The Hidden Gem Of London Sailing Courses

When I announced to a family friend that I was attending a two-day sailing course in Pimlico, his response was sceptical. 

"But what body of water would that be in? It can't be the Thames, that would be too busy and you'd probably catch Weil's Disease!"

Well, this was it, the Westminster Boating Base.

*this image isn't mine

Well, to be precise, we didn't sail right next to the Houses of Parliament; we were closer to Battersea Power Station and Grosvenor Bridge. But that's not really my point. My point is that we were sailing on the Thames! I, a beginner who'd only ever sailed in a shoebox on a dreary reservoir in Essex, sailed on a major thoroughfare yesterday and lived to tell the tale! Yup, no Weil's Disease (the Thames is apparently the cleanest metropolitan river in the world, according to our instructors) or being run over by ferries (almost all the larger boats we spotted were moored). I survived.

In many ways, it's strange that this place 1) has such minimal advertising and 2) is so unheard of! Why am I probably the first blogger in the world ever to rave about it on the World Wide Web? Don't other people see that there's nowhere else like it in London, or maybe even all the riverside cities in the world (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't researched this "fact")? But I guess there is a good side to this in the lack of crowds (our group had only eight people, with two or three on each boat). To further prove this point, I also tried a popular kayaking centre in the Docklands, which had all the fancy websites and gushing admirers, but realistically, it's just packed with about seventy kids waiting around, half of whom end up without their desired place on the course. So maybe a small centre like WBB could do fine without any publicity. But I still think the location deserves it.

Anyway, enough of the publicity debate. Now onto what we actually did when we got out onto the water. Well, the format was actually a lot better and more educational than my previous sailing course, with everyone on the boat given about half an hour each to sail independently and get individual pointers from the instructor (who was on the boat, a fact which, although technically for safety reasons, I think was an improvement on the shoebox sailing course, where we were all thrust out onto a lake alone without a clue what to do). And the instruction itself was actually some of the most friendly and helpful I've ever received from these activity centre-type places, and that's probably a result of the lack of crowds meaning these often-long-suffering people aren't tormented by difficult kids day-in-day-out. Or maybe that's just me being cynical, and they're all actually genuinely nice people. We shall never know.

So I can now proudly say I achieved my RYA Stage 1 just downstream from Battersea Power Station. And I can cleat a halyard. The latter which, to my layman level of expertise, sounds a lot more impressive than the former.

-DP :)

PS We're going up to Scotland for a week in a couple of days, and the presence or absence of Wi-Fi is so far unconfirmed. But I haven't spontaneously combusted if I don't post for a week or so :).

Spring Is In The Air!

The title of this post may be such a reckless cliché, but hey, it still makes me feel like going Tra La La. And it's true, because I'm kind of glad my mum forced me under pain of death (well, not literally, she didn't threaten me with a gun or anything, but I like that expression) to take some fresh air and go to one of the shops near our country house. I was against it at first because I had a mountain of homework and I still wanted to blog, so to me it felt like a time-waster, but that excuse sort of backfired, because that's what gave me the idea for this post.

So, I'm sure you guys recall that a month ago I wrote a rant about how the British weather gods urgently need to sort out their differences and stop that March snow. Well, they're evidently followers of my blog (through what I wonder? Google Deity Connect?), because after that post, they took matters straight into their hands and dealt with the ol' winter-in-spring mess-up. Because after a brief period of mild-temperatured, boring weather, now it actually feels like archetypal, clichéd spring. And that's probably the only time you'll hear me use those words in a positive context. Because for classic, legendary things (and no, I'm not talking about Mozart here) like spring, they are the biggest compliments.

I like spring. In its stereotypical ideals, at least. After the bitingly cold temperatures of February and March, and before people get bored of heat round about July, it comes when people have exhausted this year's snow novelty (autumn is like this too, but instead it reminds people that this boring old heat will go and soon there will be snow and Christmas and the like) and gives us a welcome taste of bearable heat. And like the red leaves of the other in-between season, it gives us a genuine natural beauty. And of course, if it's beauty, I'll give you some pictures!

Light blue and a picture-perfect green. The best spring colours you'll find.

Our own primroses and other people's garden/cemetery daffodils. I love the way some of the flowers glow in the camera, they're so bright.

I really like this picture. I love how the trees loop over to frame our back garden river and the swan. He seems so still and isolated, as if he's drinking in the natural beauty. And if you look closely, his reflection looks like a bull with horns :).

And of course, spring is when all the macaws migrate to Suffolk! :)
-DP :)

Do you like the spring season? Or are winter, summer or autumn more your thing? Don't hesitate to comment!

The Animals Of Marathon (Mostly Stuffed)

As I'm sure you picked up from yesterday, today we were in the town of Marathon. We didn't stay long but it was still long enough to find some little, or should I say wild, gems in the lobby of our hotel and in the restaurant. And they were gems within a very different and controversial field that I've never, ever thought of posting pictures of and writing about on this blog: taxidermy.

Indeed, everywhere in Texas so far has had some form of stuffed animal (meaning an actual dead animal not a fluffy toy - the phrase "stuffed animal" has multiple connotations) somewhere, a deer or a bear or a buffalo. Some are stuffed, some are rugs, some are left in the bony state they died in. But they all have one thing in common: they were killed for the decoration value. And do I think that can be justified? Well, that's one of the things that I typed in my iPad passcode to talk about here. And I know this is a boring answer to the question, but I personally think it depends on the animal, the place where the decoration goes and the type of decoration. Whether it's endangered, whether stuffed animals are suitable for the place or occasion and how much pain was inflicted on the animal (for example, having your head chopped off to become a skull on the wall is obviously less painful than being skinned to be a rug - both these taxidermy types and more are in my picture collection further down) are all factors that can be the difference between acceptable and unacceptable, but they're not the most important. What is the most crucial is did the animal die for the purpose? Did a hunter spy him or her (yes, I never say "it" when referring to animals, but that's another post entirely) and think "That'd look good on my wall" and shoot him or her down? Or was he or she already dead, and the hunter just picked the body up? I don't see a problem with the latter, it's just like a non-living decoration. Killed for the purpose? No. Already dead? Sure.

Now I've done my lengthy writing, I thought I'd show you my Taxidermy In Marathon, TX photo collection. There's everything here: reindeer and buffalo heads on the wall, wooden crocodiles (OK, not technically taxidermy but cool though), bearskin rugs, a random bone lying on the table for no apparent reason (?) and my personal favourite, the uncannily-realistic mountain lion sitting on a coffee table that nearly knocked the Taylor Swift-pumping headphones off my ears. Whether these animals were killed for the purpose is another question, and I might never know. But if any of you out there against taxidermy are vomiting at the pictures, I also included an unbelievably cute little dog yapping at me from underneath a table in the breakfast café. I sure hope this little guy never gets stuffed :).

What do you guys think about taxidermy? Don't hesitate to comment!
-DP :)

Yes, The End Of Term Can Be Inspiring In A Way

Yay! The Spring Term ended yesterday! It's Easter hols! Whoa, this is great. I'm two-thirds of the way through Year 7! It feels like only yesterday when I was having my meet-your-new-class day, my end-of-primary-school prom and my final primary summer holiday. And that sounds all gushy and enjoy-schooly, but don't think I wasn't happy when the term was finally over! Seriously, I lay on my bed listening to Taylor Swift and screaming about it being holidays all the time before my mum got back from posting eBay items! Even though we haven't even being doing much the last few days, just shopping for presents and getting my hair cut :( (but I guess it's all for holidays to America tomorrow :))!

I'm not going to lie, there will be millions of things about school I'll crave the lack of during the next two-and-a-half weeks. Getting stickies in your Geography book when the only correction is a non-underlined title, the endless cries of "not enough work is getting done here" in Maths, not to mention our epically unrehearsed fail at House Music on the last day of term, the list goes on...AAAAARGH!!! But obviously there are mixed feelings: I'll miss (slightly) the select subjects at school I like (i.e. English, History, Spanish etc., you get my taste in school subjects) and of course I will miss my absolutely epic friends (I shout out to those of my little minions - just joking - reading this, you are awesome, every one of you, and I can't wait to see you all again!). But yeah. Focus on the positives. School's over (for a few weeks anyway)!

But this term has been one where I've thought a lot about symbolism, inspiration, memories and all that jazz (sorry, I know it's a cliché, but it still sounds awesome!). I don't know why, but it's probably a mixture of Taylor Swift songs, philosophically enriching blogs and me generally maturing that's made me think in this deep way. But as I was saying, I've naturally applied this way of thinking to what the end of term means to me. I thought of intense happiness, and I thought of grief, and I thought of a mixture of both. But there was one feeling that stood out: inspiration (a word that my Geography teacher patronisingly asked us a few weeks back if we knew what it meant). You feel inspired and motivated that you've pushed down the doors of the term and not broken down in stress at that pile of homework over there you've got for the weekend, but there's also all the memories of the term, academic or not, that you can always look back on and surely utter an inch of a smile. That's another kind of inspiring. And I have to admit that I had both types of end-of-term inspiration this time. 
-DP :)
PS Here's artist Roy Hoes' jazzy impression of inspiration in our home city (this image isn't mine). Particularly love the way reflected coloured light is depicted on the skyscraper windows.

RIP Mr. Shrew

Shrews are vulnerable creatures, and not just because they make us humans go "Awwwww, that's so cute" when one comes hopping by and we just thinks it's a sweet little mouse, and not a neglected little non-rodent that's a whole lot sweeter. But more on that argument later. More on the shrew vulnerability argument. Shrews are vulnerable because they can die so easily. All they need to do is stop eating for a bit, because their Achilles' heel is their necessity to eat every 2-3 hours to consume 2-3 times their body weight a day, otherwise they face a slow death from starvation. That's why shrews haven't really embraced dieting.

Anyway, biology lesson over, today I researched these shrew nutrition facts in a vintage British Wildlife book and on Wikipedia after I became curious about the occasional shrew found dead in the Suffolk house. And how did I become curious about the death of shrews? Well, we found another dead one, a pygmy shrew. And I bet you're thinking right now, OMG, is this lunatic of a blogger going to torture us with creepy pictures of dead animals while she tries to take over the world? Right, I'm clicking on "Next Blog". I've had enough of her shrew nonsense. Well, all you people out there on the brink of The Dramatis Persona hater-hood, these pictures aren't creepy or scary or disgusting. They're not all that different from living shrews, except they don't breathe or have a pulse. But why am I telling you about them; I need to show you them. See, not all that scary, hey?!

To make the most of his final journey on the Earth, the poor little guy hitched a ride in the back of a truck. Hopefully it was on its way to The Underworld, via The Windowsill.

So, dead animal pictures over, for any of you that are still squeamish even when there's no blood or guts. What I was going to mention to take your mind away from the gloomy world of death, I'll tell you about how much I love shrews when they're alive. I really don't understand why there aren't loads of pictures on Google Images of shrews captioned "CUTE!!!!" like there are for rodents such as mice, squirrels and hamsters. Because they really are. as sweet as those animals, if not more, with their long, thin noses, pink feet, white tummies and long tails. Perhaps they're not as conventionally cute as, say, mice, but I think so-called conventionally cute just means manufactured cute. It's probably the shrew's sweet but unusual long nose that has prevented Disney from making a movie based around it.

*this image isn't mine

-DP :)

That Delightful Moment Where Your Predicted Disgust Turns Out To Be Untrue

Finally! A literal post title that you don't need to read a couple of times or know an obscure song lyric to get what I'm going to write about. This time, the title of my post is exactly what I'm about to talk about. That Delightful Moment Where Your Predicted Disgust Turns Out To Be Untrue.

So anyway, post-title-ramble over. Now I start talking about what I said I would. Do you ever get an overwhelming sense of dread when you are faced with a dish of unfamiliarity that the biggest foodie might just decline? I have, many times, from my mum's cheese tart (that has a place up there with DP's Most Disastrous Family Dishes) to that Vietnamese soup in a bowl bigger than my head (my head is average size). The words you'd usually associate with these instances are Disgusting and Revolting. But I just think it's just overcoming your natural fear of strange, unknown things that we're all born with (as the wonderful Calvin* of Calvin & Hobbes proves here).

*this image isn't mine

But I didn't bother to go along the long road to the Blogger homepage to talk about such normal things as food disgust. That's not what The Dramatis Persona is about. I talk about unusual things in everyday life. That Delightful Moment is not the initial unfamiliarity, but the discovery of something new; a much more interesting feeling. In fact, about 80% of the many times I've been faced with unknown nutrition I've in the end said "Actually, it's quite nice!" (ironically, I think that's something my cartoon blog addition Calvin has never said). And THAT, my friends, is the feeling I really love. The discovery of a new substance to be added to the Approved Food list I think makes you that tiny bit more mature in a way. And I've got a lot of proof of that; I'm a lot less fussy than some of my friends (I have this distinct memory of a primary school trip to France where I was the only one who dared to touch the cold ham and tomato salad - it was alright actually!). And I think that food resilience is due to being faced with new discoveries every day.

My most recent try-it-you-may-like-it (yes, I know that's from Green Eggs And Ham - a lot of childhood memories are popping up here!) dinner was on Monday, when my mum made celeriac and beetroot gratin (a Guardian Magazine recipe), which is basically those vegetables in a cheesy cover. Cheesy sauces and celeriac didn't really sound my sort of thing, and the appearance of the dish didn't improve that view. But I now count it as one of my favourite dishes! While the cheese sauce wasn't particularly desirable, its soft taste complemented the crunch of the vegetables in a brilliantly delicious way. And to prove that you can't judge food by its cover, I have some pictures!

The grattin - this image isn't mine

And the original celeriac - also not mine

Thanks for reading, and I hope I inspired you to be more adventurous with your food!
-DP :)

PS I'm sure those of you active on the blogosphere like me will have heard this from a million other blogs (I have on at least five), but Google Reader and Google Friend Connect are shutting down on the 1st July. This means you won't see blogs on your Blogger dashboard any more, so if you don't want to lose my blog and any others you follow, I suggest you start an account on Bloglovin' or another blog following site (the blogs you follow can be imported!) ASAP. I have, it was very easy :D

PPS On a happier note, my family and I are going to Texas and New York for the Easter holidays, and I can't wait to blog from over there!

My Conversion To Electronic Books

this image isn't mine

I'm sure the picture above needs no explanation to you as the Amazon Kindle. However I would need to mention to you that I won a free one as part of a school art contest, and I spent pretty much all of yesterday reading my first book on it (a good one too, Carnegie-shortlisted My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher, about a boy coping five years after his sister's death). Previously I'd never got the point of the advertising slogans "Lighter than a paperback" (who cares? Paperbacks aren't exactly ten-ton weights) and "Can carry thousands of books" (why would you need to have that many books on you?), but now I see that's not really the point. What is the point is the new generation way of reading, where you press a button to turn a page rather than going through the ordeal of lifting one (OK, a little hyperbole there) and the thrilling, never-disappearing novelty of simply touching a word to have it immediately defined. And there's the excitement of buying your whole bookshelf in one go - next on my list is the Australian outback-set growing-up tale Everybody Jam by Ali Lewis.

- DP :)

P.S. On a similar literary theme, I recently entered a short story competition for 500 word yarns starting with the line "Dad was flabbergasted when I told him the news". The prize is a collection of books and online publication, but we're not allowed to publish entries elsewhere until the winner is announced. So you'll have to wait a month for mine. Sorry about that.

Unknown Ways of Spending Outdoor Days

As the weather's warming up now, I thought I'd do an outdoor activity review to fit with my indoor activity one of Junk, and it's a review of one of my favourite activities, something I've been doing for nearly six months now and it's very addictive. Hope you like my review, and if you try Geocaching, enjoy that too!

Geocaching

When they're very young, everyone wants to find a tiny bit of treasure languishing in a hidden corner of beautiful countryside (and, in some cases, cities). But, sadly, not many of us manage to achieve that dream. However, thanks to the twelve-year-old, international craze of Geocaching, just a few of us just might do. The most basic form of Geocaching involves walking around an area (usually the countryside, sometimes urban areas), using a GPS device or smartphone to find containers (ranging in size from film canisters and the occasional diamond-encrusted 3cm tub to large buckets and ammo boxes) of small trinkets (such as keyrings, plastic toys and Trackables, which are trinkets created to pass from cache to cache) known as caches hidden just out of plain sight, and subsequently registering your find on the Geocaching website. And of course all the best things in life are two-way processes, so Geocachers can also create their own caches in their local area for others to try and find, and best of all, the whole basic membership, containing opportunities to both hide and seek caches, is absolutely free (there is also a premium membership, costing $30 - approximately £19 - but there are few obvious benefits). In the time between now and when it started, Geocaching has grown to be much more complex, with current cache types including Cache Series (an often themed route of several Traditional Caches), Event Caches (a formal or informal meeting of Geocachers) and Virtual Caches (intangible caches involving going to a location and answering an online question about it).

Geocaching is an ingenious idea that makes all walks considerably more fun, and even the most un-outdoorsy person will never tire of endlessly searching around and rifling through Tupperwares. If I had to say one thing against it, it would be that geocaches are always impossible to find in cities, for ever-present tall buildings seem to make it difficult for the GPS to find the satellites, so I think geocaching is better off just done in the countryside. However, now  I've become so addicted to it, I also ponder how much I was missing never knowing about it.
- DP :)

Go to www.geocaching.com to sign up now.

Check out Dramatis Persona's (geocaching alias daftydodo) Cache Series Stour Path Sidetrack.

A geocache - this image isn't mine

A Show Like No Other (if there'd been more storyline)

Cirque du Soleil poster - this image isn't mine

Often, if you've been doing homework all morning, like I have (filling in a workbook about a recent school trip to France, to be precise), then the whole afternoon has to be stuffed with exciting sights and sounds to refuel your senses. Matinee theatre productions spring to mind. And what better production to view after a morning of work than one of the world's most renowned and prestigious performance companies, the Cirque Du Soleil, and their current show, the (vaguely) Native American themed Totem, currently at the Royal Albert Hall, London, which I saw earlier today. Totem has a huge variety of different circus acts involved, from acrobats clad as sparkly lizards performing bar routines on the skeleton of a tortoise's shell, to a clown fisherman pulling all manner of things from the water to his fishing boat. Speaking of water, the way images were projected on to the stage was very realistic - I could even see the ripple of the waves during the beach acrobatics scene, where acrobatics dressed in swimsuits performed impossibly flexible shapes on small hoops attached to long ropes, above the mentioned beach, creating one of the most memorable acts in the performance.

However, despite phenomenal acrobatic sketches - "Love on the Trapeze" was a highlight, especially when the male acrobat hung from the trapeze using only his neck, there was no real thread connecting each act, so much that they could have all been from different productions. The diversity of performers, from the glittery catsuit clad dancer-acrobat that took centre-stage at the start and end of the performance to the Chinese unicyclists throwing golden bowls to and from each other's heads, seemed to ache for a plotline to tie them all together in to an elaborate fantasy tale. Native American folklore, from which the show is supposedly based, is swarming with tales like this, so I feel they could have adapted one of these, because aside the lizard-like creature on the theatre poster, the show has hardly any connection with Native America, which I had been anticipating when I first found out I was going to the show. However, all these negatives have no effect on the immense skill of the performers, and if you only want a reputable and extremely embellished circus (exactly what Cirque Du Soleil is) and don't care about the storyline or historical roots of the show, Totem will still be the great show that it advertises itself as.
- DP :)

Unknown Ways Of Spending Indoor Days

Snow is falling throughout the country and many neighbouring ones too, and it's not fun snow, i.e. snowman building and snowball throwing snow. It is, in our case, hard, icy, frozen snow, which greatly increases some of my family's and my reluctance to take a breath of fresh air. If you have similar difficulties, or are stuck at home because of rain, snow, ice etc., I've reviewed a fantastic, if slightly out of the ordinary, card game that is great for days like this, that I think many blog readers will enjoy if they're bored of Scrabble. 
- DP :)
P.S. Some of you may have realised that the prints in the snow were the mark made by a rabbit's feet and tail.

 Junk

When you hear descriptions of this now very rare card game, you'd think it only appropriate for those raring to break onto the antiques market and wanting to have some light-hearted patter practice while having fun with friends and family. However, antiques and flea markets have never been much of an interest to me (although they have been to my Mum), yet I took to this excellent game very well. Ever since my Dad received it for Christmas, my family and I have used much of our free time playing Junk, due to its extreme addictiveness. Its gameplay is very similar to an antique dealer's life; players sell their selection of thirteen different types of antiques (e.g. bureau, eagle table centrepiece, cabinet) in pairs to either a "museum" (really just the centre of the table) or the "public" (just the other players), and try to make a profit from what they've bought from other players in order to achieve the objective of having the highest credit at the end of the game. The catch is that the items are either "Genuine" or "Junk", and players don't know which until it's too late. Of course, junk items cannot be sold to the museum, and if an item isn't sold, the failed seller earns its price if it's genuine, and loses its price if it's junk. The tension builds high towards the end of the game, because every purchase counts and even the tiniest blunder can be the difference between winning and losing. The laughs, the opportunities for over-imaginative patter and the frequent light-hearted embarrassment at genuine-ness giveaways make this a wonderful game that's suitable for all ages and for lovers, haters, experts and novices of the antique market. The only things I have against it are that it can become predictable who will win and lose a little too early on in the game, and with 78 genuine items and 26 junk ones, Junk does take longer than most games and there's no real variation in play throughout the game.

Junk cards

N.B. No real money or antiques is involved in this game, only cards and tokens.

Junk box

Only available second-hand. Starting price on eBay: £1.99 + £1.75 postage