Failing better

It's turned out to be a rather brilliant day, actually.  The Sage and I went over to Lowestoft this morning, various business things, but it all went fine - no reason why not, but sometimes things go awry and one has to note and be pleased when they don't.  And this afternoon, Elle and I went over to Norwich with the intention of seeing the new James Bond film, Skyfall.  We arrived at the Riverside car park and there was a massive queue at 3.30 in the afternoon, but the electronic sign promised 83 spaces in the Castle Mall carpark, so we decided to go to that cinema instead.  When we got to the desk, the 4 pm showing only had front row seats left, so we gave it a miss, bought tickets for 4.30, and popcorn, and sat down to wait.  Somehow, it seemed to be a Diet Coke moment, and while I was buying that (blimey, they charge enough, innit?) several more people came, rejected the front row and bought tickets for 4.30.

Ooh, it was good.  We both enjoyed it immensely, squeaked a few times, were heartily amused at the woman next to me who stated the obvious at various points in the film (eg "oh look, it's James Bond") whilst eating a massive tub of popcorn without offering any to her partner and then starting to chomp on a packet of crisps and headed off home, quite surprised to see that it was already 7.30.  I took the precaution of phoning the Sage to ask him to put the sausages on to cook.

As we left Norwich, we were surprised to see a big queue of cars waiting to get in off the ring road, especially the ones queueing for County Hall.  No idea.  As we drove through Boringland we were charmed to see the cheerful groups of children, each with caring adult or two, going Trick or Treating - I explained to Elle that no child ever braved our long dark drive on Hallowe'en.  And we got talking about spooky things and I said that if you didn't believe in any religion, how could you believe in spooks or ghosts and so on? And we agreed to take a walk round the churchyard.

"What are we eating with the sausages?" I said, the leftover ratatouille.  Ah, it seems that Elle had that for lunch....okay.  I've got vegetables.  That's all right.  In the end, it was cauliflower and peas and some potato crisps.  And I introduced Elle to brown sauce.  "There's red sauce and brown sauce, you eat them both with the same things, pretty well.  Liking brown sauce is a test of Englishness."  "What's in it?"  "Er, vinegar, mostly, I think."  Elle likes brown sauce.  She likes ketchup .... do you know, in Germany they call mayonnaise 'white sauce'?  I explained that white sauce over here means béchamel.  And we pretentiously call it, when mixed with ketchup, Marie Rose, which she thought was very funny.  As it is.

So, after dinner, off we set to the churchyard, and I led her around the church, then into the 'new' churchyard and I told her a few stories about people who I knew who had died, showed her the Sage's family's graves, then we went into the church and I showed her the organ.  And she sat down and played, and it was brilliant, really good fun.  I took some short films of her, but I haven't told her about the blog so I don't think I can post any because it wouldn't be fair.

And then we came home and ate trifle and the Sage has made coffee.  Tomorrow, I'm meeting Eddie Two-Sox in Norwich.

Oh, and I sketched a child's chair.  Badly, but it doesn't matter in the least.  Actually, it's truly rubbish and all on the huh.  I don't care.  I can draw.  Very badly indeed, but so what?  Next time, I'll still fail.  But maybe I'll fail better.