Mahinda’s Little World

Reading up from last year’s Cheltenham Mike-and-Pam-fest, I don’t think this year’s flavour was quite as interesting. Definitely fun, though!

So, Saturday morning. I awake, groggily as per usual. Not hung over, but only because I’d picked up a nasty cold and had spent the best part of Friday in bed.

Load up the car - as well as my overnight stuff and beer supply, there were Pete, Sarah and Rosy’s…and a certain amount of culinary equipment and ingredients to be carted down, too.

I picked up Si and Adrian, just about on time, and hit the M56 around 1pm. We made good time (I spared no horses) and got to Mike and Pam’s flat just shy of 3pm.

I had some anti-cold stuff and headed straight into the kitchen, where Pam and I knocked up some serious foodage:

• Thai-ish Chicken Curry
  Pretty much an Indian-style coconut-based curry, but with lemongrass, galangal root, ginger and fresh coriander. I made medium and hot versions, to suit all tastes.
• Pam’s Monster Chilli
  Standard chilli really, and nicely done. Served with taco shells, grated cheese, guacamole and sour cream stuff.
• Coconutty Carrots with Mustard Seeds and Turmeric
  Exactly what it says on the tin. Except that nothing came out of a tin.
• Saffron Rice
  Basmati rice. With saffron, a bit of ginger and some left-over coriander.

I think there were 13-15 people eating. Let’s see…

Pam, Mike, me, Si, Adrian, Jenn, Jonesy, Matt, Emily, Chris, Sarah, Kate, Linden and Rob

14. And Shifty had a huge plate of leftovers when he finally did arrive. It was the usual crowd of old friends, which is always nice.

Once food was out of the way, and the leftovers carried away by dint of The Kitchen Conga*, I finally got to drink some beer

* Can’t make friends with saa-lad [kick!], Can’t make friends with saa-lad [kick!]…

Beer was consumed, and we headed to the pub for more. Much conversation, once we’d rearranged sufficient furniture for two large tables of us. We talked about classic 80s (etc.) films that Dr.Kate hadn’t seen, and realised that I just don’t watch any American shows with monosyllabic titles, e.g. Spooks and Bones and Lost…until this was negated by Scrubs and Friends. Bugger.

CAMRA Amy and Olly (Oli? Olli?) turned up, which was nice. It’s great to see that Amy’s doing alright these days.

Eventually it was back home for much more drinking, away into the night. Colin and Nicola turned up, as did Pete, Sarah and Rosy, who’d been away at the Good Food Show.

Many of Pam’s am-dram mates turned up, and I seemed to spend lots of the evening chatting to randoms. I tend to do that, I suppose. There were two couples there who could have been brother and sister, so similar did they look - spooky, and nowhere near Norfolk! Mind you, not too far off from the West Country, so…

Some of the randoms had come from a (not very good, apparently) ‘C’ party, hence the lab-coat (chemist) and the two-cans-on-a-string (can-can). There was also a girl who had several silver rosettes stuck to her front…I was actually sad enough to recognise Cassiopeia straight off

People drifted off around 2ish, I guess, leaving us to look up the Ashes score on Teletext. Not good. About then, the cold really hit me and I had to get some rest. After some wise prompting from Pam, I headed off to the spare room to beg Emily for half a double sofa-bed. And a small double sofa-bed at that. I had to settle for a third in the end, pretty much sandwiched between Em (who moves around quite a bit in her sleep, it turns out) and Mike’s drum kit. Nice. The cold kicked in - hopefully Emily didn’t catch it - and I had an awful night’s sleep.

Also, I think I’ve blogged this before, but I’m really no good at sharing a bed with people. Just having someone sleeping that close to me means that I wake up frequently. It’s the same with sharing a tent. I suppose it’s because I’m just not used to it, being perpetually single and all that. Ho hum.

Sunday

After a few false starts, I decided to get up and get showered. I wasn’t going to get any more sleep. I left Emily sprawled across the bed, fairly asleep, and stumbled around the place. Everyone else was asleep, which is pretty unusual - I’m usually last up at parties like that, just because I’m usually knackered.

Demankification happened, and I joined the dead bodies in the living room, eventually finding "The Story of Football" on the shelves. It’s a GREAT book, being a pretty comprehensive history of the game up until the 70s. Plenty on Arsenal’s general sordidness and Tottenham’s glory (glory) years to keep me happy

I checked the Ashes score on my phone, expecting bad things, and was stunned to find that Pietersen and Collingwood had blitzed 160-or-so runs in a session-and-a-bit. Nice. There were even clouds spotted within a in time zone of Brisbane!

People awoke, and it was off to a trendy champagne bar, Bentley’s, for lunch. The sort of place that’s frequented by monied oiks of a Saturday night, but decent enough during the day. Soft drinks were consumed.

Headed back to Mike and Pam’s eventually, bumping into Cassiopeia and Can-Can on the way - most of the others had no idea who they were - and hit the road. Si, Pete, Rosy and Sarah were in the MahindaBus (MkII) this time, with Adrian fortunately getting a lift with Cattac.

Got home, and pretty much headed to bed. After watching much hot lesbo action courtesy of Torchwood, of course. Lovely.