Wow, Pesach has gone fast!

[liv]

I can't believe it's the festival for the end of Passover already. I have packed all kinds of things into this week, most importantly seeing some of my favourite people.

Seder night went well. All things considered there was a lot less pre-festival panic than I would normally expect. My Dad's cousins who usually join us decided to have their own Seder this year, so our only guests were Mum's aunt and her husband, and my first cousin J (but not his parents or sister). Everything went almost disappointingly smoothly; there was some token discussion but no real ring-a-ding arguments, and we didn't forget any part of the ceremony or even spill any wine.

Thuggish Poet managed to forget the date of Passover and therefore had poetry-related commitments he couldn't get out of. Although he isn't religious I think he was a bit disappointed to miss the actual Seder, and very disappointed indeed that Screwy and I had committed ourselves to heading off very soon after the earliest time he was able to get home on Tuesday afternoon. As it was we were both delayed by his lack of organization. Anyway, I was glad to see my brother however briefly, and he gave me some spices he had brought back from the actual India.

Anyway, I made it to the Pembury successfully, to meet up with ewtikins with pfy and hairyears, and doseybat and a new cool person, pplfichi *waves*, and even timeplease was able to leave the bar and hang out with us, which is always good. There was good conversation and tasty food even if I couldn't have beer and they had sadly run out of cider.

I went home with ewtikins and we managed to resist the temptation to stay up all night chatting, but instead put chatting off until the sensible time of Wednesday morning. We had lots of teeeeea and talked about everything and there was a very pretty cat. Yay! Lunch with daneres who found a nice salad bar called Vital Ingredient. A useful place for someone with a difficult diet as their gimmick is that you pick your own ingredients, and they label everything clearly. Anyway it was very good to catch up with daneres.

More tea and conversation in the afternoon, this time chez lethargic_man. curious_reader joined us, and we had a pleasant walk. After she'd left we even managed to get to bed at a sensible hour, though we did less well at waking up in the morning. I was only a little late to meet the parents and doseybat at Kew, though, and that was mainly the fault of a crazy lady who accosted me and tried to tell me in detail about her views of the Middle East situation. Thuggish Poet decided to join the expedition, which was great because it gave us a chance to catch up properly, while doseybat was giving us her tour of the fascinating backstage bits of Kew herbarium and library. We also had a very delightful picnic in the gardens; it's a very good time of year for that sort of thing!

I will leave until another post the second half of Passover, where I brought Bat back to Sweden with me and we did touristy things. Also I should process and post some photos, and write lots and lots of book reviews (a combination of travel time and some amount of leisure time means I've read rather a lot of books this week).

Comments

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

*waves back*

Hi :)

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

ooh photos! *excited anticipation bounces*

And, I had a really wonderful time, thank you so much for having me.
*hugs*
*more hugs*

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I kept the 8th day partly. I needed to do some important things like going to the dentist and phoning the agency about the non-working oven. I only noticed it on Pesach when I tried to use it. Anyway, I actually liked the last Pesach evening best. I got myself at last to Mincha and Maariv for the 8th Pesach eve. I got invited by Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg. It is Muslim-Jewish evening. I met the wonderful Pakestani women again. She knows the Torah as well but asked Jonathan and me how Moses was portrait in the Torah and what she missed out. That was actually after I talked to an old Swedish lady. Her name is Eva she knows you and ploni. She goes back soon and would actually like to stay in London because she likes the Jewish communities and life here but it would be too expensive for her to live here. That is what I really wanted to tell you.

I hope lethargic_man is not too angry with me that I stayed until the end. I did not notice the time. I knew he wanted to spend more time alone with you. Well, I came late and I thought you might spend even more time talking just before really going to sleep.

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I really ate gebrochtes on the 8th day of Pesach when I was in the Rabbi's house and ate soup with Matza. It was actually a joke when I said it to Rabbi Jonathan "Now we can eat gebrochtes." Then I really did it.