Miss you...

...dad.












I hope if there's an afterlife, that they pull a decent pint or three there.
I hope if there isn't an afterlife, that your component atoms have relocated themselves to suitable pints of beer. :-)

History might just...

...repeat itself.

33 years ago, on the 14th of March 1978, a little football team called Leyton Orient won a sixth round FA Cup replay 2-1 against Middlesborough to get through to the semi-final of the FA Cup.

They had defeated Norwich City (1-1, replay 1-0), Blackburn Rovers (3-1), and Chelsea (0-0, replay 2-1) to get to the sixth round.

In the semi-final they unfortunately lost 3-0 to Arsenal.

But in winning against Middlesborough, the damage had already been done. I was born 9 months later.

In this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient have defeated Dagenham & Redbridge (1-1, replay 3-2), Droylesden (1-1, replay 8-2 aet), Norwich City (1-0) and Swansea City (2-1).

In the fifth round of this years FA Cup, Leyton Orient will be playing Arsenal for the first time since that 1978 match.

Here's hoping that allowing for prevailing winds and good luck and all that jazz, I can be embarrassing a child of mine with this story. Not quite in 9 months time (cos not pregnant yet, plus also, you can't embarrass a newborn) but hopefully within the next year.

Fingers crossed eh.

The other week...

...we both took a weeks holiday and as well as doing some decorating we also popped down to Essex for a few days.

We went to see my dad on his birthday, and I gave him a haircut.

I also went digging through the photo albums to find a picture of myself with longer hair (as I'm kinda trying to grow it out a bit) and came across this beauty.



I can remember this picture being taken. It's the summer of 1997, I was 18 and I'd got engaged maybe two/three weeks before. I'd been at a party at my friend Pami's the night before and then I went into London with my parents to visit some family friends. I was sooooooooo hungover it's untrue.

But oh. my. god. do I look lovely here.

(as you know, pictures of me that I like without reservation are few and far between) (90% of the ones I do like still always have something in that I dislike).

This day...

...two years ago was crap.

This day last year was pretty cool.

This day this year was bloody brilliant.

Firstly my Anthony's visor finally arrived (it got lost in the post and bounced back to Monaco)



Then a bit later on Jane came up to me and said "A lady's just walked in who looks exactly like Michaela Strachan, but it can't be her, can it?"

But it was.

And she was lovely.

And we all ended up so totally giggly and star-struck that it's almost unimaginable. (we nearly had to send Richie-Fingers upstairs to have a little lie down).

Then when it was time to go home my very lovely man came and picked me up so I didn't have to walk the mean streets of Wolverhampton with his precious visor.

At home there was a large parcel under the doormat that turned out to be my prize from Lovely Caroline. I won a signed limited edition copy of The Equivoque Principle by Darren Craske that I am really really looking forward to reading.

So today was a very very good day and I enjoyed myself very very much.

Thank you universe for lovely friends and lovely people and meeting childhood idols and discovering they're just as lovely as you thought they were.

(apologies for the overuse of the word lovely in this post. But it is lovely and I do love it)

Today...

...would have been my Dad's 63rd birthday.

Happy Birthday Dad.



Miss you lots.

----------------------------

In other news.

Me and this daft man here...



...went to the bank today and got ourselves a mortgage.

I iz a grown-up.

I iz a HOT grown-up due to the air con at work not working.

Here is a picture of me looking hot:


In fact not just hot, hot AND sarcastic.

To celebrate both of today's events - beer. (in one of my Dad's glasses)




Cheers.

I'm just so...

...in love with this view of London right now.

The Monument

When I went to London back in September the Monument was one of the places I planned to go as it's where Edie gets kidnapped by the Minotaur. But alas, it was closed, which made Anthony (not so) secretly relieved as he hadn't fancied climbing all those stairs.

I've been up there once on one of my London trips with Dad and I will get up there again on my next trip to the Big Smoke.

In the meantime this view will have to do, and it's pretty damn good.

(and yes, it does look a little Eye-ish at first, but it passes...)

150 songs...

...for my 30th Birthday. (Part One)

Once upon a time I wrote a post about music. Then I wrote a small follow-up to it.

I found those 18th Birthday Tapes the other day (they so deserve capitals) and was reading through the track listings and smiling at the memories that appeared.

So I decided to create my own playlist for my 30th. One hundred songs that represented the thirty years that I'd been around. Then I hit a few snags...mainly the fact that I couldn't narrow it down to 100. So I upped it a little. The list is now 150 songs, split up into 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 sections so that each decade gets a fair shot. Not every song is in the decade it was released in, they fit in where I remember them within my life.

It's been very good fun - although Anthony is a little scared by some of the choices, and is very scared by some of the songs he didn't know that I then played him.

As I suspected in that first post, there are a few songs that have carried across to the 150. There are also a few that haven't due to not conjuring up a moment in my head. The Beatles are a casualty for this very reason, as are The Rolling Stones. I know. Shocking isn't it. They summon up a general time (sixth form and uni respectively) but no specific memories so I've had to be ruthless and chop them out.

While I'm working on the 150for30, here are my 100for18 - the result of three days choosing and locating the songs (as I had to find all the LP's/tapes with them on) and three weeks or so of Dad arranging them, copying them onto the reel-to-reel and then making the cassettes.

Queen - Headlong

Del Amitri - Driving With the Brakes On

CSN - Just a Song Before I Go

Eagles - Take it to the Limit

Livingstone Taylor - House at Pooh Corner (which I want on the 150for30 list, but this version isn't on iTunes so I've had to go for the version by Loggins & Messina - meh)

Neil Young - Pocahontas

Beatles - Revolution 9

CSN - Long Time Gone

CSN - Cowboy of Dreams

Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young

Chicago - A Hard Habit to Break

Don McLean - American Pie

Jim Croce - Have to Say I Love You in a Song

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded by the Light

Oasis - Morning Glory/The Swamp Song/Champagne Supernova (since they all just flow into each other on the album)

Four Seasons - December '63

Beatles - The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

Jim Croce - Photographs and Memories

Eagles - Hotel California

Billy Joel - Piano Man

Elton John - Candle in the Wind

Neil Young - Rockin' in the Free World

Beatles - Yesterday

CSNY - Deja Vu

Jim Croce - New York's not my Home

Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Ash - Oh Yeah

Boyzone - Key to my Life

Levellers - Hope Street

Commodores - Easy Like Sunday Morning

Jim Croce - Operator

CSN - Suite: Judy Blue-Eyes

Beatles - Hey Jude

Neil Young - Like a Hurricane

Beatles - Ticket to Ride

Doors - Strange Days

Madness - Our House

CSNY - Our House (two very different songs with the same title - I always loved the fact Dad put them together)

Billy Joel - Always a Woman to Me

Stills-Young Band - Long May You Run

Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

Queen - Radio Ga-Ga

Chris De Burgh - Lady in Red (on the tape track listing as by Chris Rea for some reason)

Dodgy - Making the Most of

Aerosmith - Cryin'

Ash - Girl From Mars

Who - My Generation

Bonzos - I'm the Urban Spaceman (Produced by Apollo C. Vermouth, otherwise known as Paul McCartney)

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

Oasis - Wonderwall

Al Stewart - Song on the Radio

Mama's & Papa's - California Dreamin'

Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man

Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

CSN - Military Madness

Chicago - If You Leave me Now

CSN - Teach Your Children

CSNY - Ohio (These two songs are forever linked in my mind)

Eagles - Best of My Love

Bluetones - Carnt Be Trusted (When I wrote this on the list Dad asked if I needed spelling lessons, then he said the band needed them!)

Queen - We Will Rock You

Ruth - Fear of Flying

Neil Young - Round and Round (It Won't be Long)

CSN - Simple Man

Billy Joel - Uptown Girl

Huey Lewis - The Power of Love

CSNY - Helpless

Beatles - All You Need is Love

Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime

Bluetones - Putting Out Fires

CSN - Horses Through a Rainstorm

Billy Joel - Christie Lee

Doors - When You're Strange (With the voice of my friend David at the beginning saying "These really are strange days, and they're full of strange people too")

Beatles - Birthday

Bluetones - Bluetonic

Queen - Killer Queen

Dodgy - Grassman

Alanis Morrisette - You Learn

Bryan Adams - Run to You

Doors - Light My Fire

Neil Young - Unknown Legend

CSN - Blackbird

Billy Joel - The Ballad of Billy the Kid

Beatles - Good Day Sunshine

Crosby & Nash - Cathedral

Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle

CSN - Chicago/We Can Change The World

Alanis Morrisette - Ironic

Crosby & Nash - Carry Me

Blur - Charmless Man

Queen - Don't Stop Me Now

Al Stewart - Year of the Cat

Billy Joel - Famous Last Words

Anyone still here?

So lets see... at 18 I was in a phase of listening to a whole lot of my Dad's music, with occasional bursts of Billy Joel and Queen (courtesy of Mum), and a few dribs of current tunes.

One of the reasons I split the 150for30 into three sections...

This day...

...last year was more than a little bit pants.
So when I woke up this morning I had no great expectations, I just wanted to get through the day without falling apart.

In the end it's been a pretty brilliant day.

• I've had paperwork from the divorce people at last. I just have to get an affidavit signed and then that's one step closer to my divorce coming through.

• Lovely Caroline's book arrived at work. I sent her pictures, and she has blogged them. (Yes I am pink, three flights of stairs I ran down to open the box they were in). I am up to page 275 and loving every second of it. Loving is a strange word to use about this book, but it works.

• My iPod has been spooky and played just the right songs at just the right moments.

• It rained a bit today, but whenever I've been outside it has been glorious sunshine.

• Lewis Hamiltwunt lost his appeal against his illegal overtake in Belgium.
  

Basically, life is good.

I am aware that it may all go a little pear-shaped later on in the evening, and it certainly will in the wee small hours when my usual night-time routine kicks in (sleep for two hours, wake up after a nightmare, cry for a bit, fail to sleep until about 5am then get two more hours of sleep).

But at this time, and in this place, life is good.