That's Better...

There I go... I've had my shower. I feel so much better. Time to make a cup of coffee and turn on Get Behind Me Satan.

"You took a white orchid and turned it blue."

I'm feeling a tad scatterbrained at the minute. Quite a few things goin' on in my head... don't know what to do first. I'm naming all my photos from the last couple weeks... I still have Homelands pictures to name still. I'm checking my eBay items that I have on for sale at the moment. Most of which are going to go tomorrow. It looks like a couple of the books will be shipped off to the Netherlands, which is kinda cool. I had to quote him a postage price for both books, so I just chose a price out of my head. It should be reasonable.

Renaming all the photos at the moment gives me a good chance to look over them. That Nicolette is sure photogenic. Lars said that quite a few times as we flipped through his photos all weekend. He's got some absolutely excellent shots of her.

Right, well Saturday then... It was a mission from start to finish. Granted, we really didn't get started until after noon, it then became a serious mission. The eventual plan was to head to Pleasurewood Hills for George's birthday and spend a day on some awful carnival rides and stuff. The theme park is up in Suffolk, near Lowestoft, which is a fair drive from Colchester. First, I wanted to get home because I wanted to get a belt for my shorts, a new t-shirt on, a charged battery for my phone and my still camera... oh yeah and I wanted to drop off my backpack as well. Didn't fancy carrying that around.

To get home though was going to be tough. Barry, Lucy & I needed a cab from Lucy's into town, get there before the 753 Chambers bus arrived on Head Street so I could catch that, get off in Wormingford, run to the house do the swap of items and then get on the returning bus that would pass through Wormingford in five minutes.

I've gotta say everything went to plan, except for one little hitch, which eventually didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it might end up. I stood up in the bus to make my way to the front of the bus early, 'cuz I saw an older couple start to rustle around as if they were gonna get off the bus as well at my stop. I didn't want them to get in my way of this mission. When I stood up, I accidentally rang the bell about half a mile too early and when the bus stopped, I felt compelled to get off, not to piss off the driver. I'm nice like that. So I ended up running a half-mile with a backpack and shorts that wouldn't stay up 'cuz I had no belt on in sandals. Fortunately for me, the bus was about 5 minutes early getting into Wormingford and well, I did the run and completed the mission meeting Lucy, Barry and the newly joined Lars at North Station so we could pick up Lucy's car and head to Harwich to start our day.

Traffic was awfully busy all day... the trip up to Harwich was quite slow, but we got there eventually. Hilarity ensued when I found a bungee cord in the back of Lucy's car and Lars and I had a fun time taking funny pictures of me playing around with the cord. All the pictures are on Lars' camera, but I'll get them soon... plus, they'll be on Dirty Hairy Mouth soon, I'm sure.

With George now in the car, up to Pleasurewood Hills it was for us. We left Harwich at about 2:30pm and the back roads and traffic made the journey rather slow. Green Day, Bloc Party CDs later, we finally arrived at the park. Cleverly parked right in front of the gate, we got there a half hour before the park was to shut and they wouldn't let us in. Not even for free. How awful. We drove for about two hours and we didn't make it in in the end.

Instead our road trip took us to the beaches of Aldeburgh where we enjoyed the "sand," surf & world famous fish & chips. I wanted to play in the sand, Barry wanted to run away from the waves, George didn't want to get wet (but eventually did), Lars wanted to play lots with his camera, Lucy wanted to skip a load of rocks and we were all a tad hungry. This is me playing in the little sand that the tides left behind. I thought I would make the most of it. A good photo opportunity is always appreciated!

It was a great day on the beach. The fish & chips were everything that everyone said that they would be. The queue that Lucy & Lars stood in to get them would be the best indication of how popular they are. It was quite long when we left to take Barry & George back to Harwich for George's birthday dinner with his brother.

We managed to get the brothers home on time for dinner, which surprised Mom & Dad and then it was off to the Hog's Head in Colchester for a post-mission drink.

Lucy dropped us off while she dropped her car off and then met us at the Hog's. We were all dead tired, so instead of the socially-dead back garden of the Hog's, we headed off to Twisters again for a better atmosphere. Oh, it was better!

As we walked in, my favourite DJ was walking in as well. What a good omen for a good night. We got in, bought some drinks and hung around for a bit. I requested some Arcade Fire from "the Dude" and he came up with Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels). After some excellent classic R&B tracks, the groove started to kick in with me and then I was a dancing machine. It was non-stop great tunes all night. But when Tunnels made it on... well, there was an explosion of great times as the song did seem to go over well with the crowd in there, for those who hadn't heard it all before.

Then the Dude played Wash in the Rain and Chicken Payback by the Bees during the night and all sorts of other excellent tunes. I don't think I really stopped dancing except for a beer run once or Lars taking photos. I can't wait to see what some of those look like on the computer. I wish I had brought some of my business cards with me that night, there were so many pictures being taken and stuff that the cards would have worked a treat for those who would have wanted to see them. Ha ha. Ah well, live and learn, eh? Dirty Hairy Mouth will have complete coverage of the photos, I'm sure.

Well... that's the important parts of Saturday night... it looks like I'm writing my weekend in chapters again. Oh well. I will get to yesterday a little bit later. Right now, I'm gonna surf a bit more and rename some more photos. Excellent!