Saturday 24th April - Been back at work, working 8am-6pm every day (mmm gotta love them 50 hour weeks!). Been really busy at work and at home, I have just had loads of little jobs to do that take time, and there's not enough hours in the day, and too few at night! I'm doing well if I get 6 hours sleep these days. I was offered a ticket to see "British Sea Power" in Manchester and I was going to go, but decided not to in the end cos it was a big effort to see a band I only like a little bit. I went to a new Chinese Buffet in town instead with a few people and that was really nice, then we went back to John's house and watched "Shrek" (always good!).
I've got my last week in my placement coming up, and I'm thinking of going to Loughborough at the Bank Holiday weekend to see everyone there. The weekend after that is an undergraduate weekend away in the Lake District (more on that later...). Anyway, check out the photos from my week off, and I hope everyone is enjoying the recent spell of sunshine!
Sunday 18th April - Happy Birthday Mike! I had a nice roast lunch (thanks mum!), packed up and got on the train back to Preston, got back around 7pm and popped in on Gem and SJ to say hi. I had a really good week off back home and it was great to see everyone again. It was also really nice to be driving again, I do miss my car! I spent an absolute fortune though on going out every night so the next few weeks in Preston will be a bit quieter (yeah bollocks!). Happy Birthday Anna tomorrow...! (Mon 19th).
Saturday 17th April - Me and Anna were really quite badly hungover, so while everyone else left Anna's at various stages of the morning, I could only find the strength to get up after 1pm and get the train home (Anna was probably in bed long after I left!). I was feeling rough, but was holding out, until I got home and had a vitimin tablet. Within a minute I was chucking my guts up down the loo, but I felt much better afterwards! Went to see "Gothicka" at the cinema with the guys that evening, which was a bad mix of "The Ring" and "The Sixth Sense", and with major plot holes. Halle Berry was fit as though! The best bit was how scared Egg was getting!
Friday 16th April - Anna's 26th in Brixton - went up to my cousin's birthday party in London and saw Ruth there as well (Anna's younger sister, also my cousin coincidentally!!). We started out in a bar called "Fine Line" (£13.50 for a bottle of wine... bastards), and went on to a club called "Infernoes". I got stupidly drunk on beer, wine and whatever else and have very few memories of that night (probably a good thing!). Slept on the floor at Anna's flat.
Thursday 15th April - Hungover, ordered new phone, the Sharp GX-20 - the one David Beckham was advertising (I can't find Rebecca Loos number on it though...!). Bought Mike and Egg's birthday presents, and then went to the pub quiz at the Firkin (which we gave up after very few questions cos we were that bad at it!)
Wednesday 14th April - OCEANA!! This was the night of Mike and Sarah's 21st's and it was (as expected) AWESOME! See the photos. I have only been to Oceana in Kingston 3 times now, but it truly is the best club I've ever been to. £3 entry, £1.50 for a good choice of drinks, several very different themed rooms/bars with different music, and the massive "Grand Ballroom" - perfect. Oh and the music is something else too! Nice and varied, including the amazing Oasis 4 song sing-along!
Tuesday 13th April - Drove to Maidstone and hit very heavy traffic just before Maidstone, was sat going nowhere fast for over an hour. Saw Lucy in her new house (when I eventually found it) and we went and grabbed a pub dinner. It was really great to see her and catch up - and it's so good to see her doing so well. I got her a cool birthday present too which she really liked! (always a bonus!). Drove back home at speed on an empty M25 at 2am - nice.
Monday 12th April - (update) Drove to Guildford and had drinks and saw Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" with Hud. I was not impressed, it was sick and revolting and didn't do anything for me spiritually. It's 2 hours of watching someone get tortured to death, and I'm gonna give the ending away here... he comes back to life! Hud seemed to like it though.
Monday 12th April - Happy Easter everyone! Also, happy 21st to Ajai, Libby and Egg, who all had their birthdays on Thursday 8th. More on them later...! Right so what the hell have I been doing since the last rant...? (this is why I write it cos my memory fails me at every step!). Thursday 1st we all went out to Squires for Andi, JJ and Mario's joint 21st knees up, it was a very good night in the club but not a great night otherwise. I refer of course to the Glastonbury ticket farce, which if I've spoken to you in the last couple of weeks you will no doubt have heard me moan about it! I was ordering tickets for myself and Elle, and also using Andy's card to book him one. We started ringing and trying the website from 8pm and gave up after no success at all at 9:30 to go to Squires. I left a little bit early cos I was working Friday and I wanted to book these tickets. I got home and kept trying the website, and finally managed to book my tickets at 2am or so. Then started the challenge of booking Andy's ticket. Joy. I was up till 5am, when I officially gave up, but I had good company on MSN and on the phone. Dave in Preston and Mike in Farnham and Egg in Nottingham were all on MSN and we were moaning about it non stop till we each gave up. Mike had been on solidly since 8pm with no luck, Dave was booking a ticket for Tara and didn't actually get to bed that night, and Egg had done what I'd done and started at 8 but gone out then come back to try some more, only problem was she'd drunk shitloads and was projectile vomiting everywhere. I spoke to her on the phone a bit too, cos typing on MSN was getting difficult for her! Anyway, like I said, I packed it in at 5am and went to bed, only to wake up 2.5 hours later and go to work for the whole day. Safe to say I didn't earn my pay that day, I was pretty dead in the afternoon. I was quite productive in the morning but lost all strength after lunch.
To make matters worse, I got 2 confirmation emails from the ticket agency for the tickets, so I'd ordered 2 tickets twice by accident (the system was so crap I wasn't surprised). No way could I get through to the customer service people, so left it. I then got an email from them saying they'd tried to take payment for the first order of mine, and my bank had declined the transaction, so they just cancelled that order! AHHH! My bank (smile.co.uk) are very good, and in fact they phoned me to ask about the transaction, doing a security check. I asked them to let the next attempt go through but it must have been too late, and when I checked on the online ticket tracker, it said both my orders had been cancelled and the rest of the tickets had sold out. I think they cancelled the second set of tickets because you're not allowed more than 2 per card to stop the touts, a measure I agree with, but looks like the system failed again there, and wiped off the second set even though the first set was cancelled. Sort it out aloud.com!! I phoned the customer service people on Monday morning and they phoned me back Tuesday lunch time to offer to rebook the tickets, which I was happy about, so I do now have tickets for me and Elle (YAY!!). Egg never got as far as the ticket booking stage, so didn't get tickets. Dave never got through for Tara, but she did the next morning (having slept the whole night I might add!). Her ticket was cancelled due to "lack of funds" too, but she decided not to fight customer services to get it back. Mike got his tickets sorted, and Dave Salks and Andy got theirs too. Tom, Stat and Matt didn't get theirs. So basically, some of us are going, most aren't. Well done aloud.com and Glastonbury management, you well and truly FUCKED UP Glastonbury for thousands of people this year.
When I got home from work, G's sister Emma and her friend Katie were there. Unfortunately I was so dead I couldn't join them at the pub for a couple of cheeky pints and I was asleep by 11pm (I actually should have gone to bed as soon as I got home!). I also missed a good night out with my work colleagues, it was a double 40th (haha!!) and the managers were buying drinks for everyone. Andi and Rick, the other undergrads in my office went out and Andi has a lovely photo of Rick about 3 seconds before spewing! Saturday I took Gem out for lunch, then a few of us played basketball and I scored 1 hoop! That's about as much as I can ask for. Went to Tara's house after that and she cooked us all some DELICIOUS fajitas. Me Gem and Andi left there after the food and met G, Emma, Katie and Mario in town for some drinks. I wasn't planning on going out after the pub but was persuaded otherwise and ended up in Roper hall with G, Emma and Katie. We actually had a really good night there and apart from Emma being sick all over her duvet on the sofa at 5am, everyone had fun. It was the first night I had my nice new digital camera from the insurance, so I was annoying everyone with the non stop snapping (see photos here!).
Sunday didn't really do much. Monday back at work, Tuesday we had our last meeting with the undergraduate programme manager at work who then left the company on Thursday. Beer and a curry for lunch was not the best plan, I was burping all afternoon! I also had a briefing from the main boss dude managing the Nimrod programme which is the plane I'm working on at the moment, that was quite interesting.
Thursday 8th as I said was Ajai, Libby and Egg's 21st birthdays. I only worked in the morning, then my line manager gave me a lift to the station at lunch time (saved me £15 taxi fare!) and I got on a "double loaded" train, so spent the first half an hour standing and sitting in a pile of luggage! Finally got back to Leatherhead at 6pm and had a 15 minute turnaround to go straight back to London on the train, but this time with Libby and co for her 21st. We went to a fancy bar on Portobello Road in Notting Hill called "This is trailer happiness". I failed to see the trailer connection, as the drinks were stupidly expensive. I stuck to the £3 bottles of beer, as opposed to the £9 cocktails! We had a nice evening there but had to leave before 11 to get the last train home. See photos of the evening here. Friday night we all went round to Elle's house for Egg's 21st, that was also very good, played a few party games and had a nice BBQ. No-one really got pissed enough though, and Egg went to bed before midnight (I think she'd been drinking all day). See photos here. Saturday I chilled at home and went to the pub with the cru in the evening (yay late licence!) and Sunday we had a fairly quiet Easter in with the family. My Granny was over for lunch, and I drove her back to Sevenoaks in record time. Went out to Nando's for a really good meal there and then back to the pub (yay late licence again!), then up to the Epsom Downs to chill (where the Derby is held).
I've taken the whole of this week off from work and I need it! I've already filled up my entire week though - so many people to see now that I'm "down south!". I'm just about to head out to a pub in Epsom for Lib's 21st (which is today! Happy Birthday!!), then I'm off to Guildford later to catch up with Hud. Tomorrow evening I'm going to see Lucy in Maidstone, Wednesday is the massive night out at Oceana in Kingston for Mike and Sarah's 21st's, Thursday I hope to see Tara in London, Friday I'm back in London for my cousin Anna's 26th, and Saturday I might go over to Maidenhead to see another cousin who is now managing his own Wetherspoons there. Sunday I head back to Preston for another 2 weeks in my Nimrod placement, then from May to August I'm working in the JSF Fuel Team. Hope everyone is having a good Easter break, see you all soon! (yikes 1493 words!).