![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaEvery year, the Morris Federation underwrites the running of a rapper workshop. This year the workshop, which is tomorrow, is being taught by a team called Stone Monkey. However, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me my team are playing host to the workshop, and doing all the tedious organising and catering and so on.
So, tomorrow morning I have to be in some godforsaken village north of Oxford at 9am to help get things ready. The workshop runs all day tomorrow - in addition to dancing in any of the workshop sets which are short of people, we've got to dish up lunch and four o'clocks for 60-odd people. Then we've got to provide an evening meal for the Monkeys, before we head out on a tour of Woodstock and ultimately wind up at a ceilidh in Kidlington.
Accordingly, this evening I have been churning out layer cakes and tray bakes intended for four o'clocks tomorrow. This really only serves to confirm my idea that I am indeed heading towards what Wilde predicted as my tragedy - I am turning into my mother. (He wasn't talking about me personally, you understand - I never met the gentlemen - just women in general.)
I have, however, remembered that chopping dried dates is one of my least favourite jobs, ever. It's surprisingly hard work. And chopping glacé cherries is repellently sticky. On the plus side, I may have invented a new kind of icing (that's frosting, for American viewers). I'll let you know in the morning when it's set.
I did commit a classic blunder, however. Eyeing the two halves of one of my layer cakes, I figuerd that the evenly risen half should go on the top, to look nice. The slightly strange-looking slopey half should go on the bottom, out of sight. Halfway through slopping the icing about, I realised the inherent problem with this: the cake's base, being slopey, isn't stable and it persistently tries to fall over, the top half sliding gracefully sideways on its cushion of icing. I have temporarily chocked it up with ginger biscuits and will worry about how to sort it out properly tomorrow.
(Yes, I know you should even the base off with a knife before filling the cake. That's why it was a blunder.)
Also, if you get home to discover you've run out of cooking chocolate and can't be arsed to go out to Tesco again, do not decide to steal some Dairy Milk off your housemate's shelf instead. Never mind the potential risks when the housemate finds its chocolate gone (though I reckon I can probably replace it before he's next home), Dairy Milk just doesn't melt properly. I don't know why. It goes all lumpy and won't spread neatly.
Midway through today, one of my rapper team suggested (I now realise she was probably joking) that we should acquire some stripey balloons. We need some form of markers to alert travellers to the location of the workshop tomorrow, and Stone Monkey's trademark is black and white stripes. I said I'd see what I could do with some white balloons and a magic marker. Having acquired both in Tesco, I managed to draw hoops of black about the balloons' girths. I have a small collection of impressively striped balloons.
However. Do not ever try to do this. It is tedious, time consuming, messy and sounds like you're doing something illegal with a puppy and a box of fishhooks. I am now reasonably good at it, but sadly it doesn't seem like a transferable skill - maybe I can hire myself out for children's parties.
And on Sunday I've got an all-day practice with my own team as we try and gear up for the national competitions. Damn. Rapper's eaten my life again.
So, tomorrow morning I have to be in some godforsaken village north of Oxford at 9am to help get things ready. The workshop runs all day tomorrow - in addition to dancing in any of the workshop sets which are short of people, we've got to dish up lunch and four o'clocks for 60-odd people. Then we've got to provide an evening meal for the Monkeys, before we head out on a tour of Woodstock and ultimately wind up at a ceilidh in Kidlington.
Accordingly, this evening I have been churning out layer cakes and tray bakes intended for four o'clocks tomorrow. This really only serves to confirm my idea that I am indeed heading towards what Wilde predicted as my tragedy - I am turning into my mother. (He wasn't talking about me personally, you understand - I never met the gentlemen - just women in general.)
I have, however, remembered that chopping dried dates is one of my least favourite jobs, ever. It's surprisingly hard work. And chopping glacé cherries is repellently sticky. On the plus side, I may have invented a new kind of icing (that's frosting, for American viewers). I'll let you know in the morning when it's set.
I did commit a classic blunder, however. Eyeing the two halves of one of my layer cakes, I figuerd that the evenly risen half should go on the top, to look nice. The slightly strange-looking slopey half should go on the bottom, out of sight. Halfway through slopping the icing about, I realised the inherent problem with this: the cake's base, being slopey, isn't stable and it persistently tries to fall over, the top half sliding gracefully sideways on its cushion of icing. I have temporarily chocked it up with ginger biscuits and will worry about how to sort it out properly tomorrow.
(Yes, I know you should even the base off with a knife before filling the cake. That's why it was a blunder.)
Also, if you get home to discover you've run out of cooking chocolate and can't be arsed to go out to Tesco again, do not decide to steal some Dairy Milk off your housemate's shelf instead. Never mind the potential risks when the housemate finds its chocolate gone (though I reckon I can probably replace it before he's next home), Dairy Milk just doesn't melt properly. I don't know why. It goes all lumpy and won't spread neatly.
Midway through today, one of my rapper team suggested (I now realise she was probably joking) that we should acquire some stripey balloons. We need some form of markers to alert travellers to the location of the workshop tomorrow, and Stone Monkey's trademark is black and white stripes. I said I'd see what I could do with some white balloons and a magic marker. Having acquired both in Tesco, I managed to draw hoops of black about the balloons' girths. I have a small collection of impressively striped balloons.
However. Do not ever try to do this. It is tedious, time consuming, messy and sounds like you're doing something illegal with a puppy and a box of fishhooks. I am now reasonably good at it, but sadly it doesn't seem like a transferable skill - maybe I can hire myself out for children's parties.
And on Sunday I've got an all-day practice with my own team as we try and gear up for the national competitions. Damn. Rapper's eaten my life again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 12:18 am (UTC)-That be the way of volunteering eh?
I'm both impressed and intruiged by your balloon colouring skills. I can never get the ink to stay on..what did you use? I've had small children covered in black ink too many times...parents always react to that as if I intend an egyptian death rite to be carried out on them immenantly.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 08:45 am (UTC)Actually, it's Mabel Gubbins (http://www.eastwick.fsnet.co.uk/mabel) this weekend, not Boojum. Though my extra mother dances with both so I'll pass the glad tidings on to her ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 08:45 am (UTC)The ink took a few minutes to dry but now seems inclined to stay put.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 09:57 am (UTC)You say that like it'ds a bad thing. Fibber!
Anyway, soon it'll be And that surely is a bad thing.
Hope you're still alive after you've finished enjoying yourself :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 04:22 pm (UTC)It is possible to melt Dairy Milk smoothly provided you don't get it too hot. It's got lots of sugar and vegetable fat in it which does funny things at high temperatures.