Well what a few days it has been?!

Firstly my housmate and I said a sad goodbye to Meggie the Parrot. We gave Meggie a home in January as we had decided it would be nice to have a third housemate around to keep us company and provide entertainment when either of us were home alone – however after two months we decided that actually between the two of us we spend so much time working and socialising that poor Meggie wasn’t getting enough attention or time to hang out away from her cage and so we gave her up for adoption. On Friday she moved in to a nice family home in North London where we hope she will be very happy!

Happy Birthday to E for tomorrow… although last night were the official celebrations. It was all lovely and wonderful – Birthday cake provided by Mrs W (E’s Mum)… Thank you! We started off in the lovely pub with the wonderful horsey wallpaper (By E’s direction it’s the pub south of the cow bins on Great Eastern Street – take your compass!)…

…and then once turfed out after last orders ended up wandering round the streets of Shoreditch behind one of E’s friends until he found us a suitable club… which he did – Coast to Coast at On The Rocks . If you like Ska, Soul and Reggae you have to check it out! I was in my element, since I’ve left Bournemouth I haven’t really got further than rock or general mainstream clubby nights out… which could explain my new found granny status of prefering a nice meal, or a good old pub to rocking it out on the dancefloor. One exception to this is Madame Jojo’s (Brewer St, W1) on a Friday night (I must go back soon!)… Anyway back to it. I very rarely these days am in somewhere I want to live it up and dance my socks off – and last night despite arriving feeling like I would prefer to be in bed, within five minutes I was smiling ear to ear and dancing away. Once those that had decided the place was a bit too off the musical beaten path for them had left, the rest of us got on enjoying it – with me mentioning that before I was in uni and became aware of a Ska band (who became good friends) I hadn’t a clue about Ska music… Thank god I got to know them in the final months at Uni, my musical life could have been deprived of this wonderful genre.

Anyway dancing away I notice a guy with dreadlocks really going for it… on second look I recognised the guy – wasn’t it G from the band? After far to much wine followed beer I couldn’t trust my judgement… but there was E too! I couldn’t believe it, I had randomly ended up in a Ska club in Shoreditch and bumped into the guys from the band – it must have been two years since I last hung out with the guys and their dog (well actually it was a picture of a dog) in their lounge, whilst we were all still in Bournemouth. After many hugs (it’s been too long!), short but loud conversations and birthday wishes for E (Another birthday night out both for E’s – one male, one female!) we got on with dancing. In fact last night it seemed there were very few people in the place that didn’t know someone celebrating a birthday… the DJ had so many requests that our request for E’s Birthday (our E, the female one, the reason I was out) shout out didn’t make the cut!

After a wonderful night, walking home wasn’t nearly as pleasurable… My feet killed. Had I known I would be heading out to really dance I would have had sensible shoes on (though at one point I decided to forgo the shoes for the ability to dance – thankfully there was no glass on the floor!) so by the time we left the club I was hobbling with the burning of the balls of my feet. I know you can buy those gel things, but I’ve tried them and frankly they seem to displace themselves so I still end up with sore feet and blisters added in just for good measure – I’ll take the pain without the blisters thanks. I do know some people swear by them so I have just come to the conclusion that they are like marmite – you either love them or hate them!

Anyway fabulous weekend – Columbia Rd flower market today (looking at my beautiful flowers right now) with pastries and a nice cuppa in the rain and now home… work to do later (boo hiss)…

But what can I say… It’s been a bobbydazzler of a weekend :0p