The Duck Pond
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Right I didn't write up the rest of the rambling crap "tomorrow" because I got another bleeding kidney infection so I've been feeling very sorry for myself etc. the drugs they've put me on really screw me up too. I've been wandering round in some sort of daze for the last few days, hallucinating, talking crap and walking into walls all the time. Some people pay lots of money for this sort of thing.
Wildhearts were fab. Jumped up and down loads and got thrown around in the mosh pit. Happy to find that I was in slightly better shape than I was when I went to the Levellers gig. The support band Amen where pissing a few people off by banging on about being american and the twin towers and saying really offensive but incredibly lame things. Half the crowd were cheering, half were booing. I found their music good but their conversation tedious and at one point when they asked "Is there anything you'd like to hear next" some burly bloke behind me piped up "the Wildhearts" much to the mirth of people in his vicinity. When the Wildhearts finally came on, even though I was absolutely exhausted, the music injected a new lease of life into me. They started with "I Wanna Go Where the People Go" which was a good one to get the party started. At the end of the gig we bumped into someone we knew although it wasn't a big surprise as we'd suspected he might be there although bumping into him when there was all those people around was a bit of a coincidence. We bought t-shirts and then went on to a pub then rockworld which hasn't changed a bit since I was going when I was sevente..erm..eighteen. This meant that I could stand there and shout "It's just like the old days!". I had to fend off advances from some weirdo who kept coming up to me and saying stuff that I couldn't understand and didn't particularly want to. The music could have been better but all in all it was pretty good and I had a tremendous night.
The next day I saw Liz off at the station as she had to get back to Aber for work. I then went on a bit of a mini shopping spree as I was loose in a big city on payday! There's this wonderful shopping warehouse thing called Affleck's Palace which sells all kinds of weird and wonderful things. I easily spent over a hundred quid in there on clothes and other things. Very nearly bought a tshirt which said "offensive slogans are for cunts" on the front but I chickened out and am quite regretting it. Met up with a friend for lunch and then got the tram into eccles to meet my mum who I as staying with for a few days.
Sunday, April 27, 2003
*collapse*
Well I didn't manage to get to sleep the night before the Wildhearts for reasons that I won't go into because they fill me with utter HOMICIDAL RAGE. So I was utterly knackered and on the verge of passing out by the time I got to Manchester. There were some utter knobbers on the train who thought it amusing to shout stupid things at everyone who walked past them. Oh how cool you look. Not. Finally pulled up in Manc in a complete daze, not really knowing what was going on - not much difference from usual some might add blah blah. Hmmm speaking of complete dazes - I'm in one now so will write up the rest of this rambling crap tomorrow in the vain hope that it will read a bit better.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Bleurgh. So tired I'm on the verge of hallucinating. Earlier today I made a bit of a fool of myself when walking into the office. I didn't put my hand out in time to push the door open and ended up walking smack into it. Felt like an utter tit but I don't think anyone noticed, luckily.
Last night a friend who's now very much in my good books managed to help me recover some of my files that I lost when I accidentally formatted the wrong drive partition so I'm very very happy about that and tomorrow I go to see the wildhearts and to rockworld for the first time for almost a year. Hurrah!.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Aye well it's been a good few days. 4 day weekend due to it being easter (that's the only part of easter I actually adhered to) which is always great until you have to return to work again. Very short week this week though as I'm going to see the Wildhearts on Thursday night plus visit some of my friends and family oop norf so I have a day and a half off, hurrah!
I've made the wonderful achievement of walking 30 miles in two days. A friend asked me if this was deliberate, which made me wonder if it is actually possible to accidentally walk 30 miles. Can you just step out for a brisk stroll to the shops and suddenly find yourself in Aberdyfi? That's one hell of a lapse in concentration. Anyway it was a gorgeous day on Friday and far too hot in my room so I thought I'd get some sunshine and walk to Borth (about 8 miles) as it's a gorgeous walk along the coast with some fabulous scenery. It was possibly a bad choice as it was an incredibly hot day and while the path is very lovely it is also very vertical in places, or it felt like it anyway, especially with the sun beating down on me. When I finally arrived in Borth, knackered and sweating, I had the privilege of being able to watch the bus I intended to catch back to Aber sail past me before finding out that there wasn't another one for a whole hour. Not really wanting to stay in a tourist-filled Borth for an hour I madly turned around and walked back again. So I guess in that way it was kind of accidental.
The Saturday was a trip that had been planned with some friends; we got the bus to Devil's Bridge and then walked back to Aber. It was a stunning route again, mostly alongside a river so it was fairly flat to my delight and also the weather was much cooler and better suited for walking bloody great distances in. I was fine until about 10 miles and then my feet started to complain a bit. I was very tempted to get the bus back from Capel Bangor and if I'd been alone I probably would have but sheer bloody-mindedness and not wanting to look like an utter wuss in front of my pals kept me going. We made a slight detour to a pub for rest and sustenance, only to find that it was all for nothing as the pub had closed just 5 minutes earlier. Felt really good on arriving back home though in a smug kind of way and slept well knowing that I earned it.
Saw a bit of that Who Wants to be a Millionaire fraud thing last night while in the pub having pantywanks (more on that later). This is the first time I'd seen any of this so I dunno if it would have twigged if I'd have seen the show originally but HOW BLOODY OBVIOUS DID THEY MAKE IT? Not only was the cough really fake *ahem ahem* but also he coughed only when the right answer was mentioned - obviously he couldn't cough when the wrong answer was mentioned because that would defeat the object but it would possibly have looked less suspicious if he coughed at general chat times too - AND he coughed every single time that answer was mentioned, which was lots and lots, making it more and more obvious each time. Surely once would have been enough. The cynical part of me says it's just a ploy to get more publicity and therefore more ratings for the show anyway.
Pantywanks. A very dodgy name for something very innocent, honest guv. Well in actual fact the name should be paddywacks which are those shooters made from baileys and creme de menthe but a friend misheard the name (dunno what the filthy bugger thought we were offering him) and it's been known as that ever since because it's much more fun to go up to someone and say "fancy a pantywank" while winking at them much to the suprise and horror of anyone who doesn't know what is really meant and then describing it to those people as something sweet and creamy and something that you just want again and again. Hmm - maybe I should grow up some time soon *grin*.
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Well they say you should try something new and push your comfort boundaries every day (whoever they are) so yesterday when a friend came round with a tandem bicycle and offered me a ride (baby) I just couldn't refuse. Marvellous fun it was too. I was on the back which is scary because you have absolutely no control over where it goes but it's also good because all you have to do is sit there and pedal at roughly the same pace as the person on the front and trust them not to ride into any walls or anything. All we did was cycle around the block and along the seafront and then back to my house. I was laughing all the way round - although possibly hysterically looking back on it. Of course, tandems being a rare sight, everyone turned to stare/point/laugh and when they did John would honk the silly horn which made a loud *parp* sound and we'd wave. It must have looked quite comical. At the end of the seafront we had to turn around in quite a narrow space and it was only a close run thing that we actually made it without turning into a mangled heap on the floor. We had to make sure that we were both doing the same thing so that we had the right amount of control over the bike so shouts of "STOP PEDALLING, STOP PEDALLING" *turn* "RIGHT, PEDAL PEDAL PEDAL AS HARD AS YOU CAN" could possibly be heard for quite a distance around. Splendid stuff. My arse is somewhat sore today from the seat though.
I also performed another "first". I played network Doom. Yes, yes I know, Doom is a very old game, I'm just not a big fan of those types of games so tend not to play them. I'm more a Strategy/Roleplay type person. It got very frustrating because Matt is very good so I'd be trying to work out what key does what when he would sneak up behind me and shoot me in the head. I did manage to win one game by some miracle, but against his 20 or so victories it looks a bit lame. I enjoyed it though and I thoroughly intend to practice so I can kick his arse at a later date. I liked the cheesiness of it, especially that face at the bottom of the screen - kept making me laugh and putting me off.
Monday, April 14, 2003
What a weekend. Had the mother of all hangovers yesterday and tried to walk it off by taking the southbound coastal route to a small caravan park a few miles away. This resulted in me almost getting blown off a cliff as the winds got very high when I was at the top so I returned the inland route which was longer but less death defying. I also did something that I haven't done for bloody years. I climbed a tree! Well, that makes it sound like I climbed to the very top but I only climbed part way up so that I could get over a fence because I had found myself in a field where there were no convenient stiles or gates and where I wanted to get to was right on the other side and I couldn't be arsed retracking my steps and going all the way round. It was a very nice walk - about 10 miles in all I reckon, maybe a little bit less but my hangover was still there when I returned sadly.
I also managed to kill my computer for a while. It'sall fixed now but in the process I managed to lose about 30 gigs of files so it's going to be a bit of a pisser to replace all of them but I have remained suprisingly calm about he whole incident. It's not that bad when you think about it I suppose. A couple of years ago I would have completely lost it though.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
All I want is a sodding sandwich without mayonnaise. In such an "advanced" society is that really too much to ask? Grrr.
Been neglecting this of late - busy busy busy - will update soon.
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Right, I've been meaning to blog for days but have never got round to it due to my whirlwind social life and so on. Blah blah. Well I went to St. Anton am Arlberg for a week's aching, bruising, knackeredness and sheer, daily terror, more commonly known as skiing. Here's how it went.
Saturday: Plane was delayed by a couple of hours so we got to watch the nail-biting Wales - Ireland match. I had a bit of a problem with my nationality lever as I live in Wales but have Irish ancestry but I rooted for Wales and was disappointed that they lost. Great match though. Plane was tiny and very cute but quite susceptible to turbulence so I was a bit green around the gills (what a strange phrase) when I got to Germany. Hour and a half's transfer to St. Anton, not bad I'm told. Didn't get to see much as it was dark. The hotel was ok but not too impressive. For some reason we had lots of huge pottery items outside our room.
Sunday: My first day of skiing and wasn't I utterly pants at it? Aye. Got really frustrated because everyone in the class seemed to pick it up really easily (found out later that they'd all done a bit before) and I was struggling to even walk around with the damn things on. I fell over more times than you can shake a ski-pole at and was generally dejected and miserable. By the end of the lesson (about 5 hours) I could just about get down the baby slope without falling but the thought of doing anything more scared me and I had to carry on pottering about on the kiddies' slope when the rest of the class were taken up a proper slope as I was too crap/scared to join them. Was quite relieved to get back to the hotel afterwards and go for food, etc. but far too tired to go and socialise on the organised pubcrawl. I had a look round the village though. Absolutely bloody gorgeous.
Monday:
Was put into a different class with people "more my level" much to my dismay. Cried on a bench for a while because I was so frustrated by it all and never thought I'd ever be able to get the hang of it. Got to practice my german slightly when a sympathetic mother of one of the children on the kiddies' slope handed me a tissue and tried to encourage me. She thought I was from Holland for some reason. Was cheered up slightly when I saw my new instructor - Instead of an overzealous, impatient Danish woman, who only ever paid any attention to the good ones and ignored everyone else, it was a rather tasty Austrian bloke who was absolutely lovely and turned out to be a very good teacher. In the afternoon, to my horror, he took us on one of the lifts to a "proper" slope and I was bricking myself when I got to the top. Fell over loads again and returned to the hotel frustrated and feeling useless again. Once again too knackered to go out properly but stuffed my face with pizza and sampled the nice Austrian beer.
Tuesday:
Woke up, bruised and aching and dreading putting those horrid ski boots, not to mention the actual skis, on. However today it finally clicked. My fear seemed to diminish greatly (I think I just got to the "oh sod it" point) and resulted in a rise in my confidence and sense of adventure and I found that today I could actually ski (although still needed to work a lot on my technique) and I had lots of fun. We went on several different slopes and I finally found the joy of being able to zoom down a slope (albeit not a very steep one) with the wind in my hair and without falling over every few seconds. I knew I'd really lost my fear when I came to a much steeper section on the slope and instead of panicking and falling over or turning to avoid it like I would have done earlier, I thought "what the hell?" and went for it. it was a really good feeling. Another girl from my original gung-ho class was "moved down" to our class so I didn't feel quite so bad especially as she was one of the ones I really got on with. Afterwards I paid for another two days lessons as mine had run out and I very much needed more. I sampled my first ever fondue in the evening. It was a very bizarre restaurant with a train theme, strangely called "The Train" or somesuch. It tasted very alcoholic (the fondue, not the restaurant) but very nice and I ended up getting pretty damn tipsy on 3 not even pints. Don't you just love the high altitude? Still knackered though so another fairly early night.
Wednesday:
Got up to renewed terror about skiing even though I'd had a good day previously. I found that on every single day when restarting skiing that my confidence had gone overnight and I had to warm up to get rid of my nervousness. Very weird. Our whacky instructor decided to take us down our very first mountain so that we could go to this lush cafe half way down and feel like "proper" skiers etc. It was all blue slopes but a combination of the height (very scared of those) and the fact that I still wasn't confident that I could stop and wasn't going to go tumbling off the nearest cliff if I fell made me totally lose my nerve. I must have fell oh about a million times and each time I did I got more and more frustrated which made me more likely to fall again. I was also gibbering a bit because I was practicing my technique on a not quite so steep bit and because it wasn't quite so steep I wasn't quite so cautious so was going at quite some speed when I realised there was a nasty drop hurtling towards me. I managed to turn (miracle that I remembered how) just in time but it really shook me up. The evening was the same as most others. Have fat knacker huge meal with beer - everywhere had this gorgeous white beer like hoegaarden which seemed to be a favourite. Then returned to the hotel to watch a bit of BBC WAR and then sleep.
Thursday:
My last day at ski school and boy wasn't I relieved. I had the familiar fear and nervousness when starting but for some reason the terror and frustration of the previous day had completely gone. The heights didn't bother me, I was more interested in the stunning views all around me. We skiied half way down the mountain of the previous day although whereas before I had trouble and kept falling over, this day I didn't fall at all and really enjoyed it. I was very cautious around the bit where I nearly fell to a splattery death too. I then got to go on my very first chairlift Panicked a bit getting on because I got my ski tangled with the other Liz's but we managed to sort it out with noone falling off. I really liked the chairlifts (I went on a few on this day) because I could sit back with the wind in my face and the views were simply awesome - I mean awesome in the true sense of the word too - not the americanised, surfer, "yo awesome duuude" type of way. When we got to the top of the next mountain we were able to potter about locally for a while and practice before skiing down the mountain to St. Christoph for lunch which was all blue slopes but quite steep and mogul filled in places. I had an amazing time though. I only fell a couple of times in the whole day and the more my confidence grew, the more I grew to love it. The place where we had lunch was really cool because of two main things. Firstly where we were sitting we could see quite a bit of the mountain we'd just come down and I had to keep doing double takes thinking "bloody hell, guv, I just skiied down that!". I'd certainly come a long way since keeping falling over and being scared on the kiddie slope. Secondly the loos were down this huge winding staircase but to make it easier (going down stairs in those horrid ski-boots is a nightmare) there was a slide next to it! Never seen anything like it before. Great fun. Wheeeeeeeee! In the afternoon we got a chairlift and cable car back to somewhere from where we could ski back down to St. Anton and then school was over so we went for a beer at a local bar to celebrate our "graduation". My friend completely failed to meet me on time and was slightly concerned as we'd seen someone being flown to safety, suspended from a helicopter earlier in the day but I wasn't too worried as I reckoned he'd just lost track of time. Turned out he'd missed the last lift back. Doh.
Friday:
It was a great relief to not have to be in school for 9.30 so could take my time over breakfast and things. I spent the morning exploring the town properly and doing a bit of shopping. My friend had injured himself by falling over while he was going at 3 billion km/h or something so he wasn't up for skiing but I went up to the top of the mountain with my skis and generally practiced although I found it a bit boring on my own and the snow conditions were quite bad so I didn't stay out for very long . I also was a bit scared of exploring on my own in case I suddenly found myself on a black run, in which case I'd be buggered. We went out for a couple of pints in the evening, it being our final night in St. Anton and I was tapped on the shoulder by some mad old man who advised me not to get too drunk. I said "erm, I'll try not to" and he went. Very bizarre. The entertainment was some grinning fonzy wannabe with a keyboard who seemed to think it his duty to ruin every song that he could think of but it was still quite good in a cheesy kind of way.
Saturday:
Our final morning was spent mainly sitting by a pond watching the fish eating scraps of food given to them. I had some weird crisps that tasted a bit like cheesy sugar puffs - not too great - even the fish turned their noses up at them, wouldn't even swim up to see what they were. I didn't do any skiing although I did take the gondola up to the top to have a last look at the mountain. I was going to take the cable car to the top of the highest mountain but chickened out as it looked very terrifying as it passed high over the valleys. Damn my fear of heights (or more accurately I suppose - fear of big drops into screaming death). The coach ride to the airport was cool as we got to get a good look at lots of gorgeous mountains and whatnot and the airport was very small and had zeppelins and gliders and other interesting things landing there which we could see from the restaurant window. We only arrived back into gatwick very late and so it was impossible for me to return to Aber that night so we went to stay with another friend who lived nearby. His flatmate had a snake (I can't remember what variety) and I got to hold it which was very cool as I'd never touched one before. It was only a small one though so not very scary at all (stop thinking those smutty thoughts, filthy minded people who are reading this).
Then I had a 6 hour train journey so by the time I returned I was absolutely exhausted and depressed that I had to go back to work the next day. I needed a holiday to recover. All in all though a splendid holiday and I can't wait to go skiing again!
