Spring

I am not going to complete my Easter mission in time for Easter… so I’m going to make it a long term project. I’ll put a photo up when it’s all completed to reveal my genius scheme!

On my way into work today I realised just how light it’s getting in the mornings now. Spring is definitely springing! It was bright, crisp, and everywhere there were little bursts of colour. Those Japanesey looking trees have started to blossom too, they’re one of my favourite Spring things. One day I will have one in my garden.

I love the changing seasons. We don’t have particularly defined seasons in this country, but the change always seems to come just as I tire of the last. Spring and Autumn are my two absolute favourite times of the year. To me they are the most beautiful. Autumn with it’s wonderful reds, golds and browns, and Spring awash with delicate colours like a watercolour landscape.

Everywhere things are new, the world is once again waking up after it’s winter sleep, and bringing with it new energy. I still have the nagging feeling that descended upon me in January, that very downbeat inexplicable funk, but it seems to come in waves, and being around my friends is an effective temporary cure. The progression into Springtime holds hope that the funk will lift as the weather does, I can’t wait until I can wear long flowy summer dresses and flip flops again!

poker, people and playlists

Poker at mine last night was good fun. We had a nice sized group of people: myself, The Wizard, Byron and his girly Comal, Gilly and Hayley, Tall Mike, Eddie, and Antony all sat around the little coffee table in the lounge. I had to rebuy and literally just caught the final call for it… then spunked another £5, nevermind, it was good fun anyway!

As the game came to a close Ivan and Liam turned up for a bit and put match of the day on so Ivan could get excited about football scores. Byron and Komal dissapeared as they were heading on a trip to Venice. The Wizard went for a lie down after poker was finished, I ended up staying up pretty late. I think my mind was rebelling against the idea of getting up for work at half 6 on a Sunday

Later still, after Gilly, Hayley and McGovern left, Emma arrived for a bit (in her annoyingly gorgeous corset), then took Ivan’ Liam and Lando home.

Throughout the evening people had played their mixed CD’s. We started with Hayleys, then Ed’s, then Mikes, and finally mine. I need to get copies of everyone’s stuff and track listings so that I can explore some of the artists I wasn’t familiar with. I can’t wait to hear everyone elses!

I chilled out with Mike for a bit until my CD ended, then decided that perhaps I should really go to bed. Not too long after I’d hit the sack I heard Jon return with Briffa and Lee (I think his name is Lee, he’s a more recent addition to the clan) and realised that I’d unwittingly managed to get too tired to sleep. I spent the night drifting from odd sort of waking dreams to listening to hushed tones in the hallway. I think I managed to drift off properly sometime after 4.

This morning I woke up at quarter to 7, threw on my clothes, almost fell over the sleeping bodies on the floor (Briff and Lee look very sweet all snuggled up) and then launched myself out of the door… I need my bed!

That said, I wonder who’s out tonight…

This man is a legend

It may not be everyone’s belief, but I agree wholeheartedly with the views of this man. If you are a religious person, give it a look anyway, just to see, I know a lot about religious beliefs, but I find that non-religious beliefs are under-represented, here is some representation:

http://dotsub.com/films/godthepsycho/

Hungover ramblings

I drank so much last night. It was awesome.

Vikki and I shared 2 bottles of wine… I know a couple of people had a glass or two so I have no idea how much we actually drank.

Dear God I was singing in the loos… and the pub! Uurgh I was trying to sing Shakespeares Sister :s

And I danced like a twat with Vikki’s Alan

I’m pretty sure I talked at people too, I do that even more when I’m drunk, they’re used to it though so it’s OK… I think. I was just so happy to be out and away from work, and there were lots of people out, I don’t think I did it ALL night, I’m sure there were some proper conversations in there somewhere…

Lando is now officially the Beer Monkey (in my mind anyway) as I realised this morning that I gave my last £4 to him last night to get beer for Eddies after the pub, I’m pretty sure I only had one of those in the end… probably for the best actually… I couldn’t play Guitar Hero by the end of the night.

Surprisingly despite my mamouth efforts The Wizard was actually more pished than me by the time we went home, he does suffer for his booze though, he was still in bed when I got up for work so I’m sure he’ll sleep it off OK.

That was a good night… I think…

In the mix

I finally got round to making the mixed CD that I’ve been working on for a few weeks now. A few of us are going to put our all time favourite songs on disc and swap them, it’s a good way to hear new music or stuff you wouldn’t normally listen to, plus we’re all putting reasons that they’re out favourites next to the songs so we might learn a little more about each other too.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never made a CD until now and I had no idea how to download tunes from the internet until last week, I’ve never had a CD/DVD writer before though… so that’s my excuse. I have all of the songs in hard copy floating around somewhere but it was easier to download everything from scratch than to dig about in various boxes and drawers trying to find them all. I have 19 tracks (I was worried 20 wouldn’t fit) and I had a nightmare choosing them.

Since starting this exercise I’ve discovered that I have at least 70 and possibly up to 100 favourite songs, I didn’t realise it was that many! I’ve had to cut loads of stuff off because it is too long, or didn’t flow with the other tracks, or because I had too many of the same style, or if I had two by the same artist or group… it was the only way I could cut them down to one CD.

Now I’m finished I’m quite pleased with the final article, though I have to make a new one tonight because after listening to it all the way through at work today I realised I had the wrong version of one song, and that I need to move one of the tracks to another place in the CD to make it flow better.

I can’t wait to hear what everyone has come up with! We should hopefully be doing the swap sometime soon.

Also, EDWARD NORTON!!! See below…

http://www.youtube.com/v/dUpOhM8Hxx0&hl=en

Huzzah!

the doctor is in

Yesterday at the pub was excellent fun. Byron is back from Australia where he works as a doctor, loads of us came out to see him, including BOTH of my sisters! The littlest sister never gets out anymore, for various reasons, but she said once the Easter holidays have kicked in at her uni she should be over the flat more, it’ll be nice to have her around again.

I got veeeery drunk and spent a lot of the evening being talked at by some girl who was even more pished than me. She seemed nice enough but her life was a thousand miles away from mine, she was a young mother, she still spoke about feuds from school as if they were recent (though she was very young so maybe they were still recent to her), and she seemed to be going through a rebellious patch after escaping from a very strict father. She was harmless enough though, and seemed very friendly, and sounded like she was trying to do the best for her kids, but boy could she talk! And that’s coming from me, I can talk for England! She also kept making a point of telling me that she was bisexual and that she thought I was sexy… which is very a nice thing to be told, especially by a woman, though my sister said she’d been offered a threesome by said girly when she’d met her a while ago, so I think perhaps it was just the drink talking, bless.

After pubbage we headed back to Eddies for a bit, Byron passed out from jet lag, The Wizard passed out… because that’s what he does when we go back to Eddies! Eventually, after an evening of merriment, lots of natters, and plenty of booze, we stumbled back home.

This morning due to some forethought I didn’t have to get into work until 11am, so I avoided a hangover and came in feeling quite bright and breezy! Tonight I think is going to be quite boring, we’ll see.

After reading the help, I’m gonna have another go at loading up that piccy I got from the photoshoot I did with my mate

… screw it, I give up

all weekend and no writing

My long weekend was rather good, I went to Den Hems Dutch pub in London, spent a fair bit of time at Eddies chilling out with various people, shopped, tidied my flat, blew a lot of eggs, saw my Grandparents, saw my parents, watched Eagle Vs Shark, let my sister dye my hair purple, and spent a fair bit of time in the pub… I didn’t quite get round to doing any writing though

Yesterday I went to see There Will Be Blood with Jon, it’s a pretty good film, bit long though, I reckon half an hour off of the running time and it’d have been perfect. Rach and Tom also popped by to say hi and Rach dropped off a picture of me that’d been taken when we had our pamper, hair and photo shoot day. I think it came out OK. I took a piccy of it so I could load it up, the hard copy is A4 sized and I’m not quite sure what to do with it yet, she also gave me the piccy of herself, she doesn’t like photo’s much and said she’d had lots of pictures taken of her at her wedding so she didn’t need another one. I won’t load that one up as I’m not sure she’d appreciate it.

OK how the hell do I upload a picture?!

Long weekend

After playing around with the format of the stuff I’ve been writing I’m feeling a little happier. I’ve not written much at all, but I guess being as rusty as I am it’s to be expected that I can’t just go jumping back in at the deep end. This weekend I should have the opportunity to do some more in between other stuff. I’m hoping it’ll be a little less manic this weekend, though I already have a list of stuff I have to do!

I’m off tomorrow and Monday (huzzah). Tomorrow I’m going to have a nice lie in after poker tonight, then head to Eddie’s place to chill for a bit. Vikki might pop by and get me to film her in Eddie’s loo (oh to live in the head of an artist for a day) as part of her latest assignment, then in the evening I’m heading into London to De Hems bar to meet some work people for a social.

Saturday I need to start doing a little Easter shopping, there are a few bits I need to get for a little project I’m working on, I’m a bit worried that I’ve left everything to the last minute, so as long as all goes well I should be able to spend the rest of Saturday getting my room tidy enough to start on it on Sunday and Monday!

Getting creative

Monday’s creative writing class was really interesting. Tall Mike (I know at least 5 Mikes so it’s easier to make a distinction, there’s Tall Mike, Navy Mike, Teacher Mike, Mikey and Vikki’s Mikey*) came along with me and I went into it with an open mind not knowing exactly what to expect (I have done very little by way of exercising my mind since leaving full time education, apart from a year and a bit of a university course in the most boring subject imaginable). I’m glad I went with someone, or I’d have felt quite nervous I think, I’m OK with party situations but very shy around academic types for the first time.

Notices were read out first and action points that had been taken the last time were updated. The secretary was an elderly lady who decided to point out that someone should really be taking over her position soon, since she had been told she only had 3 months left ten years ago! Her rather morbid point was taken up by the chairman, who stated that he’d been there for 25 years and wasn’t going to live forever, then pointed out that the man in charge of the finances (a rather proper looking gentleman) had also been in his position for 25 years, and ‘fresh blood’ was needed. This did concern me a little as I wondered if they’ll be trying to collar us a couple of months down the line!

Once all this was out of the way, those people that had brought something to read made themselves known, and each took their turn to read their work. After a person had finished, the others would comment on it, often with a combination of positive and negative points about the piece, and gave advice on possible routes to go down to try and get it published. I took note of a few things, next time I will remember to bring a pen and paper so that I can write stuff down! The meeting ended at gone ten o’clock, which surprised me because it seemed to fly by!

I took their newsletter home with me which has an exercise in it called 3 things. The idea is that each month they write 3 things, a place, a person and an object, and you have to write something incorporating them all. I’ve already started on something, and even at this early stage, feeling more motivated than I have in a long time, I’m already suffering from my mind fighting against me. Yesterday I started working on writing, then somehow managed to end up unloading the boxes of stuff in my room, and signing up to online poker. When I did manage to get anything down, it seemed with every sentence I wrote that I came up with more problems to try to overcome, and more threads that I’d have to tie up at the end, I’m also not sure if my story even really has a plot. I know what I want it to be, I know where I want it to go, I know who my characters are, but I have no idea what to do in the middle :s. I’ve already started thinking about scrapping a chunk of it because it could cause problems later on, meh, I have a month to do it so fingers crossed!

Despite these worries, it’s so nice to actually be thinking stuff up again, I feel really positive about next months meeting

*as an aside, there are also too many Dave’s in my group, so they are differentiated using nicknames and last names. Therefore among our collective there is Lando, Hoduhduhduhduhduh, Goose, Briffa and Pollock… we also have 3 Lee’s: Reading Lee, Sheep and School Lee… just to make things simple!

Epic weekend

This weekend has been awesome! We spent our time showing an American friend of Jon’s around London. She has never been to the UK before, has turned up on her own, met Jon via the wonder of the net and is only 21, luckily we are a nice bunch and not a group of crazed axe murderers!

Friday the wizard and I travelled up to Covent Garden to meet Briffa, Jon, and The American at a bar. They had been drinking for quite some time and were miles ahead of us. After a couple of drinks we headed to meet Eddie and for Reflex, an 80’s themed club.

The queue was horrendous and the bar was rammed and run by idiots, but the club itself was really lively and fun, The music was all 80’s pop and TV theme tunes, I had a bit of a dance but made the mistake of wearing my gorgeous high heeled purple converse shoes… which are really just there for decoration and should not be used for dancing, walking or standing. Eddie left early because he had some major alcohol acquisition issues as well as falling victim to both a drunk and clumsy Briffa and a drunk Jon swinging an inflatable guitar in the general direction of his pint. After losing one and a half pints in this manner, and knowing that he couldn’t get anymore, he left a bit grumpily… but understandably under the circumstances I think, since he needed to get the last train if he had any hope of getting home. The Wizard and I gave up just after 1 and endured the massive Night bus trek back to Romford.

Saturday I did a little shopping in Romford and then headed up to Camden to meet Jon and The American. When I got there I also found Briffa back on the lash and Jarvis, who had never been to Camden before either. The guys decided to take Jarvis to a few pubs while I took The American on a sightseeing tour of all the wonderful shops (obviously minus The Lock, which is sadly now a blackened mess). After a couple of hours we met the guys at The Worlds End then Jon, The American and I headed back to her hotel so we could get ready and Jarv and Briff waited behind to meet Mikey and The Wizard before heading for Ben Crouch’s Tavern. Jon also left once he’d got us to the hotel and was satisfied that I could get myself and The American to the pub without getting lost (which I did a bit, but meh).

At the pub we met the guys from earlier plus The Wizard, Mikey, Ivan and Alan. I got on it straight away with a few Morticia’s (test tube shot things) and a couple of Jaeger Red Bulls, after an hour or so I’d say I’d caught up pretty well! Hayley and Emma turned up a bit later on and then Gilly after that, unfortunately Hayley and Gilly didn’t come across to the club with us, but we did pick up a random French dude.

Sin is quite an intimate club just off of Tottenham Court Road. There’s old school 80’s rock and metal (and lots of big 80’s rock hair) downstairs and metal and rock upstairs. Also a very nice patio area for smokers. I danced loads, nattered at various people and generally enjoyed myself. I remember not wanting to leave at the end of the night but eventually we all spilled out and cabbed it back to mine.

Briffa threw up on himself in the cab on the way home and we had to stop off on a flyover so he could get it out of his system… useless! Alan said he’d seen him drink at least 10 vodka shots throughout the night though, and that was on top of his normal drinking, bit scary since I’m sure he said he’s been told his liver is not good right now. When we finally made it back to my road the cash point near me had died so we all bundled out and The Wizard had to stay with the driver and took my card so we could pay him. He turned up at the flat a little later by which time Alan was cooking us a fry up.

I had massive natters with Mikey on the doorstep for a while, then munched on some food and chatted to Lewis online (who for some reason was still awake) before drinking half a tonne of water to make myself throw up (handy hangover prevention technique when you just know you’d rather spew than wake up to the results of a £100 odd bender) and then going to bed.

Next day I woke to find Alan, Briffa and a comatose Mikey. After a bit of mad rushing about I got myself looking semi-human and headed for a nice fry up with Alan and Briff, who could barely cope with looking at his food let alone eating it. His lips had become really sore, I assume from the abrasive effects of all that vodka! After getting some much needed munch in me I went to mum and dads to give mum her Mothers Day pressie and also popped by my Nan and granddads’ for tea and cakes. My sister gave me, the Wizard (who had joined us for dinner) and 5 boxes from my aunts loft a lift home, I’m slowly getting all my stuff back from storage!

That evening it was back on the lash again at the Firkin to show The American our local and then over to Eddies flat for a bit before wombling home and realising I had to get up for work the next day!

Surprisingly I actually feel quite chipper today! Tonight I shall hopefully be going to a creative writing group with Mike, I’m winging it a bit though as I haven’t rung to find out if it’s OK to just turn up, what the prices are, or even if they’re definitely running tonight, fingers crossed!