Bluebelling (Again) and May Festing

Once again more days have slipped by than I intended since I last plonked myself in front of the old steam-driven laptop to waffle on about Rusty goings-on. I've not been too well over the intervening couple of weeks and dragging myself into blogging position has been more difficult than it should be. But that's not the sort of witterings you tuned in for - you're after news of His Rustiness and our minor adventures in and around the Rame Peninsula.

Since I last wrote here, we've had one of my favourite annual events - The Black Prince Flower Boat Day. Unfortunately, as I was very occupied participating, there are almost no photos of this year's event as we paraded the streets of Millbrook and Kingsand/Cawsand before sailing the Black Prince out into Cawsand Bay to take winter with it and allow summer in. I'm rather hoping that our good friend the High Lord of Southwick might be able to furnish me with his photos of the day; he visited with us for the weekend and met Rusty for the first time. Here we are on the Cremyll-Empacombe footpath with Rusty on his extending lead doing what dogs do when they're not working: having a good old sniff around.

When that shot was taken, we were on our way back from the inaugural Green Man event at Mount Edgcumbe. This is the Green Man himself presiding over proceedings (note to self - must try and flog the Edgcumbe people my song "The Green Man of Rame" for next year's event).

There was live music, falconry and other attractions - we had a fine old time. Here's Rusticles and yours truly enjoying the band Serpentyne shortly before we had to head homeward.

You might recall that Mrs the Millbrooker and I spent some time moving Dozybean into her new abode, we spent a little time there last week during which Rusty demonstrated admirably how well the "dignity at all times" training is going.

Which brings me to slightly more recent adventures. As I've been off work, Rusty and I have done a fair amount of wandering the hills and coast of Rame; the bluebells by Grenville Battery are all-but over now, but in Pigs' Hill Wood, which is on a north facing slope they're still in full flower.

This time of year is one of the busiest for us Morris folk; the Black Prince Parade is a major event for us and we also take part in lots of other May Day or nearly-May-Day celebrations. On the weekend just gone, we were performing at Callington May Festival.

Rusty and I missed the procession which began the event and waited by our first dance spot with Dozybean and NooNoo instead. You might note that I'm using my white cane - we had a bit of a mix up while loading Rusty into his dog cage in the car. I thought Mrs the Millbrooker had put his harness and lead into the car; she thought I had. Neither of us actually had. So I couldn't work him and he got the day off; luckily we did have his extending lead so he could stay with us as we did our stuff in the streets and pub yards of Callington.

Here's a short series of photos of our day.

Which brings us almost completely up to date. I'll leave you with a little video of Rusty free running yesterday in our usual spot for such things - the Minadhu in Kingsand; you might notice him jumping the gun a bit in his excitement. He does love free running.