ELL'S EASTER

I was relieved when term was over as I felt very tired. It was a beautiful day when I returned home - for a few days I even dared hope that possibly the spring was coming! Poor naïve fool! One of the good things about being British this that you grow accustomed to being disappointed by the weather!

However, it was perhaps an ill wind as I really needed to revise - what fun! (No - I cant actually feign excitement over revision - I apologise.)

Still, Easter day itself was all right and I enjoyed being able to eat sweets again after the long, long Lent. I rather less enjoyed having my Dad sit on my glasses on Easter day, rendering me blind until the Tuesday. Nor did I enjoy losing spectacularly at Scrabble round my friend’s house. (Not surprising - I imagine the board isn’t big enough for the sort of words you’re fond of - (z)Ed.)

I saw many films over Easter. At home I saw Bunuel’s "The Exterminating Angel" and "The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgoisie" (which cracked me up - I especially enjoyed the bit where the guy is eyeing the pretty girl on the street and the ambassador takes out the gun!) and "Temptress Moon" which was beautiful.

The cinema offered rather less intellectual and artistic fare. I saw "The Tailor Of Panama" (v. good - or v.g. as the next protagonist would say (write rather)) and "Bridget Jones’ Diary". I was quite surprised as I laughed. It was entertaining even if it did have Colin Firth in who must be the worst actor to have graced our screens in recent years. He has two expressions - brooding and tender brooding (exactly the same but with a smile). He has one all-purpose tone of voice and that is it. Finally, I saw "The Rugrats In Paris" (very funny! I loved Madam la Bouche!!) This I saw with the child for whom I child-minded.

Now, the image of children is one of sweet and beautiful innocence. Occasionally you are refreshed by hearing about how exasperating they are. But why does nothing prepare you for how purely BORING small kids are?

"Do you like Pokémon?" "No." "I do - it’s really fun." (Repeated about eight times a day the time I was there - ad verbertum). "Do you like my house or your house best?" (This is a silly question - my house has my books, a phone I am allowed to use, my cats, my videos, my garden; his house his none of these things) - repeated about twelve times. (I was only there for 8 days!) "What sweets do you like best?" "Chocolate." "I like these best, they'’e yummy." (Repeat every time he had said confectionary - often!) “Do you like cats or dogs best. I like dogs - you can play with them." (Last time I was there, he preferred cats - small children are fickle as well as everything else!) He was an intelligent child, but did he ever talk about school or anything vaguely interesting - hardly ever! How I longed for adult converse.

Still, I got paid. And he wasn’t a bad kid - he at least did what he was told and wasn’t horribly spoiled like a lot of them. And he had a Sega console (why did they go out? They were so cool!) Which I prefer to the Nintendo as it’s only in 2D. So after a suitable period of revising I would relax by playing this. (15 minutes of revision : 45 playing was a good ratio.) And I got up to level 57 in Columns! (The child thought this game was boring - philistine!) And beat my previous best in Sonic the Hedgehog, though I’ve sadly lost touch in Mega Bomberman. Kids may be dull, but they have got the best toys!

Spoke to En on the phone. She rang and I had to ring back and we spoke for nearly an hour - the look on Dad’s face when he realised it was our call was priceless!) And I went to Cambridge (got the complete letters of Oscar Wilde for only £15 - £35 is the regular price!) and Ipswich. Not a bad break.

EN'S EASTER

Work

Operated a switchboard for a few days for an ice-cream & frozen food company. I thoroughly enjoyed this experience because the other staff there were nice & I got some free ice-cream. Yay!

Then worked as a receptionist for about a week for an engineering firm. Everyone there was kind & helpful, despite the fact that I had had no previous experience of receptionist work. Fortunately, I think I did reasonably well at it. Most embarrassing aspect of that job? Having to put out calls over the tannoy. I had to be heard all over the office & the warehouse so I practically had to shout out people’s names. Proof of my lack of experience in this area was when I found out that the workers in the warehouse had nicknamed me Anne Robinson (in Weakest Link mode) because my voice sounded so stern!

Other happenings

Didn’t really get much revision done except for a bit of Spanish grammar & some Intro To Law (because I really want to change to Law next year).

Applied for my driving licence. I am going to learn to drive over the summer hols.

Went to see Bridget Jones’s Diary with my friend V. Twas not a classic but it was pretty funny.

Caught up on old times with my childhood friend, Rh.

Ate lots of Crème Eggs.

‘Phoned various friends in an attempt to stay in touch.

ZED'S EASTER

The first two weeks of my Easter holidays were most enjoyable (despite being apart from my beloved sisters and B), but there is no way in which I can write about them to make them sound remotely interesting. The only vaguely significant events were meeting up with S (we went shopping, she traitorously spent far too much at The Gap and we saw "Miss Congeniality" at the cinema), having a fifteen-second-long dental appointment (after a fifteen-minute-wait) and nearly crashing into an oncoming car whilst overtaking a tractor. The rest of the time was spent doing battle against the accounts of my parents shop, revising, reading ("Self-Made Man" by Poppy Z. Brite, "Exquisite Corpse" by Poppy Z. Brite, "Emotionally Weird" by Kate Atkinson, "Behind The Scenes At The Museum" by Kate Atkinson and "Human Punk" by John King - all highly recommended), watching films ("Gregory’s Girl" and "Gregory’s 2 Girls" - the first highly recommended), writing stories, talking to B over the Internet, and playing board games with my family.

In the final week, however, things took a turn for the more exciting when I went to Sittingbourne to visit B. The journey was both expensive (at £52!) and harrowing. Changing train at Crewe posed no difficulty for a seasoned traveller like me, and the tube wasn’t too crowded, but I reached the conclusion that trains are definitely biased against short people. Even in my New Rock boots, at 5’6", I was unable to put my luggage on the overhead rack without assistance. Also, at Euston, I had to go down a v. long spiral staircase. Given the weight of my luggage and the bulkiness of my shoes, this would have been bad enough under normal circumstances, but I had to walk behind a young girl who insisted on descending very, very slowly.

The first evening at B’s was mostly spent watching television. (I’ll spare you the details of what occurred the rest of the time.) The following morning, however, meant getting up at 7.40am, in order to go to the dentist. Isn’t one visit in the course of ten days enough? Fortunately, I didn’t have to have my teeth examined, so I merely sat in the waiting room reading the 1992 Judy annual. I was most distressed by it declaring Duran Duran "well cringeworthy".

In the afternoon, B and I travelled with his parents to Canterbury, where we acquired a present for his brother D (whose birthday was the following day) and two computer games: "Simon The Sorceror" and "Simon The Sorceror II". So much for my plan to conserve money this term. In the evening, we had dinner with B’s stepsister and her fiancé.

Thursday’s sole excursion was to Asda. However, in the evening, a murder mystery evening occurred, in honour of D’s birthday. Eight people acted as the suspects (B had to wear a suit! What novelty! One of the few things that Ell, En and I all agree on is that men look good in suits. B merely looks like someone else, though) and we spent a couple of hours trying to work out whodunnit. That, and trying to work out how to pronounce the name of B’s character. How would you say "Thomas Banque"? Precisely: Thomas Bonk. He continually insisted it was "Ban-kee", though.

Friday heralded a return to B's student house in Canterbury, where we tried to see "Rugrats In Paris". (Canterbury, not his house.) (As you can probably tell from Christmas Stalker, B does not mind watching films designed for persons far younger than him.) Unfortunately, it was on an hour earlier than we’d thought. However, the mission was not entirely unsuccessful, for he acquired an unabridged reading of "Soul Music" on cassettes for £15, when it should have cost £44.50!

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon feeling increasingly frustrated with the slowness of the computers in the downstairs computer room in Keynes College, while I tried to perform some much-needed net surfage. The evening was mostly past by travelling around Canterbury in cars of B’s friends, although portions were spent in car parks, sitting rooms, a restaurant, a pub, a video shop and Asda. Non-Euclidean Space was one of the conversational topics that came up.

On Sunday, I was able to re-enter my room, rejoin my sisters in wonderful weirdness and eat a slice of a really nice cake made by Ell’s mummy. Yay!