Quick (and long...) update on what's been happening since last Tuesday:
Tuesday 13th:
As previously mentioned, one year anniversary for Helen and myself! :D There was a plan to go out for dinner but we were both too busy so it was postponed; however I did turn up at Helen's house in the morning with my violin, and made some horrible noise for Helen, having quickly taught myself folk improvisation... I think she liked it though so it was all good :)
After an 'exciting' day at work, it was Cambridge time! Nothing exciting though, only an orchestra rehearsal, for the Trinity May Week Concert. A fun rehearsal it was too, we had no chairs/music stands at the start, and no music apart from for the overture. So we ended up spending one of the only two rehearsals on the first 10 mins of a two hour concert... All so well planned...
Anyway, it was slightly too late to come back to London after the rehearsal, so I appeared in King's bar to see what's going. Not much as it turned out, however I did have brief chats with Will, who was showing off how much he is going to be earning in the summer; and Eddie, who escaped to Cambridge from Warwick because everyone was dead there... (Sarah, you are still alive aren't you?).
After that I found my way to the King's engineers dinner to meet some friends, well, the dinner had already finished, obviously, but some nice person handed me a glass of wine when I walked in. 10 mins later I managed to stand on a wine glass and totally shatter it... that was clever... Anyway, I had fun catching up with my engineer friends again, and we went to Gardies too :D
Wednesday 14th
Having slept in Emma's room next to a mannequin (Emma was in Eric's room; and the mannequin was for Emma's ball dress making, apparently, quite scary...), it was back to London in the moring, straight to work! How exciting that was... dum di dum...
And in the evening - another rehearsal! This time for LOPO, who's doing a concert of Mozart Adagio and Fugue and Mozart Requiem, exciting stuff :)
Thursday 15th
Nothing exciting at work, but in the evening I found my way to Bromley South, where I met Helen and we had pizza for dinner:
... before meeting helen's dad for "Anything Goes" at the theatre. Very amusing musical, kept me laughing lots and lots, so it must have been good :D
Friday 16th
Yay, I didn't have work on this day! Instead, I grabbed my bag, violin and a suitcase and jumped on a train to Cambridge again in the morning :) guess what... it's another rehearsal! Well, before that, I met Hannah in town for lunch - we bought baguettes and went to sit on King's bridge eating, and laughing at ducks, as you do. Oh, we also saw cows mounting each other, and tourists attempting to climb fences, and failing. Exciting stuff :)
Rehearsal followed - the second and last one for the Trinity May Week Concert that evening. It was long, 4 hours, and involved the whole orchestra carrying all the chairs and music stands to the middle of Trinity Great Court and standing there looking silly for 10 mins.
Dinner was hugely exciting, I couldn't be bothered to think so bought the very same bagguette I had for lunch. Then it was off to Simon's room to get changed before proceeding to Trinity for the concert. It was all very posh, audience in black tie etc... the orchestra can easily feel under-dressed... Despite little under rehearsed, everything still went really well, I think... Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture is always fun to play, even though it was the 587487th time I've done it; Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 was new to me, but really beautiful. Amazing buffet was served during the interval:
The second half was far more interesting though - "The Lass that Loved a Student", an adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore. Here's a photo of the cast getting ready just before:
Doesn't that room look amazing :D Anyway, this adaptation of HMS Pinafore was extremely hilarious, especially if you knew the original story. The ship turned into Trinity College Cambridge, captain and sailor turned into the Master of college and a 3rd year mathmo, etc... I was being really bad, kept looking at the stage and missing entries, ah well, it was too hard to resist :)
An excellent party followed, but only after we all tidied up the hall and made the stage disappear, which took about an hour and half... so the party didn't get started until past midnight, crazy... at least there were lots of food and drinks - so much that by the end there were still 20 bottles of wine left over, so we each had to take one home... didn't complain :D The only photo I took at the party:
This time Emmy offered half of her bed (or one of her two bed, depending on how you look at it), which was very comfy :D
Saturday 17th
Still in Cambridge, obviously. Promised Hannah that I'd go see her play, and I woke up just in time, luckily :) I'm too lazy to describe them, so here's a paragraph stolen from the CULES (Cam Uni Light Entertainment Society) website:
At the very beginning of Mayweek we shall be delighting audiences once again with a veritable cornucopia of literary delights. See all those books you were forced to painfully dissect throughout your GCSE English literature be merrily disembowelled and glued back together in amusing shapes. The show "Literature, but not as you know it (better titles will be considered)" will include The Count of Monte Christo, Jane Eyre - the Westwood Remix, Pints and Parody and the slightly cross-dressed Oliver's Twists and Turns.
Jane Eyre - the Westwood Remix was the one which Hannah appeared in, as many different characters, including a lesbian school girl and a horse... Photo of Hannah as the lesbian school girl: (the shortest skirt)
So, that was fun :D The rest of the day was spent getting confused by a random band in the middle of Cambridge:
... , seeing King's friends, playing table-football, and meeting UCPO friends in the Castle (pub). And this time I even had Emmy's room all to myself, as she was out all night performing at one of the may balls... *not jealous...*
Sunday 18th
Another busy day in Cambridge! Got up in the morning (i.e. before noon) and walked across town to Selwyn College to meet my CYM/LSSO friend Daniel, for brunch :D mmm sausages :D After which he couldn't resist showing me the shiny new organ in Selwyn Chapel (which persumably he likes, seeing that he is the senior organ scholar there...):
The spiral staircase leading up to the organ was rather tiny and scary, I slipped on the way down and almost died, destroying a spider web in the process...
Next stop: Newnham College, where I met Hannah yet again, to delivery her birthday present. Also discovered her shiny iPod nano whilst there and had great fun turning the volume up and down and up and down and up and down and... It was REALLY addictive...
Aaanyway, I eventually got bored of the ipod (or maybe Hannah just hid it before I broke the volume control...). So we walked back to King's, where Hannah disappeared to go shopping, and I managed to find my friends on the back lawn - it was Fun Day! :D
And a video (wow, this is proper multimedia!) of my friends being extremely mature on the bouncy castle...
Hmm, I think my descriptions are getting shorter and shorter... maybe I'm getting bored by the length of this post and just want to get it done...
Anyway, after several hours at the fun day, it was time for the UCPO concert, which I had promised people to see (UCPO being my main orchestra during my 3 years at Cambridge). Fast forward fast forward...
Post concert party! Just like the one last year, we went to Queen's backs (random bit of grass), as it was somewhere where we couldn't get portered, and it was warm enough to be able to stay outside all night.
Nigel also returned to Cambridge for the concert, was nice catching up with him (Toby and Helen should remember him from the St Alban's - London trip :D). Some time after 1am, Emmy, Simon, Helen and I disappeared to Gardies for FOOD - well, Simon Helen and I wanted food, Emmy was more busy with collecting random posters from the streets:
Simon crashed into a lamp post...
Faction party happened in King's bar on the way back, where Emmy was being rather crazy :D
and Helen got pregnant from wearing my tshirt...
We did eventually return to the main party, which ended not long after that, which was kind of good, as I was intending on waking up early on...
Monday 19th
Well, the plan was to wake up fairly early and come back to London to see Helen after her morning exam. That didn't quite work out, as I was still in Cambridge by the time her exam finished... ah well, just had to do a 20 minute crash course in teleportation, and hour and half later I was at Tulse Hill! How magical :)
Now, I need to go sleep very very soon, so I'll attempt to write about the next three days in 2 minutes...
Monday, back from Cambridge eventually, had nice afternoon with Helen before she had to disappear for theatre. Tuesday, finally went out with Helen for our anniversary dinner, at the Mangosteen Thai Restaurant in Soho, very yummy food, very cute kid, and two pubs across the road showing the England Sweden game, was entertaining :D. Wednesday, nothing happened. Today, watched two episodes of Brainiac with Helen.
