A Little Smog and a damn good Blog!

 From my unpenetrable Lair of Quirk, I write to you as one woman with her hat off. I have removed my hat, in this case a flat cap, and have it eschewed against my jumper like a Victorian chimney sweep when Sir Jollington VI walks past. A single tear has left a white track down my blackened young chimney-sweeping face as I think in my head, 'Bravo, London, bravo'. Because, fellows, I have just returned two days ago from the social highlight of my 2013 so far. Not that there has been much competition. But oh, the ball I have had! :D

The scene was set for a good time, with a very jolly and thorough Heathrow delay. After struggling to land for upwards of 20 minutes, we were told upon landing that our steps were broken and we had to stay onboard. For an indefinite time. That was a barrel of laughs. Once I entered the airport, I made my way to the underground station. My dear pal Hannah was coming from the opposite end of Heathrow so I set out to wait. Unfortunately a ridiculous amount of delays happened her end so I was hovering like a lurking lurker for over an hour. Luckily, my 'puppy dog playing a game' face encouraged other arriving tourists to seek my advice about my 'native town' of London. I guess standing next to the arrivals board was a bad idea, I was tempted to hip jut and gesture at it and say 'I know how to commute, ask me how!' Still, I like to think I was able to help the Spanish ladies make the local phone call. And my fizzing coke bottle provided some lively entertainment for a French school group.

Stay at Premiere Inn. They match beds to your PJs.

Eventually Hannah made it, and by chance we had both been looking for each other and opposite ends so turned at the same time and saw each other, while some clanging 80s saxophone chimed. Reunited (phew!) Crannah made their way to the underground and began their journey.

As a tube pro, it was a stress free commute to our delightful Stratford Premiere Inn, with a view of the Olympic Park. We used a self- service check in machine (SELF- SERVICE!!! It printed out our room keys and everything!!) and made our way to the lifts, me jigging with glee for the chance to exploit a hotel room, declaring "This is one of the true pleasures of my life!"

It was delightfully clean and well-laid out and I did the following testing.
1. Bed bounce test
2. Free biscuit check (none :( )
3. Free coffee check (two sachets!)
4. Travel kettle (yes!)
5. Bathroom products (Foamburst shower gel dispenser- score!)
6. TV working (Freeview channels)
7. View (car park and edge of Olympic stadium, and sometimes a lardy builder looking back at me)
8. Trouser press (none)
9. Spare stuff (two pillows, lots of towels.)
10. Reading room service/restaraunt menu (Burgers? Burgers in a meal deal? BURGERS!)
11. The Miranda two moves to kettle from bed dance (Successful in one teddy bear roll and a finger press)

Everything to my satisfaction, we decided to head on down for some dinner. Burgers and (triple-fried) chips- yummy! Summer fruit and jelly sundae for dessert- jolly roger! Returning to our room, we watched almost the entirety of comic relief in our PJs. Well, until David Tennant was trying to guilt trip us and we reached an angry limit!

Saturday morning: the reason we were there. Day One of the Country2Country festival in the 02- that's right, the U.Ks first ever Country Music festival. Stopping for a croissant and coffee breakfast and a Pizza Express lunch (my pizza- gorgonzola and leek- had an ACTUAL HOLE in the middle stuffed full of salad- two meals in one!) we made our way to the arena for an all day American country town explore and music revelation.

Us and a Pilgrim Choice cowboy

The Pilgrim Choice cheddar cowboys were about.So, of course, we had to get our picture taken with him. And we also posed in a photo booth wearing cowboy hats for the chance of winning a month's supply of cheese. Obviously. With a quirky start, we explored the cowboy boot, gingham and hat stalls, and the dozens of international food stalls. Enjoying an incredibly MOIST piece of coconut blondie, we anticipated our actual concert.

It was amazing. We found people like us, of all imaginable generations, crazy for country, wacky for western! As a testament to this: queue back to tube, mass crowds singing along to 'Jolene' and middle aged and elderly women and men wearing cowboy hats and spangly boots.

Festival main stage

The actual acts were all amazing. The atmosphere was intense with anticipation and joy and disbelief for what was actually happening. Actual violins and banjos getting played on a live stage, people rocking out on guitars and singing with their souls. We were satisfied campers.

The next morning, Sunday, we woke up to another day of delights to be had. We made our way into the Westfield centre for dinner and had a sudden filling of dread. Were all the shops shut until 12?? Could we not get any breakfast? But alas we went to a crepery and had a crepe and coffee for a few pounds. I had a Canadian crepe- my first ever real taste of bacon and syrup combined. I think, after all, I could easily be Canadian! I also learnt an important lesson: Macchiatto is actually just a really small coffee. Gutted.

Me in Zizzi with my beer

We headed towards London Bridge for some sight seeing: we stopped for a frolic around the Globe theatre, some superb river views, a look at HMS Belfast, which was reverberating with Irish music to celebrate St. Patrick's day, and eventually we managed to find the bridge, though it took a surprising effort! We had lunch in the GORGEOUS Italian restaraunt Zizii- why do we not have it in N.I?? Gorging ourselves on delicious garlic bread with cheese and balsamic onions and a delicious lasagne/chicken, red pepper and goat's cheese pizza, I ordered a beer and was told 'Excellent choice!' It was bliss eating yummy food and watching the river flow past us. That sounds so metaphorical!

An obviously drunk man got on a tube and said "I just need a few pounds so I can get off the streets, guys." We ignored him. We are soooo London!

Heading back to the O2 arena, we stopped for another coffee break in Costa and enjoyed the build up to the next stage of the festival. Now on good speaking terms with the couple next to us who had been there the previous evening, we had a nice chat and awaited our wonderful acts. As a personal show highlight: we saw LeAnn Rimes performing on stage and fulfilled a childhood dream since Coyote Ugly came out in 2000, we got to sing along with 'Can't Fight the Moonlight'. Dreams can come true! LeAnn nearly cried, and we did too. In other news, Brantley Gilbert was delectably good at being both Metal and Country. Carrie Underwood is apparently a performer that triggers multiple girl fights if the number of women being escorted out from the stadium is anything to go by. And Hootie and the Blowfish's own Hootie, Darius Rucker, is an awesome dancer and got us all singing along to 'Family Tradition' by Hank Williams Jr., country royalty himself!

With the festival over there was a sense of sadness but also a real sense of gladness for having gone to it. It's definitely back next year and we can't wait! It was awesomely good.

Monday morning, we packed our bags and checked out, heading into the centre for some more sight seeing. We hit all the main sights, though Buckingham Palace disappeared off the map while we were looking for it, so we didn't make it there! Our dream of becoming Mary Kate and Ashley in 'Winning London' will have to wait until next year, when we've acquired colour lensed sunglasses and tartan trousers.

We went for lunch to a Chinese all you can eat buffet, where the food was nice, but they hid us in a creepy backroom, forced us to drink fizzy water and shouted at us until we paid them extra. Such fun!

Goodbye until next year, London!

We went to King's cross to get our picture at Platform 9 and three quarters, but discovered a line of tourists paying to have their picture and decided that, surprisingly, we were actually too cool for something. Heading back to Heathrow early, there's nothing like an hour and a half squeezed onto a tube where the driver keeps repeating 'We do not have a final destination for this tube yet.' to get you in the mood for going back home.

I give my trip to London a 9 and a half out of 10- only thing that would have made it better would be if Carrie Underwood's promised 'very special guest' had bothered to show up and had bothered to be Brad Paisley.

In other news, last night I fell asleep and weird stuff happened. You've heard of sleep walking? Of sleep talking? I take things to a whole new level of cray-cray. As a child, I woke up multiple times at exactly 12AM to be sick, one time I worried so much about taking a plaster off the next morning that I woke up and it had disappeared, never to be seen again, and last night: for a couple of months, one of my teddy bears has been missing, leaving me just two in my bed. This morning, I woke up and the third bear was back!!!! How??? Why??? Amazing! So, apparently adult sleep walking is a sign of mental instability/psychological problems.

I actually find myself filled with dread as to what sleep Jeremy-Kyling means...

Riding the bus with my sister

Before you ask, this is not a Rosie O'Donnell related blog...although the film title I have selected for the title is perhaps one of her most hilarious roles...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5osxqNncTk.

(For those who followed the link) I'm sorry you had to see that...I am not in anyway responsible for the content of the trailer, or indeed the film. But still, look up the bit about the toilet seat...makes me laugh everytime!

 This blog is in fact about my most recent travels back to Scotland. My mother (Big Bad Hezz) and I landed at Inverness airport, where on my way through security, I accidentally dropped the entirety of my toiletries into a bin and had to practically jump in it to rescue them again, and were promptly whisked away in my sister's car to her pad in Lossie. On our way there, however, we stopped for lunch. In a hippy commune. The sandwiches were nice, and there were some weiiiird people around, so all in all, it was a very enjoyable lunch time. We stopped in at the little gift shop, where there were heaps of weird statues of made up angels or something like that but we just ignored those, and went to the food section. I wanted a drink and seen a bottle called 'Rose Lemonade'. Thinking that it looked yummily like the strawberry lemonade that seems to only be available in the United States, I got a bottle. Unfortunately, it was exactly what it said on the tin. Rose flavoured lemonade. Yum. Plus, it had extract of ginger which always reminds me of being travel sick and therefore makes me a wee tad nauseous. What a nice drink.

Anyway, we eventually made it back to Kat's house and we were mightily excited for the Olympic Opening Ceremony which was happening that evening, because we are big fans of the Olympics in general.. And it's happening in our country. That doesn't happen often. Well, I may as well give my opinion on the ceremony as well, as the world and his wife seems to be weighing in on the topic. First off, let's just make this clear. I don't think the Olympics is in anyway a political statement about conservatives, the rich and the elite. I think it is what it is. A chance for the best in the world to get a chance to prove they are the best. It's a chance for the underdogs to rise, for records to be set, for amateurs to defy expectations. I thought they were brilliant, actually. The whole time the Queen and James Bond were travelling in that helicopter I was thinking 'No, no, she's not going to jump, is she??' When that stunt double was flipping through the air I almost lost it- how cool! Giant floating Voldemort was great, I liked him. Rowan Atkinson playing the keyboard was really funny. It all made me really proud. Especially when each country in the U.K got to sing their national anthem- I totally welled up at 'Danny Boy', especially as they were on the amazing Giant's Causeway- one of the many novelties of my country, another being Liam Neeson...

Beer and Olympics...yeaaaaah buddy!

We found ourselves enjoying a Corona or two, as well as some cherry seeds and once more proved our absolute class by spitting out our cherry stones into a Cath Kidston mug. Classy.

It was a bit of a late night, as the ceremony continued on until one in the morning, and by this point, it was really only me still alive, trying to guess which country was going to come out next. I was a little gutted to see that all of the track team were absent, as the wonderful beauty that is Chris Tomlinson was absent from our screens. Shame!

The cherry stone debris

Anyway, the real purpose of our visit was to help Katherine move house. So in between watching episodes of The Biggest Loser USA- which we fast forwarded and only watched the challenges and the weigh ins- we started the packing process.

We did find ourselves getting very distracted, particularly as Hezza had just acquired a Tablet, that we bought her for her birthday, and it was like watching Bambi play the Chattanooga Choo Choo on a saxophone. The funniest quote was probably 'Are those really emoticons?? I thought they were 'therefore' signs. What...just what??

Anyway, no moving day would be complete without a montage of action with an upbeat 80s hit in the background. So we took a novelty picture or two. Here we are in checked shirts, braids, and bandanas. It's all very Gilmore Girls.

We made the big move on Monday morning, bright and early. My mother and Kat's neighbour Lisa went ahead with all the stuff in a big white transit van while me and Kat drove in her car behind them, singing along to 'Where is the Love' and planning Kat's political career.

Her house in Aberdeen is goooooooooooooorgeous!! Everything has been newly rennovated, all the furniture and appliances were brand new, it had huge windows and lovely high ceilings and it had a drawbridge. Yes, you literally go across a drawbridge to enter the house. Blew my mind.

We met her lovely new housemate Rhona, we saw the local area- which has fake ski slopes really close- super jealous!! We ate mac and cheese and I set up the tv and we all had a lovely evening. Tuesday morning we went home via Aberdeen airport. What a nice, stress free little airport!! I really liked it's lay out and for once nothing went wrong in security. Yesterday afternoon I got my hair cut- noooooooo!! Never fear, avid readers, it was only a trim! I was worried that like Samson all of my strength would be deminished. Luckily, this was not the case. I also purchased some Union Jack knickers in Tesco so....Go on Team GB!!

What's next for me? I hear you ask..

Oh yeah, I'm moving to Switzerland in four days. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhh!!!!! The fear has well and truly set it!

QOTR