Time to catch up

When I've mentioned about my gossip well I have been misleading you - it's not really gossip - more adventures :-)  So here we go - let me take you back to the beginning of June, the flat was apparently on the market, I was in  a mixed up place but a meeting with my fellow friends over at roger-taylor.net was planned for the first weekend in June - so this is that story!!  I shall try and update you a day at a time - don't wanna bore you with too much detail lol ;-)  Enjoy xx

FRIDAY 2nd JUNE 2006

 

Trina arrived at mine around 8.30am and we made our way into town to have a bacon sandwich.  Our train wasn’t until 10ish, so we had a leisurely breakfast and a cup of tea.  Afterwards we made our way to the newsagents across the road to stock up on snacks for the train ~ didn’t want to pay the train prices lol………Luckily we managed to catch the bus which had turned up.  Our train was on time but there were a lot of people waiting to get on.  Trina had pre-booked our seats so we went to get on Coach C.  There were quite a few people getting off and so we waited for them to leave first.  Unfortunately there was a slight gap in between the people getting off and this lady and her family pushed past everyone who had been waiting patiently to climb aboard and started to make her way on the train.  The last of the people wanting to get off came out and one lady huffed ‘It would be nice if we could actually get off the train.’  I couldn’t help thinking how rude those people had been to get on like that, if it had been Trina or I there would have been repercussions you could bet on that.  Anyway I huffed about it and we went to find our seats.  When we managed to find them, someone had left the seat but his jacket was still there.  The lady sitting opposite (it was a table seat) said ‘someone’s sitting there’.  This annoyed me further and I huffed about that quite loudly ~ not thinking for one second it was the person’s family that had told us he was sitting there.  We found a couple of empty seats behind and once we had sat down I started moaning about the woman who had pushed on.  Of course she was standing next to me at this point and had a go back at me.  This day was not shaping out to be very good at all!!  The next thing to happen the seats we were in were booked from Taunton onwards ~ so Trina and I spent the rest of the journey (only until Bristol) in the corridor L  We did keep ourselves amused by moaning on about that woman until one of her kids walked past and then that amused us even more as it was obvious that I’d told Trina to shut up lol…  Little things………….

 

We got off that train in Bristol and made our way to the connecting one.  Trina was panicking as we had about 12 minutes to make it.  I was hoping that the woman who I’d argued with wasn’t following us.  Luckily she didn’t and the train we got on was quiet J  we also managed to find our booked seats and they were empty ~ yay!!  We had a nice relaxing rest of the journey, listening to my walkman.  Trina kept getting texts from Sam who was coming down from up north, and Sarah who was stuck at work in London, supposed to be training someone who had gone elsewhere.  She had said that she had bumped into the German ladies earlier that day and they had got to London okay ~ we had all been panicking as Brigitte wanted to be woken up early in case she missed the flight!!

  Trina and I on the train :-)

Eventually the train pulled into London and I asked Trina to send the girls a text to say we had arrived.  Luckily the hotel we had all booked into wasn’t far from Paddington train station so we made our way there.  The girl’s texted back saying they were enjoying a drink in the sunshine but would make their way back soon.  It was a beautiful day, beginning to get quite warm.  Once we got to the hotel Trina booked us in ~ even though Sarah had made the booking and we went upstairs to check out our room.  It was a triple room apparently, but it turned out to be tiny, hot, with a double bed and a camp bed, and no room to swing a cat (not that you would do that coz that’s just cruel – where did that saying come from?? _ Note to self look that up!!) 

 Our ridiculously small room!!

We were concerned coz we had planned to smuggle Sam into our room and there wasn’t really enough room for her.  We managed to get the window open for some air and found a fan J  After refreshing ourselves up a bit we went downstairs to wait in the lounge area.  Trina thought the girls (aka Brigitte, Eliza or otherwise known as Tina and Coops or otherwise known as Sandra) were at reception but it wasn’t so!!  A few minutes later and they turned up so it was hugs and hello’s all round.  I couldn’t believe I was finally meeting them ~ it was so cool!! 

  The german ladies - left to right - Eliza, Coops and Brigitte

 We all sat in the lounge area chatting for a while and I gave them the little pink elephant key rings which I had purchased specially (don’t ask it’s a long story ;-).   The girl’s decided to go and check in to find out what their room was like after hearing our story, so they left us alone for a while.  When they came back downstairs they took us up to show what their room looked like.  Trina and I nick-named it the ballroom as it was much larger than ours.  They did have the camp bed and double bed like we did but there was so much more room to move.  Eventually we went back downstairs to wait for the rest of the gang to turn up.  Sarah turned up about 4.30pm I think, Sam had gone to Jamie’s to drop off the bass guitar she’d brought down for Jamie so we were just waiting for them to get back and stayed in the lounge waiting…………..Once they did turn up they took Sam’s luggage upstairs and they tried to rearrange the room so they could fit her in better.  They moved the little cupboard which was between the double bed and the camp bed to the other side of the camp bed.  It did look a bit more spacious…………

 Around 6ish we all decided to go and find somewhere to eat.  We ended up in an Italian Restaurant not far from the hotel. 

  That's us in the restaurant.  Sam & Jamie at the back, Cooper and Sarah next along the table, then Trina and Eliza and me :-)

 I had a chicken kiev thing (not very Italian lol), but it was very nice.  Got some comments from my mates as I didn’t eat my broccoli – don’t like it what can I say??  Our waiter was a bit of a character and made us laugh.  Especially towards the end when he brought this cup of coffee over to Trina.  She said she hadn’t ordered one and he tipped it over her.  She freaked out and of course it wasn’t real……….LOL.  Her face was a picture!!  Apparently he did the same thing to Coops. 

  - Trina and Sam on the tube.

After some nosh and a few beers we moved on to a pub in the Kings Road where we met Gabriel (Jamie’s boyfriend).  The DJ there was playing rock music so that was a good sign.  We managed to find a table and stayed there until the pub was closing. 

At one point the DJ played ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ so that got Sarah and Jamie up dancing and the rest of us singing very loudly.  The whole pub were looking at us ~ but it certainly got the place alive!!

 Brigitte and Sandra would often go for a fag to a different part of the pub so I would go with them ~ trying to be sociable lol……Anyway as the pub was fairly busy we would sit at a table which was currently occupied by two others, who were very nice.  A bloke and a woman, who went to the loo or something, whilst she was gone my friends were talking in German and mentioned the words beef tea.  Obviously it’s not spelt like that but that’s what it sounded like coz the bloke we were sitting with assumed they were talking about oxo drinks, which he likes.  It was quite amusing!!  The next time we went up there, there was a different bloke and woman sat there.  They introduced themselves and then enquired why the girls had pink elephants on their t-shirts.  We tried to explain it was a long story (which it is) and we couldn’t tell him.   (Hint hint I won’t tell you guys now lol)  The reason they were asking is because they were both from Africa.  The DJ played some Foo’s J  and Placebo, so Trina was happy.  The DJ said if you get a chance go and see Placebo live, which Trina had so she readily agreed. 

        That's Jamie and Gabriel (I'm not sure that's how you spell his name oops!!)  Pics from the pub :-) 

 The pub was closing so we all left and made our way to the tube.  Jamie and Gabriel were going in a different direction to the rest of us so pictures were taken across the platforms. Eventually we arrived back at thehotel, sat around chatting for a bit andthen went to bed.  The temperature was hot and stifling so we slept with the window open.  Trina and I were in the double bed, Sarah on the camp bed and Sam on the floor by the door.   As it was a Friday night and the window were open, it seemed very noisy outside, plus the heat didn’t help ~ I don’t recall sleeping much that night.

  - Sarah on the collapsed camp bed!!

 

Sorry about the different fonts - I couldn't help it :(  Part two aka Saturday coming soon xx