Norman Ralph

You may have noticed that I have not blogged in a few days, that is down to the fact I have been running round the country like a headless chicken generally procrastinationg from doing any work of any kind.

I headed home to Kirkham on Tuesday to pick some stuff up ready for the festivals I will be working at over the summer. I also combined it with visiting my Mum, who I have not really seen properly in ages and also seeing Lindsey, an old friend. Lindsey is nine months pregnant and was due on Thursday – still no baby! We went to the pub for a couple of hours and i got to feel the baby! I have never felt one before it was born before and it was definitely a wierd experience, though I now feel a certain attachment to the little thing, which is probably not that unusual as Lindsey and I have always had a kind of father/daughter relationship. We met about eight years ago at my friend Jon’s 17th birthday party, she was fifteen. She used to come out with us to the pub etc quite a lot and although she weas occasionally a bit of a handful I developed quite a close relationship with her. I have not seen her in ages and was really good to catch up. I would just like to add a quick “Good Luck” to you, Lindsey and all the best for the baby!

Thursday saw me drive over to Lincoln from Kirkham to see Liz. Liz’s grandparents are away on holiday and liz is not the most domesticated person in the whole world so I was going mainly to make sure she ate, tidied, did the washing etc, but also because I missed her – I hadn’t see her in four days, which is a long time for us! I met up with her and Edd in Lincoln as they had been shopping then we headed back to Liz’s for some tea. We ended up driving back into lincoln to Edd’s house so we could go to pound a pint night at Scream on the waterfront. It turned into a really glood night, we all got nicely drunk. Liz fell in a bush and we ended up crashing at Edd’s/ Very funny night all round.

Friday was seriously chilled out. After heading back to Potter’, we had lots of tea and Liz napped whilst I did all the domestic stuff like the washing up and a couple of washing loads. We set off back to Leeds for B’s birthday at about 8pm. On arrival we stuck a DVD on and went to bed, the last day or two catching up with us.

Saturday was Bryony’s 21st. Her mum and auntie’s had invited Liz and I to her birthday dinner (Liz and B are childhood friends) at Bellini’s in Adel. It was a really nice dinner and a good opportunity to meet a lot of B’s family. The guestlist included B and Chris, her mum, dad and little brother Joseph, three of her auntie’s – Elaine, Carol and one I can’t remember and Liz and I. After dinner (which was delicious!) we were invited back to Elaine’s house in Menston – which is miles away. We had some tea and a good chat, the kind that you get at these kind of events and then headed home about 7pm.

We picked up some party food and a little drink and headed back to B’s with Chris to have a little birthday party. It was nice for us all to be friends again, although some of the conversation topics were quite scary. Wedding rings, engagement rings, joint holidays and family homes were discussed! Oddly enough it felt fairly ok to talk about this stuff, I think there is a future for the two couples!

After B threw us out for some sleep, Liz and I had intended to go out with Sophie et al in town, but when we got home we were too tired, so put a film on and eventually crashed out with pizza and coke.

All in all it has been an exciting week but hardly productive. I really need to get some work done, both professionally and for some of the projects I’m involved in. I think i’m going to be in Lincoln pretty much all next week so hopefully I will get some done without the distractions of the big city. As lovely as Potter’ is, it is not exactly the liveliest plaxce on Earth!

Thursday saw the start of the Old Bar’s Festivale. Liz, Michelle, and I headed down to sample the wares and take part in the quiz. They were running sixteen cask ales and four cask ciders, a real treat of proper drinking! They were also running a variety of games and promotions. I won two Black Sheep T-Shirts!! It was unfortunate that most of the circle had coursework deadlines so couldn’t be there.

Headed back to mine afterwards and watched Silent Hill with Liz, it is a really bizarre film. I don’t really understand it, so of anyone out there would like to comment on the story line then please freel free! Fell asleep about 4am.

Went for lunch on Friday with Liz and Michelle then dropped Liz off at the station before meeting up with Claire in the Old Bar. I have not spent much quality time with Claire in ages for one reason and another. She has had dissertation and practical work to finih, then spent three weeks in Japan! It was really good just sitting down and having a few drinks with her again!

We were joined for a bit by Graeme and Sarann before they headed off to finish their coursework. Maths Chris popped by and had a drink or two before heading to bed!

We eventually joined up with a crowd about 9pm, Matt, kat, Sarann, Michelle, Kieran, Heather, Worfolk and a few others – turned into a really good old fashioned piss up at the Ale Festival. Time flew by and before we knew it we were all quite drunk and getting kicked out!

Went to see the new TMNT film last night at Kirkstall. We got a minor crowd together to see the ultimate in geek films – an old and slightly obscure cartoon and action figure range (I still have most of the toys except the blimp!) and I think everybody really enjoyed it.

I thought it was a really good effort, the animation in it was slightly outdated, but I thought it really worked to bring the fantasy element of the film to life. The characters were excellent, my only criticism is that they were somewhat sensationalised, ie Leonardo was more of an arrogant leader, Michaelangelo was stupider and Raphael was darker than the original characters. The film was so far beyond the efforts of the original live action films that I can barely bring myself to mention them in the same sentence!

I recommend people go see it, even if they are not that geeky. It is a good action film with all the right elements – plenty of explosions, a fantastic story, the obligatory love story, lots of fighting and all with a PG certificate!

It has been ages since the group has eaten at the Llama, a few weeks probably, so today I tried to organise a minor gathering for s spot of lunch. In the end it was just Kara and I who graced the Llama with our presence. In Kara’s words, a lovely romantic meal for two! It was actually quite nice to be back in the old haunt, pound-a-pint John Smiths and 2-4-1 meals just cannot be beaten!

Ended up in DEC10 again after lunch, messing about on computers whilst Si and Dan do some project or other and Kara does something to her laptop. I really am going to have to pay more attention to what people say.

Managed to get round to doing a spot of gardening this morning, trimmed the hedge and sorted out the front yard. Then headed down Kirkstall Road to see if I could find a cheap car wash, ended up using the jet wash at Morrison’s – 35p a minute and you can use whatever combination of programmes you like!! It wa s bargain, so £3.50 later I had a lovely washed, shampooed and waxed car.

Off to cinema later with the gang to catch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film.

I am currently sat at my computer at 4am listening to music. This is likely to be a recurring theme in my blog posts. I am an insomniac. I just don’t seem to sleep. Sometimes I can go for days with only an hour or two of sleep each night. My average bedtime for the last seven or eight days has been about 6am, with me getting up by 8 or 9am.

What is bizarre, though, is that I was exhausted at about 10pm this evening. I was sat at Kat’s with tea and chocolate hobnobs waiting for George to come round so we could watch a film and I could barely keep my eyes open. By the end of Terminator, I was wide awake again. I don’t think the twenty minute walk home through the cold air of Leeds helped with either.

I have been spending increasing amounts of time with Kat recently, I must have been seen her about five times in the last week alone. This does not sound a lot, but I have never really been that close to her, we just have never really gotten to know each other. I am really glad that we have started to remedy that though, she is a really cool person. Very opinionated, but then I like someone who has their own thoughts. More importantly, she is prepared to fight for those ideas! Kat also makes one of the meanest cups of tea around. In fact, it is now almost impossible to decide on who makes the best tea – Kat or Sarann! I will have to put them to the test this week when Kat and I head over to The Lakes to visit Sarann.

The first week of the Easter break is now over and as George mentioned to me earlier it has both flown by and dragged. It seems over so quickly because I have not really achieved anything, but it has also dragged as it feels a life time ago that we were all in the pub celebrating St Patrick’s Day and Wendy House!

Here is to a more productive three weeks coming up. I am not holding my breath though as I am off to Cumbria on Tuesday, going to see Barenaked Ladies on Thursday and then Jon gets back from the Falklands in 10 days! So much to do, no time or money to do it!