Things I enjoyed at Bungay this year:
Joining Kat & Guy for a bike ride. The last time I rode a bike was at the EJC in Denmark in 2003. Riding something with 2 wheels felt really weird. Lounging around in Kat's enormous camp kitchen chatting to friends & enjoying Kat's fantastic raisin & ginger flapjacks. Watching Guy flying his quadcopter over the buttercups while cooking dinner. Meeting some old friends who moved to Norfolk a couple of years ago for dinner at the Huntsman & Hounds. Playing Caverna with the ever so slightly competitive Kat (I won the first game, Kat ground everyone into a very fine powder in the second). This was mostly enjoyable due to all the, "have you got wood for sheep?" type remarks. The mass trip to the beach at Southwold, a really lovely town with many pleasingly wonky buildings. A nice walk along the dunes & the beach with Jo. A dip in the sea. Bonkers contraptions on the pier. Aurelian's ridiculously catchy rum-gin-vodka song. Very yo-ho-ho. Playing table tennis with Lynne & maintaining a rally while turning pirouettes in between each shot. Volleyclub with Abbi, Barnesy, Susannah, Brook, Mandy, Sarah, Ewan, Richard & others I have probably forgotten. Ewan getting annoyed with the bunting while trying to do the Bungay trick. Playing Civilisation with Ron, Casper, Andy & Scooby for 6 hours. Going way beyond my usual passing ability with Brook. Officially sanctioned Bungay chairs. Managing a respectable run of LP's golf club balance. Dominating Becky, Lizzie & Jamie at Settlers of Catan. Making stupid mistakes while playing Quarto with Kat. Winning my first ever game of croquet! Including 3 roquets, going through 2 hoops (with trick shots) & posting 2 people in a single turn! It's only taken me 5 years. Getting 58 catches of 7 balls. Trebuchet cricket. Guy's bubble routine in the show. Managing to get home in one piece.
& lots more besides. Thank you all.
#bbu15
Little Paul - - Parent #
That seems like a much more manageable format than a full review, and I can't be bothered filling out most of the sections on a hlcbgsdf
I might have a go at doing likewise later (although I'll save it as a treat to reward myself with after I've pulled all the photos/videos off my camera)
The "bloody bunting!!" incident was rather amusing though.
Little Paul - - Parent #
I haven't managed to get as far as the photos yet, but I have got the video of the golf club trick online:
https://youtu.be/6_E6GgJrjgI
This video is from earlier in the week, before I worked out a cleaner way to get into the setup for the trick and before I worked on getting it further "up" my forehead so the bottom club doesn't touch my nose - but it's the only video I managed to shoot, so it'll do.
Little Paul - - Parent #
It's almost exactly a week since I got back from Bungay, but it feels like it's been months. I've managed to get around to sorting out my Bungay photos, the album is here: https://www.paulseward.com/photos/index.php?album=2014/May-2014/Bungay-2014
That may be the fastest I've ever managed to get my Bungay photos online.
Ah BBU. I only got there on the Friday about 5 hours after we'd planned to get there but long journeys with kids and other hindrances didn't play ball.
I did my usual Bungay thing of doing absolutely nothing juggling related whatsoever. Most of my time was spent fielding kids or going out on day trips. Southwold was picked as a day out - interestingly 2 of our kids hated the odd contraptions thing - they went in the deep sea diver thing and both burst out on floods of tears after their vessel was eaten by a shark. Somehow I doubt they'll forget that in a hurry.
Best bits for me were mainly sitting in a field or a tent chatting to a friendly bunch and occasionally offering rehab advice when asked. I fancied a few games but ended up playing precisely none.
The show was lovely and our eldest did a bit (violin playing whilst Nathan's girls hula hooped).
Kids played with other kids and are now missing their company.
One day I might do some juggling at Bungay, but maybe not for a few more years.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
"Southwold contraptions" mentioned not once but twice. That has to be Wilf Lunn's work doesn't it? He was lucky enough to meet me in Hamley's, ooh, thirty-eight years ago.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Ah, okay, so only half-bonkers on a scale of one to Lunn then.
Little Paul - - Parent #
I'm not convinced that scale is linear.
A couple of years ago Mark T arranged a field trip from Bungay to Tim's workshop. He's a lovely chap and has *all* the toys...I asked him whether he called himself an artist or an engineer and he replied 'an artist for tax purposes and an engineer when I need to get out of a conversation at parties' :-)
Richard Loxley - - Parent #
The 'official' photo feed is here: https://instagram.com/bungayballsup
Although I seem to be the only person who added to it during the event!
Guy made this:
https://youtu.be/UZIbm4stHwc
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
Click. Hard.
pumpkineater23 - - Parent #
That was beautiful. Amazing what can be done with those things now.
We had a lovely time. Since it was our 10th anniversary and we were lucky enough to be in the same place we held our wedding reception, we decided to buy everyone Sunday lunch and invite a few friends from home to join us: resulting in lots of our favourite people eating together with views of sunny buttercups, to the sound of Richard Loxley's gramophone. The kids have become more or less free range now and we thus got a lot more time to relax in proper Bungay fashion - reading by the woodburner, volleyclub, table tennis, croquet, board games, general talking nonsense - while Ben made forts out of old furniture with Leo, happily carting armfuls of juggling kit inside as 'weapons', and Libby read, painted, ran around in the buttercups, and watched baby chickens. I tried LP's golf club balance (scary hard, especially when it comes apart and descends towards your head), found I can still remember most of my static trapeze and recovered from a very sore throat (which is why Sunday's speech was mercifully short). Alex ran a watercolour painting workshop which was so well-received she repeated it several times afterwards, and some wonderful art was produced. Since the weather was so good (almost all week) many people went off site to swim in rivers and the sea at Southwold - I counted at least 25 of us on the beach at one point.
As usual we all pitched in to help run the event, with particular thanks to Jo, a Kiwi who arrived intending to stay for 2 days and ended up there the whole week, somehow acquiring a car from Farmer Paul in the process. Everyone is a volunteer at Bungay and this makes everything run much more smoothly with hopefully no one person getting over tired or stressed - a model that should inform all other conventions.
The show was very Bungay - Libby reprised her violin performance of last year (she knows more than one tune now), Ben got up unprompted to swing a cuddly toy round by one ear (is this the future of poi?), LP showed off the aforementioned balance, Aurelien sang about drinking and Phil showed us how to make the 'Bungay trick' considerably harder with four objects juggled and on a rola-bola. On one of the last evenigs a complete rainbow appeared above the site - which seemed entirely appropriate.
The weather held for the clear up and we returned home relaxed and happy - I think this was one of my favourite Bungays in recent years. Thanks to everyone who made it possible! #bbu15
My BBU pics:
https://tlmb.net/galleries/BBU15/
Subscribe to this forum via RSS
1 article per branch
1 article per post