Birthday Celebrations

[squirmelia]

Marios, Nick, antipodienne and I joined a family of 11 who were on the cockroach tour at the Science Museum. They all seemed to be called Janet. We had to strap on shells and wear big cockroach masks to aid our transformation into cockroaches. We scuttled around the museum, wiggling our antennae at other cockroaches and humans, while the head cockroach described various aspects of human life to us.

At the end of the tour we were told we were to become human for a day, and released our shells and cockroach heads. Worryingly, I still seem to be human and haven't turned back into a cockroach. I really enjoyed being a cockroach.

Marios, Nick, antipodienne and I headed to the Barbican and were joined by several_bees, kekhmet and augeas. We went to see the giant pig, which was unfortunately all booked up, so we did not have a chance to suckle on it, but did watch other people doing so.

We signed up to strange tours. several_bees, antipodienne and I joined a tour that involved going into the men's toilets, wearing blonde wigs and big sunglasses, giving shoulder massages to strangers and then pretending to be Lady Macbeth dying. The disaster tour sounded more fun, since apparently they had to dance to avoid disaster and twirl umbrellas and were given special keys. I do not know what the tour with people wearing tin foil hats involved.

We then headed to the exhibition in the Curve, which was made up of lots of bowling computer games, which were each set up to miss every time and go in the gutter.

We then briefly saw khalinche, Jon and khalinche's friend who I can't remember the name of (sorry!), before we navigated our way out of the Barbican and to the Bricklayer's Arms pub.

The pub unfortunately was not selling food, but Nick, kekhmet and augeas managed to arrange it so that we got pizza delivered. (Thank-you so much for this!) abigailb, mondoagogo, flavius_m and razornet also appeared. About 11, razornet, augeas and kekhmet and I went to the Intrepid Fox, but it felt too much like a mosh pit, so we went to a quieter pub for one last drink before I got the bus back to Oxford. I arrived back in Oxford about 4am, exhausted, but happy to have been a cockroach and to have seen my excellent friends. Thanks for coming all!

Comments

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

What a wonderfully strange idea. Makes me think of Metamorphosis.

Compleatly off-topic: ever been to the Tamar Valley Donkey Park?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Being a cockroach was definitely the highlight of the day.

I haven't ever been to the Tamar Valley Donkey Park. Have you?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

*giggles at the cockroach*
Happy late Birthday!

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

You know about my roach phobia but that cockroach in the picture I could almost like:)

It was great to see you and meet your friends:)

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

No, i've never even been to England. (Though i hope to change that.) It was mentioned in a book i read yesterday, and you seem to like interesting places so i wondered if you'd visited it.

[toadflax234.livejournal.com]

Lol! Fabulous outfit. Presumably you didn't get to keep it...?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I thought you had been to England, but when I thought harder about it, the image I had in my head was of a girl wandering through magical seeming woods and flowers, perhaps in the Lake District, and the style of writing was different to your style of writing, so it didn't make sense to be you really. I cannot remember who that was though, but I remember thinking at the time that she must have visited some alternate version of England that tourists are taken to, because her descriptions didn't seem to fit with my memories of the places she had been.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I put it under a cut so you didn't have to look at it. :)

It was good to see you also. Thanks for coming!