Bear blog

Took a road trip to Crawley at the weekend. It was the anniversary of our first trip in Philip and was thusly terribly exciting.

 

I spent Friday night watching Dave peg his tent out with our griddle pan. Thwack, Pang, Twonk! Then I went wild and had half a shandy whilst I opened my brithday present from Darren and revealed my lovely new 'I'm making poo' t-shirt. Very nice, thanks D. And then after that there was a lot of sitting around not doing anything. Tried talking Miark around to putting on a treasure hunt (I think by the end of the weekend my constant pestering was begininng to have an effect. Maybe.) We met Greg's best friend Harvey and had a cuddle. I also got to show off my mad skillz at holding things while Darren put his new wheel together.

 

Next morning it rained. And rained and rained and rained. I got woken up by Harvey jumping up into the van for a cuddle after Pete had taken him for a walk. Then we all gathered in the van whilst trying to pick up the energy to head off to Tesco's for food. Against Darren's better judgement, we managed to bundle five people into his Mini. D got a bit grumpy at the fact that we had to move his bottle of water to get Miark in. That and the worry that we might be getting his interior all dirty with our shoes. Not that he's anal or anything.

 

Met up with Rod later on and had a good go at wheel walking. I think I might have made a bit of progress. My unassisted attempts seemed to go slightly better than they had at Millstreet. But only slightly. Rod, on the other hand, was zooming off and around one footedly in a terribly annoying manner. I fell off onto my arse at one point and everyone laughed. Grrr. I got my birthday glow balls from Greg and put the batteries n'stuff in all by myself so that they're extra special. Had a bit of a go with them after the show that night. They work. It's all good. Then Pete and I took Harvey for a walk through the woods. Or rather Harvey took me for a walk and Pete ran after us, snickering. It was fun. I want a dog that I can take for walks all the time, and throw things for and brush and show off to people. Sigh.

 

Alan turned up at some ludicrous time in the afternoon meaning that he couldn't make the most of the carparkiness and ended up having to pitch his tent on the teeniest bit of grass in the world. I met Carla, the bendy girl, and was horrified firstly by how bendy she actually is, and secondly by how she will happily pop things out of holes purely for the attention. Silly girl.

 

We went for a slap up meal at the Harvester down the road on the square roundabout. I had a whole shandy this time and coped very well. We had a really nice waitress called Clare. She liked the fact that I knew how to spell the name correctly too. Alan asked her to have a sit down but I don't think she was allowed. She didn't take notes of what we wanted either. She just remembered it all. And there were six of us. She was really good. Although she did forget to put sour cream on Darren's potato. But I still liked her. I didn't get to eat pudding cause none of the boys wanted any. Bah. Then we wandered back up to the theatre just in time for the show, and to meet Roger's sister and brother-in-law who were very nice indeed.

 

Now. The show. Everyone's going to have a rant about this so I'll keep it short. The acts were all cool and funky. I liked the pole act although it was perhaps a little too long. Zach Turner was very good, naturally. There was an absolutely fantiastic aerial act involving a man in ludicrously high platforms and an air hostess being stuffed bodily into a suitcase. Supremely entertaining. Maksim was good. There was funky acrobatics to ooh and aah at. There was the joy of seeing what started off as a Jazz Poi act pick itself up out of the doldrums and turn into a nice little bit of three club juggling. It made me realise how much of a dearth there is of good female juggling performers around. It's all very well watching lithe and lovely young girls flinging themselves about doing acro and aerial stuff, but occasionally all I really want to see it a woman showing that she's competent at throwing and catching stuff. Luke Wilson made the correct choice in deciding to do his exciting and stylish BUC act rather than his flat and lifeless EJC act. Even the whip act which I hadn't held up much hope for was entertaining.

 

So the only thing to complain about was the compering which completely mullered the atmosphere of the show, and incidentally freaked me out majorly by flashing willies and weeing on people's props. I wouldn't have minded so much that their skits were numerous and dull (although I will admit that they did have one nice idea with sticking their hands in bags, n'that) but they simply didn't do the job they were paid for. Not only did they not add anything to the show they actually ruined the atmosphere. There was an audible slump in excitement (and shoulders) whenever they appeared. They screwed up quite a few people's entrances because the audience didn't know when of if to clap. But what *really* annoyed me was the fact that they didn't introduce anybody. I spent the entire show going 'oooh! That was great. Who was it?' In fact, no. What *really* annoyed me was that they did actually manage to introduce themselves. Not impressed, at all. If I could remember their names I'd suggest that no one booked them again. Ever. 

 

We managed to miss the fire show. Yey! And sat chatting until we got kicked out of the theatre. Then we wandered for a bit. I learnt the words 'umbra' and penumbra' and used them for a bit. We were all terribly entertained by watching Roger try to pull a couple of girls who looked young enough to be his children. I dunno whether he was successful or not. I hope so, seeing as he put in so much effort.

 

When I woke up on Sunday it was raining. Barnesy and I wandered around looking for people and found them inside. I passed with Alan for a bit, relatively successfully. We didn't pwn triple singles though so something is very wrong there. After that I went to practice hockey skillz with Rod. Others joined us. I managed two or three decent swipes of the ball without falling off, although dribbling is still quite beyond me. Darren played rough and barged me off my uni onto the spiky gravel. And then smacked me round the head with his stick. And spat on me. He didn't even apologise. I've got a nicely mullered right leg now. Then it rained some more and we decided to go home. But then we spotted that Philip had dropped some oil so we stopped and Pete sorted that out. And then we really did leave. We got back home about five o'clock and collapsed.

 

Very nice, indeed.