New year Day 5

Lunar New Year

Day 5 - Feb 14

God of Wealth Day - so back to work and expect the Lion Dancers to pay you a visit.
Setting off fire crackers will attract customers.

The Rabbit and The Back Pain - An Explanatory Folktale

There was once a rich man who was fond of rabbits and raised them for amusement.

'Look after them carefully. Ah Ji,' he said. 'If any of them dies, it'll be deducted from your pay.' One day Ah Ji accidentally dropped a stick that landed on a rabbit right across its lower back. 'Uh-oh!' he exclaimed. Scared stiff, he quickly hid the rabbit in a bean patch. A couple of days later, the rich man noticed that a rabbit was missing and took Ah Ji roundly to task.
Ah Ji had no choice but to go to the bean patch and look for the rabbit. 'The rabbit is tearing around, ' he said. 'It must have eaten something. Huh? How does an injured rabbit have the energy to run around like that? That's really weird.' Ah Ji tried to grab the rabbit, but it hopped around so much he couldn't. He went home and told his father what had happened. His father had been severely beaten by the rich man a few months earlier. His lower back hurt him so much he couldn't get out of bed. 'I'd like to know what that rabbit ate,' his father said. 'Maybe it'd be good for my back.'
So Ah Ji struck another rabbit across the back and put it in the bean patch to see what would happen. At first, the rabbit couldn't move. It stretched its neck and nibbled the seeds of a yellow plant that clung to a bean stalk. After three or four days, the rabbit was up and about.
'Hey! If the seeds of that plant could heal the rabbit's back, they could have the same effect on people,' his father said. 'Go pick some and cook them into a medicine for me to drink.' The father drank the concoction. A few days later he could get out of bed and move around.
Two months later, he was able to work in the fields. Finally, Ah Ji left the rich man's house and devoted himself to gathering seeds and making them into medicine, which he distributed to people suffering from back pain.


As a result of his story, the herb is called tusizi, or rabbit's thread, in Chinese.

The English name is dodder.

Lunar Year Day 4

 

Day 4 - Feb13

 

Today you should welcome the God of the Stove back with fireworks and an animal sacrifice in the kitchen.
As heaven is a long way off the God of the Stove usually arrives sometime in the afternoon.

 

The Year of the Water Snake

 

Legend of the White Snake is one of the most famous tales from ancient China. The tale goes that a white snake came to the human world as she was longing for human life and married a scholar named Xu Xian. However, such marriages were opposed by Fahai, a Buddhist monk at the Jinshan Temple, who maintained that coexistence of human and evil spirits was impermissible. He then buried the white snake underthe  Leifeng Pagoda on the banks of West Lake, near Hangzhou. Many years later, the Madam White Snake's son rose to high office and he offered a sacrifice to his mother in front of the Leifeng Pagoda. God was so moved by his action that he made the pagoda collapse, which enabled the family to be reunited. 

Lunar New Year Day 3

Day 3 - February 12

Red Dog Day (might be calle Hair of the Dog Day by some!)
After two days of eating, drinking and playing games today it is a good day to rest .
This is also the Mice's Wedding Day so you should retire to bed early .
Turning out the light early also slows down their breeding according to old Chinese farmers.
Taking out the rubbins is thought to remove some of the bad spirits which lurk around this time.

More on the Chinese Calendar

Unlike western calendars, the Chinese calendar has names that are repeated every 60 years. Within the 'Stem-Branch' system is shorter cycle of 12 years denoted by animals and 2011 is the year of the Rabbit. Actually, this is the Xīn-măo 辛卯 year. Xīn (Metal) is the eighth of the ten celestial stems and Mao (Rabbit) is the fourth of the twelve terrestrial branches and marks the year of the Rabbit or Hare.
How to calcule when the Chinese New Year starts in 2011
The fact that the date of Chinese New Year varies within about a month is a clue that it's linked to the new moon. A rough, and almost infallible guide is that the date of the Chinese New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. The winter solstice always falls on December 21st, the next new moon is January 4th, and the second new moon is on February 3rd 2011.
As with most things Chinese it is not quite that simple.....
For example, one problem with any lunar calendar system is that some years there are 13 new moons. The Chinese deal with this by slotting in an extra intercalary month.

Lunar New Year Day 2

Day 2 - Feb 11

Married women should visit their parents today and husbands must accompany them.
It is customary to take a red envelope containing new money for the parents and other relations who will assemble for lunch.
Remember not to drop your chopsticks or to mention FOUR anytime during the new year period. (the Mandarin for FOUR sounds like the word for Death)

What is your Chinese Zodiac Animal?

Rat	1900	1912	1924	1936	1948	1960	1972	1984	1996	2008
Ox	1901	1913	1925	1937	1949	1961	1973	1985	1997	2009
Tiger	1902	1914	1926	1938	1950	1962	1974	1986	1998	2010
Rabbit	1903	1915	1927	1939	1951	1963	1975	1987	1999	2011
Dragon	1904	1916	1928	1940	1952	1964	1976	1988	2000	2012
Snake	1905	1917	1929	1941	1953	1965	1977	1989	2001	2013
Horse	1906	1918	1930	1942	1954	1966	1978	1990	2002	2014
Sheep	1907	1919	1931	1943	1955	1967	1979	1991	2003	2015
Monkey	1908	1920	1932	1944	1956	1968	1980	1992	2004	2016
Rooster	1909	1921	1933	1945	1957	1969	1981	1993	2005	2017
Dog	1910	1922	1934	1946	1958	1970	1982	1994	2006	2018
Pig	1911	1923	1935	1947	1959	1971	1983	1995	2007	2019

Snake (this year is the Water Snake)

Charming and good thinkers. Love the finer things in life, so only the best is good enough. Good at making and saving money. Patient, charming and wise. Prefer not to rely on other people.

Win £5000 Holiday

The Landmark Trust Spring Draw 

 is  under way again

click the above link to read about it and to buy tickets

Welcome to the Year 4711

HAPPY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR 4711

Today – Sunday 10th  February, 2013 - is the first day of the

Lunar New Year Festival for the year of the Snake

Those of you who do not espouse Budhism or Taoism may need a few pointers regarding the 15 days of celebration which you are about to undertake.

Day 1 - Feb 10
-It is unlucky for women to use knives today so no food preparation. Meals must therefore consist of leftovers.
-Married women should not visit their family as this will make them poorer.
-Wealth and luck of the household will diminish if sweeping or rubbish disposal takes place today.
-Washing your hair will wash away your luck
-Don't eat congee (rice porridge) for breakfast as this is paupers' fare and you may tempt fate.
-Washing clothes today will offend the God of Water whose birthday it is.
-Eating meat before noon will offend the gods who visit as many of them are vegetarian.

To wish others wel,l try:

Gong xi fa chai which is Congratulations and make a fortune in Mandarin

or Kung hey fat choy which is the Cantonese version and more common in UK.

Are You Ready for Year 4711?

Today is (Lunar) New Year's Eve 4711
By New Year’s Eve, you should have done the following:

• Clean the entire home to get rid of all the things that are associated with the old year.
• Put away all brooms and brushes.
• Pay all your debts.
• Resolve differences with family members, friends, neighbors and business associates.
• Buy the following: - red money envelopes
  - oranges and/or tangerines
  - circular candy tray (the tray of togetherness)
  - flowers (especially plum blossom, peach blossom, water lily)
  - a new set of clothes and shoes for children, preferably something red or orange.
• Get new paper money from the bank. and put it into the red envelopes. which apparently bestows magical powers on it. The lucky money envelopes are given to children during the New Year period.

Kew Bridge Pumping Station

A few years ago I wrote about our visit to Kew Bridge Pumping Station which you can read by clicking on the link. I was reminded of this recently whilst reading an old copy of the English Heritage magazine.  There was a short piece about the museum which included the following quote relating to 2009.
- Lead thieves visited the Steam Museum five times over a couple of weeks and stripped most of the lead from the roof causing £100,000 of damage.
- Our landlord sold the museum site to a property developer
- An agent went out of business with a loss of more than £20,000 of the museum's money
- We made an operational loss for the third successive year. 
However, we also:
-Put into operation the only Bull engine in the world after full restoration and won several heritage awards for doing so.
- Put into operation a replica Kerr Stuart Wren Class narrow gauge locomotive.
- opened to the public on more than 300 days and were in steam for 80 days
-Held six special events
- Hosted many school and educational visits. 
So, all in all, a pretty average year.

If you have not visited the Kew Bridge Pumping Station (or the London Music Museum which is close by) then here is a flavour of what you might see.

An engine in steam

 Or one of the  Special Events like this Meccano exhibition

The musuem recieves no grants for operational support and needs people to switch off their virtual experiences for a while  and visit the real world.

A Taxing Time

The last few weeks have been rather busy.  We spent Xmas with one son and family in Colne and then New Year with the other son and family in Oxford. When we eventually returned to Gecko I had to put my shoulder to the grindstone and get our tax returns completed and submitted before the deadline of Jan 31.  Being able to do this online is certainly more convenient than filling in reams of paper by hand.  On the whole the process is fairly painless but I still despair at the fundamental and stupid errors made in the design and writing of the programme.
The basic assumption by systems annalists appears to be that the punter who completes one form per year has an intimate understanding of the processes as deep as  those who spend all day working with them. This is fairly common nowadays.  In particular three things caused me to question the competence of this particular programme team.
1 - If you enter 0 (zero) in a box it is disallowed and one is advised that the value must be greater than zero or left blank.  Surely entering zero indicates that the question has been read and responded to whereas a blank field might just as easily indicate an accidental or intentional oversight.
2 - Later in the same form, however, there is a field where leaving it blank is not permitted - a zero or other number is mandatory. Why the inconsistency?
3- When entering the sort code for my bank I used the standard format - 00-00-00.
This generated a lengthy list of symbols  that are not permitted and  instruction to limit the field to six digits.  Why will the field accept more than six digits, then?
All this, you will understand, is by way of an excuse for notwriting anything for a while and an effort to divert your attention whilst I take another absence from the computer.

Black Country to Black Sea

On Oct 25 I wrote about The Longest Narrowboat Journey in thge World because we had just seen the boat involved moored on the Macclesfield Canal.  Over Xmas I  had an unexpected and very welcome  surprise: fellow narrowboaters Chris and Paul sent me a copy of the DVD which was made during the journey. What a great end to 2012.