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I'm still recovering from a crazy busy weekend. It all started on Friday night with the work summer party. One of my colleagues was playing in the office band and I primarily went along to support him. I ended up drunkenly staggering to the tube station at 11.15pm. It was a fairly crazy night for reasons it would not be possible to describe without embarrasing myself and others (those who have read my earlier flocked post will know why!) but needless to say it involves all the normal office party stuff. At least I escaped joining the conga line though. That would have been a new low for me. I have pledged only to join conga lines in the relatively safe environments of weddings and family parties. Anyway, I digress, I have to write a bit about the office band. When I say 'office' band I actually mean 'organisation' band as 600+ people work in our organisation and the band was formed when someone asked on the intranet whether anyone would like to join a band. It's all inclusive and as a result the line up currently consists of: lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums, bongo, keyboard, melodiun (which is an accordian type thing played in folk bands apparently - appologies if I've spelt it wrong) and a singer. I was a bit nervous when I realised that they didn't have a bass as I'm a total bass addict but once they started playing it really didn't matter. For an amateur band who all have busy day jobs and only practice once a week they did very, very well. They played a variety of covers including a couple of Kinks numbers, Brown Eyed Girl, Honky Tonk Woman and a very hard rock version of Nellie the Elephant. They guy who played lead guitar was really excellent. I don't know him but I guess he must be in his 50s. He didn't only have a huge amount of talent and skill but real stage presence. My colleague played rhythm guitar and did really well despite clearly being very nervous at the beginning. I don't watch/listen to much live music these days (the last amateur gig I attended was the Christian band of a friend of a housemate at uni) and I was quickly reminded of what a fun and uplifting experience it is. It also made me want to go out and make music again in some way. The local adult college has released it's course guide for next year and I'm definitely going to sign up for piano lessons as soon as I can.
I didn't sleep very well on Friday night probably as a result of excess alcohol consumption, over excitment and general confusion. Fortunately, I didn't develop a hangover so I was up early ready and raring to move on to the next stage of the weekend. At 3.30pm I gathered my new tent, self inflating camping mat, sleeping bag, pillow and minimal other stuff (not enough space in my bag for anything else much!) and caught the train to begin my journey to Romsey, Hampshire. The journey took around 2 hours 15 minutes and was completely free because the nice people at South West Trains sent me six free day travel passes to use anywhere on their network at weekends with my annual Gold Card season ticket. I was travelling Hampshire to attend the welcome home party of my lovely friends Polly and Rob who had just finished cycling from Johannesburg to Cardiff. Their story is amazing, I thoroughly recommend reading about it on their blog: http://longwayhome.travellerspoint.com/. Anyway, the party was being held on Polly's dad's farm and was absolutely wonderful. Me and Polly shared a house in our second year of uni and it was the happiest year of my life. I knew that one of our other housemates was coming but I was totally suprised when two more were also there. It was the first time the five of us had been together in years and years, only one person was missing. It's so brilliant meeting up with friends after a long time and being reminded of how fabulous they are. We chatted, ate lots of lovely BBQ food, gathered around an enormous campfire and then camped on the farm. During their journey Polly and Rob raised money for a couple of very admirable South African charities and they decided to hold a raffle at the party to raise a bit more cash. I manged to win three prizes. I tried to make them put the tickets back and draw again but they refused. I won a jar of blackberry and apple jam made by Rob's older sister, a hamper containing another jar of blackberry and apple jam, marmalade, elderflower cordial (yum!) and sloe gin all made by Rob's (very clever) older sister. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to carry everything home but I managed to squeeze everything in my rucksack. I left the baskets so that Rob's sister could use them for another event which helped. Jam and marmalade aren't my favourite thing so I gave one jar of jam and the marmalade to my parents. I'm going to bake a cake and use the jam from the smaller jar in the centre.
As a city girl I always feel that campfires were something I missed out on growing up. My countryside bred friends all have memories of making a fire in the woods and sitting around drinking and singing to a guitar. If we'd lit a campfire around here someone would have called the fire brigade and probably the police and we might have burnt someone's house down! On the farm, they just chucked a load of logs in a pile, poured paraffin over it and lit it with a match. We then just moved bales of hay around it and gathered. The heat was really intense and much needed as it was fairly chilly night.
Camping was a bit of a challenge. My tent went up without a problem. I decided to put it under a tree for extra protection in case of rain (don't mention thunderstorms people, I knew it was a risk but it was one I was willing to take!) It was quite spacious inside for one person with minimal stuff. I should have taken a blanket and was a bit chilly but I did manage to sleep from 1am to around 5.30am when I was woken by the rain. After that I didn't manage to get back to sleep again. The good news though was that my tent remained watertight through a couple of fairly heavy showers. £7.50 well spent I think!
I arrived back home at around 3pm and at that point the tiredness kicked in. I spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in front of the TV watching 'Save the Last Dance 2: Stepping Up' which is not a great movie before dragging myself down to my parents' place for Sunday lunch.
Ooooh, and my sister became an auntie last week. My B-I-L's older sister had a baby boy. She had to be induced at 32 weeks as she was poorly but baby is a good size and doing well.
Next for a very busy week at work before I go away to Paris next Tuesday.
I didn't sleep very well on Friday night probably as a result of excess alcohol consumption, over excitment and general confusion. Fortunately, I didn't develop a hangover so I was up early ready and raring to move on to the next stage of the weekend. At 3.30pm I gathered my new tent, self inflating camping mat, sleeping bag, pillow and minimal other stuff (not enough space in my bag for anything else much!) and caught the train to begin my journey to Romsey, Hampshire. The journey took around 2 hours 15 minutes and was completely free because the nice people at South West Trains sent me six free day travel passes to use anywhere on their network at weekends with my annual Gold Card season ticket. I was travelling Hampshire to attend the welcome home party of my lovely friends Polly and Rob who had just finished cycling from Johannesburg to Cardiff. Their story is amazing, I thoroughly recommend reading about it on their blog: http://longwayhome.travellerspoint.com/. Anyway, the party was being held on Polly's dad's farm and was absolutely wonderful. Me and Polly shared a house in our second year of uni and it was the happiest year of my life. I knew that one of our other housemates was coming but I was totally suprised when two more were also there. It was the first time the five of us had been together in years and years, only one person was missing. It's so brilliant meeting up with friends after a long time and being reminded of how fabulous they are. We chatted, ate lots of lovely BBQ food, gathered around an enormous campfire and then camped on the farm. During their journey Polly and Rob raised money for a couple of very admirable South African charities and they decided to hold a raffle at the party to raise a bit more cash. I manged to win three prizes. I tried to make them put the tickets back and draw again but they refused. I won a jar of blackberry and apple jam made by Rob's older sister, a hamper containing another jar of blackberry and apple jam, marmalade, elderflower cordial (yum!) and sloe gin all made by Rob's (very clever) older sister. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to carry everything home but I managed to squeeze everything in my rucksack. I left the baskets so that Rob's sister could use them for another event which helped. Jam and marmalade aren't my favourite thing so I gave one jar of jam and the marmalade to my parents. I'm going to bake a cake and use the jam from the smaller jar in the centre.
As a city girl I always feel that campfires were something I missed out on growing up. My countryside bred friends all have memories of making a fire in the woods and sitting around drinking and singing to a guitar. If we'd lit a campfire around here someone would have called the fire brigade and probably the police and we might have burnt someone's house down! On the farm, they just chucked a load of logs in a pile, poured paraffin over it and lit it with a match. We then just moved bales of hay around it and gathered. The heat was really intense and much needed as it was fairly chilly night.
Camping was a bit of a challenge. My tent went up without a problem. I decided to put it under a tree for extra protection in case of rain (don't mention thunderstorms people, I knew it was a risk but it was one I was willing to take!) It was quite spacious inside for one person with minimal stuff. I should have taken a blanket and was a bit chilly but I did manage to sleep from 1am to around 5.30am when I was woken by the rain. After that I didn't manage to get back to sleep again. The good news though was that my tent remained watertight through a couple of fairly heavy showers. £7.50 well spent I think!
I arrived back home at around 3pm and at that point the tiredness kicked in. I spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in front of the TV watching 'Save the Last Dance 2: Stepping Up' which is not a great movie before dragging myself down to my parents' place for Sunday lunch.
Ooooh, and my sister became an auntie last week. My B-I-L's older sister had a baby boy. She had to be induced at 32 weeks as she was poorly but baby is a good size and doing well.
Next for a very busy week at work before I go away to Paris next Tuesday.
