Bank holiday weekend (and a bit!)

So… Bank Holiday weekend and Resistanz in Sheffield..

It’s at this point that I have to admit that I didn’t take many photos over the weekend. I have attached the ones I did take below… later on, I have got a couple which were stolen from various friends. To step back a little bit, here is a roundup of what has been going on in the World of Vicky..

Thursday 28 th

A full day at work. This was a bit of a novelty – as between training, leave and general gadding about – I hadn’t been in very much in March. I made some headway on my project and booked my training course in Cardiff. I’m quite looking forward to it, but a bit nervous as it’s only me going this time! I did some of the monthly reporting and went out with the lads from Performance after work. We went to a favourite pub of mine, the Wellington, which is a real old man’s pub in Central Birmingham. The boys needed a bit of a vent, as they are having rather a hard time at work at the moment – so I gave them one of my patented pep talks and generally tried to cheer them up… what I SHOULD have been doing was packing for the festival – but, c’est la vie! I didn’t get home late, but did get home too tired to bother doing any of the tasks I was meant too – so me and Dan watched some stuff on TV and had a reasonably early night in preparation.

Good Friday

This was an Early start for a day off… I got up at 7:30 and had a pamper bath (which is certainly less about pampering than it is about sorting myself out for the weekend). I used a lovely Lush bath bomb which changed colour in the water and smelled zingy – so that perked me up in readiness! Next stop was the hairdressers to get my mop top sorted out. I LOVE my hairdressers! I’ve been going to the same place for 10 years now, and they have never failed to make me feel great. If you want to have a nose, head to http://www.indigoblue4hair.com/ -honestly, fantastic! Got my hair cut off into a patented black bob before having a mooch around One Stop. When we got back (with not a minute to spare), we did the last of the washing and some chores before FINALLY packing for Resistanz. Jon turned up on time, so we were on the road for 1:00ish (as planned) and got to Sheffield in good time (with plenty of car raving, of course!).

We were staying in the Copthorne this time, which is a departure from our usual weekends in the Premier inn. The prem seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that there is an event held over Easter Sunday, and as a result have massively inflated their prices – but it wasn’t a problem, as the ‘Thorne was lovely. We pulled into the carpark and saw our good friend Nick – which was a good omen for a weekend filled with friends. After a brief whirlwind of unpacking and getting dressed in “Goth casual,” it was time to head to the Devonshire Cat for drinks and catch-up times!

The Friday played out fairly similarly to Saturday and Sunday, without us being able to go 3 paces without bumping into old friends and people we only get to see once or twice a year. After some delicious food and some different craft beers (honestly, the selection is fantastic – go and have a nose - http://www.devonshirecat.co.uk/), we had a good quarter of the pub filled with an interchangeable group of friends. Dan had left his goth boots in Brum (d’oh) and as he has a bad knee (and the floor of the venue – The Corporation is sold concrete) he made the decision to go back to collect them Saturday morning, so we had a pretty early one. We were in bed by the Rock’n’roll time of 11pm.

Saturday

Dan woke up at 7:15 and jumped in the car to shufty back to Birmingham. I was undecided whether to get up and have a luxurious bath in the hotel or lie there… I ended up snoozing for so long, that I didn’t get up till 8:00. I got a surprise text from my friend Jon inviting me for coffee at the lovely Winter Gardens – so we took a walk into Sheffield at about 9:00am.. the winter gardens really is a fabulous place in Sheffield. We went to a cute little coffee shop (that was playing a good mix of chilled out Dub and reggae inspired music), before going to meet Squeeky, Nate and John Baker at Wetherspoons for some breakfast.

It was lovely to shoot the breeze and have some brekkie to set us up for another big day… after a mooch around the shops, we headed back (with a couple of young’uns who were a bit lost in Sheffield) to quickly get our “swag” on (a term loved by my mate Dave) to prepare for the first band of the day. On Saturday, we hugely enjoyed Ivardensphere and Cease2xist. We swanned around the venue, catching bits and pieces of bands and generally catching up with people. It was a good day, but something was a little strange about the atmosphere (despite people hugely enjoying themselves, on the whole). We didn’t have a late one, as by 1:00am – we were totally shattered! Normally, we are blind drunk at this point (kids, please drink responsibly) but in actual fact we were just really tired and emotionally worn out!

Easter Sunday

Sunday was a really nice day, but mainly due to the events we took part in outside of the venue. We woke up and managed to get to the “Big Resistanz Breakfast” at All Bar One in Sheffield. We weren’t too hungry, so just got a nice coffee and waited for the rabble to arrive. Honestly, I don’t know what the up market pub must have thought, because by the time we left – there were about 20 strange looking goths groaning and generally being hungover in their bar… quite a humorous sight!

We were also booked to go to a friend’s birthday meal at Bungalows and Bears for lunch – so we left All Bar One at about 12:15 to scooch and meet another set of rabble. We bumped into an old friend on the way, so had a nice time having a chat to him and a casual drink whilst waiting for food. By the time everyone else turned up (looking pretty worse for wear after an epic party in a hotel), we were already tucking into our lunch and mentally preparing ourselves for another day of music.

The standout bands of Sunday were definitely Voster and Celldweller for me. The latter was a big surprise, as he kind of sounds like Linkin Park mixed with Pendulum (and I really didn’t think this would appeal to my musical sensibilities). Sunday panned out pretty similarly to Saturday, with a large amount of flitting around chatting to people catching the occasional track. We had a really nice interlude where we went to meet our friends Liz, Liz and Row at the pub (for a bit of a comfy warm break) to have a good catch up and mothers meeting.

So that was that, on the whole. We had a frantic call on Monday morning from one of our friends (Tom Collins – great name) advising that a close mate of ours had been in hospital overnight – so asked if we could take him home, but that wasn’t a problem for us. Not to worry – he’s ok – just suffers with some long term conditions, but it was definitely best to get him back home where he could rest up and recuperate. Said goodbye to a few lovely people who we bumped into at the hotel, before it was back down the motorway to get home to Brum.

We had a very exciting bank holiday Monday *insert sarcasm here* filled with washing, unpacking, food shopping and general lazing around. We both felt like we had been hit by trucks, so we just sat on the sofa for the majority of the day… Tuesday was pretty similar – as after a 12-14 hour sleep, we spent the day eating (we both had an insatiable hunger) and catching up with our TV shows. Summary – Doctor Who, Walking Dead, The Following, Revenge and some cartoons..

Wednesday was a tough day at work. Loads to do and no idea where to start! Still, got through it (had a few meetings to go to, which broke the day up) and enjoyed the walk to and from work… it was strange going back to normality – but surprisingly welcome to wander through my beautiful city and enjoy the sights of the Jewellery Quarter once again. The mornings are lighter now the clocks have changed, so a bit of chilly morning sun woke me up and put me in a good mood to deal with the difficulties of the day. It was lovely to see the Wednesday Gang in the evening. Me and Jon had a chat about what we had done in the times we hadn’t seen eachother over the weekend and briefed Jo and Caroline on the gossip (not that there was much).

Yesterday was another tough day at work. Sometimes I wish I could split into two people… one to do the daily stuff my job entails and one to organise the charity events, my LEAN project, book the hotels and travel for the training courses I have coming up and generally spend time building relationships with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I am not yet an X-Man (Note the YET), so I have to just do what I can to make sure I don’t let anyone down. After work, I popped to Squeeky’s and Gitzy’s to pick up a ticket for their gig tonight (it should be a good one!), before getting home and having some food. Once I was sated and not dying of hunger and exhaustion, me and Dan got comfy on the sofa to prepare for the business of Deejaying tonight. Rather than taking it in turns, we have put together a set which I hope reflects both of our tastes. I really enjoy deejaying, but it’s always a bit scary as you have to pitch it right for the crowd. We have a large amount of New York and French electro in the set this time, so I hope people will hear something new that they can really sink their teeth into.

Right – enough chatter. I have tried to gather some photos to reflect my activities over the last week, but you can be the judge of that!