Tai Chi; taking up floorboards

Started a weekly beginners' Tai Chi class in September, run by the lovely David who has, apparently, been teaching Tai Chi in Wolverton since 1983. Blimey. The form we are learning is apparently the Long Yang form - similar to the form this chap’s doing, though I’m not sure it’s exactly the same. Here’s a clip of David himself doing part of the routine, presumably in his garden. David learned Tai Chi from Gerda Geddes, apparently more or less the first Tai Chi teacher in the UK. Geddes, a trained dancer, apparently came across Tai Chi in China in the late 1940s. An interesting red herring is that, in addition to dance, Geddes had apparently also worked with Wilhelm Reich, he of the Orgone accumulator.

As a not-originally-planned part of renovating the living room, Ruth has recently completed taking up all the floorboards in the living room and hallway, putting down insulation and replacing the floorboards with chipboard. We briefly considered trying to retain the original floorboards but they’re not a complete set as some have been replaced with newer board over the years, added to which some had woodworm. So we’re considering selling them – seemingly they can fetch a bit. Ray helped out as part of an exchange of labour he and Ruth have worked out, though he lent expertise and tools as well as labour. We took him for dinner at The Crown at Playhatch a couple of weeks ago as additional payment.

Ruth's first checking out of the floorboards, observed by Beau

Ray's car stuffed with insulation

Hallway partway through

Living room partly done

Rug

The inevitability of not actually finishing the living room before Christmas (artfully predicted by me some time ago) is upon us. We want to get Chris from Alldec back to do the painting, as we were impressed with his work last time, but he isn’t available until the new year. To increase cosiness until the new flooring is put down, we’ve brought a rug of Ruth’s down from the attic. I’d never seen it as it’s been rolled up since she moved in, but it’s actually quite nice. Ruth is a big fan of Persian-style rugs, which I can take or leave.

We were given some quails' eggs recently by Gail, who has started keeping quail. One has, sadly, been lost to one of their cats, but Ruth and I viewed the others at Emily's recent birthday party. I fried two of the eggs for breakfast on some sourdough bread.



To finish, a couple more snippets from the OU noticeboard: