Burrs 2009

This is the first Post from Burrs 2009. its Friday night and 3/4 of the folk have arrived at the venue, we have Ivo and Enrico from Italy, Carlos and Graff from Portugal. a whole bunch from the wilds of Wales (in Kev Bailey)... a sprinkling of southern softies... One Yorkshire man... Fiona.. who has just landed... and lots arriving tomorrow... this is Burrs 2009... watch this space.

Tony

Tony,

may the Force be with you.. -dorothy

Tony: Have a great weekend. Like your trees and especially your self effacing humor(sort of Austin Powers). This post by Dorothy very funny-look closely your head is to the right-maybe doing a "Walk like an Egyptian",back and forth. Dustin

Tony is more master yoda than obiwan!
Lets hope the jedi dont cross wires

I must be too young with this 'force' thing. Self-effacing people are secretly confident and the cause of many food fights.

Ciao......Leonardo

The trees were coming thick and fast...



Mrs Tickles home made soup... Curried Parsnip.... yuuuum!

Late in the evening during the demos.

Carlos supplied Beaver bonsai tools for the extensive carving workshops. Bob did all of the carving.

Some more pics from the event:

The Stone Monkey gets tip top advice from Terry Foster.



and judging by the look on Andy's face, a fiendish plot was hatched:

Tony conducts an ad hoc lesson on a rather splendid soon to be bloomin' fantabulously stunning Hawthorn raft. Dunno whose it could have been!

John Pitt giving Chris Thomas his first virtual piano lesson:




Actually, they were deep in discussion about John's excellent tree:

Ivo gets wired into the demo tree:







Unfortunately my pics of the finished item (or at least finished for the duration) seems to have someone's stray butt cheek invading them. It'd be good if anyone else could supply a pic sans derriere.

If Carlsberg did Bonsai weekend it would definatly be a Burrs Bonsai Weekend. Excellent time, excellent friends and excellent Bonsai. Thanks Tony and all who helped organise this great weekend. Even had a great trip home was in by 8pm the M6 was kind to the Monkeys.

A big thankyou to Enrico, Ivo, Terry & Tony for your expertise and guidance and a bigger thankyou to Caroline and "Mum" for the fab food and catering, not forgetting Steve, Matt & Bob for "behind the scenes" hard work

All the best and see you all at Noelanders

Kind regards

Andy

Terry in demo action as well:




Poor Enrico had the toughest job of a tree as there was no way he could get it to any sort of "completion". He used his stage time to set in motion a discussion on the ehtics of collecting, not for itself but to fuel the "quick tree"" syndrome which bedevils the demo cuture. There was a certain irony in the situation but his tree did serve to remind us of the naiivety of expecting a tree in a day and indeed the dangers to the tree of attempting it.

Hi Guys,

It's 9:39 pm and I've just reached home in London from Burrs. Before i do anything else, I'd like to thank every single person at burrs for making it a wonderful experience. It was absolutely fantastic weekend.

Tony, Thank you so much for all your time and attention and for making me feel at home. Even though we met for the first time, it was like we've known each other from a long time.

Ivo and Enrico, thank for for all the time you guys spent styling the raft. I love the tree.

Terry, I love the pyracantha after you spent some time styling it. It's a different tree now. Thank you.

Steve, thank you soo very much for all your help with the monster raft. You a wonderful person. very friendly and very humble. Do come to London for some more chicken biriyani. at least now you can't say you aint got no one to visit or no reason to come to London.

Kev, Thank you for all your wonderful suggestions for the Cedarr raft.

Bob, thank you for the wonderful work you did on my hawthorn.

Fiona, it was such a pleasure meeting you. I love your posts and comments and now i know why. cuz you yourself are wonderful and full of life.

Matt, Andy, Simon, Gerry, John and every single person at burrs, it was wonderful meeting you all.

Tony, a BIG thank you to your mum and wife for the wonderful vegetarian food. It was delicious.

Thank you guys and hope we meet again.

Love you all,

Faisal

Hello Guys and Girl

Last to arrive home ( maybe ).

I had a fantastic weekend at Burrs, made a lot of friends thanks to all,

Best regards,

Carlos Costa

cjcosta wrote:Hello Guys and Girl

Last to arrive home ( maybe ).

I had a fantastic weekend at Burrs, made a lot of friends thanks to all,

Best regards,

Carlos Costa

Glad you reached home safe carlos. It was nice meeting you. hope we meet again.

Faisal

Hi Everyone,
Just to say thank you for another great Burrs weekend. Good to see everyone and also welcome new faces to the fold. I hope everyone had a good and safe journey home.
A big 'Thank you' also to the stylists, Enrico, Ivo and Terry (hope the exams are going well Terry)
Many thanks Tony for the organisation, especially to Caroline and 'Mum' for the catering.
We must not forget to thank Tony's 'troops' Harleyrider and Matt, did you ever finish mopping the floor Matt???

Thanks again
The Yorkshireman
Graham

hI,
I want to thank all the Burrs crew, new, old and very old for just the best thing I have been involved in bonsaiwise since the last Burrs.
A big "Hi" to all the new and not so new faces at Burrs, you see what all the fussis about now dontcha.
Tony, yes and thank you.
Enrico, Ivo and Terry, great job. You all work so hard and for so long with us, giving freely your skill and passion, over and over again.
A big thank you to Tony's Wife and Mum for keeping our body and soul together and for all your hard work looking after Tony for so long. YOU BOTH DESERVE A LONG EXPENSIVE HOLIDAY.

Fi, this is, just, for you, hope your, boo-boo's are feeling better.,

I wish to stake our claim on the longest journey home from Burrs this year.
3pm ish start, arrived home 2am.
Chris T, Bob H. and I on the M60 just a few miles from Burr with no brakes.
God bless the Bury RAC.
Chris will no doubt give the tech details late.

Do we win?

I don’t want this to turn into an ‘Oscar’ speech BUT….

I would like to thank…

My beautiful hard working wife Carolyn for helping me make Burrs happen… Carolyn did ALL the catering and finance, her Curried Parsnip soup recipe and Honey and Mustard Glazed Sausage being particularly well received.

MY MUM… She wanted to help because she new how much pressure Carolyn was under. Mums cake went so fast I never got a piece... (Graff had at least four!) She wants to help next year so She obviously enjoyed herself.

Bob, Steve and Matt…my right hand men… always ready to help, enthusiastic and hardworking you made Burrs for me an almost ‘relaxing’ experience.

Enrico and Ivo for taking the great Iron Bird across the water to England… your inspiration, dedication and hard work was evident throughout the weekend only ever stopping for:
a) Mobile phone conversation
b) Italian Coffee
c) a smoke
d) to sleep

Terry, without doubt the most talented UK bonsai artist I have the pleasure to call my friend… lets hope we see more of him in the next 12 months

Bob the Beaver (can he carve it? … yes he can) for working so hard on participants trees…

Kev for your input, computer skills, video ( I cannot wait to see the first edit) and help with so many things I cannot remember them all.

Everyone who came as participants… without you there would be no Burrs, to the Dedicated who return year after year thanks for your support… to the Newbies (was it worth it?) and to the visitors from over seas. You add colour and diversity to the occasion, the effort to get to the Northern outreaches of the UK does you guys proud, you are welcome anytime.

To Fiona the Birthday Babe who was remarkable ‘quiet’ considering her rantings on this Forum… then again Fiona WAS the only brave girl amongst twenty five very vocal bonsai nuts.

Next years date is confirmed: 29 -30 – 31 October 2010, put it in your diary… Carolyn has already taken 10 deposits!

Jerry... you mate by all accounts you definitely won!

I'd just like to add my thanks to everyone who attended Burrs this year,
a special thanks to the backroom guys, Steve, Bob and Matt,
and of course to Tony's wife and Mum for keeping us well fed and watered.

Burrs is like no other bonsai event I have ever attended,
I struggle to find suitable adjectives to describe how unique an experience it is.

I guess for me the best way to describe it is that 30 or so people fill the
room with passion for Bonsai, for the whole weekend,
and you have to experience that to appreciate it.

John.

Well, what a weekend that was! From 6am Friday morning (when I got up), until 6pm on Sunday evening (when I got home), I have had, quite literally, the time of my bonsai life.

Despite all I had been told by Tony, Kev, Lee et al, nothing could have properly prepared me for the experience that is Burrs weekend. The hustle and bustle of last minute preparations, the finally putting faces to names, the anticipation of watching first hand some of the greatest bonsai artists in Europe work on YOUR trees, the cameraderie, the ....the.....well, everything!

I'm not going to go into too much detail here (who said 'Thank God for that'?), that'll come in my Burrs Report. Instead, I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus above in thanking wholeheartedly Tony & Carolyn for concieving and organising this unmissable event, Tony's Mum for the tea and sticky buns, Tony (again), Enrico & Ivo for your advice and work on my Yew, Terry for putting up with me sticking a camera in your face all weekend, and Makita Bob for all their hard work styling our trees, my fellow cohorts Matt 'The Wireman' and Bob 'The Brushman' for your help behind the scenes (and sometimes in front of them), Kev, Andy (top geezer), Simon 'Guess how many trees I can fit in the back of the van?', Simon 'Who's brew did I just knock over?', Jeremy, Chris 'Time Team' T and all my other new friends who had the time and patience to answer my many newbie questions, Fiona for relieving me of a bloody heavy Privet stump (Where's my Larch?), Faisal for sharing his delicious chicken biryani with me, Faisal's wife for making it in the first place and finally but not leastly, everyone else who attended for helping to make the whole experience such a memorable one.
As I have said many times, I have a terrible memory for names, so for those of you who I missed, I apologise.

I will be uploading the pics to my Photobucket account later today, so if you want a sneaky peek and you know how to access it, go take a look. I'll be putting them on a cd as well, so if you would like a copy, just PM me and I'll sort one out for you.

Here's to next year! I've booked already, have you?

P.S. I suggest we start a 'Get Terry Foster back into the limelight' campaign. Who's with me?