Happy Halloween!

Cats and weird Japanese song

I dont normally do this, but this is funny :-)

Ross Noble and other matters

We went to see him on Wednesday night at the Opera House in Manchester and he was very very very funny. We were right on the front row and he spoke to us and everything!
Had a drink in the Sports Cafe beforehand - shan't be going back because it was stupidly expensive. Its not that I don't have the money - its the principle. Why can I go down the road and have a pint for £2.30 and then get charged £3.30 for the same drink somewhere else, just because its a bit of a flash place?
On a better note, I got a phone call whilst in flash, over priced place. It was from a man who had found a toolkit in the middle of the road and it had my number on a piece of paper inside it. Turns out the toolkit belongs to the guy that mends our printers at work (he had his car broken into and his toolkit nicked) - he had some numbers written down on a bit of paper, mine included, and the guy that found it rang all the numbers till someone answered! There are some nice people in the world after all.
On Thursday night we went to one of those all you can eat Chinese buffet places. I didn't really do justice to it, having mostly seaweed and prawn toast and beef curry (and ice cream and jelly! Blue ice cream! Orange jelly!), but him indoors managed 5 trips. Good boy!
Last night we watched The Tool Box Murders, followed by Threads. WHY did I watch Threads again? For those of you who dont know, it was made in the 80s and its set in Sheffield and basically the UK is devastated by nuclear bombs. Its all done documentary style, and its just HORRIBLE. When I was a teenager, Thatcher was in her prime and my dad worked for the then CEGB (central electricity generating board), and did a couple of stints at nuclear outfits. I was convinced a nuclear war was imminent and had even worked out how far I would get towards my house if I was at school and a nuclear bomb went off. Thankyou Threads for bringing all that back :-) I will insist on watching it every so often and then wishing I hadnt.....
Made pizza last night and tonight its full on Sunday dinner time, so I will be off to watch a new episode of the Simpsons and stuff my face.
Hope you all had a good weekend!

This weekend

I have mostly been pottering about. Friday night was watch the telly/drink wine, Saturday day was tidy the house/go to the pub, Saturday night was watch Troy and drink cider and eat fried chicken, Sunday day was rehearse with my band (and scary guest Polish singer!) and go for a pub tea afterwards - I had lasagne.
Now a hot bath awaits.
Hope you all had a good one.

Us at the Ireland wedding. It was late. Very late. We were "in a good mood".... And the boat on the way home.

Ireland Trip

Day 1
We got on the ferry at 2am. Got into Dublin at 6am. TIRED. Walked for miles until 8.30am when we find and get the hire car. Feeling very miserable and cold and tired and wet because it was chucking it down.
Get hire car and drive to Waterford. Find hotel. Cant find anyone in hotel to check us in so wait around until someone turns up. Check in. Its now 3.30pm. No sleep since Wednesday night.
Go to sleep for 2 hours. Get up and drive into Waterford centre. Go round shops. Have pint and hot dog. Drive back to hotel. Get taxi back into Waterford to meet groom and his relations. Drink for a bit. Groom goes home to do pre wedding things. Get saddled with idiotic, drunken friend who insists in talking in an Irish accent and going on about the IRA. Bear in mind we are in SOUTHERN Ireland. Groom returns. Drink some more. Ditch drunken annoying friend. Go back to hotel at 2am.
Day2
Get up at 11am. Go into Waterford and have lunch and a pint and buy wedding present and card. Meet groom buying underpants :-)
Go back to hotel. Get changed. Get taxi to church. Watch wedding. Very, very lovely and enjoyable, apart from idiot friend who is still acting up and trying to be centre of attention. Catholic do - lots of kneeling and getting up and down. Bride looks beautiful. Everyone is happy and its a wonderful service.
Get lift to reception. Ditch stupid, increasingly annoying "friend". Eat food, (Poached salmon for me, beef stroganoff for him indoors but we share) drink, meet people we havent seen for years, chat, have generally lovely time. "Friend" gets increasingly annoying and several people are now threatening to kill him.
12am and we get taxi to hotel. Dog tired, full of food and drink and happiness. Crash out.
4am. Stupid ex friend attempts to gain access to our hotel room having been abandoned by the people he was staying with ,and virtually everyone else at the wedding as well. I manually throw him out, because I am now SEVERELY annoyed and its a wonder I don't kill him myself, thus earning myself eternal respect from everyone else who has been exposed to him over the last 48 hours. Go back to bed.
Day 3
Get up at 8am , pack and drive back to Dublin. Get on ferry and sail home. Pick keys up from ma in law, thank junior sister in law for looking after cats and getting bitten by new influx of cat fleas. Drive home.
8pm. Sit on settee drinking white wine and falling asleep. Superb time!
....Get text this morning from groom saying ex friend was put on a plane home three days early for "his own safety". Its a wonder he isnt at the bottom of the Irish sea.
Maybe photos to follow....

Ferry annoying

We are off to Waterford. In Ireland. For friend's wedding. And we are going. NOW. Because the ferry we were due to be on got cancelled due to bad weather (it was tomorrow at 9.30am) and we have been moved to one tonight at 2am!!!!!
Arrrgh! Just had mad rush around getting stuff together and we are going no to drive to Holyhead to get on the boat. We get to Dublin at 6am!!!! And we can't check into the hotel till 3pm!!!!!!
See you hopefully on Sunday night!

Sunday Lunch

Last night was DC79 at the Thatched House in Stockport. Met a mate who had got secretly enagaged! Good for her I say. Less palava that way - although less presents as well :-)
Although terribly tired today, we delivered the singer to the train station and then went to Warrington to try and get some keys cut to give to junior sister in law, who is looking after the cats this weekend, as we are away for two nights. More of that later.
Anyway, key search proved fruitless but we had a mooch about Warrington for a while, visiting old haunts and so on. Just so you know, I lived there till I was 21, before I did one daaarrrnn sarrfff with him indoors. It hasn't half changed, and yet not changed.
Here is a picture of the Carlton Club (now defunct) where me and him indoors first met in February 1989.

This is what it looks like from the back these days, and it looked exactly the same in those days as well. It was a rock club, and in the heady late 80s/early 90s it was about the best (in fact only) rock venue to hang about in in Warrington on a Friday night.

I can even remember what I was wearing that night : long red skirt, flowery blouse and a hat with 777 written on it in gold letters.... dont ask.

Then we went out for lunch with the ma in law (I had to remind her son what she looks like...). We went to the Little Manor in Thelwall and I had the world's biggest Aberdeen Angus 28 day matured beefburger with stilton and mushrooms and chips and salad. Him indoors had the gammon and the ma in law had asparagus tagliatele. There was sooo much of it. And it was lovely. Shared a cheese board. Ma in law tried to eat the butter, thinking it was cheese. It did look incredibly like cheese and she soon realised her mistake :-)

On Friday morning we are off to Waterford for a wedding and back on the Sunday so junior sister in law and the niece are coming to cat sit. Assuming I manage to get some spare keys to them in time!