May Part Deux

So, as predicted, I’ve been lax as ever. May has been a really busy month in the Osgard Household! No time to stop and think, let alone write the blog. Thanks for being patient and bearing (Grrr) with me.

Let’s start where we left off… Eurovision! What a night that turned out to be! Me and Danface headed down to Lidl in the day to stock up with European snacks for a fun filled themed evening. Ended up buying lots of interesting sweets and savouries for the hungry hoards. After doing Market, Lidl, town and Tesco – we cleaned the flat and rearranged the furniture to fit people in. To give you an idea of size in the flat, you can comfortably fit 4 -5 people in the living room. We managed 10 (with some of our friends having to sit on the floor). When people started to arrive at 7:30, we realised there wasn’t enough worktop space! To top off the brioche, Finnish crackers and assorted cheeses, snacks and other cakes; we were bought Borsche (I have NO idea if that’s spelt right), a Russian cake, a Dutch apple cake, a Jameson’s cheese cake, French truffles and lots of other bits and pieces… the tables were GROANING with foods!

Everyone chose a country to support, so we had Jon turn up as a Russian monk, Jo came covered in packs of Malteasers, I painted a Norwegian flat on my face and dressed in red and blue and everyone else had little touches to give away their favoured country. Before the contest, I ended up putting some cold hard cash (£2.20) bets on – walked away with a whopping £1.20 profit. Get in! Our Sweepstake was a success as well, with Jon walking away with £9 on Azerbijan. We had a brilliant time – shouting at the TV and singing along… The real mark was the hangovers everyone had on Sunday.

On the Sunday, Me and Dan attempted to do some tidying up – before heading to BMAG. We had been meaning to go for ages to catch their “Metropolis” exhibition, but hadn’t really had a chance. We got there for 1pm and started to wander around… before realising it was 4:15 (the museum closed at 5pm) – so had to make our way out. The place is a total maze – but totally brilliant! If you haven’t been recently, put aside a few hours and pop down.

On the Tuesday, I had a very exciting evening. I got invited to undertake a safety visit on the Birmingham Queensway tunnels at night. Rather than giving you a complete run down on here (and repeating myself), the blog I wrote for that is shortly due to appear on here http://www.amey.co.uk/BrumTunnels/SiteManagerBlog.aspx. Keep an eye on it! It was a lot of fun, but very tiring as I went to work for 7:30am, home for 12:00pm, picked up and 9:15pm and back home for after 1am! Didn’t take any pictures of me in my sexy PPE (Bright Yellow is NOT my colour), so I’ll leave that to your imaginations. Needless to say, it’s not pretty.

On Wednesday – I was shattered (as you can imagine). We still had Gay Wednesday, but I wasn’t very with it… However, it did spark a good conversation with my friend Jo about how we haven’t been out together (on our own), in years – the summary of which will appear later.

On Thursday, me, Dan and Emma had a fantastic evening. As one of my birthday presents, Emma had booked us tickets to go and see “Dr Frankenstein’s Travelling Freakshow” at the Old joint Stock. We got there for about 7:15 and grabbed a pint and a quick catchup before heading upstairs to the eerily decked out waiting area for the screen. The corridor was all laden with torn and stained circus flags and a weird black and white video was showing on a loop with creepy circus music playing in the background. When the doors opened to the theatre, we quickly found seats opposite the stage. The stage was quite plan, just raised with boxes and decorated with a mini big top (like a utility tent), again with the strange circus music playing over the top… I’m not going to give too much away about the show on here (in case you ever get to see it), but I would encourage you all to catch it if you can! Details of the tour are here http://www.tinshedtheatrecompany.com/#!frankensteinfreakshow/cjvj and the only review I will give was that it was hilarious, edgy, unsettling and gripping all of the way through. A real treat!

The Friday in work was a half day (thank goodness), as it was balls. But… Friday was a nice day, as it was Nate’s birthday! A fun half day of surprise birthday goodness was hatched. We started off by all heading to Sarehole Mill in Birmingham to have a Tolkein inspired afternoon. A really lovely museum built around a working watermill (which the lovely gent switched on for us so we could see it in action). Despite the cold, miserable weather in Birmingham – the bright and breezy atmosphere being around our friends made it a lovely trip. Once we had finished, we dashed back, put our Glad rags on and headed back out to Las Iguanas. A really nice meal was had by all before heading to Highlight Comedy Club in town for a mix of stand-up comedians. The first couple of comedians were quite frankly, naff – but were made up for by the individual and quartet in the second part of the show. We had quite enough drinks to ensure that we were receptive for a good laugh – and the last act were so good, we were howling in the aisles!

On the Saturday, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed early as we had gotten our hands on some tickets for the Pinhole Camera workshop in the CBD. We had a great time building our own pinhole cameras and learning a little bit about how to use them before running around the area like mad things, just trying to get a good shot! I have attached my best photo of the day (the negative and the positive version), which I ended up being quite pleased with. If you’re interested and around Birmingham, these will be on display (along with the other less good pictures) in the 6/8 Kafe for a month! In the evening, we had a chilled one (which we needed) watching “Dragon Wasps!” and the beginning of the “Toxic Avenger” before heading to bed. Turns out running around town all day in the sun is pretty tiring.

On Sunday, we made the most of the sun! We took Jo and Caroline over to the MAC to visit their monthly food fair, before heading to “Animalmania” at Blakesley Hall. Just £1 to see Skunks, Meerkats, Desert Rats, Tarantula’s, Bearded Dragons, Turtles and Snakes. We had a nice walk around the gardens too – which was fabulous in the warm weather. As we finished earlier than we thought, we had time to walk around Moseley Bog too – which was beautiful. All of the walkways have been raised on logs, so it’s like walking around a forest with wild flowers and ducklings. By the time we made it home and had made a start on dinner, the last thing we felt like doing was going back out – but back out we went! Back to Squeeky’s and Gitzy’s for another chilled evening to watch the new series of Arrested Development.

Bank Holiday Monday was (luckily) Lazy. Desperately so. I don’t think I got out of bed before 2pm – but trust me – I needed the rest! We did manage to fit in the weekly shop and the chores though –  as well as a trip to the lovely St Paul’s church for film club – so it could have definitely been lazier. Another great night was had with Vicar Mary! No film club in June, but if you fancy joining us in July – the line-up can be found here - http://www.saintpaulbrum.org/Film%20Club%202013.pdf

Wednesday was lovely. I’m not having an easy time at work at the moment, but all of my friends are being amazing! On Wednesday it all went a bit girlie – with Tira, Caroline and Jo all coming over my place. We had plenty of wine, ale and peanut butter chocolate fudge (as well as the usual line up of bitching and chats), so that was a good hair down affair.

Thursday started off with a bit of a sore head (Blame the red wine), but I had a brilliant evening at a charity fashion show for Barnado’s. The brief the students were given was to buy materials from a charity shop for under a set amount (about £5 I think) and then create a catwalk piece and some smaller items to sell. I bought some lovely pieces off the lady pictured with the blue neckpiece (below).I was tucked up in bed by a reasonable hour and manage to sleep beautifully.

Going back to events of earlier… it was mine and Jo’s girlie date day Friday! After a brief drink down the Rose Villa in the Sun with Clare (she wasn’t feeling very well), I met some other work friends at the Jekyll and Hyde. Jo turned up promptly for 6:30 for a last cocktail in the sun before we were seated for food. Had some gorgeous Sea Bass with Samphire followed by Ginger cake and a gin flight. After our meal, we went to see Jon and ended up hanging out till 1:30am!

Saturday was another chore day with added Goth fun BBQ! After our wander round town to pick up foods and clothes, we headed to Bournville to our friend Nate’s house for a chilled evening with lots of grilled meats and some laughs. Didn’t head back too late – so got a decents nights sleep with a large added lay in to boot! Just did some chores before watching some more Arrested Development (just two more episodes to go!) with Squeek and Gitz in the evening.

So… we’re in June already! Lots of exciting things planned for this month including a trip to Judder (Cheltenham), Ritual Noise (Lancaster), Dan’s Parents (Houghton), a food based rave, a wedding, London Zoo and Warwick Castle! It should provide some interesting photos (and hopefully good reading!). Must dash – got a job application to do before Erick gets here from Italy tomorrow. TTFN!