As mentioned previously, it was Alicia's birthday weekend (twenty this year - crikey, how did that happen?) and she had a fine time, marred only by the now traditional annual argument with her mother, but we shall draw a discrete veil over that I think. Other than that she had fun filling up her new iPod touch with music, apps and old black and white episodes of Doctor Who before we all headed off into town.
The annual Sheffield 'Off the Shelf' literary festival is on at the moment, so we took the opportunity to join in with a book reading flash mob that I had read about on Twitter first thing in the morning. At precisely one o'clock a performance poet with a megaphone started reading out a specially composed bit of verse and everyone who was in on the event stopped in place and started reading a favourite book for the next three minutes. My personal choice was 'Moominland Midwinter' and it was a rather lovely experience to get engrossed in my own little world amidst the hustle and bustle of Saturday shoppers for a brief moment. I'm not sure if any of the official photos have appeared on line yet but I'll link to them when they do.
After that, all Alicia wanted to do was have a mooch around the shops with a special excursion to Forbidden Planet to buy some Doctor Who tat, before ending up in Waterstones for an extended browse. We also watched a bit more poetry in the spoken word tent and snacked on some rather tasty free pakoras and Indian sweets that were being handed out. Nom.
Back home for an evening playing Rock Band and eating Jan's world renowned hot pepper wings and rice. Nom again. My mum and dad were up for the weekend as well, and my dad proved to be something of a wannabe rocker joining in on vocals on Deep Purple's 'Highway Star' (rapidly becoming mah favourite thing to play on guitar) and even having a go on the drums. Most excellent fun, enhanced even more by the big telly and the sound system with the Dobly digital cranked up to eleven. Thank goodness we live in a detached house!
Sunday, as mentioned, was gloriously sunny and the main business of the day was lunch at the Acorn Inn just up from our house. The food was plentiful and tasty (I opted for sausage, mash and onion gravy served in a perfectly hee-yuge Yorkshire pud - thrice nom). After that all I was fit for was to snooze off my calorie overload before packing up the car with all of the books and bits and bobs that we couldn't take with us when we took Alicia to her digs first time around, and driving back to Huddersfield as the sun slipped down behind the mist shrouded wind turbines.
All in all, an ACEBEST weekend, I would say!
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