Ibiza, birthday, destitution and contiki

So loads to blog and zero time in which to do so.

Ibiza was brilliant, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and plan to spend a little longer there if I can afford to next year! I've some photos but just no time to post them! But rest assured I had a great time, and I have a tan!! A real one, it is possibly the best. thing. ever.

Twas my birthday the day that I got back and I turned 23 *sob*. Its true, nobody does like you when you're 23! Anyway my birthday was super fun, I slept, then I did my laundry then I packed my room up... ok so it was boring as hell, but we did go out for a nice meal in the evening in the Bush which was cool with Carrie, Kel and Aylin. Photos from that also that I'll post...some day. Thanks to everyone who sent me little birthday texts it really makes your day up over here.

On the day after my birthday I moved out of my little home and moved all my stuff into Carrie's as she has very kindly allowed me to store my stuff there and stay for a little while till I get a new place when I get back from Contiki.
However in the meantime I have no job, no home and am officially destitute.
Its actually quite a horrible feeling, I miss my room already it was like the only bit of security you have here, and now I'm homeless *wail*
When the cab dropped me off at Carrie's and all my stuff was sitting on the pavement, I was like, thats my entire life sitting right there on the side of the road...

But enough feeling sorry for myself because tomorrow I leave for Contiki, Hurrah!!
And so there will be no blogging until I return at the start of October,
I know I know, contain yourself people. However I'll try to send a few emails while I'm away... but don't be surprised if I don't send any you know how I am!

So goodbye for now, Hurrah!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! (again)

We now have to celebrate as we have all become Aunties!!

Well no ok not really, but we shall pretend to be Aunties because Mel has given birth to a beautiful baby girl called Brianna

So a HUGE congrats to Melissa, so wish we were there see you both! Instead we just have one more thing to look forwards to coming home to!!

Now I'm not going to tell you all again... STOP with the exciting stuff while we're not there!!

HURRAH!

Poll of the day

At what point should you cut off a friendship? Whats a decent reason for doing it? Or is it something that you should never do no matter what?

Also if a friend is truly crazy is it more polite to ignore it, or have them carted away?


thoughts please

Magic Moments

Here are some of my favourite moments from the weekend that I just had to share...

Aylin: "OI! This aint a fuckin cobblers love" As poor Kellie struggled desperately to fix her shoe in the middle of Soho.

Jenn: "You David... are a gargantuan punani" Trust me it was well deserved.

There was the added beauty of the new lunatic flat mate that has moved into Kellie's (bring back Troy) and her psycho friend. Tell me this people, would you jump on someone and blow a raspberry on their back after just meeting them?? Thought not. I did accuse him of spiking my drink with vodka though, only to find out it was my oh so reliable and responsible friend Kellie who had done it.....

And of course these two classics from Carrie had to be included:

Carrie: "I'm starting to think, that being taught to think laterally, has ruined my life."

Carrie: "Whats that thing where you have the... oh yeah epiphanies! Well I'm an epiphanist."

Another poor excuse for a blog I know, but it was either that or whinge about the cricket.... which I still may do because I really wish everyone would just bog off with the cricket, who cares who wins!!! I get to claim allegiance to either country anyway and any sport that goes for days at a time cannot be good, so stop with the talking about it in all public establishments as I'd like to get the tube home WITHOUT hearing about bloody Ricky Ponting and give me back my normal TV programmes!

Ok thats my rant over and done with, no more feral Jenn. Off to Ibitha at the end of the week so you'll all just have to hang on for the next thrilling blog

Dance Valley - the photos

Dance Valley!! Heres some pictures from the website.




Ainsley and I looking dirty and tired on the Saturday. We were accosted by some girl from Vodafone.

Saturday night


One of the stages, starting to fill up on the Saturday


Check out the mud... we lived in that for three days!

Sadly, these pictures don't do the event justice! (Or the mud for that matter!)



Confetti being sprayed all over the crowds!!


This was around the main stage area.

It would have been an absolutely wicked event to have done in a big group I think! Summer weather woulda helped too :)

Dance Valley 2005

On Friday last week I flew out to Amsterdam with Ainsley to go to Dance Valley the Festival. I really had absolutely no idea what to expect at all, being that its an event in a completely different country and also as we were camping for both days of the festival. Really wasn't sure if that was a wise decision or not seeing as both Ainsley and I have been given the nickname 'princess' by our respective groups of friends.

As it turned out the weather was pretty awful and the whole weekend I was the muddiest and the dirtiest that I have likely ever been. I was also incredibly tired and I hurt literally everywhere! But it was out of this world, I had a great time and its by far the best festival I've ever been too. So well organised and so bloody huge! So here is a run down of what I got up to!

Picked up on Friday morning by minicab at 3.30am - barely human at this stage - dropped at Liverpool St and caught the express to Stansted airport. Realised that we weren't overly prepared for the weekend being that neither of us had even thought to bring a pillow for the tent. Nor a heavy jacket. But seriously its August how bad can the weather possibly be!?
We arrived in Amsterdam at about 9am. We then had a great time sorting ourselves out and travelling through Amsterdam to central station and watching the sky turning slowly greyer and greyer. Went and had some lunch by which point it had started to rain. Spent the better part of an hour reassuring each other that the rain would stop just in time for us to be able to put the tent up!
Caught a shuttle bus to the festival site for about 2pm. By this point it is positively raining and by the time we had trekked through the muddy grass to the front gates it was torrential rain. Whilst we queued however they had a DJ playing which made me feel a little better and they had people giving out ponchos, which scored serious points with me! However by the time we got in we were both very drowned little kittens! However we registered, trudged through what can only be described as a mud pit and put up our tent. Now serious points also go to Ainsley and myself who managed to put up our tent in about 15 minutes in the torrential rain with no fuss, we didn't have to ask for any help and we didn't even use a hammer or any sort of banging device (that's how wet the ground was). I was extremely proud, we didn't even get the inside of the tent wet in the process!!

Then we had to devise a way of getting dry and staying dry so we got into clean clothes and put aside our ruined jeans and trainers. Then we came up with possibly the best invention ever and a total lifesaver for us - plastic booties! We took blue plastic bin liners, ripped them up, wrapped them around our feet and tied them in place with hair bands. Sure it sounds basic and we looked fairly stupid but it kept our feet dry and warm and made it possible to schlep through the mud all weekend. Also wearing binliners on your feet attracts a lot of attention. Granted not always the right sort of attention, but it sure made for some interesting conversations, and confirmed what we already knew, guys will use ANYTHING as an opening line. My favorite comment that resulted from one of our many "hey - nice shoes" chats was this gem:
"Guess what? My fish licks!" *said whilst pointing to a plastic 'finding nemo' fish hanging round his neck*

The festival itself was just amazing, the best event I have been to easily and so so huge, we thought the Friday was pretty big and then on the Saturday they opened up about four more tents. They had so much cool stuff, massive tents, huge displays, fire engines, real fire everywhere, bubbles, great music, they had a tent which showed movies all the time, and all night cafe, a cyber tent, market stalls, hammocks and sofas so so so many tents and my all time favorite was that on the Saturday when Ferry Corsten was onstage they had a helicopter fly over the mainstage and drop loads and loads of flowers all over the crowds, it was just so so cool. It would have taken me back to my hippy roots if I had any (and no JennP I don't think spending too much time at the hip-e club counts as 'hippy roots')

Also the atmosphere was really good and the people really friendly. The Dutch are much more like Aussies at these types of events and it was a very confortable vibe. The normal wierdos were present though (refer to fish comment - why would you even wear a plastic fish on a necklace??) However it was quite disconcerting when everyone kept speaking in Dutch. Half the time I couldn't decide if I didn't understand them because of the noise, the alcohol or the fact that they weren't speaking English. So I practiced my nodding and smiling some more. Also it makes you realise that a mashed person in Amsterdam in exactly the same as a mashed person anywhere else.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed myself even though I was very very dirty and I couldn't run around like usual because you literally had to trudge everywhere in the mud. Oooooh and I very nearly did a head dive into the mud on the last night but I very sensibly saved myself by throwing my body at a strange angle at hurting my back quite badly! The tent survived all three days which I thought was a miracle, but we couldn't be arsed to take it back down so we left it sitting in the field, where it will probably still be standing.

If you want to check out the line up and photos of the day go to:

www.Dancevalley.com

I haven't taken any pictures because I am lazy and crap and have no camera (please refer to episode whereby Rachel RAN IT OVER)

Also on the way home on the bus I was serenaded by some very drunk London boys who sang the Neighbours and Home and Away theme tunes to me all the way home. They even threw in some Kylie and Jason songs, I was very disturbed that they knew all the words, but it was a funny end to a great weekend!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

I'd like to take this oppurtunity to say a huuuuuge congrats to our darling friends Ms Jennifer Ann Payne and Mr Leo Riviera on their engagement!

(Serious points for me by the way if I managed to remember AND spell Leo's surname correctly - let me know Jen)

How fantastic is this, we get to have hens nights and a wedding and force Jenn to try on all manner of hideous meringue like dresses, drink toasts at every oppurtunity and consider how very grown up we've all become!!

In all seriousness though a huge congratulations to you both, I know that over our end we're all super happy for you - Kellie even cried *snigger* - and just can't wait till I next see you both so that I can squeal and clap my hands and jump around a lot!! I just couldn't get away with it at work when you told me, they already give me funny looks coz I keep laughing at the computer....

Also I now have to come home (at some stage) for the wedding!! Hoorah!

The Walkabout

Last week I spent two consecutive nights at the Walkabout.

I'm not proud of it, but I did have good reasons for going there.... I was blackmailed and forced at gunpoint to go there, consume too much snakebite and dance like a mad person!

Alright thats not true in the slightest, and there really is no good reason for spending even one night at The Walkabout, but it got me thinking and the Walkie really does deserve a mention on this blog.

We went there coz Rachel was down for a couple of days mid week (and I plan to write hideous untruths about Rach coz she never reads the blog and she never posts any comments either!!) So Tuesday night we went out in Shepherds Bush and as usual ended up there and Wednesday night we caught up with Megan and Lucy and also ended up there again!

I have only once been to the Walkabout and came out sober and that was simply because I was wearing a white skirt (quite by mistake) and my fear of ruining a much loved skirt overcame my will to drink more snakebite then is ever good for you.

Nothing good ever comes of the place. Sure its fun at the time and it reminds us of being at home and at the craic, but its the morning after thats the killer. Carrie and I in particular seem to be unable to go to the Walkabout without incident. For example dancing to 'Smack my Bitch up' and pretending to slap each other.
Singing John Farnham's ' You're the Voice' as loud as we possibly can at the walkie and all the way home. I don't even like John Farnham (Although Jen P and Shanooon - we did you proud) Picking up hideous men and approaching randoms that you would under any other circumstance cross the street to avoid!

I have lost a jacket, several white tops, my travel card wallet and my dignity to that place.

Further evidence is this: (and Carrie may kill me for divulging it) on Wednesday night on the way home from the Walkie I offered Carrie a lift to the top of the road to her bus stop in my taxi. However there was some confusion as to whether the driver was dropping Carrie off at the top of the road or dropping her all the way home.
Sadly due to this confusion, Carrie tried to get out of the taxi at the same time as the driver took off up the road... and he ran her over.

Well he ran over her foot anyway, and whilst it was incredibly painful for Carrie and the poor taxi driver thought he was going to be sued, I found it hilarious. In fact just recalling the image of it gives me the giggles.

So in conclusion, we love you Walkabout! You give us a local night out, snakebite - which is surely the most sensible drink ever, an opportunity to intelligently converse with other antipodeans and a never ending supply of comic moments! May we always be drawn there when we are slothy.

Please note: The author of this blog is aware that it makes very little sense. Unfortunately alcohol has destroyed any sense of logic the author may have had remaining.

Family Reunion

Its obviously been ages since I posted anything... or more accurately since I posted anything worth reading. Here is why!

I have had two and a half glorious weeks off work and my bank balance officially hates me! I have been with my family as Mum and Dad have been over to visit! I've been up to Scotland for the wedding, which was so brilliant. It was the best day I have had in a very long time and it all went perfectly to plan besides the zip coming off my dress an hour before the wedding!
Oh yes the dress broke, all my panicking and dieting and I fit into the dress just fine but then the bloody thing went and broke of its own accord. But most importantly we fixed it and a fantastic time was had by all!

Then I went back down to Kent and spent some more time with my parents and saw some of Stephen as well and did lots of family reunion type stuff which was cool. Then I came back up to London to have an evening to myself before mum and dad followed me up the next day. *By now starting to turn slightly insane*
So we did some Londonish stuff and crammed the three of us into my not-quite-big-enough room.

Dad then had to go home (although I think he was secretly pleased) and Mum and I went off to Paris for the weekend which was also good, the highlight of which was seeing the Moulin Rouge (which you may have guessed from the last post) but in all seriousness it was such a good show quite unlike what I had expected, a little camp and very very cabaret but altogether very very good.

So its been a great couple of weeks and Mum went home last night which was very sad and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little homesick, but life is going to get back to normal now for a little while,.. and by normal I mean I can get back to the pub.

Also this weekend I am off to Amsterdam for a festival called dance valley which should be brilliant!! I am camping with a friend which is bound to be interesting, those of you who remember the Easter long weekend before I went away will know that I don't do camping all that well, but hopefully this weekend I will not throw up on my tent! And I certainly can't throw up on my car floor mat because I don't have one anymore!
Hoorah!