Warmth Finally

What a great South African music themed weekend I had !! (even though i cant beleive it is already wednesday and fast heading towards the next weekend)

Friday night saw us heading off to see Plush (listen to them here) in concert at the Islington Carling Academy. I was super excited to see them again all the way in London. C and I and Fire Poi Boi headed up to Angel and grabbed some Wagamama's for dinner - Very yummy indeed! Cept as usual the portions are too big and the pixies (C) got to finish it all off.

The concert was great even though I think the Brixton Carling Academy is a much better venue due to the fact that the floor is sloped so short people like me have an easier time of seeing the stage. I sadly got stuck behind ALL the tall guys in the venue. And seriously i'm not over exagerating. I had about 6 over 6ft tall guys right in front of me right through the crowd obsuring every view for me. So there was alot on me moving back and forth to get views of the stage. but other then that the gig was awesome as Rory still has the most amazing energy on stage - it can only be infectious. Sadly the bassist and other guitarist didnt make it through customs and got sent back home :( But still it made the gig more like the Plush i know and love. It did of course bring back loads and loads of memories of back home and the past - which made me a little sad. but what can you do. I suppose i have to get a bit homesick every now and then.

Met up with a chick I knew back in Cape Town who has moved over here and her friend who has just moved over as well and I knew via a bunch of people as always tends to happen. After the gig we went stubling up Upper St trying to find the bar with the after party which happened to be right at the top of Upper St went the gig venue was at the bottom. It was a rather weird ramble up the road meeting random Saffa's heading to the place place along the way. Anyways we did eventually make to the bar and landed up in the bar next door as there was no cover charge to get in.

So a great night all around and nicely close to home and a short bus ride there! I would just like to point out that now C has decided he likes fun tequila riddled Gem!! So now tequila just seems to appear. So Saturday morning was a little rough on the head!

After an insignificant daytime and far too soon for my sore head the evening rolled around. Much debate went on as to whether we should head off to Goldfish or continue to watch Coupling (OMG I forgot how much this show makes me laugh so much that I cant breathe) But with an encouraging call from a friend of C's who was waiting for us to pitch up we went into overdrive get ready mode. And off to the club we went :)

What an awesome night ! Goldfish was amazing !! We headed to the front and loved every minute of it. Cept for the guy standing on my foot and my shoes killing my feet by the end of the night. We also managed to fight the tiredness and hang around for some Roger Goode (who is a top SA DJ and also a friends brother) We decided that once we left the club that there was a definite call for a cab as it was already 3am! So after attempting to do it the legal way, we got an illegal one and landed up with the coolest Nigerian cab driver. We talked Africa and politics and the uk etc non stop all the way home. Even once he got us to our home and had been paid he still wanted to talk...eventually we got away but of course after lots of handshakes and goodbyes.

Surprisingly Sunday morning we woke up relatively early for having gone to bed at 4am and even managed some house cleaning before I landed up sitting in the garden in the sun with my laptop - got to love wireless internet !! Was just so great to be having a summers day with warm air and sun. I def needed to stock up on that Vitamin D !!

After much waiting and hunger due to waiting for Miss Popular to arrive back in london after an afternoon stuck in traffic for her. Miss Popular is one of my very best friends and was in London for a short while and also got to go off and do some travelling. Sunday night was the last night i was going to see her. C and I headed off finally and with much coaxing of C off his computer game to Waterloo to grab some food and drinks. Sadly the evening was WAY too short with her and her bf running off to catch their train in time and C and I just making the last tube for the night. It was great to see her but of course left me sad once goodbyes had to be said! She means so much to me and I miss her alot. She had such a specific role in my life in CPT and I will not be able to fill that in London. But it wont be long before it is Dec and I will get to see her and we have already started making plans :)

This week Trendy is on holiday so it has been quiet but steadily work filled! Hence hard to find blogging time and chatting time as well - I know bad me. Cept Monday got a bit emotional ...and Tuesday was aweful as I had to deal with an entire day of agonizing back pain which is happily much better today.

But today was MUCH better - the sun was out and I got to soak up more vitamin D in the park at lunch time ! It is my dad's 76th birthday today!!! and he sounds much happier and healthier today which is fantastic! I got to have a good talk to the family back home and heard that my youngest (in his 30's) brother has just gotten engaged. Congrats to him.

Well that is all for now...sorry if it was a long boring post - but hopefully you'll find some cool music that you like from it :)

Bf's Website

I forgot to mention yesterday that while I was being so lazy all weekend my lovely bf was busy being Mr IT Geek and coding away all weekend... The result is his new and improved website....
http://www.ravingmad.net/
On that page there is a quote that will change if you click refresh (or press F5 but not on mac). Then click on the quote to see the rest :)
Well done babes - I think it is very cool ...Even if it is orange :P
And I just have to say my favorite 6 word update is def...She blinks and i wash up... hehehehe

Incredible lazy weekend...

I had the most insanely lazy weekend!! I honestly did nothing really productive AT all. Normally this does freak me out as I do like to know that at least i'm getting something done even if i'm relaxing. There was a plan to go climbing but that jsut never happened. And it didnt really help that my head was very unhappy all Saturday thanks the the craziness that is tequila on Firday night!!!

Friday night saw Miss M and Lopz and I meeting up with KaB before she fled the country...not because of anything illegal (that would be my ex your thinking of) She is just heading back home. Seriously do not feed me tequila !!! It does crazy wild things to me and I cannot be held accountable for my actions (other then the fact that alcohol is never an excuse for cheating on the one you love and I never have under the influence!) Drinking turning into lots of rauncy dancing and trying out "how low can you go" while still wearing 5 inch heels!! Apparently I did win at this and I think that my ab muscles can testify to that as they are STILL hurting like crazy !!!

This was all well and good and I dont care about embarressing myself in front of friends and strangers... But C then brought his new boss around to the bar...Oh dear... I so wonder what the hell he thinks about me now! I also just have to say I just love having a non-possesive and secure bf!! I can be me and wild and have however many guys purving over me and he will just smile and laugh and I go prancing up to him for more kisses :) Happy days!

I must say that thank heavens for the Macdonalds near by!! (we used to do the burger king but that was until it got closed down for health hazard reasons!!! AHHHH ) So after craming down 2 little cheese burgers (they are really little btw) my stomach wasnt feeling so queasy! C and I were then thinking so along the same lines and hailed and cab, settled in and got chauffered home...that is def the best option by far !! I think the long jounery via the bumpy bus would have just killed me !

I def think though that the 2 days of doing nothing really helped my energy levels and monday at work was so much more doable and I got SO much done AND was still energetic by the end of the day... C and I then headed off to the climbing wall and had an awesome climbing session. Just right to get us back into the flow again.

And now it has been a very boring Tuesday at work since Trendy was off in Amsterdam on work and I dont have much to do here. I would def rather have more to do then try and eeek out a little for the whole day !

Deathcab For Cutie

So today has been a seriously exhausting day but mostly cause I started off exhausted !!! On wednesday when having lunch in the park with my work mate Miss Quiet she mentioned that she was going to a gig the next night to see a band she didn't know...Deathcab for cutie... I was instantly like "OOOHHHH how awesome I love them!" So she was like would you like to come i have an extra ticket...HELL YEAH!

It is a complicated story about a friend and her bf (who bought the tickets) but an ex bought tickets too and now the friend my friend and the ex where going and the bf couldn't...oh well still I got a free ticket - YAY.

It was really awesome! They are pretty American indie but really like the music and the lyrics and the vibe was amazing !! the Brixton academy was full to the brim with massive fans and the energy of the crowd was really great. BUT they were seated tickets...That was very weird for me. I enjoyed getting to sit when waiting etc. But i still think I'm def much more of and standing in the crowd, jumping up and down and moving to the music kinda girl! I suppose i got a great view this way (cause normally i never have a good view with being only 5ft tall !!!) But this just distracted me and i landed up watching all sorts of things that i would be distracted by on strange normally - like the little helper guy the ran around picking up the singers towel and replacing the water and tuning the guitars in the background.

All in all tho it was a very awesome artist to watch live!

Then i headed home to find an empty house as C had stayed at work for a BBQ and booze! He pitch up home about 5 mins after I had walking in the door and proceeded to POUNCE (yes he pounces...kinda like tigger who i think he was in a previous life!) on me and so his hyperactive drunk harassment begins...yes it can be very annoying with things like getting licked on the nose but it also has me in absolute stitches!!! It can be very exhausting tho....so thankfully a slightly (read very) ummm stoned housemate came home so we got to harrass him :) We landed up sitting on the kitchen counters talking absolute shit until way too late !!

*side note...if anyone can find this movie: young people fucking Watch it !!! We now like to torment the housemate with a comment about cookie dough - it is brilliant.

Anyway i now have to get back to the annoying drawing that i have to get done...way to much thinking for a friday afternoon when you feel like shit!

Here are 2 little videos I shot on my phone last night. I am SUPEr impressed with the sound quality for a recording and the loud sound levels of a concert !

The Hen Party

Well i suppose this was the next entry in my life which i should write about...i've been trying to sit down and write about it basically since i cam back last week. But things got too hectic once again esp since i was trying to work my ass off so that I could take the thursday off work (which i did...but that is another post! )


So on with the hen party story. This was my very first hen party so I had no idea what to expect. It seems things are def done differently here in the UK. Mostly it is a weekend long event involving everyone going away somewhere, doing an activity and then heading out for a night on the town all dressed up in fancy dress with the bride with her L plates on. (Learners license reference that I dont quite get.) Thank goodness Dr Intellectual banned all fancy dress and L plates stuff!



So the venue for this hen party was Manchester - seemed most logical since half the girls were from Edinburgh and the other half from either london or cambridge way. Dr and I headed off on the train on friday and got into Manchester in the afternoon. The maid of honour had set us all up in a hotel that had more of an apartment feel and her and Dr had the pent house option with 2 floors...one with the bedrooms and the other with a kitchen, lounge and dining area plus patio area for everyone to hang out in. It was a very cool set up and worked very well with us chilling outside drinking bubbly all afternoon and then migrating into the lounge for pizza and wine while we wait for others to arrive.


Once a large bunch of the girls from Edinburgh girls arrived (already drunk from the 5 bottles of wine on the 3 couch train) we got into more pizza and wine and a game of mr & mrs. This was mildly entertaining cept I think that Mr Intellectual answered some of his questions incorrectly (or didnt get the exact point of the game which is very likely) The best part was when Dr was asked what Mr Intellectual would say are her favorite pants (underwear for the saffa's) and after she answered the maid of honour threw and envelope at Dr which had a lacy white thong of hers inside... it turns out that he could only steal her least favorite ones as she would notice if her favorite ones where missing!


Otherwise there was lots of talking and getting to know people and funniest story about Dr. It was rather strange as I was the only one that didnt really know Dr that directly - kept having to say that I was just the gf of the best man! Plus then it also came up that I knew the grooms ffamily before i even knew of Mr Intelletual himself !!!



Then we all heading off to bed with our respective room mates - me obviously with a stranger as I didnt know anyone! It was def interesting heading off to this weekend knowing that I knew the Bride and 1 other person (and not well i might add)

Day 2 - the actual "day" of the hen party. This started off with an inpromptu visit to the manchester Primark (OMG it is HUGE!!!) with a bunch of the girls to go find shorts for the pole dancing session later in the day. Then off to the resturant around the corner from the hotel for brunch and to meet the rest of the girls that were arriving. Food was definitely needed and this was about midday by now. Then bundled back to the hotel for pole dancing stuff and off to the pole dancing session at the manchester fitness first gym.



The "Poletastic" session was pretty good...well I def enjoyed it. I realised that i've obviously been to my fair share of strip joints and actually had an idea of what it was supposed to look like. I found pretty much all the girls very reserved and as none of them had ever been to a strip club had no idea what they were doing. I mean I wasnt amazingly brilliant at it ...but at least I kinda knew what sexy looked like and how to "work it" .... but hey they all tried and that is the point. The one chick i was pair with I thought was amazing mostly because she was brought Morman in salt lake city utah (the "mecca" of Mormanisim) and had only broken away 8 years ago. She was called a slut by her mom for wear trousers just above her knew and a tank top! She w

as really interested in the "sexy" side to the pole dancing and the body confidence that comes with it. I had great fun coaching her :)

Anways...so these are the bruises from just one leg that appeared only about 2 hours later!!! both insides of my legs were bruised and the outside of my right leg and my right calf !! was so funny !

After stopping for some cocktails and organising more booze for the coming evening we head back to the hotel to get ready for the night and order chinese for dinner...


The evening entertainment in the penhouse apartment was a "lecture" about Dr's dating history leading up to the meeting of Mr Intelletual. Was was funny with some very interesting stories coming out. Then the maid of honour had organised a game of "blind date". She had contacted Mr Intellectual and 2 other ex bf's and a "red herring" and got them to answer a bunch of questions like - If you were a take away food what would would you be? - and then got 4 of the girls there to play the guys and Dr got handed the questions to ask. This was all very much set up like the whole blind date tv show (or for another reference like they do on the movie Mall Rats). It worked beautifully !! and of course she did pick her lovely husband to be! She guessed the ex's with no problems but battled with the "red herring" this is because it was my bf C, the best man!!! Was SO funny !!! I picked out that it was him after his frist answer of the fact that he would be a kebab with lashings of Chilli and garlic sauce !!! It was very hard not to laugh too hard at the questions he gave !


The maid of honour then handed out cards with dares for us to get Dr to do once out at the club. But as I guessed very few got her to do anything...it really wasnt her or some of the others thing.

Anyways we finally headed off to the club at about midnight...there was lots of dancing to cheesey music (which if you know me isnt really my thing) and surprising veyr little drinking. Of course this being the UK the bar stopped serving at 2am and most people were out the door by 2:15. We were all back in the hotel in bed by 2:30...This is just dont get!!! I think that maybe when i get it into my mind that this is going to be a HUGE night out i expect only to be coming home with the sunrising !!! but anyway that just seems to be me.



I found the whole weekend very interesting and kinda exhausting in the sense that you are constantly talking to someone and doing that whole getting to know them kind of conversations. I did feel like i was very different to all the girls there. Alot where married or close to marrige and all way too settled for my liking. I still think that if you are under 30 at least you should still be being young and frivilous even if you are in a relationship. I had C going "now dont forget to flirty with all the boy out!!" - i know he is nuts... but my point is that he expects me to go out there and be the bubbly friendly over the top person that I am because i havent changed just because i'm dating him. He trusts me and that is what is important.



I did have a very interesting moment with a chick that is engaged to the other best friend of the groom. She is a very hard and cold seeming chick from Austria. She is very i'm miss cool and your not. I def think that it is just a defence mechanism for insecurity. So her attitude to me changed so suddenly when she saw how i was dressed to go out. She thought i looked supper cool and edgey like I had just come straight from a rock gig. And then she was happy to latch onto me and chatter away about anything and even some really personal stuff...all because she suddenly had a different view of me from my clothes and shoes.


Anyways... the sunday was all about waiting for the train and travelling back in the very cool and quiet 1st class. I think that the food and drinks guy took a liking to me and kept trying to force more packets of crisps and water on me. I know it is his job - but it was just more then his wheeling of the trolley past the other people.

And that is that...my very long post of the hen weekend !!!

Regular posts ?!?! I try

I open up blogger everyday with the aim to write something most days...I actually even have stuff to write about since so much is going on at the moment...but i just cant seem to steal enough of a moment to sit and write it all down. And this annoys me so much !!

So anyway this is only a little update !

Last week was CRAZY!! work was insane and involved running around to quite a few sites - one being all the way up in leisester (so cant spell that!) which involved hours of train travel ... which was all well and good if I didnt have to rush back down to london and the office to drop everything off and then rush off to hyde park to see Jack Johnson in concert. It was all worth it tho as it turned into a lovely sunny blue skied evening (compared to the cold grey day it was before) and he was just great - what a wonderful evening...

Much more running around happened last week to try do some shopping for the impending hen weekend away. It was pretty much all a waste of time and I just landed up living with the clothes that I have...other then a very cool new grey/silver waistcoat...such a daring buy for me and i'm so happy.

So from friday morning to Sunday evening it was all about the hen party and travelling to and from Manchester for it. So in other words loads more hours spent on the trains!!

Much more to write about the hen weekend...but that is going to have to come another time as i seriously have to go off and work now... have managed to con a day off work to spend with one of my best friends for her birthday...she is also only in london for a short while - so and going to have to make the most of it. But this means that I have to get all of todays work and tomorrows work done today !!! ARG

Lazy

Ok so i'm going to admit it ,....i'm being lazy at the moment. There i've said it. I've so enjoyed the last 2 weekends of being lazy ! but no i'm getting restless. It really doesnt help that the weeks are so hectic that I just want to be lazy on the weekends but it is getting to me as well. I get into the lazy pattern and just stay there. And the tv is a great distracter (ok so the spell check doesnt like that work but i'm making it up anyway!) ! Plus C is obsessed with House so happily added to the general laid back feeling - not that i'm complaining at all! I've loved these lazy weekends...but they are to end very very soon...as in tmr! This is going to be a crazy week as I'm off shopping for the weekend tmr. I've got to head up country on Wednesday and then rush back down to london and to hyde park for jack johnson. Thursday is huge furniture launch party, and friday I head off in the morning to Manchester for Dr Intellectuals hen party all weekend ! Then sunday one of my best friends is arriving for a visit - WHOO HOOO!!!

Crazy I tell you!

Anyways... so for a little catch up - Last thursday I headed off to a exhibition created by Phillips lighting whereby they gave a shipping container to a design/architecture firm - 8 in total - and told them they had free rein to create a installation it just hate to deal with light. It was def a very different night out and so brilliant to have done it with Trendy and her bf (my team leader) Mr Nice/Hard. They have the driest, sarcastic & blackest humour I know and I love it. They have me in stitches most of the time. They are the best to do shows with and they take nothing seriously ...except getting as much food and booze out of the night. Through the entire speeches they were cracking jokes and ripping off the speakers and we were standing there giggling our heads off. Then then after an attempt at a dance show the containers opened for viewing. By the time we had gotten to the 2nd container we were sure that we were going to be thrown out ! This container was lined with thousands of LED bulbs that came on when you moved your hand over the fabric infront of them. While everyone else was gently standing there and waving their hands around....we were jumping around trying to make body prints and bum prints and boobs prints...creating havoc at the back of the container. This attitude continued as we went through all the installations as well as ripping to shreads the concepts....I was SO much fun. They are just such a lovely couple and so suited and make you feel so at ease (again the reason I'm so happy I moved over to their team) Even Iranian Princess/Sample Queen loosened up and was talking about hot sex by the end of the night.

Here is an image of the only installation that we really liked

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And a little video as well...

Random moments yesterday:

1) while walking to site with new project manager he comments that I must get tired of striding on heels to keep with the guys... I was so surprised and just replied truthfully that that was how i normally walk on heels so no I dont get tired of it. LOL

2) as piling everything out of my carpet bag styled handbag last night to find the painkillers that i knew were somewhere inside C comments how amoungst all the girlly handbag stuff there is a 5m construction style tape measure !

Sad moment... Just found out that my little cousin is heading into surgery today as he has landed up with his 2nd collaspsed lung this year! So am sending out all the positive healing vibes I can today !!!