Club Alternative

After a long working week it was time to let my hair down and head out to Chelmsford to attend Club Alternative.

Toni and I picked up Tasha en route as her car was out of action. 

Toni (not the Glitz version) and Tasha:

It wasn't a bad night although the music was not much to our liking. Sadly it wasn't really busy this time. Not sure if we'll be making regular attendances here in future as it's a long way to go just for a night out in a bar so we may well investigate some of the London clubs in future.

Sometimes you learn something new

I was talking to my aunt Robbie last night about various things when she asked me how the band was going.

After a quick update she told me that her cousin was none other than Steve Peregrin Took. For those of you that don't know (shame on you) he was a founder member (along with Marc Bolan) of Tyrannosauras Rex. Apparently she used to go and watch them rehearse in Eltham! My jaw dropped at this news. If you hadn't realised I am a big Bolan and T.Rex fan so this was kind of major news for me.

This little story has never ever come anywhere near me until now and I am just amazed that I've never heard it before. Maybe its just because it was all so long ago? I've talked music with various family members over the years and not a hint of this at all.

Such a cool lovely surprise to learn that there was a cool musician lurking in the family tree.

If you want to find out more about Steve Peregrin Took then here's. Good starting point:
Steve Peregrin Took page on Wikipedia



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Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists:

No kids

Tonight was a child free night with all our kids dispersed to various places. This was indeed a novelty.

We started off browsing for various wedding bits online before heading out to Ziyafet for a gorgeous Turkish dinner. Squid starter for Toni and mussels for me was followed by the night Ziyafet Special which we love to share. With no room for pudding we chilled with a coffee before heading home.

It was a welcome break to have some time to ourselves!



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More sleep, tidying, Coffee Town & transgender documentaries

Today was a day for more sleep, it was well received LOL

Next up was a much needed tidy of the bedroom. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that this was LONG overdue. Lunch was provided by Coffee Town as nobody could be arsed to cook and we met up with Jamie.

On returning home we caught up with the season finale of True Blood before settling down to watch a bunch of transgender documentaries/films:

Real Life: Transgender Kids
Gendernauts
National Geographic: American Transgender

Gendernauts was a little disappointing as it seemed to be more of an art film rather than a documentary, Real Life was pretty good but the National Geographic one was excellent.

A brief detour into Man v Food left Toni, Sam and I completely starving although the three of us probably wouldn't have been able to polish off some of the insanely huge offerings that they were showing! We finished the evening off with chips, dips and QI!

Sleep and chilling

Had a much needed sleep in today! We haven't done that for a long time as we always seem to have things on that meant that early starts were required.

Breakfast was prepared courtesy of moi and a mighty fine scrambled egg, yes I did cook and yes I am boasting that it was nice. The only thing missing was celery salt which sadly Pam didn't have.

The afternoon was just spent chilling out, trying not to fall asleep, and enjoying fresh sea air wafting trough the house on a gentle breeze.

Sam cooked us all a lovely roast dinner which was most welcome. Toni then spent the evening doing a load of paperwork with her nan while Sam, Aaron and I monged out to crap TV. Toni was knackered by the end of the day as she had been doing so much stuff for her nan but she still managed the long drive back to Sidcup.



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Medieval Festival @ Herstmonceaux Castle

It was an early start today as Toni, Sam, Aaron and I headed out to Bexhill-on-Sea. First stop was to check in on Toni's nan and then we headed out to Herstmonceaux Castle to go to a Medieval Festival.

It was a great little day out. Lots of displays on offer, falconry, tournaments etc. Sadly the jousting was cancelled due to poor grass conditions so we were treated to an example of how mounted knights would have trained.

We did manage to spend a lot of money on various things though included a course of lovely prints and some German mead for our handfasting.

On our return to Bexhill Toni, Sam, Pam and I headed went out for fish and chips for dinner. Aaron stayed behind as he'd filled himself up with food at Herstmonceaux. I was sensible for once and opted for grilled cod, rather than battered which was a good call as I wasn't suffering with bad heartburn afterwards.

The end of the day drifted out with us watching Channel 4's Top 30 Comedy Shows programme. It was great to see so many good shows getting a nod and also being reminded of some that we had forgotten about. Well done to Father Ted for taking the #1 spot.


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What a day, skirts and Chinese

Today was definitely one of those days! WFH was the order of the day but not light duties. Starter for ten was sorting out yet another failed installation followed by troubleshooting a dying server which was preventing me from getting stuff done! It was such sweet relief when I finally finished working.

One plus side of WFH was a chance to work wearing a skirt. It's something that I am looking forward to being able to do actually in the office. It looked right, it felt good and it felt right! Watch out folks, that day is coming LOL!

Long weekend is now here!

Jamie came round late in the afternoon to use our bath as his shower was broken. Oh the irony considering you have to fill out bath using the shower attachment at the moment anyway while we wait for our bathroom repairs to be done.

It was nice having Jamie over for a few hours which was spent chatting and eating Chinese as we couldn't be bothered to cook!




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Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists:

Circles, meeting Shaun, black Metal, HP and D&D

Today was another day of going round and round in circles rather than the Google+ variety. Some days are productive, today was most certainly not. Chasing my tail, unravelling other people's mistakes and clarifying the obvious were the order of the day, deep joy.

Had a breath of fresh air at lunch time as Matt and I popped out for a coffee with Shaun. Was nice to see him again and have a catch up. He was in very good spirits and is killing time ready to return to University having decided to take a break from working fully time. I'd like the break from working but without the study!

I cleared my brain on the way home from work with a nice dose of black metal and a few chapters of H.P. Lovecraft. You can't beat a nice bit of noise and mythos to restore your sanity!

An early dinner was followed by our bunch of adventurers picking up from where we left in Sherwood Forest and continuing our Dungeons & Dragons campaign. We managed to survive another day without anybody dying this time which was good!





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Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Hope you have a great day!


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Up early, chatting, Fringe fest

Toni and I were woken up a bit earlier than we planned as Jade decided that at 10:30 it was time for us to get up! I wasn't exactly over the moon about this but hey ho, that's kids for you LOL

When we got up Toni, Sam, Emma, Jade and I sat around and chatted about this and that and we were then joined by Bob who had popped round to see us. This gave us a chance to give him his present from Center Parcs to say thank you to him for doing a massive amount of work on the back garden while we were away. As time ran away with us Emma had to depart and Toni dropped her at the station and gave Jade and Bob lift's home too.

The rest of the day turned into a bit of a Fringe fest with Toni, Sam and I watching a good set of episodes from Season 1. I provided lunch and also cooked later in the evening. A double kitchen appearance for me, a real rarity! LOL I was also cursed by being convinced to install DragonVale onto my iPhone which has proved to be VERY addictive and left me spending far too much time playing it. Thank you very much Toni and Sam for getting me hooked on another bloody game! Sadly we ran out of evening to keep watching and playing as Toni and I had to wash our hair before hitting the pit.

Just for good measure I want to restate that the weather is too damn hot! I don't like it and want it to cool down by about 10 degrees at least!

More heat, TV, Emma , Indian food and Hocus Pocus

Today was even hotter which just made me grumpy. Much hatred to this bloody sun!

We managed to plough through a lot of TV and do not much else which was a good thing. Started watching Fringe for the first time and was pretty impressed with it. Can't wait to watch more.

Emma came by for a flying overnight visit. Was great to see the crazy old bat!

Indian food and Hocus Pocus finished off the day!



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Hot day, stressful day & ice creams

Today was a hot day, too hot! I don't like heat at all!

Add heat to stressful day and you get a grumpy KT! Lots of time wasted chasing tails and doubling back to check things and then recheck them afterwards pretty much wrote off the whole day. I don't like days like this where we end up wasting time and effort on things we needn't do. All this was done and then we could say they customer was wrong! *sigh*

Toni met me on the way home and we went to Sainsbury's for ice cream goodness. I managed to polish off five cornettos!

Jade came over for the night and we watched Futurama and Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

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Back to work we go

It was back to earth with a bump this morning as we had to get up and go back to work and our normal lives. Getting up was a real struggle though even though we'd been getting up early all week there was some sort of mental barrier when confronted with having to get up for work again! LOL

Thankfully there were no disasters while I was off so it was a relatively easy day, catching up with emails and  then getting back into the swing of things. I have to say that it was still a great relief to leave at the end of the day and head back home again!

Having been away for a while we have a fair bit of TV to catch up with. Accompanied by a wonderful fajita mix courtesy of Sam we caught up with two episodes of True Blood followed by one episode of Warehouse 13.  In the middle of this Toni and I managed to take a nice 1.5 mile walk continuing our light exercise regime that we started while in Sherwood Forest.

It was an early-ish night for us in the hope that getting up tomorrow would be easier!

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top tracks:


Overall top artists:

Orpheum @ The Comedy Pub

No rest for the wicked as it was straight back from holiday and up to London for the next Orpheum gig.

This one won't go down as an amazing experience!

It all started well as we loaded in and watched Bypolar sound check. The promoter for ROC(K)TOBER!! strolled in with lots of flyers and posters to give us to help advertise and push the event at Watford Colosseum. It was good to see him and great that things are looking good for the event.

We did our sound check and then had to hang around for ages as the opening band had pulled out so they were delaying the opening for 30 minutes. There were actually only two bands there at that point, Bypolar and Orpheum. Apparently the third band were on their way, they actually arrived not long before we hit the stage! The promoter was one of those sit back and expect everyone else to do the promotion and organisation types and as the line up had changed about four times in a week we've decided we probably won't be booking anything with him again!

On a more positive note, Orpheum's set was a good one, well received by those that were present and it was another important performance in our preparation for October.

Had to rush off at the end of the gig as Toni and I were knackered having travelled back from holiday today. Overall it was a good gig

Returning to Stratford

We got up early this morning and after a cup of tea Toni and I headed off to the car park to pick up The Beast so that we could drive it back to the villa ready to pack. One short walk and drive later we were loading up The Beast with all of our stuff.

Obviously it would be silly to travel on an empty stomach so we made one last trip to Cafe Rouge for a good breakfast before we hit the road. There is something quite pleasing about ordering a full English breakfast in French LOL

Suitably stuffed we set out to return to Stratford upon Avon. The weather held and we made good time. We then had a nice cuppa and just chilled out (and I took the opportunity to catch up with the blogging that my lack of internet whilst at Center Parcs had left me with).

Having skipped any form of lunch it was agreed that a return journey to Jimmy Spices might be on the cards. There were certainly no disagreements with this plan LOL. We walked round to Jimmy Spices only to find that it didn't open until 17:00 so we headed into town to grab a cup of tea before returning for our food. Toni, mum and I took it easy but Sam, Aaron and Gemima all went for it big style on the food front to the point that we thought they might all burst!

Mum went out to her pub craze later in the evening while we all stayed behind and just kicked back and enjoyed some peace and quiet and continued rest.

Center Parcs Day 7

Woke up and had breakfast followed by a mass Happy Birthday sing along for Jade via hands free. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jade!

We had another flurry of wildlife around the back door again this morning including some fluffy ducklings

After breakfast mum took herself off into the garden to listen to the radio and read the paper and Toni, Sam, Aaron, Gemima and I spent a couple of hours continuing our D&D adventure. We then cycled back to the Country Club so that Gemima and Aaron could go on a nature ramble (Aaron was drafted in when they said Gemima had to be accompanied).

We enjoyed a lovely view sitting outside in a different place today

After some nibbles and once Gemima and Aaron had returned we headed back to the villa.

We had a quick cup of tea and then it was time to take the bikes back (boohoo, we'll miss them). I did discover too more wooden carvings on our walk back though:

Final treat of the week was to go bowling.

Once the fun of bowling was over it was time to eat. We went out in style with a MASSIVE meal at Huck's that left us all fit to bursting from eating too much delicious food. Sam, Aaron and Gemima managed to polish off a pudding that was meant for 6 people between them!

On our return to the villa it was sadly time to pack up ready for our departure tomorrow. We closed out the night watching the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics in the presence of another fire.

The week has gone so quickly but it was a most welcome break. Strangely (for me) one of the best bits was not having any internet access on my phone or even via my O2 dongle which meant that I got to live a whole week without the distraction of technology as I just left my phone in the bedroom all the time. The bikes were excellent and it's a damn shame we don't have lots of places to safely cycle as that is something I'd like to do more of. Will have to investigate more when we return....