My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

Before I get dragged down by today, I have to tell you about last night. Rotten day, but, oh, the night. Ended up at The Spiegeltent in Hyde Park (our one, not their one) to see the one and only Amanda Palmer, who only just made it, having been snowed in oop north. For a girl who just got off the plane she was rather glam and very nice. She even came out to sign the merch, barefoot and in a yellow silk dressing gown. Gotta love her.

It was grand, too. Himself even broke out the red velvet jacket (how very Pertwee of him), the one that stopped traffic in London, but which I'd not yet seen, and the red embroidered waistcoat (whereas I was making do with my M&S dress, the one I loved but was put down so thoroughly at that other place, being told that if she wore it, the little miss, it'd be much too much and attention grabbing with her good figure and posh shoes and perfect hair, but scruffy old dowdy me dressed it down so much it was barely noticeable and very ordinary. Thanks for that).

So, red velvet, circus tent (eventually, and fie and fie on that ridiculous old woman who let an entire bus load of people in front of us in the queue, who'd never even heard of AP and would be better off sticking to box seats at the opera, harumph, but at least I could bitch and moan and talk Sherlock and Who and Hobbit with the girls I was squashed into behind me) and Amanda Palmer. On stage. At last. (well, it seems an age though it really isn't).

In she walked, just in yellow silk, ukulele in hand, to knock us back in our seats for a (mostly) one woman show with just a keyboard and the ukulele. What a set! What a performance! Sad songs to break the heart, silly songs to smile over, lots of Australian songs from her Australian set (she does seem to love it here). Himself hurf derfing over the Vegemite song, me nearly breaking down during the really downer song.

It was just a magical moment. Back in time for tea and Jack Whitehall on the telly. Ok, that was the best birthday treat ever.
( more: magic, rubber ducks, dwarves and dragons )

Still with the allergies in extremis, and hacking away at all the weeds and scrubbing away at the mould is supposed to help but in action is really, really not. Didn't get to the scanning as planned because the weather report said apocalyptic storms At Any Minute! What we got was a sprinkle of rain that would have struggled to dampen a tissue.

Instead I'd settled down to the classic old Hitchcock version of 39 Steps and a wicked box of chocs, achieved because I'd idly bet a box of chocs on a completely predictable outcome to the Newsroom finale (yay) and Himself thought he'd better pay up after my rant about other people welching on a bet made fairly and squarely and even written down. I reserve the right to use this further example of lowdown dirty behavour as irrefutable proof that the sods are indeed villainous scum deserving of my scorn and contempt. Fair enough, right? I mean, what would Nucky do?

So, after some frantic drudge work, me, couch, chocs and the wonderful Robert Donat. Hey, a gal's gotta have some happy time. It is the best version of the tale ever filmed, I really love it, and so ripped off some scenes were they were almost unfairly comical in a 'that old trope' kind of way, even though this was the original, or near enough. There were two scenes seemingly straight out of Bond flicks that had me thinking 'hmmmm'.

Okay, so I wasn't watching it properly (I blame the boxset of Rifftrax I was sent on Friday) but it was all 'Richard Hannay, confirmed bachelor' after that sculpture in his hallway, and the scene where he and Mrs Scottish Farmer stare at the page of the newspaper in horror, the page advertising HP Sauce, which got us onto HP Sauce speakeasys and Nucky standing on the beach while squarish bottles tumble ashore. Like I said, not watching it properly. Being very silly. And loving it.
( more: I think you're experiencing Captain envy )