SURPRISE!!

A lot of you will know that my dearest darling sister organised surprise leaving drinkies for me this Friday. A lot of you will know because you probably recieved the message that she sent around to almost everybody in my phonebook! Raped and pillaged my mobile she did.

Apparently it was also all over Facebook, how I managed to miss it I have NO idea, clearly I'm not nosy enough!

Friday was excellent, I arrived at the pub under the impression that I was meeting a 6ft 4 policeman and his mates for a pub crawl (care of Wilf Porkie Enterprises) and found two tables full of a completely random assortment of lovely lovely people.

Caroline, Choy, Uma and Viv were there from the zoo, Bruce and Chris from work, my old housemate Steve, Wilfy and Jo who had got me to the pub in the first place, and of course the lovely Nicki were all waiting to surprise me! There were balloons and there was cake and nibbles and lots and lots of booze. There was also an exceptionally excellent white vest being passed around that people were writing messages on. I'm taking it with me and using it as a sleeping top....should be a bit of an ice breaker in the good ole dorm rooms.

After a while, Nicki recieved a phone call from someone who was coming, but neither of us recognised his number. He was described as having an indian accent and for the life of me I could not think of who it might be, until I saw Julio wandering through the pub. That would explain why I couldn't think who it was, he speaks with a very strong Spanish accent! Julio is a painter decorator that we've had in a couple of times to do some jobbies at work. He's absolutely lovely and proceeded to plonk himself at the bar with his mate, from this position he held court with all the ladies and purchased tequilas with wild abandon.

And later on the lovely Kayleigh and Tom turned up, by which point most of us were pleasantly pickled....apart from Steve who was driving...poor Steve.

The whole evening was excellent, Viv was totally on form. She gives the impression of being a very kindly, sweet and benign lady, which she totally is.......and then she gets her hands on the wine. She came out with some absolute gems and took a bit of a shine to our Steve ;), grabby grabby, NORTY Viv!! She certainly helped make the evening, I think I'm a little bit in love.

There were a couple of persistent themes of the evening, the first being spillage of wine! I don't think anyone got away without being splashed by wine at some point in the evening. I was sporting a particularly spectacular purple stain...very chic.

The second theme was JENGA! Perhaps contrary to expectations, as the evening wore on and we became slightly the more worse for wear...we actually got better at Jenga, check this baby out! WIN!


Cake was lovely and booze was lovely and company was excellently lovely lovely. When we got chucked out of the Castle, Kayleigh, Tom, Jo and I moved onto somewhere in Angel for a drinky....but being CONSIDERABLY inebriated by this point, it didn't last too long and soon Jo and I were headed for the nightbus.

We were woken up halfway home by a kindly man who took pity on us and let us know we were being booted off and onto another bus. We must have been a picture of beauty and gorgeousness. Faces squished up against the windows, snoring (probably not gently). I'm impressed he had the guts to approach.

Home for CHIKIN.......and the next thing I know I woke up on the sofa at about 5am.

All the signs of an excellent night I think! Thank you Nicki for organising such a lovely evening, thank you to Jo and Wilf for propelling me in the right direction and thank you to all those who came along to wish me well on my travels. I haz a big love for all of you :o)

Please....take a peek at the photies, these are in order....more evidence for why drinking is bad. There's distinct deterioration!

Nicki fails at Jenga!

Such concentration

Cheers!

Mmm, sexah Jenga pose

The lovely Julio

Tastes good

Hee hee, fab evening guys xxx

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'

Volunteering, why?.....narcissism??

Ahhh, my second 'biographical' post.

Those of you who know me well will know I do quite a bit of volunteering. I'm not sure why I started volunteering in the first place, I certainly know that it wasn't through any misplaced desire to enrich my community. That little confession does tend to disappoint many people when they ask why I seem to be such a people-oriented and community-spirited individual :o) Although it didn't start off that way, I think it's become more that way as I've gotten a bit older and wiser.

I started volunteering at ZSL in Feb 2006, alongside my fellow blogger Jo Blogden (http://www.joblogden.blogspot.com/). I was still with a significant ex back then (the reason for that little comment will become clear in a bit), and I think my motivation was just needing something different. I was working in a SHITE admin job and had come back from a month on a monkey sanctuary in South Africa a couple of months previous. I felt I still wanted to do something with the animals...but unfortunately, having finished uni, needed to sustain myself too! That's Bekkie, one of my baby minkies in SA.

When I started volunteering with St John Ambulance I think it was because I wanted to fill my time up and take my mind off stuff....as well as the first aid...obviously. I'd split up with the aforementioned beau at the end of 2006 and had filled my time with getting rat-arsed and seeing mates etc etc etc, but I moved to Streatham in Nov 2007 and after that I didn't have as much money, also, around that time, the ex and I had another brief little thing. I'm not entirely sure what was going on there, I think there was the possibility that we could have gotten back together, but I think it worked out best for both of us that that didn't happen!! After that I was a bit up in the air again and needed something to do, so I joined my local branch of St John on Valentines day 2008! Perfect excuse for not having a bastard date on Valentines Day eh??

Since I joined these 2 esteemed....erm......institutes, the volunteer role has evolved for me a little bit. With ZSL I feel a stong sense of obligation, to the team more than ZSL as I've taken on the role of Team Leader. When people leave it does feel like a small failure on my part, even though I know peoples lives change etc etc. I enojy it when the volunteers are having fun and chatting to visitors etc. With St John I feel like I'm contributing to the community and I do enjoy that feeling..is it a bit narcissistic? I've heard someone describe volunteers as narcissistic before and I guess there's an element of it, but I don't do it to make myself feel like I'm a goody-two-shoes, I do it because I enjoy it. St John is lovely in that respect. When you go out on duty and you DO help someone, you really feel like you've made a bit of a difference and like you've made an achievement. As an aside, Jobie and I were talking about how blogging is really quite a self-indulgent pastime....maybe I'm the most wrapped-up-in-myself person I've ever met....hmmmm

What do I do?

Both volunteering positions are very people-oriented. At the zoo I chat to visitors about the animals, their behaviours, where they come from, who they are etc etc....AND I get to make badges and colour in!! :D Always an added bonus. With St John there's the prospect of getting VERY close and personal with people, why do ya think I go to the Rugby matches?? :o) Here's a pic of me and a mate having fun in the London Zoo Activity Den!

I think I may have also been volunteered to help with an allotment open day just after I move to the stow, that'll be fun, meeting new people, having some old gardeners perve over me....good times...good times!!

People I KNOW! and the zoo

I've just found some more people I know who are blogging :o)

Just had to share that excitement with the world.....ahem.....

Zoo yesterday was mucho busy, the lovely weather this weekend has brought them out in droves, DROVES I tell ya! Although, it'll get much busier once the real summer comes along :). The wallabies are having babies, lots of little joey heads sticking out of pockets, and the squirrel monkey babies are doing well too :D

The new Animal Adventure has opened, I went to see it briefly yesterday, what a haven for children!! The animals in there are soooo cute too. I loved the pigs and the prarie dogs and the white-tailed coatis (red pandas to you and I) and the aardvarks are the funniest looking things ever, they spend most of their day laying around sleeping on their backs with their legs in the air. The aardvarks and the meerkats live together and apparently sometimes the meerkats come and curl up on the aardvarks belly and go to sleep too.........awwwwwww, I HAVE to try and get a picture of that for you guys. (Cue random aardvark picture)

There are tunnels and climby things and stuffz. The tunnels come out into a dome where you're at eyeball level with the meerkats running around. I would have gone in, but there were lots and lots of kiddies around. I also eyeballed the tunnel and thought that maybe, MAYBE it wouldn't be the best image for the zoo if Estates were called out to free someone from the tunnel, and then turn up to find a volunteer in full uniform wedged in there. I'll go back and try that one morning when no one is around :)

Bodyworlds, zoo, grumpy animals...all the usual

So yeah, I went to Body Worlds - Mirror of time, on Saturday with my sister. It was quite interesting. I do think that MAYBE they could have eased you into the exhibition a little more softly than they did. The first thing you're confronted with is tubes containing embryos in various stages of development....then you turn the corner and you have foetuses....or should I say foeti? I'm not in the habit of referring to herds (collective noun for foeti??) of foeti so I don't really know......Where was I?? Foeti in glass cases. The climax of which is the 'reclining pregnant lady' whose abdomen is opened up to expose the baby and how it affects all the internal organs, smooshed up underneath the lungs and diaphragm.

Despite the slightly rough nature of introduction, it is very interesting, especially if you are into anatomy, biology etc. It didn't really sink in with me that these guys are really real, until I saw the skin man, a flayed guy standing there holding up his skin. It's only when you get close that you see all the hair on the skin of the arms and legs....and the fact that he had really cracked heels (Garnier foot lotion would have worked on that love). I do respect the people that sign themselves up for this process, putting themselves up for the most intense and intimate scrutiny you're ever likely to experience.....albeit after you're dead.

Biggest Pro: Made me come away with a better understanding of how the shite I do affects my body, and wanting to maintain a healthier lifestyle....I wonder how long THAT will last!

Biggest Con: They left the nipples on the women but not the men!! Hmmmm *enter cynical smilie here*

Zoo yesterday was good :o) Lots and lots of new people which is excemellenté!!

Animal tried to kill me though! Yes! It's true! Her name is Roo, she's a milk snake. Most people say harmless, but now I know different.....killers they are!! KILLERS!!

ok, so she's about 4 foot long, 1.5 inch circumference, and VERY grumpy! Looks a bit like that one there. Evil!! Watch out for her!