Funfairs and frivolity

Last night we went to a funfair. A steam-powered funfair.

What happened was, we went out to do some early Christmas shopping, and on the way met our friend Ingvar who was coming for the weekend to cook and teach Rob about phone switches. That was dandy. He turned around and came into town with us and we did some shopping and went home agian. Then he cooked us the most divine lamb thingy, apparenlty Thai-style. It involved lamb and coconut milk and garlic and onions and brown rice. Mmm.

The we toddled off to the funfair.

At the fair

First we went on the carousel. The three of us climbed onto horses and went round and round and up and down to some great tinny music coming out of the steam-powered orchestra (including organ). I had a marvellous time, and the two males didn't seem miserable.

Next, the chairoplanes (which were electric, but nonetheless great fun). By the time we reached the highest orbits, it was difficult to turn our heads to look back - the pressure on the stomach was woozy-making.

Ingvar won a cat-toy at the Strong Man hammer thing, and Rob made a coconut wobble at the coconut shy. Then Ingvar and I went on something called "octopus", which was terrifying, but wonderful fun. Rob sat that one out - the swinging boat had made him queasy enough, and he didn't want to risk it.

Also, we ate chips with salt and vinager and mayonnaise.

And we went on the dodgems, which brought out the beast in both of them - Rob (beside me) kept laughing like Beavis and Butthead, and Ingvar hunched low over his wheel, grinning demonically. We didn't have enough money to do that twice without forgoing other rides, so we skipped it.

We went on a Jet thing, where the rider had control over how high the cars went, and on a steam-powered swinging boat, where there was nothing that even vaguely resembled a safety harness. At the top of every swing, one's bum left the seat and one's stomach left the abdomen. Rob sat that one out as well, which was just as well - it left me dizzy and sick. Not scared, just unwell.

And eventually we all went home and went to bed.

Many phonecalls

This morning, after I woke up and sent Rob to get me a glass of water so that I could think, and then got up and made tea and coffee and left some beside a heavily sleeping Ingvar and brought some to Rob and got back into bed and drank coffee and read yet more Robert Jordan (it never ends! Never! and it's not even very good! Argh!) and got up again and got dressed and. . .

Anyway, after all that, the phone rang during brunch. I was going to dash out and answer it, but Rob reminded me that we have an answering service now and I could eat my brunch while it was still hot. So I did, and then I checked messages.

That call was from Rob's mum, Inger, to tell us that we can visit next weekend and we get to do a certain amount of messing about with boats, too, woohoo.

There was a message from my sister from yesterday about my mother's 60th birthday (neither I nor one of my sisters can go visit my mum for her birthday because I don't have money and she doesn't have time), so I phoned my mum and asked casually what she wanted to do for her birthday. She said, emphatically "Forget about it." So that's ok; I will call her, of course, and send her a gift (ooh, it's a nice gift we've chosen), but now I know that she doesn't really want me to go over there and make a fuss.

So I called my little sister to tell her about this, and then I called my sister the archaeologist to talk about books for her Masters and CDs for her computer upgrade. I may yet introduce her to newsgroups; she sounds interested.

Now I'm trying to get Rob to call his mum, and then I'll . . . stop making international phonecalls, perhaps.