What Happened Next

Again I've proved that i'm a very very bad blogger. Much has happened since my last post so I thought i'd explain in pictures. I'm actually only getting this opportunity because i'm at home ill with the flu. But it's not such a chore really as I'm working on my Brand new, beautiful, cute, mini laptop.





The first big thing that happened since I last posted was that I got to see my best friend and I finally got to meet her gorgeous little daughter Ellora. What a beauty!

Then at the begining of August we went to Liz & Chris's wedding down in East Sussex. It was a beautiful day and Liz looked like a film star. We had a great time. Not least because we picked up a brand new car! A mazda MX5 hard top convertible. It arrived the day before the wedding so we drove down south in it. We couldn't have the top down though because weather on the Friday was too grey, thank goodness the clouds parted and the sun shone on Lizzie & Chris's celebrations.

Next, we took a week off work and headed up to the lakes to spend a few days at the Caravan. The weather was pretty changable and we spent many hours relaxing and reading, a nice break from work.

While we were away, Chili took a holiday at Andy's parents house! He seemed to have a relaxing time too, and when we brought him home he sulked for a week.

On the August bank holiday weekend we invited Alex over and on the Sunday we decided to go for Sunday lunch at The Kings Ransom pub in Sale. We used to go there all the time when we lived there and it was great to go back. Plus, this was the first time Alex had had a pub sunday lunch in England! Truely historic!

So, there you have it. We're now in September and we're in the middle of a lot of house alterations so things are a little bit messy here. We've had the kitchen & dining room knocked through and we're having the kitchen units extending next week. The conservatory is on order and planning permission has come through so that should start before the end of the month with any luck. Most life changingly, we now have a dish washer! Oh, my god, how did I ever live without one in the past! Hopefully it will free up lots more time for me to spend on blogging... or maybe i'll always just be a bad blogger!

Hen Type Fun

On Friday 20th June I set off down to London to celebrate my lovely friend Lizzie's Hen weekend. I really love the train Journey down to london from Manchester. Virgin trains are very comfortable and it always give you plenty of time to sit back and reflect on life and to look at the world rushing by. When I got to London Euston, Liz told me what underground trains to take and when I arrived at Surbiton station I got an unexpected call and it was Liz saying.. I can see you, I'm just pulling in to the station now. She'd got off work early.

We headed back to her house with a list of tasks to fulfill before the others arrived. Make cupcakes was top of the list. I had to admit i'd never made any before (well not as an adult, I'd only helped as a child which normally meant, simply licking out the bowl after mum had done the mixing hehehe). We approached the task with gay abandon and a glass of vanilla vodka and coke and suprisingly they turned out really well and looked exactly like the picture in the book!




Next to arrive was Gracie, one of Lizzie's teacher friends. We all struggled to get in to a particularly stubbornly corked bottle of Cava and we ended up having to resort to asking the Tesco food delivery guy to help us. The weekend organisers had ordered nearly £200's worth of food and drink for the evening and it was obvious we were in for a feast.

That evening we ate and drank and Laura had had some amazing T-shirts made for each of us where she'd superimpossed Liz & Chris's heads on to scenes from classic movies. At one point Liz dived over the coffee table, spilling dips and cup cakes everywhere and totally ruining her lovely white rug hehehe. We then invented a game where we had to run upstairs and raid Liz's wonderful designer wardrobe and model one of her outfits, America's Next Top Model styleee. I of course am about 3 sizes bigger than liz so found a new way of wearing a wrap dress which involved entirely displaying my bra... but hey if you've got a particularly nice bra you want to show off then go for it hehehe. Lizzie of course looked fabulous in her own clothes while everyone else had their zips undone.



We then played Singstar for a while before settling down to watch Grease and Dirty Dancing in a true girly night in type way and Gracie completely braided all of Liz's hair in anticipation for the next day's Sex and the City themed night out.

The next day we were all pretty hung over but we had a table booked for Brunch at a local restaurant on the river in surbiton. We definately brought the tone of the restaurant down to our level. After the meal we headed back to the house for the next suprise for Liz. We had a professional make-up artist (who'd done make up for the likes of Naomi Campbell none the less) come to the house to do all our make up for the night out. She was amazing and we all got dolled up in our Sex and the City themed outfits and headed out in a string of taxis. We had a private room booked at a pub in Kensington which the organisation team had decorated with photos of liz. We started the meal with a round of singapour slings in memory of the time Liz & Chris spent in Thailand when travelling. After the meal we all gave speeches about how we met liz and why we loved her so much and there were quite a few tears. It was definately a great group of people. Although we didn't know each other we all had plenty in common and agreed that Liz had excellent taste in friends. There was a lot of love in the room hehehe.

After the meal we were supposed to be going to Kensington Roof Gardens nightclub but despite being on the guest list they just weren't letting anyone in so we abandoned that plan and ended up going to Inferno's Nightclub where we danced the rest of the night away! Inferno's is not just a name, we must have lost several stone in weight collectively as we all left dripping through but very happy! We bumped in to a group of guys who'd been at Ascot all day so there was much hat swapping and I managed to get sat next to a guy who kept ordering rounds of Black Sambucca which I profitted from hehehe.




Eventually those of us going back to stay at Lizzie's got in to our taxi and we headed home to open more sparkling wine, and to watch more of Dirty Dancing before retiring to bed drunk and happy.


In the morning we were all dehydrated and hungry but had loads of funny memories. Liz called Chris up (who had been staying at a friends near by) and asked him to come home and make us all his famous Bacon, Avocado and Brie Paninis, which he dutifully did. God bless him!

We definately all had a great time and Liz was on top of the world. After the brilliant hen night that Liz threw for me she deserved it to be special.