Bank holiday fun: duty, dancing and a swan named Asbo

The boy elected to work Good Friday and Bank Holiday Monday this year, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs somewhat on those days. This led to the production of a 'traditional' Easter cheesecake on Good Friday. (Really it's a birthday cake but we won't be chez nous for the boy's birthday.)

Saturday involved a limited amount of rowing. Limited because the boat house door has been broken for some time now meaning certain boats can't be got out safely (grrrr). This did give me another opportunity to watch 'Mr Asbo' in action. The so-called 'Mr Asbo' is a male swan who has been terrorising rowers on the Cam for some weeks now. He's quite a spectacle, when viewed from a safe distance. It's cruel, but the stroke of my four has been known to do the theme tune to "Jaws" when moving through his self-proclaimed zone of the river just to freak the cox out that little bit more. The real exercise of the weekend was a walk. Doesn't sound hard, but when you cycle everywhere, walking suddenly becomes a bit of an issue. More so when you've booked to go to the Lake District for a week and your wife expects to be taken hiking. So the boy went for a bit of a drag on Saturday afternoon, and is booked for another one in a fortnight's time. (Hopefully we will both have recovered by then).

Easter celebrations at church were, in my view, cool; at least for the 'Presentation of the Gifts' section when Indian members of the congregation performed a West Syriac rite, involving lights and dancing. I thought it was just a touch Bollywood, but of course I got in trouble for saying so. The slight, ever so slight, Bollywood theme continued in the afternoon when I took the boy to see Slumdog Millionaire. My boss had told me it was sad because of the poverty and that was the overall message I took from the film, whatever the critics have said. The boy, who had been planned to endure the film, admitted to having enjoyed it.

Easter Monday saw my first sculling outing of 2009. I managed not to send my partner for a swim and, of course, stayed well clear of Mr. Asbo, so all was well on that front. The sculling season may commence.