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My so called lifeWelcome to my cyber alter-ego
March 04 A Late Birthday updateFor those who didn't know I am now 25!
I tried to avoid contemplating the full meaning of this by having a week long party.... so thanks to everyone involved
Tue 13th - Round Andrew and Laura's for dinner and a new colour and cut - Thanks hun I've had nothing but compliments!
Wed 14th - Valentines day of Pizza and a movie..... thanks for the roses and especially thank you for the Apple Ipod Hi-Fi it certainly added some soulfull moods to the evening!
Thu 15th - A great night in with the work girls gorging myself on Chinese and drinking far too much wine... great night, great company and a great send off for the flat! I'm so lucky to meet you guys xxx
Fri 16th - A night out with Daddy! Went to Ben Bowers....... fantastic food thoroughly recommended, bit slow on the back end and next time I'll sit upstairs.
Sat 17th - The Big one! Reserved a space in Pitcher and Piano and thanks to the 23 of you who turned up throughout the night! Despite having a bloody good time I don't think there are any great anecdotes to report unless I was too drunk to notice I was one!
Sun 18th - Ant's surprise - and what a surprise it was. After dropping Ranja off at Luton, Ant admitting he had no idea where in the country my surprise was and then getting there to find out he'd booked the wrong night! But it was made up by the beautiful hotel he'd chosen:
We enjoyed an evening in with a beautiful 3 course meal and an early night
Mon 19th - Got up from our four poster bed to a great full english breakfast and then off to Rye a little Sussex coastal village that was once an island defending us from the French. We climbed a rickety church tower that I'm sure has never been checked by a health and safety warden and quite frankly scared the living daylights out of me coming down! But the view was fabulous and on our way out we strolled down the famous Mermaid Street and had a quick beer in front of a huge fire in a local and cramped pub.
We then went to Canterbury which I really liked and will definitely return when I have more time, the Cathedral was breathtaking and the streets beautiful.
Tue 20th - Off to Trafford Centre with my Mum and Sis to spend money I don't have! Had a thoroughly girly day with the bonus of being treated to tapas half way through.
Phew I'm poor and exhausted!
February 22 Better late than never!Here's an entry meant for the 26th of Jan.....
I've just come back from a weekend in London - one which I deemed was much needed after an emotional week at work after receiving my pay review.... however what started off well as a relaxing Friday night in with my friend's not so good home cooked food (a point that in the seven years I've known her seems to have not registered with her yet - all I can say is it involved unnaturally florescent green creamed spinach poured over everything!) Saturday eating Sushi in Camden, watching Avenue Q at the theatre (highly recommended if you're likely to find muppets shagging amusing) and ending it with some cocktails in a trendy bar getting to know the first nice French person I've ever met.... I was bordering on forgetting how stressful my life was.
Then Sunday morning I left my friends in Finsbury Park to meet my other friend (my little Pi Pi... I know she's one of you favourites) who was visiting from Denmark to grab some lunch in Sloane Sq and go to see the Cirque du Soleil at the Albert Hall, I was then going to meet my sister (age 16) who was in London for the day with her boyfriend to give them a lift home. However this is not quite how the day went! I took all my stuff out of my friends house in the morning as she was leaving for the day....as usual about half an hour late to meet Pi and realising I didn't write the number she'd e-mailed me to contact her on so already freaking out slightly. Got to my car to find that I hadn't paid enough attention to the Permit parking sign and it was not in fact Monday to Friday but Monday to Saturday = £100 ticket..... grrrrr! Opened my car to dump my stuff in the boot and I can hear this music....odd..... then realised it was my car radio despite me not having any keys in the ignition....!!! Walked round to turn it off and as suspected by battery was completely dead! Put a call in to the AA and went to lock the car to return to my friends house and wait.....only it didn't lock.... the battery was so dead that now even the remote locking was refusing to work! No worries I have a key there must be a key hole somewhere (to be found on the passenger door - clearly logical) that doesn't work! So I have to sit in my car in the January cold and wait for the AA....... Thankfully Pi then text to say she too was running late so I could finally call her! Like the good friend she is she offered to pick some sandwiches up and join me for an in car picnic! So I waited..... then out of nowhere my radio blasted on as I sat there (even though the batteries so dead it can't even lock or turn an inside light on and again no key in the ignition!) AA man and Pi arrived, we started the car and pulled the fuse out the radio! We're then stuck with the task of driving it around for an hour to make sure it's not dead again when I come back to it that night. I didn't fancy driving further into London (it has only been 3 months since I passed and getting to Finsbury Park was scary enough, plus I had nearly knocked a cyclist over while turning left! sorry fellow injured cyclist!) so we concluded on Wembley..... lots of parking, near the M1 for home and relatively straight forward to get to! So with Pi telling me of her inspirations to be a rally car map reader and how she may add this experience to he CV, we found our way to a FREE carpark in London woooh! Although with the day I was having I had my doubts as the pay and display sign simply omitted Sunday rather than stating it was free and it made me nervous. We got on the tube and ate our sandwiches thinking at 1.50 we still had more than enough time to make our 3pm show start time..... Only Green Park has a ridiculously long walk from the Jubilee line to the Piccadilly line and Knightsbridge station despite my confidence is not that near the Albert Hall (not helped by the fact we walked 5 mins in the wrong direction thanks to Pi's unquestioning belief in this misguided confidence!) So by the end we were running (not my strong point) along with a Dad and his young lad....... thankfully I looked ok keeping up with a 7 year old! We just made it and me and Pi parted as she had booked her seat before thinking to invite me so we were sitting separately. The performance was fabulous and after the first half I was just starting to feel normal again until I looked in my bag for my phone to locate Pi.......... and it wasn't there.........it was on the dashboard in my car in Wembley........b******ks! Not only could I not find Pi but it dawned on me that my 16 year old sister who has only been to London once and never where she's had to navigate herself around had not been able to contact me for the last T4 hours despite me reassuring her the day before that I was on hand to help....... half the lines were closed for engineering work and I had never got round to telling her what tube station the Science museum was at - bad sis! So I spent the second half of the performance concerned for the safety of my car all alone in a desolate car park with my phone flashing like a great beacon of light as my poor sister tried to contact me! After the performance Pi offered me her phone so I had to strategically use the remaining £3.27 credit to co-ordinate a rendezvous with my sister and get back to car which hopefully was still in tact, with a fully charged battery, with no ticket for illegal parking and in a carpark where they hadn't closed the gates for the night! It was mostly a day of intense paranoia just what you need to face another week at VE......... ......... So I called in sick Monday! Here your link to a fantastically funny show - http://www.avenueqthemusical.co.uk/?gclid=CICY7PCEw4oCFQQMZgodMH5q_A
And here's your link to the most breathtaking thing I think I've ever seen - http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/alegria/intro/intro.htm
December 07 Hewson Family TreeI see someone today came across this site by searching for Castle Hewson on MSN, as I don't know who you were I thought I'd write this to help!
My Dad's 2nd cousin has my family line back to the 1600s of which much was interelated to Castle Hewson in Askeaton, C.Limerick. Please do leave a message and I'll happily put you in contact with him as I know how hard this research lark can be.
The time and effort he has put unto it is quite astonishing and any member of our Hewson family is very lucky to have him (I too came across him quite by accident).
I also do have a e-mail contact for the son of the last resident of the property (Francis Hewson) although his response to my query was somewhat short and sweet... I don't bite honest!
To the rest of you, yes I am of aristocratic blood - wasn't it already quite obvious tee hee... one day I will pilgrimage to my Castle and reminisce of the distant memory of having money!!
November 21 Bitten off more than you can chew?I still can't get over this... a 13ft Burmese python in Florida has tried to swallow an alligator WHOLE!! ... then exploded!!!
The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park.
November 06 Catch up....I know, I've been bad... at this rate I'll be sounding like every other blog on the web that is made up of bi-annual entries with apologies for not writing sooner!
I have been somewhat distracted with my new addiction that is I-Tunes... and the accompanying Ipod is due any day soon - tee hee! Although I was somewhat disappointed to discover that despite considering myself an avid music collector my entire catalogue only totalled 700 songs I actually liked... barely enough for a Nano!
I have also PASSED MY DRIVING TEST!!! 27 months, 7 attempts, 2 theories and one speeding ticket later.... I'm quite exhausted!
I had decided a while ago that this was worth a big announcement however thanks to my uselessness at putting any time to this site recently 3 weeks has now passed and the moment is gone!
Other main news is:
Kasia coming over.... thanks hun it was so great to see you I will hopefully return the favour in the new year...
Ant turning 29... what can I say but ha hahaahah!....
My sister moving in with Mum... Glad to see you so happy...
Dan coming out with me on the piss... you're welcome any time!...
Ilkeston fair... chav fest!
The American Adventure Spooktacular... rollorcoaster rides at night, great fireworks and meeting Sam n Amy....what more could you want for £5.99...
Plus a trips to York, a couple of walks in the Peak District and eating great food and laughing at posh girls in Oundle!
few... hopefully won't leave it quite so long next time!
September 21 Ant's 5 minutes...You see the thing with barbering is that you don't half meet a lot of people... and from a lot of walks of life. It definitely comes in handy going out with a barber when you need a tradesman or a driving instructor, even someone to pray for you on your umpteenth job interview!
Well a few weeks ago a couple of lads ran into Ant's shop with fire extinguishers and sprayed them all over the shop and it's customers...
They filmed this throughout thanks to the wonder of mobile phones then turned round and went for a pint over the road!
Ant called the police... and waited...
About 25 mins later they saw the lads leave the pub, they continued to throw abuse at Ant, my Dad and the customers who were now on the street following the air in the shop being somewhat difficult to breathe in!
At this point my Dad spotted a police car sitting in a near by lay by and ran over...
"They've gone down that road" he shouted, "If you go now you can get them"
"Hello sir, can I first ask you a couple of questions..."
Following a frustrating 10 minute conversation, they finally drove off to "catch" the criminals... and unsurprisingly returned empty handed.
They took some statements and said they were unable to help further as the were from Eastwood police station (hence they'd taken so long) and any further action would have to be taken up by Beeston Police (who despite being round the corner had been unavailable that day)
So after a week of hearing nothing and having to listen to many a client repeating stories of police incompetence, my Dad went into Beeston Station to make a complaint.
The supervising Officer finally appeared after 20 mins of waiting followed by a threat of walking out... she said it was all in hand and someone would be in on Monday to see them.
In the mean time Ant had a client in from BBC Radio Nottingham who seemed quite amused by the story and said he could do something with it, Dad said no he wanted to wait if anyone turned up first...
By Wednesday Dad rang the guy back.
Next they know they've got a man in the shop with a camera! They not only got about 10 minutes of my Dad babbling on the morning show on the radio but it appeared twice on the morning local news bulletin on BBC 1!!
Ranja ran the figures for me (Thanks) and it was seen by 56,000 people! The following day the supervising officer called my Dad from home and 2 officers appeared on the shop... but more importantly every day since at least one person has turned up and mentioned they saw us on the telly!! Nothing like a bit of free advertising...!!
One night in York is hard to findFirst of all I'd like to say...
***Kasia's coming to the UK!***
And as I love her so much and i don't need much excuse for a party, I not only offered to meet her in London on the first weekend she's here, I offered to trek to York to keep her company on the second weekend too!
But is it possible to get a one night stay in any hotel or B&B in York for less than £149 a night? Is it bollocks! I went to Travelodge... full, went to Holiday Inn (all 3)... full, went to Novotel... full, went to Ramada Jarvis... full, went to Hilton... full.
I'm thinking this is ridiculous, what on earth is gonna fill all the major chain hotels in York with 3 weeks still to go? Went on Lastminute... nothing under £180, went to Yell.com... nothing under £!49, Laterooms... and their all min 2 night stay...
After 90 mins I was starting to despair, then a thought entered my head following Laterooms... went back to Travelodge and low and behold, put 2 nights in and they have rooms... tons of them! The Holiday Inn showed a similar story... and so on
What is this? A bloody fix I say... what happened to a short weekend break or is it all long weekends these days?
So I am now staying 9 miles out in Selby in a small 4* hotel in Selby... what happened to Northern hospitality eh? September 17 I'M SICK!Who gets colds in September? My weekend's gone to pot, I can't even write this without my nose dribbling on the keyboard... and you know I'll be miraculously well in time for work tomorrow... typical! September 12 Ilkeston RamblersAs it was such a beautiful evening me and Ant decided to take a stroll down the canal... however thanks to Ant's belief that a particular path was an old train line and my belief it lead to the canal we ended up in the heart of Cotmanhay council estate...
If this wasn't unnerving enough, my refusal to back track meant we were on the wrong side of the canal and there was no path... certain there would be a bridge shortly we embarked across a field running near the canal...
Sadly this path deteriorated into brambles... and since we were now atleast 20 minutes off track and 20 minutes closer to sunset I was even more determined to find a bridge...
So Ant set about hacking his way through the 4 foot high blackberry bush mixed with nettles armed with little more than a foot - bless him...
The further we went the more determined we got, and found ourself giggling as we reminisced about exploring as kids... we forgot the frequent scratches and stings from local foliage and often waved at passing walkers looking strangly at us from the other side of the canal.
We had to overcome the struggle of large trees, nasty weeds, masses of Daddy Long Legs and the fear that the route which not only had a canal on one side but now a high steel fence on the other would become inpenatrable and we'd be fucked!!
At one point the ground went into the canal and we had to climb a wooden fence into this 2 foot gap between that and the high steel fence to avoid sinking... This added an extra element of feeling trapped as we fumbled our way through... then just when I thought we couldn't go any further and we'd now have to walk an hour back in the dark just to get out. Ant climbed back over the wooden fence and let out a yell of delight as we had stumbled into a pub's back garden!!
We had found our Oasis and stopped in for a well earned drink, rounding the night off with some Domino's on one of the tables... I was sorely beaten of course! September 11 I'M ON GOOGLE!! I made it!!After months of changing my profile, writing my name over and over again, registering my site on Google (Thanks for trying Tineke) and the false hope that if enough people visited search engines may consider me important enough to mention....
But all I needed was darling JJ to link me on his extra special hand built site with qualities Windows Live seems unable to achieve and I can now join my brother and sister as the third of the only known existing Knox-Hewson's on Google so...
THANKYOU!!
Commercialised Crap
This is Land's End A place once renowned for it's natural beauty and panoramic views... Now replaced with a bad version of Blackpool Pleasure Beach... As much as I understand it's a rather long way to go to have nothing to do, but they haven't even had the courtuesy to build it a bit back off the coast line, no it swallows the peninsular with it's burger vans, tacky rides and arcades. The famous sign is dwarfed by it all and can be easily missed, then once you find it you discover they want you to pay to take a photo! How bloody ridiculous... so here's a picture, thanks to a zoom lens from the pub! August 30 We're all going on a summer holiday!Well we've been!!
I've just returned from 5 days in Newquay... I have faced my dislikes of British seaside resorts, comercialised tourist spots and camping... and actually managed to have a good time!
We had a great tent, great company, great weather and great locally made cider!! We shopped in Newquay, Sunbathed on Fistral Bay, Ate yummy homemade pasties in St Ives, not paid to have your photo taken at the sign in Lands End, explored the rainforest at the Eden Project, had great food at Lusty Glaze, had not so great food at Jamaica inn and toured a castle younger then my Grandma at Castle Drogo.
August 22 Who wants to do work anyways?!!Following my 7 day week ending with a 13 and a half hour Saturday stint I found the perfect stress reliever:
Bring on the long weekend in Newquay!! August 18 It's been a hard days night...I'm on day 6 of a 7 day working week and am home alone dreading another 6.45 alarm call!
I've come home to discover our shitty digi box is refusing to turn on AGAIN and I am left with little choice but to watch a 3 hour Big Brother final. I had a dinner of left over curry and microwave rice that has made me feel sick, and I'm chosing to ignore our poor little little fish who are in desperate need of a clean...
Mostly I'm just feeling depressed that it has been over 2 weeks and my life is so uninteresting I've found nothing to say!
August 02 Home Sweet HomeThis is a hilarious entry from chavtowns.co.uk... but I promise I'm only here coz of the cheap house prices!!
"Ilkeston (pronounced by locals Ilston), The home of many a washed up loser. (at school a kid from Ilkeston = tramp!) The chavs love this place, they will never leave and prefer to hang around and multiply. To describe Ilkeston i would have to say that it is a throw back mining town. Traditionally it was a place for men who worked and played hard. It is situated on the border of nottingham and derby, therefore it has a split football team fan base. Ilkeston is also well known for being a racist town, (half my friends are scared to visit me, but I promise I haven't seen any burning crosses and there was a black bloke on the bus this morning!!). you can see the bnp out there with a stall asking for people to vote for them (Yes my weekly news letter during the last election made for interesting reading). Mind you they do turn out nice with ironed clothes and polished boots, which is more than can be said for the rest of its population (Are you sure? Our local BNP MP looks like an 18 year old overweight school bully with too much hairspray and oversized earings!).
The nightlife starts on a thursday and continues till sunday night, with friday being the busiest. (I promise I've never dared go out on the town!!) All the local pubs are situated round the "top"of town. The prefered method to drink is have one in every pub in quick sucession and continue in a lap of the town. Past eleven it is off to The Vaults. This is a haven for the drug taking chav youth, they wear the latest tracksuits and fake burberry. the women all have kids, which i am sure are left with microchips and a dvd of shrek to keep them occupied. (And we are privileged enough to live next to the head bouncer!) Everywhere has frequent fights and its the only place on earth where a signal to fight is purley by looking at someone. The tattoo's are abundant and on display and the lads all have football insignia tattoo's. After the pubs its off to one of the plentiful fast food establishments. Most of these people eat at these place for all three main meals and probably pop to McDonalds for a quick snack. A fight outside any of these places rarley raises an eyebrow (McDonalds does have it's own security and the loos shut at 6pm). The general youth or chavs of the town are into awful cars looking like they have been covered in velcro and ram raided halfords, none have tax or mots and insurance is a joke. You are cool if you have been to prison, deal drugs, beat people up for no reason, have several kids with different women and fiddle the dole and have a council house. All in all a very dim town with no prospects and no nice people (Except me!!) . the place needs to be fenced off and kept seperate from ordinary people. i could go on for days about how bad this place really is, but i dont want to bore you. I work all over the country and have seen some so called "bad" places, but this puts them in the shade." Any one fancy coming over for tea and biscuits!! Microsoft stop messing with my life!!What happened? You've sent my space all strange!!!
 July 28 Maybe The Pearl should be returned to the bottom of the sea!!Me & Ant have just come back from an enlightening visit to The Pearl in West Bridgford. It is a recently refurbed Chinese that everyone's raving about and given it's pay day and good weather it was pretty rammed with the adjacent bar causing queues down the street.
But before you get excited I must give you a rundown of our eating experience:
We sat down and in perfect English man style picked one of the set menu's for 2 (as it saved reading the menu) along with a large bottle of still water.
Shortly after a long came the prawn crackers closely followed by a chicken and sweetcorn soup. All would be well only our set meal didn't have soup... the more expensive meal for 2 did.
In true uncomplaining English man style we ate it thinking that it was at least tasty and we were willing to sacrifice the ribs out of our set menu as long as we explained to the waiter that we wanted the mains from the correct meal.
I spotted a British waiter and reckoned this complicated mis-communication may be easier to explain to him, alas he looked confused.
"That is the cheaper set meal" he said,
I said that I'm sure it wasn't but I would still like the mains that go with the ribs starter as that is what we ordered.
"But you will, it's the tray of hors d'oeuvres next"
"No I want the other one with the sweet and sour and stuff".
He went off to ask someone... how difficult can this be there are only 2 set meals for 2!
The original waiter came over, I explained we wanted the meal that started with ribs but it was fine we had soup just could we have the correct mains.
In the mean time the British guy comes over with a tray of hors d'oervres.
"No not this one this is £18.50 a head I want the one that is £16.00 a head"
They both looked blank... it is odd I thought that I know the menu better than tham after a 3 minute perusal.
I finally got them to bring the menu over and pointed at the cheaper set meal, they both let out a big "aaaah" as the penny dropped and went off to find us some ribs...
In the mean time 2 other waiters came over and asked us of we were the ones that had ordered the Magners and the Gin.
No....
Out came the ribs...
We re-asked the British waiter for our bottle of water... he brought sparkling... we luckily caught him before he openened it
The ribs were great although we now felt rather full.... (the taste of the food was at least one thing this restau | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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