Silence isn't always golden

Just because I haven't posted for a while, it doesn't meant I've been way too busy doing fun stuff. In fact, I've mostly been working. Apart from today, when I'm just doing my occasional start-of-week procrastination. :o)

I'll get back to BBB soon. Promise.

Anyway...

Interesting weekend. I woke up on Saturday — not hungover on account of only getting home the previous night at 11:00 — and opened the curtains, allowing me to see the shitty "yard", as I call the upper patio area. I took a look at the collapsed pile of damp wood which was apparently called "the Wood Store (TM)". I thought about how annoyed it always made me. Then I thought of the axe resting in the shed. I thought about how happy it would make me to take it to the Wood Store. I got up, shifted the Plan B (no new permit yet), and returned to the house determined to enact my happy plan.

After a Weeto-heavy breakfast, I grabbed my parachute club fleece, went out to the yard, and discovered that I'd make a crap axe murderer. Seriously, if there's ever an axe murderer abroad in the Surrey Hills, it's not me. Believe me. I injured my upper back muscles on the first swing, completely missed the first spot I hit on the second swing, and by the third swing I'd just decided to close my eyes in a rubbish gay way, mainly to avoid splinters I'd felt from lodging themselves in my corneas.

The ex-furniture base of the Wood Store shortly lay in pieces, partly throuh axe manoeuvres, partly through me just pulling it to bits when it was obvious my axing wasn't getting me very far. Time for the bin bags. Lots of bin bags... I filled five of them with first the damp wood, then with the general soil/insect aggregate I swept up from where I pulled up the ubiquitous yellow-flowered weed that infested the base of all the outside walls.

Then — and this was the fun part — I broke out the hose. Seriously, I forgot how much fun you can have with a non-euphemistic, actual garden hose. With all the various bits of wood, metal, soil and insect now in bags in the alley, I suddenly had what felt like acres of flagstoned patio, all about to be hosed down and made clean(er).

So, having done that, I phoned home to prove that I, too, can do manly things like working outside in the cold. With a fleece on. And cleaning things. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how chuffed I was with myself. You actually wouldn't, because now it just looks like a boring yard with a wonky brick barbeque and a binful of inexplicable sand. But to me, it looks non-derelict, which is a major plus. Now I just have to do something similar with the rest of the garden. I'll call that Phase 2. Or perhaps Phases 2 to 15...

So, to follow up a plan to go out on Saturday night, I made plans to go out on Saturday night. Miss Mac was provisionally signed up to go, but Jumper was having a house non-party. However, I felt I had a moral right to go to the pub. So I arranged with the Aussie to head for the Brit where we could imbibe and catch up on things like him not going home before 2006...

It was blatantly a Uni Lord's night out in the pub off of the sun umbrelllas. Gap all over the place... One guy had a man-bag... It was all on. Easy on the eye though (G'd bornin). And when Lord Simon turned up to join, the pesting just went to a whole new level... I really need to grow up...

Several drinks later, we headed up the road to the Star (closes at midnight — see what we did, there?). That's where it started to go a bit wrong. LS started doing his usual thing of flirting with the young things. Good craic, but intoxication levels rapidly got very high. Couldn't tell you what I was drinking, as I genuinely don't know. Cards were produced, by-passing the financial limit set on the night. Bugger. Then the Aussie decided to leave at midnight, leaving me in custody of his other half...

Which would explain why I felt rubbish the next morning at 7, when he rang asking where LS was. Passed out on my sofa, I explained. Send him over here, came the voice at the other end. Job done, I returned to my bed to ignore the rest of Sunday a.m.

I'd arranged to meet Lucie for lunch. So at midday, when I woke again, I had a 147 and shower to see how the mood was, decided food was tolerable and not to keep her hanging around for too long. I'd drunkenly suggested Albert Roux as a venue, so we met at House of Fraser at 1:30. I looked like I'd been drinking the previous night, she gently pointed out. I feld like I'd drunk everything possible the previous night, so I felt in retrospect like I was getting away with something! However, I was hungover, and therefore incapable of holding a train of thought. Lucie put up with it, though, and the craic was good, particularly as I slowly sobered up! We left the cafe at twenty to four(!) and as we were descending the impressive array of escalators, I got a call from Mr M to ask about time travel stuff... Was a little random for my head at that time of weekend, but very funny. Although I did feel a little self-conscious talking on my mobile about the fabric of space-time while walking through House of Fraser's suit department.

Anyway, got home, and promptly hid. I'd done a Tesco run the previous day after I'd taken all the Wood Store to the tip (once I'd overshot on the A3, like a good idiot). I hid like I'd not hidden for quite some time. LS decided to do the same at his folks', it appears, while the poor Aussie had to work. Fair play to him!

My axing muscles hurt.