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...why a sheep's coat doesn't shrink after it rains?
Seriously, this bothered me on the drive up north when I bought said book. There are loads of sheep always wandering on the moors on the road from the motorway to my parents' town and it was chucking it down.
So if wool always shrinks when it gets wet, how come the sheep don't get all shrunken too as their coat constricts?!
It's one of life's great mysteries, I guess.
Right, I have a confession to make and I swear, it was a complete accident in the first instance!
A few weeks ago I was back up north in the home town and visited the book shop I spent many happy hours in as a child and teenager, only to find it was closing down. Gutted! Therefore, I felt I had to buy at least one more book from there as, chances are, it would be gone before I could get in another visit.
So I started perusing the shelves and found some books on offer, two for £5. I picked up one and found it was about some people called Carpathians.
Now, although the storyline didn't sound great, my family is half Ukrainian and some of them live in the Carpathian mountains so I figured it was as good a book as any. There was another one there from the same series so I got that one too.
What I wasn't prepared for and what was most definitely not made clear on the cover text was that the damn things are practically erotic fiction!
I realised this about a third of the way into the first book but by then it was too late.
Now, I'm not a prudish girl, not in the slightest (ask Da Boy, if you don't believe me!) but I'm really not a fan of reading about "the way he filled her so completely"! It's just not my thing!
But, worryingly, despite the crap storyline and incredibly detailed sex scenes, I had found myself inadvertently giving a sh*t about the characters and what happened to them.
So I finished the first book and read the other one, with lots of different characters all being mentioned in passing as you went along.
The problem now is that I am so desperate to find out if some of the other blokes referred to in the ones I have read ever found their 'lifemates', I am going to have to buy the rest of the series!
Well chaps and chapettes, I am no longer a festival virgin! V was absolutely awesome and I had one of the funnest (yes, I know it's not a real word) and funniest weekends ever.
Band-wise, there were a few highlights for me. The following were fantastic:
Red Light Company
MGMT
Pendulum
McFly (what I could see and hear of their last couple of songs after we finally got in to the sodding arena!).
The following were pretty good and worth a watch:
Biffy Clyro
Ocean Colour Scene
The Sunshine Underground
Pete Doherty (shockingly, though I still find his solo stuff boring).
And anything else I watched, I really wasn't that arsed about. My cousin and his missus went to take in Oasis on the first night when we were at MGMT and said, in all honestly, they were pretty crap and looked as though they were just going through the motions. All this talk today about them being great in the media is rubbish, it seems. I reckon talk of them pulling out of Sunday night with a throat infection is b*ll*cks to be honest, they had a fall out in my opinion. The cuz did say the one thing on form on Saturday night was Liam's vocals, for once, with no hint of laryngitis in any shape or form!
Rather disappointingly, and despite several attempts using phone networks which simply refused to work, I didn't manage to meet up with an old mate from uni who was there. We were in the same field together, closer than 200 miles to each other for the first time in over five years, and we still failed! Oh well, there's always next year.
Anyways, all in all, the weekend was fantastic and Da Boy and I are definitely up for going again next year. He and his bandmate Buddha are actually pretty keen on entering the Road to V contest themselves next year, which would be awesome if they did and won. I could be on the guestlist and everything and finally start living my dream Rock Star WAG lifestyle!
Well, I did my final food shop for V today, buying lots of artificial tinned and packaged crap to keep us fuelled up for three and a half days of camping and music-watching.
Only one more day to go till we head down to that field! The whole thing is also promising to be something of a reunion weekend, with not only my cousin and his missus coming down who I haven't seen since May, but an old friend from Uni who I literally haven't seen for more than five years! So it's gonna be awesome for that alone, if nothing else.
I've got to be honest, none of the headliners at the festival are really appealing to me. I've never been a big fan of Oasis and think The Killers have been crap since their first album. However, there are some other, slightly lesser known bands that I can't wait to see - Biffy Clyro, Red Light Company, Pendulum, The Enemy, Ocean Colour Scene (who bring back so many memories!), The Sunshine Underground, MGMT, Mystery Jets etc.
Just a few more bits and pieces to buy tomorrow before the big event starts on Friday.
I am so not going to be feeling my one day of work to go. I hope nobody expects me to do anything productive...
This is going to sound really obvious and boring but every so often I hear or read things which make me realise that I'm actually quite a simple person with a rather simple life.
Not that this is a bad thing, I rather love the fact that I don't have any major traumas or emotional issues to stress me out.
Maybe I'm just naive but it worries and sort of upsets me when I realise that friends have issues that I had no idea about but, however trivial they may seem to me, are tearing them apart inside.
I'm the sort of person that wants to do everything I can to help and to make things better but, as everybody knows, there's not usually anything you can do.
Take just some of my friends at the moment. One has just split with her boyfriend of four years after finding out he cheated on her and, while she is coping with it so much better than I would in the same situation, I know how much she loved him and that she's heartbroken inside.
Then there is another friend, who is technically a friend of a friend and is an absolute sweetheart who I like very much. She seems to be on the verge of an emotional implosion (her words, not mine) and I am actually quite worried about her, as she generally seems like a much more together person than she apparently actually is.
Another good friend is being completely screwed over by an ex girlfriend who has serious mental psycho issues and I know, despite what he says, he is still at least a little bit in love with her. I just hope he does have the strength to finally cut her out of his life when he decides to and not let her wheedle her way back in like she has in the past.
I guess I am incredibly lucky. Yes, I'm half Italian and therefore have a fiery temperament and have been known to cry at the most random things, although generally I'm pretty tough with most things life throws at me. I'm also pretty good at dealing with things and not over analysing or letting things get me down if there is nothing I can do about it.
I am also (and this is going to sound really icky so I apologise in advance) unbelievably lucky to have Da Boy in my life. I trust him completely and, as much as he can drive me insane, love him more than anything. He's very much a stabilising and calming influence in my life and is always there when I need him. I also like to think that I'm there for him. He makes me laugh the way nobody else can and always knows when I need a hug.
We're really good together and, after seven years, I like to think we'll stay perfect for each other for the rest of our lives.
I'm a realist, I know you can't predict the future and there is no way of saying I will be with Da Boy for the rest of my life but I do know that I can't imagine myself with anyone else.
So, all in all, I like my simple life and, in all honesty, would wish it on others too if I could!
We've been shopping today. Not usually an exciting thing in itself but this was a very specific kind of shopping - we went to get the necessaries and supplies for the V Festival next weekend.I am so ridiculously excited that I can guarantee, come about Wednesday, I won't be able to sleep until we're in the car on the way down to Weston Park (on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border, as the local news outlets keep pointing out, just in case we didn't know).You see, V will be two firsts for me - my first ever music festival and the first time I have ever been camping. Properly camping, that is, when I went with school aged 12 doesn't count as there were eight of us in a canvas and wood tent that was already up when we got there and we didn't have to cook for ourselves as we weren't allowed to.We hadn't originally planned to go but when Da Boy heard that a couple of his band members and associated folks were going, we thought "why the Hell not?". My cousin and his missus are also heading down, so it's promising to be an awesome weekend.So £162 each later, not including all the extra costs of buying the tent etc, we're almost ready for the off!Sadly, Da Boy's company is being rather knobhead-like and won't let him have the Friday or Monday off, so he's going to have to meet us down there Friday night and leave me to pack up the tent on Monday.Now, I do have to point out that I do have certain hygiene issues about camping. Festival toilet facilities are not exactly known for their cleanliness and I am the sort who runs a mile at the sight of a rogue pubic hair anywhere near a toilet or shower. So I have decided, instead, to stock up on deodorising wipes and dry shampoo and will just have to hope I don't smell too bad come Monday morning!Even so, I actually can't wait! Woop!
Yep, Da Boy is officially my hero. He tackled that fungus without complaint like a mould-destroying knight in shining armour, laughing in the face of potential death.
So now our window is mould free and, thankfully, Da Boy did survive to tell the tale.
I knew I was marrying him for reason.
Ok, so I am now officially freaked out! My house is almost totally clean and tidy and I am, I'll admit, feeling quite proud of myself. Just the living room shelving unit to put in order and a bit of washing up and it's done.
However, in order to get this wonderful aura of self satisfaction and house proud-ness, I encountered one of the most horrible things ever when I opened the bedroom window to shake the feather duster.
Oh my God, I swear there is some new species of killer mould growing in the gap between the inside and outside of our double glazing! Seriously, the seal must be going which keeps it water-tight from the outside and rain is getting in, which has allowed the most disgusting fungus to thrive in the cavity!
The uPVC windows are pretty old, the sort they're not allowed to sell any more as they open like a small door, meaning you can take a head-first dive two stories if you're not careful, so we don't open them properly very often, just tilt them back to let the air in. So Mr Vile Fungus could have been there for months as you can't see it from the inside unless the window is fully open.
I have, therefore, texted Da Boy with strict instructions not to return home without the most heavy duty, kill everything it comes into contact with mould killer he can find.
And when he does get home, he can tackle the stuff. I just hope he comes out of the encounter alive!
OK, I know at this exact moment in time I'm actually writing a blog entry, but I have today been gripped by a very rare, possibly even unheard of urge to clean the house!
Everything has just been so damn busy lately that I'm ashamed to admit our little three-bed terrace has become something Aggie and Kim would have a mildly excited fit over.
I'm not talking mouldy, rat infested kitchens and germ-ridden bathrooms, but there is a layer of dust over everything and piles of stuff pretty much everywhere, including clean washing which has been sitting in baskets waiting to be put away for about two weeks!
So, anyway, Da Boy and me got up this morning with a mission - get the house clean, tidy and looking like a show home by the time the sun sets tonight.
So far, I've tidied and dusted the bedroom (and believe me, the tidying was a mammoth task!), emptied bins, chucked away all sorts of pointless bits of paper, magazines and other rubbish that had accumulated on various surfaces, wiped the wardrobe doors down and am shortly about to start finally putting those clothes where they belong - in the newly clean wardrobe and drawers. Then I'm going to get to it with the Hoover.
Da Boy, bless him, has vacuumed the rest of the house and cleaned the bathroom, which just leaves the kitchen to be cleaned, some washing up to be done and the living room to be dusted and tidied.
I have to admit, and anybody who already knows me will nod their heads fervently in agreement, that I am not the most tidy person in the world. However, I can't stand to live in a dirty house and am quite obsessive about having a clean bathroom and kitchen.
Da Boy has now gone off the play band with his side project (yes, he's not even famous yet and he has a side project!) for the next few hours so my big plan is to get the upstairs finished, living room sorted and the kitchen back in working order with space on the worktops before he gets back this teatime.
So, with that in mind, I'd best drag myself away from the damned computer and get to it!
Aggie and Kim, you ain't got nothing on me today! Bring on the late-summer cleaning spree!
Oh my God, the TV trailer for the BBC's Walk on the Wild Side is hilarious! Just seen it and it totally cracked me up!
"Oh, that's not Alan!"
Brilliant! It looks well funny!
See, told you I was easily pleased by comedy?!
I've got to be honest, I'm pretty easily pleased when it comes to comedy. So long as it's not Little Britain, The League of Gentleman or anything similar to that, chances are, I'll laugh at it. (I detest Little Britain. A few years ago, there would have been a barrage of complaints if any comedian even gave a hint of mocking old people, disabled people, fat people etc and now, just because it comes from two irritating alleged 'out there, against the grain comedy genii', it's supposed to be funny. It's not, it's sh*t.)
Some of my favourite sketches have got to be the following:
Hale and Pace - Yorkshire Airlines
Goodness Gracious Me - Going for an English
Jasper Carrott - Lollipop the cat / They aint got no cowin' Bovril
Omid Djalili - Anything from his first live DVD
Peter Kay - Biscuits / Family weddings
Michael McIntyre - pretty much anything!
Well, so much for getting some sympathy from Da Boy when he got home from camping! I don't know who is the bigger idiot, me or him, but he's come back so badly sunburnt on his legs from a kayaking session that he can barely walk!
Therefore, instead of him taking care of me and fussing over me, bringing me cups of tea and chocolate etc, I've been the one limping around looking after him! I even hobbled my way into town on my lunch to get some aloe vera gel and some anaesthetic spray for his crispy limbs!
I have so made sure he knows I am officially the best girlfriend in the world.
Still, broken toe or not, there is no way I'm missing tomorrow's gig in Birmingham. I won't be up to my usual standards of 'dancing' but I'll still be there, loving it down the front like the dedicated groupie I am!
If anyone fancies it, its at The Flapper from about 8pm.
Seriously, the folks down at the medical practice are all very lovely and were really nice and sympathetic when I hobbled on down there with my poorly toe today but, in all honestly, there wasn't much point in me making the effort!
I was told by the very sweet minor injuries nurse that I quite possibly had broken it, given the swelling and bruising, but that there was nothing they could do to treat it so they never took x-rays to be sure unless it was your big toe. Which means I have little but ibuprofen and paracetamol to look forward to for at least the next few days until it starts to heal. She also advised me to keep it rested and elevated as much as possible. Ha! How exactly do you do that when you work at a desk all day and your leg is stuck well below your heart level for pretty much all of it?!
So, in essence, I can't drive at the moment because it bloody hurts and if I crash the insurance company won't pay out and have basically got to live with a throbbing digit on my right foot for days, if not weeks, because even if it's just badly bruised, the nurse said I would still feel it for the next week or so. So I'm stuck working out of the local office, given my usual one is a 40 minute drive away, which isn't too bad I guess as I love the guys and girls who work there, even if they spent the entire day today taking the mickey out of me for being so accident prone!
I just hope I can hobble around well enough come Friday afternoon that I can still take the balloon ride Da Boy's mum has booked for us both! I've been looking forward to that for ages! Although, given my current form, the damn thing would probably crash land and I'd end up breaking both arms or something!
Oh well, at least Da Boy is back from his camping trip tomorrow. I'm sure he'll look after me and give me lots of sympathy.
Who am I kidding? He almost wet himself laughing when I told him on the phone last night what I'd done, the little git. Sympathy is not what I'll be getting from the love of my life, that's for sure!
God-damned corner couch! I'm pretty certain I've broken my toe, thanks to the most comfortable sofa in the world. It's so amazing to sit and lie on but it has the most evil, metal feet which stick out of the bottom.
And today, I whacked my toe on one bloody foot in a major way. It hurts like hell, has swollen up, I can't bend it without complete agony and it's turning a lovely shade of black.
Great. I knew the past few days had been too good. Something crap had to happen to balance things out.
Yep, pretty much what it says on the tin here. I had an awesome weekend!
First off, Da Boy and the rest of his band appeared live on a show called the Friday Night Gerbil on BBC Radio Shropshire. And they totally and utterly rocked!
Seriously, I know I'm biased but they sounded fantastic. Da Boy had to do a 10 second drum solo for a feature and they did four songs live, each and every one of which was awesome. I was so proud!
Then they had a photo shoot on Saturday with a good friend of mine, the afore mentioned James Melia from a previous post on here. He is just fantastic and we're even going to see if he can do the pictures for our wedding. He's not a wedding photographer, more lifestyle and model / bands but he has just such a unique, fantastic style that I know he'll take photos for us to cherish forever.
Anyway, back to the band shoot. He took some while they were running through their set for a gig that night in their practice barn before heading outside to take some more on the rather industrial farmyard outside, which was full of metal storage containers, skips, iron shells of old buildings, piles of tyres etc. But the photos were just amazing. A few might appear on www.jamesmelia.net so keep an eye out!
The boys then had a gig that night and went down a storm with the crowd. Both Da Boy and me were driving so there was no alcohol involved, yet we both still had a great time.
Then (and this just capped the whole awesome weekend off), me and my housemate S spent yesterday at Chester Zoo with James and his girlfriend before they headed off back home up north. It was so much fun, I totally loved it.
Da Boy is away camping with some friends in Cornwall until Wednesday and, as much as I love, cherish, adore and will miss him loads, that means a whole two days of Supernatural-watching, chocolate-eating and girlie-chatting without him here to complain!
The only downside was the horrible migraine I had this morning when I woke up, having spent much of the night wide awake and being sick, but that's finally starting to ease off now.
So, all in all, things are pretty good right now.
Ok, so we've finally moved a tiny bit closer with our wedding plans.
I've bought my dress and all the associated bits and bobs, the bridesmaid dresses have been chosen and will be ordered at the end of September, we've got some flower girl dresses on the way early next year and matching fabric for the men's cravats has also been sorted.
We've also decided which wedding planner in Italy that we're going to use to sort everything out over there and have booked a week in September to head out to Sorrento and meet with the lady and see some venues etc.
So all in all, I don't think that's too bad with 10 months to go! There is a lot less we need to think about having the wedding abroad than here.
I even tried to suggest to my mum that we not bother with a wedding cake for over there but just have one at the party for wider friends and family back here afterwards. That went down about as well as a lead balloon and I have been told in no uncertain terms that I AM having a wedding cake on the day I actually get married.
I've been really lucky with my mum actually. She and my dad are helping us out so much with paying for the wedding, as are Da Boy's parents, but considering they're footing much of the bill, she's been pretty good about not taking over things. There are a couple of things we've clashed over but, all in all, she's been awesome.
Oh, we have also almost decided on our first dance song. Well, I'm 100% convinced, Da Boy only about 60% but I am working on him...
Ah, evening bliss. Supernatural on the television (via the miracles of DVD) and pear cider, knowing you don't have to get up for work in the morning evening though it's a Friday.
What an awesome Thursday night!
I'm also quite excited about Da Boy getting home from playing band tonight as I, by some random miracle, managed to remember how to play Good Riddance (Time of your Life) by Green Day on the guitar! I played guitar for about 18 months when I was about 14 and was never any good at it. But, for some reason, tonight I was able to remember the chords and everything!
So I'll have to show him when he gets in. I'm sure he'll be impressed. Hmmm, or not...
Seriously, Peter Kay is an absolute genius. He and Omid Djalili are two of the funniest people ever. I cry with laughter every time I watch them!On another random note, I also had a good laugh at an old school photo of good friend of mine this afternoon when we went for lunch. It was brilliant, his head looked like a kidney bean stood on end! And there was a cracking pair of curtains going on in his hair! I would never have believed it was Mr B. Fortunately, he doesn't get offended easily so didn't mind too much when I laughed. Laughed quite a lot, actually.
I am so going to have to get my arse to the gym for a proper session tomorrow. I haven't been since Monday and in the past 24 hours I have munched my way through a pizza and banoffee pie at Pizza Express, a bowl of Coco Pops, a packet of Thai Sweet Chili Sensations crisps, a mushroom and sweet potato stroganoff with rice and onion rings on the side, fajitas with soured cream AND a Cadbury's Buttons pudding! Which means, with my metabolism, that I will now weight about half a stone more than I did two days ago!Still, I've got tomorrow off work so I have no excuse not to get my ass down on that crosstrainer for a proper session!On a more exciting note, Da Boy's band is on BBC Radio Shropshire tomorrow night for an interview and live session. Anyone fancies listening in, it's 96FM if you're in Shropshire or, if you're out of the county, search for the Friday Night Gerbil on google and you'll be able to listen online. They are utterly awesome and I would thoroughly recommend folks tune in if they can! I'll be there doing my usual groupie thing. I can't even pretend to be their manager any more, all I do these days is feed them and try to act as something of a guidance councillor when they have personal troubles, whether they want me to or not.Then they're having a photo session with an old friend of mine, James Melia, who is a fantastic photographer who I can thoroughly recommend to anyone who is looking for one! Check out his website, http://www.jamesmelia.net/ - and see for yourselves how amazing he is!Will try and get some of the photos of Da Boy and the boys on here if I can.Right, off now to watch another of series two of Supernatural - my three-season box set arrived yesterday and I'm slowly working my way through it! Hmmm, with a day off tomorrow, this could be dangerous. As in something much more fun to do than go to the gym, watching two lovely men flex their muscles as they fight all evil things.No! I am getting my ass down to Bannatynes! The Buttons pudding alone will have added at least two pounds and there is no way I'm not fitting into that wedding dress - it's way too beautiful!
Before I start on the forthcoming whinge, I would like to make it very clear that I love, cherish and adore Da Boy with all my heart.
But, my God, he can be SUCH a pain in the arse sometimes!
Take tonight. He comes in from work, having had a pretty rubbish day (join the club, my job is a nightmare at the moment to the point where I'm looking for another) and asks what the plan is for tea.
I, quite reasonably I feel, say there is some leftover chilli from the other night in the fridge. It's been there a few days but is still fine, so long as its heated through properly. If he's very hungry, I'll get him some bread to have with it as we only have brown rice, which takes ages to cook.
But he doesn't want chilli and especially not chilli which is a few days old. He also doesn't want bread with it.
We also have some leftover curry from two nights ago, I helpfully added, only to be met with a full on moan about my lack of providing skills right down to, the cheeky bugger, the fact I would make a rubbish mother if this is the way I provided tea for the family!
This, as you can imagine, rubbed me up the wrong way rather a bit so I stropped into the kitchen to heat up the curry and asked if he would like his bread buttering.
I almost threw the curry over his head when he began to rant about not wanting bread and how I never listen to him! So after I had slammed some rice in a bowl and stuck it in the microwave, only to once again be given grief about brown rice taking hours to cook in such a way, I stormed out of the kitchen and am now sitting here, refusing to speak to him.
Seriously, men can be SUCH knobs sometimes!!!!
I think I'm in love.....
My God!
I really, REALLY love Da Boy and can't wait to marry him but, seriously, what I wouldn't give for just one night with either of these two...
I finally had the metaphorical kick up the backside I needed to get back to the gym and try and lose this last half a stone in plenty of time for the wedding.
Yes, I bought my wedding dress!
It's absolutely beautiful, fits like a dream, feels as comfy as a pair of pyjamas and is, quite simply, perfect. The lady at the shop even threw in a free veil and tiara for me!
So although I'm not looking to get a lot skinnier, as the dress is pretty much the perfect fit right now, I just want to be a bit less wobbly on the day I finally become Mrs Da Boy.
And as liposuction isn't an option, that means hitting the gym and actually trying to get my money's worth from the £58 a month I pay Mr Bannatyne! To be fair, he does operate some pretty amazing fitness centres, mine has a massive swimming pool, well nice sauna, steam room and spa and you never have to wait to get on any of the gym equipment as there is so much of it.
The only thing it does lack is an attractive fitness instructor in any shape or form!
I went a couple of times last week and the week before that and this morning, in a moment of madness which Da Boy thought at first meant I had wet the bed, I got up and went before work.
Even more shockingly, I actually enjoyed it! It woke me up a treat and meant I got the working out thing out of the way early on so the rest of the day was my own.
However, I am a realist and, as someone who adores sleeping and even just dozing in bed, I'm not too optimistic about a repeat performance anytime soon. Although I will try!
