Birthday Bash Weekend!

Where do I start?? What a night out! There was drinking, dancing, laughing, camera eating, chocolate machine hugging, cone caber tossing, sea sickness and only one incident of PDA (public display of affection - and no it wasn't me and the Pocket Monster)!

The night started at our house with Adam (PM's brother), Al, Mark, Ben and Matt. After a swift trip to the Co-Op, a few ciders and beers later, oh and the demolishing of a packet of Doritos, we were off to the station. One stop to Balham and then a small wait for the tube to take us to Charing Cross and more importantly, to the pub. Whilst waiting for the tube Matt fancied a chocolaty snack but none of the machines on the platforms were working. Hugging the machine did not provide any chocolate despite Matt's efforts.

We arrived at the pub and found Kyla, Sean, Claire, Sacha, James and Louise. We eventually managed to secure a large enough table for us to all squeeze round as we were joined by Jeff, Sash, Mikey T, and Ali. Some texts arrived to say sorry I/we can't make it which was a disappointment but it didn't put too much of a dampener on the night.

I had a phone call from a number I did not recognise (I still haven't got all the numbers recovered from when I had my phone stolen) and a young lady told me she was outside the pub and asked where we were. I told her we were upstairs and then wondered who it was. I looked down towards the door and saw my friend Tremaine from University who I haven't seen since I left Northampton. A pleasant surprise for the evening and a great catch up!

The camera went walk about at the pub as you can tell from the photos on my photo site. While Matt and Mark decided to have a sparring competition and Luke and Kyla took loads of photos of themselves, Adam decided to try and eat the camera!

Alex was the last person to turn up at the pub before we headed down to Collide-a-Scope. We lost a few people on the way which was a shame. The place wasn't even open when we arrived but a brief 2 minute queue and we were inside making
our way to the top bar to check out the amazing views across the river.

It wasn't long before we were on the dance floor and by this time our final party member, Tash, had arrived. There were a few Saturday Night Fever moments along with some bowing down to superior dance moves!

The night was spent between the top floor bar and the dance floor as people took time out to get drinks and rest when the not so popular songs came on. My song highlights for the night would have to be 'Mister Mental' by The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster and 'Pull Shapes' by The Pipettes.

The numbers whittled down as the night went on and just before 3am we decided to grab our belongings and head home (or at least that was the plan until a few more good songs came on but as soon as something boring came on we headed to the bus stop). En route we stopped at Spar for some well deserved munch. As we said goodbye to some, we missed the first bus home due to the youngest member of our group (the one who turned 23 recently) saying a long 'goodbye' to another friend of mine. We just about managed to get on the next bus (nightbuses are really busy at 3am!). When we got to Kennington, Matt turned a lightly shade of pale and felt faint, so he jumped of the bus at the next stop and I went with him to look after him. After he had wandered around a bit and tried to be sick, we got on another bus. We only made it as far as Brixton though as Matt was still feeling ill. Instead of trying to get another bus, we opted to flag down a cab and get home that way. We arrived back in super quick time (cab drivers in London do not believe in speed limits) and Matt promptly got out and was sick on the pavement.

We had beaten the others back who apparently had been caber tossing cones near one of the underpasses. No idea what happened to the cones. They certainly took their time getting back whatever they were doing. Once everyone had arrived, I had to bail out due to serious tiredness and a headache. However, I am told the rest of the night went like this - another packet of Doritos was started, Adam fell asleep on the pile of duvets and pillows I had put out for everyone in the middle of the living room floor, Alex got one of the guitars out and tried to play along with the Cinematics album before heading off to Brighton at about 5.45am (apparently he went to the station but there was no trains so headed to Victoria, hung around up there and then got a train to Brighton around 8am), Matt went to sleep in the kitchen, Ben fell asleep on the living room floor, Al feel asleep on the sofa, and I found Tash asleep in the hallway when I got up to use the bathroom.

Sunday was a write-off. After cooking lots of bacon, eggs and sausages, one by one people left and travelled home whilst Me, PM, Ben and Matt wandered up to Streatham Common with a football. A lazy day with ice cream and football - doesn't get better than that.