Hurrah, I'm back from Camping and to end a top week I met A for a quick drink before the mighty Addicks gained their first 3 points of the season with a stunning secondhalf come back to finish the game 3-2.
I really liked camping! Although traipsing through about 20 fields or crossing trainlines in the dead of night in order to find a toliet aint exactly my idea of fun, especially when your imagination is running riot with you, about serial killers lurking in the darkened cubicle, making me run in and out!
We were right next to a beach too, so spent hours paddling and swimming and playing silly buggers on the sand and then one night we headed into the town to go on the fairground rides.

Now here's the thing, despite all the scary shit i got up to in NZ, I LOATHE with a passion fair rides. I refuse to believe that that clickety old thing that might have been in place 20 years is safe, and i especially dont believe the ones that travel about are safe, i mean it only takes one guy to forget to tighten a bolt and there where will you be? Dead on the Waltzer is where.

So Welshy made me go on that, and I kinda enjoyed it until the fairground guy came and started spinning it and then I started screaming like a little girl, demanding that he stop.

We found ace pubs, some that showed the international friendlies, some that played all the awesome old time music (How good honestly is Tie a Yellow Ribbon?) and one that had a natural spring in it complete with goldfishies against one wall!

We went pony trekking, which was a bit dull although I'm happy just plodding about on a horse, even at a beginner walk level.

We toasted marshmallows and I dared Welshy to drink an entire bottle of wine to himself and we or I ate noodles that I cooked over a wee bunsen burner type stove and then had to eat with my fingers cos we had no knives and forks.

He showed me star constellations and we played phone monopoly, of which I was cheated and we tried to egg each other on for midnight skinny dipping, although in the end we both chickened out cos it was just far too cold!

It was a fucking ace mini-holiday all things considered! Shame its back to work tomorrow.

Guess who I kinda did and didnt met on Thursday?!

Think top super cool hollywood megastar! Think Voice of Woody in Toy Story! That's right! I met Tom Hanks! In my museum! Well I didnt!
See on Friday they were discussing his visit and I complained that I'd been in the museum and not in the Observatory where he'd been (apparently he's a big clock geek and came to see the Harrison Timepieces) and then they all turned to me and frowned and asked what gallery I had been working in and so I told them.
"But (insert real nickname) He did come into you're gallery, I saw him! He had two minders with him, how can you not have seen him?!"
So who's the most famous person you've seen and not realised?!

I'm away camping with Welshy till Saturday, have fun all!

Thank you all for my birthday wishes!

As soon as the weather improves Hyde I'll take a picture for you of the birdies!

As for telling my mum. I still havent done so. I dont know how. Its pathetic. I'm 24 *shudder* not 14, I shouldnt be having secret relationships, especially when I'm going on holiday next week to wales with Welshy (another lie, mother thinks I'm going elsewhere!)
I said about it to E. She asked that I wait until she'd left London before I confessed all and she thinks i'm crazy.
When I think about it I am, not only for lying and getting myself into this mess but for wanting to confess, its gonna be a huge row over nothing. Welshy STILL wont be able to stop at my house or hang out.
I remember the fuss she kicked up over MH being my friend and me going to uni or going out with my work friends. She just cant accept that I need to live my own life thats separate from her.
And she'll scowl at Welshy and hate him irrationally. And its times like this I really miss my Dad more than ever cos he'd be able to talk some sense into her.
And I still dont know how to do it, how to go about it for the best or whether its best to keep quiet and carry on as I am.

its my birthday!
I'm 24 years old and I hate it! I wanna be 23 again!
I got some new beautiful red parrots for my birthday, with pale yellow, almost white pearly markings on them.
And a new pair of quail, now I have 11 birds living in my garden!
And it even looks like Charlton are winning as well to help celebrate my big day!

Football's back! Hurrah!
I love waking up on the first day of the season, especially when we're at home and thinking "yay no work! Football later! I get to see all my football friends that I dont see any other time apart from on alternate Saturdays!
Its like how I always imagined birthdays and Christmases to be, full of excitement and anticipation, only to end in crushing disappointment by the end of the day.
Bring on Scunthorpe! Hurrah!

(a 1-1 draw? you're having a laugh!)

Welshy and me when to Antartica yesterday!
Well not the real antarctica cos that's just silly, although I would like to go there! This was a representation in the Natural History Museum. We got to sit in a freezer room, where the temperature dropped to below -10 (which is fucking freezing when you've only got a tshirt on!). He laughed at me going numb! The bastard!
We got to drive a simulated skidoo and smell penguin vomit! It was fantastic!
We also went to see the Simpsons movie which really rocks! We saw a naked Bart! And Spiderpig! Hurrah for spiderpig!

We made a kinda deal as well, last night. See he has the most awful diet of anyone I know in my entire life. He exists simply on chips and bread (but never mixed!) which worries me, it cant be healthy in the slightest. Its like a food phobia, that he cant eat anything else. (I should be careful what I put seeing as he reads this!) So he promised to try if I told me mam about him.

See she is blissfully unaware that he exists. I've just always made lies and excuses about where I was going, it was easier than telling her I was meeting a friend from the internet as she remains convinced that everyone from there is a serial killer.
And then, well as now I worried about her state of mind, how much she relies on me, how much she hates other people taking me away from her, so I never told her about all our little dramas before we got together, about how happy he makes me (yeah bitch you know I know you're reading this so thats all you're getting) and now i've built up this horrid web of lies, designed to not upset her and me, cos she'll be a bitch when i tell her, and its all gotta come to an end.
I hate lying to her, but I've always gone for the quiet life with my dealings with her.
She'll not like the fact that I've lied to her for over a year, that I'm sleeping with him, and she'll really not like the fact that he's so important to me.
And as well on my list of confessions I'm going to have to admit to the loss of my brothers driving license! If i dont post for a while it'll be because he's put me in hospital!

yesterday I discovered that the shop sold spacefood, like real proper astronauts in space eat!
So today I simply had to try some. I tried a space icecream, inside two chocolate bourbourn biscuits.
It was all freeze dried and in packets and more than a little disappointing.
I mean if I was in a big spaceship and I'd done some kinda super hard and really technical thing, like washing my spaceships windows and wanted to reward myself with a big bowl of ben and jerries, I'd be really, really heart-broken with what I got.
I definately think Mr Whippy should start organising some kinda space icecream van.
Playing his happy little tune and handing out 99's to whoever asked for one.
I bet there's a market for this!