Not even going to try

[zahryn]

...
I'm putting this behind a cut right at the start.. I know it's going to be a monsterful post already, by virtue of the very subject matter, grab a cuppa, sit back and relax as you read...


Friday I left work excited and early at Noon. J was staying on for the afternoon so I forwarded my phone to her and got on the road very quickly. I made excellent time and arrived just when I'd planned at 13:30 at redstr7s house (nearly mine too *squee*)

We packed up the car (Brian) with the tux in its posh bag, my clothing, some extra bits I'd forgotten and were on the road again by 14:00, exactly as planned, we therefore got to Beth & Simons right at 15:00 as planned. There is where the planning ended. We had a drink and a bit of a chat with Beth and my parents who were acting in a babysitting capacity, and then Beth & I painted our nails, mine lovely dark metallic purple and hers bright fuschia pink!! Freddie made us laugh by emptying the nail varnish box one by one and handing them to his beloved Grandpa, who rapidly started to run out of hands :o)

redstr7 painted my nails with some quick-drying top coat (very well) and then we carried on gabbing until our nails were mostly dry. Beth & I went upstairs at about 5:30pm while Mum and Dad were bathing the boys, not sure what Garry did while we were upstairs. Alex was having his friend Gareth over for a sleepover so he was getting bathed and into jim-jams before Gareth arrived so they could watch a film and play with their Nintendo DS's. (not entirely sure what one of those is)

Beth was using a moisturiser-bronzer thing on her legs and back so she wouldn't look quite so white. I put some on my arms but honestly couldn't tell any difference apart from it "bronzing" all the freckles on my skin!! :o) Make-up and hair etc took the better part of an hour by which time Simon was home and needing to get in the shower. Beth & I got dressed with varying amounts of help from my parents, Beth needed mum to help her get into her dress without covering it in make-up, and I needed Dad to help me get the third catch on my corset done up, it's a bit bent!

We came downstairs while the boys went up to get ready, Garry came down looking pretty spiffy in his tux Dinner Suit (Sorry Mr Seal!) I'll admit he quite took my breath away everytime I looked at him:



Phew!

I was impressed by how much weight I've lost, noticeable by the relative ease of getting into the corset and that I now have "magic" pants one size too big :o) Even since last year I've had to take the skirt in 3 dress sizes!! Anyway, once Garry was ready my parents took some pictures of us on their camera as well as ours, and we do make a very attractive pair:



And when Beth & Si were ready we did a picture with all four of us before we went over to Helen & Andys for pre-drinks:



We had a beer and a few nibbles at Helen & Andys, joined by Angie and Owen, then Megan and Alex just before the bus arrived! We walked out to catch the bus into the station and were greeted off the bus by waiting staff carrying trays of orange juice and bucks fizz. Simon was the organiser of this years ball so he was dead excited, taking our group of eight around all the sights, starting with the amazing foyer, decked out with lasers and UV lighting it was a dramatic sight, with a burning 'infinity' symbol to one side (that was the theme!)



Followed by a quick look at the dining room, edged by "Foods of the World" Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Italian and looking great:



Before anything else, we went to have the official photos done. Not sure when they'll be arriving, but we had quite a few. Since we were a group of eight, we had a picture of all 8 of us, then the couples, then Beth, Simon, Garry and I in a four, then Beth, Angie and Helen did a "Charlies Angels" pose in their ball dresses for a picture and we were done!

We split up a bit, Garry and I went for a wander and found the games room, complete with this:



Which we did play later in the evening, although we didn't do very well. We got drinks and met up with the other 6 again to go have some fun on the dodgems:






Much fun, laughter, crashing, cursing and screaming!! Back into the foyer, Simon and I were forced to have an Austin Powers moment and jump into our "Time Machine" for the camera:



Then we all headed for the Laser Quest!! The group to go in before us was 3 elderly folks who seemed to be having an amazing time, good for them!! Although, when the screaming stopped we did wonder if they would need to be removed on a stretcher :o)
While in the queue waiting we were bored, so experimented with photography, catalogue posing and the best way to do Laser Quest in a ball dress:






But, finally it was our turn, and we reacted with the usual calm aplomb:



I think my darling brothers exact words were "Die Bitch DIE!!"

We went in teams of 6:



I accidentally cut Garrys head off, but luckily he didn't mind!! When we got inside it was all dark and our guns were talking like the Borg! It was brilliant, even when Simon knocked me onto the floor and he and Garry just kept shooting me until I was dead! :o) It' was hilarious and tons of fun!

After the fun and games were done for a bit we started eating, had indian first and had a sit down to let our feet recover a bit, we went in and watched the first band, had a bit of a dance and a drink then went back into the restaurant and had a bit more food.
The group split up and went off doing their own thing, it was really nice to be part of a big group, lots of fun and laughter, but also nice to be able to split off and do our own thing a bit.

Garry and I found somewhere to sit down to sample the mexican and chinese fayre, all the food was lovely, apart from the duck Garry had was a bit cold :o( manfully he struggled on and then we went back out into the marquee for more music, this time a ska/reggae band who got most everyone dancing and having a great time! The band were brilliant and I danced with Beth, then Simon and then Beth & Simon, then Angie & Beth, then Angie, Beth & Helen!! There was a lot of drinking (except by me who was driving) so things got silly:





Garry found the masks:



Then as Garry and I were heading for the bus, a Dodgems re-match started:



You'll be pleased to know that's the last of the pictures.

Garry and I got back to Beths just after 1am, both quite knackered but having had a brilliant time. We both had quite difficult and demanding weeks and without our Friday "Chill" Session we were really starting to feel it, so I drove us home double quick time, we got changed and made a cup of tea, but fell asleep in no time with the light still on and our cups of tea sitting untouched. I woke up at about 4am and turned off the light, but we were crashed and completely out of it until well after noon Saturday.

We woke up hungry and started searching for somewhere doing all-day-breakfast (the Wetherspoons only does it until noon) which we found, with the aid of google, a little place on Wellesbourne Airfield called "The Touchdown Cafe." It turned out to be a wonderful 'greasy spoon' place that served the most amazing food, we started with chocolate cake while we waited and the cake was all homemade, the food was all cooked fresh and although it took a bit longer to get they do really well at keeping you entertained, aviation maps under the glass on the table tops and little planes taking off and landing right outside the window. Breakfast (even though it was 2pm) tasted like heaven and we were full when we left for a very reasonable price!

We headed over to the Wellesbourne market and happily wandered around picking up a new duvet cover set and some extra sheets, a huge chopping board for on top of the washing machine (which tends to get used as an extra 'side') Garry bought some tool bits as well. We stopped at the Wyevale Garden Centre on the way past, saw some gorgeous little dragon garden gargoyles and bought some yummy biscuits to take home and dunk in tea. We stopped off at Tesco on the way home because there was no food in the house, apart from a great sufficiency of beans, cheese and eggs :o) then went to Boots for Hydrogen Peroxide and WHSmith to look at frames. While in WHSmith we noticed a 3 for 2 offer that was too good to miss!

I will say about WHSmith, they have the strangest book classification system I've ever seen! James Herbert was seperated and mixed up between "Sci-Fi & Fantasy" and "Self-Help" The alphabet according to WHS goes 'M' 'L' 'P' 'H' etc, it was all very strange. I found "David Eddings" in "General Fiction A-Z" under 'R' *boggle*
We bought the two "Science of the Discworld" books, two James Herbert and I bought the first "Wheel of Time" Book (my favourite of all 10) and "Belgarath the Sorceror" (one of my two favourites of David Eddings).

We came home with our little haul, made tea (which we actually drank this time) and watched "Ice Age" while we dunked ginger, and lemon biscuits in our tea, very relaxing and calming, funny film and nice togetherness. About 8pm I started getting ready, reprised my make-up of Friday night with less volume and sorted out re-straightening my rats nest hair (after the wind and rain at Wellesbourne) before we got dressed and drove to park at the Swans Nest.

Since we've been together for 6 months, we decided it would be really nice to have dinner out, at the Thai Boathouse, the first place Garry took me for dinner all those years months ago! :o) We had lovely mixed satay stick starter with peanut sauce, followed by Thai Green Curry with Jasmine Rice, and Southern Thai Chicken.
We had a table by the riverside, and laughed a bit about the behaviour of the massive flocks of geese and swans on the river, until it became a bit "Stephen King" weird, then we were glad we were inside!

I gave Garry the present I had bought to commemorate our 6 months together, a pair of rings, both carved from the same piece of hematite, one for Garry and one for me. I retired the silver and onyx promise ring Jason gave me after our first year together, I have always worn it on the third finger of my right hand, mostly because I really like it, I've always loved silver and onyx. But the silver has worn so thin, it gives me callouses and it's got a bitter after-taste, Jason 'promised' me after our first year together, 13 years later I was still waiting for that promise, so it was time to retire it.

Now I'm wearing my hematite ring on that finger, and Garry is chopping and changing between wearing it beneath his silver Egyptian puzzle ring (middle finger of his left hand) and the middle finger of his right hand next to the ring his mum gave him when he turned 16. When he decides how it feels best he'll settle on a configuration I imagine.

The restaurant is great, the staff are attentive but not overly so, we both commented on the fact that their co-ordination and communication was brilliant, for the first two courses we weren't served by the same person twice, yet the next person always knew exactly what had gone before, it was really good service!! Lovely dinner, good company and plenty of good cheer, but we were both obviously still feeling quite banjaxed by the weekend so far, so we ate dessert (chocolate ice cream) and headed back home for a bit of rado and bed!

Up at 08:00 Sunday (almost unheard of) we got up and had coffee, got dressed and filled a thermos with coffee before he got on the road again, this time towards Northampton. We made good time on Garrys route, heading for the Billing Aquadrome through the drizzle and the TR Drivers Club weekend Day 2! I don't have any of the pictures from this, Garry downloaded from the camera onto the computer but I forgot to upload them to photobucket before I left.

We got wet, very wet, we browsed through Triumph car parts, had a look at carpeting, watched a film-reel that was playing of the cars racing during their hey-day and ate bacon rolls. We had a good nose around the TR7's and TR8's that were on display, had a bit of a snigger at the ones without working clocks and talked a lot about the options and choices that will need to be made for Rosie as her restoration proceeds. Shortly after lunch we realised that there wasn't going to be an actual 'event' as such, it was more of a chance to see the cars up close, see the rally colours and the different specs of the TR7, look at the interiors etc.

The day was very valuable, even though we both felt we'd been on our feet too long this weekend, it helped us in a few very important ways:
1) It helped get us fired up and enthusiastic about the project again, we'd sort of reached a stalemate, losing our drive for the restoration, in a bit of a "have we bitten off more than we can chew" sort of way. Sunday helped us to put it all back into perspective and get our 'oomph' back to get re-started again.
2) It helped us to decide what we definitely DON'T want for Rosie, we don't want her to look as though she's trying to be something she's not, some of the TR7's we saw had obvious bodykits which made them look much different to the original TR7, and we don't want that. We don't want the "all mod-cons" look either.

In some ways though, it threw up as many prospective decisions as it did answers, Garry is torn between keeping Rosie in her original 2.0 litre condition and only upgrading the things that really "need" doing, but he also really wants to upgrade to the V8 for performance and speed. Sunday didn't really help solve that conundrum, but it's not a decision that needs to be made right now, there's still a fair amount of work needs doing before that bridge needs crossing.

The drive home was a bit of a thoughtful one, plenty of chat about what we'd seen and the weekend in general. We got home and settled down to chill and watch "The Goonies" which neither of ius have seen for a while, Garry made eggy-bakey sangers and we polished them off quick smart, had baths and then had rice pudding and hot chocolate before bed. Yummy!!

This morning the alarm started nagging us to get up at 6am but we successfully ignored it until half past. Garry got up and made toast and coffee, brought in juice and then we had breakfast in bed together before I got up and got dressed ready to leave. Garrys breakfast on Mondays really sets me up for the day, Mondays are always so hectic, the traffic is unpredictable so I'm never sure if I'm going to be dashing about right from the start, but when I have to hit the ground running as I did this morning, having had a nice breakfast, coffee and juice really makes up for the fact that I often don't stop for a drink again until mid-afternoon!!

This week J is on holiday and the handover we did Friday didn't actually cover all the outstanding stuff that she had going on, I got a few big surprises today, emails and last minute travel arrangements, somethings she'd noted on her list that she'd done, it turned out she hadn't so I played catch-up for most of today. I finally got around to starting actual work just after 3pm and stuck at it until 17:45. I left late but got a lot done, I feel like I have a handle on what's going on which is nice.

Unfortunately I left late, and about five minutes after a fairly nasty accident by the looks of it, a Toyota had gone up the back of a Smart car and shunted it onto the pavement where it looked like it'd hit a pedestrian! I was momentarily a bit "woe is me" about the traffic, especially when I'd got stuck on the M1 this morning after an accident, but then I started thinking about the people involved in the crash, sent my best wishes to them and their families and waited patiently until I could get through. Counting my Blessings, at least is wasn't me or my loved ones involved, but my heart goes out to the people it was.

On that slightly melancholy note, I am going to stop here and get this posted. I've been working on it for the best part of two hours and I need a drink!! I'm going to spend the rest of this week trying to relax a bit and be good to myself to recover from the weekend, as fun and unmissable as it was!

Comments

[dogologist.livejournal.com]

Wow - looks like you had quite a night!! Fabulous pics :)

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

It was amazing!! I hope we get invited next year as well!!

[maetang.livejournal.com]

It's nice to see you having fun. :^)

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it's nice to be having fun, and consistent fun if you understand me? It's not high points of fun surrounded by depression, life is good!
*big Amy bear-hugs*

[probetech.livejournal.com]

Fantastic Hon - nice to see you so happy :) Our very best wishes to you!

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

Thank you both xx

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Wow, busy weekend indeed! You look fab in your frock too, corset is great and the purple of that skirt is luvverly, me most envious. Also a bit impressed with the giant scalextrix and the dodgems. way cool, thanks for posting so many pics, everyone looks like they're having such fun :)

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

It was seriously impressive!! I had to make sure I immortalised the event, and I hope we'll be invited next year as well. There are more pictures on facebook if you fancy having a nosey about? *hugs*

[nannyjan.livejournal.com]

Looks like great fun was had by all! :-)

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

It was, and we have a standing invitation to the usual Friday-night get together that the other 6 have every week which is nice. We likely won't take them up on it for a while though.

[swish103.livejournal.com]

Phew! I'm tired just reading about your weekend! Glad you had a greta time though :)

[zahryn.livejournal.com]

We agreed it was a brilliant weekend, but we don't want to be doing it too often, we need veg time as well and we're not getting much of that at the moment.