was busier than ever. On Saturday I had a mother and son team attending a bespoke ‘rabbit and duck preparation course’, learning how to slaughter, prepare and butcher both creatures. The whole thing went swimmingly, helped no end by them both being good company and they left full of information and enthusiasm.
Sunday was spent helping Charlie make and erect a few bays of cleft rail fencing ready for his ‘In The Woods’ music festival next weekend. Rustic aesthetics were everything for the job, which was just as well considering that the long dead chestnut tree which we had available for splitting the rails from was twisted as hell. The finished article was certainly ‘artistic’, but will no doubt serve its purpose of preventing drunk (or worse) festival goers from sliding down the steep clay bank.
Yesterday saw me squeezing back into my corset (have I mentioned I cross dress with the excuse of being a Morris Betsy?) to dance at the ‘Lord Ragland’s’ annual onion festival, which is as the compare said, a bit of English eccentricity, the likes of which is all too rare these days. Two pints on an empty stomach ‘relaxed’ me into the role and I preformed my duties with the grace of a true lady; meeting young children who were just dying to speak to ‘that woman with a beard’, posing for american tourists who wanted a snap of a genuine weird Englishman and finding whitty retorts to the general light hearted ridicule which very much goes with the job of being a betsy.