Babbling...

Saturday morn saw me wandering about with a bank card in my hand.  I had decided to spend money on a decent mattress after all.  No chasing around all the shops I returned to the man who gave me the last dead one around 18 years ago and spent £270 on a new one.  This one is much firmer, although he forgot to mention how long the guarantee s for, and on Monday he will deliver and help me up the stairs with the thing. It will be fun as I can hardly get me up there and then there is the tight corner to negotiate!
But all that money.  
I came home and sat trembling at having to pay put more than I normally do.  The emergency fund was put to use and that too is shaking badly!  Ah well, it has to be done, and so it now has been done.  I hope this one will last 20 years, I will not care about a few sharp springs coming through by then, if I'm still here.

Quite who the dancers were I know not but they offered some sort of traditional English dance, found somewhere in drunken England's distant country harvest celebrations I suspect.  Whether debauchery followed as it did in the past is not clear as I hurried on before the rain came and left them to it.
The men played their tunes, the woman banged the drum in a constant and very loud beat and the people danced.  All very simple and while the drum would certainly go back many centuries I am not sure what instruments would be available in times past.  The accordion came into being in the early 1800's, the banjo of sorts appeared in the 1700's and may be based on instruments found in Africa long ago, but wind instruments go back well into ancient days, nose flutes (disgusting thought) were common in Greece as indeed were the people who played them and I suspect the two main instruments would have been found in many rural areas, possibly travelling minstrels would make a living touring the Harvest areas and leading the jollity.
This morning I was remembering the Harvest Festival back in Edinburgh concerning a time in the mid 50's when I saw a great display, including a whole wheatsheaf standing proudly there, a huge display and I realised that this was shortly after the end of rationing.  Folks then knew about rationing which ended in 1954 so such a display must have been wonderful not long after.  These days such churches are more concerned about those abroad starving or lacking fresh water than themselves and quite right too.  Our offerings today, and people brought a great deal, went to the local foodbank, another result of Tory austerity and the disgraceful removal of benefits from the needy.  I was told the local foodbank had increased demand during the holidays, free school meals not being available some folks could not feed the kids.  The Conservative leader and her party need to read the book of Amos and soon.