Are you going to Scarborough Fair*

Our group was the only group with reasonable results in the practical today, am chuffed especially since a group with a Geordie, a Singaporean and a Chinese would probably expect to have the worst miscommunications. We had to measure the hypocotyls of little seedlings we'd planted last week, and that was pretty much it so I'm off early today instead of having to stay in that insufferable lab until 6. At least today it didn't smell of manure because we were only working with little innocent seedlings planted in cotton wool, bless 'em.

I went to Scarborough on Saturday with Audrey and Andrew because it was Audrey's birthday, and it was one of the best days of my life. We set off at 630 am (far too early in my opinion) and I slept all the way there until we reached at 10. Then we had brunch in a little cafe called the "Secret Garden Cafe". There we sat, three black heads among a sea of white heads (er? bad metaphor), giggling and having a huge meal among the three of us. I giggled foolishly as Andrew opened a packet of sugar and sprinkled some on each teaspoonful of tea he was drinking. Following his example, I sprinkled a little salt on each spoonful of soup and I don't know why, but then it just seemed like the funniest thing in the world, us three ruining the reputation of Asians all over the world (not that it isn't already in shreds).

After that we tried to act tourist-y and walked down to the beach where we contemplated buying spades and a bucket and building sandcastles and I took a couple of pictures of a man walking his dog (without his knowledge!), two black figures against the golden sea. They seemed so innocent somehow, the man striding slowly over the sand and the dog behind wriggling furiously in its efforts to keep up.

Scarborough beach is littered with arcades and we went into a few where I tried playing Dance Dance Revolution against Andrew again (the last time I did that was on a cruise to Paris!). I am so crap at it, got an E as usual, but we had a good laugh and took neoprints (my first neoprint taken outside of Singapore!) and had a little portrait thingy done in the style of Rembrandt. Andrew also played some gopher-bashing game which sent Audrey and I into gales of laughter.

We then went into the lovelist, most surreal ice-cream parlour ever, and had not one but THREE huge ice-creams between the three of us. The first was an ice cream cone more than 30 cm high, the second was a Knickerbocker Glory, and the third was a banana split with pear slices in the ice cream.
Andrew: I want the pear.

Me: Take it la!
Andrew: It's so exotic.
Me: Siao! You're more exotic la!
(Hysterics)

They were all heavenly, but by the time I'd finished the third one I didn't want to look an ice cream in the face EVER again, so we then trooped into a little place which served roast beef and I had roast beef and yorkshire pudding with peas and chips and creamed potatoes and Andrew had roast pork with the same whilst Audrey had buttered scones and looked on at us disgustedly.

We were stuck in the ice cream parlour
for quite a long time because it was snowing and hailing outside, and when we left weak in the knees with laughter I gave a little money to a kindly old man collecting money for a children's hospice who'd been sitting in the corner all the while and watching our antics. "I really wanted to hear the jokes!" he said, "Do come back next time and I'll save the table in the corner for you and call it the Laughing Table!" We were rather embarrassed at that!

On our way home, we played insane word games (Name famous people whose names begin with the last letter of the name of the previous famous person you named).
Audrey: Emily Dickinson
Me: Natalie Portman
Andrew: Neil Armstrong
Audrey: Grace Kelly
Andrew: Yeltsin
Cue loud protests and arguments over whether Yeltsin should be allowed.

Then we did it all over again, only this time with animals.
Andrew: Prawn
Me: Nit
(Protests)
Audrey: Turtle
Andrew: Elephant
Me: Tiger
Audrey: Rat
Andrew: Tiger... Prawn
(Loud protests)

We managed to amuse ourselves in this way for the greater part of two hours, sad isn't it?

In the end we reached Leeds all tired out and Calvin, Andrew, Diane and I had to convince Audrey to go to Calvin's house by a serious of tricks (Calvin: I'm very cold and I need to go home to get my gloves!) because Calvin and Diane had planned a surprise barbecue for Audrey. So there we were barbecuing as snow fell thickly around us. It was all rather surreal. But we had fun especially with Silas and Hao Ern around. Silas kept on imitating Patrick, the Zimbabwean guy in our church, who likes to say "WOOOOOOOurh! WoooooURH!"

Silas: WoooOOooURH! Praise the Lord! WOOOurh!
Hao Ern: WOourh! Woourgh! Hallelujah! Wooourh!

Patrick would proabably have a word or two to say to him.

And the lamb was good. *

I also bit into a crunchy piece of fat...**

Visible spurts of smoke came out of Hao Ern's mouth when he laughed.***

And Silas was acting like a real monkey.***

The next day was church and everyone was visibly knackered, my stomach muscles were actually hurting from having laughed so much and a cyst was developing on my eye from all the unhealthy food. But after church we all went to Roundhay Park
for a bit and I raced Vincent to random trees and raced Silas to random cars and after that we were leaning on Wee Leon's car all panting and smelly and laughing.

So I had a good weekend, hope that this week will be good as well.

*Made Silas and I laugh.

**Made Silas laugh.

***Made me laugh.