Bottles and bottles of arachnids...

It's meant to be the tertiary text, but I have just read about twelve reviews of the Propeller Richard III I saw back in November and my eyes are beginning to go fuzzy. I'm trying to work out - because my memory has betrayed me - whose finger he bit off after killing them. It could be a couple of people (Anne? Edward?) and for each of them it would have a very different significance - and connection with The Changeling (where Deflores cuts of Piraquo's finger after killing him).

None of the reviews mention it - not even the lovely thorough ones. Some of them mention 'finger biting' but remain bloody ambiguous like an uncertain and vague bitch of research hell. Er- but yes, this Richard III business is becoming a bit of an obsession.

Also, had a moment of AHA! while reading a review on a blog. The Blog's subtitle was "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." and I had a nice little 'oh-ho, I know where you're coming from there, old laddy, old boy!" That quote's from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley - actually, it's the first sentence, and all - and that gives me a sad sort of joy to have floating around in my head...

More cheerful having done excesses of research and also installing my SHINY new HiFi system, which is beautiful, and which involved me basically reorganising my room and shelving again... everything's always better when it's a bit fresher, I think. Have also moved the MASS of tickets and posters and notes and whatnot from my pinboard (it was becoming painfully close to collapsing everywhere) and made it all into a montage on my wall.

That's all for now - I love that I have five or so more solid days to dilly-dally and over-complicate this essay. Hurrah!

Oooh, bonus anecdote! I was faffing about in the bathroom looking for something in the cupboards and found that my uncle had left us a gift in one of them. Delightful! I hear you cry - What a nice man to do such a thing. Yes, yes, if it had been a bath bomb, or a necklace or something other than a dead, moldy mouse and its brother's skull I would have been overjoyed. Unfortunately not. You may be surprised to hear that I was not surprised by this and simply held my breath and went to inform the parentfolk. I blame tradition - a rather longstanding one which I may properly explain in another blog, at another time, when my eyes aren't eroded by Dicky 3 reviews.

Nanight, lovelies xx

Meh, life.

Christmas was alright if you exclude most of the company, and include the rather high alcohol intake. I am slowly becoming a royal alcoholic at such occasions, not sure whether to be worried or not. Have also caught some dodgy bugs from the masses of small children that were there - coughing and sniffling and feeling rather nauseas the past day or two.

After a let-down of a venison pie at Christmas Mark II yesterday, got some good books - including Year of The King by Antony Sher which I'm already about half way through, and will probably discuss in another blog some time.

Quiet morning this morning, both parents out and aforementioned Sher book in lap. Just building up a desire to write something (I really, really do need SOME productivity...) when Madre comes in and asks me to go to Tesco with her. As Padre asked me too, earlier, had to go.

It has come to the point, I think, where just seeing her face makes me instantly depressed. I find myself not bothering any more than absolutely necessary to talk to her, because it makes me want to headbutt a wall.

Results of trip to Tesco - no real desire to do either portfolio OR coursework, but there's only 6 days of holiday left, and I can't go back having done fuck all.

To curl up in bed and die, or to not curl up in bed and die, that is the question.

Probably going to give over rest of day to moping and reading the rest of YotK.

Remember, Remember...

What a brilliant weekend.

On Friday were the annual fireworks at the Compass. For a few months beforehand the pub had a big jar on the bar for donations towards the fund, and the amount people were giving was amazing - there were more than a few notes in there - so, naturally, the display itself was excellent. Anna came along, which made it the best kind of ridiculous as we showed the village how loudly we could 'ooh' and 'ahhh' at even the tiniest little sparkles.

It was raining the sort of spit that meant you couldn't tell how wet you were until you went somewhere dry, and we faced the dilemma of trying to look into the sky, but being pelted in the eyes with water, leaving us both looking as though we had been crying ourselves into next week. (Thus lending a whole new level of literalism to the Flight of the Conchords: "I'm not crying - it's just been raining on my face...")

Afterwards, and after only one drink each, we came home because the pub was all kinds of crowded (not all of them the good kinds...) and somehow managed to go from philosophical conversation to drugless drug-style raving with improvised moves based on daily activities. We also jammed to a rousing rendition of the Joseph Megamix. I'm not sure I have ever laughed so much in my life; I headbutted a wall.

From the evening THIS plus a great number of ridiculous Facebook messages, including the Subliminal Penis Inclusion (when one attempts to penis include the word penis for male genetalia within sentences as one penis talks, with the aim of confusing the penis hell out of whoever's listening, additionally fun when typing, to draw attention to the penis best places for it to be placed.)

My favourite quote of the evening has to be: "So can you do that, just talk to me and put a little dick in?" Thanks Anna, and yes, yes I can.

***

Very few things epitomise ridiculous so perfectly as yesterday morning. There are days when one wakes up, full of the headaches of oversleeping and with all the honest intentions of ploughing out many and numerous Nobel Prize-winning essays and annotations of art work, only to have the opportunity snatched away from you on the cusp of personal fulfillment. Yesterday - Oh deplorable bastardery! - was one of those days.

Having woken up and found that I was in something resembling the 'working mood', I was promptly encumbered by the need to do admin. Most of the day was stolen by Santander's phone line and WH Smith's Customer Enquiry Services. If I ever get put on hold again, memories of yesterday will flood back to me, and the assistant will find me, when I am put through, weeping into my phone book.

Not a single sentence was written that morning, and the rest of the day was given over to watching Coupling and getting ready for the evening...

***

The evening. There was a bonfire the size of my house, a house the size of twelve of my houses, and a cabin with its own bar, a projector and a bloody sauna. But let me explain...

I met this chap Paul at the pub and, not knowing that he was practically God on the residential scale, greeted him with cheer and publy chatter while I was there. It later transpired that he had invited us out to his own bonfire party, which was held at his house - a gargantuan PALACE at the edge of the village. From personal observation, this dear chap Paul was not exactly the sort you would peg down as having a house the size of Toulouse.

So, when we arrived, I spent a few moments attempting to get my head around the luxury of the somehow Upper-Middleclasses (Experience, Anna! Closer already!) and then bumped into a couple of people that we knew, and all was fine and gosh darned dandy. Now, I had told my parents expressly that last night was for socialising, and I expected to see them both talk to at least ONE stranger at some point. (I have installed myself as something of a Relationship Manager, as per IT Crowd, for my parentfolk, who are simply some of the least socially adventurous people I have ever met. Our house is a fort, so are their social preferences.)

So, there were many schnapps and satay things and general noms, but these all came after the excitement that was the bonfire. I haven't ever been to a bonfire where there was an actual Guy - I had passed these off as a slightly violent and human-sacrificial tradition that people these days could generally not be bothered with - but there was one, and he was magnificent. His death was like something out of the Wicker Man. If he wasn't already an unconscious pile of stuffed fabric through smoke inhalation, there are no worries that the fire didn't burn him to a cinder. Often when I talk about fire, I am simply getting a little bit excited about matches and the mutant candle I ruin play with in my bedroom, but this was something else entirely. The fireworks, too, were spectacular!

Later in the evening, somebody broke out the guitar hero and singstar. First off, I cannot begin to play guitar (or even the easy level of bass) without getting very frustrated and growling as the song progresses. I can, however, sing to an alright enough standard, so I tried as much as possible to stick to that. It was great fun - the best score, I think, being 99% of Evanescence's Bring Me To Life. Oh so reminiscent, that song. My Padre did a stonking rendition of Tokyo Girl by Deep Purple, and sabotaged my (third) attempt at King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man - I literally rofl'd.

They also made me sing the Barbie part of Aqua's Barbie Girl at least five times. So many times.

We stumbled our way back, quite loudly, at half two, taking revenge for all the times people have unsubtly gone home from the The Compass outside my window.

It is now twenty-to-one, and I think my parents are STILL asleep.

In which I say boo to a goose...

Last night I slept a ridiculous amount - 7:30 right through the night - and, as I could have expected, I woke up with a splitting headache. I also woke up early, which meant I managed to blitz most of my recorded telly and some tidying before ten, at which point I began to get a little bored.

So I proposed to mein vati that we all go on a little jaunt down to Delapre Abbey, as I recently sent off an application to volunteer in their delightful little tea room.

The place itself is lovely; sweeping fields, gorgeous wizened old trees and a lake which, unlike that near Six Fields, is as clear as molten glass.

We wandered around the grounds and gardens for the best part of the afternoon, wading through the autumn mud, and being boggled at the burnt-up fishing tent we found by the lakeside before heading over to check out the tea room (where I saw a sneaky Robert Harris book which I covetted but which was not a BookCrossing book, so I could not has). It was small, but cheerful, though they spelled fruit 'friut' on the sign, which we had a little giggle at.

After this, and deciding that our stomachs were much too empty to be sated by potatoes or soup, we meandered over to the Toby Carvery on the way home and had some rather scrummy roasts and cherry bakewells with custard.

Interestingly, got asked for ID on ordering some cider. Now, I was, and have been since I started ordering alcohol with meals in pubs, under the impression that, at 16, you are allowed a glass of cider or wine if under supervision and with a meal. This seems to have changed recently as people have been asking for ID here, there and everywhere when they hadn't been before. Ironic, really, as I am older now than I ever have been, and yet am being ID'd more and more. Boo! Roll on adulthood, I say, roll it on!

Pub-times I

My father has managed, under the influence of a number of very fine ales, to drop the entire microwave full of rice all over the kitchen floor. Only after THIS intense failure, did we discover that my madre also forgot to actually set said rice to cook. Additionally, I have adopted a walnut from the pub, realised that the fact I get served anyway makes the first drink on my 18th meaningless, and eaten a little bit of raw rice.

Now, having scooped up some floor rice, all I can hear is my padre's whistling the batman theme song, and the sound of running water.

Sometimes, IL my family. :)

The Frankly Inconceivable.

Again, blogging when I ought to be busy dashing out essays and whatever, but I have just had my world rocked by change and it's taking some coming to terms with.

My dad has just pointed out to me the horrible (and hereunto ignored-by-me) truth that, while I may be excited by the prospect of university, it's heralding a rather traumatic change within the family at large. The discussion came down to - wait for it, and try to avoid cringing! - the dreaded C word.

Christmas. Now, in order for you to appreciate the problem, let me briefly explain the Eames Christmas Scenario as it has stood until this day:

The first mention of the C word (usually at around this time each year) has always been an event so unthinkable and undesirable because of the contention it aroused. There has been a long-standing tradition that we (mutti, vati and myself) spend Christmas alternately with each of the sides of the family. One year, down south with the Eames branch, the next, up North with Clan Draper-Halliday. This has always brought me great distress as, while I love the cosy tradition and formality of the Eames Christmas with a passion, my relationships with the Northern side of the family have always been fraught. Therefore, Christmas up North is one of the least bearable experiences of the year (I am not one for sitting about, shouting at one another with the TV blaring in the background on the birthday of Big J) - made palateable only by the prospect of its sandwiching on either side by Eames joy!

Now, with my mother being as ill as she has been, last Christmas was something of a no brainer: we stayed down South. Southern Christmasses are synonymous with a fairly large and lovely gathering, intense riddle and clue-guessing over presents and a sumptuously well cooked silver-adorned dinner.

This idyllic Christmas tradition, I have recently been told, is at risk of dying out, never to return. With both of my cousins splitting Christmasses among themselves and their long-term partners, and with us hopping from place to place each year, too, the list of regular guests is dwindling considerably. I cannot quite explain the lump of horror in my throat when my Dad explained that this year (if we were to follow tradition and descend upon Liverpool) there would be only my aunt, my uncle and my granny.

It seemed disastrous, catastrophic, and as though someone had snuffed out the candle of my childhood. Moreso when he suggested that, with such a small gathering, it might be seen more apt to go out for a meal, rather than having my aunt pursue her culinary magic! Not only would the tradition of a family christmas be stifled for the Eames family, but also the tradition of a proper, home-roasted Christmas dinner would be (possibly eternally) damned into non-existence.

I wept at the prospect.

As such, I have (naturally) formulated the most logical, fair and infallible proposition of our staying here this Christmas. One, frankly horrendous tradition sacrificed for the sustenance of another, much more affable one. If I have to stay here alone (and though I've said this before, this time I mean it) I shall.

So yes; while university is the sort of change which broadens one's horizons, it is important not to allow it to become the cut off point for family. Christmas is the one day in which childhood should endure as long as possible, and the day that feeling of excitement peters out, is one I'd rather not live to see.