Nothing (much) To Report

Now, I know I can't be the only person in the world to have a complete moment of madness and actually go out with a right wee-stained tosser, who wore a yellow pervert's coat, can I? I really don't know what I was thinking at the time…I'd like to think that I just had some permanent beer goggles on at the time…or something. You'd have thought that after coming out of a 5 year relationship with a complete nutter I should have known better. You're right, I should have have. So just *what* was I thinking? 

She was no help either, were there any quiet words in my shell like? No! But you may now read her thoughts on him during a trip to Stonehenge where he decided to hide some pot down his pants. Genius. Except that he then lost the fecking stuff. The thought of shagging him now makes my skin crawl, and yet not that long ago I was complaining that when we went for lunch together, he actually just wanted to eat his sandwiches. Yes, yes you did read that right. We worked together. In my defense, he was “just" a temp. I thought he was going to fuck off after the summer. So at least in that respect I had learnt my lesson after doing my last work colleague. D'oh! That just slipped out there. The thought of sleeping with a co-worker on your bosses desk is *always* a turn on. Ahem.  

Anyway, during one of our many skypings, 'er and me were discussing the subject of past boyfriends and she came up with the great idea of a spray that will banish past misdemeanors! Perfect. The name of course, has to be said in Cillit Bang stylee. It was at this point that I had to give up any pretense of actually doing any work at my desk as I was trying to stifle the sniggers into my plastic corporate cup. My boss knows that lines of PERL coding don't usually cause me to collapse into giggles. Anyway, I think I got away with it and managed to do a very crap Photoshop drawing of what ByronBeGone would look like.

Ok, so here’s the events of last weekend as *i* remember them. This of course includes my memory-filler-iner which likes to kick in in the event of big, black, gapping, vodka-induced holes in my memory. But the snot *definately* happened.

Right then. It all started my end with the big trying-on of clothes. Having to stand at a bus stop at 5pm in the light had to influence my choice of clothes for the evening…so instead of my little black skirt, I had to opt for the skirt that I always wear when going to the pub with ‘er. I wear it so often, that I’m sure she thinks that I only have the one skirt. Anyway - it’s truely smashing and purple, so I don’t care.

I’m then on the bus with one little old lady who is asleep and we wind our way over to Gloucester.I finally make it to ‘er house and tap on the door nicely, but thoroughly.

Normal chit-chat ensues: I want to steal your hair, can I borrow a pair of socks etc etc Things look to liven up a little when out comes the vodka checkers. A lovely idea…but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Playing vodka checkers at 6 o’clock in the evening leads to being smashed before you even set foot outside the house. There were some ideas for improvement, should we play again. Putting a straw in the vodka shot doesn’t make it super. Simply making the shot a double should be super enough. Anyway…

We finally stagger out the house in our tapity boots and make it to the first port of call - The Parkend. Woo. It was like setting foot into a time machine…except it was a time machine playing very loud reggae music. We didn’t stop long, as we were only in there to break up the long journey between ‘er house and the main town pubs. Anyway - yes, lovely Victorian toilets - like the ones I often dream about.

I can’t actually remeber any of the conversations during the walk between The Parkend and The Brunny…but I’m sure there were some. The Brunny was…weird. I hadn’t been in there for a number of years, due to an ex of mine taking up residence in there. It was somewhat a relief not to find him in there, but even stranger not to recognise a single face in there. Not one. Hmmm. Guess I wasn’t the only one to grow up and move away! Being slightly disappointed that they didn’t still sell handbag size vibrators in the toilets, we left. It was also far too loud for any conversations in there…even ones about Jesus (well, it was Easter)

Our next challenge was to actually be able to find our way into the very nice Cafe Rene. This is not an easy task considering that there was loads of bits of fence up everywhere, and we were getting on for half cut by then. Anyway - we got into t’pub and took up residence in the corner, drinking by this time more cider and vodka. I seem to remeber seeing some pictures of a man’s cock, and the resulting jizz in his work’s toilets. The weird and wonderful people of Skype, eh? During the course of the evening, my handbag caught fire and I seemed to end up with a load of wax on my tappity boots. Neither of which I remember…but they are both less embarrasing than being almost barred from the 2 pigs for showing my arse.

At some point, some strange old men came and started talking to us…or maybe we started talking to them. Not too sure. But this is quite usual for us - we have a strangely alluring aura when it comes to drunk old men. They just can’t resist coming up to us and talking bollocks. Although I think I got my revenge. I found the only sober one amongst them and talked his ears off about escaping from Russia with an expired visa (which I will one day post about). This must have gone on for some time, as the time to catch my bus home came and went in the blinking of an eye, and the decision to stay and drink more was made. I awoke with some strange photos on my phone the next day which must have happended around this time…one of which is ‘er smoking a fag!!! This is great. Now, I’m an ex-smoker, and she has nearly sat on my fingers when we’ve been in the pub and I’ve been dying for a fag. So now I have the ultimate weapon when I fancy a social smoke now. Hehehe.

By now, we’re thinking of going somewhere else or something…the reasons escape me now. It

could have been following the conversations about having a soapy tit wank. The old men must have thought their luck was in…and I was drunk enough to actually consider giving a soapy tit wank to some strangers. Anyway - we ended up going to the ‘classy’ end of Gloucester, Wellington Street to see Alan or Rick or Nigel or whatever his name was’s house. Blimey - there wasn’t a soft seat in the house, and yet about 3 hours passed there smoking pot, playing pin ball and looking through his kitchen cupboards. I changed his phone to German before leaving in a taxi with ‘er and the weird, quiet one with a manic smile from stroud.

I tippity-tapped my way up the street, and no doubt my neighbours think I’m a dirty stop-out only coming home as the sun was rising. Even though completely mashed, I still managed to feed the cats *and* take my make-up off before going to bed. Well done me.

The resulting hangover started about middday, only after I stopped feeling drunk and the room stopped spinning. I spent the rest of the day feeling as doddery as Ozzy Osbourne and craving chips. Thankfully I feel recovered enough now to fancy going out and doing it all again…just without the soapy tit wanks this time.

I'm not doing this in any order, as things stand, a much older event should be being posted up here now. It will at some point, cos it's in production. But it’s this just past Saturday night out that will appear, as if by magic, instead. I've got a better chance of remembering everything, sort of.

It was a mini pub crawl, in mini because we only visited three public houses. We being Moosh and I. Moosh may be appearing in writing on this 'ere blog sometime soon, but we've got to discuss that when there's no alcohol nearby. Cos she lives out in the almost-sticks, bus usage had to be slotted into the plan. Whilst she was trundling through the countryside, I was cleaning the bathroom. I hadn't intended to, I simply couldn't bare the disgusting state of it any longer. Naturally, my hard work has once again gone unappreciated. I did a good job, if I do say so myself, but it left me with little time to prepare myself. I dragged out a long black skirt and the nicely fitting black top, with sparkly bits on it before trowelling on some slap and forcing both feet into very high tip-tappity boots. Moosh, on the other hand, looked smashing.

We started at about six o'clock with a wee game of checkers, using shot glasses instead of the usual pieces. And there was vodka; excellently chilled, blackcurrant vodka, all the way from Russia. Except it wasn't very blackcurranty, but then I wasn't allowing it to sit on my tongue so I didn't truly get to discover the flavour. It was during this game that I learnt that downing shots has a point or two in common with fellatio, which is interesting. It was an ill-thought out game:- when playing checkers, if you manage to successfully reach your opponents side with a piece, it gets queened, or kinged, or something. We started with full glasses of vodka; they really should have been halves, which we could have doubled-up the shots as per the rules of the regular game. It also would have meant a better game. Oh well, we had fun and it allowed the evening to get started. And there was no snot. At all! No matter what anyone might tell you, they're lying!

The first pub we popped into and had one drink each was my local. It's the nearest to my house anyway. I tend to avoid the place, it not my kind of pub, nor is it particularly wonderful. Quite old fashioned loos at the ParkEnd, nice and clean. That's about all I can say about the place.

The next venue was something of a trial for Moosh. It was a place she regularly frequently many moons ago and it holds some memories for her, just one or two. It carries a couple of vague memories for me, and is inextricably linked to my sister and her then boyfriend, who's now the husband. This latest visit left me feeling a little hoarse; very loud music isn’t a great conversation aid. I do remember we sat there, virtually screaming at each other over our pint (mine) and a half (hers) of Grolsch, about how exactly Jesus was supposed to have died on the cross. We then merrily chuckled at the very drunk man who was doing his very best to stand up: he couldn’t manage standing up straight so it was all leaning, from one side to t’other.

We quickly moved on, to our intended target of the night. The verily lovely Greyfriars Café Rene. A considerable number of drinks were bought and quaffed, although I can’t recall how many. Things kinda blurred after some time. There was chat about soapy tit wanks and many mobile photo shots taken. I also remember a group of geezers suddenly appearing at our table – this seems to be a recurring event, dodgy old (oldish) men joining us during our pub visits. At some point in the wee smalls and when I was very drunk, we left and headed off with the last two remaining old fellas, to a house, in Gloucester. I can’t, however hard I try, remember that journey. I know we walked but the memory of it hasn’t clung to any part of my brain. Both these guys were, are, painters but considering the state that this house was in, I wouldn’t employ the owner of the property. Two years he’s lived there and it’s a tip. Worse than my house, which is quite shocking, ask Moosh. Frankly, I’ve not got a clue what happened whilst we were there. All I do remember is looking around, almost falling down the stairs, drinking crap cider and then orange juice. Oh, and badly playing pin ball, very badly and getting angry about it. At about five o’clockish we got a taxi home, with me being delivered home first, cos it’s the nearest. Painter guy went to Stroud and Moosh is in Stonehouse. So it was all fair.

I slept, nay, passed out, for approximately six hours before waking to discover a world of horribleness. The all-round aches and pain were definitely not worth it and I hid under the duvet hoping against all hope that it would all just go away. It did, and it didn’t. Eventually the need for non-alcohol fluids and painkillers became too great and I dragged myself out of my nest. The roast dinner that followed later helped ease the pain a little and the chocolate ice cream and Innocent smoothie helped enormously. The trip round to Tesco to get them caused more grief to aching limbs and didn’t help the general tiredness. I was still walking like an old lady yesterday. It’s never taken me two days to recover from a night out! I fear this is old age catching up with me. But it could have been due to the vodka shots, or the rum and coke that followed, or the lager, or the, at least, two pints of Farmers Tipple. Or perhaps it was the double Southern Comfort, very quickly followed by another double Southern Comfort and then more cider. Or, more likely the tip-tappity boots that I didn’t fall over in, much to my amazement.

Never again! For a while. Days?

Now, let me just say here that this is my very first post. Despite working with tinternet for a number of years…I've never fancied the responsibility of having a blog. I'm just not ready to settle into one blog. In fact I've only set this one up so that I can link into Beached Whale's most spiffing blog. So, if I loose commitment…don't worry, it's me not you, we can still be friends and lets just have an open blog relationship.

So, errr - about me, the guest blogger on 'er site. I went to the same 'ladies' (in the loosest sense) school in Gloucester as her good self and 2 years ago, I gave up a lucrative job in local governemt - woo - to build a house with a drunken bloke from Tatastan.

I had perfectly good intentions to write more especially today, as I got up early. OK, so eight o’clock isn’t early in a real world sense, but it’s early enough for me.

WordPress seems to having a funny turn over the last few days - strange, I left Blogger because of it’s temperamental ways; seems I’ve brought those ways to WordPress - the rich text thingy has walked off, probably in a huff because no one paid it any compliments. I can cope without the bold, italic and such buttons, I can just about manage to put in the correct HTML for that, but I’m a little lost without the excellent spellchecker. I know, it’s a lazy way to rely on accurate spelling, but that says a lot about me. So, if there are glaring errors, I’m sorry.

With my giant mug of tea, I was all set for some proper typing, which I did indeed do, just not for the blog. I may have only been an active Skyper for a mere few days but I’m a little hooked. I haven’t participated in many vocal conversations; it’s mostly been through typed chat, which means I’m using it in exactly the same way as MSN Messenger or Yahoo’s IM. Why am I bothering with Skype when I don’t much care for those others? Is it simply because it’s a bit new? Maybe. The one time I did put the effort into plugging in my headphone/mic set, I was mightily impressed with the clarity of the line. I made a point saying so to the other person, and spent vital seconds of brain power in trying to think about how much clearer it sounded than something else of a similar service. I couldn’t think of another VoIP I’d used, so that train of thought wandered of into the deep, dark woods of my head. (Those woods are scary places!) Only when I was alone in my bed, trying against all hope to fall asleep that the thought returned and waved the answer at me - the telephone. The line was clearer then the good old phone. I wonder if the quality is the same when connected from pc to landline though.

So, sat in front of the pc, chatting to various strangers, slightly panicking over the number of windows popping up, I’ve managed to lose most of the morning. When I switched to just online instead of Skype Me! I decided to do a bit of proper typing. Except I couldn’t. In being downstairs and on this machine, my brother had been forced upstairs, which makes a change, it’s usually the other way round. But he then turned on his Xbox 360, and drank up virtually all the internet connection. Everything was working lovely over the home network, until he did that. I couldn’t load any page, nevermind WordPress’s dashboard. I could have written something up in Word, but instead I swapped the Skype status again. The whole router/modem setup still is bollocksed, and probably will be all afternoon now. More unplugging, rebooting and resetting looks to be how the next few hours will be spent. I’m not sure if this post will even get posted right now.

*Depressed at the general crapness of wifi.*

I know! There's not exactly a lot in the way of new material here. It is, of course, all new if you've never seen a blog that I've written. And if you are familiar with my blogs, you'll know that they are far from regularly updated, nor indeed, any good. I have been engaged with background details, such as how to arrange the side bar and categorising nearly a hundred mostly humdrum, old posts. There was also the completely separate challenge to drink my weight in alcohol during the weekend evenings, and the throughout the daylight non-sleeping hours, to do the same with tea. This almost-quest was set by myself, and frankly was a silly thing to attempt.

There are proper posts in production, both on real paper and in digital form and a good few more still swirling around the massive empty parts of my brain, as usual. My usual procrastination levels are somewhat higher than normal, but there will be some posts about something soon. I may even get to write up about events that happened ages ago, like that wedding at the end of August. Here's hoping the memory hasn't gone off on holiday.

I do know that I'm a lot more productive without audio distractions. Thus, I have banned myself from listening to and occasionally singing along to any music. It doesn't stop the neighbours from do so, at which point launching Winamp is essential. I've got no chance of releasing the confused thoughts in the grey matter with gangsta rap playing louder then is decent. As if there is a decent volume for rubbish like that! My mum's recently rediscovered hobby of listening to audiobooks in the kitchen also has an effect. Often I get drawn into the story to the point where I have to actively listen in; this is ok when peeling potatoes, but less than delightful when trying to remember virtually forgotten details. And to think I managed to complete homework with the tv blaring away in the corner as a teenager. Where has that skill of blocking out the self-created white noise gone? I fear this is another result of the rather-too-rapid aging process.

I have a wind problem.

I'm sat here, importing old blog posts and sorting them in to some sense of order and realising that the general layout needs a tweaking, whilst loosing all feeling in my hands and feet. The window may only be open a crack, but it's a crack too far in this wind. It looks like spring through the window but it's a terrible lie.

Add one pair of socks, one chunky jumper and a trip around the house to shut the window and things are improving. It would be a considerably better situation if I could simply stand close to the window to open and shut it, but hefty furniture prevents that sort of normal behaviour.

Other matters:
And as predicted, I am indeed to be an aunty. Around the 21^st September is when we'll be poised near the phone, with fingers crossed - for the hope of holding the winning bet that will've been made on the sex of the child-to-be.