Paranormal romance and the weekend that was (in reverse)

The weekend that was was quite uneventful. Sunday I was forced out of bed by my mother insisting I come to the train station to see her off before she embarks on her trip to the north. I decided not to return to bed after the fare-thee-wells, and set off to Canal Walk to watch Harry Potter.

While browsing the bookstore before the start of the movie I was surprised to discover that not only does paranormal romance now officially have its own genre, there are also 8 shelves dedicated to it. The top shelf, of course, housing Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series. Why my surprise? Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, mutants and humans have been falling in and out of love with each other for aeons. But never did they receive a genre of their own. Nevermind 8 bookshelves. I blame Stephanie Meyers for this and I don't particularly care that the genre was in existence before Meyers wrote Twilight.

I enjoyed Harry Potter although large parts of the movie bored me and I just wanted them to get a move on to where spells are cast and people die. I reckon this is due to the fact that I've read the book and even then was not really all that interested in the love life of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I thoroughly enjoyed the scene where Harry has taken the Felix Felicis potion and recommend seeing the movie just for that scene.

Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, sleeping. I finally awakened sometime after 7pm and made my most delicious lasagna yet. But I have still to figure out how to not to run out of white sauce. The obvious solution would be to just make more white sauce, right? I'm waiting for this to sink in.

Friday night was the Mad Hatter's Christmas Tea Party at The Old Biscuit Mill. I was somewhat under a wrong impression, thinking that this would be the night version of the popular Neighbourgoods Market. Nonetheless, the event was utterly disappointing. I am now convinced that I missed my calling as an event planner after spending very little mental effort planning a Mad Hatter's Party and coming up with ideas infinitely better than the organisers of the event. This is because the organisers did not think beyond "Get people to wear hats/ties". The event was described as such:

Not your run of the mill Christmas in July

and

Come and join us for a fun-filled shopping experience. Exciting prizes for best dressed Hat or Tie or Both, Kids entertainment, wine farms – wine sales, Cape culinary experience, loads of entertainment for the whole family. An event not to be missed.

My first though is "Why combine Christmas in July and a Mad Hatter's tea party?" There is no logical connection and it's just asking to be overloaded in terms of catering for both themes. The shops were open. There was nothing fun-filled about it. I'm sure there were prizes although any mention of this at the event was scarce to be found. A few wine farms had their wares on offer. And on offer they were in the most inappropriate place, the entrance hall that was not big enough to keep the wine tasters out of the way of those wishing to just pass through.

The Cape culinary experience was mysteriously absent. Perhaps I arrived too late and all the food had been eaten. Besides for some tasty cookies there was not a crumb to be found. Or a drop, for that matter, that wasn't a meagre tasting from the wine farms. Yes, the on-site restaurant's bar was open but this was so poorly run that I turned around dry-throated after waiting 15 minutes. Kids' entertainment was in the form a most sorry, skinny arsed Santa Claus, not a 'ho' to be heard.

There was no atmosphere, no decoration, and no music. This tea party was definitely one that should have been skipped and after about an hour we went to find cocktails and food at the local watering hole which had infinitely more atmosphere, booze, food and entertainment than the Mad Hatter's affair.