The Clamour of the Lamb (Day Two Part Three)

We got back to the Hobbling Hayloft minus one Hobbling and pretty exhausted. I collapsed on the sofa. My recollection at this point is hazy as half of me swears that I had a cup of tea but the other half of me is certain that skit had a hot drink too... so it must have been hot chocolate. Yes, it was hot chocolate, made from actual bars of chocolate and large quantities of milk by biped and skit. I am certain that there were biscuits to dunk. I quite clearly remember biped's shock when she realised that dunking the biscuit enhanced its delicious qualities. She shared this fact with skit and me who were way ahead of her and dunking our second biscuit by that point. I also remember skit dropping the biscuit and realising how that possibly was a Bad Idea. We followed this up with a quick tea leaf reading session (but with the patterns the hot chocolate made on the mug instead of tea leaves) Trelawney would be proud of (though no one got the Grim).

And then I was back to work. I had to send Phil chapters the next day so obviously needed to actually complete them. I know I was being an anti-social grouch but there was no other way for me to keep my deadline (which I did, wehoo). From the kitchen I heard little snippets of conversation along the lines of “it's totally frozen!” “no, wait, this bit is okay” followed by hacking sounds and giggles and “well it might be all right...” along with “just don't let Keppet know.”

I was happy not knowing (well, not happy as much as worried about why the shading in my table was causing latex errors) and stubbornly kept to my wonderful red sofa.

A quick mention of the sofas. There was a three seater sofa-bed and a two seater and an arm chair so when Sky was not there we got one each and didn't actually have to come within Flying Fox wafting distance of each other. Which was nice. But we still all piled onto the three-seater with cushions to separate us now and again.

Anyway, 8pm came and I did my duty and turned the television on to Top Gear. They were driving across Botswana and in particular a salt-plain I believe they said was the width of Portugal. Apparently no one had driven across it before and so they were going to attempt to be the first (with locally bought vehicles). Of course, it turns out that no one had done it before because it is protected for being a unique and delicate ecology but none of that was mentioned in the show, it was just boys having a ball. And it was amusing and it was funny as long as you turned off your inner voice that cried out “they're such idiots!” all of the time. Richard Hammond fell in love with his car and he even named “him” Oliver and shipped him back to England. It did strike me that British telly is an odd thing because most of the good shows are about middle-aged men talking (HIGNFY, QI, Top Gear).

Then a miracle happened and I don't know how it did. But dinner was made. I was actually surprised at how quickly it was produced given the sounds of despair earlier (and the gravy granules all over the kitchen). And I was surprised at how good it tasted. Seriously delicious especially the lamb. We could never have got meat that good from the supermarket. It was perfect. We had the crab-apple jelly that the farm provided with it though the lamb really didn't need an accompaniment. It was so good.

And over. Pretty fast. There was a lot of leg left but it was still mostly frozen so it went into the fridge. A few potatoes remained and these were saved for Monday breakfast. I washed up and put my work away and joined biped and skit for a game of Save Doctor Lucky.

It was similar to Kill Doctor Lucky but with alterations that I could see were an attempt to make the game play better but, I thought, just made it more restrictive instead. I found myself actually moving myself and Doctor Lucky into a position that would help biped and skit just to get some excitement into it. Saving a guy and not killing him really wasn't in any of our natures and the aids were not anywhere near as good as the weapons. Soothing music was perhaps the best. No rival at all to Tight Hat.

Biped won. Of course. She can kill and save the best out of any of us.

With the game came a little logic puzzle that skit really got her teeth into. It was about women with terrible names and their bed-hopping husbands who may or may not have played cards as the Titanic went down.

One puzzle done and I was off to bed. We watched an episode of Due South as I relaxed on the sofa with skit and the requisite number of cushions. Then I toddled off to bed, utterly exhausted.