Tremendous Week

Splendid week last week! I did buckets, which is probably why I'm so sleepy still now. But I shall chronic it so I don't forget, even though I am definitely ready for bed.

Monday was good, I woke up SUPER early and went to 6.30 am bikram which was great! Cycled down there and cycled home to get ready before work. The cycle there was brilliant (empty roads) the cycle back was horrific (rush hour) I cycled with a constant grimace! But I made it in piece, great success. Andrea was at the Bailey for the first time in ages so we had a good gossip and lunch together and filled each other in with latest Wellow news, once again provoking lunchtime work debate about a group trip to Wellow and whether we should hire a coach so everyone can experience the Maury's Mount fete and play on my trampoline. I can't remember so much what I did in the evening but since I went to early yoga it was probably lots of sleep!

Tuesday...I can't remember what I did! See this is why I need a blog.

Wednesday, now Wednesday was a cracker! Went to early yoga and it was full! WHAT?! But it was good regardless. Work was crap because I'm not loving my trial, but we finished earlyish because we had a SICK JUROR! Amazing! Haven't had one of them since Twomey! (which is judge only on appeal by the way, brilliant!) So I did some tripts and then met Lex once she had made her way all the way from Woolwich. We went to All Bar One (tradition before Lates!) and had hallumi burgers and pints and discussed gamblers remorse and how she should have another house party because I fancy a nap on the Jonas Bros pillow again.

After we were full and tipsy we jumped on the tube and headed to South Ken for SCIENCE MUSEUM JOY! My favourite day of the month! Unfortunately the usual crew were rather sparse on account of deadlines/dinner with Bali bound parents/sheer laziness, but sad times for them: this month's was the best yet! Celebrating the Museum's 100th birthday, the theme was party time! We had free cake on arrival (I had about five) and then headed to the morbid game where you have to try and keep blood transfusion patients alive, sick. It's for CHILDREN! Wrong! We both killed our patients and felt bad. Then we ventured to the party zone...oh my. It had everything! Inflatable It's A Knockout, Mechanical Bull, Crystal Maze stylee grab game and a bungee run! I got overexcited and had palps. We immediately signed up for the CM game and mooched around with our beers laughing at people injuring themselves on the inflatables.

Then Chull turned up and the competitions began! We played it's a knockout (he won) bungee run (he won) and I went on mechanical bull and lasted quite a while but then got catapaulted off screeching and then perved on by the mechanical bull guy, low point.

Me and Lex did the CM game and stuffed our bras and got LOADS of tokens, but only came third?! Rigged! Clearly the SM employee's poor maths that let us down. Chull had a go and did rubbish, he blamed it on tight pockets, we knew it was his poor sort method. Then Chull's friend Jane arrived and we had more comps! Jane and Chull did a great It's A Knockout which resulted in Chull looking like he was being given birth to because she held onto his leg on the final dive....

Ahahahaha! Then the giant pass the parcel started! We tried to pass slowly but it was no good and none of us won anything :( curse! Forgot how fun pass the parcel is though, I will definitely be bringing one to the next party I go to full of 99p shop presents! After we were all shattered and drunk we headed to our old favourite: silent disco! They really stepped their game up this week with some drum n bass, Sean-a Paul and You Can Call Me Al WHICH I STARTED A CONGA LINE FOR! Life dream realised there. It was wonderful! When it finished there was still an old school band playing samba downstairs so we had another boogie, although not quite as zealous! Brilliant night, will be hard to top that one!

Thursday was another short day as counsel had stuff to do in the arvo, so I hung out at the Bailey and did some work and gossiped with Mooon and Robbo. We got ch ch ch for lunch but they were disappointingly skinny! Curse! After work, I headed to Hammersmith to go to gay bingo with a load of people I didn't know - randomola! Jane from the Science Museum invited me and I thought why the hell not, so off I went. Was the most fun ever! Everyone was really nice and the drag queen host was OUTRAGEOUS! She was in love with Jane's friend GT and kept perving on him, then when I won a line she called me "The Vagina" and asked if I wanted to lez off with her! I politely declined. Our table won about four times and in celebration we drank way too much. Chull turned up in time for jackpot game and filled it in with black pen making it void, so lucky it wasn't a winner! Me and Jane had a good chat about Portugal as she has just come back from living there and I'm going next month, then we had yet more wine (this was to be an error) and talked rubbish with the guys.

A bit later, the barmaid announced to us that Michael Jackson had just died. We didn't believe it! I txt all my friends and called a few to get the info, and it turned out to be true. Shocker! It was very surreal. We left to get the last tube but I was a different line to everyone else so it all went a bit wrong as I tried to make it back to Victoria by myself...tube terminated somewhere random in the west and I waited forever at Earl's Court for another tube, only to get on one going back the wrong way towards Hammersmith! Noooo! Eventually got the right train and had drunken discussions with fellow travellers about Jacko. Ran for the last overground at Victoria and just made it (thank god because don't know what I would have done otherwise!) but as I was on my way home started to feel giddy - the train was going so so fast - bleurgh! I threw up in my cardigan. Oh the humanity. I somehow made it home (with my steno too!) and went to bed.

Friday was horrific. I was working in private diary and woke up with a pounding head and very aware that my job was TFL with no audio - fuuuuck! I struggled up and struggled over to Leicester Sq though and perked up after some pineapple juice and polos. And my job only lasted 7 minutes! Result! Sadly they were short at the Bailey, so I tubed over to Temple and worked there for the rest of the morning. But we finished early as it was the judge's birthday! Amazing! Celebrated my early day and loss of hangover by going to see My Sister's Keeper (sobfest) a trip to Homebase (love it) and then home for Bombay Bicycle Club takeaway, a facepack and rubbish tv. Ace! It was a brilliant Friday!

Getting tired, summary now, will fill in properly later.

Saturday: shed painting, steno primrose hill picnic, shouldn't but would, ron weasley, downpour, home, daz's, mojitos, 1 litre of bacardi, infernooooos!

Sunday: total write off morning, lunch at dexo, back to daz's to get my yoga stuff, failed to go to yoga, massive nap on the sofa and dribbled all over it much to daz and olly's disgust, only fools and horses, home for lazy eve.

A weekend encompassing the highest and lowest echelons of society

What a splendid weekend! Saturday I went to bikram which was HARD WORK but I am working through my stiff knee which is handy. After bikram I went home and started my garden mission, having successfully purchased garden gloves and cutters from the trusty 99p shop! IT HURT MY HANDS. The gloves, despite the packaging, were NOT thorn proof. Luckily Katy came round and saved me from my thorny hell and we watched Come Dine With Me with Sarah and had cocktails and fizzy wine and lots of Lidl cakes which I dropped on the floor but were still good!

At 7 o'clock we left for our classy night out - a night at Wimbledon Dog Track! Despite being a Wandsworth Commoner for over a year now I had no idea this wonderous venue was just down the road! It had to be rectified. We strolled down and met up with Lex, Luan, Amelia and Angela and got our bargain vouchers for the evening: entrance, a bet, a drink and a disgusting meal in a bag! Wonderful! We threw ourselves into the spirit of the evening with relish, placing multiple ridiculous bets on the dogs with the best sounding names. Katy bet on a dog called Katy who turned out to be a right nutcase and came last, haha!

Bad Katy!

I somehow ended up being talked at by a disgusting smoking lout who clearly was down the dogs every weekend and who promised to buy me a drink if he won....oh, good! We lost every one of the first five races so retreated inside for our disgusting meal. Me and Amelia had bespoke veggie burgers which were inedible, and Lex was poisoned by a pie in a bag.

Daz and Hass turned up and joined the fun, Daz bet a fiver (high roller!) on the first race and won! Unbelievable! So I got him to pick my next dog, and that won too! However, I only won 60p due to my miniscule bet! Bumped into the lout again who pawed me and then asked me out...oh the humanity. I politely declined. Soon the last race rolled around and we all placed our final bets....and all lost. Curse! What fun though!

Sunday was a somewhat classier affair than the previous evening, as I met up with the family for a day of culture and Shakespere! Splendid! I met the rents and Meist outside the Tate and gave Fad Cool his father's day card and gift which he loved. Had to create a bespoke card as nowhere sold 'Happy Fad Farj Day' cards. Then we had pies at Eat and had a nice wander up le Thames where Fad told us how Mad had busked on a random piano outside St Pauls and sung Hey Jude on their way to meet us! We went to my favourite southbank pub for a bottle of wine and a cheese board (classy!) by the Thames and I pissed off a New Zealand staff member by asking for coffees and making him leave the crowded bar area to go and make them, haha! We headed to the Globe at 6pm and got cushions in preparation for the hard, hard wooden Globe seats! The show started at 6.30, Romeo and Juliet, it was amazing! Studied it for GCSE but hadn't read it since, forgot how amazing it is. Tibalt was hot also! Pleased we had seats, don't know how people stand in the yard for the whole three hour performance! Looks painful!

Tremendous weekend in summary!

Malta Chronic!

Saturday 13th June marked the start of an epic journey: JNA Dance Troupe on tour! Unbelievable that in over 14 years me, April and Nat had never been on holiday together, it had to be rectified! Hence Malta was booked and at 2am we woke up, mega groggy, to be chauffeured to the airport by Mr Windsor, resident airport driver. I need to get him a chauffeur hat off Ebay or something, the number of times he has got up at ridiculous hours to drive me to the airport! But this time it was even worse as we were going from freakin' Luton. We settled in the car with juice and snickers and our very well packed cabin baggage (our only luggage for the week!) and sped down ye olde M25. Tom chucked us out at Luton and we celebrated the first hurdle of the holiday being overcome - we hadn't missed our flight! Hooray! We found a good breakfast place and had a tasty 4am breakfast, Hallis had two eggs: one scrambled, one fried. As if that didn't piss off the kitchen staff so early in the morning! In fact, "Oh HALLIS!" was in fact going to become one of the most commonly used phrases of the trip! We boarded our flight (good ol' Ryan "Barely Gets You There" Air) and Meist almost passed out from the take off. Words of wisdom: don't fly budget when you have a bit of a flying phobia, ill-advised! Probably should have mentioned that to her before. Anyhow, we successfully took off with no crashing or oxygen mask deployment and we settled down for naps (except Hallis who was too excited, and kept waking us up to accompany her to the toilets)


At 11am (how early!) we landed in Malta and the adventure began! Me and Hallis pissed Meist right off by insisting on going to the loo before passport control so we were the last ones through, ha ha! But we eventually did get through, wheeling our little bags like champs. No waiting around at the baggage carosel for us, oh no! We hopped in a taxi and headed to St Julien's, where we would be staying at the Intercontinental, beaut! We arrived and checked in in the executive lounge, a splendid addition to our room rate! It was massive, with big sofas and a terrace overlooking the pool and the sea where you could soak up the sun. Best of all they wheeled out shed loads of free booze every night at 6pm...it was to be our downfall! But that comes later.

My pana of the view from the terrace - who knows why it's so small!

So we settled on the terrace and waited for our room to be ready...and waited...and waited....then we got bored and headed to the beach! It was beautiful! The hotel had a private beach club so we got some loungers and me and Shirls splashed around in the sea and even got Meist in for a bit, even though she was scared of sharks. There were tons of rowdy Italian women who kept trying to go topless (illegal in Malta!) and a greasy European in a very tight pair of Speedos. Plenty to keep us entertained! After our sunbathe/swim/perve we headed back to the hotel for afternoon tea, splendid! We had lovely silver trays of mini cakes and sandwiches out on the terrace, and lots of water as it was really too hot for actual tea. After tea our room was ready, huzzah! It was lush, good size with comfy beds (if not a bit unstable...more on that later!) and a balcony for hanging out on. And a throne! Most prosperous.

The pool looked lush and we decided that we would go for an afternoon dip! So we threw our stuff down, put our bikinis on, Meist shut the balcony door and we were ready to leave. Or were we. Suddenly I realised our room keys were in my skirt pocket, the skirt drying out on the balcony that i'd hung up when we got back from the beach. I went to open the balcony door and couldn't.....after waiting all day to get into our room we now couldn't leave! Nooo! To make matters worse we were defeated by a CHILD LOCK! Oh the humanity.

Luckily we could get some spare towel tokens (which were also locked out on the balcony) so we called maintenance and then skipped down to the pool, cursing thorough Maltese child safety measures. The pool was great! We had a good swim, took tons of stupid underwater pictures and watched our balcony to see if it could be fixed....eventually the pot boiled! Hooray! After our swim we got back into our room and retrieved our keys, phew, and got ready for the evening. We headed to the exec lounge for drinks and snacks and sat on the terrace watching the sunset, very quaint! We went for a wander round the hotel, explored the weird gardens, climbed into the hotel through a window (?!) and then out again, and took more ridiculous photos for the chronic. We went for dinner at Mozzarella's and got a massive pizza and pina coladas, sang along with a band that randomly started playing, decided we wanted to do karaoke, failed to find a karaoke bar, went back to the hotel and had a mega sleep!

Sunday started with breakfast upstairs in the lounge, they were inexplicably serving fizzy wine which I had a few glasses of for novelty value even though it made me feel a bit sick and I would rather have had juice. But I was on my holidays so thought it was the done thing! We stuffed our faces with applewood cheese (boots with the fur....) and bread and eggs and then headed to the pool for sunbathing and splashing about. I read more of my book, "We Need To Talk About Kevin" and became gradually more and more disturbed as the day went on and the horrible book progressed. We took some good movie themed pics in the pool, including Jaws...

Haha! CHOMP! After the pool we went to the beach, stopping for pizza on the way. Found the best place ever, HUGE slices for 1.80 euro! Beaut! We grabbed loungers at the beach and me and Shirls went for a swim to the buoys, waving at Meist every minute to check she was still watching! She is just like a mum. Then we sunbathed and read more of my horrid book. Unfortunately my ye olde favourite bikini top circa 2003 chose that afternoon to snap, luckily didn't flash innocent Maltese folk but had to tie it up real tight and then later on it started to REALLY hurt so Meist had to undo it. Wouldn't budge so she had to use her teeth! haha! She was so repulsed, but she is a very good sister! Thank god I still had the trusty horse bikini.

After the beach we headed back to the room to get dressed and wash all the salt out of our hair, then headed to the exec lounge for drinks! God bless the free booze. I concocted buckets of lethal Malta specials (Kaluha, Vodka and milk!) and we had plenty of champs. Hallis was on the Bud, classy. Now, here is where it all started to fall apart. Unfortunately we had not had tea and the pizza slice was a distant memory, so we got pretty pissed pretty quickly. Back to the room for a room disco! We found a Maltese radio station which was playing the r&b top 20 including Malta favourite 'Taking Back My Love' by Enrique! Tune! We got our fancy frocks on, jumped around, jumped on the bed and had a reet good time.

Eventually we decided to hit Paceville, and headed into the party district, conveniently about 100 meters from our hotel! On arrival in Paceville we instantly were seduced into a bar called Hugo's which was dishing out vouchers for free cocktails, why on earth not we thought.

Now, the plan was to go somewhere to eat first, but after the first free cocktail we thought we would just drink on through. ERROR. What felt like hundreds of free shooters later (do the Maltese pay for anything?) we ended up in a freaky Eurotrash bar where the drinks were ridiculously cheap and they played amazing music! We had a good dance to Jai Ho and went crazy for Boom Boom Powww! (gotta get that...gotta get that) and the DJ said we were lesbians. Odd and slanderous! Seems as though every bar in Malta has numerous poles, something which Hallis made good use of! Haha! We had more free shooters and then decided to head to a different bar, as our current one had got mighty sleazy. Also seemed to have picked up a couple of Maltese admirers who we couldn't get rid of, so resorted to literally running away from them. Smooth! We went to a bar where I made friends with some guys from Aberyswyth, but had to leave soon after as I spilt a whole pina colada on the floor (and in my shoes) and wasn't sure what to do, so we just ran away! (theme of the evening!) We tried to get into a student night foam party at a club but they wouldn't let us in, despite our protestations of, "BUT WE'RE ENGLISH STUDENTS!" (lies). Went to another bar where I had a go on the pole and did a very sexual pole dance to none other than Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega. Another shout out from the dj but I didn't really hear what they said...I can only assume it was massively complimentary though. Eventually we decided enough was enough and got some late night foods and headed back to the hotel. We wanted to make sure the 5* reception staff didn't kick us out for being drunken loutish Brits abroad so walked in trying to be as nonchalent as possible. Sure we weren't fooling anybody with our staggering and me trailing pina colada from my shoe! We got back to the room and me and Hallis celebrated by jumping on the bed some more which promptly broke....shiiiiit!

Woke up on Monday feeling ROUGH. Went for breakfast (no sparkly wine today) and then went for a walk up the beach to try and fix ourselves. Didn't really work, so we went to the pool instead which was the perfect cure! We sunbathed/napped for ages and soon we were all back to normal, hooray! We went for afternoon tea which was spectacular, the guy in the exec lounge was obviously bored because there were double the amount of cakes we had the first time! Beaut! We went to the room after and on looking at our decrepid bed (one leg had SNAPPED OFF and one was bent!) decided we better call maintenance. I called and said my sister had sat on it and it had buckled...they must have though Meist was a right heffer! With maintenance called and on the way to fix our sabotaged furniture we headed to the beach, today with a lilo to play with! Much fun had, I was most ungraceful getting onto the lilo but kept my boobs in my bikini so everyone was happy. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and got ready to go to Eastern Breeze for Asian fusion cuisine, we were so excited! But then it was closed....nooo! Hopes dashed. So we went to a restaurant by the beach instead and then to a hotel restaurant in the gardens for ice cream after :)

Tuesday was an epic day for us - catamaran trip to the Blue Lagoon! We got up super early and got picked up and taken to the harbour. The crew was HOT! Oh my! We were most excited by the on board talent and perved on them for a large part of the day.

We had the best day. The boat anchored at different spots along the coast and we jumped off the edge of the boat and went snorkelling, and then as we sailed we sunbathed on the deck and read our books and listened to tunes. It was a bit of a party boat! Loved it. We had a seafood buffet for lunch which when she heard about it almost made Meist gag (as if being on a boat wasn't bad enough!) but she in fact loved it. Lucky! The Blue Lagoon was beautiful and the water was crystal clear. I wanted to swim out to a beach but Meist and Shirls were worried it would take ages and the boat would leave without me, but I decided to risk it....it took three minutes. Ha ha! Unfortunately while snorkelling Apes lost her gold pants, but it was ok because apparently they were old.

Back on the boat Hallis got WELL agitated by a big fat Scottish lady with a rubbish Simba tattoo who was well loud and lairy! I think they would secretly be best friends given the chance though, they seemed to be very similar personality-wise (haha!) I decided she looked a lot like Duncan's Toy Chest guy from Home Alone 2...but the girls didn't see the likeness. I promised that if Mambo No.5 came on I would do some more pole dancing on the mast...it did....I didn't. What a liar I am!

We arrived back at the harbour at 6pm and the sexy crew guy held Nat's hand as she disembarked, the highlight of her holiday! She almost got stranded with her new BFF though as after me and Apes got off the boat started drifting and they couldn't get it to stay still! In the taxi back we sat near a weirdo old couple who discussed their evening plans too loudly, "Get some sushi, go out to town, have a bit of sex." Shirls said that given the choice between spending the evening with the woman on the boat or them, she would pick them because even though they'd be having a bit of sex at least she could just put her Ipod in! Hahaha!

That night we finally got to go to Eastern Breeze! Went to the exec lounge first for drinks and I made a Malta special...but they had no milk! Wasn't sure what to do with my glass of milk-less booze so I topped it up with hot milk instead. ERROR. Anyway, we headed to Eastern Breeze later on. It was very tasty so worth the wait, I had chicken satay (continuing my foray into the meaty world) and some really spicy prawns that made my lips swell up like sausages. Oh, good! Afterwards we went for a walk and got some lemon fanta before going back to the balcony for chats et al. Nat still felt super giddy from the boat, and April did too, apparently even more than Hallis!

Wednesday was our last day, sob! We had our last celebratory breakfast and checked out, but the lovely lady (who blatantly knew of our holiday antics and bed breaking) let us have access to the exec lounge for the rest of the day! Result! We put our bags in the luggage room and boarded a bus into Valletta, the capital of Malta. The bus was fun and yellow and took us past lots of cute parts of Malta that we'll definitely visit next year. They even have Topshop over there! Definitely could move to Malta! When we got to Valletta we went to find our target: St John's Co-Cathedral, one of the most ornate Baroque cathedrals I've ever seen.

It was gorgeous, and we learnt tons about the Maltese knights that built it, was really fascinating! Also had original art by Caravaggio who was one of the knights back in the day but got kicked out for being naughty, they had no problems with keeping all his paintings though obviously! After a good look round the cathedral and museum we got some drinks then bussed back to St Julien's. We went back to our favourite giant pizza place for lunch and then went to the pool for a final laze. I had finished the horrible Kevin book and the girls made me read 'My Sister's Keeper' which was almost as traumatic for different reasons! We had afternoon tea and then went back to the pool for the rest of the afternoon, going back upstairs in time for drinks and snacks before we had to get a taxi to the airport. I was enjoying the sun on the terrace with my glass of wine when I looked down to see Meist cleaning her armpits with a facial wipe on the floor - classy! Ha ha! We hopped a taxi to the airport and flew back to Luton at 9.30. I finished the book and wept openly on the flight like a loser! Windsor came and picked us up and we went back to Redhill, knackered but jolly from the best holiday ever!

Jokes a la Texas: 27.03.09-04.04.09

Friday, 27th March 2009; the start of an epic adventure! Me and Lucas Brown woke up oh so early to make the trek to Heathrow airport where we would fly to Dallas and rendez-vous with the Millers. I thought I'd done well with waking up early, but Luke beat me because not only was he up, washed and packed by the time I had surfaced, but he'd also cleaned my room! The three of us left for the train station (me, Luke and Luke's MASSIVE bag) and soon we were on our way to Feltham. Successfully caught the bus to T5 once we got there and immediately got suspicious of just how according to plan it was all going. With every twist and turn of the bus we were expecting a gay rights parade to suddenly appear in a blaze of flags and drums and block the road, but luckily there were no such parades scheduled so we arrived at T5 even earlier than we had scheduled. Great success! We quickly checked in our bags and then through security (where I told Luke the story of Matthew's Helsinki airport security frisk shame - haha!) before arriving in the departure area of T5. What a glorious airport. We were overwhelmed but soon came round and headed straight for Waga. Waga for breakfast! Oh the joy. We ordered kedgeree and coffee and Luke had a tap water with lime - his new "beverage of the moment" as he proclaimed to me. Then he phoned his ma and wound her up by pretending we'd missed our flight, tsk tsk shame! We went for a little wander round the airport, bought snacks and a newspaper, then made our way to our gate. On the way we saw a snooty couple who were too late for their flight boarding so couldn't get on - gutted! Maybe their bus got stuck behind a gay rights parade. Anyway, me and Lucas boarded a bus to the plane and stood next to possibly the biggest geek ever talking about all sorts of crap. Lucky we weren't sitting with him on the plane, we were sat next to a random Texan boy instead! He was much cooler and was on his way home from Israel. The flight took 10 hours but we had a stellar entertainment system and settled down to watch HSM3 together, then I watched Ghost (YES) and other rubbish. Despite this, we still filled in a form complaining about the entertainment system - I'm not sure why! To get free stuff? I never got anything in the post! Pfft BA, poor effort. After a neverending flight we touched down at DFW at 4pm, huzzah! Very excited, we hot-footed down to baggage claim and had a little dance to J-Lo while we were waiting, "My love don't cost a thing!" Odd choice of music for baggage claim, but we loved it. When Luke had been reunited with his bag (haha!) and I had mine, we were finally ready to find Seb and Steve. Unfortunately lacking a stereo and an "American Woman" CD, we had to walk through with no music. Seb came running up! Wooohooooo! Then so did Steve! Happy reunited times! It was beautiful. We walked to Steve's trusty car and received some lovely gift bags, before driving to Sonic drive-thru. We all got tasty slush, Luke got a rank (and massive) route 44 monstrosity. We drove back to Seb and Steve's and had a rest, then out for tea at Chilis which was tasty. Afterwards, we headed home for ANTM catch up (brilliant) and then an earlyish night as me and Lucas were worn out from our busy day.

The next day me and Luke woke up mega early on account of the jetlag and feasted on coffee and lucky charms, the world's greatest cereal. Seb and Steve got up and then we all got ready to go to a 7th birthday party at a petting zoo! Literally, the greatest birthday party I have ever been to. Bouncy castle, tractor ride, goats AND cake. Bloody brilliant. I'm thinking about having a kid just so I can do that every weekend legitimately. There were the cutest piglets which Gibson and Gabby (the twins) loved and we fed them loads of grass. It was SO cold! I didn't think I'd be in my coat and hat and scarf in Dallas, but it was freezing! Luckily the organised American moms had hot chocolate et al to warm us all up! We had a great time and I took a photo of Luke which is probably the most inappropriate photo ever taken at a children's birthday party:

Oh the humanity!

After the petting zoo, me and Seb went to the Paris abode (I think!) where I had my first meaty lunch of the holiday - tasty soup - and met Seb's bible study posse. We had tons of tasty food and watched a video of a woman who was pretty full on and lairy! Then we watched Miss Congeniality, shabba. The guys came back and we drove to Whole Foods to buy tasty mahi mahi and salad for tea and Luke was outraged by the organic Whole Foods priceyness, I was amazed by all the types of balsamic vinegar! We went home and cooked up the food, Luke got eye poisoned by evil onions, then we ate tea and watched Ugly Betty. Quality evening!

On Sunday we were all up super early for church, had more lucky charms and tons of coffee before setting off for Pantego. We went to the youth ministry and Seb and Steve started setting up the important stuff, me and Luke did some chair arranging and then went to play basketball with a small child who was far, far better at basketball than me! We played some games and ran around and had a whale of a time! Chatted to a lot of cool people, had a very awkward rendez-vous with Pierce (oh the humanity) and then headed to the main church for the service. So BIG! I can't believe how massive Pantego is! After the service me and Luke made a beeline for Shipley donuts (tastyo, and our first of many that day!) and then went to the youth service. After that, we met Sara and her ma Pat and headed to Nagoya for HABACHI!

YUM! It all got cooked on the table in front of us and it was amazing! After Nagoya, we drove back through Arlington and stopped off at Krispy Kreme even though we were all super full. We all got hats, and all picked out donuts, and then convinced a friendly KK worker to pose with us for a pic! He was completely up for it, but as soon as Seb took the pic his face dropped and he looks so upset to be photographed! What a confused young man. However, we did not let his confusion spoil our fun as we continued our drive stuffing our faces with donuts. We drove down to see Steve's homeless friend Doug who had just got back to Arlington and he talked to him for a while then he came to meet us which was cool. Afterwards we drove back to Seb and Steve's place, got in our slouch pants (SLOUCH!) and watched so much amazing tv- ANTM, Ugly Betty and Celebrity Apprentice in which Denis Rodman went mental! It is the most fun thing in the world being under the dolphin blanket with Seb watching trash!

Monday was Dallas day! Or D-Town as Texas locals call it, hence we did too. Steve and Luke went to breakfast with Doug and me and Seb had a lovely lazy girly morning in our pjs which was fab. When the guys got back we drove to Dallas and headed for the spot where JFK was assassinated and met a MENTAL conspiracy theorist covered in pidgeons! He showed us lots of gross autopsy pictures and spun us his theory on who shot JFK. We stayed for a while then backed away slowly....slowly..... After we left the freakshow, we got back in the car and drove to classy West Village for bourgeoisie shopping and very fancing lunching in a burger place which was amazing! Wicked burgers and sweet potato fries, yum.

Then we drove to a different area with a fab furniture place I can't remember the name of! But we had a good browse and found all sorts of beautiful yet expensive things to stock our future homes with. We drove towards the mall then, via a bridal shop so Seb could scout out purple bridesmaid dresses for Angelene! It was fun, never been to one before! Then we went to a wicked mall and had a really good wander round, stumbled upon an epic film premiere full of celebrities (probably) and went in tons of shops. That night we went for an amazing dinner at the Shipley's house, such good food! Was a really fun night, we played lots of games and showed the Shipley kids the joy of Funhouse on Youtube! Ahh Pat Sharpe, how we miss thee. We were really surprised at just how crap the prizes in the Funhouse were; a Funhouse pencil case and a weekend at Coronation St?! Lame! They seemed so good when we were young! We borrowed two of the Shipley's wii remotes and when we got home waged an epic MarioKart war! Steve and Luke were amazing, Seb was okay, I was rubbish. But this night was the start of hours and hours of MarioKart joy to follow!

Tuesday we all had a mega lie in after staying up til 2am playing Mario Kart, lounged around a lot in slouch pants - SLOUCH - and then played more Mario! Four controllers now - brutal! T'was brilliant. After our lazy morning we got ready and drove to Grapevine Mall for some shopping. On the way we played a great game where you have to name five things to do with a certain topic, Luke got baffled by apples and hence was mocked. The mall was epic and MASSIVE! Had a good stroll round, bought some random stuff, Seb bought a fierce ANTM style jacket and vogued round the changing rooms like a champ! Me and Luke went into a dollar shop where I bought Zac Efron calendars which were so budget they didn't have a December, no wonder they were buy one get one free! i got one for me and one for Lex which she loves more than life! Mine is proudly up in my kitchen and envied by all my neighbours, especially the guys downstairs. In the dollar shop Luke bought an Obama pen and asked the DOLLAR SHOP lady how much it was - shame!

In the evening we drove round to Terry and Wayne's for Igroup, where I went last time I was in Texas! Was good fun, was games night and we played Disney Scene It. Our team lost despite our aged wisdom to teams of small children who had freakish Disney knowledge and I think spent literally all their time swotting up on Disney movies. Hence we were the real winners, in life. I continued my carnivorous odyssey by eating a burger...seconds after meeting possibly the only vegetarian in Arlington. She was so distressed by my defection to the meaty side! But what can you do, I was hungry and it was tasty!

After the kids left we went for a joyride in Wayne's Mustang! All you want to do is ride around Sally, riiiiide Salllllly riiiiide! Bloody amazing! We went to the video shop to get some movies for our OKLAHOMA ADVENTURE the next day and then drove back to Terry and Wayne's to say mmmbye. Went back to Seb and Steve's where we, surprise surprise, played more Mario (I was still crap) and a new quiz game which Seb totally slaughtered everyone at! Curse her giant brain.

Wednesday we woke up super early for Ooooklahoma trip of joy! We set off at about 10 and the first stop on the road was the casino: most fun ever! We set ourselves a $1 budget which handily equated to 100 goes on a 1 cent slot machine, splendid! High rollers indeed! We were most excited by the free drinks on offer, and skipped around the casino like kids at Christmas (gambling kids!) It turned out Steve was the only one who was savvy enough to actually win anything. Me and Luke lost all our cash almost instantly and Seb had to be literally restrained from going on a very intriguing Ebay machine! She almost tricked us by pretending to go to the toilets and fleeing when our backs were turned, but no no no, she was caught and frog-marched from the premises!

We continued our road trip, continuing to mystery stop number two: the exotic animal park! Huzzah! It was like a safari! We arrived and stocked up on animal feed, oh what an error. It was basically like Jurassic Park but scarier. We were harassed by emus, aggressive ostrichs and llamas, even camels were getting in on the scaring action! We were edging the windows down an inch, chucking some feed out then retreating screeching as the animals tried to stick their heads in the car! Eep! It was constant vigilence because if you left a window down and unmanned, there was a good chance an emu would take your eye out. Frightening times! There were nice animals too though, the giraffes (what is the plural for giraffe?) were very cute.

After the park we headed to Pizza Hut where we had a wicked all American waitress who served us up tons of tasty food, I had pepperoni and chicken wings for meat of the day! Most delicious. After we were stuffed and sleepy we headed to Ada and we all fell asleep bar Steve, our most alert (luckily!) driver! We arrived at Charlotte and Melvin's house and it was huge, very exciting! They went to church and we played! Rode quad bikes, bicycles, tried a hazardous zip line and had buckets of fun. I made friends with a cat (CAT FRIEND) who subsequently peed on Luke, funniest thing in the world and all captured on video. Beautiful. We had a good roast for tea, then settled down in the epic movie room to watch ANTM, play Wii and watch Secret Life of Bees. Despite spending hours picking a movie in the video shop, me and Luke fell asleep about ten minutes in, d'oh! It was an excellent snooze though! Managed to somehow relocate to me and Seb's comfy bed at some point though for an even better sleep!

We woke up bright and early...or not so early...on Thursday and then went out in the pick-up with Charlotte! So much fun! We sat on the edge of the trailer and ducked trees as she drove us through the forest, before ending up at the lake where we had a stroll and emptied a load of water out of a boat. Glad our visit was productive! Then we drove back, saw one massive dog and one tiny dog which followed us all the way up the road! When we got home Charlotte made amazing almond pancakes with tons of syrup, tasty! And we converted her to tea- keeping it British. Next we had a guided tour of Ada in Charlotte's HUGE car, saw her church with the most amazing youth bit ever (it had EVERYTHING!) the high school, big fat houses and then went to Braums for big fat ice cream sundaes. It was great!

We drove back that evening, stopping at the casino again for another $1 flutter! Me and Luke lost everything (again) but Seb and Steve did ok and came away with a profit. At least some of us did! Me and Seb got a dirty subway on the way home, then we got back to the abode and mocked Luke's washbag and Hello Kitty flannel.....HA HA HA!

Friday was an amazing day! We had a lie in and then off to my favourite place: The Cheesecake Factory! Oh the joy. Our waiter was a dick but he brought us good food so we allowed it. We all had tasty strawberry lemonades and I had my portabello mushroom burger I had waited three years for, it was worth it! Then Steve Luke and I all had huge slices of cheesecake which were like poetry in motion in edible form. YUM. Seb thought she was going for the smaller option with a strawberry shortcake, but when it came it was literally as big as her head. Gutted! It was very tasty though. My cheesecake was white chocolate, caramel and macadamia nut....mmmm.

After we had all stuffed ourselves we went to Fort Worth- cowboy town! I found myself a new boyfriend, but it would never have worked for visa reasons. We had a wander round, went to a PESTLE AND MORTAR SHOP and saw all sorts of cowboy stuff. Luke was abused by an Indian beggar (strange!) and then we went to a shop full of fur, yuck! They had a stuffed ostrich, Oklahoma flashback! Afterwards we went into the centre of FW which was awesome and pretty. We went to see stand up improv called Four Day Weekend and it was great! You could give them lines of dialogue, and they took up a load of ours including, "So be it", "Sweet Merciful Zeus" and, the best, "Wasted like a douchebag!" Ha ha! After Four Day Weekend we went for a stroll round as the town was all lit up, I got a Jamba Juice and a FW Starbucks mug (tradition!) and it was mega. When we got home we played the Wii quiz once again (the most fun!!) and watched Juno which I fell asleep in all cosy in the dolphin blanket, the best blanket ever!

Saturday was going home day! Noooo! We woke up early and Luke woke up Seb and Steve with a spreadeagle! We packed up and had a tasty cooked breakfast which was well fancy, then did some last minute shopping in Walmart and other places to get odds and ends! We went to a coffee shop where Seb let me pick out my birthday present, an awesome necklace made from a scrabble tile! Brilliant! Then we headed to the airport, said our sad goodbyes :'( then me and Luke headed back to Britannia. We had a good flight, Luke loved his airplane dinner so much he had seconds, ha ha! And I watched Marley and Me and cried and cried like a douche. Sunday morning we arrived back in Heathrow, the end of our adventure! Sad times! But it was the greatest week!