Celebrations and disabled reptiles
This weekend was one of celebration.
Friday night started with too much wine in Cargo, celebrating the fact Kim has finished writing her million word thesis on something scientific and wanted to get blind drunk to celebrate. Her night didn't quite go to plan, she hit a wall of tiredness at 11pm and couldn't recover, so went home, to be fair the stress of the last few weeks had probably taken it out of her!
Me, Liz, Tom and Tim (sounds like a children's book) stayed on till the wee hours dancing like loons until we too hit the wall - I couldn't face a bus home and luckily the others agreed to a cab home, luxury!
Saturday was spent mooching about the house then I went and met Jen for lunch. After some appalling customer service at Nando's where we were first ignored then were spoken to very rudely, we left and went to Wagamama's instead where the service was great but the food pretty pants. Not to worry though, they gave me my pud for free as it was a bit rank tasting. Take note Nando's!
A leisurely stroll through the streets of Knightsbridge gawping at ridiculous cars (like this - the Aston Martin Cygnet - seriously wtf? A Toyota IQ with a ridiculous price tag) led us to the Royal Albert Hall where Leanne was performing at the National Poetry Slam 2014. (Ok ok, it was in the loading bay of the RAH, but still, the RAH!). As loading bays go it's a pretty cool one, decorated with graffitti and spruced up with some sexy lighting.
As always, Leanne was fantastic, but unfortunately didn't get through to the next round which was a shame. It's so lovely seeing her perform though, I remember her first London gig in Mile End and she was so nervous and now her confidence has improved massively and her performance was great. It's so nice to see someone come on so much! She definitely deserved to be on stage that night.
As always there was some poems that didn't float my boat, but equally some fantastic ones. Leyla Josephine, who I believe was one of the overall winners, did a fantastic poem called Dear Beyonce, where she asked self proclaimed feminist Bey about how whether the lyrics of her rap star hubby in her 'drunk in love' song are really that great a message to be sending out (I didn't realise but he makes reference to the fact that Tina Turner's hubby beat her, trivialising domestic violence somewhat).
Another great poem was one about the internet, by Stewart Taylor. I loved the rhythm of it and it was very clever. Miko Berry also offered a great love poem, about how people love so freely and easily when they're young and uninhibited, but puberty hits them and their views on life change and some things just aren't 'cool' anymore and your priorities change. I have googled all the poets but I can't find anything on the interwebs for them so cannot share their wonderful poems which is a shame.
We were then treated to a set by Kate Tempest, she performed a new poem which was very long and bizarre and I have to admit I switched off a little bit in the middle but it was good to see how a 'professional' spoken word artist performs - with a lot of passion!! She also made a few mistakes which I thought was good - she's a bit of a celebrity in the spoken word world and so it humanised her and showed that even the pros make mistakes.
Sunday was my big little brother's birthday so I got up early and headed home. He has a massive crush on Samia, so I printed off her photo and got her to write a little birthday message on it (and laminate it - her idea not mine!) which he found very amusing. Mum and Tim had got him a HUGE box of sweets which they'd hidden in the garden for him to find, as well as buying him a parachute jump which I am also contributing to as it's soooooo expensive.
We then headed out to Beaver Water World which admittedly isn't the best name for it, but it's great. It's a small animal rehoming facility which has the most random collection of animals ever, all for the princely sum of £4.50 entry. They have a reptile section which contains reptiles that have been seized or found in the wild - seized pets included a crocodile, a Caiman, many iguanas, bearded dragons, a royal python, a boa constricter and loads of other snakes, terrapins and turtles. Many of the bearded dragons had deformities as they weren't kept properly in their tanks and suffered growth issues which was a bit sad. They also had meerkats, a racoondog (didn't even know this existed), a deer, beavers (Though we didn't actually see them in the enclosure), ring tailed lemurs, owls, loads of other birds. The centre was well staffed, very informative and lots of animals had little biographies on their enclosures explaining why they're here and the importance of looking after the animals. It was a large variety of animals for a small price and it was nice to see Mum and Tim enjoying themselves too (as well as the birthday boy!). More family activities like that please Mum!!
We finished the afternoon with a pub lunch, birthday cake before I had to head back home for my swimming course. Happy birthday big little bro :-)
Friday night started with too much wine in Cargo, celebrating the fact Kim has finished writing her million word thesis on something scientific and wanted to get blind drunk to celebrate. Her night didn't quite go to plan, she hit a wall of tiredness at 11pm and couldn't recover, so went home, to be fair the stress of the last few weeks had probably taken it out of her!
Me, Liz, Tom and Tim (sounds like a children's book) stayed on till the wee hours dancing like loons until we too hit the wall - I couldn't face a bus home and luckily the others agreed to a cab home, luxury!
Saturday was spent mooching about the house then I went and met Jen for lunch. After some appalling customer service at Nando's where we were first ignored then were spoken to very rudely, we left and went to Wagamama's instead where the service was great but the food pretty pants. Not to worry though, they gave me my pud for free as it was a bit rank tasting. Take note Nando's!
A leisurely stroll through the streets of Knightsbridge gawping at ridiculous cars (like this - the Aston Martin Cygnet - seriously wtf? A Toyota IQ with a ridiculous price tag) led us to the Royal Albert Hall where Leanne was performing at the National Poetry Slam 2014. (Ok ok, it was in the loading bay of the RAH, but still, the RAH!). As loading bays go it's a pretty cool one, decorated with graffitti and spruced up with some sexy lighting.
As always, Leanne was fantastic, but unfortunately didn't get through to the next round which was a shame. It's so lovely seeing her perform though, I remember her first London gig in Mile End and she was so nervous and now her confidence has improved massively and her performance was great. It's so nice to see someone come on so much! She definitely deserved to be on stage that night.
As always there was some poems that didn't float my boat, but equally some fantastic ones. Leyla Josephine, who I believe was one of the overall winners, did a fantastic poem called Dear Beyonce, where she asked self proclaimed feminist Bey about how whether the lyrics of her rap star hubby in her 'drunk in love' song are really that great a message to be sending out (I didn't realise but he makes reference to the fact that Tina Turner's hubby beat her, trivialising domestic violence somewhat).
Another great poem was one about the internet, by Stewart Taylor. I loved the rhythm of it and it was very clever. Miko Berry also offered a great love poem, about how people love so freely and easily when they're young and uninhibited, but puberty hits them and their views on life change and some things just aren't 'cool' anymore and your priorities change. I have googled all the poets but I can't find anything on the interwebs for them so cannot share their wonderful poems which is a shame.
We were then treated to a set by Kate Tempest, she performed a new poem which was very long and bizarre and I have to admit I switched off a little bit in the middle but it was good to see how a 'professional' spoken word artist performs - with a lot of passion!! She also made a few mistakes which I thought was good - she's a bit of a celebrity in the spoken word world and so it humanised her and showed that even the pros make mistakes.
Sunday was my big little brother's birthday so I got up early and headed home. He has a massive crush on Samia, so I printed off her photo and got her to write a little birthday message on it (and laminate it - her idea not mine!) which he found very amusing. Mum and Tim had got him a HUGE box of sweets which they'd hidden in the garden for him to find, as well as buying him a parachute jump which I am also contributing to as it's soooooo expensive.
We then headed out to Beaver Water World which admittedly isn't the best name for it, but it's great. It's a small animal rehoming facility which has the most random collection of animals ever, all for the princely sum of £4.50 entry. They have a reptile section which contains reptiles that have been seized or found in the wild - seized pets included a crocodile, a Caiman, many iguanas, bearded dragons, a royal python, a boa constricter and loads of other snakes, terrapins and turtles. Many of the bearded dragons had deformities as they weren't kept properly in their tanks and suffered growth issues which was a bit sad. They also had meerkats, a racoondog (didn't even know this existed), a deer, beavers (Though we didn't actually see them in the enclosure), ring tailed lemurs, owls, loads of other birds. The centre was well staffed, very informative and lots of animals had little biographies on their enclosures explaining why they're here and the importance of looking after the animals. It was a large variety of animals for a small price and it was nice to see Mum and Tim enjoying themselves too (as well as the birthday boy!). More family activities like that please Mum!!
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| photo courtesy of my brother |
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| photo courtesy of my brother |
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| photo courtesy of my brother |
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| photo courtesy of my brother |
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| photo of my brother! |
My only 'issue' with this, is where you put it was nice to see mum and Tim enjoying themselves, which implies we don't normally enjoy ourselves, which in fact is completely wrong as we enjoy ourselves ALL the time ;)
ReplyDeleteAw! What a sweet review! Thank you for coming to watch me and support me, my lovely! I really appreciate it! -x-x-
ReplyDelete