The Cheerful Insanity of Me

Yesterday was fun.

Was a bit worrying at first when at 10.05 I seemed to be the only Gog there 10 minutes before the procession. Hoddeston offered me a kazoo, so I could process on my own though. The rest of the side arrived shortly after that though, so I didn't have to resort to that.

It was the first time they'd asked me to call a procession, which was quite fun and seemed to go reasonably well (we didn't have a lot of music, so it was a little difficult to hear). Not sure what the rest of the side thought of it, but I was fairly happy with my calling for it. We seemed to keep a fairly consistent distance from the team in front, did a reasonable number of figures where there were large bunches of audience and they all seemed to hear me ok.

We did our spot in the main display, which seemed to go ok. It was a bit of a shame that the audience had thinned out a bit by then though (then again, that will partially be the sides earlier in the display disappearing off and it's difficult to maintain interest of shoppers for 9 dances).

The rest of the afternoon was a fairly relaxed affair going around with Bedfordshire Lace and St Alban's Morris Men. The spots were only 30 minutes, so we got about 3 dances at each. I wasn't convinced by some of the spots as Christopher Place and especially outside the Cathedral seemed to be away from the crowds (there was pretty much literally no-one but us at the latter), but then there are limits on where you would be allowed to dance and the market was taking up most of the main shopping area in the city centre.

Had lunch between the displays and the first spot, so during the actual lunchbreak I ran off to the amazing tea shop next to tourist information, which morganmuffle has introduced me to when I went up there in May, and dragged half of Molly with me. Actually, I think I managed to drag all of Molly, but only half stayed for tea, the other half opting for the pub instead (admittedly a difficult choice).

Turns out it's a really good thing to post details of where we'll be dancing on here, as jinglebellafeed turned up at the Cathedral spot bearing many ice-lollies. If you ever want to know how to make molly dancers happy that's a good way of doing it *subtle hint for anyone else reading this*

We only did one dance at the last spot, as people had to run off, but it was quite interesting to see Wicket Brood doing a version of the Mississippi Mud Dance (one we nicked ourselves from Ouse Washes), but with Sticks in Border Style.

To make things even better the weather remained hot and sunny until we finished dancing and only then did it start the thunderstorm :-)

Stomp were amazing as ever in the evening.

All in all a good day and I seemed to have endless amounts of energy. Still seemed to have plenty left after the whole day of dancing, plus the 4.5 mile walk back home from St Pancras. Think I must be getting fitter again, which has got to be a good thing given I was feeling a bit unfit dancing back in April.

Feeling more tired today, but it's more "lack of sleep" tired rather than "lots of dancing" tired, which also makes sense as I can only have got around 5 hours of Friday night and didn't get home and to bed until about 3 am last night.

Rounded off the weekend with a trip around the Tower with miriammoules today, which was nice. Once again, managed to escape without having my head cut off, which has also got to be a good thing.

There seems to be a thing going round facebook at the moment with people listing what they're thankful for each day for a month, perhaps I should just be thankful for not having my head cut off each day for a month... That is rather reliant on me not having my head cut off though, so I guess as I can't tell the future I'll leave it, especially given Thrales will probably make attempts on it. *crosses fingers and acquires large amounts of duct tap just in case*

Then again, perhaps I'd get a sainthood the same as Alban did for having his cut off? Do you think they'll mind that I'm not Christian like he was?

NEXT TIME ON THE WEEKEND LIFE OF A hmmm_tea: Touring the Borough with Thrales on Friday, followed with being at Paddington at 7.45 am on Saturday morning (ouch!) to go off to Chepstow for the weekend dancing with Wild Hunt.

On the subject of theme tunes, I might have to adopt this one...

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(via alagbon in teafreaks)

This is excellent:

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(via alagbon in teafreaks)

So according to @qikipedia on twitter, "In Britain in 1993, three people needed hospital treatment as a result of an accident with a tea-cosy."

Thinking, I'd respond with the quote in the subject line, I had a quick look on google to see who said it (turns out it was Billy Connelly. It does sound like the sort of thing he'd say.), and found this:



Available from Ringtons - £7.95

Would it be excessive to buy myself a third tea-cosy?

Someone at work has brought in Canadian Icewine Tea today.

Ingredients: Pure Ceylon Tea, Nature Identical Icewine Flavour

It's, erm... interesting

It tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike icewine.

In fact it tastes more like Ceylon with artificial peach, apricot and (bizarrely) strawberry flavours.

Beefeater have just released a new premium gin, Beefeater 24.

The botanical mix includes both Japanese and Chinese teas.

This has to be a good idea!

Tried it last night and the tea flavour certainly seems to come through and complements the citrus and corriander notes.

Must get some.

B&Q to stop selling patio heaters

Definitely sounds like a good move, but it is interesting to note:

The Energy Saving Trust has estimated that a propane patio heater with a heat output of 12.5kW will produce around 34.9kg of CO2 before the fuel runs out (after approximately 13 hours). This is equivalent to the energy required to produce approximately 5,200 cups of tea (or 400 cups for every hour of operation)

Hmmm, keep warm outside for 13 hours or have 5,200 cups of tea? I think I know which one I choose...