tea, circuses and rare books

On Friday I had fun in the Rare Books room of the UL, looking at original editions of The Faerie Queene for my textual studies class. It's not too many places where you can set as homework looking at 16th century copies of texts. One of the copies we examined had an exciting variety of annotation in it, some of which seems to give exact dates identifying events paralleled in the poem. The UL turns out to be quite a sociable place - I saw two friends from church working in the Rare Books room and found out later that there were two more on the premises.

On Friday night we went to the Chinese State Circus with a Harry's posse, which was great. Highlights included the lion dance, people jumping backwards through rotating hoops elevated above the ground and someone upside down peddling a unicycle along a tightrope without falling off. Joseph has some pictures, and he did a great job of haggling for discounted tickets for us. (Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that the Chinese State Circus is promoted by the European Entertainment Corporation?)

Having spent Sunday afternoon eating cake and drinking tea chez Ruth, on Sunday evening after church I went to eat cake and drink tea with my college big sibling + housemates + their little siblings. In the afternoon I had Chinese jasmine tea all the way from China, which involved placing a bud in hot water which gradually opened out until it resembled one of those aquatic life forms with multiple swaying limbs. In the evening I had English and African tea, in the company of Ukrainian, American, German, French and British Christ's postgrads. I was also locked out of my flat for most of Sunday, having realised the moment I shut the door on the way to church that I didn't have my keys in my pocket. Someone did suggest to me sleeping in the library.