Torrential rain! Snow! Ice! Chains! Loot! Lib dems! Staves of Napalm! Dead babies! And Much, Much Mo
This birthday has been, without a doubt, quite probably the best birthday ever. I got up late, openned cards and presents, went driving (twice!) and went to Nando's with a couple of friends, after which everybody and Helen came back to my house and we had chocolate malteser cake and played Munchkin and chatted and had fun. I have got some really rather amazing presents, and seen some really rather wonderful people, and so far seventeen is shaping up to be just as good as sixteen was. Which is good.
The holiday was really rather wonderful too, despite, or in fact possibly because of all of the oddities. Various obstacles arose, ensued and were overcome, and included:
-my mother being stopped at the airport not only carrying several small bottles of opaque and sinisterly sloshy liquids in her hand luggage, but also a strange grey chemical paste that she claimed was shoe-polish
-having to put on snow chains at eleven o'clock in the evening in the snow and the dark without gloves or torches or instructions or much of an idea of how they worked
-a bizarre mixture of meteorogical circumstances that resulted in, at various different points, not enough snow, too much snow, too heavy snow, and rather a lot of rain; enough to not only soak through even my gloves and turn Deborah's and mum's into sodden lumps of meat-filled padding but to also soak through my skiing jacket and all three of the t-shirts I had on underneath. (My sallopets, on the other hand, kept the bits of my legs between my waist and the middle of my calves bone dry.)
-my new-found homing ability, which unfortunately seems to be set to 'snowdrift'. I ended up embedded in snow several times; repeatedly past the top of my boots, and once up to my elbows, on which occaision I also ended up losing a ski for several minutes. (Admittedly this wasn't really my fault; I was driven into a position from which I could eitherski into my father or into the snowdrift, and I took the path of least resistance 1, and then dug myself out and went to help him get back on his skis, during which time a helpful Frenchman brought down the pole that I had used to mark the location of my skis...
-our skiing instructor not really speaking very much English; my French improved in fluency almost exponentially over the week, but it was still below the utility threshold. However, he did speak some German, so that was okay - and lead an amusing hour during which I spoke only in German and French, and in which Lil Sis grew more and more irritated and amused by turns. (And also lead to various people assuming that German was my native language, which was very flattering but also quite suprising, given how limitted my vocabulary is...)
We had a lot of fun, basically.
This week has been pretty good too, barring my odd habit at the begining of the week to wake up earlier and earlier each morning in half-hour increments regardless of sleep had, so that on Wednesday morning, after only getting home at something-or-other-past one and getting to sleep even later I woke up at just after six. I have had a week of culture: on Tuesday I went to see Coram Boy with the English Department, which was very fun - the stageing was excelent, and more than made up for the lack of subtlety - and allowed me to talk to Bean (not the OSK character but a small, blond, cute first-year who is worshipped by much of my year, is well read enough to make me feel ignorant (Titus Andronicus at eleven?) and who knew my name) and to Alex (at one point the evil Sith kid; we hadn't talked at all, really, for the last year and a bit or so, and remembered on Tuesday how well we got on when we weren't contriving to be complete twits; we've both matured a lot since those days, and ae far more relaxed and take ourselves less seriously) and then walked home in the dark through the park at gone midnight with Alex, because it was a nice night and we didn't want to bother anyone by scrounging a lift. On Thursday I went to a politics society lecture given about parlimentar reforms by Lord McNally, head of the LibDems in the House of Lords, which was very interesting; and we were, apparently, the best student audience he had ever spoken to. (Even Mr Walker showered people with praise, which really says something...)
Tonight I went to a jazz concert at the High School, which was mostly organised by all_my_words; Carrie, Lucia and all_my_words provided the vocals between them, despite some microphone problems, and meine_kleine and I had great fun snarking at each other. I was also given several shiny presents, because my friends are really rather cool; I actually prefer late birthday presents to early ones, as it extends the period of feeling beloved significant segments of all and sundry, and is more unexpected. Rather than mention things individually now, I think I'll do a loot list at some other point - and I need to catch up on a rather long list of book reveiws, too...
All in all, a rather fantastic fortnight. I love my life.
1. A friend of mine once had to make a similar decision aged seven, where the choice was between a restaurant or a black-run. Mine was a lot easier...
The holiday was really rather wonderful too, despite, or in fact possibly because of all of the oddities. Various obstacles arose, ensued and were overcome, and included:
-my mother being stopped at the airport not only carrying several small bottles of opaque and sinisterly sloshy liquids in her hand luggage, but also a strange grey chemical paste that she claimed was shoe-polish
-having to put on snow chains at eleven o'clock in the evening in the snow and the dark without gloves or torches or instructions or much of an idea of how they worked
-a bizarre mixture of meteorogical circumstances that resulted in, at various different points, not enough snow, too much snow, too heavy snow, and rather a lot of rain; enough to not only soak through even my gloves and turn Deborah's and mum's into sodden lumps of meat-filled padding but to also soak through my skiing jacket and all three of the t-shirts I had on underneath. (My sallopets, on the other hand, kept the bits of my legs between my waist and the middle of my calves bone dry.)
-my new-found homing ability, which unfortunately seems to be set to 'snowdrift'. I ended up embedded in snow several times; repeatedly past the top of my boots, and once up to my elbows, on which occaision I also ended up losing a ski for several minutes. (Admittedly this wasn't really my fault; I was driven into a position from which I could eitherski into my father or into the snowdrift, and I took the path of least resistance 1, and then dug myself out and went to help him get back on his skis, during which time a helpful Frenchman brought down the pole that I had used to mark the location of my skis...
-our skiing instructor not really speaking very much English; my French improved in fluency almost exponentially over the week, but it was still below the utility threshold. However, he did speak some German, so that was okay - and lead an amusing hour during which I spoke only in German and French, and in which Lil Sis grew more and more irritated and amused by turns. (And also lead to various people assuming that German was my native language, which was very flattering but also quite suprising, given how limitted my vocabulary is...)
We had a lot of fun, basically.
This week has been pretty good too, barring my odd habit at the begining of the week to wake up earlier and earlier each morning in half-hour increments regardless of sleep had, so that on Wednesday morning, after only getting home at something-or-other-past one and getting to sleep even later I woke up at just after six. I have had a week of culture: on Tuesday I went to see Coram Boy with the English Department, which was very fun - the stageing was excelent, and more than made up for the lack of subtlety - and allowed me to talk to Bean (not the OSK character but a small, blond, cute first-year who is worshipped by much of my year, is well read enough to make me feel ignorant (Titus Andronicus at eleven?) and who knew my name) and to Alex (at one point the evil Sith kid; we hadn't talked at all, really, for the last year and a bit or so, and remembered on Tuesday how well we got on when we weren't contriving to be complete twits; we've both matured a lot since those days, and ae far more relaxed and take ourselves less seriously) and then walked home in the dark through the park at gone midnight with Alex, because it was a nice night and we didn't want to bother anyone by scrounging a lift. On Thursday I went to a politics society lecture given about parlimentar reforms by Lord McNally, head of the LibDems in the House of Lords, which was very interesting; and we were, apparently, the best student audience he had ever spoken to. (Even Mr Walker showered people with praise, which really says something...)
Tonight I went to a jazz concert at the High School, which was mostly organised by all_my_words; Carrie, Lucia and all_my_words provided the vocals between them, despite some microphone problems, and meine_kleine and I had great fun snarking at each other. I was also given several shiny presents, because my friends are really rather cool; I actually prefer late birthday presents to early ones, as it extends the period of feeling beloved significant segments of all and sundry, and is more unexpected. Rather than mention things individually now, I think I'll do a loot list at some other point - and I need to catch up on a rather long list of book reveiws, too...
All in all, a rather fantastic fortnight. I love my life.
1. A friend of mine once had to make a similar decision aged seven, where the choice was between a restaurant or a black-run. Mine was a lot easier...