Dragon Boat Racing

Well, I haven't posted for a while, so I had a quick virtual riffle through the photos to see what I could come up with. A few weeks ago we went to a dragon boat/kite flying/Chinese culture festival, which wasn't a huge affair, but all the bright colours were good for photographs.

Chinese lanterns, of course.

These are actually Aztec dancers. What the Aztecs have to do with a Chinese festival we couldn't guess, nor did we ever discover. I suspect if you turn up in a fancy enough costume they let you in.

One of the four dragon boats. Any group or workplace could register a dragon boat team, and they competed throughout the day. A lady we talked to said they only got about an hour to practise, so it was a good thing each boat had a competent steerer!

Launching a kite.

Formation flying. My stunt kite died its death a long time ago owing to the nose hitting the ground many times too often, but seeing this made me itch to have kite strings in my hands again.

WHATAKITE!

The Cambodian stall. See what I mean about fancy costumes?

A pretty parade of parasols.

Comments

Three Mile an Hour God: Spiritual Formation Book 10

"The affirmed life must not become either a lazy life or a happy-ever-after, easy life. The affirmed life is not a life of the power of positive thinking. To be affirmed by God means to live with danger and promise." Kosuke Koyama's book Three Mile an Hour God was written out of the experience of the Second World War and its aftermath in Japan. As Koyama says in his preface, it is "a collection of biblical reflections by one who is seeking the source of healing from the wounds... inflicted by the destructive power of idolatry." The title speaks of a God who moves at walking pace - three miles an hour - and even, in Jesus, comes to a "full stop" - nailed to a cross. If we try to move faster than the love of God, says Koyama, we fall into idolatry. What is the book about? Three Mile an Hour God has 45 chapters, each a separate short reflection headed by a Bible verse. Some deal specifically with Japan, considering her role in WWII, the damage inflicte

National Forest Way: Ellistown, Bagworth, Nailstone

You may well say, "Where?" I'd never heard of any of these three villages before I planned to walk through them. Back in the 1970s, it would have been possible to travel between them underground. All three had collieries producing exceptional amounts of coal (Bagworth set a Guinness World Record). Nailstone and Bagworth collieries were connected in 1967, and Ellistown was merged with the other two in 1971. All the mines are long closed now. The railway lines have been taken up, the winding wheels turned into civic sculptures, and the pit sites transformed into country parks. It was a beautiful sunny day, but we'd had a lot of rain recently. Within five minutes of leaving Ellistown, I was glad I'd worn my wellies. The way took me alongside a quarry site and then into a collection of woods: Common Hill Wood, Workmans Wood, Battram Wood. The colours of the trees in the November sunshine were beautiful. The path was a muddy mess. At Battram village I crossed a newly

National Forest Way: Normanton le Heath to Ellistown

This 9-mile walk took me through the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods and Sence Valley Forest Park, and into the heavily-quarried countryside south of Coalville (no prizes for guessing what was mined there!) I originally planned to walk from Normanton le Heath to Donington le Heath, which had a pleasing symmetry. But I decided to go a bit further, to the hamlet of Ellistown. It was a cold morning. I'd been in shorts the previous weekend, but today there was a frost. I added a flask of coffee, a scarf and gloves to my kit, and set off. For a small village, Normanton le Heath has a surprisingly wide road. I parked there rather than using the car park for the Jubilee Woods. That meant I was at my starting point straight away. I followed a road past some rather nice houses, crossed a field, and entered the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Woods. The NFW leaflet told me that I was on the route of the Via Devana, a Roman road from Colchester to Chester. There isn't much left of it. a mosaic,

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog