Wednesday 29 July 2009

How terribly English...

...but you know what? I don't care. I'm going to complain about the weather.

Way back in April, May time, the weather peeps began to lie to us. They promised us a glorious summer that would be barbecue-tastic and sun sun sun! And what have we had? Erm, a few odd days of sunshine and bucketfuls of rain! And it totally sucks. I love the sun. I do, I'm a total sun ho. I don't go golden brown or anything nice like that but I just love that feeling of the hot hot sun beating down on bare skin. I love wearing flipflops and pretty summer cotton skirts that are all colourful and flowery. And tiny strappy vest tops and tube tops. And hair all piled up to keep it off your hot neck...

Okay so admittedly I have still worn those things as it's been warm. Just not the sun sun sun we were promised. I've given up checking the 5 day forecast now as I'm sure the weather peeps just predict us heavy rain and that way, if we do have one day of sunshine, they can go, ha! Look! You have beautiful weather now so stop whining. But it's not good enough weather peeps! Dammit I WANT SUN!

If we were a true British institution there would be someone for us to complain to. Like an official in the sky who controls the sun. An actual person we could complain to in a ranting, out of control manner. But sadly there is only blogland for me to whinge and whine (sorry folks). And today we received news (yes it actually made the BBC news) that the August weather is going to continue to be unpredictable (in other words, wet and November-like) for the whole of the month. Frankly, it's utter shite. Yah-boo to the rubbishy rain!

Finally, in a totally random subject change, there was a man on my bus this morning carrying a bag of golf clubs in his arms and a guitar on his back. Is he going to serenade his fellow players at each hole? I was so incredibly fascinated by this odd mixture of baggage. Any thoughts anyone?

Thursday 16 July 2009

Mud, music and mayhem

Greetings blog readers! We're back! Yep we've returned from the wilds of Wales and we survived the festival experience. There's so many hi-larious stories to tell from the weekend but methinks some choice anecdotes will prove much more reader friendly. So here goes:


Roundabouts

Being a very organised navigator, I printed off the destructions on how to get from London town where Tizz resides to the wilds of Wales where the festival was. There were 4 pages of directions and it all seemed pretty straightforward. Until we got on the actual roads in Wales. Turns out there can often be at least 25 miles between each roundabout, who knew? It took many many twisty turny roads before we went from one instruction to the next. Who ever would have thought that reaching a roundabout would deserve a cheer...hooray!


Tents

Somehow, we managed to arrive within 10 minutes of our other happy festival campers, T&G, so we could set off and choose a place to camp together. It was pretty tricky finding a space big enough for our 3-man tent and their 4-man tent plus mini windbreak, but of course we succeeded and we had a pretty good spot as we were on the edge, thus allowing for an early escape come Monday morning, but more of that later.


Sleeping

I'm one of those people who never really sleeps properly the first night that they arrive anywhere. This is always a major bummer as I'm also someone who seriously needs their sleep. Tizz on the other hand, due to her ever changing shifts, can sleep anywhere at any time, lucky thing! The sleeping throughout the weekend was kinda hit and miss. Some nights I slept like the dead, often we snoozed away the afternoon, but more often than not we were kept awake by horrible grotty teenagers, grrrr. The purchase of the earplugs helped somewhat. But safe to say, festivals are not your destination of choice should you be hoping for restful nights sleeps!


Red Arrows

They're a British institution. And they opened the festival. And they were AWESOME! I lost count of the number of times we gasped...oooh-ed....ahhh-ed...our way through their display. Amazing. And look what pretty pictures they make in the sky:


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Music

At such a wee little festival as Wakestock was there were still some pretty big name bands there, but for me, the smaller unknown bands were the ones I enjoyed the most. Flamboyant Bella followed by KissySellOut were my highlights for Friday, especially when KissySellOut did a cover version of EMF's 'Unbelievable'. We went totally mental at the back jumping up and down and singing our lungs out. Whilst the teenagers around us looked on in amazement at how we knew all the words and 'who are those mad oldies dancing like loons' look on their faces. Nyeh. Saturday's highlights were Eliot Minor and The Twang and Sunday were The Mission District and the Cuban Brothers; quite simply the dirtiest band of the weekend, dirty dirty dirty things kept coming out of their mouths but they were absolutely wicked and the atmosphere in the tent was pretty special. The Zutons had a few technical problems but managed to grab it together at the end, all in all, some damn fine bands were seen.


Weather

Always a concern for any festival go-er, the 5 day forecast didn't exactly look promising so it was pleasant to arrive on Thursday in glorious sunshine and for it to stay dry for Friday too. Sadly the same couldn't be said for Saturday. We opened the tent flaps to rain and rather a lot of it, plus wind, oh happy happy joy joy. By the time we eventually got to bed on Saturday night we were absolutely sodden. And cold. And a bit miserable. By Sunday and a long night of rain and wind, the ground was an absolute mud-mire, you basically sunk if you stood around for too long so constant motion was advised at all times:


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By Sunday the sun had come out again and it was a beautiful day! The mud-mire was absolutely comical by then as we squelched and sklerrrrrped and suckered our way from one place to the next. I think it's probably safe to say that it doesn't feel like a real festival unless you've had to get your wellies out and tramped around with lots of mud attached to them.


Jagermeister

I'm not quite sure what is actually in this drink, it tastes a bit like cough syrup and comes in the form of shots. Tizz and I opened proceedings by downing a couple ourselves:

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I managed to dribble some of mine all down my face (sexy!) but there was definitely something in it as it made us totally hyper! On Sunday when we did 2 shots each we spent about 30 minutes making up many different outfit combinations with the free bandanas. Here's a series for you to enjoy:


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What time?

Monday morning rolled around and our festival outing was over. T&G decided that getting away early was the best option. I didn't realise this getting up early meant shouting over to us at 5.15 in the AM that it was time for us to get up. I was actually asleep then and was a very confused Dizz by the shouting, say what? G kindly took a photo of me packing up the tent (cheers matey) to which I might have growled at him to eff and jeff off as I wasn't even human yet, grrrr.


Highlights

*Rain dancing to Eliot Minor. In the mud. By the time we'd finished we had a crowd of us, jumping up and down like red indians, a quality moment!

*Tizz getting chatted up by some random welsh bloke who told her she had nice eyelashes (!) and showed her photos of his bike. The 3 of us started to sneak away to leave them to have some time, chuckle, and Tizz grabbed me and hauled me back muttering "don't leave me"

*"Unbelievable" woo woo woo!

*Tizz and I blowing up our airbed that had sadly decided to deflate by the last night. We were in the darkness of the tent and all that could be heard was the squeak squeak squeak of the foot pump. All this was being done by torchlight so must have cast some pretty odd shadows as I was up and down on the footpump and Tizz was kneeling over me holding the torch...of course we got the giggles and then just had to go there..."oh yeah baby"...squeak squeak squeak..."like that yeah"...squeak squeak squeak...you get the drift. We're so mature...

*As I set off to the toilets one night I realised I'd left the torch and couldn't actually find the tent on the way back. At the time I was pretty worried and starting to panic but afterwards it was really funny. All tents look the same in the dark you know!

*The breakfast that we had on Sunday morning after the rain. I've never had a better breakfast in my life. Fact.

*The hot chocolate and toast that we got from the man on the stall. He might have saved our lives. We were cold and miserable and hot choc and toast was just what we needed. They were even offering hugs should you have wanted to take advantage!


Low points

*Waiting for the Super Furry Animals. Who were 25 minutes late despite the horizontal rain and winds. And then were pretty shite once they did come on. Pah I say!

*The high-pitched whine of the Liverpudlian girls behind us. Shut. The. Eff and Jeff. Up. Now. Please. Hideous. Is it really that surprising that you're cold when you've knifed the door off your tent? Stupid girls.

*Someone nicked our windbreak! Seriously. It was there when we went to bed and gone by morning. It is shocking what people will steal...(ahem, it was only a couple of tent pegs m'lud)

*Missing the Pigeon Detectives due to sheer exhaustion and misery from the relentless rain and wind. Gutted. But I did enjoy hearing their finale from the warmth of my sleeping bag. All together now, "Sweet Caroline...ba-ba-bahhhhhh"


Summing up

A mighty fine weekend. With my most favourite-est peeps. Roll on next year!


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Wednesday 8 July 2009

Wellies and waterproofs

Greetings one and all. Tizz and I are off on our festival jaunt tomorrow. We're heading to Wakestock in Wales. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a festival of music and wakeboarding...still clueless? Yep, me too and I'm attending! But the wakeboarding thingie looks like it'll be great fun to watch. And the Red Arrows are opening the festival! And the army are going to be their with tanks! Which you can have a go in! Now THAT is cool!

I've got my wellies ready, which just happen to be black with multi-coloured spots all over them and furry inside, yay. And my festival hat to hide my festival hair. And my very long very old green waterproof which might be ugly but covers most of me which is definitely required at festivals. Especially as when I checked the 5 day forecast it's not looking so good. It's sunny today...when we're not there...but the rest of the week looks cloudy and a bit gloomy. But! Never fear! We will not let that stop us having a rockin' old time. Piccies will surely follow.

But spare a thought for poor Fizz whose suffering with a summer cold at the moment - get well soonest chickie! And Wavey who I'm leaving behind for 4 whole days (soppy moment alert) which is to be truthful a wee bit upsetting as we've only actually been apart 1 day since September...ahem, moving swiftly on...

So! Hope you all have a fabby weekend. And I'll blog about the festival upon our return. Who knows, Tizz might be able to do some live festival blogging from her very jazzy phone. If the battery doesn't die as soon as we get there. Ta-ta lovelies x

Saturday 4 July 2009

The whooshy week

I believe it would be fair to say that this has been an extremely busy week for me. But I'll let you make up your own minds as I blog about the events of each day.

Monday
The day itself was not really worth writing home about, a usual working Monday. But on the evening I was due to start my summer university course: Introduction to Painting. The course is for 4 weeks and it's free and it runs from 6-9pm. I'm not quite sure what I thought the first week would be but I certainly didn't expect to be sat down and told to paint what was in front of me, which was essentially 4 statue torsos, 3 of which were in boxes, there was another box with a jug sticking out of it, and all of this was on a yellow tablecloth. I haven't actually picked up a paintbrush in any kind of education type thing since I dropped art class at 14 in order to take Craft, Design and Technology where I could build stuff with wood. I was, it's safe to say, quite clueless. But I did my best. The man let us paint for an hour before he stopped us all and said that we'd basically done what he was expected which was draw with a paintbrush. He proceeded to shut all the blinds and switch on the lights to cast shadows and shapes on each torso and then told us to pick out the shapes we could see and paint them in block colours. By the time I'd finished my very first art piece looked like this:

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Claire, age 3. Surprisingly, he told me it was a very "interesting" painting and compared my work to both Matisse and Tanguy! I know it looks freaky but hey, it's not too shabby to be compared to Matisse!

Tuesday
The day of schmoozing. I had been given permission to go on a work event that was to be held in Leeds. This meant leaving work at 11.30 in order to get on the noon train to Leeds and reach the event by 2pm. Train was no problem. I know Leeds a bit from past shopping experiences so headed off to walk to the venue. I got lost. Not my fault I hasten to add, the directions were not correct. I stopped one lady in the street and asked her the name of the street, her answer was not very clear so I headed onwards. I saw a guy in a white shirt standing outside a bank, ha thinks Dizz, I'll ask him. What a brilliant choice. Turns out he was a bus driver. He got on the phone to his bus driver mate and asked him to wait for me, told him where I was going and where I needed dropping off! How bloody brilliant is that? I crossed over the road to my waiting bus and headed in the correct direction to the venue, what a lucky Dizz. The afternoon was kinda nice. I chatted to other librarians, found out that our libraryland is not at all far behind - in fact we're racing ahead - I drank wine, I ate cake, I schmoozed my ass off. All this was done whilst wilting in the extreme heat of Leeds. I was so glad to get on the train as it was icy cold with the air-con, oh happy days. I didn't return home to the Dizz house until 9pm, I was very sch-leepy by then!

Wednesday
Just a normal day, except I worked overtime til 7pm. That's 3 days totting up late nights...

Thursday
The impending first library social event meant that Thursday was supermarket shopping. We had £50 to spend on things that would make up a buffet for 28 people. The experience was not as bad as I'd anticipated and we only went £4 over budget. Wahey! I got home at a very respectable 5.30 so headed off to Wavey's garden to enjoy the last of the sun...and fell asleep on the bench snuggling against Wavey. Woke up a few nappette moments later and headed back home to make some tasty dins before Fizz headed round to mine to view the artwork from Monday. We sat chatting and laughing until just after 9 when everyone left and a very tired Dizz went to bed at 9.30pm.

Friday
The day of the first library social event. I was leaving work at noon to head to J's house to make the buffet for 28. The rain was hammering down so hard at this point that the short walk from her car to the garage meant a drowned Dizz! I was literally dripping wet. Yikes! The next 3 hours flew by as I made 3 loaves of bread worth of sandwiches, managed to grate my knuckle into the cheese which wouldn't stop bleeding, heated up sausage rolls and quiches and sliced bread; all this in a relative stranger's kitchen. Most odd. Reached the venue by 4pm where we set up the food and awaited the peeps. Thankfully the event was a resounding success and I think everyone had fun. We'd made way too much food. And bought way too much booze, but that will keep for the next event. People played the games. People ate the food. People mixed in circles other than their usual. Can't ask for much more than that.

By 8pm J-bn and I were ready to explode with excitement as we were heading off to see The Fratellis at the Empire. Ooooh! We met up with Fizz and Wavey and went in to enjoy the band. And they were very very fine. They didn't stop, song after song after song, I bounced and danced and sang and woooo-ed until I was hoarse, a mighty fine show! By the time we got home I was actually asleep on my feet I think, I managed to drag myself to bed where I zonked out on the pillow until the alarm went off today...

Saturday
...cos I'm working overtime at work today until 5pm. Then I'm heading out for dinner with D followed by The Hangover at the cinema. Phewee! Plans for Sunday? ZERO! Absolutely bupkiss. I intend to lay my ass down on either the sofa or the sun lounger (weather dependent) and chill the mutha out. What a week!

Oh, and during this oh so busy week, look what's happened to the peppers:

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The chilli one is a bit blurred but you get the idea of the size:

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Woooo!

If you've stayed reading this far, well done, a long post! So long my friends...