The Saracen's Head

Games We People Play

Do you have any favorite games?

Here is a selection of games that we play on those absurd and rowdy occasions called 'family game night'.  We do not play board games ("Monopoly -Josiah gets everything and never sells it." "Scrabble is too much like Monopoly" "Oh Parcheesi"), rather a traditional  assortment of other stuff - Bananagrams (store bought game!), The Game, and Po'try by Committee.

This game is called The Game ("let's play the game." "which game?" "Y'know - The game." "But what's The game?" "you know -THUH game.") Sophisticated people call it 'telephone pictionary'.

First someone draws a little picture on a paper and hands it to who-ever is next to him. That person writes a short description of the picture, folds over the picture so it can't be seen, and passes it to the next person...

You must be sure to fold down the previous writing or picture after you've done yours, so the original idea will get all messed up telephoning around.

There was a famous paper of this household with pictures and writing, the punchline of which was: 'Bloop horse and hat come to visit stick person'. There was another time when people described too thoroughly and a man fell into a lake in many drawings crying 'Waah-aah-glub'. Just historical notes.

Here are some more random excerpts from The Game.

(different rounds. not the same.)

Another historical note: Though not pictured here, common figures depicted are Wee Willie Winkie, Robin Hood, Gandalf, and the Quangle Wangle. Also the Yonghy Bonghy Bo.

Another game, which was originally played while on the recreational pendulums, is called 'Book and Movie Lines'. It was invented by Mother, and recently tried out on paper. In this game, a line from a book, movie, song, play et cetera is written down and the next person has to write another one. It must be either from the same source, or have one of the same words (not allowing mimsy words like a and but or it).  Also the lines are folded down and hid as in the previous game.

Excerpt:  First person says, My world was calm, well-ordered, exemplary.(Poppins)

Next person, Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.(Poppins) -

Next, I came from the end of a bag, but no bag came over me. (using the word bag, changing the source to The Hobbit) -

 Then, A box w/out hinges, key, or lid & yet golden treasure is hid -Thief thief Baggins! We hates it forever! (The Hobbit) -

And tomorrow...we will take Narnia forever! ( uses forever, changing the source to Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) -

They can not conquer forever (forever, changing to The Two Towers) -

We can't all, and some of us don't (can-not, changing to Pooh!) -

Silly old bear...(W. the P.)

etc!

That was a rare excerpt. The vast majority of our quotes in this game are taken from LotR and Narnia. Warning: some people find Book and Movie Lines boring on paper, but we play it most often out loud and outside.

Another game is the poetry by committee, in which the folks take turns adding a line onto a poem. It was originally played writing Limericks, later 'Mock-heroic couplets'. We tried latest to write alliterative verse, which turned out awfully bad. But it shore was innerestin'.

'Lo! the summit far/of stalk fallen  

Treasure holds/ and terrible wealth.

 Rich grows Jackling/robbing the Giant,  

Making amends/ his mother pleasing.'   -Excerpt: The short Lay of Jack and the Beanstalk

One more game. Certain people known to read this blog will never believe we played it of our own free will. But it began after midnight, so maybe we had lost our wits from lack of sleep.

It was called Carrot Charades. Just charades with a small carrot each as sole and required prop. We (J, L, & A) did everything with our carrots from 'finding the ring' to 'six-fingered man' to 'playing the bodhran', and when it got past one o'clock, we were in such straits that we were doing 'man thinking of carrot' and 'poor dejected carrot by the wayside'...

'Sounds kinda loony to me', you are saying to yourselves. Yes, it is. I do not deny it.

posted by LGT

The Tale of the Bodhran

I did so want a Bodhran for Christmas and I asked and asked for one for at least a month but...Christmas came and I didn't get one! I didn't really think I would get one and I had given up all hope when a mysterious package arrived on Friday and it was from Ireland (though I didn't notice it then) and I opened it up and .................. It was a Bodhran! I was so surprised I jumped six and nine tenths inches! (I don't get that reference but people say it all the time.)

The Bodhran came with a DVD on how to play it and I learned it fast. (Live and Learn, as my Gaffer used to say). You strum it with the stick (which is called a tipper) in a certain way and you move your hand around on the other side to change the tone. It's orful fun! Here's a video of me playing the Bodhran and Jo and Jon and Lydia playing other instruments.

Moral of the Story: If you ask for a Bodhran, you just might get it!

 

Well, that's all. 

Actually, there's more music on Josiah's blog and on Mother's blog.

Bye Bye! Have fun storming the castle! (Think it will work?) (It would take a miracle).

Poetry Friday: The Despicable Math Book

Here is a poem I wrote in an illegible scrawl in my Math notebook:

Despicable is Math to me

I look no more on it with glee

Despaired am I now

For I cannot think how

One half is divided by two or three.

Multiplication is Terror itself

I wish the old book would just stay on the shelf

Fractions are horrid

To add makes me bored

So I draw in the margin a Hobbit or Elf.

The horrid old Mathbook takes pride in its crimes

It evilly grins as you count out the dimes

It laughs with delight

When you stay up all night

And are forced to add up all the lemons and limes.

Down fell the book with a clatter and crash!

The girl threw it down with a deafening smash!

" You horrible villain! You terrible thing!

I shall box your ears till your ears they shall ring!"

Then she stamped the old book with a BAM and a BASH.

~~~

So, there you have it. 

It's really just a variant on Multiplication is vexation or Arithmetic is when numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head. Also: If you ask your Mother for one fried egg and she gives you two, and you eat them both, who is better at Math, you or your Mother? 

That day the math was so horrible that despair fell upon me and I hastily scribbled this poem instead.(Foresight had failed and there was no time for thought).

And if you would like another poem, how about this?

On we go and weary walk

Never halting, never stop

Dark the plains and black the sky

Which cannot be pierced with any eye.

On forever, we with haste

Hurry down the fields and waste

Cold the air that bites our hands

But on we go to cross this land.

On we trudge with weary feet

Until our destiny we meet

The moon and stars gleam cold and bright

And on we hasten through the night.

~~~

" Very lovely, my dear, but not altogether true. We won't go on Forever, I hope!"

That was Etheldreda's Walking Song; I just wrote it in my novel last night.

Well, I guess I'd better go do school now. Alas and alack! Sad things do happen. Goodbye!

" Farewell King Under the mountain and Fili and Kili!'

P.S. Make sure it is the real Strider, there are many queer men about. His real name is Aragorn.

posted by Mary Rose

Presents I Made (L.G.)

 Turn and turn about. Here are Christmas presents which I made. As you shall see, I enjoyed making (most of) them immensely, though in sooth, I had to work feverishly.

First again are the stocking stuffers, commonly known as 'SS's', an ancient historical name.

Here is Kateri's very small one (which didn't actually get stuffed in a stocking, but it was meant to), a needle-felted beetle in a carefully-marked matchbox! 'I had a little beetle, so that Beetle was its name/I called him Alexander and he answered just the same...'  Its recipient was well-pleased, especially about its legs which feel tickly (because they are painted yarn).

Other Ss's for Kateri and Eliza are some semi-historical linen ragdolls. Their faces are drawn on with charcoalish pencils. One is named Alice and the other... I don't remember. Being linen and linen filled, they are kind of stiff and make a satisfying thwack after being thrown across the room.

Here's Mother in her new nightcap. Good for being Wee-Willie-Winkie or the Ghost of Christmas Past. Also popular among the young fry.

 I made four bookmarks for 'cheap and easy' stocking-stuffers, for lack of enough good ideas. They were terribly fun to make.

Anna's is a not-so-common nursery rhyme. The picture depicts Anna, renowned for disliking Math. Mary Rose's is another Hot Cockalorum bookmark. Hot Cockalorum had just gotten to be a common rattled off thing, so Anna & I had the same idea and never knew it.

Here are the backs. If you must give bookmarks, they ought to be interesting. So: a mess of mathbooks and papers and et c. for Anna's and the main elements of the story for Mary's. There is the Master, the Barnacle, the Squibs & Crackers, the White-faced Simminy, the Hot Cockalorum, Pondalorum, High Topper Mountain, and the little maid.

These two belong to Dad and Jonathan. Birdish! Scientific! Dad's is all about Whooping Cranes. Ha ha! I stuck Jon with birds! He got an illustrated list of the 32 orders of birds plus the family with no order, from Tinamiformes to  Passeriformes. The excuse for him getting it was that it's Latin. It helps memorization, but I sincerely doubt that Jonathan will use it for such.

Back of Daddy's, Front of Jonny's. His got rather crowded, 'cause I forgot to write some stuff until I had filled up most of the space.

On to the Main Presents. Long ago the term 'under-the-tree presents' was discarded in favor of 'MP's'

Here are Eliza's watercoloured paper dolls I made. Kateri had asked for paper dolls, and if one was to get 'em, so must the other. They have lots of costumes from different times and a folder to keep them in. I had to spend a good bit of time snipping clothes so they'd have them all at once.

 Here are Kateri's, the same only different, as the saying goes. Whoopie! There's Kateri herself, with a mop of hair. Of course Kat always is saying, "It's not fair, Eliza has a drum suit and I don't", but I ran plum out of time.

Mary Rose also got what she asked for, that being a map of Middan-Eard. I mean Middle Earth. I copied it from C. J. R. Tolkien's. I had wanted to make one anyways... 8.5 x 11".  Now what would be awfully fun, would be to make a lots bigger one like Jonathan's got on his  wall. But then, there's not space on Mary's wall for that anyway.

 Important note from a sharp-eyed character: I left out writing Eriador by accident. Don't panic. I can fix it.

This is something I gave to Anna. It is called in this land a Thais-frock, or a Flourbag, but in some places is known as a Nightshirt, and was called of old a Shift. (It was tolerably pleasant to make until I got to the collar-neck thing, and then it was beastly.) Made of a sheet, it is meant to be used as a costume when dressing as peasants, hobbit-lasses, gipsies, and the like. It's called Thais-frock after a character which I played in our movie, who wore such a garment.

Here come Josiah's presents.  A little toy hawk! Actually a Merlin, which is a falcon. It attempts to be realistic enough to use as a movie prop.

Made of wool  and needle-felted, primarily. Also made of wire, wrapped with wool for feet, sculpey beak, wood eyes, paint, cloth wings. It has real duck feathers on wings and tail, which I painted with stripes.

Also I made it a hood and jesses (straps around its legs) out of leather. There's also a little bell and a few feathers from our pigeon on the hood.

  Here comes Jonathan's MP. Watch out. It is weird or peculiar.

A drawing of a certain pipe-smoking gentleman. Well, how was I s'posed to know what Jonathans like for Christmas?

 

  He said it was Jumbucky, which is a made up word, derived from 'Jumbuck' Australian for a wild sort of sheep. Jumbucky applies to things slightly wacky or wonky, or phony, or not-quite-right. But, again, I had a jolly time drawing it, and whistling 'Skye Boat Song' a zillion times simultaneously.

Here's Mother's Random Present, neither ss nor mp. Downy woodpecker needlefelted with wire feet to cling to things better.

Looks more natural climbing up this potted tree.

Last comes Mum&Dad's shared MP. This, Anna claims, was all her idea, though I would probably have painted a picture of something anyways. An addictive present. Once I got started, I wanted to work on it all day.

The Witch King and Eowyn on the fields of the Pellenor, Watercolour, 16 x 20".

I had yet another great time on this, the greatest time of all. But, being a bird person, I was for a while too fond of the fell beast, it being if not a feathered, at least a beaked creature. And as I painted it, I would think things like, 'fancy a nazgul-beast gular fluttering' 'a nazgul-beast has three eyelids like birds. Oh, yeah, let's draw the fell beast's third eyelid' It is not scientific though. If it's s'posed to be like a vulture, it should have Anisodactyl feet. But then if it needs to grab things, it should have strong Zygodactyl feet... Don't worry. I despised it by the time the W.K. of A. was painted astride it.

'Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace.'

'COME NOT BETWEEN THE NAZGUL AND HIS PREY. FOOL! DO YOU NOT KNOW, NO LIVING MAN CAN SLAY ME?'


 

Well, that is the end.

Posted by Lydia G. T.

In Which We Make Sketch-books

In other news, Anna and I have made a couple of sketchbooks for a couple of Christmas presents.

This picture is the plot-give-away! Shows just what happens in the end.

Our Mum found us a how-to-make-a-little-book and it actually worked! It was nice and easy. Not complicated.

First we cut out loads of papers and scored them in the middle with the super-de-duper bone folder on the super-de-duper scoring board. We decided the paper size based on how big our strips of cover material were. Our little-bunches-of-paper, also called signatures, had each of them four pages. Anna had nine signatures, and I had eight. We started out with five, but we wanted thicker sketchbooks. In order that we might sew the books together, Mum punched us some holes through the pages and through the cover with an awl (good for mending sails, saddles, gun cases, shoes...).


Our Mum also gave us some nice green leather from something-cut-up, which made nice covers. To sew the pages & cover together we used some thickish string or thinnish rope. Some kind of ancient vintage twiney thread. It really looked epic.

But must pull the thread tight- loose stitches on the spine do look so untidy and unscientific.

When the sewing was done, we cut the cover leather to a suitable length, so that a long flap wrapped front-to-back and round again. Also we added a long tie. Decorative, eh?  And look at my new scissors I got for Christmas! Ha ha! Hee hee! I've got bird scissors! Are they not awful pretty? I like to fancy that it's a Whooping Crane  but really it's a stork.

Well, in the end, we said unto one another, "The leather- it is too thin", and we reinforced both covers by gluing in cardboard-covered-in-paper. Also, we folded and glued a flap of leather cover over the aforesaid reinforcements. Naturally we inscribed the front with a name:

And hey-presto! Loo-ook at the boo-ook!

Posted by L.G.T.

Presents I Made (A. R.)

  Once upon a time there was a giant. He had three heads, and he lived in a BRASS CASTLE!

Well, anyways, all that was beside the purpose, if you take my meaning. What I meant was here are all the presents I made!  (that was obvious) At any rate, first are Dad's stocking stuffers:  

An A.T. C.-size painting of the nativity and a crocheted dishrag. Dishrags make great gifts, but they are boring, absurd or even contemptible.

For Jonathan, I made this small wooden plaque. (Y' know: J. M. K.) (M as in Michael) Shiny, ain't it?

Here are Mother's S.S.s.The one thing was meant to be an Icon but isn't very. Too bad. Also a rubber stamp I carved o' St. Anthony (just what she always wanted)(for the purpose of stamping envelopes, parcels, etc.)(it's stuck to a wooden block to be more decorative)(what's the deal with putting things in parenthesis?)(?).  

This is Jonathan's other S.S.: A book with the words t' Waltzing Matilda in elvish in a dittle book. Complete with illustrations of swagman, jumbuck, tuckerbag, matilda, and troopers. And the paper is aged with watercolours! For Josiah, I painted this watercolour bookmark with a quotation from the story Master of all Masters. And that blue thing in the bottom left-hand corner is another book in elvish, The Rattlin' Pass (just a variant).The thing about that one was that, as the verses got longer and longer, my writing was obliged to become smaller and smaller. Velly intelesting.   

I made a bookmark for Lydia, too. Hers is more epic, though. Besides being drawn with pen-and-ink, alliterative poetry (and magoific at that!) is just infinitely superior to barnacles and such, in my opinion. We heard of the horns in the hills ringing... Anyways I also gave Lydia this little sketchbook I made.

Mary Rose's S.S.s: Merry Rows wanted a picture of Imrahil like unto the one I drew back in 1492, so I painted this for her. Too bad most of his banner isn't in the shot. But the black paint made of purple and green is pretty convincing, don't you think? I made her that bracelet, too, but it is nothing of consequence.

So, on to Eliza's!  Wow, two presents made with the sewing machine, and they weren't failures, or even semi-failures! The mittens are made out of a wool sweater, and the headband isn't (that was obvious). Anyone can see it was made from decorative ribband and white stuff). 

 I gave Kateri a sketchbook like Lydia's, only different (the kind you whip up on the sew-machine). And a  Z. the S. G. peg doll. Nhg.

For Mother and Dad I crocheted a couple o' black wool sparfs.

Mum's has a ruffle, but Da's doesn't.

I didn't even know what t' give Jonathan until Christmas eve! A scribbled-on tea-cup! Unfortunate thing: some of the stars have six points and some have seven. Untidy.

I also viciously chopped up another wool sweater and put it together the wrong way. It ended up looking sort of like a Knightcap, so I gave it to Josiah, even though he ain't rilly a knight.   

Lyd's M.P. was this glumpy apron made out of a sheet. It is terribly unepic, alas, alack!

  

I gave M. R. a wood plak (wow, bad spelling!) o' St. Cecelia: this one is woodburned and watercoloured both at once! You may notice that the halo is crooked and the harp is igsty, but we waive that point... (bother, I already used that quote in some other post).

For Kateri I painted a full-colour map o'  Narnia, as she has become somewhat obsessed with that place of late. Lots easier than Middle Earth, but not as spiffy.---- --- -- ------- -- --, ---?

 I gave Eliza a puppy dog for no apparent reason other than I wanted to make one. Zowie, people thought I was off my chump for buying  such a strange sweater as I did (it looked like a thneed!) (fuzzy brown stuff to make the puppy out of) 

Well, that's all the presents I made. Only twenty-four.

So, you see, Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good.

 Posted by A. R. B.

Cookie Manufacturers

In Lydia's post, she said that there would be posts coming up of cookie baking and presents et cetera. So, here goes: Fire ahead! We're all listening!

O, very well, I will have to start at the beginning: We have a tradition of taking off two days before Christmas Eve to make cookies all together. We make thousands and thousands to give away in cookie plates. This year, however, we only started a day late and overlapped into Christmas Eve.

We always make the same 25 kinds and we all have our certain jobs. For instance, Lydia always makes the Lemon Bars, I always make the Magi Bars, Josiah always makes the Spritz and Pizzelles. (This year Dad did the Pizzelles because Josiah was ill.) And it is customary to listen to Christmas music while working. And now I think I have answered your second question too. (Excuse the Hobbit references; I just finished reading it for the fourth or fifth time.)

This is me looking at Minas Tirith made of butter sticks. 'Tis customary to take out pounds and pounds of butter to soften in the sun before using and helpful citizens make towers and cities and whatnot.

Here is the sweetest little cookie tinner you ever saw putting away the macaroons. (Will anybody notice if I eat one?)

Official cookie counter: Jonathan carefully records the name and number of each kind of cookie in the list ' Annals of the cookies and rulers'. Also he proclaims loudly the net gains or losses from last year's cookie count. (Count every cookie, every cookie counts).

Lydia rolled all the doughs this year- Piskota, Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread and more! And I mean LOTS more!!!!! (Yes, lots! No, none at all!)

More Lord of the Rings references in store for you: This is an amazing sculpture of Mount Doom out of some kind of cookie dough with peppermint meltaway balls awaiting the oven in the background.  RUMBLE RUMBBLE RUMMMMMMBLE! KABOOM! BOOM! BOOM! KABOOOOOOOOM!

Anna proudly displays a palantir of Chocolate Treasure dough to Jonathan who promptly references the Movie somehow. (I cannot tell you how, for I haven't seen the Movie yet.)(I will not say what I think it was.)

One of Saruman's orcs! Yikes! Don't worry, it's really just Jonathan with a powdered sugar White Hand of Anna's doing.

Well anyways, back to the cookies. Here is Us Girls making gingerbread men. You've seen this picture before in Lydia's post. (This is Sting. You have seen it before). We always give some of the gingerbread houses round doors to look like hobbit holes.

Here is the Pepparkakor Pig! Pepperkakor dough is supposed to be cut out in pig shapes (according to The Children of Noisy Village), but since we didn't have a pig cutter Mother just sculpted a pig instead. Instead we make the pepparkakor into hearts like Pippi; we do make hundreds of them but we do not roll them out on the floor for dear life.  

The day ended and we were STILL making cookies...............

So as the night wore on we got into reciting poetry as we worked. All together we rambled off well known poems, like "The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat", "Gil Galad was an elven king", "I must go down to the sea again", or we went as far as we could go in unmemorized stuff like "The leaves were long the grass was green" or " The Assyrians came down like a wolf in the fold". Here I am reciting "An elven maid there was of old, A shining star by day..." while frosting peppermint meltaways.

Around Midnight we had heaps upon heaps of cookies but we still hadn't made all the kinds so we went to bed wearily...............

To awake next morning, Christmas Eve, refreshed and ready to continue. Here Dad and Kateri undertake the huge job of frosting all the Gingerbread.

The Hungarian Pastry: Note how some of the prune filling dollops resemble animals- for instance, bison, penguins, skunks and seals.

And last of all is this sweet little Gingerbread chef holding up her work and grinning in the most darling way.

So ends the tale of how we made 3380 1/2 cookies and had lots of jolly fun in the meantime. Goodbye!..."Goodbye now, and really Goodbye! Be good, take care of yourselves and above all-DON"T LEAVE THE PATH!"

posted by Mary Rose

Christmas and Back Again

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to All and Sundry!

(we are back, by popular demand)

If you thought that we were all three eaten by a dragon, you were wrong. If you thought that the bears at the mountain ate us, still wrong, and if you thought we were hibernating.... we weren't.

At the beginning of December, we were feeling lazy, with nothing impossible to do, but we were awfully busy after that. So...what have we been up to???

About that time of year, we were seeing St Nicholas-

Kateri felt rather nervous about it. St Nicholas actually came three times! Well, we only saw him once, so it's not been proven.

Side note: Look at three-fifths of our cats! This shows what they  have been up to. It also shows: It has been cold.

There has been a relative scarcity of birds, it being the dead of winter and no irruptive species have turned up right here. The bluebirds have dispersed. But I did find a Merlin outside, stopped on migration right by us!!!! Actually there turned out to be two!!!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps this picture does not look like much, but with my spotting scope, I could see the bird was a juvenile, or an adult female. Also I counted seven primaries showing and four greater coverts, and three white spots on its right shoulder and two on its left! -Now guess who is writing this post.-Well, anyhow, it was Fantabulous.

Hawk migration season officially ended. Boo, hoo, hoo. Seven and a half long months 'til we can go back to our mountain. Psst! there's such a thing as spring migration!

We had the big All Saints ATC Swap, which was exasperating and fun. These are cards Kateri (age 5) made:

Also we have all been getting the Plague since ages ago, and it has been taking forever to get over with it. In fact, Jo isn't over it yet. You see, we all took turns like good little children, so only one of us at a time had it. Here is an invalid out for some Fresh Air:

In the last two weeks of December, we got really busy. Practically nobody sees anybody then- it's present-making time. Everyone is locked out of everywhere while everybody else works feverishly.

The crafting was interrupted by the baking. We started a day late, however so we baked like mad! Still we needed another day, and we were a-rolling out the dough on Christmas Eve.

Here's us, making gingerbread men! Rather, pinching and poking the gingerbread men into wizards and hobbits and guys-with-big-swords etc.:

So we still weren't done with presents, and off to Midnight Mass we went. And then Christmas-Day-in-the-Morning Mass, and we didn't open a single parcel until five before midnight on Christmas, when it was 'Open the stockings, quick, before the clock strikes!'

And here we all are, amidst the rack and ruin of the living room, playing with our new toys.

And so, we've been having vacation- eating cookies three times a day at least. (Since we had the plague, we decided not to give them away as customary, and now we are obliged to eat the most of 3380.5 cookies) We have been drawing, doodling, sketching, and scribbling, sending a few packages, tending the sick.  Another thing we did that month was finish reading LotR aloud, so now we're listening to the 'Marly was dead: to begin with' book.

And this morning, all the schoolbooks of Mordor assembled and term-time is begun again.

So anyhow, we plan to BLOG again. Perhaps, that is Hopefully, about Cookies, presents we made, those we received; birds, maybe. Like maybe we could find a Snowy Owl. 

Well- that-is-that. You may judge for yourselves whether that made sufficient excuse for leaving our poor little blog to fend for itself for a whole month.

posted by L.G.T.