Pancake Races!

Tuesday was a fun one... International Pancake Day and the World Famous Pancake Races!

So what are the Pancake Races?

Olney's famous race is run every Shrove Tuesday (also called Pancake Day in the U.K., Fat Tuesday in other parts of the world... the day before Ash Wednesday). It dates back to 1445 and it is believed it all began with a townswoman late for the Shriving Service at the Olney parish church.

The day is significant. Eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, is an ancient tradition. It is the day before Lent; the start of the traditional fast for Catholics/Anglicans. By giving up dairy products, people marked Jesus' 40 days and nights in the wilderness. So on Shrove Tuesday, stores of dairy products were used up in the pancake mix.

Racing to church - The Olney Pancake Race

For this Olney woman almost 600 years ago, it was also important to attend the Shriving Service before the start of Lent, a time to confess sins before Ash Wednesday. So the story goes, hearing the church bells ring out for the service, the townswoman fled her house fearful of being late. She ran the distance down High Street to make it to the parish church - still clutching her frying pan and wearing an apron.

Now, the event is still commemorated hundreds of years later in the Olney pancake race. The Olney residents (women) compete in traditional apron, cap, and holding a fying pan with a real pancake. They must toss their pancake once at the start and once at the finish by the church.

The race starts at 11.55 am. The Olney High Street is shut, and spectators line the route from the Market Place all the way to Olney's St.Peter and St.Paul church.

Transatlantic links

When the Olney pancake race resumed following World War II, a story ran in the town paper in Liberal, Kansas. The local pastor loved the idea and contacted folks in Olney to become sister cities and host a complementary and competing pancake race. The two towns have partnered and competed every year since 1950.

So....

Tim and I know a family in Liberal, Kansas... and this year they were the chairmen of Liberal's pancake races. Recently the two cities send a representative to the other city's pancake race. Our friends asked us a couple of weeks ago if we (because of Morgan's Kansas roots) would represent Liberal at the races. We had no idea what we were in for, but we eagerly said yes!

Olney is about an hour west of our home in Cambridge. We arrived at 10:00 for a pre-race meeting with the town leadership, race organisers, and sponsors and found out what our agenda for the day would be...

It started off with the children's races. There were 12 races and Tim was asked to start one of them by ringing the bell...And they're off!
No points for second place...
Tim with the Mayor of Olney... the picture was taken in the town centre in front of the World War II memorial which honors those from the town who gave their life during the war. Notice the flags, both U.K. and U.S. flags flying...
The girls had fun with the milk mascot... Say "moo," er, um, "cheese."
Following the children's races, our group went to one of the churches in town for pancakes. The pancake production was up on stage... Patiently waiting for pancakes...
... but with appetisers like these, we almost forgot that we needed pancakes!
As you may be able to see, lemon juice is poured from the bottle on the pancake, sugar is sprinkled on top of the juice, then the pancake is rolled and eaten. The pancake is similar to a crepe, but a bit thicker... quite tasty!!
11:55 am was quickly approaching, so we departed and walked the 400+ yard course...
... ending at the parish church.
The winner ran it in 58.5 seconds, the second fastest time in race history.
The winner beat Liberal's best time this year, bringing honour and glory back to Olney!
When the Pancake Race is over the runners, officials, townspeople and visitors, pour into the Parish Church of St. Peter & St. Paul for the great Shriving Service when several of the famous Olney Hymns are sung.
The church was packed, fortunately we had reserved seats on the second row!

During the church service, we learned about the Olney Hymns. We had no idea that one, such a collection of hymn existed and two, that they were famous. These hymns were written in Olney by John Newton and William Cowper in the late-18th century.

We sang five of the Olney Hymns in the service. More info on the Olney Hymns can be seen at the wiki page here, but suffice it to say that one of John Newton's hymns needs little introduction... "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken" (LDS hymnbook #46) and one of his hymns needs no introduction: "Amazing Grace!" It was a moving experience to sing and hear these great hymns in a packed to capacity chapel where they were written... and sung with passion!
Tim was asked as Liberal's representative to present the winner's trophy towards the conclusion of the service after giving a few words to the congregation...
He's a natural at this stuff... I was more than happy to watch and take pictures!
Following the service the congregation departed the church for a walk back to the town center where the top three runners were showered with gifts.
Our final official function was a lunch that started at 3:00 pm. For dessert? Pancakes! Ryann was more than happy to put them away...
One last picture on the way out of town...
... and that was the day, a great day we'll always remember.

Lin-sanity!

Yup, I'm on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon... and proud to be!

In case you haven't heard the incredible story in the NBA over the last two weeks... it's about #17 pictured above. He's the son of immigrants from Taiwan, didn't get a college basketball scholarship out of high school so he went to Harvard where he was academically admitted and then joined the basketball team.... Prior to Lin's arrival at the school, Harvard suffered through seven straight losing seasons, that turned around while Lin was there and they made the NCAA tournament (Harvard's current success and Top 25 ranking is attributed to Lin's work there).

Despite his incredible work there, he went undrafted by the NBA but walked-on to the Golden State Warriors where he sat on the bench all season (a heck of an accomplishment in its own right). The Warriors released him at the end of last season and he was picked up by the New York Knicks... where he sat the bench. The Knicks were losing bad, with an 8-15 record and losing their third guard to injury and resorting to the last guy on the bench... Jeremy Lin. In the 9 games that he has played for the Knicks, they have been 8-1, pulling their record even to 16-16.

Prior to chance to play, Lin was sleeping on the couch in his brother's apartment in New York. Two weeks later, he has his own place in Trump Tower.

The story behind Jeremy Lin is incredible, but it's his style of play that excites me. It's clean. It's smart. It's just flat out great fundamental basketball. He does what he needs to do, when it needs to be done. He scored 38 points against Kobe Bryant one night, then dished out 14 assists against the reigning champion Mavericks another day.

Put the story and his style of play all together and you have an explosive situation. You can see people already wearing his jersey there in the picture above in New York City. Any idea what this is doing in China? Lin is going to make so much money in China that any NBA salary is irrelevant.

While I was getting my MBA in China a couple of years ago, I had to write a paper on how a multinational company adopted its business strategy in China. I chose the NBA and focused on the NBA-China operations. One of the interesting things I found was that as big as Yao Ming was in China, the kids on the basketball courts in China didn't identify with him. Yao Ming was 7'6" tall and his style of play was slow and deliberate. The youth in China identified more with other Houston Rocket players such as Tracy McGrady... upbeat and creative. But now in Jeremy Lin, you have the Chinese heritage, the style of play they can identify with, and now the HOPE that they too can one day become a basketball star without needing to be a freakish 7'6".

What can I say, I'm a Jeremy Lin fan. I've been turned off by the NBA for the past 10+ years. I was tired of Kobe Bryant's off-court issues, tired of LeBron James' quest for money. I didn't like his attempt to stack the deck in Miami and thought that it possibly could set a pattern that would completely ruin the game. I watched the NBA finals last year only to watch LeBron and company lose (thankfully they did!). But now I'm a fan again. Who knows what the rest of the season will bring, but it's been a heck of a two weeks to watch!

Is it March yet?

Because it sure feels like it! Can't wait for "March Madness," especially with Morgan's alma mater (Wichita State) hitting their stride... they just entered the Top 25 at #24 this week!!


It's been six years since the Shockers' run to the Sweet 16, losing to George Mason who went on to the Final Four. Has it really been that long ago?

Can't wait for March...

Rare Snow Day in England

For all the rain/fog that England gets, it gets surprisingly little snow fall. When temps drop below freezing, it's generally quite clear. This past weekend was an exception to that. You may have read about the Arctic Freeze that paralyzed much of Europe this past week... here's one of our favorite pictures... from Geneva, Switzerland:

Fortunately we were only limited to about 4-6 inches of snow. Everybody needs one snow day a year (just one!). Here are pics from our Snow Day!

Without hills in the area, the girls resorted to pulling each other on the sled in the street... (supervised of course!)

Mmmm... really Tally? Eating snow off your boot?

The girls headed to the back to build their very own Snowman...

Ryann helped as well, but she enjoyed falling backwards into the snow (repeatedly).
Here are the proud creators!
Then it was time for crazy sled-pulling in the backyard.
Tim created a figure-8 pattern and really whipped the girls in the turns...
As you can see, they loved it!
They finished with no injuries... a successful play day!
Now that we've had our snow, let's hope for warmer weather soon!