Silly people who can't read signs...

Had a fairly relaxed quiet weekend. Lovely meal out on Sat for Lucky's birthday with a few drinks. Sun was a beautiful sunny freezing cold winter's day. Alex and I went for a walk down Richmond Hill and then down along the river towards Kingston.

Richmond is about the last place up the river where there is still a tidal effect. Most people know funny stories about people leaving cars in roads near the river and the cars being submerged. There are some little signs on most of the roads warning about the tides. As we walked down we say two cars poking out from the middle of the river next to Glover Island. We stood and watched three police officers take 45 minutes to get a little dingy; inflate it; paddle out and attach buoys the sizes of mini-footballs to each car. We were hoping for some exciting winching of the cars out of the water... The cars were right in the middle of the river, I'm not sure how the boats would get passed. Once the tide came up you couldn't see the cars anymore. I was very concerned about how the boats would get passed.

Hello again

Hmm as I suspected would happen I haven't been so good at blogging. I'm thinking if I don't update today that may well be it for my blogging career.

So going back a bit in time in my exciting and happening life. Two weekends ago; I went out wore heels that were too high.

They were the sort that propel you forward so that you are tottering on the edge. You have to push your head back to keep everything balanced. We went to a bar where one of Alex's friends was spinning some toons. It was fun especially because on my very high heels I could for the first time hear everyone. It's much more fun in a bar when you can hear people! I didn't know this. The outcome was that because I could hear people and have entertaining conversations I didn't resort to drinking large amounts of cocktails to amuse myself.

However, when it came to moving on to a friend's house for the afterparty it started to slide a bit. Alex made me wear the heels that were too high and so we had an agreement that we were going to take a cab to his mate's house even though it was only a ten minute walk away. But when we came out of the bar, big, burly, tall Ben, who wasn't wearing heels that propel you forward, stated `it's only ten minutes away we're not getting a cab!', and strode off. Feeling a little shameful that I would consider taking a cab when `it's only ten minutes' away I tottered after everyone. I wasn't drunk but I wasn't sober either. After about two minutes I decided the best solution would be to walk bare foot through Clapham North and stare very hard at the ground for bits of broken glass. A few hours into the afterparty I decided to tell everyone about walking barefoot to the party. On which one of the girls said 'yuck...did you wash your feet?'. I then had to admit I hadn't and was taken upstairs to wash my feet. I had a cold and sore throat on Monday.

Last weekend was Vicky's hen do at ....da da dum 'CentreParcs'. If any of you have meet Vicky you will know what a shocker this is.

It's bloody miles away. Having made it all the way down the M4 to the correct exit through the friday traffic, I then had to direct myself in the pitch black through some very complicated instructions involving dual carriageways and lots of roundabouts. Finally having arrived at CentreParcs I was told on checking in that I had to drive halfway around a huge forest to get to my villa. I could drop my bags off, then I had to drive back to leave my car in the car park by the entrance and take a land train back to the villa.

I arrived at CentreParcs at 7.30 p.m.. At 9.00 p.m. Sarah and I were sitting on a freezing, open carriage thing attached to a Land Rover crawling through a forest in the pitch black, surrounded by screaming brats. What's wrong with going to a bar in London drinking cocktails and getting a stripper?

Finally we arrived at the villas just in time for....wait for it...a Champagne Murder Mystery night! Yeah! My character was Martin X. I hadn't really read the instructions and I hadn't taken on board I was a meant to be a man. The outfit I had taken was a tartan skirt, glasses and a black top. I was going for the geeky look. Luckily Sarah (a teacher) had raided the school props cupboard and I was able to borrow some trousers. It was not as painful as I thought it would be. Not my sort of thing really though.

Saturday was spent chilling in a spa. Then the theme for the evening was sparkles and heels. I wore very, very low kitten heels. We had a few glasses of bubbly at one of the villas. Louise had organised a quiz for Vicky where she had asked Rich some questions and Vick had to guess the answer he had given. Amusing though I learnt more about their sex life than I really needed to know or more importantly wanted to know. On getting a question right she got a little gift from one of us on getting them wrong she got a dare.

We ventured into Bath for the night, first for a huge meal and then onto a bar. We wore fake moustaches. Vicky wore her bra outside her top. It was a dare. She did other dares that involved kissing random ugly men on the lips. The thing about bars outside London, is that due to the lack of choice everyone goes to the same place, irrespective of age... So downstairs there was a fifties night attended by lots of golden oldies. It was a very amusing night. We drank lots and I believe some people threw up too.

Sunday was spent trying to get out of CentreParcs and then driving home 130 mile very aware that my blood alcohol was far over the legal limit. But quite an amusing weekend over all.