a good day for moving along
May. 14th, 2024 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestI had visitors! nopseud and her other half, and ephemera came to stay for Eurovision weekend. We feasted on Swedish meatballs, English asparagus (and Dutch asparagus, which turned out to be irrelevant), Italian cannoli, French red and white wine and Austrian fizz, Portuguese custard tarts, and sweet pierogi. And much else besides. I didn't manage to do much to represent Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia or Georgia, though. Our local 'ethnic' supermarket is mostly a Polski sklep, and many of the products have no English labelling at all, so I had to avoid them as I'd have no idea (a) what they are, or (b) how to prepare them. But there were some fun things in there nonetheless, including honey gingerbread called Boromir.
Switzerland a deserving winner, Croatia deserved to do well, bit miffed about the Israel result, glad the Ukraine entry did well, disappointed for Finland, who were completely bonkers and deserved a bit more love from the audience than they got. My personal opinion of the UK entry is that it was well performed but too decidedly gay and not camp enough to work for a Eurovision audience. (I don't know why a Eurovision audience would love the camp and be uncomfortable about the gay, but I have a feeling that's what happens.) It'd be a decent music video, I think.
Anyway. It was fun, silly, and entertaining. With appropriate bevvies and things to nom, definitely a good evening!
We tried at several points but failed to see the aurora. Pity. And the cat deigned to approach a couple of the guests, but only if they were bribing her with ham or cheese.
*
On Sunday we went to Oxburgh Hall. Very attractive place, with some huge tapestries embroidered by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. These featured a crocodile, a somewhat fanciful rhinoceros, a byrd, an ostrich, and many other interesting zoological creatures. Walked around the woods in dappled sunlight from the many trees. Only real flaw to the place was that the tea shop was closed when we, having completed our walk, could really have done with a cuppa. To be fair, it was closing time by then.
(Iiiiinterestingly, got an email from the National Trust saying Thanks for visiting Oxburgh Hall. I'm not sure I approve of this.)
My chorus did a delightful WhatsApp thing, chiming in that it was indeed A Good Day, good morning sun, etc, as many of us were out and about enjoying the sunshine. T-shirt weather, yay!
Note: it was not Mothers Day in the UK.
*
In other news, after quite a bit of prompting—and eventually, propping the thing wide open—squirrels have begun to take advantage of the squirrel feeder. Now that they have understood they can open the food hatch, we have unpropped.
There is also evidence that they have been trying to gnaw their way through it.
nopseud and her other half, and ephemera came to stay for Eurovision weekend. We feasted on Swedish meatballs, English asparagus (and Dutch asparagus, which turned out to be irrelevant), Italian cannoli, French red and white wine and Austrian fizz, Portuguese custard tarts, and sweet pierogi. And much else besides. I didn't manage to do much to represent Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, Estonia or Georgia, though. Our local 'ethnic' supermarket is mostly a Polski sklep, and many of the products have no English labelling at all, so I had to avoid them as I'd have no idea (a) what they are, or (b) how to prepare them. But there were some fun things in there nonetheless, including honey gingerbread called Boromir.Switzerland a deserving winner, Croatia deserved to do well, bit miffed about the Israel result, glad the Ukraine entry did well, disappointed for Finland, who were completely bonkers and deserved a bit more love from the audience than they got. My personal opinion of the UK entry is that it was well performed but too decidedly gay and not camp enough to work for a Eurovision audience. (I don't know why a Eurovision audience would love the camp and be uncomfortable about the gay, but I have a feeling that's what happens.) It'd be a decent music video, I think.
Anyway. It was fun, silly, and entertaining. With appropriate bevvies and things to nom, definitely a good evening!
We tried at several points but failed to see the aurora. Pity. And the cat deigned to approach a couple of the guests, but only if they were bribing her with ham or cheese.
*
On Sunday we went to Oxburgh Hall. Very attractive place, with some huge tapestries embroidered by Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. These featured a crocodile, a somewhat fanciful rhinoceros, a byrd, an ostrich, and many other interesting zoological creatures. Walked around the woods in dappled sunlight from the many trees. Only real flaw to the place was that the tea shop was closed when we, having completed our walk, could really have done with a cuppa. To be fair, it was closing time by then.
(Iiiiinterestingly, got an email from the National Trust saying Thanks for visiting Oxburgh Hall. I'm not sure I approve of this.)
My chorus did a delightful WhatsApp thing, chiming in that it was indeed A Good Day, good morning sun, etc, as many of us were out and about enjoying the sunshine. T-shirt weather, yay!
Note: it was not Mothers Day in the UK.
*
In other news, after quite a bit of prompting—and eventually, propping the thing wide open—squirrels have begun to take advantage of the squirrel feeder. Now that they have understood they can open the food hatch, we have unpropped.
There is also evidence that they have been trying to gnaw their way through it.