Saturday 29 March 2008

ORK HQ - The Easter Lowdown!

The weather in London over Easter was cold, rainy, windy with snow flurries. In fact, a London newspaper reported this week that Retail sales were down over our long weekend break because the weather was so awful that everybody sane stayed at home.

Clearly there was no one sane in residence at ORK HQ: bad weather? Pah! Suck it up - we jump for bad weather! So instead of a long, warm and cosy weekend indoors, hugging a radiator with my knitting, Easter was a rollercoaster of mainly outdoor activities. Any members of the ORK HQ unit who flagged by the roadside were rallied by the sharp cry of, ‘C’mon, stop slacking - what do you think this is? A holiday?!’

On Good Friday, we braved the inclement weather to spend time on the South Bank up in London. This featured the acquisition of Blackie* the sheep, a few cocktails, a trip on the London Eye, a pizza at Gabriel’s Wharf, being seriously hailed on while lightening cracked fiercely overhead (survival rated over photography at that point) and then we jumped in a cab to Leicester Square to go see 10,000 BC (please, do not bother) before heading home for…yup, the start of the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

Photos of me and the kneeling girl
appear courtsey of Fella's Son (the camera shy one)

On Easter Saturday, we bundled Blackie into the car and took off around the M25 to Suffolk for a traditional pub lunch and a walk around Sutton Hoo, an Anglo Saxon Ship burial. You may have seen some of the antiquities from this burial at the British Museum. Well, after introducing Blackie to some older, rather more accomplished examples of metalwork and frogmarching ourselves around the mounds to avoid freezing to the grassy knolls, we trooped the 2.5hours back home again to…yup, continue the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

If you look carefully behind Fella, there is a faint trace of his camera shy Son

Easter Sunday and Monday whistled past in a full on frenzy of family, friends, a wagonload of food^, chocolate, DVDs, a visit to Hampton Court Palace and oh yes….continuance of the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

Centre right and bottom centre photos appear courtesy of
the ever elusive Son. Almost captured on camera, top left.


I would like to point out that I was not behind all of this energetic activity. While I was back at work after Easter, Fella and Son took themselves off to see the Dr Who and Terracotta Warriors exhibitions as well. Then, in the evenings, yes...more DVDs and Scrabble.

So I know, I know - where are the photos of my knitting? Good grief, with all that going on?!

Bah humbug, give me a break! Ohhh yes, preferably one somewhere nice and warm, with nothing to do except rest, eat, sleep, sip drinks, squidge soft golden sand between my toes, read and knit.

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Notes:

* Blackie: the sheep, as named by the Fella. It might be obvious but it could have been a lot worse. (Trust me.)

^ Food: while we did our best to protect Blackie from the grim reality of being a sheep over the Easter period (by focusing strongly on humans’ overwhelming love of fibre) it was hard for us to protect him completely from the rather delicious truth about sheep. After all, it is a tradition that goes back a very long way – it seems that the warrior buried with his horse at Sutton Hoo, was buried with some lamb chops in his satchel.

1 comment:

Brian said...

You make every holiday special G. I think it is because you want to see the people in your life enjoy themselves and share your vision of just how nice quality time can be together.

Did Blackie help us find out way out of the Hampton Court Palace Maze?