Wonderful b****ks

We've had a lovely weekend - 100% home town based - which is blissful. On Saturday we had a few friends and neighbours to (very loosely) celebrate Beltane, the celtic spring festival which takes place at roughly the beginning of May. As with many paganesque festivals it is basically about sex, this time about the fertility shown by late spring and early summer, and about ensuring a good harvest for the growing season. Beltane is one of the four fire festivals - the others being Lammas in August, Samhain in October and Candlemas in February. So burning stuff seemed a good idea and our new fire pit came into its own. I'm not really pagan, but I like the idea of the wheel of the year, marking the passage of the seasons and it was a good excuse to catch up with old friends.

Sunday was gardening day - trip to the garden centre, some edging panels to stop the garden falling into the garage, and a couple more plants. Rest of said day was spent installing the panels and sieving the soil in the bottom corner of the garden getting rid of three buckets of stones. Looks top now.

Today we visited the open day of our local 'adult education college'. We had never been to the college before. It sits high on a hill looking down over a very green valley. It has a working cooperative farm, a metal work studio and a sculpture studio. It isn't a normal educational establishment, apart from the 10% of courses which are about artistic activities, the rest are well and truly alternative. Want to find you chakras? Join a western mystical order? Learn how to breathe? This is the place to come. It's a beautiful house, in a beautiful setting and its primarily a venue for the promulgation of this wonderful b****ks. B****ks because I think it is, wonderful because it's a wonderful peaceful place that offers all sorts of support and experiences to take part in totally harmless and probably pretty relaxing activities. Normally houses like this are either hotels or in private hands with large gates and walls. This college is open to the public, trying to be environmentally friendly, a source of organic vegetables, and a place for all our local hippies (we do have a lot of them) to get to together and chant. How truly lovely.