Newsletter - March 2002

This newsletter covers the first part of 2002, up to mid-March.

It was released to an unsuspecting world on March 16th, 2002.

Well, here we are again - well into the 'new' year already and therefore lots of things to catch up on since Lynne's Christmas note at the end of 2001. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Or perhaps it’s old age catching up – Lynne and I are just back from an excellent weekend break in New York with Manchester pals Paul & Jools but I feel duty-bound to report that the most frequently used phrase over the weekend was “What WAS that? It’ll come back to me….” as we all individually struggled to remember past events, places, put names to faces, etc. Nostalgia definitely ain’t what it used to be.
Given that many people will now be reading this via the website, I’ve sprinkled links throughout this newsletter where it seemed to make sense, so you should be able to click the link directly if you want to see the referenced information or pictures.
So, picking up from where the last missive left off, I think the first thing to talk about is the general situation out here. Business (and attitudes in general) seem to be picking up in the new year, though getting folks to actually sign their names on contracts and part with dollars (especially in amounts with lots of trailing zeroes) is still as difficult as it ever was. The post 9/11 layoffs hit the San Francisco area very hard, and so there are a lot of well-qualified U.S. Information Technology folks (including several local friends and ex-colleagues) out looking for jobs right now.
From a more personal point of view, signs are looking good that WhiteCross may get an injection of cash from some new venture capitalist companies (which is in itself an amazing thing given the current investment climate in the hi-tech industry – we’re definitely going for the prize for being the longest running “overnight start-up sensation” ever - in May I’ll have been at WhiteCross for 10 years!). If the funding does go ahead this will probably give Lynne and me the opportunity to do 2 more years out here (assuming that the US immigration service will extend our visas beyond September when my original 3 year visa expires – NOT a forgone conclusion in the current climate). Fortunately we’re in the situation where we can pretty much ‘go with the flow’ – in that if things don’t work out here we’ll make our way back to the UK in the summer, and move forward from there. We’d both enjoy another couple of years out here - in some ways it feels like we’re only just getting settled, now that Lynne is established in Berkeley Morris (and is getting gigs with her new ceilidh band) and we’re also making new friends through the Treasure Island Yacht Club etc. Anyway, watch this space, we’ll keep everyone posted.
One thing we’re vaguely planning for the end of our stay here (whenever it happens) is to use the situation as an excuse to do our own version of the ‘great American road trip’ – ie having loaded our belongings into a container for a nice sea-cruise back to good old Blighty, we plan to take a leisurely drive across to the east coast either using an RV (“Recreational Ve-hick-ull” – or “big campervan” in Brit-speak) or maybe just in a car and stopping of in motels on the way, taking in sights and places we haven’t had chance to see as well as perhaps dropping in on a few friends and colleagues along the way. We’ll see…
Michele will be heading back to UK in June whatever happens, as she’s decided to go back to U.K. and do her A-levels at Stratford College – but before that happens, we’ll be joined by Lynne’s middle daughter Claire who’ll be coming out here in April for a couple of months at the end of her “year out” before getting stuck into her university course in Bristol training to be a vet. The other good news on that front is that Jennie has been accepted by Cunard to get trained and then work on their cruise liners – she starts on a training cruise on the QE2 in May.

And speaking of Jennie and Claire, I have to say I got a little giggle when I found out that Claire’s latest beau is called Bill, while Jennie was seeing a guy called Ben for a while (and I think the little house knew something about it too). It doesn’t take much to amuse me these days - and just so Michele doesn’t feel left out, I also got a giggle when she went to her school prom – due to various circumstances she ended up going with 2 (yes, TWO!) blokes - and here's the evidence (and Michele looking très chic!). There were a couple of things that amused me here – they all came back to our place on Treasure Island to to don party frocks, tuxes etc, and the blokes were MUCH slower than Michele in getting ready. The other thing was that for some reason it struck me that it was a bit like that old TV ad for shampoo/conditioner - you know the one - “What – take TWO bottles into the shower??? NOT ME!” . I could just imagine Michele walking into the prom saying “What… take just ONE bloke to the prom??? NOT ME…”
As I said, it doesn’t take much to amuse me these days.
What next? well, maybe some of the ‘big things’ that we’ve done in 2002..
The biggest of which being our trip to Mexico over the New Year – Puerto Vallarta, to be precise, on the Pacific coast. This was part of our “let’s do stuff while we’re here, ‘cos we may not be based in SF for long” thinking. PV (as it’s known to the regular visitors) is a very pleasant destination which still retains a lot of the “real Mexico” in the old town – it’s not purely a modern hotel complex like Cancun or some of the other resorts. Here are a few pictures . The bad news (for us) was that there are no archeological sites close – so we didn’t get to see any Aztec, Inca or Mayan pyramids etc. It seems these are all over on Yucatan peninsular on the eastern coast (oh well, better go there next time then…).
Having said that, we managed to fill our time well with a mixture of ‘eco-tourism’ (between bouts of ‘lazy-sitting-by-the-pool-swilling-Margharitas-tourism’). We did a boat trip to some remote beaches and hiked up to a waterfall, and saw some humpback whales REALLY close up on the way back to port as the sun set that day. Other highlights were swimming with dolphins (an incredible experience - we’ll probably bore you all with the video next time we’re back) and a great ‘safari’ in big 4-wheel drive trucks into the Sierra Madre, with a hike into the jungle with a guide who managed to show us lots of indigenous flora and fauna including iguanas, tarantulas and scorpions. In some cases we got even closer to the fauna (well, at least I did) – by which I mean eating live termites and bees, not to mention wearing a live baby iguana as an earring – clamping onto my earlobe by biting it! A great day trip, unforgettable. (And the answer to your questions are 1) “They taste like what they’ve been eating recently” - in my case a sort of herby pine taste, and 2) yes, they DO tickle as you swallow them. so there).
Also on this trip, we managed to find a great place to see in the Año Nuevo – early in the week we tried a restaurant called the Panorama (because of course it had a great view of the town and in fact the whole of Banderas Bay). We went back there for New Year’s Eve and had a great view of boats assembling in the bay and 6 or 7 different firework displays lasting the best part of an hour. We also saw more mariachi bands than you can shake a maraca at - these come in many sizes and combinations – we saw everything from the minimal 3 piece (accordion, guitar and bass guitar) to a 10 piece thing with string and brass sections. All in all a great start to 2002.
Next ‘big event’ is the one we’ve just got back from – a long weekend in New York with Manchester mates Paul & Jools (a sort of ‘half way meet’ – with all the attendant mutual but opposing time zone/jet lag things – they were 5 hours behind their body clocks, and we were 3 hours ahead of ours - but we managed to stay awake most of the time). It was Lynne’s first trip, and although I’d been there many times on business I’d mostly done the usual “airport/taxi/hotel/meeting/taxi/meeting/taxi/airport” thing so I hadn’t had much chance to do the tourist stuff either. Consequently we did one of the open top double decker bus guided tours on the first morning – I always try to do these in a new place, it’s a handy way to get oriented and pick out places worth spending more time in. The weather was kind (cold, but bright and no rain) so we did a lot of walking around and just ‘osmosing’ the place. Did a backstage tour of Radio City (highly recommended – they’ve just refurbed/restored the whole place in the original 1930’s Art Deco style – even the restrooms were amazing!), and ended Saturday with a nice Italian (and very garlicky, so Lynne told me the next day) meal down in Greenwich Village.
On Sunday wandered round the new Seaport area on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, and then had a long leisurely celebratory lunch in a great little restaurant nestled under Brooklyn Bridge (the Bridge Café – oldest continuously serving restaurant in NY). The celebrations were for several reasons – Paul’s birthday, a return to the place where Paul and Jools were married, and also it turned out to be the 4^th anniversary of Lynne and me officially becoming “an item” – not to mention it was also Mother’s day (in the UK at least)..
A trip on the Staten Island ferry at sunset to get the classic view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, and we even managed to squeeze in a quick look at Grand Central Station, a helicopter trip over Manhattan and a nice lunch on Restaurant Row on Monday before we headed out to JFK for our flight home. Interestingly, none of us felt the need to go to Ground Zero (though we got an aerial view from the helicopter). We missed the big ‘switch on’ of the new lights by an hour, though we did see them being tested (albeit filtered to a dark blue) the previous night from the ferry. Then a yacht club pal sent us this picture, which is the best I’ve seen so far. A brilliant weekend with lots of laughs, as always with Paul & Jools.
Final thing in this list of “big events” has to be the recent visit of Lynne’s sister Anne with daughter Stephanie and Anne’s pal Cath - yep, girlie Brits on tour. I was the only bloke in a houseful of 5 women for a week. Thankfully I managed to excuse myself from the shopping trips, but had fun bar-hopping with Anne and Cath when Lynne had other commitments.. a good time was had by all, I think. Especially our neighbour who was apparently treated to a display of Cath flashing her (flawless, allegedly) charms as she opened the bedroom window - and speaking of which, Anne/Cath - Charlie, Eric and Robert at the Holding Company told me to say “Hi - and may your nipples always be slippery ones”. (In case you don’t get it, a ‘Slippery Nipple’ is a cocktail – Baileys and Sambuca, I think. Honest.)
We also managed to slip in a trip (one of Cath’s many trips during this visit) to Benziger, our favorite Sonoma winery over the weekend.. and I have to say that when I wandered through Union Square the Saturday after they’d gone back the place was filled with huge lorries re-stocking Macy’s, Eddie Bauer, etc
On to a quick round-up of other stuff – starting pre-Christmas with Bonfire Night and a couple of great Morris/music events up in Placerville (again! – and this time the BerkMos managed to get some audience participation for the Hooe Bonfire Ribbon Dance at Lynne’s instigation) and at the Pelican Inn out on Muir Beach just north of the Golden Gate Bridge – here's the evidence.
Michele went back to UK for Christmas, so (since we were off to Mexico on the 27^th) Lynne and I decided to treat ourselves to “Traditional Christmas Dinner” in the swanky Carnelian Room, on the 53^rd floor of the Bank of America building downtown. Very nice, stunning views and great food (Call me old-fashoined, but it still seems kind of strange to me to have a wine “cellar” 53 floors up though… ).
In fact food seems to have been a theme for my Christmas presents - I got some ramekins, a recipe book and one of those little kitchen blowtorches from Lynne, so I’ve been practicing and am proud to report that I’m now a dab hand at crème brulée! I think it was comedienne Rita Rudner who said that men only enjoy cooking when there’s danger involved (that’s why they’ll do barbeques)… maybe she’s right! Still working out what to do with all the left-over egg whites though. We also got a set of really nice sushi place settings from Lynne’s girls, which will be better than our normal approach of chasing it around our ordinary saucers..

The other major Christmas present was in response to Lynne’s (oh-so-gentle) hints about getting a camcorder so that we could ~~steal~~, sorry, err, COLLECT, some of the local Morris dances for posterity. We now have a wizzy miniDV camcorder with all the appropriate software (and hardware!) so we can do fancy video editing stuff on our home PC setup. Here’s a pic of me in film director mode on the shore of Treasure Island - and a couple of small examples of my first efforts.
In early January we hosted the first stop on the annual Berkeley Morris Wassail tour… 7 stops in all, going from 10:30 am through till midnight. I think we did the right thing by doing the breakfast stop – relatively easy food to organize, and then we could quickly pack up and join the rest of the tour! Also, being the first stop, it meant that we all got chance to learn and practice the Berkeley Wassail song, since everyone had obviously forgotten it since last year. It turns out that the infamous White Rats have in their usual fashion plagiarized this song… if you are over eighteen and not averse to the odd bit of S&M, at the bottom of this website's page is a link to 'A Pervert's Wassail - their version of the lyrics. Aternatively, the original, written by ex-Berkeley Morris member Jon Berger, which you can download - The Berkeley Wassail - ABC notation. Anyway, a good turn-out and a great day. The other more recent Morris bash was a ‘kit-making party’ that we hosted so that Berkeley Morris members (new and old) could get their kit sorted out and spruced up for the upcoming season. Another jolly day, especially as once all the sewing had been done, the Singers (sewing machines, that is) were replaced by players and a little music session ended the day off in style.
The local Yacht club goes from strength to strength, really getting into the social events, and with a lot of racing, cruise-ins and cruise-outs coming up this summer. If you get chance take a look at www.tiyc.org We had a ride on a very nice big power boat during the annual ‘Round the Island’ cruise in early January.. I think this boat was bigger than my first house – certainly better appointed
The other thing I’ll mention here is the “School Friend Reunion” website at www.friendsreunited.com. In the few months I’ve been on there, I’ve been in contact with about 20 old school pals, some of whom I hadn’t seen or heard of for over 25 years. More of that nostalgia stuff (did I mention that earlier… can’t remember..) - give it a try!
On the “music/entertainment” front there’s been the usual mixed bag of events – we saw ‘Proof’ downtown, which was excellent, and we also saw Eve Ensler and a star-studded cast including Gloria Steinem do a special performance of the “Vagina Monologues” for ‘V-day’ which was also good (and only occasionally verging on the strident). If you’re not familiar with ‘V-day’, it’s a worldwide feminist anti-violence movement – see their website at http://www.vday.org/index2.cfm for more info.
On the music front, we’ve been (intentionally) getting into more of the US folks scene, especially of late the bluegrass stuff. We’ve seen Kathy Kallick, Open Road, Bluegrass Intentions and the Earl (of Appalachian dance step fame) White Band recently. My favourites this time around were local legends Utah Phillips and Rosie Sorrels, and John McCutcheon who is a brilliant instrumentalist and song-writer. I recommend his web site at http://www.folkmusic.com/
And as I mentioned above, following a well-received debut performance, Lynne and some Morris pals have been asked by BACDS (Bay Area Country Dance Society) to do some more English ceilidh style gigs over in Berkeley, so they’ve been busy trying to think up a name - and come up with (wait for it)... MoSoCo. Apparently it means “MOstly SOnoma COunty” (since most of the members live up in Sonoma county). Catchy, huh? You heard it here first!
In early March we had a mini-heatwave, and so took advantage and finally got around to driving out to Point Reyes – a very beautiful piece of coastal countryside about 90 minutes drive north of the Golden Gate bridge. I’m sure this will become a regular option for any future visitors – the views are great, and there are interesting things to see including a lighthouse, a colony of elephant seals, herds of elks and it’s a great spot for whale watching during the migration seasons.
As usual, I’ll finish off with a look forward to what’s coming up - basically more of the same, Morris dancing season isn’t that far away, and there are some good festivals coming up, so the summer will be a busy time. September brings Fairport Convention to the Sebastopol Folk Festival. We have some visitors scheduled – Claire and Bill of course, but also Michele’s friend Erica, pals Ade and Linda who will hopefully make the trip which had to be postponed from last September, and Linda and Paul should be passing through SF and spending some time with us in late May on their way up to Lake Tahoe. I’d still recommend coming over to see us sooner rather than later if you haven’t yet been out to SF – there are still cheap flights to be had, and we’re still not sure how long we’ll be out here! We will however be back in UK at the end of July for the Warwick Folk Festival, so hopefully we’ll see lots of people there. From e-mails I’ve had already it seems we might have quite a gathering there this year – enough for our own “enclave-ette” in the suburbs of the mighty Hereburgh enclave perhaps! See Warwick Folk Festival's website for details.
That’s probably enough for now (maybe too much!). Happy St Patrick’s day to all, and we’ll see you in July if not before. Here’s a sort of Irish/sailing-related (?) toast to finish with :
“May the warm wind at your back never be your own”
D & L.

© Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2002


This newsletter covers the first part of 2002, up to mid-March. It was released to an unsuspecting world on March 16th, 2002.		Well, here we are again - well into the 'new' year already and therefore lots of things to catch up on since Lynne's Christmas note at the end of 2001. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun? Or perhaps it’s old age catching up – Lynne and I are just back from an excellent weekend break in New York with Manchester pals Paul & Jools but I feel duty-bound to report that the most frequently used phrase over the weekend was “What WAS that? It’ll come back to me….” as we all individually struggled to remember past events, places, put names to faces, etc. Nostalgia definitely ain’t what it used to be. Given that many people will now be reading this via the website, I’ve sprinkled links throughout this newsletter where it seemed to make sense, so you should be able to click the link directly if you want to see the referenced information or pictures. So, picking up from where the last missive left off, I think the first thing to talk about is the general situation out here. Business (and attitudes in general) seem to be picking up in the new year, though getting folks to actually sign their names on contracts and part with dollars (especially in amounts with lots of trailing zeroes) is still as difficult as it ever was. The post 9/11 layoffs hit the San Francisco area very hard, and so there are a lot of well-qualified U.S. Information Technology folks (including several local friends and ex-colleagues) out looking for jobs right now. From a more personal point of view, signs are looking good that WhiteCross may get an injection of cash from some new venture capitalist companies (which is in itself an amazing thing given the current investment climate in the hi-tech industry – we’re definitely going for the prize for being the longest running “overnight start-up sensation” ever - in May I’ll have been at WhiteCross for 10 years!). If the funding does go ahead this will probably give Lynne and me the opportunity to do 2 more years out here (assuming that the US immigration service will extend our visas beyond September when my original 3 year visa expires – NOT a forgone conclusion in the current climate). Fortunately we’re in the situation where we can pretty much ‘go with the flow’ – in that if things don’t work out here we’ll make our way back to the UK in the summer, and move forward from there. We’d both enjoy another couple of years out here - in some ways it feels like we’re only just getting settled, now that Lynne is established in Berkeley Morris (and is getting gigs with her new ceilidh band) and we’re also making new friends through the Treasure Island Yacht Club etc. Anyway, watch this space, we’ll keep everyone posted. One thing we’re vaguely planning for the end of our stay here (whenever it happens) is to use the situation as an excuse to do our own version of the ‘great American road trip’ – ie having loaded our belongings into a container for a nice sea-cruise back to good old Blighty, we plan to take a leisurely drive across to the east coast either using an RV (“Recreational Ve-hick-ull” – or “big campervan” in Brit-speak) or maybe just in a car and stopping of in motels on the way, taking in sights and places we haven’t had chance to see as well as perhaps dropping in on a few friends and colleagues along the way. We’ll see… Michele will be heading back to UK in June whatever happens, as she’s decided to go back to U.K. and do her A-levels at Stratford College – but before that happens, we’ll be joined by Lynne’s middle daughter Claire who’ll be coming out here in April for a couple of months at the end of her “year out” before getting stuck into her university course in Bristol training to be a vet. The other good news on that front is that Jennie has been accepted by Cunard to get trained and then work on their cruise liners – she starts on a training cruise on the QE2 in May. And speaking of Jennie and Claire, I have to say I got a little giggle when I found out that Claire’s latest beau is called Bill, while Jennie was seeing a guy called Ben for a while (and I think the little house knew something about it too). It doesn’t take much to amuse me these days - and just so Michele doesn’t feel left out, I also got a giggle when she went to her school prom – due to various circumstances she ended up going with 2 (yes, TWO!) blokes - and here's the evidence (and Michele looking très chic!). There were a couple of things that amused me here – they all came back to our place on Treasure Island to to don party frocks, tuxes etc, and the blokes were MUCH slower than Michele in getting ready. The other thing was that for some reason it struck me that it was a bit like that old TV ad for shampoo/conditioner - you know the one - “What – take TWO bottles into the shower??? NOT ME!” . I could just imagine Michele walking into the prom saying “What… take just ONE bloke to the prom??? NOT ME…” As I said, it doesn’t take much to amuse me these days. What next? well, maybe some of the ‘big things’ that we’ve done in 2002.. The biggest of which being our trip to Mexico over the New Year – Puerto Vallarta, to be precise, on the Pacific coast. This was part of our “let’s do stuff while we’re here, ‘cos we may not be based in SF for long” thinking. PV (as it’s known to the regular visitors) is a very pleasant destination which still retains a lot of the “real Mexico” in the old town – it’s not purely a modern hotel complex like Cancun or some of the other resorts. Here are a few pictures . The bad news (for us) was that there are no archeological sites close – so we didn’t get to see any Aztec, Inca or Mayan pyramids etc. It seems these are all over on Yucatan peninsular on the eastern coast (oh well, better go there next time then…). Having said that, we managed to fill our time well with a mixture of ‘eco-tourism’ (between bouts of ‘lazy-sitting-by-the-pool-swilling-Margharitas-tourism’). We did a boat trip to some remote beaches and hiked up to a waterfall, and saw some humpback whales REALLY close up on the way back to port as the sun set that day. Other highlights were swimming with dolphins (an incredible experience - we’ll probably bore you all with the video next time we’re back) and a great ‘safari’ in big 4-wheel drive trucks into the Sierra Madre, with a hike into the jungle with a guide who managed to show us lots of indigenous flora and fauna including iguanas, tarantulas and scorpions. In some cases we got even closer to the fauna (well, at least I did) – by which I mean eating live termites and bees, not to mention wearing a live baby iguana as an earring – clamping onto my earlobe by biting it! A great day trip, unforgettable. (And the answer to your questions are 1) “They taste like what they’ve been eating recently” - in my case a sort of herby pine taste, and 2) yes, they DO tickle as you swallow them. so there). Also on this trip, we managed to find a great place to see in the Año Nuevo – early in the week we tried a restaurant called the Panorama (because of course it had a great view of the town and in fact the whole of Banderas Bay). We went back there for New Year’s Eve and had a great view of boats assembling in the bay and 6 or 7 different firework displays lasting the best part of an hour. We also saw more mariachi bands than you can shake a maraca at - these come in many sizes and combinations – we saw everything from the minimal 3 piece (accordion, guitar and bass guitar) to a 10 piece thing with string and brass sections. All in all a great start to 2002. Next ‘big event’ is the one we’ve just got back from – a long weekend in New York with Manchester mates Paul & Jools (a sort of ‘half way meet’ – with all the attendant mutual but opposing time zone/jet lag things – they were 5 hours behind their body clocks, and we were 3 hours ahead of ours - but we managed to stay awake most of the time). It was Lynne’s first trip, and although I’d been there many times on business I’d mostly done the usual “airport/taxi/hotel/meeting/taxi/meeting/taxi/airport” thing so I hadn’t had much chance to do the tourist stuff either. Consequently we did one of the open top double decker bus guided tours on the first morning – I always try to do these in a new place, it’s a handy way to get oriented and pick out places worth spending more time in. The weather was kind (cold, but bright and no rain) so we did a lot of walking around and just ‘osmosing’ the place. Did a backstage tour of Radio City (highly recommended – they’ve just refurbed/restored the whole place in the original 1930’s Art Deco style – even the restrooms were amazing!), and ended Saturday with a nice Italian (and very garlicky, so Lynne told me the next day) meal down in Greenwich Village. On Sunday wandered round the new Seaport area on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, and then had a long leisurely celebratory lunch in a great little restaurant nestled under Brooklyn Bridge (the Bridge Café – oldest continuously serving restaurant in NY). The celebrations were for several reasons – Paul’s birthday, a return to the place where Paul and Jools were married, and also it turned out to be the 4^th anniversary of Lynne and me officially becoming “an item” – not to mention it was also Mother’s day (in the UK at least).. A trip on the Staten Island ferry at sunset to get the classic view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, and we even managed to squeeze in a quick look at Grand Central Station, a helicopter trip over Manhattan and a nice lunch on Restaurant Row on Monday before we headed out to JFK for our flight home. Interestingly, none of us felt the need to go to Ground Zero (though we got an aerial view from the helicopter). We missed the big ‘switch on’ of the new lights by an hour, though we did see them being tested (albeit filtered to a dark blue) the previous night from the ferry. Then a yacht club pal sent us this picture, which is the best I’ve seen so far. A brilliant weekend with lots of laughs, as always with Paul & Jools. Final thing in this list of “big events” has to be the recent visit of Lynne’s sister Anne with daughter Stephanie and Anne’s pal Cath - yep, girlie Brits on tour. I was the only bloke in a houseful of 5 women for a week. Thankfully I managed to excuse myself from the shopping trips, but had fun bar-hopping with Anne and Cath when Lynne had other commitments.. a good time was had by all, I think. Especially our neighbour who was apparently treated to a display of Cath flashing her (flawless, allegedly) charms as she opened the bedroom window - and speaking of which, Anne/Cath - Charlie, Eric and Robert at the Holding Company told me to say “Hi - and may your nipples always be slippery ones”. (In case you don’t get it, a ‘Slippery Nipple’ is a cocktail – Baileys and Sambuca, I think. Honest.) We also managed to slip in a trip (one of Cath’s many trips during this visit) to Benziger, our favorite Sonoma winery over the weekend.. and I have to say that when I wandered through Union Square the Saturday after they’d gone back the place was filled with huge lorries re-stocking Macy’s, Eddie Bauer, etc On to a quick round-up of other stuff – starting pre-Christmas with Bonfire Night and a couple of great Morris/music events up in Placerville (again! – and this time the BerkMos managed to get some audience participation for the Hooe Bonfire Ribbon Dance at Lynne’s instigation) and at the Pelican Inn out on Muir Beach just north of the Golden Gate Bridge – here's the evidence. Michele went back to UK for Christmas, so (since we were off to Mexico on the 27^th) Lynne and I decided to treat ourselves to “Traditional Christmas Dinner” in the swanky Carnelian Room, on the 53^rd floor of the Bank of America building downtown. Very nice, stunning views and great food (Call me old-fashoined, but it still seems kind of strange to me to have a wine “cellar” 53 floors up though… ). In fact food seems to have been a theme for my Christmas presents - I got some ramekins, a recipe book and one of those little kitchen blowtorches from Lynne, so I’ve been practicing and am proud to report that I’m now a dab hand at crème brulée! I think it was comedienne Rita Rudner who said that men only enjoy cooking when there’s danger involved (that’s why they’ll do barbeques)… maybe she’s right! Still working out what to do with all the left-over egg whites though. We also got a set of really nice sushi place settings from Lynne’s girls, which will be better than our normal approach of chasing it around our ordinary saucers.. The other major Christmas present was in response to Lynne’s (oh-so-gentle) hints about getting a camcorder so that we could ~~steal~~, sorry, err, COLLECT, some of the local Morris dances for posterity. We now have a wizzy miniDV camcorder with all the appropriate software (and hardware!) so we can do fancy video editing stuff on our home PC setup. Here’s a pic of me in film director mode on the shore of Treasure Island - and a couple of small examples of my first efforts. In early January we hosted the first stop on the annual Berkeley Morris Wassail tour… 7 stops in all, going from 10:30 am through till midnight. I think we did the right thing by doing the breakfast stop – relatively easy food to organize, and then we could quickly pack up and join the rest of the tour! Also, being the first stop, it meant that we all got chance to learn and practice the Berkeley Wassail song, since everyone had obviously forgotten it since last year. It turns out that the infamous White Rats have in their usual fashion plagiarized this song… if you are over eighteen and not averse to the odd bit of S&M, at the bottom of this website's page is a link to 'A Pervert's Wassail - their version of the lyrics. Aternatively, the original, written by ex-Berkeley Morris member Jon Berger, which you can download - The Berkeley Wassail - ABC notation. Anyway, a good turn-out and a great day. The other more recent Morris bash was a ‘kit-making party’ that we hosted so that Berkeley Morris members (new and old) could get their kit sorted out and spruced up for the upcoming season. Another jolly day, especially as once all the sewing had been done, the Singers (sewing machines, that is) were replaced by players and a little music session ended the day off in style. The local Yacht club goes from strength to strength, really getting into the social events, and with a lot of racing, cruise-ins and cruise-outs coming up this summer. If you get chance take a look at www.tiyc.org We had a ride on a very nice big power boat during the annual ‘Round the Island’ cruise in early January.. I think this boat was bigger than my first house – certainly better appointed The other thing I’ll mention here is the “School Friend Reunion” website at www.friendsreunited.com. In the few months I’ve been on there, I’ve been in contact with about 20 old school pals, some of whom I hadn’t seen or heard of for over 25 years. More of that nostalgia stuff (did I mention that earlier… can’t remember..) - give it a try! On the “music/entertainment” front there’s been the usual mixed bag of events – we saw ‘Proof’ downtown, which was excellent, and we also saw Eve Ensler and a star-studded cast including Gloria Steinem do a special performance of the “Vagina Monologues” for ‘V-day’ which was also good (and only occasionally verging on the strident). If you’re not familiar with ‘V-day’, it’s a worldwide feminist anti-violence movement – see their website at http://www.vday.org/index2.cfm for more info. On the music front, we’ve been (intentionally) getting into more of the US folks scene, especially of late the bluegrass stuff. We’ve seen Kathy Kallick, Open Road, Bluegrass Intentions and the Earl (of Appalachian dance step fame) White Band recently. My favourites this time around were local legends Utah Phillips and Rosie Sorrels, and John McCutcheon who is a brilliant instrumentalist and song-writer. I recommend his web site at http://www.folkmusic.com/ And as I mentioned above, following a well-received debut performance, Lynne and some Morris pals have been asked by BACDS (Bay Area Country Dance Society) to do some more English ceilidh style gigs over in Berkeley, so they’ve been busy trying to think up a name - and come up with (wait for it)... MoSoCo. Apparently it means “MOstly SOnoma COunty” (since most of the members live up in Sonoma county). Catchy, huh? You heard it here first! In early March we had a mini-heatwave, and so took advantage and finally got around to driving out to Point Reyes – a very beautiful piece of coastal countryside about 90 minutes drive north of the Golden Gate bridge. I’m sure this will become a regular option for any future visitors – the views are great, and there are interesting things to see including a lighthouse, a colony of elephant seals, herds of elks and it’s a great spot for whale watching during the migration seasons. As usual, I’ll finish off with a look forward to what’s coming up - basically more of the same, Morris dancing season isn’t that far away, and there are some good festivals coming up, so the summer will be a busy time. September brings Fairport Convention to the Sebastopol Folk Festival. We have some visitors scheduled – Claire and Bill of course, but also Michele’s friend Erica, pals Ade and Linda who will hopefully make the trip which had to be postponed from last September, and Linda and Paul should be passing through SF and spending some time with us in late May on their way up to Lake Tahoe. I’d still recommend coming over to see us sooner rather than later if you haven’t yet been out to SF – there are still cheap flights to be had, and we’re still not sure how long we’ll be out here! We will however be back in UK at the end of July for the Warwick Folk Festival, so hopefully we’ll see lots of people there. From e-mails I’ve had already it seems we might have quite a gathering there this year – enough for our own “enclave-ette” in the suburbs of the mighty Hereburgh enclave perhaps! See Warwick Folk Festival's website for details. That’s probably enough for now (maybe too much!). Happy St Patrick’s day to all, and we’ll see you in July if not before. Here’s a sort of Irish/sailing-related (?) toast to finish with : “May the warm wind at your back never be your own” D & L. © Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2002