A few observations...

1) I went up to Durham last weekend for my friend's Sam's wedding. It was the first friend's wedding I'd been to and was a very exciting affair. The girl in the photo is actually my friend Sarah, but I can't be bothered to go searching through for a photo of the bride, so I figured that would do for now. However, my good mood was somewhat ruined on the way home, when GNER did their classic trick of delaying my train by an hour whilst cancelling the next one (for no apparent reason). Both trains were booked full of reservations as it was a bank holiday. Anyway, on embarking the train (after fighting my way through people and luggage) I discovered that a child was sitting in my seat, with her parents next to her. I apologised to the mum and showed her my ticket. She glared at me, sighed and said very loudly 'Right guys, we have to move as this lady wants Laura's seat. She'll have to sit in the aisle or something'. I momentarily felt awful as I sat down, then realised that a) It wasn't Laura's seat, it was mine and b) I wasn't going to spend two and a half hours standing up when I'd spent half an hour on the internet just so that I could make a reservation. It was her responsibility to sort that out, not mine, especially if she was travelling with children! Obviously I only thought of these comebacks after they'd stormed off, so I sat there fuming for the rest of the journey.

2) As you may have gathered from the last point, I'm not all that great with confrontation (actually, I'm very good when confronting on behalf of other people, just not when its down to me). The other day, my friend Ben and I went for lunch at my favourite restaurant in Leigh broadway 'J.T.'s Diner' (doesn't sound all that but trust me, the place is awesome). We ordered our food and waited in anticipation. For an hour. When we got there there was only one other family, but by this time the place was getting pretty busy. I had a view of the kitchens from my seat and I could see the waiter holding up our written order, pointing at us and looking very angrily at the waitress, saying something along the lines of 'What is this still doing here?!' Unfortunately Ben's not all that great at confrontation either, so we both sat there a bit longer, watching the waitress hide other people's food orders under her table so she didn't have to walk past us to deliver food to customers who had been waiting 10 minutes. Eventually our non-confrontal natures paid off as the boss came over and whispered 'I am SO sorry. We've had a problem with our order system. Obviously you don't have to pay for a single thing'. So the story had a happy ending, the meal was lovely and we both ordered dessert, just to make a point. We went away feeling very pleased with ourselves.

3) I discovered that you shouldn't big up a film before you've seen it. Years ago, I saw 'RENT' (a.k.a. 'Aids: The Musical) on stage and absolutely loved it. Everyone who went to see it felt the same. So I got very excited last night when Matt announced he had the film version on dvd... 'It's SO good' I exclaimed about six times before he put it on. It was not good. In fact, it was probably one of the worst films I have ever seen (almost on a par with 'Date Movie). I just couldn't understand how something could be so good on stage and so awful on screen, when essentially all the songs and characters were the same! I think it was partly because you can get away with singing the whole story on stage, whilst it was getting a little ridiculous watching dialogue on tv being exchanged quite unnecessarily in song. For example:

'How are we gonna paaaay the rent?'
'I doon't know, but I have AIDS...'
'Meeeee too'

It does make you start wanting to sing instead of speak though, it makes boring instructions such as 'Pass me the fooork' that little bit more interesting...

How many Dickens characters can YOU name?

Apologies for not posting in a little while. Months ago, before I started up my blog, a friend of mine came up with an usually wise piece of advice. "Only blog when you have something interesting to say!" he said (as he wrote his third entry on the subject of 'The top 50 Neighbours characters of all time'...)

Well, as it turns out, I haven't had anything interesting to say for a couple of weeks. Not that I haven't done anything, just that my daily activities probably wouldn't provide my audience with the high quality of bloggage that they've come to expect. But that all changed yesterday when I went to...

DICKENS WORLD!

'Where IS this place of dreams?!' I can hear you cry. Well, a few months ago a brand new indoor attraction opened in Chatham, Kent. It's basically a little like Disneyworld, but based on the life of Charles Dickens instead of an imaginary mouse. Actually, it's not really anything like Disneyworld (just realised I'm probably bigging it up a little too much). There are rides, and shows, and performers walking around dressed up in Dicken's characters. It was a pretty good afternoon out, although there's not really enough there yet to make it last a full day. The funniest bit was when we all went into this impressive looking theatre, had no idea what to expect and as the excitement and mystery built up, so did the audience. As it turned out, it was a pretty original animatronics (realistic Charles Dickens like robots) show all about his life and characters. It had obviously cost a lot of time, energy and money to make, but when it finished people all around me were muttering 'Well, that was boring. If only they'd used real actors'. They did have a point though. Sometimes you really can try too hard to impress people...

The trip also inspired me to read more Dickens novels, as I only recognised characters from A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield and Oliver. So I missed out on a few jokes and things. Still, I enjoyed my day! I thought I'd mention it on here as everyone I've told so far has said to me 'That sounds like the worst theme park ever'. And it's really not! (No, that award probably goes to Pleasurewood Hills...)

Go to http://www.dickensworld.co.uk/ for more info!

Concert Band Tour

Awhile ago, I was asked if I would like a free holiday. Normally there's a catch to these things, and in this case it was on the condition that I would be a member of staff for the Southend High School for Boys Concert Band tour to France, Belguim and Holland. I have just arrived back from said holiday and can safely say it was a really good deal. The kids were great and the weather was amazing, and I got to do a lot of fun activities and stay in hotels for free! Here are a few highlights from the trip:

The Eiffel Tower was pretty cool. The band performed just in front of it after we had climbed all the way up to the second floor (normally something I wouldn't even consider doing as I hate heights, but they needed adult supervision).

This was the view. I'm rather proud of myself... I think I've conquered my fear.

Here is a picture of Olivia and I at sunset at Noordwick beach in Holland. The beach was gorgeous and we were really lucky with the weather. We sat with hot chocolate at a lovely beach bar and watched the sun set over the horizon... it was all very romantic!

Chris, Jon Bourne and I in a giant clog. The last time I went to Holland we managed to fit 7 people into this clog. The mind boggles...

This last photo was taken at the last gig in a town called Delft in Holland. Pete Worth (the group leader) is improvising a solo here. Notice the crowd of people in the background! The guys were really, really good, despite the 30 degree heat.

We also went to Disneyland Paris (which was fantastic), Aquaboulevard (a massive indoor waterpark where they initially wouldn't let us in because the boys weren't wearing speedos), and numerous town squares and little villages. A very busy but exciting tour!