(no subject)
So - on Friday night I went round to Olivia's house where, to help her relax from a hard week's work, I made her spend three hours drafting the Angel Film Festival terms and conditions. I repaid her with white wine and by making some tuna-pesto-pasta.
Dan had texted earlier that evening to say I should come round "so long as it's not too late and you're not drunk", so I staggered in around 11:30pm after a bottle and a bit of wine and demanded to be allowed to go straight to sleep.
On Saturday I had the pleasure of leaning out of my car window and saying to a passerby, "Hello. I'm looking for Cocking."
Cocking is twenty miles south of Haslemere. My car became a virtual boat getting there, so horrific was the weather, and idealistic dreams of driving through the countryside with the top down were realised in somewhat more practical form: driving in scarf and gloves, peering through the tiny porthole in the windscreen made by its feeble windscreen wipers. Our arrival at the rectory was somewhat ominously lit by sheet lightening, whose thunder echoed endlessly through the valleys of the South Downs.
We huddled around the kettle in the unheated kitchen and drank smoked tea.
In the evening we went to the excellent Red Lion pub on the green in Fernhurst. Somewhat fortuitously - as this was the only pub we could find open - we got a nice seat by an open fire, and tucked into some sort of game casserole and some lovely ale. We then drove home.
On Sunday, Dan and I went to the excellent Troubador in Earl's Court to say farewell to Alison before her six month adventure in Seville. The Troubador is a brilliant little pub. I had some excellent peppermint tea, a mountain of veggie lasagne and spicy apple crumble. Others ate other stuff, as I'm sure you can imagine.
In the evening, Dan roasted a guinea fowl and about ten pounds of potatoes and parsnip, and so I became very full on food. We watched Allo Allo and Part 2 of The Godfather Part 1. I can't say I have any idea what was going on in The Godfather - the cast looks alike, and they all seemed to get shot at some point or other - but it was excellent fun, and Marlon Brando's vocal impression of a hoover blocked with a canary was most amusing.