Saturday, 30 May 2009

Lobster Red

Oh noes!!

I resemble a lobster!

And this after I sent an email round to my zoo volunteers this morning telling them to remember sun lotion for tomorrow. I'll turn up tomorrow with my big tomato face poking out of the top of my white zoo shirt and they will POINT AND LAUGH!

At least I would it it were the other way round

My mission if I choose to accept it is to avoid all sunlight until I've taken my own advice and bought some suncream

*shame*

Do you like the pic? I aim to educate AND entertain :)

img cred

Epic Diet FAIL!!!!

Oh the horror the horror!! This should go on saladcake really but what the hey? :o)

I knew the pubcrawls would be my downfall, I knew it from the start. To give myself credit though, I think I did rather well considering, I did, however, consume more than half of my daily points over the top....in alcohol.

*shame*

It was going ok on the beer front, 2 pints and 2 bottles, 9 points in total and I'd been purposely saving during the week for this event, so I'd saved up 9 points already. Then in the last pub I had a pint and the Wiluf said he was hungry...this set my tummy rumbling too. Then he uttered those all important seductive words....'there's a Pizza Express round the corner'. Images of Legerra Gustosa flitted through my brain and I was beaten.

Linda went home at this point, not wanting to drink anymore and spoil her afternoons horse riding today, very sensible. The Wiluf and I pootled along to Pizza Express. We get strange looks in restaurants when we wander in together, the same strange looks that my dad and I get when we eat together. Those 'so what's going on here then?' kind of looks! You can see nosy ladies sneaking glances and trying to fathom out whether I'm a money-grabbing, gold-digging hussy, or if I'm a kindly young lady accompanying daddy out for dinner.....never occurs that it might be neither apparently.

I got a pizza cutter with my pizza! Result! I'm not sure what they do with these Leggera crusts but they're exceedingly tough. In my excitement at eating pizza and my impatience to stuff it into my gob I almost broke myself trying desperately to saw chunks off last time. We shared a bottle of vino....oh the points the POINTS!! Think of the points.

Just to top it all of I had a bloody pudding too..all was lost by that point anyway...whats the harm in a little frozen low-fat yoghurt eh?? After all....low fat dairy binds to fat and makes you poop more fat out....oh yes, I learn from telleh...yes I do. Fatty, alchoholic poop for the win!!


View Southbank crawl in a larger map

It was a fab night though, we started off at the Tattershall Castle, which was...as Linda suspected...a bit of a zoo on a Friday night. It's the one at Embankment on a boat. I looked it up earlier in the day on a pub website and under description it had 4 words:

'Pub on a boat'

Well done the editor.

We then moved on and wandered across the river, finding joy in walking through the pictures of stupid people trying to take pictures on a crowded bridge. The next place was the National Theatre Bar where Linda and I perved on barmen whilst Wilf bought some drinks. We hadn't managed to find a seat so we propped ourselves up at a standing table outside near the entrance, where we proceeded to pass judgement on the garments of passing innocents. As if we could talk, Linda and I aren't known best for our fashion conciousness.

Pub numero 3 was Doggetts, this place is now like a milestone, no matter what crawl we're on we have to pop in for one. It was uber busy and there were no seats outside again, until a troupe of drunken old dudes got up and wandered off. We made a rush but still got there at the same time as a bunch of others. Wiluf, being the gentleman that he is, stood whilst Linda and I threw ourselves into the 2 remaining seats...I'm not actually sure he had much choice, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. They were serving some strange green stuff, which we were later reliably informed was named 'Green Beer'...imaginative. We were also told it tasted like shite...which probably explained the half full glasses littering many tables.

Next was the Founders Arms, Greg would have approved as it was a Youngs pub. We sat inside here, but it felt outsidey as all the window-walls appeared to open onto the decking outside. It were lovely it were, Wilf had a grump because the music was too loud and he didn't recognise it /insert age funny here :o). It was another zoo and we moved on pretty quickly from this place...even though the music was quite good.

The last pub before naughty pizza was The Anchor, it had all fairy lights on the outside, and I like sparkly things, oh yes I do. You had to walk for what seemed like forever to get to the loos, hidden away in a back room. We finally found a table here with 3 guys, who ran away about ten minutes after we arrived, I can't remember what we were talking about...but it's usually that which drives people away.

Twas lovely, lovely! I am now contemplating walking from home to Oxford Street on Tuesday, pre weigh-in :o)

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Long walks and BEER!

Ahhh, weigh-in last night, not as good a news as it has been for the past 2 weeks, but a loss nonetheless :o)

We were wandering off to the pub for a birthday celebration later, but we had lots of time to kill in between. Being the cheapskate I am I had scoured the interwebz for buy one get one free Pizza Express vouchers. I'd been wanting to try the new Leggera pizza for ages. So we tootled off to the Express and I had the Gustosa, prosciutto ham, mozzarella, peppers and nom nom nomness!

Whilst chatting the usual shite over dinner, and attempting to remember exactly WHERE this pub was we were supposed to go to (ever organised), Oggers suggested walking to Oxford Street. My initial instinctive reaction was 'WHAT??' But we still had ages to kill, and after the split second of incredulity I realised that it would be good to work off the pizza and offset those beers we were setting up for.

In all, including a brief foray into Sainsburies for a card, and Burger King for a pee, we probably walked for just over an hour, that on top of the walk around Leyton shallow ponds the day before, Oggers and I are becoming quite the ramblers.

When we finally found the pub we realised how close it was to another pub we've been to once or twice....and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a Sam Smiths! Not that it made much difference to my pocket, Oggers was very kindly treating me last night due to my being extremely destitute at the arse end of this month, but Sam Smiths is cheapy cheap :) It wasn't long before JennyMay and her merry men turned up, her mates are absolutely lovely, and we met her brother for the first time.

It was a lovely evening and only 3 pints, which is good by Oglet/Sproglet standards, still had a nasty headache this morning though, it's only just going away now *rolleyes*

Will I never learn??

Tuesday, 26 May 2009

Dirty Dancing and Bra Hell

Friday was GREAT! Half day at work which is always good news I think you'll agree :o)

Nicki and I took mum to see Dirty Dancing, it was her birthday pressie, she didn't know where we were going until we were literally just outside the theatre, then she got all excited blesser! Being the half 3 showing, there were quite a few old ladies there, all tittering and eyeing up posters of the leading man.

I think in a way they had tried to fit too much in, they did get absolutely EVERYTHING from the film in, but as a result, there were quite a few very short scenes that didn't seem to gel very well or add anything pertinent to the story. There was also a racial tension thread running through it that I had never noticed in the film (though I haven't watched it for a LONG time).
Nicki has watched it since and says that it IS there, but very played down, they've made much more of a thing of it in the stage show, to the extent of adding whole scenes talking about it, it was quite interesting.

The girl who played Baby was fantastic, and her hair looked exacly like the film characters. The guy playing Johnny was a bit young....but VERY fit :o) He showed his worth in the final scenes with his solo dancing at the head of the group coming down the aisle....nom nom nom!

We had some young ladies in the row in front of us, I mean young as in between 9 and 13/14 I guess. They got the giggles when the sexy scene came and Johnny took Baby's dress off....that was quite funny. Some old biddies were in the seats behind me, and I kept turning round to glare at them when they nattered too loudly. I wouldn't have minded if they'd at least tried to keep it to a whisper! Gah!!

So the rest of the weekend was lovely, it's been so long since I've had a chilled out weekend off, no zoo, no St John, and it was a bank holiday too :o)

On Saturday I saw Wolverine with Vicky, that film is fabulous! If you're a fan of the X-Men films I really would recommend it, it really tells the story of where Wolverine came from and why he is the messed up doode that he is. It's quite obviously all a big set up for another film where he remembers who he is and goes after the guy who did it to him too. Great!! As an added bonus he spends A LOT of time with his top off, and you even get bum shots, BUM SHOTS!!!! I was getting most unneccesarily excited.

We went back to Vicky's and spent much time harrassing the kitties and baking willy cookies (which turned out heavenly I must say). The purpose of the willy cookies was for the Ann Summers Party Vicky was hosting later, we iced a personal willy for each lady. Ann Summers was muchly fun, I'm distinctly poor this month after excessive present-buying, but I splashed out on a pair of knickers and a cool nightshirt....my tamest Ann Summers purchases EVER!

Sunday was lovely and chilled out. I finally dragged myself out of the pit at about half 10 in the morning and had brekkie in the garden with the fambly. In the morning I think we all just read/chatted, faffed in the garden and around the house for a while. Nicki and I made salads for lunch and then went off shopping.

During the morning, however, I had a horrible reality check! I decided I needed a new bra or two, mine are quite old, and they get quite scabby don't they? Yes they do. So I thought I'd double check my size and found the Figleaves website and their flash boobie size doodah. Plugged in my measurements and 'What the fu.......?' I have been wearing 38B's, and I'm reliably informed that I am actually a 42C!! Argh!!


During our shopping trip I was most appalled to discover that most lingerie shops stop at 38's! What is this all about? Big Boobist bastards! I have a new found empathy with my mother and every other big boobed lady out there, how have they been doing it? I found myself in Mark and Sparks looking over what at first appeared to be racks of watermelon bags.......no...they were bra's alright.

So now I'm scaffolded to the nines....must say, much more comfortable than what I was wearing though....who knew :o)

Sunday night was Come Dine With Me (Croydon episode) and if I EVER meet that KNOB Christian, I'm gnna smack him round the chops with a king crab leg......a king crab leg that's cooked to perfection.

Tosspot.

Monday morning Nicki and I watched Britains Got Talent (we missed it on Sunday night for Come Dine with Me.....oh yes, I'm catching up on me telleh!).

On Monday afternoon Oggers and I decided to have a little get together. I grabbed my (hers...I stole it) TESCO Bag for Life and stuffed it with lots of low(ish) fat goodies. We had a veritable salady feast, it was most delicious!! We then set off for a nice healthy walk around the shallow lakes along the South edge of Epping Forest (South? I may be wrong). We trundled twice around the ponds and then gave up and wandered to a pub for a Guinness. This one cannot be blamed on Jo, this was entirely my idea *shame*. We only had one, and then we set of home. It was a lovely long walk though, good exermacise for us both.

Back at Oggers we watched a double bill of Corrie, and then Eastenders...and the Britains Got Talent....we like all that educational stuff. We were very pleased with the acts that made it though and procrastinated over the wisdom of our nation from our prostrate positions on the sofa.

Ahhhhhhh, I'll get back to blogging more often very soon I promise. I still have a great post idea lined up, when I get the time :D

Thursday, 21 May 2009

Rant, rant, swear, rant!!


Oooooooooooh!! I definitely have a dose of the PMT this morning. I appear to be flying off the handle at very small things. I know exactly what I'm doing, and why, but I have no control over it whatsoever, grrr, grrrr, GRRRRR!!

I was remarkably placid on the journey into work today, despite the fun and games....no one had yet provoked my ire. The Victoria line is closed due to strike action and I had forgotten, luckily Katrin reminded me! (Housemate). So I pootled off to Walthamstow Central to get on a train to Liverpool Street. These trains were packed! They were packed when they arrived and people were squeezing themselves on like sardines, it was all very unnecessary. That might float some peoples boat, but it certainly doesn't float mine. I went off to get a bus which would take me the same way, and about 10 times slower, but it was EMPTY! So I didn't care :o)

Got to work an hour late, but I'm staying behind for an hour cos of St John so we're A-Ok.

Jo is CLEARLY a hex upon Get Happy at the Green Man, it was cancelled again last night due to lack of audience, in fact, Myself and Uncle Barry were the only audience there. I was quite disappointed myself, but only because I had agreed to be one comedians glamourous assistant, I didn't even get to put my sequins and feathers on :o(. So, the inevitable, we just started drinking. We met and hug out with a lovely Irish comedian named Simon, I don't think we ever caught the surname, and we all just drank beer and talked shite until we got thrown out. A good evening was had by all methinks.

Uncle Barry was very amusing I have to say!!

Many points over again I suspect, I'm going to have to do some exercise this week if I want to stay the same or lose anything, it's all going horiibly wrong. I blame that Oggers, she's a bad influence on me :o)

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Huzzah!! and Genghis Khan

The Wilerf cured my bloggage!! Thank dog for mates who know how to use the compootah. Thank you Wilerf.

Now, I'm pretty sure all the colours won't be right, but I tried me best, if it looks a bit different then apologies! :o)



I finished the last in the Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden yesterday. I can't even describe how awesome these books are. If you're into historical narrative then PLEASE read these books. He's also written the Emperor series, all about the life of Julius Caeser, and is planning on 2 more books to follow Conqueror, about Genghis's grandson Kublai Khan. Iggulden himself admits that in places he sacrifices a degree of historical accuracy for the sake of the narrative, but I promise it will transport you back hundreds of years, you'll feel like you're there among the characters. My favourite writer for sure. Ah, gush over now....I want to marry him, 'Tell me more stories Conn.....Oh I DO love you'



Comedy tonight, Oggers is on, we'll see if it goes live this time, the last time we were there it got cancelled due to Oggers and myself being the only 2 audience members. It ended badly with us getting uber drunk and suggesting an ill-advised threesome with a poor sober comedian. Still, I'm sure he can use us as material now.

Apologies

For the state of my blog at the moment, the HTML seem to have buggered up somewhere along the line, but I'm going to have to wait until I have enough time to sit and look at it!

Given that I know absolutely zero about HTML that could be great fun.......

Good Luck Blog, get better soon...

Monday, 18 May 2009

A week??

Since I last posted? Surely not! It doesn't seem that long ago, but then this week has been a packed manic week full of fun and shennannigans!

Wednesday was my first night of drinking since starting the old diet and I was dreading a big style fall off the dieting wagon. I met up with Kayleigh for a couple of wee drinkies and her boyfriend Tom...or Tomphibian as he is affectionately known, joined us halfway through the evening. Double G and slimline T was the order of the evening, and very nice it was too. Fun and merriness was had by all, they make a sickeningly cute couple! I left them to it at some point and got home before 10pm which I was vereh impressed with, plenty of water and off to bed and I felt no effects the next morning. I succeeded! Huzzah! This wasn't to last as you will find out later.

I have my St John divisional night on a Thursday and I'd had a call from my division leader earlier that week to make sure I was attending for radio training....so no getting out of it. Whenever someone hands me a radio I become immediately terrified, as if tiny monsters may crawl out, burrow into my ears and eat my brain. I just nod and pretend that, yeah, of course I know how to use it, then just hope against hope I never need to. Conveniently...they had forgotten to bring the radios, so this was all theory. A couple of questions after the training and that was it..we'd passed. Phew, thank gawd that's over. Little did I know....

Friday....what on earth happened Friday? Ah! It was mums birthday on Friday, and Mum and Dad's anniversary on the Tursday (which I had forgotten about). So we took the parentals out for dinner at fancypants Coombe Lodge. Actually, it's not that fancy, not compared to Fishpimps jaunt to the Ritz, it's a Beefeater. For us it's a bit fancy :o) Dinner was lovely and I was hyper in the extreme for some reason. I didn't get a dessert of my own for obvious reasons, I did however stick a finger into everyone elses dessert before they even touched it, the waitress was unimpressed, especially when I asked for a fourth spoon please :D

Saturday was one of the most exhausting days ever, surpassed only by the London Marathon (First Aid cover you understand) and a very busy zoo day. I did a 12 hour St John shift at Twickenham. It was the Guiness Cup final, the London Irish were playing the Leicester Tigers. Kick off wasn't until 5:30pm but there were lots of kids games before that, so we arrived at 9:30am. I gorged on wholemeal pitta and houmous, mmmmmmmm. We mostly faffed around until about 1pm when we were split into teams. I was given the job of collecting the radio and whiclt in control was duly informed that I would be the radio operator for my team. A familiar terror consumed me, I begged and pleaded like a pathetic person for a little while, all to no avail. Secretly I knew this is what would have to happen to make me EVER use the radio, in at the deep end whilst the knowledge was still fresh.

Off we went for lunch and then onto our post, in the North West corner. We were probably the only team without big coats and we got put on one of the coldest corners of the stadium. Relieved only once in about 4 hours, we were freezing our titties off by the time the game had ended. I hadn't done too badly with the radio, I found it's all about confidence really, as long as you sound like you know what you're on about you can get by. I might make up my own phonetic alphabet though, E is for 'Elephantiasis', P is for 'Phosphorylation'.
After titty freezing in the stadium, we were sent to the Guiness Village, of all places. It's what it says on the tin 'The Place Where People Go To Get Pissed On Guiness', oh yes, we strike gold baby! I've never seen so many people trying to maim themselves in such inventive ways. It would have been entertaining had I not been dreading having to use the carry sheet we were lugging around with us.


Finally left the stadium at 9:30pm.....breathe.......

Sunday was Zoo day. I had lots of lovely ladies in so it was nice and chilled, that goes for the weather too. By the end of the day the wind had picked up a hell of a lot, I had to shut the kiosk window to avoid being caught up in a cloud of whirling 'the Birds and the Bee's' leaflets. Shutting the window in the kiosk almost makes you look like you're sitting in a terrarium, people wander past and point as if you're some kind of H.Sapiens exhibit, scratching your head and picking your nose. I got to spend a bit of time training people on the ungulate touch table on Sunday, it's one of my FAVOURITE parts of the zoo. The morning session was a bit dead, but when we went back in the afternoon it was great, we had 2 groups of young girls, the Rainbows and the Brownies. Mostly kids just look at your specimens and shout 'Euuuurgh! Is that a FOOT?? Is it REAL??' closely followed by 'what's that? and what's that? and what's that? and what's this? and this?' It's lovely to impart knowledge though, no matter how basic.

We had some leaving drinks for a vol who is moving back to Oz shortly after the zoo. 14 people came along and it was great. All of us girls and aged between early 20's and early 30's. We grabbed a table in the corner right outside the mens loo, so they literally had to squeeze past to get to it, we must have been quite intimidating really. Some left after one drink and after that people slowly dropped off until the hardcore remained, Jade, Helen G, Stacey and myself. I ended up drinking 5 pints! Count them....1......2.....3, you get the picture. I was fine until we hit the air outside, then I went all stupid. Memories came flooding back to me when Stacey walked into a lamp-post on the way back to Camden, I did the same thing a couple of years ago.....cringe. You can't help but laugh when someone does something like that though. I know my housemate wet himself a little bit when I did it.....bastard.

Minging hangover, plus points guilt this morning, I'm looking forward to being fresh when I wake up tomorrow morning. There's nothing like waking up without a headache the morning after a hangover.

Ahhhhh, that's about it I think. Friday is Dirtayyy Dancing for mums birthday pressie, and Saturday I'm at an Ann Summers party, I'm going to make willy cookies :o) I wonder if anyone heard me on the phone in the zoo on Sunday talking to my dad:

'Dad, don't throw the willy cookie cutter away if you find it...yes.....willy, WILLY cookie cutter. I KNOW you think it's disgusting, it's for my party on Saturday....the Ann Summers party....*sigh*, yes dad, another Ann Summers party. Just don't throw it away ok? Thank you'

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Everything and nothing


Ever have that? When you're knackered and you feel like you've been really busy, and yet when someone asks you what you've been up to, you can't come up with a satisfactory excuse for your general malaise? I have it all the time, but I guess I have some excuses this weekend!

Saturday was another moving day, and the last, to my dads great relief, though I'm sure he's convinced I'll be moving yet again in a months time :o) Such pessimism. It was a surprising amount of stuff, in that it was a bit more than we had hoped was left behind, oh well. We slung it all in my room and shut the door on it. I was spending the weekend at my folks for one reason or another and I was kinda hoping that the unpacking fairy would have done it all for me by the time I got back.

Apparently the unpacking fairy has eloped with the laundry fairy, and I was faced with a shitehole to try and sort out last night. I did quite a bit of it, but I must admit, spent the night squished into half of my bed, with various crap littering the other half. Ahhh, takes me back to when I was young and Daddeh would shout at me all day to clean my room :o) So the rest of that will get done this evening after the dreaded weigh-in, and Weds after a couple of drinks with the Keef (snortle...yeah right).

I made my garlic butter salmon for Nicki and Dad on Saturday night, which they loved. Dad had spent all day making noises about how he didn't like baked salmon, it was too dry, that salmon at the Harvester put him off for life, salmon is dry, he only likes salmon out of a can. Turns out that people can cook salmon different ways! He even left a voicemail on my phone yesterday asking me how to make it, he was going to cook it for his lunch.

Sunday was the great 'Race for Life' day! My mum, my sister and I took part this year, wandering leisurely around Lloyd Park over 5km. Mother has a very poorly knee and so it was slow progress, and dad joined us for the last 500km, hobbling around with his stick. We came in after about 1 hour and 27ish minutes. My first medal EVER!! Turns out dad had parked as far away as he possibly could so it was about 6 km in all. I felt fine after it, and the next day, but my bum cheeks are aching a bit this morning I must say!

I took the afternoon off yesterday to have a lovely luncheon with Nicki. We then went to see Star Trek at the IMAX in Waterloo. I haven't been there for ages and forgot just how massive the screen is in there, It was FAB!! I never thought I'd say I'm in love with Spock, but I'm afraid I am, and a little bit with Captain Kirk too. Leonard Nimoys appearance was lovely too, he certainly hasn't gone down the plastic surgery route :o) It was an all round fantastic film, great action scenes and humour, and the old characters were really brought to life by the new actors!! Wull done, wull done!! Though, Kirk does seem to spend the entire film being beaten up by one person or another, blessim.


Image cred: Wired

Friday, 8 May 2009

This weekend

Well the last few days have been a little uneventful, thankfully, after last weekend.

I spent most of the day yesterday sneaking around with tuna and trying not to stink the common room out. It's so stuffy in there I was convinced that as soon as I opened the tin I'd have a sea of miffed faces glaring over at me. Luckily enough, there was only one very old lady in there and she seemed too engrossed in her mail to be concerned!

Dinner was lovely, I made myself a nice low fat meal, you can read about it here if you're VERY interested! It contained quite a lot of chilli, and at some point I definitely picked my nose with 'chilli finger'.....owie. Luckily enough I managed not to rub my eyes, that would have been bad!

This weekend I may not be around much, I'm spending it with the folks, so it's bad manners to spend all day writing for people on the interwebz. I'm moving the rest of my stuff this weekend so I get to see my Steve :) Sunday I'm doing the dreaded 'Race (walk) for Life' which will be much fun. Nicki and I are doing it with mum, and mum can't run, so luckily I've managed to get out of having to 'train', which I am eternally grateful for.

I promised you a gerbera picture, here are a couple, her name is Geraldine :)




Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Weight Watching blog

Well, I started the old Weight Watchers last night, with fellow blogger Jobie Fishpimp. For those of you who may not like to hear me moan and groan about food (or lack thereof) or detailing points usage for the day, you'll be fine, I have set up a new blog specifically for it here.

Now I have to figure out how to get the massive knife I borrowed from the tea room back, without being caught in the corridor looking en-route to murder..

Doggy Proposal

I just found this and had to show you:

I wouldn't care if I didn't know the guy, I'd be marrying him and his doggy the next day :o)

Doggy pics

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Tired......so very, very tired

Well, what a palaver, how long has it been since I last wrote? I got the choccies on Thursday, I think.

So, since then I have moved house, been to the zoo, been caught in a traffic jam of death, been to a BBQ, and been to a Pink concert. Oh...and I've been to the pub at least twice.

The moving....gosh. Well, we were going to get a big van, as in, 7.5tonnes or something like that, but it fell through at the last minute, so we used my dads van instead. It's not small, but it's not a 7.5 tonner either :) Dad cleared it out entirely and we ended up with a chest of drawers, 15 boxes, 8 binliners, 2 bags, a tool box and my bedding all stuffed in the back, and my mattress and wardrobe (whole) strapped to the top, luckily it was a lovely sunny day.

After loading the van we went for a breakfast, deciding that, if we came back and someone had nicked that wardrobe off the van then they bloody well deserved to keep it..what a nightmare job that was! Drove to the Stow, which didn't take as long as I expected and unloaded it all again.

Dad insisted on helping me unpack too.......I KNOW! Seeing as he was just untaping and rooting through all my boxes I decided to warn him that there was a 'ladies box' somewhere amongst them. By 'ladies box' I meant that there were a couple of toys of the vibrating variety unceremoniously dumped into the bottom. He just looked at me and shrugged as if to say 'Do I care?'. Maybe you don't daddy, But I care! I CARE!! *sob* So we came to the last 3 boxes and he opened one, I don't know if he saw anything but he just went 'is this it?' and wandered subtly out of the room. Oh the joys. But the good thing is that I did get everything unpacked, and I think if dad hadn't forced me there would still be bags and boxes laying around all over the place.

Jo came round to see my new place and brought me a Gerbera, it's too cheerful for Grant so it's sitting in my room now, getting full sunlight and moderate (moderate to less than moderate) watering. I need my watering can! This is another thing I'll promise you a picture of when I get home :)

The Rose and Crown was the order of the night for moving in beer celebrations with Jobie. I waddled home afterwards, watching out for unfriendly Northeners with sticks.

The next day was a few hours of zoo and then the drive home....oh noes, the drive home. Jo and I were on Camden Road and she had just made a comment about how sometimes on this drive home you get held up forever. Cue the news on the radio telling us about 2 women who had been found dead in a hotel in Finsbury Park, possible chemical incident, cue...traffic jam. This hotel was right on the road that we were trying to drive home on, we were diverted for what seem like hours, around the houses. It's just as well we had popped into Tesco for nibbles for the BBQ later on, anything that didn't need to be cooked was eaten on the way back. We worked our way through 2 cheese and onion pastry roll things, and a whole tub of hummus with carrot batons....mmmm, hummus!!

The BBQ was good! The food was amazing, lovely BBQ'd fish. It was my new next door neighbours throwing it, Pete and Samira. I was quite glad Jo was there as I hardly knew anybody, in fact, I only knew Grant, and he couldn't have entertained me the whole time. A lot of the people there were speaking what seemed at first to be Italian, but Samira is apparently Palestinian, so I may have been wrong, I'm positive it wasn't Arabic though, which is the official language in Palestine. Maybe if I engage a little more heartily in my attempts to learn some Italian before I go away then I'll be able to tell next time!

Anywhoo, we had lovely cake and bubbly at the BBQ, it is Petes birthday next week so they decided to surprise him. The cake was from the Euphorium Bakery, and was delicious, a thin layer of sponge with vanilla cream on the top, and lots of berries and chocolate swirls.
I would heartily recommend a cake from this place...yurm yurm!!!

Afterwards, off to the Rose and Crown again for a couple of pints....not setting a good precedent here.

Monday I faffed around in my room and in bed on Monday morning until it came time to leave the house to meet Vicky for lunch and to go off and see Pink at the O2. As I was walking down the road, Linda was just coming out of the allotments with her mum, what a happy coincidence! So I got a lift to the station which was kewl. I finally made it to Waterloo on the replacement bus service and 2 tubes...what a faff. After lunch we took a short wander up the Embankment and watched the various street entertainers. Amongst them were a silver wizard bopping to 'It's My Life' and playing some squeaky instrument, a weird Charlie Chaplin, 2 chameleons on bicycles and a headless gold king of some description. The best was the limbo man though. He actually managed to limbo under a stick balancing on top of 2 1.5 litre bottles of water. The technique is incredible, but his ankles are going to be shot in his old age!

Because of the length of time it was taking buses due to tube maintenance, I decided I'd get some tickets for the O2 Express on the Thames Clipper, that was lovely, cruising along the Thames, chillaxing.

The concert itself was fab, once Pink came on anyway! Vicky and I sat down at about half 6 and nothing happened till 7:40. At that point an awful band called RayGun came on, the lead singer thought he was Mick Jagger or something. At about quarter to 9 Pink finally made her appearance, the first song being Bad Influence. It was a really nice mix of songs, quite a few from her most recent album, and a a similar number from past albums, Just Like a Pill and Family Portrait etc. She also did some wicked covers, Bohemian Rhapsody and Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. The best bits were when she was performing acrobatics at the same time as singing. She did an amazing trapeze-style routine whilst performing 'sober', it was great.

She's far too fit, definitely on my 'list' if you know what I mean...nudge-nudge, winky winky :D

I was slightly in panic-mode on the way home, the Victoria line wasn't working so I needed to get to Finsbury Park in time to catch a rail replacement bus. I hastily abandoned Vicky at Waterloo and made a dash for my tube, turns out catching the rail replacement bus would be the elast of my problems. All was hunky dory till I started walking home, I walked down the wrong road, I was walking forever and started to think 'I don't recognise this, I've been walking too long, where am I?' I also started to panic..just a little bit, by now it was past midnight and I was wandering around strange streets not knowing where I was. Anyway, I eventually found a bus stop and inferred from the routes that I could find my road by carrying on up this wrong road...but I'd gone a bloody long way round!

The closest I came to death was some div losing control of his car on the road and heading towards me for a moment, whereupon I hid behind a lamppost (I know...there was a brick wall behind me, it would have been my next port of call), and the dodgiest person I saw was right at the end of my road...I got my keys out and jangled them in a threatening manner, it seemed to dissuade him from whatever naughtiness he was planning...probably none.

So that was my weekend!! I need another one please..soon