The longest day

When I'm asked to do something I've never done before, I have a quick checklist I run through to help me decide.
1) Will it involve eating something untoward, like insects or household pets?
2) Will it involve me jumping off something very high, possibly whilst entrusting my life to a flimsy bit of rubber or square of silk?
3) What is the probability I was undergo some form of serious injury such as losing a limb of one of my more treasured* organs?

Anyway, one of the things about knowing rssefiurioso is that I'm pretty much gauaranteed that if I find myself with not much to do I can drop him a line asking if he's doing anything interesting, and he'll come straight back with something completely off the wall. The guy is lovely but he doesn't half some completely crackers stuff.

So, finding myself with some time on my hands I dropped him a line the other day on the lines summarised above, and he came straight back to suggest I might like to go along to watch a pagan ceremony and the sunrise on the Summer Solstice - that's 4am - in a stone circle on an abandoned island off the south coast. Running quickly though my checklist - eating things that should not be eaten? No. Flinging myself to certain doom? No? Risk of severe death? Minimal, unless this is a trick to burn me in a wicker man and ensure the continued bounty of the Earth like in Nic Cage's classic movie.

The only thing I could see wrong with this plan was the whole 'getting up at 3am' part. It's a long time since I was a student and I could go to the allnighter at Jillys before having a cup of coffee and going straight to lectures at 9am, and I need my rest. By midnight I'm usually starting to think wistfully of my comfy bed where, in spite of all expectations, I sleep the deep slumber of the innocent and just. Still, after due consideration I decided that missing out on sleep was trumped by doing something interesting, and so I got around the tricky problem of trying to lever myself out of bed at 3am by the simple expedient of not going to sleep at all - I watched District 9 and drank half a bottle of whisky instead, which seemed a good way to keep myself awake at the time but maybe coffee would have been a better idea.

So it was that at 3:30am I found myself surrounded by warlocks and witches on a rocky outcrop overlooking the sea, my expression that fixed wide-eyed rictus of someone who is afraid to blink in case my eyes took that as permission to not open again and I fall asleep on my feet, and, as usual when I attend anything pagan or new age, feeling for all the world like a bit of a fraud. Although I'm not one of those people who pretends to respect the beliefs of others, I do have to admit I find it impossible to feel ill-disposed towards any religion whose primary liturgical requirements appear to involve getting drunk and dancing round in a hat with horns on. It's like an ACDC concert without the tinittus.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit of dab hand at the old pagan rituals, and things went pretty much expected - circles were circled, chants were chanted, spirits were invoked, and right on cue the sun popped over the horizon like it'd sprung form a gigantic toaster. I don't like to boast, but I'm pretty nuch convinced that it was my influence which made the sun come up so I'm quite glad I went. You can all thank me for defeating the demons of night and ensuring the rebirth of the world.

Once all that was done, I demonstrated just precisely how tired I was by promptly breaking two of my rules and agreeing to have a go at parkour on the cliffs. It just goes to show why I really should go to bed earlier.