(no subject)

This is going to be a disgustingly long post. This is because an awful lot has happened since my last post. Which was Tuesday.

Gyah. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? A key.

flickerswitch is Liz.
nepygill is Gill, sometimes known as Nep.
playfullemming is Christine.

So, on Wednesday morning I rolled out of bed at 7.30 and swore quite a bit before getting a shower and feeling much better. Darling father came out of work specially and picked me up at 8.10, and then we went to Wigan. This was An Adventure, and one which I might have to get used to on the basis that a lot of college stuff takes place in Wigan. Dad is always great fun when we're in the car together, anyway. We put on Radio 4 and I laughed at a review of the Saatchi Gallery. ad then proceeded to tell me about his mad Uncle Mike, who he wasn't actually sure how he was related to but there we are.

We then got to the train station, we were early and I went slighlty pathetic. "Don't leave me Daddy! Please?"

He still did, but I saw Phillippa at that point, so I was okay.

So, saw Colin Pickthall on the train! The local West Lancashire MP! I was far more excited about that than I should have been...

Got to London. We were staying slap bang in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, in a place called the Regent Palace Hotel. It was crap. However, it has important fangirl connections. Why?

In Day Of The Triffids Bill goes for a drink in Piccadilly. In the Regent Palace Hotel, to be precise. Squee!

First night, and we wandered. A lot. We saw Buckingham Palace, and Downing Street, and Parliament. Then, on Liz and mine's search for Chinese, we saw Soho and the gay district. Huzzah!

Then it was the Lion King, which was truly spectacular. I had no idea how'd they manage it, but they did, and it was gorgeous.

Next day: the BBC. We saw celebrities... well, nearly. Andy Peters, Fern Britton and some dude from Busted count?

Then the good bit: LOTR exhibit. Oh dear god. It was just... so... like... wow. Costumes, armour, pictures, explanations and we got a picture of Liz and myself shrunk down to Hobbit size. Our looks are quite fantastic. "You're not Gandalf!" "COWER, MORTAL!" etc. I wanted to stay there for so much longer, just staring at the exhibits, despite the lack of Eowyn stuff. Shame.

Went back on the joy that is the Tube system, before going to see Anything Goes, a slightly cheesy musical which was somehow wonderful too. The whole college seemed to know about us going to the exhibit, though, since loads of people asked us "How was the museum?"

We eventually found that Steve had told everyone, since we got off the Tube early, but not as early as Greg, our so called teacher guide. He managed to get off a stop early. Ha!

Friday next day, which was less interesting. The morning was London Eye (okay, but... dull) and the Saatchi Gallery, which made me laugh and wince. Some people should have had their fingers broken before they took GCSE art. Maybe I was biased- Saatchi makes me think of Selachii for a start, and then I want to spit because I remember by politics notes... Saatchi put Maggie Thatcher into power. Ick.

Then we wandered around a large part of London in the search for Forbidden Planet. We found two! And happy times were spent in there, although there would have been more if I'd have had more money.

Then we went home and back to Ormskirk. I really enjoyed London as a city- it was so vibrant. There was every type of person there, and life all of the time, no matter what hour. As a pure English small town girl, this was so alien to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Could I live there? No. A slightly smaller city, i.e. Edinburgh? Hell yeah.

Came home, was knackered, went to bed.

The next day, I woke up with a terrible sore throat. The rest of me is okay *crosses fingers* but I do worry that it's going to turn into something else. Oh well.

Unfortunately, I had to go to Homebase, in which I had a dreadful day. My till broke, it was cold, it was 10% and people were generally just arses. Thank god I get paid soon! But it was a crappy day nevertheless.

Then I ran home, ate tea, got changed, and darted out the door once more for Muse.

Oh my. We got there quite early, and sat there through the crap Kinesis and the quite good Elbow. The seats were okay- lower tier but directly opposite the stage. On the plus side- near the bar and the toilets.

And then Muse came on. They were just... wow. We were sat in a dull section- all the people around wouldn't stand up and move, resulting in me and Christine bopping around to Hysteria by ourselves, but when Newborn came on everyone stood up and after that, it got really. The stage set-up was amazing, and combined with Matt bouncing around on stage it was an amazing feeling. Stand out songs would be Space Demetia and Time Is Running Out, if only on the basis that the whole crowd was singing along and bouncing and everything else with. They ended on Stockholm Syndrome, which was also fantastic, but then Christine and I had to run to get the train, although I stopped to get a knock-off hoodie, which is several sizes to big but very warm.

It's at this point the night went a little odd.

Basically, I was spending the night at Gill's house in Lancaster. It went wrong. Nat, Gill'd friend, was insistent that it was another train we were due to get on, and as such, we did. The train didn't stop anywhere we wanted to go. At all. As such, we ended up in Liverpool Lime Street at 12.30 at night, with the next train not leaving until 7am.

Oh dear.

We wandered, and eventually had to give it up and get a taxi to Preston at 1am. This came after getting grabbed by Irish drunks, who we foolishly offered pizza too. One of them dropped his pants at Christine, and one of them was insistent that I was a terrorist because I had a bandana on. Taxi rescused us, thank god.

Long taxi ride later, in which I nearly passed out with exhuastion, we reached Preston. Ran away from the drunks (again) and got a lift to Gill's house. Gill, please tell Racheal and Roger that I love them dearly for that lift.

I then crashed out on Gill's floor, although I do remember Christine talking in her sleep at one point and also rolling onto her sofa bed thingie more times than I can count. Ooops. Sorry.

This morning, we had to run for the rail replacement bus, which wasn't fun when you're wearing boots nicknamed the "Move, bitch!" boots and just generally shattered.

Eventually, I came home. It was only now that I regaled the full story to Mum, since she would have panicked otherwise.

And when I came home, the good four days really came to a crashing halt. The cat's being taken to be put down tomorrow, since the vet says there's nothing he can do. He's too thin, he's incontinent, he can't walk properly anymore but I still felt like I was going to burst into tears. Have spent ages today just fussing him and wanting to cry a lot.

And now I'm just feeling a little weird. I should go and get something done. Glad I have free time to do my history essay in.

God, this was a long and meandering post.

~Hathy_Col~