East Grafton

With a few days off this week, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to visit my Grandad, aunt and cousin.



Always loved what Gale has done with the house.



Lexi, the whippet. Quiet as a mouse, but hyper as a kid who's drank too much coke!


The Village Green (Preservation Society)


The stump which Joe is sitting on used to be the base of a gigantic tree, which for some reason will always remind me of the Roswell Alien Autopsy.

The house of a family friend which burnt down a couple of years ago. We stayed in it one year, and had a great pool in the back garden.

In the centre of this picture, you'll see a bit of dip in the green. I remember water gathering at the bottom when i was young, and it almost looked like a mini pond. I also remember a photo of either me or Ethan face down in the water. At least, I *think* I do. Weird.


We once went to a midnight Christmas service here. Looked beautiful when candle lit.


My Grandad keeps bee's, and makes honey. Roll on next batch!


Where the bee's are kept. Fact: my aunt and cousin are allergic to bee's.


The front of the house which used to be the village post office.

The path to the house has bits of old ceramics sunk into the cement. Alwasy thought that was cool.


The entrance to the "Secret Garden"

Where on a summers night, many years ago, around a fire, I first heard Automatic for the People.

Lazy Sunday

After the pumpkins, and all the jetsetting about to airports and the like, we decided to have a nice relaxed sunday, making buns, pancakes, and watcing movies! (Ratatouille, Juno and Superbad!)

Tonight Tonight

Today was the day that I had been waiting for. Not so much, all my life, that would seem a little tragic, but definitely one of those things that ensure I am one step closer to dying happy: I saw Smashing Pumpkins live! (a recap on how I got into them later)

As with Linkin Park, this was at the 02 Arena, and unfortunately, we weren't as close to the front, (but at least there were no neck injuries from sitting at an odd angle!)



They played for just over 2 and a half hours, and 27 songs, covering every album! Understandably, Zeitgeist got the most coverage, but it was nice to hear Drown (from the Singles Soundtrack), and while only 2 Siamese Dream tracks were played, at least one of them was Mayonnaise.

Highlights included Today segueing into Tarantula, and this little tease before 1979




The final encore was to be Cherub Rock, but for whatever reason, it wasn't, and instead a cover of Echo and the Bunnymen's "Lips Like Sugar" was played (with Billy, already looking awkward being so tall and wearing a tinfoil dress, looking even more so with just a microphone!)




Was it worth the wait? Yes. I think so, though I don't think I could possibly say no!

Happy Valen Times

Yes, we all know its a day made up by card companies to make money, but what sane person (more importantly: those in a relationship) wouldn't celebrate it??

Well, February 14th rolled by again, and I did indeed celebrate it well with Elisabeth. I'm terrible at keeping secrets, and the gift I got her I had wanted to give her for the longest time since I found it. A little back story..........



When walking along the Stoke canal, Elisabeth told me of a book she used to love as a child, but due to leaving it her Wendy House, it got wet, ruined, and had to be thrown out. She could remember every detail, but for some reason, not the title. After this, I made it my mission to find it!

Armed with the description, I tried my best to search on amazon for books about Doll's and houses. As you can imagine, the list was pretty long. So, in a desperate attempt at solving the mystery of the title, I turned to the BKV message board. Thankfully, Kedd was able to tell me the name of the book. (I am now forever in his debt, and our first born will be named accordingly)

So, title solved, now to find it! A trip round London's bookstores yielded nothing but dead ends, and the news that book was out of print.

Undeterred, I turned to the internet once again, and finally found the book on Playtrade, second hand. And the rest is history.

She liked it very much, by the way.


Elisabeth's gift to me was a very special one. Last year, following a viewing of Science of Sleep, I heard that there was a competition to make a short film on the theme of dreams. My creative juices flowing after watching said brilliant film, I had the idea for a poem that would tell the story of a dream...........I'll spare you the details for now. Anyway, I didn't have it finished in time for the competition, so left it.

However


Over the last few months Lize had been working on an illustrated version of the poem, and gave it to me. It's beautiful. She is such a talented artist!

So, I hope everyone else had a loved up day, and if not, you have about 360 days to make sure you do next year :)

Birthday Sugarmill

Being the party animal that I am (.........) the day after everyone head home post birthday, I headed to Elisabeths for the weekend. As I didn't have a cake, I treated myself to this cheap one from Tesco, but mainly for the free mug!


Friday night was Sugarmill night, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. Guess when "Killing in the name of" was playing....
















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Birthday celebrations over: returning to normal programming shortly!

Birthday Party/Family Over

The Internets a funny old thing: for all the horror stories you hear of meeting up with people, its nice to know that there are genuine people out there: for example, I met Elisabeth through Bebo, and look where we are now :D

Another great occurrence was the meeting of May and my mum. I know the two have become very good friends over the last year, and i'd like to say thank you to May, JJ and Martin for being such amazing people, and being there for me in January when I was feeling really low.

Getting to the point and past the schmaltz, the night before, my family came over, with Ryan and Sean, and we saw Their Strange Gathering play a gig (check them out). Tonight we were at Mays for my birthday celebrations. First off, thanks dad for the camera

We had a curry: twas delicious.

Meet Tigger: 18 years young!


Thanks to all for a great night, and apologies if i seemed at all distracted: see the previous 3 blogs for my excuse :P