Merreh Catmuss...

Oh, HAI!

Vinceh heres. Mummah is watchin TV so I steels intarwebs to say HAPPEH MERREH CATMUSS to all :D

*SNUGGLES*

PS - I has a hat, you duz not has. You is WELL JEALOUSE

Torture Garden - The Adventure Into Fetish Part One

So, you've already seen the photo of me here taken in our lounge before we set off to the Ocean Rooms for our first Brighton TG Adventure. In fact, Phil, Jordy and myself were all TG virgins and were quite happy to have the chance to experience it but a short walk from our flat, rather than trekking all the way to London. We were heading down there with my lovely housemate and his girl Nic, and our friend Niall, all of whom have been before so it was going to be FUN.

We'd all prepared our outfits carefully and I must say, we were looking AMAZING. I wore a brand new green corset and black latex elbow-legnth gloves, black tutu with cherubs and virgin mary print and big shoes; Phil wore new black trousers with buckles and fab nipples shields, and I tied red and silver hollographic plastic into his dreds which looked like wires; Jordy bought an all-in-one affair made of black cotton with a large panel of black mesh in the back - showing off his bum - and leather gloves. Niall for his part was in black trousers and massive goth boots, and had his torso wrapped in black bondage tape with a giant red bow which gave the impression of him being a twisted Christmas present, B wore his pvc vicar outfit from Hallowe'en and Nic was a vision of Steam Punk burlesque in a cute corset and frilly pants and bits of clock in her hair. Trust me, it worked.

I'd been wanting to go to Torture Garden for quite simply ages. One thing or another had prevented me from going but this time, nothing was going to stop me! I'm so glad I went, it was SUCH a crazy experience.

It's really hard to describe...effectively, my impression of it was that it's a place to express yourself without impunity or censorship in a safe and friendly environment, dance to great tunes, show off your flair for fancy dress and get a good spanking too! ;) If not, you can just watch, or mingle with the crowd and chat to friends. There's no pressure to get involved in anything you wouldn't want to, and it felt brilliant being there. Yes, there were things going on in descreet corners which in fairness I'm sure go on in some of the seedier clubs I've been too anyway. But there was no feeling of sleaze or innapropriate behaviour there. It was thrilling. The costumes ranged from the full on latex-faced man dressed as a maid to the girls wearing nothing but tape on their nipples and high-heels.

The three of us decided that YES we would go again - to London this time. Already considering possibilites for new costumes! Corsets and latex ROCK :D

Torture Garden Joy

Pre TG me - Latex Love!

R.I.P Bettie

RIP Bettie Page, how you will be missed. You were a Goddess among women.

Bettie Page: 22nd April 1923-11th December 2008

Surely not!

I'm still here! *waves*

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the radio silence, but the last three weeks have been REALLY, really, REALLY busy, and extremely tiring since I started my new job. I'm totally fine though, just getting to grips with everything and generally recovering from New Job Syndrome! Full update post to follow with all my exciting news - probably at the weekend :)

Also, a massive THANK YOU to Hoverfrog the Almighty, for sending me a pressie from my Wishlist! It's Bagpuss on DVD! My first Yule gift of the year - YAY!!! :)

OK, must dash as I have to go out and buy the ingredients for a veggie spag bol - my friend Katie is coming over for dinner and a gossip, as haven't seen her since I left RBS. It is however raining, and I am not looking forward to trekking across to Sainsburys! Pah!

A plus tard, as they say in la France ;)

I have come for your organs...

Sometimes I find something I wasn't looking for while messing about on the intarwebs, and sometimes that thing is really ace.

Yesterday I discovered Repo! The Genetic Opera, and was blown away!

Check it out. Gutted that it isn't getting cinema release in the UK though :( :( :(

Violation!

I opened my inbox this morning to find the following email:

Hello,

You uploaded a photo that violates our Terms of Use,
and this photo has been removed.
Among other things, photos containing nudity, drug use,
or other obscene content are not
allowed, nor are photos that attack an individual or group.
Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your
account being disabled.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page at
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?topic=wphotos.

The Facebook Team

I went and had a peek at my facebook, and couldn't really see anything different - there's a photo missing, but I can't tell which one. It's quite silly really, because I've never knowingly added photos that blatantly violate the terms and the ones that might are for select friends only. Ah well. Isn't VIOLATE such a harsh term?

Vote for me!

I made it into BIZARRE mag this year!

I'm so excited :)

Being an Ultra Vixen is something I've wanted to do for ages now - it started out as a bit of a joke with a guy at work who always used to steal my copy at lunchtime to read it, but now, thanks to Phil's photography skills and my twisted imagination, I am featured in all my absinthe glory in issue 143 :D

Go here and look - and then follow the instructions to vote for me! I'm pretty sure you can vote more than once, so please do - I want to win Ultra Vixen of the year!

Thanks for your attention darlings!

Jobs, Zombies and War Gin

It has been a truly hectic, epic, up and down couple of weeks, but it looks like things are finally settling down for the best.

Firstly, I got suspended from work. The gist of that was I made amendments on the system which I was not supposed to do, using my login name. Well, who's login name was I going to use, except my own? And as I didn't know I wasn't meant to make these changes, I repeated the same thing, on three occasions. It first happened nearly a year and a half ago, and the last time I did it was January this year. Took them long enough to find out that I had broken the rules, didn't it...Either way, it was a breach of the code of conduct I'd signed, and I felt it was more than likely that the hearing would result in me being fired - which would have meant a bad mark on my reference and a very stressful formal hearing at work. I've attended things like it before as a representative for friends, and they are not enjoyable experiences. I really don't think I could have gone through it myself.

I gave the situation A LOT of thought. Talked it through with my man, and my closest friends. It seemed like an obvious answer, to hand in my notice and walk away from the job I'd been doing for 3 years, especially when my interest was waning fast and I'd already been considering alternative jobs. It was hard though. Stability from a regular paying job is not something you want to give up easily, combined with the number of people still working at that office whom I am good friends with. Having said all that, it wasn't a good enough reason to fight for a job I didn't really want and stood a good chance of being fired from anyway - and being escorted out of the building on the day they suspended me was bad enough but going through that all again, with people being aware that it was going on? No thanks.

So I decided to hand in my 4 weeks notice. I enrolled with temping agencies and updated my CV. Within a week of having left the office, I was actually feeling quite positive about the whole situation. There were minor dips to deal with, but things were definately starting to look up. Rather than pretending I was ok and actually crying myself to sleep once or twice, playing hours of sims and sleeping in til 3pm once, I was awake, showered and ready to go by the start of a normal working day. My darling Jordon asked me for updates every day and so did Phil - their support was invaluable as I really have a tendency to be lazy! It was good, and I'm actually quite proud of myself for not slipping too far, given the circumstances. I think my therapist would be proud of me :)

A friend of mine works for a company I liked the sound of so I sent my CV to her and she forwarded it to the HR department. They called and I had the first stage of the interview process on the phone - I did well, so I then had to do a French compentency telephone test and got an invite in for an assessment day on 29th October.

It all seemed to be going well! But wait! I handed in my notice on Monday 26th October and lo, they called to say that they were going to make it as hard as possible for me. Well, not in so many words, but that was the gist of it. I had two options:

1 - They accept my letter of resignation but press on with the hearing, which would not only be very difficult to go through, but could also result in me being fired - which would make for a damaging reference. If not, and I was allowed to stay on the payroll for the last 4 weeks, my resulting reference would include the fact that I had been subject to a disciplinary.

2 - They accept my letter of resignation with immediate effect and all pay etc cease immediately. My reference will show that I resigned pending a disciplinary hearing.

Neither of those was particularly appealing to be honest. And I was faced with making this decision the day before my interview/assessment day!

The long and the short of it is that I attended said day for assessment yesterday and they offered me the job. Work called, and I chose option 2. Ok so this new job is going to be subject to references, but RBS isn't the only place I've worked, and it won't be the worst reference ever either.

And that's it - I have a potential new job, for a good company, with new people, closer to home and with a marginally better salary. I'm pretty damn chuffed about it, actually :)

Not much left for me to report now, other than the fact that it is FREEZING in my room, in the whole house, and in Brighton in general - and it's HALLOWE'EN TOMORROW! We are planning an EPIC party, I frankly cannot wait! Going to do a lot of celebratory drinking - probably a good time to guzzle down the Waragi I received in the post from Marion in Rwanda as a thank you for the translations I did for her and her website! Thanks hun! Tried some last night and it gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up from me :) I'm also impressed with the fact that it comes from the term "War Gin" - oh, this makes so so happy!

Finally: how good is E4's Dead Set? Pure genius and I am LOVING it. I did have very odd dreams featuring drug-taking zombies last night, but hey, it's a small price to pay :)

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Yay!

Looks like someone got herself a new job :D

One down...

Just had a first interview for a new job - no, not the one I posted about last, but another good one regardless - and it went really well. Have been invited ack for the next stage, so fingers crossed and positive vibes for me, please!

:D

Happy Friday everyone!

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

I've just finished rewriting my CV and registering with some online recruitment companies.

So far today I have applied for 5 jobs, one of which I am hopelessly under-experienced for, but I couldn't resist.

Here it is.

Oddly, I do actually have the right qualifications and skills in the right sectors, so we shall see, eh? ;) Either way, I feel pretty good to have actually made the leap into the job market. Handing in official letter of notice on Friday which leave me 4 weeks salary....plus the 2 from my time on suspension....

So it's not all bad at all.

In other good news, I've been having some really good chats with my Dad recently. As some of you may know, I've not always had a particularly good relationship with my Papa, but since April, things have really taken on a new lease of life for which I am hugely grateful. He's even started to talk to me about his own relationship with his father, a man who had passed before I was born, and someone who my Dad didn't get on very well with himself. One particular thing he told me last night was about how my Grandfather told him that if he spent too long looking in the mirror, one day there would be two of him looking back, and very dreadful things would happen to him - what a thing to tell an impressionable child! It terrified him to the bone, and left him with a lasting fascination/fear of mirrors.

We had so many around when I was growing up, great big antique things, because my parents said they lent depth to a room. They genuinely do make small rooms seem much brighter and bigger...but there's certainly an air of something sinister lurking in the background sometimes.

Dad and I both seem to share the same feelings towards mirrors (my particular inability to look into one and see a true depiction of myself not-withstanding) so we have arranged to go and see the new film of the same name on 2nd November, me, Phil, Mum and Dad. Some small attempt at catharsis? Or just a jolly good scare? I don't know, but I am excited :)

Wakehurst Place

Good morning everyone! *waves*

Just a couple of quick things before the main purpose of this post:

I love my house and housemates, they are ace. I can't imagine living anywhere else now, it's so much fun here. 1 Goffick + 1 Dandy + 1 Gay + (3 x cats) = The Best. Don't quite know where that came from, but I just wanted to say it.

I've made a few changes to my blog; An Anon commentor on an earlier entry drew my attention to the fact that I hadn't fully explored Blogger's options as on previous blogs of mine, so thanks for that. Equally, said anonymous reader also made what they believed to be a malicious and potentially hurtful comment. Unfortunately, they made two mistakes.

One - if they actually knew me and had the vaguest idea of what I actually lived through with my Eating Disorder, and how strong I am now, they wouldn't be so childish as to try and use statements about my BMI perceived weight - nice one, fucktard, I'm not actually OBESE, it's just one medical tool amongst many. I'm very happy about the way I look, the size of my breasts and the curve of my hips are 100% sexy.

Two - they left an ANONYMOUS comment! Anyone who has read my blog before, or indeed, knows me, will know how much contempt I have for people who hide when stating any kind of opinion. If you believe it, have the balls to state your name at the door when you come in here to tell me. And if you aren't brave enough to post where anyone can see - send me an email. My contact details are on my full profile, if you don't have them already.

So, the upshot of this is that I've turned on all the features I didn't realise I hadn't already. My blog, my rules :)

In other news, Mum and Dad came up to Brighton last Sunday and we all went to Wakehurst Place for the day. It was a belated birthday treat for my Dad and it was AWESOME. We couldn't have asked for better weather, the sun was warm and the foliage was stunning. I was pretty much transported back to the glorious days of my childhood in Wales, running wild in the woods and building camps with my brother :) It's a fabulous place to visit and they do a lot of really valuable conservation work there too.



My Dad seems very impressed by this one...



A perfect one for climbing...




The House. A perfect residence for the Slytherin Head Girl, don't you think? :)

Then there was much cake and coffee in one of the lovely cafes on the grounds. Dad loved it so much that he and Mum and buying Season Tickets for the place, and Phil and I are doing the same - going back there in December to see the largest living Christmas tree all decorated with lights! WIN!

Jelly Snakes and Trumpets

This is such a great advert :)

Hope Springs Eternal...

I think the awful fug I was in over the last few days has certainly started to lift now.

Had a really good heart to heart with Phil on Saturday and had a good old cry which really did the trick. I feel much lighter, much more positive and more hopeful about the future now. I know I seemed to be holding it together and reassuring people I was OK, but quite frankly it was very much "putting a brave face on it" - even though I didn't know it at the time. I genuinely thought I was OK, so it's not as if I was lying to people or hiding my feelings from them, but it all came to a head on Saturday, came flooding out and that felt like the turning point.

So on Sunday, we both woke up early (8am) had breakfast and Buffy in bed (the ONLY way to start a Sunday in my opinion) and then went for a really lovely wander around town. I'd decided to get some new work clothes, the thought process being that with a new start there should be nice new clothes to make myself feel good in an interview; with this in mind we headed into Primark and I managed to spend a very restrained 42 quid on a nice gray woollen dress, a purple and black tartan skirt, a black shirt, 6 pairs of tights, a green roll-neck jumper and a teal long-sleeved top. Phil also bought be a stunning dark gray and black checked knee-length pencil skirt with a slight flare to the bottom, very corporate goth :) Some totally amazing things in that shop at the moment - the leopard-print faux-fur jacket is AWESOME, but a frivolous 25 quid that I can't afford at the moment.

Anyway. After much needed retail therapy, we dropped the stuff back at Phil's flat and then went for food at the Bombay Aloo all you can eat veggie restaurant we discovered back when we had our Brighton holiday. NOM NOM NOM! It was just a pleasant and chilled out day, both feeling really loved up and happy. We finished the weekend with some red wine and the Lord of The Rings - Fellowship and lots of snuggles. Bliss.

Now I am feeling really positive, and am off out and about in a short while to get things going on the job front, and hunt down some things in charity shops for my Hallowe'en costume :) It's still a big secret, but all will be revealed in good time! Oh, and peeking on Facebook, I saw that my ex is still going thin on top, and his new american lady is significantly less hot than me ;) I know, it's evil, but it's the little things like that which make you grin on the inside ;)

It's going to be a good week, I can feel it!

From One EXTREME To The Other...

Back from the doctors.

Good news and less good.

Firstly, I am actually OK; Stress and hormones have made my aches in various places (including my poor breasts) more pronounced, but there's nothing actually wrong with me. Quite a relief. He also recommended more water and sticking to my lactose-free diet which I'd begun to help with kidney related problems.

He also strongly recommended more exercise and eating more healthily, because....*drum roll*....

*pause*

I am now CLINICALLY OBESE.

*faints*

My BMI is that of an OBESE person.

From one extreme to the fucking other! 2 years ago I was UNDERWEIGHT and now I am 4 stone heavier, curvier and over-all happier, and lo, I am being told that I am TOO FAT.

Fucksocks.

Ah well. I shall just have be very, very careful with myself and set myself a realistic goal and time-frame and get into a "healthy" weight zone.

May I just add at this point that The Boy has been an absolute STAR over the last week. I love him more than words can say.

Onwards and Upwards...

So, here's the deal.

I'm all booked in to go to the doctors on Friday to start the wheels moving on my kidney stuff. Good.

I've decided to hand in my notice at work. I refuse to be held in stasis like this while they wait around to have a "hearing" over something stupid I did months ago. I was bored of the job anyway - yes, I will miss the stability and the people, but it is *so* much time for a change. I've ranted and cried about it, and had a chance to really think, and thanks to some amazing friends and a wonderful man by my side, I know that it is the right thing to do and know I have the strength to do this. Good.

Will let you know how it all goes....

A decision.

Feeling marginally better after a very nice weekend.

I am just about ready to take the plunge now.

F**k, f**k, F**K!

Right.

As if I didn't have enough to think about with my kidney playing up, I had a god awful day today.

First I had an email from someone I considered close and a good friend, telling me that our friendship is over due to something I didn't realize I'd done and would never have meant to do, back in August.

Secondly, I got suspended from work.

Yup, suspended. With full pay, pending an investigation into what I did, which I genuinely didn't know I wasn't to do. I can't go into it yet, but rest assured, I didn't do anything illegal, I just made a fucking stupid mistake, it turns out, many months ago.

I am in the most horrible mood I've been in for a very, very, very long time.

Grumpy

My god, I am exhausted at the moment.

All week I've been bleary-eyed, tired, sniffling, cold and aching. I've been dosing myself up on vitamins, fresh fruit, water and lemsip cold and flu capsules, but none of it seems to be helping. I've eaten spicy foods and garlic cloves which normally knock any cold out of me completely but no. I'm wearing warm clothes to work, scarves and gloves, the heating is on in the house and I'm not cold in my bed but I can't seem to shake this icky feeling at all.

Last night was the worst, I tossed and turned for ages and just couldn't sleep because my kidney was hurting so much. I even had a little cry to myself before finally drifting off into a dream.

So on my way to work this morning I stopped in at my Doctor's surgery and saw a nurse who gave me Diclofenac painkillers and told me I'd need to come back next week for blood tests. Great :( *sigh* Really hate blood tests and hate waiting for the results even more - but not as much as I hate being in pain I guess. I'm pretty sure that I have more stones waiting to be passed, or some which have passed and left an infection behind. It all seems horribly reminiscent of 2 years ago when I had my first attack of renal cholic :(

Still OUCH

My left kidney is STILL hurting. It's coming in waves now, aches for a while, then passes, then again with the stabbing aching pain.

I'm starting to get a bit worried by it, to be honest. It's not the intensity of pain I got when I had the stones and then the infection, but it's actually getting to me now :(

Will drink plenty of water and detoxing gren tea, cut out the dairy and see if that helps....

OUCH

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, my kidney is aching again :(

Ouch, ouch, ouch :(

I think a proper detox is in order really.

Dreaming Extreme

Listen up you lovely bloggers!

If you are near a TV set tonight at around 6.30, please tune in to BBC2 to watch MY FRIEND Francesca, the over-excitable one who lured me into that photography lark, on "Extreme Dreams", and tomorrow, thurs and friday too!

Go on, it will be ace. Plus, you might even get to see the building that I work in with her too.

Oh, and she's got a blog, here on 20six

Best Festival Ever!

Bestival

So, I'm just back from my very first Bestival. It was FANTASTIC.

Yes, it rained, yes, there was mud, and yes, it got cold, but we totally expected it so we were prepared and ready for anything. This meant that in actual fact, a really good time was had by all, which bordered on the incredible :)

I won't go into all the details and the ins and outs of getting there, setting up camp and all that jazz, but I'll give you the edited highlights!

The festival was the best I have ever been to. The music was diverse, the set-up well thought-through, the grounds well-prepared for the downpours and the festival goers were the nicest I've met in a long time. The food was pretty standard festival fare, but not too extortionate. My top 10 Bestival moments were:

1) Being at the barrier for Gary Numan!
2) running through the mud in my green wedding dress
3) doing the Extreme Line Dance lessons with Phil at 2am on Saturday morning in the Come Dancing tent
4) The posh loos and the fact that they cleaned the toilets out properly every day!
5) The X-Box social tent - hurrah for playing Trivial Pursuit with a hangover in the morning
6) watching a man dressed as a clam dance the Waltz
7) all of the fantastic fancy dress outfits in the Saturday Parade - the family of Prawns and the Titanic were my favourites
8) the Gordon's Gin Sanctuary
9) free underwear and condoms being given away
10) Bestivalley, with all the glorious flags and hot coffee and crepes - and CLEAN GRASS TO SIT ON!

Definitely going back next year, regardless of who is playing because it was totally magical and surreal and drunken fun all rolled into one.

Turn Back The Clock....

Well.

Maybe it's the fact that it is September, and like I mentioned in an earlier post, I feel a sense of longing nostalgia, but I really, really feel like a teenager again.

It's almost impossible to explain, I think, but the overpowering, all-encompassing feelings of exagerated emotion are taking over, on and off, throughout the day. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; it's not the angsty dispair I felt all too often, it's more an intoxicating, heady, dangerous and lusty joie de vivre. Very much akin to the excitement that comes with kissing the boy you've admired for such a long time, in the rain in the summertime, like a scene stolen from a romantic film and magnifed a thousand times over. At least, that's sort of how it feels. I think it still falls short somewhere

I really have no idea where this is coming from, how long it will last, or indeed, if I'm even ok with it - it is making life very difficult to concentrate on. It has happened to me before, more than once, but as it happened to coincide with me falling out of love and lust with the current boy of the day and chasing after someone new, I just put it down to that - cold feet and a very warm heart.

But that's not it at all this time. I'm deeply in love with Phil. Everything about him completes me and I've never felt this amazing with anyone. It's more than surface euphoria and lust, I really, completely and utterly adore him.

Yet somehow, the lyrics from emo songs resonate within my heart (My Chemical Romance? Wtf?), and the words off the page from the novel I can't put down yet again feel like they are fitting into places I didn't even know were empty, in my head.

Goodness me.

I think I might need to go and lie down for a minute.

Is it winter already?

Is it?

It's really COLD and wet outside. The light is so bad because the sky is so full of ominous black clouds.

The forecast for the week and the coming weekend is showers, heavy showers and more showers.

And I'm meant to be camping as of Friday?

Oh dear :(

The Court Case - Part 2: The Verdict

Some of you will remember that on July 28th this year I went along to the Court in Southampton to support my brother and his friend Chris in the trial against the young men who attacked them last year. The full account of the day is here so please go and read there at your leisure. I'll wait for you.

**************

OK? Good.


Well, they were due to be sentenced today.

My brother just called - the sentence has been passed:

The main offender, who caused the major injuries to Jake's face, got 12 months custodial sentence for the GBH on Jake, 6 months for lasting effects - 18 months in total, effective from today.

The two others, the twins got 180 hours Community Service each for ABH overall plus 180 hours Community Service specifically for ABH on Jake, electronic tag for 3 months, plus curfew of 7pm for the duration of the tag.

Fucking ace :D

Back to School

It is September 1st today, and I have an overwhelming urge to go and buy new school shoes and a lovely shiny pencil case, full of new pens and ink cartridges, pencils, shapener, compass and all the other things which an eager student might need.

*sigh*

Oh, the nostalgia.

Missing New Moon and Twilight Cinema

As I was trawling through the movie trailers on Phil's MacBook, I was exceedingly happy to discover that they've made one of my fave books into a movie.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer is one of a series surrounding the life and love story of one human girl, Bella and one devastatingly handsome vampire man, Edward. Edward is rather appropriately played by Robert Pattinson - oh yes, he was Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - who I think is getting easier on the eye as he grows up ;) The books are quite fabulous, centering around the love story between the two unlikely teenagers, and their respective families. Edward's family are "vegetarian" vampires, in as much as they prefer to drink the bllod of animals rather than humans. There's lots of interesting relationships, drama, trauma, bloodshed, vampires, werewolves and sex. Read them. That's an order.

I do have three of the books, at least, I used to. I've just discovered that one of them is missing, and it's dawned on me that I haven't seen the middle one, New Moon, in a long time. CURSES. If anyone would like to make me a gift of this book, plus the fourth installment, I'd be very happy indeed ;)

Snip, snip, snooze

My undercut needs redoing. Any volunteers?

This weekend has been a most splendid one of much sleeping, much chilling, many dvds and lots of kitteh lovin'. Oh, and far too much food. Blergh. Going to exercise away some of the calories on the static bike and then have a very long, hot bath before The Boy comes over; he's been to his brother's Stag this weekend, and I've really missed him, even though he was only away for 1 night and 2 days.

I'm too smitten for my own good ;)

My Brighton Holiday, by Chloe Hall, aged 28

They say that staying in is the new going out, and the staying at home is the new going away.

Whether this is stictly true or not, I don't know - I think it depends highly on where you live - but for Phil and I, the last Bank Holiday of the summer loomed and we were both more or less brassic. So we did what anyone in their right mind would do - we decided to stay in Brighton and be tourists for the weekend.

As it was, we'd both taken the Thurs and Fri off work so we had a clear 5 days to chill and explore our town. We were going to stay at Phil's in his studio in the centre of town and generally pretend we were on holiday, staying in a guesthouse and trying to look at Brighton through the wide-eyes of daytrippers - and we did pretty well. We stocked the fridge like a mini-bar and filled the bathroom with miniature bottles of shampoo etc, packed our bags and met at the station after workon Wednesday - dead on 6pm. Strangely, it really felt like we'd both stepped off the train and didn't live here at all!

After we arrived at the "Guesthouse" we unpacked, and headed out to get some food. We then watched countless hours of Scrubs and ate junk food to our heart's content. I had a relaxing hot shower and used my favourite LUSH facemask, Brazened Honey. We had some wine, and then cuddled up and fell asleep.

I'm notorious for not being a morning person, but on the first day of our holiday I was up and awake and consious at the very respectable hour of 8.30! We had coffee and bagels in bed and then got ready and headed out into the town. Wandered round the less-crowded-than-weekend shops, walked into Hove and did a bit of charity shop shopping - got a wicked skull mug, an antique pill box, a teddybear and a funky space invaders vest all for £7!

After that, we were hungry, so we tried out the Vegetarian Indian Buffet, Bombay Aloo, that I'd been wanting to go to for ages. 20 dishes for £4.95! FABULOUS value and I'd recommend it to anyone. We sat and scoffed for ages, and my brother joined us after his Open Day at Sussex Uni. Later, afternoon tea in the Pavillion Garden Café and lounging around in the Royal Pavillion Gardens, smoking and chattting. It was lovely. Jake headed home and Phil and I headed to the Odeon to see what was on. We opted for the Dark Knight, such a great film. Apart from the very annoying exchange students talking loudly and sitting in the reserved seats, it was a good trip to the movies. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger - blimey ;) yes, yes, I know, he's a psycho agent of chaos with disfiguring facial scars and clown makeup, but hey, what can I say? Even the delectable Cillian Murphy makes a quick re-appearance and I was happy :) Vodka and Scrubs to round off the night.

The highlights of the Brighton part of the holiday were the trip to the Sealife Centre, deckchairs on the pier, chips on the beach, sending comedy postcards, late night drinking sessions and setting the world to rights, good home-cooked meals, wandering along the seafront and generally awesome couple-togetherness. It was a break that both of us really needed and we made the most of our free time together in every way possible ;)

On the Monday we set off on a train to London to meet the ever-lovely Cassie and Sean for a wander round and a nice meal at The Crown. Forbidden Planet beckoned and I managed to find myself a voice-changing Death Eater Mask and wand, reduced to £13.99. AWESOME! We then had a few drinks at The Intrepid Fox and after they left, we met up with Barney from my uni days and stayed and chilled with him until it was almost dark and we had to wend our way
home again.

Possibly the best holiday I have had in a very long time. Brighton rocks :)

Zombie?

Zombie fancy dress tomorrow!

Woooo!

What ever shall I wear? :)

Doom

I am so tired and bored, I think my brain is going to shrivel and fall out my ears.

GAH.

It's so unfair, I had such a brilliant holiday and felt totally relaxed and content, and now, I've been back in the office for a day and I'm already fantasising about time off again.

*sigh*

Ah well, it could be worse. It's Wednesday already thanks to the bank holiday, and I should have a really chilled weekend coming up. Phil's going to his brother's stag do down in Southsea, so I get to spend some quality time with my kittehs and chill in my now lovely house!

Threesome

3 way bloggery - I have kidnapped myself a Fox In The Snow and a Mr Awesomelies.

Wicked

Mr Lies has drunk absinthe and is now crashed out on my bed and Miss Foxxy is reading a copy of Bizarre.

I have an overload of things to tell you all in the morning...mostly about seagulls and shrinking goldfish, but hey

******** WARNING - Graphic Contents ********

Chloe + Becca + Gin + Scalpels =


Scarification Joy and Scalpel Love <3

Oh please, just f*ck off!

I hate my ex-housemate.

Normal service will resume once I'm calmed down.

Absinthe Massacre

Blah

I feel like shite today. My head aches, my neck and back ache, my legs ache and so does my throat. I'm one giant ball of achey.

I think I've probably been overdoing it lately.

Pride weekend was a blast, but definitely took it's toll, and this weekend just gone was another round of the same to be honest. I'd had a bad morning at work (working on a Saturday is never much fun anyway) so Phil met me on London Road and we went for coffee and a chat. Felt better after this, so headed back to his via the shops and vegged out for a bit.

Then, as we had a spare afternoon and very little cash, we mixed up a few batches of fake blood (in GREEN) and did a fabulous photoshoot in his bathroom. It was absolutely amazing fun. We did it with a view to adding to my Ultravixen portfolio and sending in an application to be in the
magazine! Didn't realise you could have that much fun in a shower ;) mwahahaha! Phil proved to be quite a wizard with the camera and no sooner had I posted a few pics up on Facebook than I had people asking when I'd had the shoot done and who my photographer was ;)

There's an other Slytherin themed shoot in the pipeline, so watch this space....

Anyway, after I'd cleaned the bathroom down and showered off the stickyness, we set about the serious business of drinking the rest of the litre of vodka we had from Becca's birthday, and decided to head to Legends for a change. Cheaper and a different crowd to Revenge. Jordy was there and we had a wicked night dancing and talking tattoos with people. Finally left at 4.30
and eventually hit the bed at about 5.15.

Good times.

Stayed in bed for most of Sunday watching Scrubs and snuggling. Fab. But I'm now feeling the end result of my excesses and think a detox is a serious must for the next few weekends! Until TRANSITION at the very least!

Dope

Just looked up Solpadol on my phone, to discover that it's prescription only, very strong, may cause drowsiness and contains codeine.

Ooops.

No wonder I feel good.

NO PAIN!!!

Blimey.

Those painkillers are the most incredible things I've ever taken.

Within 20 minutes the pain had gone and I feel positively perky now!

PAIN!!

I am currently sat at my desk at work with a vicious headache which is making my right eye twitch and my jaw ache.

I have a nagging suspicion that it's actually toothache which is causing a headache, but I am trying desperately to push that thought to the back of my head for the time being.

I've been given Solpadol by one of my friends here at work, and as disgusting as it tastes, I am happily gulping it down.

Now I shall wait.

PRIDE!!

Wow!

What a weekend!!

Pride was absolutely A-MA-ZING!

Probably the best one yet!

It was also Becca's birthday, my 3 years anniversary in Brighton and Phil's 1st Pride, so all round a brilliant excuse to get dressed up and wasted ;P

We had quite a household of people for the weekend - Jeremy (who decided he didn't want to stay and so left early Saturday), Jack, Bertie and Dany, Chris, Neil, John and my brother - as well as myself, Phil and Jordon! All good fun though. The weather let us down in the morning, with clouds and drizzle, but the crowds braved the rain and dressed to the nines anyway! Our group looked fab and a number of us were in costume; Jordon as an English Gentleman, Jack a Redcoat, Bertie and Dany as French floozies, Phil as a manga Chinese boy and myself as a Japanese Geisha. The theme this year was Pride Around The World - not the best one, but still good.

We caught the Parade at 12 on London Road just as it started and watched the floats go by while we danced under our brolleys and sipped wine and soda - how very civilised ;)

We joined the end of the Parade and marched the rest of the way to Preston Park. We then divided into groups and wandered around looking at stalls, riding the Chairaplane as is traditional for us, and then sat and chilled for a while and grabbed some food. By this point, the weather had changed for the best and the sun came out to play! We were joined by Barnaby and his entourage and much larking and drinking took place. Then it was off to the Popstarz tent for a dance!

We grooved away and took photos of eachother, drank more wine and danced some more. Eventually, we all ended up at the same tent and decided that it was time to head home for some proper grub and a rest before the festivities of the evening. Myself, Phil, Jack and Luke ended up going via the Caroline for a pint, as we'd promised Mia we would go in and say hi to her at some point during the day. It was lovley to sit down outside and chill!

Fast forward to the evening. Nice and relaxed after hot showers and some food, we sat around in the living room playing drinking games for hours. If you've never played "I have never" I thouroughly recommend it! We found out ALL sorts of strange and exciting things about eachother!

We finally headed out into the night and went on a mission for more booze, wending our way through St James' street and finally reaching the beach. Eventually, the guys decided to head to Charles Street for clubbing, but Phil and I were knackered from very little sleep over the last few nights and such an early morning. We decided to make a break for home.

Fell into bed around 5ish and watched Simpsons til we fell asleep at about 6am.

Brilliant.

There's nothing quite like Brighton Pride!

Fondant Fancies and Lots of Dye

So the countdown to Pride begins!

It is shaping up to be a most epic of weekends, with many glorious houseguests, fabulous costumes, fondant fancies, drinking, beach parties and BBQs...and I've got a headache which just won't let off! HOW UNFAIR?!

It's outrageous, I have so many things still to do before the guests arrive on Friday:

Dye my hair
Dye Jordy's stripe into his hair
Dye Phil's trousers black in the machine
Try my falls and see how best to style them
Do a practice run of makeup on me and Phil
Buy much booze
Buy BBQ foodstuffs
Buy Fondant Fancies for The Jeremy and I to nom
Find all the wool for Phil's hair and start off the creation of joy
Tidy the house!
Get my hair cut

Ah well, at least a fair bit of it is quit fun :) and I do have two evenings left in which to do this! Just wish that my head pain would sod off and leave me alone to get on with it in peace!

The Court Case - Part 1

Monday was in many ways the most stressful day of my life.

On 30th November last year, my brother Jake and his best friend Chris were involved in an unprovoked attack on Queensway in Southampton. They were set upon by 3 younger men, who at this time cannot be named for legal reasons. The CPS decided that the event should come to trial, and Monday marked what would have been the first day of a week-long trial.

Mum, myself and Phil travelled down to the Crown Courts by Bus (Phil and I had stayed over at his folks' house in Stubbington and met Mum on the 73 Bus that morning). I felt genuinely sick with nerves and desperately worried for the boys, as were Mum and Phil to be fair.

I think the most horrible part was when we twigged who the people were milling around outside the doors to court number 4: the three young men - two twins and their mate, it transpired - and their assorted parents and friends, quite a crowd. A more sorry lot of bottom-feeding chavs I have never seen, to be honest. Suddenly, these cretins who had smashed my brother's face and broken his jaw, had attacked Chris for no more reason other than the fact that he was out running, were REAL people, faces to the descriptions in my brother's recounting of that night in November. They all looked like genuinely nasty pieces of work - long before they had any idea who the three of us were, one of the young women with them and one of the men were giving me and Phil the most appalling dirty looks. I doubt they see many guys with dreads and Gothic girls, both very smartly dressed, in their particular 'hoods. She herself was wearing what must have been her very best outfit, comprising of a bright red Von Dutch hoody, cropped jeans, more bling than a Saturday market stall in Walthamstow and lots of lip liner. The boys weren't much better themselves, using smirks and swaggers to hide the nerves that I think they must have been feeling. Even sat in the dock, they slumped and smirked, not making eye contact with the court officials or the Judge, but grinning at their entourage and eyeballing me once or twice. I just started calmly straight back at them, my insides churning.

I won't go into all the details, but there were some really difficult moments when the injuries and how they were allegedly inflicted were described. I was so conscious of my heart pounding in my chest, and of Mum and Phil's hands in mine, occasionally squeezing when things were really bad. I know that it might well seem cut and dried from the outside - 2 young men attacked by 3 others, serious injuries inflicted, the perpetrators should have to pay. Of course, we all know that justice doesn't always run like that, especially when they alleged that they were acting out of self-defence and that Jake and Chris were the instigators. The next potential hurdle was the fact that one was only 16 when the crime occurred, so his representative was pushing to have him tried in Youth Court instead - allowing much more lenient punishment - but the Judge wasn't having any of it.

In the end, the three decided at the last minute to plead guilty to the charges of ABH, GBH and GBH with Intent (correct me if I am wrong, I may have muddled those with the stress of the day!), and they will be sentenced on 1st September. The Judge warned them to prepare for custodial sentences - and let me say - too fucking right.

We were reunited with Jake and Chris after the court had been dismissed and there were tears and hugs and thanks all round. Seriously, a weight had been lifted from everyone and we could all breath again - I was gasping for a ciggy!

Now all we have to do is wait for the 1st and see what happens. I'm really hopeful that they get what they deserve! Watch this space for details.

Cut Under

I have a new haircut :)

Same fringe, similar length, but very cute goffick undercut :D

Pictures to follow!!

Top 5!

Wooooooo!

I'm in the Top 5 Rated Girls on Ultravixens!

Go and look at my profile and rate me high :D :D :D Please, please, prettiest please!

On toes and mobile phones.

My big toe hurts :'(

So none of my weekend plans came to fruition in the end. Friday night, we had a few drinks at the Caroline, and then headed back to Phil's for a movie (Pathology) and some food. By about 10.30 we were in the mood to go out, so off we went to the Engine Rooms for Deviant, as it's a very short walk from his studio. Had a good dance and generally enjoyed eachother's company :) We had a glorious lie-in on Saturday morning and breakfast in bed. Next on the list was a bit of quick shopping to get the ingredients for Lyndsey's cakes, and that's when the horror struck.

I was casually wandering through the hallway in Phil's studio, going into the bathroom to have a shower when I stepped in a puddle of water forming below his freshly washed Gi and and *woooosh scream crash*, I slipped, fell and smashed my toe into the doorframe, hit my head on the wall and banged my left buttock against the laminate flooring with some force.

I burst into tears :(

It was pretty horrid, but Phil picked me up and got me into his room. Once I'd calmed down, we ascertained from the swelling that it was either broken or badly sprained. We raided the first aid box and grabbed all the gauze, bandages and such that we could find and set about sorting it out. When you damage a toe, the best thing to do is to strap it to the one next to it to stop it from bending. I had to trim the nail which had fractured and then wrapped it up in lots of bandage, made sure it was elevated and Phil ran out to get some supplies and ice.

In the end, we had quite a nice weekend, but not the one I was expecting. Had to forgo the party as I couldn't walk, so spent the weekend propped up in Phil's bed, missing my kittehs, dosed up on painkillers and watching many movies. We managed to get through Shooting Fish (brilliant), The Mist (unexpectedly good but horrid ending), Saw 4 and Over Her Dead Body (which was pants), along with many episodes of Futurama and the X-Files, so it was pretty good in the end.

My mobile phone has decided to stop sending text messages. It's really shit and it's really pissing me off. Stupid phone. I shall have to see if I can get it fixed!

Woo!

Friday time!

Yay! Looking forward to a nice weekend, chilled out day tomorrow and then birthday tea-party on Sunday for our friend Lyndsey - Phil and I both went to college with her years ago when we were first together, and of course, she now lives in the sexiest town in the UK. Saturday will hopefully involve comic books and graphic novels at Borders, photo story around Brighton (if the weather is nice) and mixing up lots of GREEN fake blood!

Many Nom Florentines

FLORENTINES

100g whole, blanched almonds
90g mixed candied peel (in whole pieces)
40g glace cherries
25g unsalted butter
90g caster sugar
15g plain flour
150ml double cream
100g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate

* Preheat oven 190c / gas mark 5
* Chop almonds - some fine/ some chunky pieces
* Chop peel and cherries (small, even pieces)
* Heavy based saucepan - melt butter + sugar
add flour + stir (should form a ball of paste)
take off heat + whisk in cream (mixture should be smooth)
Put it back on heat briefly to beat out any lumps.
* Stir in fruit and almonds.
* Drop heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture onto greased or non-stick baking
sheets. (Will look quite liquid and will spread - leave generous space
inbetween)
* Place sheets in oven and cook 10-12 minutes.
* Take out when spread into large circles + edges are golden brown.
* Leave on tray for 2-3 minutes to firm up (can push back into more
even shape now if required)
* Put on wire rack to cool.
* Melt milk + white chocolate in separate bowls
* Paint the flat side of each Florentine with chocolate.
* Make wavy lines on chocolate with fork and leave to dry.
* Makes approx 30.

Productive day at home - Part 1

Changed the bedlinen.

Changed the light bulbs in my room. I've only been making do with the walk-in wardrobe strip light since, oooh, Christmas? In my defence, the lights are from Ikea, the closest one is in Croydon and furthermore, they are the most complicated contraptions ever in the world of lighting. Look, if you don't believe me. It took me 25 minutes, but I did it.

Stupid Ikea. *pout*

Productive day at work...

Today, at work, the most productive thing I did was clean my desk and keyboard. I used one of those really cool aerosol air-dusters. Terribly wasteful of resources, yes, but most excellent for the cleaning between keys.

God, I hate my job.

Highlights of the day would be:

• The somewhat protracted conversation via email between myself, Phil and Sean regarding who worked for the most evil corporation, following on to the fact that my cat Vincenzo is a pirate captain of his very own evil cruise ship.

• Writing a really long gossip-filled email to my lovely friend Michelle in Canada

• Drinking lots of decaf coffee (black, no sugar)

• Starting to prep the translation I'm doing for Marion, Phil's ex.

Other minor acheivements include not eating any chocolate, and arranging a date for Cassie and Sean to come and visit Phil in his new place here in Brighton. Should be good, am really looking forward to meeting them properly; met them both briefly at my birthday celebrations in London but it will be lovely to have a real chat - Phil misses them both loads so he's rather over-excited about it all :)

Ultra Vixen

The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell

I have made myself a new blog....a sub-blog if you will, for certain things that I want to write about, without cluttering up the Boudoir.

I've named it The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell

Oooh, I think I might just go and listen to the song of the same name by Marilyn Manson ;)

KITTEHS RULEZ OK

Cats, big or small, RULE

Go here for the proof

Vive La France!

Tis Bastille Day today, and as such I am celebrating by chopping off heads and wearing red :)

Well, no, I'm actually wearing a more sober grey dress and little black hoody with fishnets and black patent pumps, but that's mostly because I forgot what the date was when I woke up late this morning! I shall, however be making French Onion Soup for tea later and listening to Les Mis while I workout, so it's all good.

Had an excellent email waiting in my inbox this morning, from A Word A Day. It's focussing on terms relating to royalty this week, and was introduced by the following caveat by Anu Garg:

"Royalty -- an outdated idea. Kings and queens, princes and princesses mostly appear in fairy tales now, and that's exactly where they belong. Most of the world did away with them long ago. Others, such as the citizens of Nepal recently, are realizing that having someone appointed as the head of a country just because he or she was born in a certain family makes about as much sense as fire-breathing dragons and gold-spinning maidens.

Well, what would happen to the publishing world without them, one might ask. Sure, the royals do help the tabloid industry, but in their absence we can count on Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson to fill the vacuum. As a service to humanity, they would selflessly agree to ratchet up their daily quota of antics. And they would do it without being a burden on the taxpayers.

The only species of monarchs I support is the monarch butterfly. Monarchy deserves to be extinct"

Right on topic!

In other news, my Friday night looked like this: Drinks with my friend and colleague Dawn at the Caroline of Brunswick, and then on to Pete's (landlord of the Caroline) first alternative club night at The Ocean Rooms. It was called TRANSITION, and it was really quite something. Cheap to get in at £3 and drinks were quite reasonable too! I hadn't been to this venue before and was pleasantly surprised by the décor and the lovely red leather sofas dotted around, really nice atmosphere. The DJ left something to be desired initially, but eventually got into the swing of things and played all manner of great tunes - including Pitchshifter and KoRn! Really good stuff. It got extremely busy which meant a bit of a squish on the dance floor, but the aircon worked and it was just so nice to have somewhere other than the Engine Rooms to go on a Friday night when all you want is to get drunk and mosh your socks off. I wore my fabulous red and black dread wig and seriously enjoyed being someone else for the night. Phil was wearing his new Electro Boy t-shirt from Boosh Fest last weekend and looked *so* hot :)

The rest of the weekend was really lazy and chilled. Loved it. Woke up fairly early despite the booze and just wandered around town getting bits for our Pride costumes on the Saturday - I spotted the perfect Chinese hat for Phil in a charity shop near St Peter's Church - and only £5, what a bargain; Spent the whole of Sunday either snuggling in bed, cooking, or watching X-Files. It was proper bliss. Had a really good talk with Phil over the weekend about some stuff that had been bothering me, or worrying me and it was so worth doing. He listens and responds better than any guy I've ever been out with; I don't think I could be happier to be honest, I am so lucky. He's fantastic.

Star Crossed Lovers...

So, a while back, I made reference to the fact that Phil and I are a couple for the second time. Doesn't sound that uncommon, I hear you say! Well, no, it isn't when there's no explanation. However, I think our little story is worth telling, so here it is:

Picture the scene: September 1997 and I'd just started college at St Vincent in Gosport. I was 17, a little Hippy pagan chick with red hair, blue eyeshadow, bottle green chord flares and serious angst. Fresh out of school I was very sweet, very innocent and loving every second of perceived
freedom of not being in uniform and at the mercy of a timetable anymore. I was wandering round the upstairs floor with a friend when she spotted a guy she knows (and secretly really fancies) so we sat down and chatted with him and his large blonde friend. She introduced him as Phil, and Phil introduced his friend as Zildjian. I'm terribly shy, so I barely said anything, and it was soon time for our English class we stalked off towards the clocktower and our classroom.

A few days later I was sitting in the cafeteria doing I forget what, when the same friend, this time with her secret crush and some others in tow showed up and we all sat together, drinking coffee and talking nonsense. Somehow, Phil and I got talking about paganism and all sorts, chatting away like no tomorrow. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my friend is getting a little huffy, so was almost glad when there next class starts and I'm left to my own devices again.

The only problem is, I really quite liked this guy. He's cute. He's got long blonde hair, a wicked smile and a way of walking that makes me feel slightly full of butterflies. Somehow, our paths crossed several times more, culminating in me switching one of his DM's for mine - how terribly
silly, and yet how sweet. Ultimately, we ended back at mine one afternoon where there was some holding hands, an awkward question with a happy answer, and then lots of snogging.

We stayed together for less than 6 months; ours was a first-love style romance, sweet, full of furious make-out sessions, holding hands, cinema dates and long phone calls. We were hopelessly in lust with each other and utterly inseparable. It was a relationship of firsts for both of us, including a change from PG-13 to rated R ;) But, as these things often do, they ended with much angst and shouting and tears shortly before my 18th birthday, and I went off to become a Goth to show my depression at having been dumped for the first time. We didn't speak again, and slowly, he faded into the distance of my memories.

Fast forward to November 2007. I'm now living in Brighton with my two cats and loving life, I've bloomed into a happy little Gothic wench with a wicked sense of mischief and adventure. My dear friend Jeremy had not long moved to Cardiff of all places and was pestering me to go and stay. I really didn't have much money but it was my only spare weekend before Christmas and I really missed him, so I set off on the train.

Cardiff is a bit ghastly really, and it's scene is really nothing special compared to Brighton, so the club we ventured to first made my face hurt with the horror of it all. It was fairly busy, fairly pricey and the carpets were fairly sticky. And it smelled like feet. Luckily, just round the corner was another club, so we tried that one out for size! Oh dear god, it was worse, if possible. This one smelled of wee and was no-where near as busy. But it was cheaper, so we loaded up our glasses with vodka and lemonade and headed out into the back garden so I could smoke, Jeremy could look at boys, and we could wait for more people to show up. Hopefully.

A few drinks into the night, I realised that just to my left there was a young man who looked oddly familier. I remarked upon this to Jeremy and tried to explain it.

"That's weird. That bloke looks just like a boy I went out with, years ago in college. Only now he's got dreads and is wearing glasses. I think his name was Phil."

I mentioned this more than once, because eventually, with more drink inside him, Jeremy got up and strode across to their table to accost him.

The next thing I knew, this guy came bounding towards me, and it really is him, it's the first boy I ever fell in love with, and he's hugging me and I'm thinking how gorgeous he is, how strange this is and still not quite believing it's him! Of all the places in the world to meet him again, the beer garden of a rubbish gay club in Cardiff was pretty high up on the "least-likely" list, I'll be honest. But there he was, and the three of us sat and chatted, laughed and smoked our way through the evening, every-so often getting fresh drinks. We caught up very quickly on the last 10 years and reminisced - he even remembered my full name, all 5 of them - about heady college days. Jeremy went off to dance, so Phil and I took advantage of the solitude to...get talked at by a mad Christian man for aaaaaaaaaaaaaages. In the end, he finally went away and the boy and I
shared our first kiss in 10 years - and it was brilliant. Truly, a movie moment :D

And the rest, as they say, is history. A lot of it is rated NC-17, so none of that here, some of it is terribly romantic, and it all involves falling in love all over again. Phil decided he'd fallen n love with Brighton too, so he got a job here in early May and he's been living here ever since - a fantastic move as we now have a perfectly wonderful, normal relationship. I spend a lot of my time smiling :D He really is the best guy I've ever had the pleasure of dating, and words can't really describe how happy I feel when I look at him or think of him.

It's all good in the world of SHG.

Sweet

Blurgh.

The weather is so grim, I have decided to go home and curl up in bed and watch dvds, eat veggie risotto and marzipan. I've just got the most astonishing craving for marzipan, preferably coated in dark chocolate. Maybe it is the fact that it feels unseasonably cold out there, like Christmas.

Nom, nom, nom.

RAIN!

It's 9th July

And it's RAINING.

Not just a bit, either. It's TORRENTIAL.

How, exactly, is that fair?

Stepping out from Phil's without a coat this morning, no way of keeping dry, I was absolutely SOAKED to the skin by the time I arrived at work this morning. I'm now cold and damp and not a very happy bunny at all :(

And I want a cigarette.

But it's too wet to venture out!

Ouch

My teeth hurt :( *pout*

More specifically, my gums do.

Any ideas?

Linkages

Just been updating my links section on the right hand side - do go and check them out, there's some very good things lurking around this Boudoir ;)

Sleepy

I am so tired today and I have no idea why.

Barnaby and Phil came over for tea last night - I cooked a really yummy vegetarian risotto for the four of us, including Jordon - and we celebrated the fact that he is moving in with us with a bottle of sparkling white wine! But still, between the four of us, it wasn't more than a glass and bit each, so its not as if the booze did for me.

I got plenty of sleep, and I've given up coffee for a while so I really don't know why I feel so drained. Yuckers.

Taking it easy this week; going over to Phil's after work and we're going for a walk along the seafront, weather permitting which should be nice. Feel like I need to go for a swim really, and then have a spa day like we did at the Thistle hotel in London a few weekends ago...that was so lovely *sigh*.

Work is still really boring, and I know I need to find something else, but I'm so stuck in a rut at the moment. Still, I promised myself that this year would be the year that I change things, so I've still got time. It's been an interesting year so far, that's for sure - and that's a blog entry in itself! I think I'll save that for another time :)

One Mighty Festival!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Saturday was Boosh history, and we were part of it! :D Myself, Lucy and Phil were all up and ready to leave nice and early on Saturday morning - all up by 7am and ready and off in Petra by 8.30. Sadly, Elliott has phone at 7.15 to say that he was too ill to come, and despite texting round everyone I could think of at 7.30 on a Saturday morning, on-one was available to take his place. We were a trio on a journey through time and space!

The journey was brilliant, lots of good music and breakfast of Iced Gems, lollipops and white wine - none for Phil of course, as he was the Designated Driver and very responsible with it :)

We navigated our way there with the help of TomTom and arrived nice and early. There was already a large number of people there waiting for the gates to open, so many in fancy dress! In the distance, we could see the main stage and the huge red and black Boosh banners rippling in the breeze - all the memories of being at Festivals in the past came flooding back, and with them such a sense of excitement, I was literally bouncing around like a hopeless fangirl, high on too much sugar. Which is effectively what I was ;)

The gates opened and we piled in, went straight to one of the Nabootiques and got ourselves kitted out with fabulous Boosh goodies. I got myself a nice skinny vest in green (of course), very happy indeed with this, while Lucy went for a Festival t-shirt and Phil got himself a wicked black Electro Boy one (must remember to borrow that occasionally!) to match his face paint which I'd done! After a quick wander round, we installed ourselves on the grass to the left of the stage, just below the huge screen and picnicked on veggie burgers and Party Ring biscuits, drank cider and took many many photos as the day went on. Every so often, we'd text one to the dedicated number for the Festival and a short while later it would appear on the screens on the side of the stage! Fame at last ;)

Photos on my facebook, and for those without one, they can be found here.

Hurrah!

It seriously was outstanding - and that was just at the main stage Monkey Hell. We never actually made it round the corner to the Velvet Onion to see the comedy stuff, because we were far too busy enjoying the events on our stage! In between bands, various DJ sets were played by the likes of Peaches and Jarvis Cocker - so brilliant, and such a great excuse to dance! The bands were great too, a really eclectic mix of jazz, electro and rock - exactly what you'd expect from a Boosh Fest I guess! Loved Robots in Disguise, second time I've seen them and was jumping around like crazy to my fave tunes. Gary Numan was an absolute LEGEND though, he's such a rock star! He swaggered about, pouting and smiling and really gave the crowd their money's worth. BRILLIANT. Had to text Barnaby while he was on, was such a shame that he had to work that day. During his set, I noticed Dee and Sue from RID dancing around in front of us in the crowd, so I snuck up next to them and asked to have a photo taken with them - they very kindly said yes and Noel Fielding's little nephew who plays Kirk in the series jumped in the picture too - he's SO CUTE!

Obviously, the highlight was The Boosh band themselves, arriving as The Future Sailors - Vince on a giant pirate ship and Howard in a dinghy! They ripped their way through all the best songs - but where was Love Games?! Old Gregg was up on stage but my favourite song was very sadly lacking! The costumes, characters and backdrops were spot on apart from that - we were even treated to a few appearances by THE MOON!! I love him, he's fabulous. Really hope they keep him for the Live Tour later this year!

Basically, The Mighty Boosh are most mighty, most wonderful, their songs are worth shouting your heart out to, and I LOVE THEM.

Counting down the hours

Friday is here at last!

It's been a really hectic and long week, full of challenges and achievements. Last Friday, my Team Leader announced that she was leaving me in charge of the team for a week while she was away on holiday. I was a bit gobsmacked to be honest, since I've never really considered myself to be management material, but was still pleased that she'd chosen me. I was briefed quickly during the course of the afternoon as to what would be required of me, and then it was time for the weekend!

First thing on Monday morning, I was pretty terrified to tell the truth, because the project we are working on is being watched very careful by the FSA and duffing things up was seriously not an option. Luckily, we were down on numbers this week so the size of the team wasn't going to be an issue, but at the same time, we were down on numbers, meaning that the workload was going to be tough. Without going into too much detail (because A. I shouldn't for confidentiality reasons and B. It's quite boring really), we had an insane week with data going missing, losing spreadsheets, a certain amount of department rivalry and general mayhem. But we pulled it
off and we hit the targets and recognition was forthcoming!

Sadly though, it did mean that several things I had planned to do in my spare time or lunch breaks fell by the wayside. I've started writing myself To Do lists for the week to try and keep up with what I am meant to be doing outside of work, as life is very busy on that front too. Only managed to cross off 11 of the 19 things I had to do this week; to be fair, some of them are "Hoover my room" and "Buy food for the Boosh Festival", so not exactly insurmountable things to finish off this week ;) More difficult are things like "write to landlady", but I really will do this after I've finished writing up this post.

Just so you know, I am LOVING Blogger! Really pleased with the layout and content - and easy to use. I'm actually writing this post by email from work, which is so wonderful because the thing I really missed was being able to blog during the day when things occur to me. Oh, for the glory days of 20six, when I had daytime Internet access at work! Miss those days. But this way, I've rediscovered my love for blogging big time, and will finally get round to typing up my journal from France :) Fantastic!

So Friday reaches the last 30 minutes of the working day! I'm off to see my therapist as per usual, and then on to the station to meet Lucy. Phil should be arriving from work around the same time so we can all go home together - via Somerfield to grab some goodies and booze for the Festival tomorrow. I am so excited about it, and at the same time, curious to see how it all goes down; it's the first outdoors event that the Boosh boys have organised and it's set to be an interesting mix of comedy and music. To be honest, I'm just really looking forward to being in the sun with some wine, my friends, my man and Noel Fielding being in the general vicinity ;)
My goodness, that man is LUSH.

Speaking of which, I have recently rekindled my love-affair with the wonderful shop that is LUSH. I first discovered it when my best friend Jack and I were travelling around Canada shortly after our 18th birthdays, and was blown away. Being as Phil was vegan when I first met him (again...long story) he was an avid fan of the place because of their policy of only producing fresh, organic vegetarian and vegan cosmetics and bath stuffs. He reintroduced me to them, and I've been bathing in glorious pink bubble baths and smelling sweetly of Flying Fox temple balm ever since. I love it. Have put the website in the MUGGLES section on the right hand side for those who are interested in knowing more about them!

Right, that's enough for now I think. Have a wonderful evening everyone!

*Squish*

The Mighty Boosh Festival

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I am so over-excited! I am going to the first ever Mighty Boosh Festival on Saturday with Phil, Lucy and my friend Elliott from work! It's going to be AMAZING and I can't wait :)

BOOSH!!

Pictures and stories to follow next week :)

Flashback

I've just noticed that the colour and layout of this new blog is oh-so similar to the originals of my very first blog in 2003, back when I was Ska Girl on 20six.co.uk...and somehow, this feels right :)

Welcome to my Domain...

So check me out!

With the help of my wonderful Boy, I now have my very own Domain, and a new blog over here at Blogger. I've been playing around with it for a while now, and I must say, I really like it. Especially loving the fact that I can blog by email from work, and link to people's blogs like the glory days of 20six.co.uk! It makes me very happy indeed :) I am so easily pleased it seems!

This does mean that I have rediscovered my love for bloggery, almost in time for my 5th Blog Birthday. My, how things have changed! I think I shall compose a post on the highlights of the last five years...in the meantime though, I am going to play around with the layout and settings and pretty, pretty colours.

Many squishes xxx

Trying it on for size...

Ooooh, a new Boudoir in which to play! How terribly exciting :)

KITTEHS!!

Celia became a MUMMYKITTEH last Tuesday :D :D :D

I do love to be beside the seaside...

I’d almost forgotten how amazing it is to have a boyfriend living in the same town as me.

Since Tom left June last year, I’ve pretty much had the run of the town all to myself, and had all my evenings free if I want them to be. I’m quite good at finding things to occupy myself and don’t get lonely on my own. There’s always a book to read, a film to watch, a cat to play with, a project to be working on – or just surfing the internet, amusing myself with nonsense.

But since Phil moved in to Brighton on Saturday, there’s this wonderful feeling that I could be seeing him if I want to, and many exciting things we could be doing together if we did – and no, not just that ;)

Take last night for example. After his first day at work, he came over from the station (he’s commuting to Burgess Hill at the moment) and me, him and Jordon had a bbq tea in the Secret Garden. It was really chilled and lovely, nice food and very good company! The weather right now is just ace for being outdoors.

After that, we packed up the stuff and went back to the flat to play with the kittens and then Phil and I walked back to his new place. The evening was still warm, and there were lots of people around for a Monday night, outside the cafes and bars – I love Brighton so much. Back at his, we just snuggled up and watched the Butterfly Effect which I’d got from Blockbuster Online, and chatted til we fell asleep. It was just…brilliant J

Refuse me my recycling!?

Some f*cktard has stolen our recycling bins.

Again.

They probably nicked them to go with both of our lovely green rubbish bins which had only recently been purchased by myself and Jordon. A nice matching set of theived waste disposal units. The bins vanished a few weeks ago, and we're now surviving on one metal bin between 2 households and 4 people.

It simply isn't good enough. Quite why the council doesn't provide the Crescent with bins is beyond me, the rate of council tax that we are forced to pay is extortionate enough as it is. But they don't, they won't, so we have to buy our own. Thing is, they risk being stolen because you can't chain/secure them to the railings, or the binmen can't lift them to carry them the 6 foot to the rubbish truck. (Maybe, as and when we do replace them, I should get a really massive leash for each bin? That might solve the problem.) Why steal a rubbish bin? When the overwhelming majority of houses in this area have wheelie bins provided, it just doesn't seem fair somehow that someone felt the need to remove ours.

However, the problem remains that our precious black recyling boxes have gone yet again, which means another lengthy wait while the Council gets round to delivering new ones - and even then, they might not arrive. We were without one for the first 6 months that we lived here. Why not leave the card, paper, glass and metal (no plastic, thank you) out for collection in something other than the purpose-built black box? I hear you ask.

Because the binmen won't collect it if it is in anything other than the prescribed container.

Ok, so I understand not wanting to pick up bulky plastic bags in the fear that there might be something dangerous or sharp lurking to spear fingers and palms, but refusing to empty an almost identical sized, shaped yet different coloured plastic tub filled with our lovingly-cleaned tin cans?

RUBBISH. It's a big pile of utter toss, that's what it is.

It's almost enough to make me want to build a huge pyre outside the house and torch the whole lot.

*Grumble*

I Heart Henry and Badgers

Pouring with rain today and really very cold. Everyone's a bit glum to be honest. The house is made of stone and very hard to keep warm - it's fab in the summer when you want to keep cool but having woken up chilled to the marrow the only time I was warm was when we went to visit Marie Noelle! BRRRRRRRRRRR.

Because it was so cold in the night (didn't sleep well at all due to that and horrid nightmares about moth monsters and such) we are going to try sleeping in Mum's old studio upstairs. We had to mount a massive cleaning operation up there - so many dead flies and mice poos! I did get to try out the Henry Hoover my parents own and he is quite frankly the BEST hoover EVER! He's an industrial cleaner and it was almost fun to do the hoovering! Oh dear :) Must get me one, would be brilliant in the flat in Brighton.

Had a late lunch of soup and cheese sarnies and now we will be moving out stuff around and getting up in the loft to do an inventory of what's up there so we know for next time!

Actually, scrap that, we haven't been up there yet but we did sort out the living area downstairs and the bedroom/studio upstairs. The rain is still spitting and it's still cold, so fingers crossed we don't freeze tonight! I really hope the weather is nicer tomorrow - it's my birthday! We'll be busy doing things in town but will still be lovely if the sun is out!

Been missing Phil a lot today. Had quite a few texts from him (maybe making me miss him more?) but the lack of real contact is horrid really. Will be so lovely to see him again and even better to have him living in Brighton :D

Oh! Meant to say earlier, another one of those butterflies woke up today! So odd! Must've been hibernating. It might be the heater we've got on that';s making them think it is warm enough to wake (is April too early for that?) and they might find the weather horrid, but I suppose it's better than waking up trapped? Although, how the Devil did they get in, in the first place?

When I was sorting out that basket of stuff Dad and I brought down from the loft (found my lovely My Little Pony mug from 1985! WIN!) I managed to disturb a hibernating wasp. I put him outside, but as I was washing my hands later another one must have crawled out of a duster in the basket, and he landed on my wrist! I screamed like a GIRL.

I miss my KITTEHS! And my bed, TV and Brighton in general...

We discovered that the badgers which set up camp under the workshop have been back for more digging and there's now some kind of tunnel 10ft long under the edge of the wall, meaning the foundations are in trouble...not so good. Personally, I think it's pretty awesome that there's BADGERS in the garden...and oh my GODS, Dad has just come into the house carrying something he had found by said badger run - A BABY DEER SKULL!! That is SO COOL and pretty scary too - mental badgers! Mum's going to draw it and I want t6o take it home with me, it's well a bit Goffick ;)

Butterfly Graveyard

So we made it to La Croix Lombree and oh, my Gods it is actually great to be here. We arrived about 9.30am and it's now 2.00pm French time.

Getting into the house wasn't nearly as hard as last time, thanks to Marie Noelle working her magic (in the form of heavy duty farm machinery!) and clearing the driveway and loads of the land a few days before we arrived. The house itself is way cleaner than last time - no real surprise considering it had been 7 months as opposed to 4 years this time! All our hard work last time paid off. We swept, hoovered, turned on the power and water and emptied the car. When Dad and I uncovered the water meter pit we found two amazing lizards sleeping soundly; their colouring was astonishing - bright green, black and yellow, not like normal brown ones we have living in the walls in summer!

But the strangest thing was the gorgeous butterflies who appear to have come inside to hibernate/die. They surround the windows but they look quite peaceful, not like they've been battering against the glass. One looked like he'd just been born, and once he was used to his wings, off he flew out the door.

The weather is still quite strange, overcast but not exactly cold, a few spots of rain and a bit of sun struggling to get out.

Dad and I opened the well up for the first time in years - SO COOL!!! The old wooden bits had fallen apart but the actual well itself was fine. We measured how deep the water was with a length of tree - 10 foot!! Scary. Very "Ring"! Bet there's treasure at the bottom :)

The good news is that I can now send MMS for FREE or so it seems so very happy about that. I spent the afternoon exploring and Dad and myself went up in the loft. Haven't been up there in 4 years, really glad it was all still safe and sound. Found a basket full of bits to unwrap - JOY! :D

Now I am going to help Mum cook tea, pasta and tomato sauce - NOM! They are having Pastrami ham with theirs - Mum keeps offering me non-veggie foods, or, to be more precise saying "Wait, you won't eat that, you don't eat meat". Bless her! I think it is going to take her a while to get used to it!

Rainbow Over the Harbour

An Aside Note To Read First:

In December 1990 my family moved to a lovely converted farmhouse at La Croix Lombrée, just outside an idyllic village called Saulzais-le-Potier in the Cher region of France. We lived there until Summer 1993 when we moved back to the UK for a variety of reasons: predominantly economic due to my parents not being able to legally work there at the time. My brother and I came back fluent French speakers having spent 3 of the best years of our lives in the French countryside.

My parents decided to keep the house over there; over the course of the years we went back for holidays but various calamities made it more and more impossible to go and enjoy it. The worst of these incidents was the series of breakins, despite all the best security we could emply - the worst of these resulted in us having most of our worldly posessions stolen.

In the end, the house remained empty, shut up, boarded closed and nigh-on forgotten. Too little time, too expensive to get there, too many horrible memories. Four years went by. Last September, Mum, Dad and I came back for the first time and started our French adventure all over again. This trip, April 2008, is the second step in that adventure.




Greeting from the Brittany Ferries Mont St Michel Ferry!

On our way over to Saulzais to the old house out there and to see some people/do some work etc. Thought it would be good to actually document some of this for a change, so I bought myself this lovely shiny book and new biro - ooh classy :) When I get home I will type this up onto my blog as I don't use it anywhere near as often as I should and I'd like to get back into the habit really - this is the perfect excuse.

So, so far I've got up early, packed, rushed to the train station. Had to change at Havant but it wasn't too bad a journey. Helped Mum and Dad do various last minute bits, ate sandwich (Mmmmm, picalilly), played with the cats and made flasks of coffee. The we set off for Portsmouth and everything went smoothly at the Port. We boarded on time and found our lovely reclining seats - mine is purple and they have free coffee in this lounge so I am happy! Been reading Hack/Slash that Phil got me for my birthday and it is absolutely ACE. Brilliant characters, art and storylines. Love it! Have to get more, if there is any!

Smooth crossing so far, mostly. Felt a bit icky leaving the Port where oddly it seemed rougher. Was deckside having a ciggy and making a goodbye call to Phil and it was raining - the sun was shining too so was treated to a gorgeous rainbow! It started and ended in the sea. How wonderful.

20:21 English Time.

We are about an hour from France now, I can already see the coast lights twinkling in the distance. It's going to be a long drive down from Caen to Saulzais, and in the dark. Not overly looking forward to it really to be honest. Just hope it is uneventful.

Finished reading Hack/Slash and started on "Birdsong" by Sebastien Faulks. Phil lent it to me and highly recommended it. Dad bought me his "Girl at the Lion D'Or" some years ago and I loved that so I'm looking forward to seeing if it is as good as he says it is.

Dad slept for some of the way over so Mum and I went for a wander. There isn't much on these ferries aside from the usual duty-free shop, not that many people either really. It's a shame, I remember 10 years ago when we were coming over, during this part of the year the ferries would be packed. Now there's so many empty seats. I think it has got a lot to do with the price of plane tickets these days. Ferry tickets aren't cheap either, plus the seats we get in the front lounge are £5 each. Ah well, at least when it is smooth it's quite relaxing and I think it's better for the environment than short-haul flights. And given the amount of stuff we need to take with us, we really couldn't go any other way.

Mum and I both had some yummy quiche in the café on-board; mine was spinach and goats cheese - NOM. Plenty of iron and protein - Mum's fretting a bit about me being veggie now but I tried to put her mind at rest while we ate. We shall see.

The network on my phone appears to be "2748" at the moment. Texts cost me about 50p, mms won't send and the intarwebs doesn't work. Bums. How will I cope without Facebook for a whole 8 days?! The HORROR :)

EXTRA NOTE

The journey took 11 hours.

It NEVER takes that long, 6 hours tops!

I must admit, I did sleep through most of it, thankfully, but it was pretty horrendous. Dad got LOST 3 times, there were traffic diversions, big pushy lorries, wildlife, basically anything that could slow us down, did.

SO not fun.