The Background of 1204

I'm at the conference, being a medievalist. So far I have bought a t-shirt and discovered that the dining room serves stewed tea.

This is a major factor in my cheeriness, cause stewed tea is hard to come by these days; everybody in Britain seems to have decided that it's not a good idea to actually dissolve the enamel off your teeth with your cuppa. But I LIKE stewed tea. I PREFER stewed tea. A truly fine cup of tea. That's what I get down in the dining hall. And since nobody else wants it, I get LOTS.

Busy day today. I'm off to the keynote address -- or actually the first of the keynote addresses; I think there are three -- which is...let me find it here...ah! "West and East in the 12th Century: The Background of 1204."

I can't wait. This is so outside my field of reference I don't even know what happened in 1204.

What's that you say? It's the Sack of Constantinople? Oh, silly me. I forgot.

Then, tea.

Then, a choice of several panels. I'm going to the one on "Breaking the Rule: Medieval Monastic Misdemeanours," as I'm interested in the paper on "Violence and Crime in Late Medieval English Monasteries."

Then, tea. No, wait, lunch. Then tea.

Then, a panel on what's actually my field, medieval drama. Somebody's going to discuss the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, God help them. Can't wait.

Then, tea.

After that, a panel on sexual/cultural differences, which includes a paper on sex and gender in Medieval travel writing.

Then, umm, dinner. Probably no tea, or I'll never get to sleep.

And then, the Special Lecture, which is on "The Grail and the Fourth Crusade."

My day, as planned by me.

And I WILL be knitting. I've been looking all over for a place to sit and knit and watch people, and there are none, darn it. But maybe one will turn up.

Now, before the Keynote Lecture, I believe I've got time for another cup of tea.