Having gone into hermit-esque hiding over the Easter weekend in an attempt to regain sleep and sanity (hence lack of blog, as not a lot to report!) I've slowly been emerging back into 'life' this week...

Good Friday was spent very pleasantly with FMB (who is as we speak now in fabulous New Zealand - jealous? me? nah...), with what started as a very civilised day of Scrabble, trivial pursuits and a home-cooked supper (goats cheese and baked garlic tart incase you were wondering...) and somehow turned into a random tequila fuelled delve into the best (?!) of cheesy 80's pop which kept going until 5am or there abouts....hence the need for recovery time!

I emerged on Monday to set off on a mission to find my cousin a 21st birthday present or two, which I managed eventually, and which will hopefully be a success - we shall find out next week!

Wednesday saw the most recent Recycle Collective gig - if you haven't experienced one yet, do make an effort to go next time (May 18th), to enjoy a fine evening of food, wine and splediferous music! This month's gave me the opportunity to catch up with the lovely Alex and Estelle, neither of whom I'd seen for far too long...music was provided courtesy of Steve, Cleveland Watkiss and Leo Abrahams, all of whom were, as ever, on top form, the highlight of which for me (sorry Steve!) was Cleveland's superbly cool vocal looping wizardry...

Last night saw the usual post work drinkage occurring, but I was a good girl and was home before midnight, so didn't turn into a pumpkin...and was up bright and early this morning, since which time I've been a domestic goddess (of sorts) in a cleaning frenzy, alongside finding myself cooking breakfast for HD and friend...now how did that happen??

More New Zealand pics...

Well, not much to report life-wise as have been taking it easy and trying to recover form last week's bout of sleep deprivation. Weekend was spent working on a pre-school children's live show at the other job...we were bemused by a number of dodgy single men who were trying to buy tickets until we realised the venue lettering outside was advertising 'Live Action Hoes', which while being an amusing letter ommission worthy of a place in the guardian's lost consonants series, suggested an altogether different type of show than that we were offering...

Meanwhile, here's the next instalment of photos from my trip, featuring whales, dolphins and other such things....

New Zealand (Part 2)

For those interested, I've finally got round to uploading some more New Zealand pics - this time from the first weekend I spent in Wellington, plus scenery from the Interislander Ferry on the way to South Island. Go here to see them...

The next instalment features whale watching, but I thought I should hold fire for a little while, so as not to rub it in too much for shark & TH...

feel the slowing of time...

and so it's nearly friday - thank goodness, for this has beeen one of the longest weeks i've had for a very long time. This is due mainly to the fact that i've actually been awake for more of it than is normal, necessary, or healthy...

And it started going wrong before it began really - Monday saw me arrive at work feeling somewhat weary post the 'happy dave welcome dinner', but I battled bravely through, and survived enough to make it down to Wembley for the fabulous Depeche Mode gig, to which FMB kindly accompanied me. Managing to skip the long guest list queue thanks to BP, we got off to a good start, tho were a little dismayed to find we all had scattered seats. This was soon foruitously fixed by the appearance of CNL in the hospitality bar, where we did a sly trading of tickets. The gig itself was amazing - voices of angels and everything else CNL has already said being utterly true. We then mysteriously found ourselves at the aftershow(s) upstairs, where CNL gracefully and fabulously looked after us, and all looked like it may still be a civilised and relatively early night, until we somehow ended up assisting CNL as purveyors of fine beverages to MG's dressing room, and well, once there it would've been rude not to stay for a drink....we did sensibly not participate in the wild bus chase that threatened to occur afterwards, but jumped in a cab and were safely home before 3 (just).

All this would have been good and copable with, were it not for the fact that this also happens to be one of the busiest weeks I've had so far in the new job, what with a couple of major tours going onsale, my workload growing, festivals looming etc, plus obligatory drinks and a lovely meal courtesy of one of our record companies last night certainly did not help towards operation sleep catch up...

but have had a lovely quiet night in this evening, eating a fine supper cooked by FMB, followed by the playing of a very stupid but addictive computer game for the past couple of hours, which, as these things are inclined to do, clearly highlighted that both myself and FMB have a secret mean competitive streak (not so) hidden within us...ho hum!

And so to bed...

In which Happy Dave moves in

It's been a splendid hectic week of funfilled greatness, including 1 amazing gig (Sigur Ros), one fun gig (OKGO), further post work drinking with new colleagues, and laughing until it hurt last night when we went to watch the Mighty Boosh live show - I wasn't sure how it would all work live, but it was superb, and in a lot of ways even better than the tv series...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....Happy Dave has now moved in and WFB is no more...and even if I do say so myself I cooked a splendid welcome meal - salad tricolore, steak with lovely veggies followed by homemade lemone sorbetto...all followed by sumptuous french cheeses courtesy of FMB's 'work' France trip this weekend. After which we have just finished a somewhat epic game of 90's Trivial Pursuits...which of course my team (i.e. myself & HD) won swimmingly.

The only minorly disturbing occurrence arising from HD's arrival is the appearance of a lump of purest green in the bathroom, which unfortunately seems to be havinbg an adverse effect on the resident ducks....