Norman Ralph

Last night saw the group’s end of resit celebrations, hosted at the Terrace. There was actually quite a good turn out considering it was originally a Facebook event. There was much merriment during the evening. Sarann decided to take clothes off everytime she choked – which, unfortunately for the audience, was only the once, Kieran disappeared off with Christina and Kat for a short while, winning a Battle Royale (inside joke) and there was generally tipsy behavious from all concerned. Quote of the day goes to Gaz for his quiche comment:

Sarann walks back from the toilet with jacket off and looking slightly disshevelled.
Norman: “Have you been for a quicky?”
Gaz: “It’s pronounced ‘quiche’.”
Everyone falls about laughing

After the Terrace kicked us out, at about 10.30pm, we headed over to Charlie’s for some post party drinks. Instead, we got a full on house party. Plenty of alcohol yet no mixers made for quite an evening. I ended up mixing my vodka with Cherry Brandy!!

The evening came to a close about 1am with Sarann, Liz and I heading home by taxi.

All in all a good night. Although there are lots of sore heads this morning!

It seems that all I have done over the summer so far is work. Which is a bit misleading as I have also managed to move house, go to three festivals, make some new friends, spend loads of time with Liz, throw a house party, attend another couple and manage to do 99% of my pre-summer to do list! No wonder I am exhausted at the moment! Liz keeps yelling at me because I am being boring by going to bed at eleven or so on work nights and midnight at weekends, but to be honest the eleven hour days at work plus all the domestic issues that arise during the first few weeks of any new house share are really taking their toll physically and mentally.

Headed across to Tesco last night, something I have been needing to do for a long time. Ended up only spending £8 on myself (mainly rubbish like coke and chocolate milk) but also picked up a third of the £50 house shopping tab too. Not bad for three of us. We managed to get home just as the heavens opened and the storms began.

The storms carried on throughout the night (I know because I didn’t get much sleep last night) and into today. Kara, Si and I were not that affected by the rain, although we did see a sharp increase in sales today – £2000+ after two of the five ceremonies! George and Sarann did not fare so well, selling no frames as of 3pm.

Unfortunately, I ended up having to disappear a little ealry due to being ill. It turned out to be a lot less serious than I first thought – I had just been inadvertantly inhaling too much of the glass cleaner we use to polish the picture frames. Explains the odd hyper moods I have been having recently (I was probably high!!!)

Back to the grindstone tomorrow!

Liz and I headed across to the BBQ and party hosted by Matt, Kat, Kieran, Heather and her housemates on Saturday afternoon. A few getting ready problems had caused us to runa little late, we didn’t leave my house until gone 3.30pm. We were some of the first to arrive, even though it started at three. With chairs and tables set out, Kieran’s front garden is actually a really nice place to hold a party, it is roomier than it looks and with the front fence, encolsed enough to feel like a garden party rather than a park party.

Kieran had taken the liberty of ordering a keg of ale from Elland Brewery, a genius idea! Over the night we sank over 60 pints from it! Along with the copious wine, the BBQ food and the cheese there was much revelry and fun. The musical choices were excellent and the party ran really well. It started to die out in the early hours, but a few harcore party animals lasted until gone 3am! I stumbled home with Claire about 3.30am after polishing off my third bottle of wine, which had been preceded by a good bash at the ale (about ten pints if my memory serves me correctly) so I was rather drunk.

Unfortunately, the night was not a total high point. I had had to drop Liz off at the station so she could get to work. It was the worst goodbye we have ever had to say. I am not going to say much more about it as it was a very personal experience. In case you are reading Liz, I miss you and I hate not being with you!

Thanks Kieran et al for a quality party, it really was a great evening for the most part. Hope we can have a repeat in the future.

Blackpool 2 – Yeovil 0

That insignificant looking scoreline made yesterday into a great day in the seaside resort of Blackpool’s history. Their football team is playing in the top two flights of English football for the first time in thrity years. Yesterday afternoon’s League One Play-off Final at Wembly was a great game. Blackpool played the best football, they passed and moved and generally played at a Championship level, their footalling home for the next season at least, Kiegan Parker’s second goal being absolutely sublime – curling it round most of the Yeovil defence and goalkeeper from twenty-five yards!

Following the conclusion to the football game, Liz and I hopped on the 95 up to Woodies to meet Chris Clarke and do a mini Otley Run. Playing “no repeats” rules, we made our way through Three Horsehoes and New Inn. Due to the fact there were three of us we decided to give Arcadia a whirl, it is a small Wine and Ale bar just next to Somerfield in Headingley. We were so impressed with it we stayed for two drinks!

The Arc and Sky Rack were absolutely heaving, so after a swift drink in Headingley Taps, the Box and Original Oak we jumped on the bus and headed to Hyde Park Corner. We were planning to keep going on the Run, but having done some negotiating we headed up to Izzy’s to help her celebrate her 22nd birthday.

There was a house full of people when we got there, a mixture of Leeds and Kirkham folk. Inf act it was a remarkable turn out. After a Dutch courage drink, I decided it was time to bury the hatchet with Izzy. I hope I got my message across, the right mixture of apology, sincerity and humility yet maintaining enough dignity for the apology to carry some weight. I cannot be sure of the outcome of what we talked about, I think we decided not to dwell on it there and then as it was the middle of a party. We did, however, get an invite to the after party in town. Unfortunately, the afternoon’s excitement had taken its toll on Liz so I had to take her home.

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!

Day 2 of Rationalist Week is coming to a close. We have one more event tonight (details to follow no doubt) and it is still a success. The generator was not delivered this morning, although we have been promised a replacement by 12pm tomorrow! We will see.

Day 1 was a massive success and it was rounded off with a delayed birthday bash for MC at Bondi. It was a fairly decent night, got very drunk….again. I also stayed out all night….again. This time at Michelle’s.

“Bring bunny ears and Norm.”

B’s friend Amy and her housemates were throwing a house party in Burley, so a crowd of us met up at B and Phil’s to begin the preparation. I say preparation, I really mean drinking! Armed with much alcohol, both internally and externally we headed to Burley to PARTY!

It was an ‘unlucky bunny’ party, which meant that most people were dressed as roadkill! We didn’t let that put us off and set about the task of introducing ourselves to everyone. It was bizarre, as I have only met Amy twice – both at birthday parties and most of the other people we took hadn’t met anyone from the house before…or so we thought! It turned out that everybody kind of knew everybody else, it is definitely a case of a small world.

The party was really good, the company was excellent and the alcohol flowed very very easily. Most of the crowd headed home a little early, but Kat and i remained hardcore and were pretty much the last guests to leave. After a lovely little drunken walk to B and Phil’s we muched a little pizza, had another drink and wondered hopw best to end the night. Everyone else crashed and although I had intended to stay over on B’s sofa, Kat offered me a bed and some tea! Sold on the idea, we headed up to Kat’s.

Matt provided me with one of the most comfortable bed’s I have ever slept on – a self inflating mattress! If it hadn’t been for the fact that their house is FREEZING, it would have been one of the best nights sleep I have had in a long time. I could have slept all night and the next day. In fact, I very nearly did but Kieran is a stomper and woke me up about 10am. I decided to head back to B’s to pick my car up and say hi to the gang who had all pretty much stayed over there. The morning turned into something of a hair dressing party with MC and Claire both getting new “do’s”.

A pub lunch at the Library followed by a trip to the bookies for the Grand National – which Phil picked the winner fo incidentally – then the FA Cup semi final game rounded off a really good couple of days. A fact pointed to by the disgustingly filthy clothes I ended up in, red wine stained shirt, generally abused t-shirt and that lovely post party hum.

Saturday was the raison d’etre for me heading home for Easter. With Jon back from the Falklands and Dom and Beki up from London it was the ideal opportunity to relive some our youth.

Lunchtime saw us shake off our hangovers from the night before and fire up the barbeque for some lunch. The four of us were joined by Izzy and Nikki for some light refreshments and a few sausages and burgers. It was a glorious afternoon, good food and drink coupled with some lively company. We tend to get together a few times a year, but these BBQ’s tend to be well worth the effort. As the afternoon rolled on we headed our separate ways to get changed etc ready for our big night out.

I used the chance to go into Preston and pick up a new car stereo, one with a CD player and RDS – review to follow. Ended up at Izzy’s getting some CDs burned and came up with a plan to head over to Chester Zoo on Monday. Having got changed and ready I drove back over to Dom’s for the pre-party.

Joining Jon, Dom, Bekki and myself for this night of fun were Ash (Dom’s brother) and his girlfriend Jemma, Anja and Kirsty. We started off at Dom’s with a few drinks. The few drinks turned into many drinks and by 9pm we were getting ready to go into Blackpool. We have not been out in Blackpool as a crowd since we were at sixth form so we were all up for this night.

The taxi dropped us off at Schofield’s and we set off with the night. Drinks have definitely gone up since last I was in Blackpool – £20 for a round of 6 drinks! The tequilas were cheap though, so I got a round of them in! Walked up to Syndicate at about 11ish and after paying the princely sum of £10 to get in, we set about partying.

The rest of the night was somewhat of a blur, Jon and I were on the quadruple vodka and redbull’s! The music was funky house and the lights flashed a lot. It was a really good night, clubbing the likes of which I have not experienced for a good 5 years! Leeds has some good clubs but it just cannot compete with the size and atmospehere of the Syndicate. It may have been one of those nights that the fact I was with excellent company mean more than that quality of the environment, but still an excellent night.

Taxi and a kebab at 3am and we were back to Dom’s for some post-party drinks. Next thing I remember was waking up in Dom’s spare room. We fired the BBQ back up and had ourselves some BBQ bacon butties!

April 4th, Chris Clarke’s twenty third birthday, saw a group of us head over to Tropical World in Roundhay. A bargain at three pounds to enter, we spent a good couple of hours walking round some excellent exhibits on tropical and exotic flora and fauna. The swamp zone contained a lot of butterflies and some cute little turtles along with some of the largest koi carp I have ever seen. After the sweltering humidity of the swamp, we headed through the rainforest part – where we were amused to see a pile of turtles, literally, climpbing over one another to get to the sun! The wildlife on show was simply staggering, we must have seen a hundred species at least. At three pounds, this is definitely on of the hidden gems in Leeds and I would recommend it to all!

Following the heat of the greenhouses we headed for a liquid lunch at a nice litte gastro pub, an even only marred by Matt picking up a parking ticket. With everyone else charged with preparing for Chris’ surprise party, Kieran, Chris and I headed over to the Original Oak for some light refreshment. This light refreshment turned into a bit of a session. It was a good, old fashioned, lazy afternoon – the conversation, company and drinks were a perfect combination!

7pm soon came round, the time of the surprise party, so Kieran and I got Chris on a bus and headed up to Bod. The evening was a great success, the wine flowed, the food was eaten and the conversation was sparkling – at least for the most part. With it being Easter the buses were not running all night, so we had to call it a night fairly early. With just one car, I headed home on the last bus.

All in all, a really good day!