To celebrate here is a very fine poem that mentions Essex, which is rarer than you may think. Especially when the poet is Scottish.
From Hugh McMillan's book, The Spider's Spin On It - Poems From Scottish History
Henry de Bohun
(On the first day of Bannockburn, Bruce,
exposed in front of his lines, was charged
by an English Knight, Sir Henry de Bohun.
Bruce killed him with his battleaxe.)
A golden boy, that golden summer.
He didn't have to fight.
For country? They had more than one.
For King? They were kings in all but name,
Hereford and Essex, they had the Swan Badge.
For adventure: that's why he was here
on this flat and beaten moor,
the sun gleaming on a traitor's crown.
It's what he was born for, this moment,
the breath singing in his head.
Home for Christmas.
A hero.
On to the legs. Though that poem surely has them.
Hugh McMillan blogs here: http://drumsleet.blogspot.com/
and should you visit his blog you will notice (one post down) that his son ran in a 10km race called the Drumlanrig Demon on Saturday. Said son finished second, narrowly beating this man.
Who finished in 27th, with a very respectable time of 51mins and 50secs (after just 3 weeks training). I was a bit miffed that the training schedule interfered with the ironing schedule, but hey, I'm a nice wife.
The small ones did the 2 mile Fun Run, though from the amount of "cramps" they reported to me in their race summary, it was perhaps not all fun. Not sure they actually know what a cramp is; suspect they have merely overheard other runners talking and inferred that talking about "cramps" is what real men do.
And the leaves? Well, Crafty Green Poet posted here: http://craftygreenpoet.blogspot.com/2010/10/crafty-autumn-leaf.html
about a fabulous competition being run by a new Edinburgh craft shop, Craft House Concept. The task was to make an autumn leaf to hang in the shop window.
Now, we managed to knock these babies off in the hour and a half after dinner and before bath time. The boys' are stamped with a glue/paint mix, then glittered, whilst mine is a papier mache effort using leftover bits of handmade paper, then painted with the aforementioned glue/paint mix and glittered.
Big Ta Da!
Which takes us to the longevity. Had it not been for my nuclear hairdryer (2 settings: sub-tropical storm and tropical hurricane) we could not have got these items produced. And in thinking about my hairdryer, I did a quick mental calculation and worked out it is 35 years old. I actually checked my calculation, as I found this age hard to believe, but it was right.
The hairdryer arrived in our house in 1975, my father having bought it for me from his barber's in London. It is a Wigofun, though the metal band that had the logo on has dropped off.
Most notably, it is German. I suspect it was actually manufactured by Krupps.
One of my favourite books when I was little:
Small friend coming for tea tonight (Heelloo, Mr Pizza!) so see you all later.
If someone doesn't kindly bury me first.
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