Or, Christmas Cake, Meat Pies and German Bread
Ah, good evening everyone! It feels as though it’s been a terrible long while since I’ve written anything on this blog, and… and it has been. Not since before Christmas last year, and since then so much has happened. Sweeney Todd finally was performed, we’ve had exams, Christmas Day, our pantomime, and my travels up north to the beautiful city of Harbin with its magnificent ice festival. I feel like one of the four yorkshiremen, about to recount tales of all my history and life gone by (“You were lucky to live in a cardboard box! Used to be a hundred and fifty of us living in a rolled up newspaper in t’middle of a septic tank…”). Okay it’s only been a month, but there’s so much to talk about I’m splitting it into two separate entries- one on Harbin, which deserves as much detail as I can give it, and this one on everything else.
Wow, where even to start? Lewis Carroll would tell me to start at the beginning, and when I come to the end, stop. So, with that in mind, what’s been happening?
Last I posted, it was just before Christmas time, and I told of how we were planning midnight mass and our own celebrations, including a pantomime and a home-made cake! Well, you’ll be pleased to know I’m sure, all of that went remarkably well! The Midnight service was a beautiful gathering, where we all got together in the afternoon to make up Christingles, then gathered in the night to sing everyone’s favourite carols and tell the story of Christmas. The scene of twenty-something students holding up their Christingles and singing Away in a Manger together was quite magical, I daresay! Our pantomime went down very well at the Church service on boxing day, and everyone got very into the audience participation bit. It also came as a worrying note on how long my hair has got- I can only point you to the photos to explain what I mean. But best of all, and I’m aware that saying this will make my head inflate to the size of a space hopper, was the Christmas cake I made! Let me rephrase that slightly- I loved Christmas this year, loved sharing it with fellow students and taking on the task of celebrating it properly, and what I’m most glad about is having taken on the task of making a decent Christmas cake, and having invested over a month in making it properly, it turned out really, really well! Weighing in at over 5kg, it fed a whole church congregation and a lot of students back at uni. All agreed it was delicious, and I shall surely be improving on the recipe next year!
The wonderful, five kilogram cake. Nearly half of that is icing.
The (incredibly) ugly stepsisters.
Christingle Service. Don't fret, I sang quietly.
First step down, next up! Sweeney Todd- the play finally went up! After months of rehearsing, much of which had been pretty frustrating, we finally got it going! Kenrick gave a stellar performance as the titular barber, genuinely terrifying several members of the audience as he ran up and down among the seats roaring and spitting and gesturing towards the throats of poor unfortunate Chinese students. Me, I enjoyed the shows greatly, I think I did pretty well as Anthony- the fact my singing wasn’t booed off the stage is an achievement all by itself. We had two strong nights, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed both of them! More pictures enclosed. With regard to my costume, don’t be fooled by the fact my hair is tied back and I’ve got a scarf round my waist- aside from that, it’s all own my own clothes! Nothing to do with my acting either, but in the pics you can hopefully see a scar on my face- this was specially requested by me as part of my plan to play Anthony as slightly less of a pansy than he is in the film. The girl who did our make-up, Hui Chan is incredibly talented, and having never done anything like that before was very much up for the challenge, and very proud of the finished article.
After the show was done we went out and had a hotpot meal to celebrate all together. A joyous night was had by all, and there was much drinking of beer and singing of songs! Happy, happy times.
Me and Kenrick. Thinking back, I reckon I must have maintained that pose for about ninety percent of the play.
The full cast and crew. That's Mrs Lovett behind me.
Sailor's wound. I was sorely tempted to leave it on for lectures the next day.
That’s pretty much all to tell of the last month here in Ningbo- most of the exciting stuff is regarding my travels in Harbin, covered in another entry. I hope you enjoy reading of them, there’s far more going on there!
Also, you may ask at this point; “What about the German bread you mentioned in the heading Daniel? What of that?” Well, it turns out there’s a German bread market on campus, every Thursday morning. Real, chunky, western-style bread. Finding that out, as well as a recipe for home-made jam, has made me very, very happy indeed!
That’s all here, but read on to find out why I should never, ever be allowed to travel alone, particularly in frozen cities, as well as a description of the incredibly beautiful World of Snow and Ice…
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