Blimey McCrikey

That was a hell of a weekend.

erm,

that's all I was going to say actually, sums it up quite nicely I thought.

Alright then, i'll give at least a little bit of detail, but don't ask me to list all the drinks I had over the weekend, it's not big or clever. Well, the list would be big, and I would need to be pretty clever to recall the whole list, but just don't do it kids.

Ok, so I made it to my brothers gig on Friday, which was pretty good as it turned out. I managed to get Rachel to come with me, since she dropped out from attending somebody's leaving do. (which turned pretty messy itself but that's another story entirely)

I've never been to a hardcore gig before, and i'm not sure what I was expecting but I was suprised by the good atmosphere and lack of attitude. Yes, there were people furiously flinging their limbs at each other in a mosh pit at the front, but most people made sure they didn't intentionally twat anyone too hard, and would even help each other up in the likely event of someone falling over. This strange voilent-but-considerate approach may have been because of what happened if you did go a bit over the top.

Example: A tiny chinese girl kept running into the mosh pit and then would run out screaming when she got nudged about a bit, which doesn't immediately strike me as the smartest thing to do, but still didn't justify some guy smacking her in the head. I'm not entirely sure what happened next but it involved a lot of large sweaty men in black t-shirts all forcing their way in the same direction at once, and I didn't see the bloke until an hour later when he was at the bar asking for ice to put on his seriously swollen face.

So it was strange to spend half my time trying to listen to the bands and half my time keeping an eye out for badly aimed moshers headed in mine and Rachels direction. (I'm not for a second saying I was protecting Rachel, i'm pretty sure she would have done a fine job of that herself, but I may have extended an arm to cover a little more than just myself a couple of times.)

The choice after the gig was to join Laura and LOTS of other people at a club, in celebration of Laura's birthday, or to go home and make head-pillow interaction as soon as possible. I was knackered, having been out till 3 on Thursday night and up at 6.30 for work, so I suggested we head home. We had a quick vote, cast some ballots and had a recount, but it was unamimous so no enquiry was needed, we were off to bed, hurrah.

As it turns out, Rach was just as tired as me, but she said if I had wanted to go to the club, she would have gone, and once there would probably have drunk everyone under the table and stayed out until 5am, her social powers amaze me constantly, as do a lot of things about her, but I digress.

If you don't include the bit after midnight when i was still awake (what was I doing at this time? I'm a gentleman, use your imagination), then saturday started kind of early. Rachel had to get up about 10am to go and pay G.N.P. sized amounts of money for someone to cut her hair and make it a slightly different colour, (it looked really good though I must admit) but after waking, I found out my presence was not required, so I did what any sensible person would do, I went back to sleep. Good thing really, if I had known what was coming I would have tried to get even more sleep.

Cue 13, yes, Thirteen hours in the pub.

I got to Goblets at 1pm for lunch for Laura's birthday (She doesn't seem to think a birthday is enough, so she had a birthweekend instead), and left The Dungeon at 2am when they kicked everyone out.

I did have an awesome time, I do wish I could remember a little more of it, but I ended up with a smile on my face so thats all good. I do know that I spent in excess of £60 on Jack Daniels, this would usually cover my quarterly alcohol intake, things they are certainly a-changin' around here!

I also remember telling a friend of mine that our 12-odd year friendship had been based on the fact that when on a coach trip at school, if I turned round in my chair and leant over the back to talk to her, I could spend the time looking down her top at her cleavage. I was sure she already knew this, but apparently not, whoops.

Sure to follow the best traditions, Birthweekend girl Laura was absolutley battered, and at one point accepted a drink from a guy on crutches who must have been at least an octagenarian. She thought he was a stripper hired for her birthday, I have no idea what he thought, but he used his pension money to buy her an archers and lemonade.

I did some hardcore socialising, which all went pretty well, I even spoke to Rachels ex, (you remember me saying it was complicated?) which I was actually really nervous about, and I was hoping desperately that he would like me, or at least not think I was a complete nobhead. Well I can only thank Mr Daniels for getting me through, because I have no idea what I said but it seemed to work and we had a brief, slightly awkward but positive conversation, phew.

Doug, my joke nemesis, was there, an occasion that I had been storing some cracking gags up for, but Mr Daniels struck again and I forgot them all, so I made sure I kept the conversations very serious indeed.

"Politics eh? tch." stuff like that.

There's more i'm sure but it comes back to me in flashes like amnesia after a particularly bad car crash, it's by no means reliable.

Sunday.

Starts like this.

Ow, fuck, ow, fuck, ow ow ow my head, argh ow thinking too loud hurts ah thats better, ahhh even better. bugger this i'm going back to sleep.

I didn't get to go back to sleep however, you know why? I had for some reason agreed to help Rachel move into her new flat, and the new resident of her current room would be moving in in 4 hours. Oh, that's why she got herself a nice strapping young boyfriend then. Dammit.

I definately do not suggest lugging chests of drawers up and down stairs to get rid of a hangover, and I will not lie and say it is enjoyable in the least, but i'll tell you what, it bloody works.

Oh did I mention the moving van fell through, so we had to move everything in the back of a Seat Leon, mmm, spacious. I even had to go and help fire up a soft-top series 2 Landrover from about 1960 in order to move the larger items. The owner of the Landrover is a guy called Jesus John, as he is precisely as quirky and eccentric as the name might imply, hence owning a 40 year old farm vehicle, among other things. It was an experience though, i'll say that.

It all got sorted in the end, thanks mostly to Rachel knowing a lot of people and being charismatic enough to drag them out of bed on a sunday morning to help her out, (have I mentioned how amazing she is?) thats a rare skill.

Laura hadn't finished with us yet, and it was off to The Bridge pub for a posh birthweekend meal in the evening, dress code was optional, but most of us got suited up, possibly because of a suggestion I made on Saturday night, sorry everyone. (I said a lot of things on Saturday that I have forgotten that i'm sure will come back to haunt me in the next few weeks)

The meal was great, I can thoroughly recommend the lamb cutlets.

Um, Rach actually paid for my meal, ostensibly as a thankyou for helping her move, but I admit I was incredibly skint myself, but I do still feel bad about that, I have no problem giving money away but hate to take it, so I may have to repay the favour in a typically Dan fashion sometime soon.

Erm, that was about it I think, it was eventful by my standards, but I would say pretty eventful by most people's measure, right?

Well regardless of where it comes on the official eventfulness scale, I had a stonking good time, even the hangover and the moving were ok because it was with Rachel, and I enjoy every moment I spend with her. (read the previous post, I did warn you)

We've not known each other long, but have become very close in a very short time, which amazes me constantly, it seems she genuinely likes me as much as I like her, who'd have believed it?

Oh yeah, this weekend got well and truly topped off in style. I may have heard good music, spent time with great people, in great places, eaten good food, laughed and laughed, but it still got beaten at the very end.

On Sunday night, Rachel whispered those three little words into my ear for the first time.