So, winter again, I didn’t realise it was a regular thing. Why ever do you put up with it?
The Boxwood tribe have been busy again, with gigs galore and a wireless radio appearance on BBC Cambridgeshire on Sue Marchant’s ‘Big Night In’. Turns out she has a lovely big metal house on an industrial estate with her very own studio and staff. Sue made us feel very welcome, but she did drift off from time to time, almost like she was talking to some people who weren’t even in the room. Very odd.
Exciting news! We are playing at the Compasses in Stansfield on 22ndDecember. Why exciting? We are following in the steps of Iron Maiden (a string and percussion quartet from London I believe) playing at the launch of our own Boxwood Chessmen beer - ‘Owlslayer’. We have written a song especially for the occasion, one of five tracks well on the way for our second album, and Penni even has us singing in East Anglian French about monks and windmills on this one. Lots of interest from festivals and clubs for 2018. I just hope it warms up a bit in the New Year!
The cold does make me miss Whicker Island, as well as Miss Whicker Island. I can picture us now, well up Mount Venus, approaching Gloriana, sunlight glinting on raven hair as she emerges from behind Water Falls, or was that just a shampoo advertisement? Anyway, Gloriana, there’s an interesting place, one for a future blog (as I now call them) which brings me meandering towards the Whicker section of the blog (as I still call them).
This time the subject is Geography. Now, like History, Geography isn’t a simple matter on Whicker Island. The main island and its smaller neighbor, Ickle Whicker remain joined underwater, but some of the satellite Islands have eccentric and unpredictable orbits centring somewhere near the summit of Mount Venus at an elusive place dubbed by scientists as the Gravity Area, but colloquially known as the G-spot.
The Whicker Island Republic as a whole drifts through the warmer oceans of Earth, always faces the Sun during the day (wherever you are standing) and spends its balmy nights in the Sea of Dreams. The daytime temperature is a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit (none of this modern celcigrade nonsense) and at night there is a refreshing whispering breeze of between two and five knots, depending on your preference.
Whicker Island has one active volcano, Mount Venus, rising steeply above Moonlight Bay. Mount Venus has always been a popular place to visit, but has been altered in recent times, with its 1960s thick covering of undergrowth giving way to a more modern and convenient landing strip. There are no motorways and only one main road (the A), running between the capital Whickerton and Mount Venus, via Alan Quay and the Snowlay Roundabout.
The magnificent El Presidente’s Palace sits among date palms overlooking one end of Moonlight Bay and my much more humble island home, Ringtone Towers, sits under his watchful gaze at the other.
As El Presidente may have said himself - ‘From the inventive soup vendors of Quartier Rouge to the racing seahorse studs of Wick Low, everywhere one travels on the Islands produces a surprise and a smile, usually in that order. Many a happy wanderer has enjoyed the sultry pleasures of Mount Venus before cooling off, skinny dipping in the Blue Lagoon and, who knows, as night falls the weary traveller may retire to Crispin Dry’s Daquiri Bar on Moonlight Bay to sample moonlit palm frond dappled date daiquiris and the sweet sounds of a ukulele, euphonium and vegetable flute ensemble’.
Anyway, I’m off to give my parsnip piccolo a quick polish, so Pips!
Hector
Reviews of Whicker Island
“I did went there once, but I stumbled over a Whickle and got a nasty cold, but beautiful, beautiful views.”
Pennington Hatstand
(Trip Advicer Review)
“Hard to find, but incredible once you get there."
Tostin Salad – (Wiccan Magazine – Number 1 magical destination 2017)
"I believe my late grandmother and her even later sisters used to "Summer" at Anemone's Fronds? They would often stay with some old school chums who worked as El Presidente's Casino at Merbunnies? I heartily recommend a visit to the Sundae Date Market on Ickle Whicker if only to visit Mister Greengrowsir's humorous gourd's and comedie vegetable's stall. It's hard to find butternut squash, incredible ones you get there. The rather bracing steam-pedalo crossing does rather put one's heart in the mouth, but, it's well worth it."
***** Review left on Tripe Advisor by, Mr Ian U Endo, Swanuppage, Dorset, UK