{"id":268,"date":"2007-10-29T00:14:24","date_gmt":"2007-10-29T00:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/10\/29\/mongols-mandolins-and-the-cbso-youth-orchestra\/"},"modified":"2007-10-29T00:21:11","modified_gmt":"2007-10-29T00:21:11","slug":"mongols-mandolins-and-the-cbso-youth-orchestra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/10\/29\/mongols-mandolins-and-the-cbso-youth-orchestra\/","title":{"rendered":"Mongols, Mandolins and the CBSO Youth Orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"

As far as days go today was about as surreal as they come. Got up early this morning to try to get to a re-enactment fayre in Leamington Spa. Richard’s brother Cliff picked us up at around 9 and we drove to the fayre which was at the  Warwickshire Exhibition Center. You can find out more about the fayre at their website: http:\/\/www.livinghistoryfayres.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have never been to one of these events before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All I can say is that it was wonderful! Everyone there seemed very friendly and willing to talk to us about our interests and why we were there. Whilst none of us went there with the intention of buying anything we did come away with a number of items. As I mentioned in a previous post Richard has been teaching me archery and one of the reasons he likes attending these events is that many bow makers from around the country and from Europe will attend the event to sell their products. What struck me the most about all the equipment ( bows, swords, costumes, armor, musical instruments etc. ) was the quality and beauty of the products, the level of workmanship was exquisite… it was remarkable. I took a few snaps below ( click on each image on this page for a link through to a larger version of the picture)<\/p>\n

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 Anyway, as I was saying, Richard loves his bows and as we walked from stall to stall we came across a couple of Dutch bowyers who run a company called http:\/\/www.fairbow.nl\/<\/a>  they were selling a number of different kinds of bow. The ones that interested Richard and Cliff were several different kinds of Horse Bow ( the picture above ). We discovered from the bowyers that whilst these bows are smaller than the English longbow they can shoot an arrow further than a longbow at a lower poundage. The gentleman was kind enough to give us a short history lesson on the types of Horse Bow he makes (which I found on his website here<\/a> ). We all  tried the Mongolian Horse Bows and a variation of it ,a 51lb Krim Tartar, bow and were amazed at how light it was and even I didn’t struggle to draw it, what we found fascinating was that furthest an english longbow will shoot is around 380 yards, and yet these small bows can easily reach over 700 yards.<\/p>\n

Richard loved the bow and, rather impulsively, went ahead and ordered a custom made Krim Tartar which should arrive in the next 6 weeks. Richard asked for it to be made to a 70lb draw at 28″ . Were looking forward to when it arrives, especially if it is capable of shooting up to 90 yards flat! As good as some compound bows!<\/p>\n

Anyway Richard’s impulse buying kind of rubbed off on me as well, whilst I didn’t buy a bow I did purchase a couple of items. The first a leather chess\/draught board with some hand made pieces and a leather pouch …  which for some reason I really liked the feel of.<\/p>\n

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The second item I purchased, and this was the real impulse buy, was a beautiful little Mandolin, which I strummed for a little while and decided I had to have one, and it was only \u00c2\u00a359, it sounds wonderful though:<\/p>\n

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We wondered around for a bit and picked up a couple of other trinkets before leaving and making our way back to my place. I spent a few minutes trying to tune the Mandolin, whilst Richard fitted a new car stereo in his car. We then had to get dressed up for our night out at Symphony Hall to listen to our very talented friend, Alexandra Williams, play in the CBSO Youth Orchestra<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Alex plays the Violin and ever since I first heard her practicing I realised that she has a wonderful gift! She’s an extremely  talented musician and a member of a very gifted orchestra. Tonight’s performance  was a joy to watch, and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to see the Youth Orchestra perform. It almost embarrasses me to admit that, if it wasn’t for Alex’ involvement, and Richard dragging me along I would probably have not gone to see the performance … I guess the idea of seeing a youth orchestra<\/em> wouldn’t have excited me, or I might have felt that my expectations would have been lower. However I now know that nothing could be further from the truth. They performed as well as any orchestra I have ever listened to … and believe me when I say that if these young men and women are the future then the CBSO is in very very good hands! They should all be very proud of tonight’s performance! I am certainly proud of Alex … well done babe!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As far as days go today was about as surreal as they come. Got up early this morning to try to get to a re-enactment fayre in Leamington Spa. Richard’s brother Cliff picked us up at around 9 and we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[192,191,193,382],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bows","tag-cbso","tag-mandolin","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virtualchaos.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}