V 2005 Festival

Saturday John and I went to V 2005 with Michelle and her friend Karen. The V festival is one of the British summer music festivals (the best one, although Glastonbury always looks like a lot of fun, but I haven't been to that one).

It was an amazing day. We saw The Stands, Goldie Lookin' Chain, The Magic Numbers, Jet, The Zutons, The Bravery, Kaiser Chiefs, The Streets, and Oasis. John managed to see The Doves as well. The highlights for me were The Magic Numbers, The Zutons, and Kaiser Chiefs.

The Magic Numbers is an impressive band that stands out for many reasons. The main reason is obvious: they make really good music. It's folk rock at it's greatest. But there is also something about the band that is unique, unmissable, and fantastic: they are big people, noticeably overweight. From what I hear it is really hard for most people to get a music contract, full stop. James Blunt, who has been at number one for weeks now, was rejected by record company after record company and it looked like he would never make it. So the fact that a record company put aside it's definition of what is 'hot' and signed them is terrific, and it should be an inspriation to everyone who ever feels like an underdog. But even better than that was the reception they got at this festival. They were on in the beginning of the day, only the third on the stage, which usually means you don't have too big of an audience, and the audience was huge. And EVEN BETTER than that -- everyone knew the words and was singing!! And I wasn't the only one who was happy for these underdogs; the lead singer was very noticeably chuffed, all smiles. How satisfying that must have been for them after having to walk off of Top of the Pops in order to stand up for themselves.

Towards the end of the Magic Numbers set, Jade Goody walked past us. I thought it was her, and I managed to tell John with enough time for her to see her too, who also thought it was her. Then on the way to see Jet we saw her again. I nearly got a pic with her but she walked off the other way. Gotta love those celebrity sitings, even if it's a D-lister!

The Zutons were fantastic. They've got so much energy to their music, and everyone was jumping around. They have a female saxaphone player who was dancing around and singing along which also made them fun.

Kaiser Chiefs were really good. Another one where everyone was jumping around. We'd had a few beers by the time they came on, and a girl a few feet from us had this Barbie balloon that was blocking our view of the stage (people have all sorts of things in the crowd -- flags, costumes, etc -- to make them stand out) so we got the girls behind her to 'Kill Barbie.' I even lent them my bobby pin to do the deed. We tried to be rational with her but she wanted her balloon to be in everyone's way, so it had to be destroyed. Those girls made many people happy.

Oasis closed the day with nearly a full set. John and I lost Mich and Karen by that point. There is nothing like 80,000 people singing their hearts out to What's The Story Morning Glory to remind me that I am only a guest in this country. This song was never released as a single but there is an entire generation which has been defined by it here. I only vaguely recognized it when it came on, as I'd really only heard it the other times I've seen Oasis live (always in England).

While we were watching Oasis a woman came and stood in front of me. It turns out she was with Virgin Radio (Virgin are the main sponsors of the festival -- the 'V' stands for Virgin), and she turned around to us and 'interviewed' us. She asked us if we were having a good time, to which I think I said 'Wooooooo!' then she asked me if I was loving it and I said something really clever like 'yeah, loving it!' And then she went away, and I thought of all the cool things I could have said. Such is life. Then a couple of minutes after she left, Vernon Kay came and stood right next to me. Another D-list celeb, Vernon is a BBC1 DJ and also does lots of TV presenting. He was one of the hosts of the festival. I did get a pic with him which I will obviously share when it gets downloaded. Chappers was also there but I didn't realize it until later, at which point I snapped a pic of him, too.

Friday update

I can't believe it's Friday already! It's a rainy day, but I'll take a rainy Friday over a sunny Monday at work any day! We woke up this morning to thunder, which was a pleasant surprise. I do miss thunderstorms. We didn't get a storm, but it's rare to even hear thunder so I'll take what I can get.

Last weekend we didn't have any plans, so it was a welcome relaxing break. On Saturday John played cricket (well, he played for a few minutes until it got rained out). I relaxed at home, watched some Six Feet Under episodes, got some balloons for Rich and Anita's engagement and snuck them into their house (which wasn't too difficult since I was due to go around to close their cat flap anyway since they were out of town), and when John came home we went out to dinner at Zizzi's. Sunday morning I worked at the stables until noon, and when I got home Michelle and Madeline were round for lunch which was a nice surprise. John made some shepherd's pie for us ladies (the way it should be really!). They left shortly after lunch and we went round to Rich and Anita's with Helen, Wyn, and Scott (Gem is in Germany for work) for a congratulations toast.

It's been a fairly busy week. Monday I was only at work for a few minutes because I went home sick. I didn't feel well all day, but luckily it only lasted one day. Tuesday evening I helped out at the stables. Because it's summer the horses spend a lot of time outside grazing and there wasn't a lot to do after a while, so I got to spend some time watching the lesson I am usually in. Wednesday Helen and I went with Anita to try on bridal dresses. She found a beautiful one which she didn't buy at the time but I think she's going to get next week. Actually, they all looked gorgeous but there was the one which really stood out above the rest. Then we went back to my house and ordered pizza. I'll be damned if I'm going to let her fit into that wedding dress!! ;-) 'Eat some pizza, Anita. EAT IT!' Yesterday John took half a day's holiday to play golf with his dad. He didn't get home until late and I didn't have plans, so I got some time to chill out, catch up on some shows that had been recorded (my ghost hunter shows that John is too scared to watch), and do a bit of tidying and reading.

And now another weekend has come round! Yay! Hope the rain goes away for the weekend...

Oh yeah, and as a side note me, Faith, and Stephanie are appalled by Brad Pitt's behaviour and the new rumours that he and Angelina are getting married, and he has been stricken from our lamentated cards. I have replaced him with my new celebrity crush, Peter Krause from Six Feet Under. We are also accepting applications of other hot celebrities to replace Brad, so please get the word out.

Links to wedding pics and Zoe's birthday party

We got our wedding negatives put onto CDs which John subsequently downloaded into Ofoto. This means that anyone can go order our wedding pictures now, or more likely just go view them. There are loads, so be forewarned!

http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ufjaxoh.shg0ec1&x=1&y=wrdgxw
http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ufjaxoh.183stua9&x=1&y=t7rj04
http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ufjaxoh.elgyv2p&x=1&y=-grt5kt
http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ufjaxoh.uq3s5dd&x=1&y=91wumv

Also John has finally downloaded the pictures from Zoe's 30th birthday party in June. I have put some comments at the bottom of some of them.

http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ufjaxoh.evn7t6d&x=1&y=7xudbp

RICH AND ANITA GET ENGAGED!! - Pictures added

We got the most exciting phone call last night. Nita called to say she and Rich had just gotten engaged! I don't know all the details yet as the whole conversation is now a blur of excited, high-pitched chatter (as John was later to report), but they went on the London Eye, had their own carriage and champaign, and the people in the carriage below them were cheering for them. They already have a date, Jan 21, and are getting married in the New Forest. Tomorrow evening they are having people round for a celebration drink, so I will get all the details then. It's so exciting!
Link to Anita's pictures from the night:
http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=c6adn1d.y4a4zfl&x=1&y=-263oih

Visiting Jon and Marianne and cooking a Jamie Oliver dinner

Last weekend was fun, we went to visit Jon and Marianne in Wlwyn Garden City. We had some drinks and a curry, mmm. They are doing well and it was good to see them and look through their wedding album.

On Sunday John and I made a proper meal from Jamie Oliver's cookbook that was completely from scratch. I even made bread. From scratch. Meaning, it was just flour and yeast and water when I started. What a mess I made trying to do that! But it was good and I felt really accomplished when we ate it. But I might get a bread maker for next time. ;-) Although the kneading part was fun once it got going. Then I also made salad dressing (yes, made it myself, I had to squeeze lemons and everything (yeah, ok I had John squeeze them technically)). And John made this really good fish pie that had mashed potaters on top. Very yummy!

I have no plans this weekend, hurray! I plan to spend time relaxing and maybe helping out at the stables a bit. John is playing cricket on Saturday so I will probably watch some six feet under DVDs (in preparation of the new season starting here next week, which Faith tells me is unbelieveably good) and do a lot of nothing! I'm sure I will work in some time to eat some popcorn as well, just to make sure I'm enjoying the weekend to the fullest. It's going to be great.

Summer updates

I am so rubbish. I created this months ago and meant to keep it up to date but have failed. So now I will pick some of the highlights of the summer (well at least since the time I created this site and thought 'I should get this in my blog page') and report on them:

• My anniversary present was tickets to Coldplay. (Tickets are paper so it was the right gift for the year if you follow those things.) The concert was in June and was really good, although it thundered, lightninged, and poured with rain during Interpol who played before them, and then did the same for a short time during their performance. I lost John when he went to the bathroom and didn't come back to the right spot, and after a good 40 minutes I managed to finally see his hat which he was holding in the air about 30 feet in front of me and to the side. In addition to the rain (and probably because of) the power was out at the train station on the way home, and in the same station a fire broke out between the tracks. It was put out but seemed a couple of strange occurances. Despite all this choas (and I haven't mentioned the nightmare train journeys there and back) it was a really good show and I'm so glad I got to see Coldplay finally!
• For my birthday John paid for a riding clinic I wanted to go to, and that took place one weekend in June. The clinic was in a really beautiful part of the country called the Cotswolds. The scenery was idealic, and the house and stables were made of stone which was really pretty. It was actually not very much actual riding, a total of 3 hours on a horse total, so I was a little disappointed with that, but obviously by observing the others I was able to learn. What I liked most was just talking with everyone about their horses and asking tons of questions. Everyone but me had horses, and since I want to have one someday I was really pleased to be able to ask loads of (probably stupid!) questions to people who had the experience. The instructors were really nice people and I enjoyed spending time with them.
• The first weekend in July we went to Vienna. We were there for four days -- the first two were rainy and overcast and the last two were sunny and hot. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the famous Spanish Riding School is located in Vienna (call me stupid, but I had always assumed it was in Spain). We took a guided tour through the school and even got to go in the stables and see some of the horses. We arrived on 1 July and that proved to be the wrong time to go as the performances for the Spanish Riding School, the famous Vienna Opera House, and the Vienna Boys Choir all ended on 30 June for 2 months. Even a restaurant we ate in was closing the following day for holidays. Other things we did were go to the cemetery where Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, and other famous composers are buried, played around in a cool interactive music museum, went to the opera house, toured a couple of churches, went to a palace, and of course ate and drank our way through the city. Pictures --> http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=e6cd4ld.195f3vch&x=1&y=xz99q8
• I went to the REM concert in Hyde Park on July 16. A friend of mine from work was also there, and we were talking about it the Monday following. There are 2 sections at concerts at Hyde Park: 'Gold Circle' and General. My tickets were Gold Circle which is an area close to the stage that is not too crowded. The general starts behind the gold circle and is cheaper and is where there are huge numbers of people. So where we were standing ended up being right in front of the tent where REM's friends and family were, the VIP section. Towards the end of the show Michael Stipe even thanked his friends/family in that tent. I noticed there was an elevated tent behind us with people who had backstage passes but didn't really think much of it. Turns out the tent was erected right before the show and it happened to be right in front of my friend from work. Who then saw Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin go in there!!!!!! And I didn't pay enough bloody attention to notice they were 10 feet behind me!!! I could see perfectly everyone who was in there when I did glance back and I'm not kidding it was spitting distance from where I was standing. I was so gutted......
• Last weekend Anita and Rich had a Hawaiian party which was a lot of fun. It was a Hawaiian theme, but due to the rain the only thing Hawaiian was our outfits (others more than mine, admittedly) and the decorations. The last picture will keep you guessing, but in Rich's defense I will just say he was innocently trying to play a game of Twister when someone discovered there were ice cubes around. Pictures --> http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=e6cd4ld.vay134p&x=1&y=icvfm6
• The other exciting things that are going on is that my friends Michelle and Stephanie are both pregnant and about the same amount along. It has been very exciting hearing the updates and seeing the sonograms. I'm just waiting to see pics of those growing bellies now! And another friend Emily is engaged and is getting married in Florida next May. I've never been to a beach wedding so am very excited for that to come around. And of course Faith gets married in next month which is also exciting!