Stuff What I Did Last Week
Firstly, the Wallingford Tour. Had a bit of a panic on Monday night when I realised I could not find my sash. In desperation I had a flick through my fabric stash and managed to find some velvet like fabric in roughly the right colour (I think I had it for a tattercoat) and ran up a replacement. It doesn't look or hang quite right but it did the job mostly (and it's making me really keen to find my proper one. Can't think where it is. I definitely brought it back from Middlewich and my room just isn't that big. Will have to have a huge sash hunt next weekend.
Anyhow, we didn't do many pubs in Wallingford and most were fairly empty but we got to practice a couple of the dances in a pub situation which is never time wasted and, after the brief moment of panic when we realised we didn't have quite the right numbers present for a confident side, we did pretty well. We did manage to break one sword, (it went in the middle of Triple Jumps just from bending so it must have been near the end of it's lifespan). Made a fantastic noise, closely followed by Angie yelling, 'is my shirt alright'. Fortunately, the only damage was to her actual arm and the shirt was fine so she was happy.
The landlord at the Coachmakers (where the sword broke) was very enthusiastic and kept saying we should go back. I'm inclined to agree. Wallingford is kind of our home ground and a good place to recruit from but we only seem to dance there on Tuesday nights when the place seems deserted. We really need to do a weekend tour and possibly Wallingford Bunkfest (which we did get offered a card for by someone in one of the other pubs.)
Bellowhead were awesome! Threw on a corset, skirt, the rapper sash pretender and my tudor jacket to be vaguely pirately and the spent the bus journey to London revising my presentation.
It was lovely to see everyone again and I got to sppend a bit of time chatting with folks before the band starting up. They ran through the whole new album (plus extras) and some old favourites and I was so busy dancing I forgot to take of my nice woolen jacket so I was a little cosy at the end but so worth it. Has to be said that the most memorable bit for me was Jon Boden's fiddle mic failing when he was supposed to be doing the solo bit in Sloe Gin and Sam Sweeney just casually picking up the tune for him while leaning nonchantly leaning against the wall. Plus Messers Boden and Sweeney nearly knocking themselves out on the ceiling while trying to do the jumps. Oddly, Paul Sartin had far less to worry about there...
Sadly, had to leave fairly early after they'd finished due to worrying about the interview but I'm so glad I went. Really looking forward to seeing them at Reading.
Revised my presentation again on the way home only to arrive in Oxford in apocalyptic rain and, can i just say, that wearing a corset in that king of weather merely funnels all the cold water straight down your cleavage while you're walking to your car! The drive home was quite exciting but not half as exciting as trying to find a route to work in the morning that wasn't completely flooded!.
Absolutely terrified in the interview. I ermed and ahhed and sang bits of Lillibulero. I cracked many jokes about building a nest in the trial filing cabinets to the point where my manager felt it neccessary to turn to the new personel officer and say, 'I don't really make my staff sleep in the filing cabinets' and I went through my presentation so fast I nearly ricochetted off the end. The test they made us do afterwards was writing a standard operating procedure on how to make a cup of tea and I had to spend most of the time trying not to be fascetious and may have gotten a little too detailed. (I like my tea a specific way if I have any say in the matter!) but I got through it and it was nice not to have it hanging over me for the weekend.
Anyhow, shall talk about the weekend in the next post.