Day 2, Tv, trains and trying new foods!

Well after keeping Mummy and Daddy up half the night last night I thought I had better behave myself today!!

Grandma and Grandad Hall popped round this morning to look after me for a bit while Mummy had a bit more sleep and Daddy had a shower. They took me for a little walk around the farm where we saw pigs, horses, chickens, cats and dogs - It was great!!
When Mummy finally woke up we had a little play in the cottage and then went out to the local pub for sunday lunch. I tried lots of yummy bits of Mummy and Daddy's food, pork, mash potato, carrot and broccoli. When they had finished dinner they let me have a bit of a crawl around as the pub wasn't very full. I really badly wanted to explore behind the bar and kept trying really hard to get there but my meany parents kept stopping me from getting there! (Spoil sports!) I also made friends with another little boy who was also having a crawl around at the same time.

In the afternoon Grandma and Grandad went to see Iolanthe at the opera house and Mummy and Daddy took me to see the Grand Duke principal's rehearsal that was put on especially for some reason or other which I don't quite understand! When we got there everyone immediatly started making a fuss of me which was great and then I had to go and sit nicely at the side with Mummy and Daddy and watch what was going on. It was really interesting and seemed a lot of fun and everyone was really good. While we were there some funny people turned up with cameras and things including a large grey fluffy thing on a stick (which Mummy and Daddy said was a microphone, whatever that is) and I was given orders to be on my best behaviour while these people plus someone called 'Simon Butteriss', who Mummy and Daddy seemed to know, were there. (I don't know why this was, but I was happy to do as I was told especially as I kept being given loads of my tomato corn snacks and Jane even gave me a really yummy biscuit!) Once these strange people had left I started to get a bit restless so we left the rehearsal and went for a ride on the train in the Pavillion gardens which was great fun as I love riding on them.

Mummy and Daddy went to the show and festival club tonight while I stayed with Grandma and Grandad. They said that the show was quite good, but felt that the balance was not always very good between the orchestra and singers as the orchestra was often far too loud. They also thought that the men were far better than the women, pointing out that the women's chorus (if that is the right word) was overpowered by one person whose voice really didn't blend in with the others.
They were really laughing about what happened in the festival club, especially the 'university challenge competition. First they said that one team wasn't even a uni team but a team from the pro Pinafore and that also, both teams should have been disqualified immediatly anyway (whatever that means) as they both had savoynetters in and the rules clearly stated that savoynetters were only allowed to do the savoynet round of the quiz! They also told me that it was really funny as Ian Smith couldn't work or turn off the buzzers properly and also kept getting confused about the questions and that Neil kept getting the scoring mixed up! Ha ha! (Forgot to say that before this, during the singing of Iolanthe stuff, Mummy and Sarah V went up with the men to sing 'The Peers' Chorus' as is tradition with them!) Then there was the Charles Court Cabaret which they enjoyed (Mummy especially liked the clarinet piece because the man kept taking his clarinet apart as the piece went on ending with just the mouthpiece - she is going to try it when she gets home, though says she is no where near good enough to play the actual piece,) although they said that it did go on a bit too long, although they forgave them the last song as it was 'The Hippopotamus Song' which is great and I'm jelous I wasn't there to hear it!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as apparently Ian Belsey is really looking forward to seeing me at his concert.

Yoghurty kisses xx

Robert