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!

The Wicker Man came to work today!

fucking hell!
Just spent the last two hours filling in an application form for a job in Hull, when an accidental click of the mouse removed all my hard work!
Cunting computer bastard thing.

Anyway, let me tell you about my trip to Wales. It was dead exciting, I got to go on Welshy's Magical Mystery Sight-seeing tour of all the places that he knows and he took me on the bus to the Aquarium near Chester and promises to take me to the Zoo next time (If there is a next time) I visit.

I met his Mam and brother and Sister, who I made leave her bed and room so I could sleep in it, poor bitch. And his brother's rabbits and had some of the special cake that his brother had made for the occasion and I met one of his mates and his mates girlfriend and I think they all liked me but you'll have to ask him for whether I passed the inspection or not!
They're all nice, and best of all when I came up and down on the train the stupid ticket inspector never marked my ticket so I have virtually a free ticket to use again, before August 26th!

This nearly but in no way makes up for me leaving my brothers oystercard and full driving license card on the train at Crewe, that was then heading towards Liverpool.
I hope it returns in the post in a few days, I'm not looking forward to his mental breakdown when he realises!

I've been collecting Boy Scouts!
I plan on working my way through them all, state by state.
Since the other day when I was part of a scout Human Pyramid the museum has been invaded by hundreds if not thousands of Boy Scouts.
They're all heading to Chelmsford for a big Boy Scout Jamboree or sommat or other, and assure me that by the 8th of August over 40,000 different scouts will have attended or be there.
From what I remember of Chelmsford thats about 38,200 more people than actually live there!

So I've made it my mission to attack each little gang (troop?) of Scouts as they wander about and find out where they're from.
They all look a bit bemused as I wander (casually of course!) staring hard at their little badges and then stop and demand to know where they're from and if its somewhere new they get clapped and if not then I tell them off.

So far in the past two days I've got: Colorado, California, Georgia, Lousiana, Texas, Arkansas, South and North Carolina, New York, Washington, Pensilvania (yeah I know thats wrong, but its taken me 4 attempts to get that far and I REALLY cant be bothered to try again), Florida and New Jersey. (Plus a Scout group from Portugal)

They all seem pretty amused by this collecting and suggest that I get a little map of all the states to tick off so I know what one I've done and whats left to get and they all hand me their buisiness cards and one group from North Carolina handed me a special commerative coin celebrating this big ScoutFest!

After Work tomorrow I'll be making the most of having the weekend off and am scooting up to Wales on the train to see Welshy and meet his family! I'm terrified!

So on Friday night me and Welshy and E went to the pub and eagerly awaited the Midnight launching of Harry Potter!

And God it was worth the wait! I got home and started reading it and finished it at 3.50 that morning and then went off to work for 9.

And I've been waiting impatiently for other people to finish it so I can talk about it and its taken them forever!

I cant believe its all over though! Now what am I going to look forward too?

I have been in Derby the last two days!
I met MH's new housemate, we'll call him LJ, he's great, he became like my new best friend, once CL appeared and the talk degenerated to weddings (CL's getting married to UDOBF in November) So me and LJ talked of normal things, like how fucking awesome Monty Panasar is and if we'll bounce straight back up from the Championship and we picked out a Dream Team from the paper.
I'm not sure yet how he and MH will get on, but it might all work out, hope so!
We all went to see Harry Potter (Again) And then he took me out for a ride on his motorbike! I've always wanted a go! BB would never even let me sit on his bike when it was parked so to get a go was dead exciting!

(Like the green shoes?!)

We went speeding about the streets, its all scary, as I couldnt put my glasses on so everything was kinda blurry and he kept laughing at me trying to duck out the way of the traffic coming at me from the other side of the road!
I loved it! Maybe I am some kinda adrenaline freak!

And Tomorrow the wait is over! Yes! After 7 books the Harry Potter saga will be over!
I cant wait! I'm making plans to be there at waterstones at midnight!

I went to see Harry Potter last night! It was great! I loved it! And the last book is out next weekend! I cant wait! Hurrah!

I had THE best morning in work ever, ever, ever today! I was stuck in the really boring modern contempory art gallery, which basically looks like some guy went mental with a stencil and half a box of colouring pencils.
(I did make a documentary style film on my mobile about JUST how boring this place is, but I'm not sure you guys deserve to view it!)
Anyway, you're lucky if you see 20 people all day, its that quiet with nowt worth looking at.

And I was there, chilling out, doing the wordsearch that I'd smuggled in, when in bounced an american boy, perhaps about 12, he disappeared and returned a few minutes later with 8 friends and a grown up.
"Hi there!" (Imagine funny US accent)
"Hey!" I said chirpily (Imagine wonderful and in no way irritating cockney accent)
They did the usual, "What the hell is this place?" question and I joked that this was where you went when you were bad.
They asked if I saw many people and I laughed and said no and that I was bored and lonely.
"Awww" One joked. "You sound like you need a hug!"

I nodded. "Indeed I do!"
The next thing I know, he's given me this massive bear hug and then all his little mates are hugging me one after the other and then some other grown up who's with the group appears and is told to give me a hug too, which he does, rather bemusedly.
I found out that they were two scout groups, one from California and the other from Colorado (apologies Yanks, but I had to ask where Colorado is on the map)
Anyway getting lots of hugs would have been enough to make my day, except they then went bouncing along my gallery and discovered that there is a song on the wall. Which they then sung to me. Which excited me even more and I told them, that they were about the best thing to happen to me all day and that I wished others could see this and they pointed to the CCTV camera and asked who was looking at that and I told them security and then the next thing I know, they've all agreed to get on the floor and write out HI! with their bodies.

Which excited me greatly! I mean one of them was even curled up to be the dot on the top of an i!
And I ran to get my phone to take a picture of this! Its much too dark to see really, but I just HAD to try and show you guys!
Then some how, one of them decided, that they should form a human pyramid! So i lurked to take the photo and then they urged me to be in it too.
So thats how I ended up, on my hands and knees on the back of two 14 year old scouts from California, and a 12 year old from Colorado balancing a little precariously on my back and my companion to the side!
I begged them to send me an email of the pyramid, and they all seemed overwhelmed to collect my email and all had little buisness cards! It was adorable!
I was mildly hysterical with laughter for the rest of the day thinking about it!

I'm looking after Red Squirrels blog for a bit!

Come on over to play!

Dont worry! It wasnt a dress! I dont do dresses!

So yesterday me and Mam and her toyboy WA piled into the car as the Rectory Field Contingent and went along to deepest, darkest Surrey to OF's wedding.
(I should probably explain, that she's known him since he was born and is about 11 or 12 years older than him and has called him that all her life and so we use the term as well, even Dad did - it led to a fuckload of confusion in the past!)
So strange to think of the girl that I used to joke about what it was like to be old and married getting married herself! I'm still struggling to think of her as having a new surname!
The church itself was cute and tiny, apparently its been about for the last 700 years or so, and it only seemed to take her five steps and she was up the aisle, her bridesmaids had to sorta hover at the back as to avoid stepping on her train.
But she did herself proud and didnt cry or anything as she feared she might as she said all her vows and stuff, although she did trip over her words a bit!
I suppose it was a nice service but its in no way made me change my mind on getting married myself one day!
Then we all piled back into the car and drove to her folks place for the reception.
I left Mum and WA to play silly buggers, I went of to congratulate OF, catch up with her sister, now finishing her first year of kiddy nursing!
And steal her older brothers top hat, I've always had a thing for top hats, I love them. I want my own one to wear about the street.

I nearly got away with it, until the end when he realised. "Oi (insert real nickname)! Gimmie that back you thief!"
I also met some other guy who fed me caviar. I dunno if any of you lot have had that before. But its rank. Horrid. Very salty and the little eggs pop in your mouth. It was gross.

Then it was time for the speeches. I got mentioned in the Father of the Bride Speech!
He told about her mischievous side when she cut all my hair off when I was about 6 and how her husband could tell when she was lying and recounted a story about how he'd found her eating lots of chocolate - thieved from our fridge! and asked if thats where she'd got it from and she'd claimed that I'd given it to her and clapped her hands over her ears to stop them going red as her Dad told her thats how he could tell she was lying!
Congratulations to her. I hope she and him are very happy, even if I think they're crazy!

Today I was in charge of tickets at work.
I like doing tickets and being a meeter/greeter. You get loads of people to chat to and there's always something going on. High profile and stressful at times, but I love it (when its going smoothly!)
The guy who was my opposite number today and the girl who relieved us for our breaks are both foreign.
The guy absolutely dazzled me, he spoke french, italian, spanish and german as well as near perfect ( well a lot more perfect than me) english.
The relief girl is Korean and also speaks japanese. So i felt kinda left out and a bit rubbish at only really being able to speak english to people!
So I dragged up the few words of German and Spanish, that I remember from school (hi, how are you, have a good day kinda stuff) and then demanded that she teach me Korean and Japanese.
So now I can, very badly! pronounce Hello, Goodbye, Sorry, Pretty, Idiot, and thanks in Korean and Japanese! And I then kept pouncing on oriental looking people asking where they came from. Often I was disappointed when they told me Woolwich or China but sometimes I got to practise. They seem to be more excited when you try and speak to them, than the Germans/Spanish people were. Maybe cos they're nearer and are more used to people tryin to talk to them in a mangled version of their language!
Konechiwa/An Nyoung!

Tomorrow Is OF's wedding. Mental. she's only 23

I went to see Shrek 3 last night!
It was good, not as good as the other two though, the best bit was when the Gingerbread man did a poo and a jelly tot fell out. How I laughed!
Had a classic silly Charbs moment when I raced to get a drink and sweets before the trailers started (everyone knows they're the best bit of going to the pictures!) and fell over my own feet, hurrah for me!

Earlier that day I was walking to catch a bus to the stables along an empty road, free of an obsticles, parked cars or anything like that.
Apart from a large puddle in the gutter, actually it was more like a little moat.
And there I was walking alongside it innocently and minding my own buisness when a car came by and decided it'd be fun to swerve into it, causing a lot of splash to come up.
Soaking me from head to foot.
Needless to say my full range of swearwords were unleashed at the car now disappearing into the distance!

Welshy was down again!
We booked ourselves a couple of nights in a hotel overlooking the Upton Park pitch! and it was great! all West Ham themed!
I stole a pen as a memento! It'll go in the drawer with the other things i've pilfered over the years. The teaspoon... the wine glasses... the bar mats and stuff!
Anyway, we also took the train down to Brighton for the day!
I love the beach! But it was just too cold to go Swimming! I played in the surf for a bit, splashing about and getting freezing cold and wet jeans while he stood by and watched!
And we ate chips on the beach! And he squealed like a girl when I made the gulls come (didnt you! hahaha)
And off to the sealife center and the pier where we played in the amusements and sulked over the fair rides being closed and stuff!
Ace couple of days!

Because of me, this notice was read out in the morning brief.

"Gallery assistants are reminded that the plastic bags for umbrellas are not to be worn about your person. Please kindly remember that you are representing the museum and act accordingly."

I feel so proud!