F-ING WOW!
What an amazing vacation. I haven't had a really fun holiday in ages...so woohoo!!!!
Ok, here's a really long run-down of what happened. Oh, any by the way, that last entry? Can we say neurotic much?? I think I went a little off the rails but life is brilliant so I'm happy. Fingers crossed for another 7 months (at least) with the most beautiful guy on Earth. Anyhoo...
Thursday afternoon, I land at Manchester, drop by Odie's house (bugger to find it was too) and deposite my bag. Have a mini-tour of the city (club, club, club, bar, club...) whilst driving in, pass the Arena where I am dismayed to find Kylie is singing, vow not to tell Tim and head for the hotel, where I collapse onto my bed with a stinking cold. Get some dinner and after another silly spaz about nothing new at all I get to sleep. Next morning I sorted out the mess I'd made with my whining and spend a phone call re-stating the obvious and then head to Preston. Half an hour later we are an hour early for my tour. Find the place and head of drama and promptly fall in love with the course and music facilities and happy attitude this new city seems to have adopted. Looking forward to what awaits me now. Headed back to Odie's, took some aspirin for my disappearing voice and change to head to Rammstein.
13:30 onwards the Ich-Will crowd is first in line at the Apollo, and save a couple of muchie-runs and bathroom breaks we all stay there. Have much fun meeting Dev, Olivia, etc. Pleased to see 69 and Nikki and Kate and people all bouncing with anticipation. Raj joins us. Cue call from my parents saying their flight's been buggered due to a stuffed air traffic control system. Ever-increasing reports of cancellations and such flow in. Tim's flight actually lands, at Manchester no less, so yay! He arrives, picks up Odie's key, heads to hers, changes and comes back to join us in an Ich Will photo. Cue doors. All on the barrier, save the darling men who are guarding our backs. Raging Speedhorn come on, suck ass and insult the crowd. We do the twist, they swear at us. I make puppy eyes at a guard and get earplugs. Spent the rest of their set whistling happily to myself. Cue American Head Charge. WOAH! Amazing!!!! One guitarist looks EXACTLY like Benny! (Apparently he got naked Saturday, lucky I didn't see that, I would have had a cow). All of the band rock and are lovely and sweet. Cue Rammstein. The sound mix suddenly reeks and Till looks so pissed off! A couple of songs in, and pressure builds on the barrier, not aided by the mini-moshers who are everywhere and bounding stupidly, as well as the snow-white who was behind us (s'ok, Tim stamped on her). The pressure keeps mounting until some poor sod on the barrier gets popped out into the mosh-pit....me. I freak and pass out. Several pokings and bruisings later by some inconsiderate moshers to the left of me, I get passed to the guards and they take me to the infirmary. Tim jumps out and follows (AWWW! He loves me!), only to find me having one of my famous panic attacks in the side-room. One major case of the shakes and a glass of water and a lie-down later, I'm sitting up, but I have missed the best bit of the show, and so has Tim. At that point I'm happy to be intact, so hey. The concert ends and we head out, stopping to get hoodies and whatnot. Meet some more forum people in the foyer and natter. It starts pouring. We're tired and drawn and hungry and can't get through to Mutti (forum moderator in the USA) so we deny Greeba his trip to Rockworld and head back to Odie's, running into Holly on the way. Was looking forward to clubbing, but as I said before, I was in no fot state to do anything but fall over.
We grab some food and make it back to Odie's. I retire early but sleep poorly, until of course Greeba joins me, and then it's one snuggle and I'm off to the land of nod, undoubtedly making noises like a lumberjack with a mission. Oh, and by this point I have completely lost my voice.

Saturday: Wake up before Tim does and head downstairs to sign to Odie that I badly need to shower. After a quick lesson in showering for dummies, I get clean, pack up and Tim and I head off waving our farewells to the hostess with the mostest and Raj, but not before he sells Tim his hoodie for a fiver after vowing to buy a nice one like Odie's (big mistake, they ran out and now he's lumbered with low-quality warm-wear). Tim and I head straight for the station, bypassing all combat pants and other purchasable items in favour of heading down to London on time. Manchester rail station totally torn up for construction, we jump on the next train down. Some three hours and much commenting on tea and cows later, we're at London Euston (and not Houston) station, where we are met by Mike (YAY!), who drives up down through Camden (saw Slimelight) and on to my brother's place in Plaxtol, ranting about 'The Wicker Man' for a great deal of the way. Opps, in retrospect, we forgot to get that movie on DVD. Damn. Anyhow, we get to Pascal's place and drag our stuff up to the loft...where Alex and Nicky are playing with Star Wars lego. The bond is instant. Downstairs, my mtoher is over-ruling my sister-in-law's choice of heavy shopping and is stuffing the fridge full of M&S goodies. Pascal is holding baby Dominic, who is busy being ill everywhere. My Dad is sitting on the sofa wishing himself elsewhere. Tim has officially been thrown into the deep end of my family. He kept his head above the water the entire time though! Seeing as I'm still majorly voiceless by this point, my solo is called off and arrangements made to cover up for it. Mum and Dad leave. Everyone breathes out. Vernina leaves to go to a mother's charity quiz night. Pascal and Tim and I are left with the children, none of whom want to eat nor sleep, all of whom want to watch Tintin. Much screaming and forced bathing later, and after I fuse my brain into mush by reading Thomas the Tank Engine and the case of the clotted cream a couple of times to Nicky, only Alex is left downstairs. Cue fuss. Nicky wets the bed upon Vernina's return. Alex is sleeping uneasily by now. Tim and I go to bed and he fulfills his fantasy of sleeping in a room chock-full of lego.

Sunday: We are awoken by the sound of munchkins playing with lego at our feet. Thankx to Vernina we have a double-mattress situation in the floor as opposed to Pascal's option of two very seperate beds. Sadly, this means that I have a three-year-old crashing into my foot with a home-made star-ship. Tim emerges from the blankets looking a bit like a Wookie after a night out at the brothel and grunts something about food. We head downstairs for breakfast. Luckily, we return to the loft about three seconds before Little Nicky can figure out how to open 'Auntie's secret tin' which was by my suitcase. You guessed it, it's the one normally concealed within a stuffed bunny. Tim does a diving save and saves us all the embarrassment of trying to explain that the contents are not balloons. We dress for church. Tim comes downstairs looking sharp with a capital SHAH. Vernina places herself in the outfit Mum chose and smiles. I'm in a corset and a pinstripe dress-suit,