A month in the life…

So I’ve been really lax again. Ever since the last bank holiday, I’ve barely been at home – let alone in the office (where I normally write the blog). Rather than doing a day-by-day account (which would take me a day!), I’ll give you a “top of the pops” style most interesting activities over the month of April…The best place to start would be the set list for our DJ set on 5^th April… well…the whole of the evening I suppose…

Friday 5^th April – WIP and Flux Vortex

So Friday was a manic rush. After a mad time at work (after loads of leave in March), I dashed home, pampered myself (in a cold shallow bath as there wasn’t any hot water!) and then it was time to run out again to meet everyone for the fabulous Wrapped in Plastic at the Flapper and Firkin in Birmingham. At least, that was the plan. What Actually happened was – got there, caught up with lots of friends we hadn’t seen in an age, had a couple of beers and then had to run to Eddies to Deejay (after some very manic phone calls from our friend TK along the lines of “You ARE coming, aren’t you?!”). The set went down amazingly. We normally DJ Dystopia, which is a more alternatively twinged evening (covering all genres along the darker lines), but Flux is more about dance, electro and trance music. We also did our first ever back-to-back set (meaning my track, Dan’s track etc.) which meant we could both take breaks for drinks and the loo. If you’re interested – set list below:-

FLUX VORTEX 05/04/2013

Vitalic - Under Your Sun
The Young Punx - Ready For The Fight (Phonat's Punkstep remix)
The Presets - My People
Hard Disc Cunt - Swan (Original Mix)
Dyro - Daftastic (Original Mix)
Cyberpunkers - Fuck The System (Designer Drugs Remix)
La Roux - In For The Kill (Le Castle Vania Remix)
Dada Life - Happy Violence
Teki Latex - Les Matins De Paris
Designer Drugs - Face Melter
Knife Party - Destroy Them With Fucken Lazers (OMG & Shockwave Bootleg Remix)
Make The Girl Dance - Kill Me (The Toxic Avenger Remix)
Vitalic - La Mort Sur Le Dancefloor
Power Francers vs Cyberpunkers - Pompo Nelle Cabale (12 Inch Plastic Toys Edit)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs A-Trak - Heads Will Roll (Electric Soulside ft Odissi Mix)
IAMX - Spit It Out (Designer Drugs Remix) (Radio Edit)
The Bloody Beetroots - Warp 1.9 (feat. Steve Aoki)
The Toxic Avengers - Superheroes (Chewy Chocolate Cookies Remix)
Designer Drugs - The Terror
Felguk - Bassive (Original Mix)
Black Tiger Sex Machine - Midnight Violence (Original Mix)
Belzebass - Du Auch
Tommy Vore - Kontrast
Dem Slackers - Schlingel (Original Mix)
12 Inch Plastic Toys - Toys (Gain On Top Remix)
Haezer - Anarchy! (F.O.O.L. Remix)
Defeat - Dance
Yesterday's Pupil - You'll Poly Die (Haezer Remix)
Designer Drugs - Crazy For You (feat. Annie)

Saturday 6^th April – Never Bored with a good Board game

Woke up feeling very tired, but not hung-over! WIN! This set us up for our early Saturday morning market pilgrimage before heading round to the aforementioned Squeeky and Gitzy (WIP’s) flat for some thoroughly good geeky board game fun. We played a game called “Arkham Horror,” based on the works of Lovecraft. Although the first game only lasted about an hour and a half (we were all eaten by the hideous hell beast), we persevered and the second game lasted around 8 hours (with pizza and booze breaks, obviously). My first “non-hasbro” style board game (that is to say, my first almost role playing game with lots of cards, tokens, character related plot etc). We managed to banish “Hastor” back to Hell though, so it was all good!

7^th April – A Star is knackered!

On 7^th April me, Dan, my colleague Jo and her family and our lovely friend Tira became film stars. We were extra’s in an upcoming Sci-Fi British movie called Kaleidoscope Man. We turned up to Victoria Square at 6pm and ran around until we could run no more (literally in Dan’s case as he was laid up for a week after doing his knee in). We ran through the square and down closed off streets from imaginary aliens whilst screaming our heads off. It was great fun, but my goodness, did we sleep well afterwards! If you’re interested in reading about the project or becoming a “backer” – head to here for details http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kaleidoscopeman/kaleidoscope-man-phase-2-funding

9^th – 11^th April – Learning is for Life, not just for Children

 So on the 9^th, I embarked on the second leg of the LEAN course I started in March. This involved having 2 nights away in Leamington Spa. The hotel was once again lovely and the course was great. Apart from one utter pillock (who tried to belittle me at every opportunity), the people were totally fabulous and a great group to work with. On the first night me, my colleague Stephen and our new friends Julia and Sunita (from our Scottish contracts) went for food at a cute Thai restaurant in town. After the first courses, all of our faces ached from laughing so much! Sometimes I may despair at my job, but my colleagues are fantastic (from all areas of the business). The second night, Stephen (now my partner in crime) had arranged to meet an old friend based in Leamington for the evening, so I struck out with the girls and we went to a lovely little Italian restaurant. A couple of Birra Morretti’s were consumed and a great night was had by us all. By the time I was on the train home, I was totally shattered. Physical exhaustion is one thing – but mental exhaustion is harder to get over!

12^th April – Parent Trap!

On the 12^th, Dan’s parents came to stay for the night. The sub-title I chose for this is a bit wrong really, as I always look forward to a visit from either set of parents. On this particular eve, we had a very enjoyable evening. We started by meeting them at their hotel and taking a walk down to town for a pre-meal drink. As lovers of good buildings, we took them to “The Old Joint Stock” in the heart of town. It’s a lovely old pub which has a theatrical quality and a good selection of barrel ales. For the meal, we went to “Bodega” in town. I love this little restaurant as it does a damn fine burrito served up with killer cocktails – all for a very reasonable price! A great dinner was consumed and after a brief post meal conversation, a large amount of booze was purchased to have back at our little flat. We called it a night (after a rousing game of monopoly) at around 1am – by which time we were all falling asleep.

13^th April – Social Butterdrunks

Despite the late-ish, heavy night on the Friday, we got up Saturday morning to hit the market once again. We took Dan’s parents with us – who ended up being very impressed with the prices, variety and atmosphere of Birmingham Markets. We went for a late breakfast/early lunch at “Lost and Found,” (very good, as always) before seeing them off and sorting some bits out in town. After we had sorted some stuff out, I just wanted to sleep – but didn’t get a chance as we had to do some chores before getting ready to meet my old Uni friend Steve “shakashaka” Shakeshaft at the “Island Bar” in town. It was a very pleasant evening, as Kayte, Tyrone and a couple of other people I hadn’t seen for a while popped up – so it was a good chance for a chinwag and to see how everyone was getting on. We had to leave the festivities at a reasonable hour though, as we had promised Clare to meet her at “The Rose Villa” in the JQ. It’s at this point I realise that we definitely had a “Bitters and Twisted” bars weekend – as all of the places except the Joint Stock are owned by them. Eep! I should be sponsored for this or something… anyway, I digress. We met Clare and her friend who was down from London for the night. We had a lovely chat and a couple of beers before they had to dash off to catch their train. A bit of a saving grace in the end, as we had, had a very boozy weekend indeed!

14^th/15^th April - Bits and Birthdays

On the Sunday of the weekend (that was all stuffed into a Friday and Saturday), I did a mini “LEAN” workshop for Jon. It was partially to show him what it was all about and partially for my revision as I had an exam to do at the end of the course. Despite Dan thinking he wouldn’t be interested – I managed to bring them both into it and we did some “hardcore” process mapping and 5’sing! On the Monday (after a very tiring day at work), we went to see our friend Hannah. It was her birthday over the bank holiday (Resistanz) weekend, so we took over a belated present and had (another) beer. It was a strange one, as we thought we would only stay an hour, but only managed to get to bed after 11pm!

16^th April – Beer swilling Brewdogs!

One of the birthday presents Dan had gotten me was a “Beer Tasting” with Brewdog. It was a bit of a rush, as we had to be there by 6:30. It meant (after another difficult day at work), dashing home and getting changed in record time before bombing it down to the Brewdog (on John Bright Street in the City Centre). It was really interesting and as well as sampling a few delicious (and strong) ales, we had a lovely meat and cheese platter – yum! We ended on a rather tasty little 10% beer called Cocoa Psyco – a very dark and heavy coffee and chocolate beer. Delicious!

20^th – 21^st April - May the 4^th be planned!

It’s that time again for an epic house party at WIP’s place…so this calls for some serious planning! Out came the checklists and the laptops whilst Playlists and plans were crafted ready for a big Star Wars themed celebrations. I’m going to leave that as that for now… but there will be a post party update – so you can see how the scheming went! On the Sunday, me and Dan had a trip out to the cinema to catch the new Evil Dead film. It was gorey as all hell, but highly entertaining. Unfortunately, it made me feel a bit ill and consequently I wasn’t as hungry as I should have been seeing as we were checking out the “Fleet Street Kitchen” on Summer Row. We had a lovely glass of wine, burger and Knickerbocker Glory in a lovely, light, well-presented restaurant with great company (in the shape of our friend Caroline).

22^nd April – Drop the Forge

This evening was a nice surprise… after not feeling very well (which went on into Thursday) I managed to get my ass out of the house to meet the lovely ladies, Jo and Cate following a job interview at the Big Peg in the JQ. We went to the Drop Forge in the JQ. A really gorgeous bar/restaurant with a giant skylight and loads of the original beams and steel work as features. We ended up having a surprise guest in the form of Mike (and later Millie) who provided some great company and entertainment for the evening. Another night planned to be early and ending up, not so. We did blag an invitation though… see below.

25^th April – A Gala Palaver

So…the invitation was to the opening of the new “findings” exhibition based in Colmore Busienss District and the Jewellery Quarter. After another mad dash home from work and back into town to head to 45 Church Street. After a brief look at the photographs (before the rain started), we headed in to be greeted with a String Quartett, canapés on silver platters and trays of wine and apple martini’s. To say I felt out of place would be an understatement, but it was a great event filled with interesting people and (hopefully) some new friends! After the event had finished (about 8pmish), we went to the “Rectory” (where we were joined by Emma, Jack and some other JQNF’ers) for a more sedate pint and a chance to really talk to people. A fab night – but my goodness, was I hungry when I got home!

26^th April – A Mouse in the house!

So our friend Mouse turned up in Birmingham on Friday. We headed to Squeeky and Gitzy’s flat for 7ish for some more crafting and a bit of a kickback and chill. I was more or less recovered from my cold (although very tired) but Dan seemed to be coming down with something. Luckily, the original plan to head out was abandoned in favour of doing some much needed pre-party tasks (making decorations) and catching up with an old friend. After a good amount of crafting, we had a couple of drinks and watched some cartoons before calling it a night in preparation for Saturday.

27^th – 28^th Hell hath no fury like a woman loved

So Saturday was the day of another friend’s party and a tour of the Newman brothers coffin works. This meant doing the normal daytime chores in the morning, with a mad dash to the disused factory for 12:30. The tour was excellent - our gothic tour guide was the best! After the tour we went back into town to meet up at the “Lost and Found” again for a couple of afternoon beers. A plot to get to Moseley was hatched (cramming 9 idiots in fancy dress into cabs) before heading home and getting outfitted up for the evening’s festivities. We met round Jon’s humble abode at 7ish before grabbing a cab just after 8pm (much to the amusement of the cabbies). We had a variety of outfits donned for our friends Hell themed party (as they had been together 6 years, 6 months and 6 days). Another great evening was had… it was a fairly chilled affair with an attempt at a drinking game – but in reality there were too many of us to make it work. It was a shame, as it seemed like a really well thought out game with dares, changing rules and a journey through Dante’s circles… Sunday was another chilled affair. Me and Dan went to the Midlands Art Centre to have a mooch around the food fair before going for a walk around the park. We managed to fit in the rest of our chores before crashing out in the evening (as Dan was beginning to feel really drained and unwell).

30^th April – Giant Scream!

The last update for April… we went to see Ironman last night. We splashed out on tickets to the Giant Screen and really enjoyed the new Ironman film. We laughed pretty much all the way through and just enjoyed the experience of being with our friends, consuming a piece of modern cinema that was to all of our tastes. An early night was more-or-less achieved… which meant we both feel slightly dead today (although Dan is still recovering).

So that was April. I’ve skimmed over loads of other things we have done in the month, but quite frankly – there was too much to put in! I’ve kept it to some of the more significant events and still managed 4 pages in size 10 font (I’m writing this out on word).

I hope I haven’t bored you too much. I’ve included a smattering of photos to best illustrate the month… but in reality I have taken over 100! Even though I have been really bad with updating – I have been keeping notes on the activities I have been up to. Again, I’ll try to be better… but I can’t  make any promises. Well done if you have gotten this far! ;)