Update 2

While I have actually been getting out and doing stuff, there has been a lapse in blogging again. So I shall summarise the goings on of my life in bullet points, because I like bullet points and this is my blog and I can use them.

• I ventured back to the Walkabout at Temple to watch the first State of Origin game the other week, after managing to avoid any updates on the score throughout the day by getting a colleague to screen all of my text messages. Honestly though, you need to be drunk to be able to handle that place and as it was a Wednesday night I was not in a position to have a great time. Amber and Nicole did though!
  
  
• Jodie has returned from Australia but is yet to find employment, which leaves her free to hunt around on the internet for cheap theatre tickets – yay! We went to La Clique the other week and it was fantastic! The venue was really cosy and set up sort of like a circus, with strings of lights, and the stage in the middle. And the acts were great – a man who squeezed his body through a tennis racquet and made me laugh so hard I cried, a couple that did amazing spinning tricks on roller skates, a massive black man dressed in drag singing, a little guy dressed as Freddie Mercury that did juggling tricks and jokes, and crazy acts.
  
  
• This week we got £10 dress circle tickets to La Cage Aux Folles (aka the Birdcage) which was pretty good. The highlight were the five extremely fit, male chorus dancers, who were extremely entertaining from the stalls, but I don’t think I would have liked it as much if I was in the front row tables!
  
  
• Last weekend we did a day trip to Brighton which was really fun. The weather was unexpectedly gorgeous, and we all ended up getting a little sunburnt. We went down to the water, played games on the pier, went on our favourite ride – the Crazy Mouse, had fish for lunch (actually I had salad), did some shopping in the Lanes, and then whiled away the afternoon at the beachfront bar, le sigh…
  
  
• PowerPlate is either going to be my body-firming saviour, or the death of me. I’ve started doing PowerPlate classes at the gym, as I got a few sessions free with my membership. The idea is that you do exercises on a platform that vibrates, so a 30 minute session is equal to a 90 minute session on standard equipment. And at the end of it you feel like you’ve done a 90 minute session. The good thing is that the last couple of minutes you lie on the ground with your legs on the machine and get a muscle-stretching and cellulite-busting massage.
  
  
• I have been invited to the wedding of a colleague friend of mine in September, which is very exciting. When I asked what the dress code she was rather vague, though stipulated that most women would be wearing hats or headpieces. Crap. So the search starts now in the hope that I will find something appropriate in the next two and a half months.
  
  
• Just to fuel the fire that Jackie started at Christmas lunch, I bought a pair of Birkenstocks on the weekend. I had quite the internal fight prior to the purchase – extreme comfort and purple patent leather vs blatantly looking like a lesbian. Comfort won out. Though I won’t be wearing them with my new green skirt from Joy, as I saw an actual real life lesbian wearing the same skirt a few months ago.

PS. Mum, I am not a lesbian.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

Last Sunday Laura, Mark (aka Spark), Matt and I grabbed our bikinis and went to Brighton for the day. As it turned out, we didn’t need our swimmers after all. Brighton put on a typically British day for us, with grey skies and intermittent showers. Perfect!

We arose at an ungodly hour for a Sunday morning, packed our sandwiches and scarves, and caught the 8:30am train to the beach. The train was fairly empty but we managed to pick a seat near the grossest passenger who kept coughing up his left lung. The first time he did it we all looked at each other with surprise, the second time we looked at each other with disgust, the third time we all grabbed our bags and ran to the next carriage without saying a word to each other.

The first port of call in the little seaside town was a café so we could all get a hit of caffeine. After that we trundled down to the pebbled beach for the obligatory dipping of our toes (in this case finger tips), skimming of rocks, and photo opportunities. Then we hit the shops to buy Sparky a coat, as the flimsy little jacket he had been getting around in for the past few months was not going to cut it against the ocean breezes.

A trip to Brighton would not be complete without a visit to the pier and it’s rides and amusement arcades. We went on a tame looking little rollercoaster called the Crazy Mouse, which was actually rather terrifying given its rattling rails and lifting carriages. I screamed the entire way, it was awesome!

Another compulsory tourist activity is chips’n’vinegar by the seaside, which of course we had to partake in. With bellies full of warm carbohydrates we hit the Crazy Golf course (are you sensing a theme here? Crazy!). Being a semi-frequent visitor of the Victoria Park mini golf, I have to say that Crazy Golf left a lot to be desired. The green was concrete rather than grass, and clearly built in a time before spirit levels. I managed to putt the ball about two feet away from the hole, but the uneven green and the wind ended up blowing it in for a hole in one!

By this stage we had pretty much exhausted all of the possibilities Brighton presented to us on a dreary day, so hosted our own pub crawl on the way back up the hill to the train station, stopping in at the Varsity Bar, the Fishbowl, and Quadrant. Though to be honest the only reason we stopped at Quadrant was because Sparky and I have bladders the size of thimbles and needed to use the bathroom.

We collapsed into our seats on the train with rosy cheeks after being windblown all day. I fell asleep about 10 minutes into the return trip, only to be woken up as the muscles in my neck relaxed in my slumber and I smacked my head on the window. Ouch.

All in all, a lovely day!