Karohemd's World

Don't have the time to do a proper photo post so please click the pics below and then on the flickr sets (or directly to Ely Cathedral and Random Cambridge photos, both of these contain older pics).

Saturday
started lazy with sleeping til very late in the morning. Then I prepped some food and tidied a bit before driving to Ely.
I got there early and took my camera along to take a few photos of the Cathedral and grounds. There was a service in progress so I couldn't take many inside. I briefly thought about having a quick bite at a pub but wasn't really hungry so I didn't. Around 7, I joined the queue for the Lady Chapel and waited and waited until the doors were finally opened. The Lady Chapel is a nice open space with huge windows which meant the "stage" i.e. the altar steps were bathed in the light of the evening sun. For a moment, I was happy to have managed to get a seat in the front row as I thought I'd be able to take some photos but then the [cathedral official] came on and specifically stated that the use of cameras etc. was prohibited. Bum. Oh well. But his description of the evacuation procedure was funny ("in case there is a problem but we haven't had a problem since 1329").

Then the Mediæval Bæbes came on, in long, white, figure hugging gowns (yep, definitely babes, I think my favourites were the black haired one on the left with the two flowers in her hair, the one in the Bettie Page fringe and the redhead). There were also three musicians, one bloke kneeling(!) in front of a variety of drums, a woman playing an old-style violin, hurdy-gurdy and a variety of flutes/recorders and another bloke playing guitar, lute and bouzouki (or was it a cittern?, I'm not sure). According to the song, some of the babes would also play instruments like recorders/whistles, violins or tambourines. Quite a lot of talent on that stage.
Two sets and an encore (involving two costume changes) of wonderful music, beautifully sung and played. The Lady Chapel was a perfect setting, first in the dying daylight and then in the understated floor lighting throwing interesting shadows on the walls. I was really miffed I couldn't use my camera as I'm sure I could have gotten a few good shots.
During the break, I ran into nevla and purchased the live CD (which is very good indeed and a nice reminder of the evening).

When I left through the main cathedral, there were only a few lights on the lower walls, which meant the huge columns disappeared into the darkness above, making it almost look like the huge hall in Moria in the LotR film but with a thankful lack of goblins and Balrog. Still impressive.

I didn't hang around after the gig as I was getting tired and wanted to stop over at hardcore_genki's BBQ so I drove home, had dinner (the BBQ was cold already), packed Dippadoom™ and headed to Bar Hill. As I arrived most of the guests were leaving so with only the hosts, sesquipedality and razornet left, we played on the wii. wii tennis is a lot of fun and I didn't do badly at all (which is surprising because I usually suck at console games but the wii remote just works really well in this game) but the other games were less easy for me. The cow race is hilarious, though. What are those Japanese on and where can I get it? Drove home at around 2am and fell into bed.

Sunday
was equally lazy. I first slept in, chatted to jupiter_jones a bit, made some marinated courgette/mushroom skewers, packed the meat and headed to Bar Hill for the second session of the BBQ. It was very mellow and filled with lovely food. raggedy_man marinated some beef in maple syrup and honey which I thought would be far too sweet for my taste but turned out to be gorgeous and there was some smoked cod from nekofairy666. I also had a marinated beef kebab I had bought at the Art of Meat and various nibbles. My spicy pork steaks and veg skewers were all gobbled up hungrily. Happy me.
faerierhona turned up with hardwired who proceeded to set fire to pieces of chicken (literally, the chicken was actually on fire, not just charring).
Pleasant and fun conversations in the Zenebo ended a wonderful day which the five minutes of rain in between couldn't disturb.

In the evening, I caught up on online things, watched Apocalypto (OK, meh) on rented DVD and Bulletproof Monk on Channel 4 (much better), went to bed and didn't sleep very well because I was feeling a bit icky.