… from Monday night and singing “What’s that coming over the hill? Is is a monster?” at the top of my lungs.
The gig was good - particular the View and the Automatic - and left me and Marion slightly deaf. I didn’t get home till well after 1am, so was very relieved to work from home yesterday.

Also today, I am mostly … very busy with work

… which is of course a good thing. It’s only just over 2 weeks to code-complete; and therefore 15 to the release date - that’s not all that long, really. Not considering the amount of work that I have scheduled for us to get through. Still, I’d rather be busy than not, as long as it doesn’t get stressful.

… because I had too many good meals over the weekend. I made a roast chicken dinner on Friday night when Colin got home from work; a gang of us went out on Saturday night to the superbowl in Derry, for his birthday, and had a three course meal and home-made birthday cake; and last night we went out for a very nice dinner with his family (I had venison). And I’ll be eating out again tonight pre-gig, probably just pub grub, but still….. Walkies galore for the rest of the week, I hope. Maybe I’ll bounce some of it off tonight.

Also today, I am mostly … looking forward to tonight’s gig

… and playing the Automatic and the View and Mumm-ra and the Horrors pretty much non-stop on my MP3 player. I rushed out and bought the View’s album on Saturday, and very good it is too.
I’m also exchanging emails with Marion about her insistence that I wear a hat, and my intention not to wear one on the grounds that if I wore a cowboy hat with the dress I’ll be wearing, I’d look like a fat Calamity Jane. And that’s just not a look I want to have (other than at Halloween, anyway). I left the lime-green and purple leopard-print hat at home anyway… We shall see who wins the battle of wills. I have a notoriously twistable arm, but I’m trying to stand firm.

… that I have won tickets to go to the NME gig in Belfast on Monday night, with the View and the Automatic as headliners.

I answered a competition on Radio 1’s Northern Ireland show last night on the way home. I missed the last 20 mins of the show when the results were announced, and since my phone hadn’t rung by about 10, I assumed that I hadn’t won anything.
When I finally switched on my phone today and listened to my voice mail, I found out that much to my shock, I’d won, and I received a phone call later to confirm and to get my surname so that my name could go on the door.
So I’m all excited - I never win anything! Marion’s coming with me and we shall be taking our hats, I’d imagine. Because the hats always go to gigs. (More gigs than I do, in the case of my hideous lime-green & purple leopard-print cowboy hat, which went to see the Scissor Sisters without me.)

… in which multiple silly little annoyances combine to piss me off right royally.
Well, I suppose it’s not that bad. But it’s been stupid things, like laddering my tights; and the squirters for my windscreen icing over because it was cold this morning and my windscreen getting subsequently very very dirty which meant I had to stop on my way in to work and put more water in the washer bottle because I thought I’d run out when really it was just the ice preventing any water from being squirted out; and I parked out of habit on the road this morning and then found out there were lots of free spaces in the car park…
The day /has/ thankfully improved though, so I’ll stop complaining. It being pay-day helps… As does knowing that I’ve got the day off tomorrow.

… but I can’t go for one, without causing myself a lot of pain due to shin splints, because stupid me, I left my analgesic cream in the bathroom at home. And without it, my legs hurt. Bugger. It’s a nice sunny day too, here in Belfast, and how many of those can we expect at this time of year?

… courtesy of Lorraine, who made us a large one for dessert Friday night. Eating it for Sunday breakfast perhaps isn’t the healthiest thing, but you know what? It tastes good and I don’t care. Going to go for a walk shortly, to make up for it…

Staying up till 4 in the morning with good friends - listening to 80s music, practising yoga moves, drinking wine and then G&Ts, and phoning a friend (sister) in Alaska - is a good way to spend a Friday evening.

Remember: malaria is everywhere!