Shopping for Peter...

As I mentioned already it was my dad's birthday yesterday, but the shopping for his presents was where the real story begins.
My sister and I took to the town to find him a present, my dad is the most impossible man in the world to buy for, possibly not if i had unlimited funds, then I'd send him off to vegas, buy him a car etc. But I don't have unlimited funds, and he's a pain in the arse to buy for.

My sister and I went from shop to shop, discarding item after item and laughing at some of the more inappropriate choices.

The first place we buy our presents is Hawkings Bizarre because they sell the best joke presents, dad has the same sense of humor as me, so the novelty gifts are easy to buy.

I start off with novelty joke toilet paper, that cracks me up (excuse the pun) and I know that dad will appreciate it.

I also get him some grumpy old git mints - charming aren't I?

So then we're browsing around and I'm looking at the innappropriate 'adult' themed gifts and my sister is standing beside me looking like she wants the ground to swallow her up, she's very innocent, she doesn't swear, isn't vulgar, you see I am enough of those things for the both of us.

I see a male and female blow up doll, they are bath pillows basically with arms, the one for women is a blow up doll called 'soapy Steve' my dad's name is Steve, so naturally I decide to get him that one.

Now to me, this is comedy gold, I'm chuckling away with my naughty Homer Simpson-esque giggle and my sister is rolling her eyes good naturedly at me.

"Should I definately get him this, or should I get him the girlie one?" I ask my sister picking up the girlie blow up doll.

"Oh look! She has a cup holder though!" I exclaim loudly gesturing to the hole in her small blow up hand.

My innocent little sister, who is not vulgar, nor crass looks at me with a look akin to pity and says quietly "That's not a cup holder."

I look at her.

"What is it then?" I ask with wide-eyed innocence before the ugly truth dawns and my laugh builds from somewhere near my toes and then bellows out in shocked hilarity.

My sister and I are swept away on the tide of pure comedy gold and I couldn't get myself together, I had tears streaming down my face, I started wheezing loudly, people started looking at us but we were too far gone to calm down.

I will always remember fondly the day that my sister had to clear up what a blow up toy was intended for...

Life, Death and Cake.

Today is bittersweet in a sense for me. It is my dad's birthday and I love birthday celebrations they make my heart happy.
However I also woke up to the news that Leslie Nielson passed away. There was something about his twinkling eyes that made him seem approachable, he was like a grandfather type, gentle, happy and safe. I am very sad to hear of his passing and have realised the world is a far less sparkling place without him in it.

However on to happier topics, even though I'm in a slightly mopey mood.

Thankfully during moments like these I have my family to cheer me up, no matter what's going on in my life they can always make me crack up, my favourite story happened a few months ago, with me, my mum and my sister. It's what's affectionately known as NUTELLA GATE

I'd recently moved back home and was trying to fit back in to the swing of things, it's a very difficult thing to do when you've had your own house, your own schedule and your own space, so one Sunday evening my mum goes up to have a shower, she comes down with her hair all styled and we all go in to the kitchen to make a snack. I decide that I really fancy Nutella on toast. If you've never had Nutella then you've missed out I tell you, it's chocolate spread with hazelnut. It tastes like the chocolate you get in a ferrero roche. It's delicious!!!

But my mum is a freak of nature, she loves ferrero roche, but she hates Nutella - madness.

We're all mucking around in the kitchen when mum starts the fight by splashing water at me, so I playfully push the piece of bread with nutella in to her face, it hit her on the nose and we laughed a lot. However I'll be honest, I, as usual took it a step too far.

I pushed the piece of bread right into her face, and she went mental. I may be a grown woman, but you know the look that mum's give you, well she gave me the mum look and made me cower. As scary as 'The Look' was though, the situation was too funny.

You know when something makes you laugh, but you shouldn't, you really, really shouldn't? Well that situation was upon me. I was completely hysterical and she was FUMING! Mum walked out of the kitchen in a full rage and walked up to her room slamming the door. In our house, that's a proper sign that shit's about to go down.

I turn to look at my sister and she looked and me and for a beat of about three seconds we stood still, not even daring to breathe, then almost at the same time we cracked up, but it was the silent - for the love of god don't piss her off more - type of laughter.

I was doing a whispering laugh, holding my sides and trying to force air into my lungs and not do my hugely loud laugh.

I know that I have to get myself together and soon, otherwise I will make things, much, much worse and I know I have to go and apologise, but I can't until I get myself back together because I'm pretty sure mum will take a swing at me.

So just as I think I've gotten myself together, my sister looks over at me and says "Did you see you got it on her tooth?" And that was it. I was done. I was laughing so loudly and hysterically I knew mum was going to kill me. I couldn't even apologise because It wouldn't be genuine, not at all, I didn't regret any of it. So I did what any brave grownup would do. I sent her a text message.

Luckily for me, three seconds later mum appeared to see the funny side and we laughed for a long time over it.

Gym Bunny

I have decided since dropping 2 dress sizes that I do in fact LOVE shopping for clothes, but because I also LOVE eating Gregg's doughnuts WAY too much for my own good that I should do the unthinkable and actually join a proper gym. *gulp*

I've never joined a proper gym before, just toyed around with the idea of going to a naff little gym - you know the ones with only like three pieces of equipment and no-one goes to them, those ones. I never really wanted to go to a swanky gym filled with buff people working out in slow motion and glistening with a sexy sweat sheen. Because I would ruin that, I'd be there huffing and puffing, face all beet red and attractive, sweat pouring from every pore as I lumber into something resembling a wobbly run. Hideous.

However seeing as I'm now starting to resemble someone with actual fitness skills, I thought why not? And joined a rather exclusive gym, because I've got more money than sense apparently.

I was still slightly apprehensive about heading to this establishment of fitness and muscles by myself so my sister decided to come with me as a guest, which was a brilliant move, so I thought.

However I was as usual proven wrong when I got home after a long busy day at work, I put on my gym gear, stretchy running pants (trouser pants, not knickers) which I'm in love with, I'll be honest and a baggy t-shirt belonging to my dad, comfy and kinda cute, especially when teamed with my brand new BRIGHT white trainers. I shove my hair into a messy ponytail and walk out to meet my sister dressed in the type of gym gear a playboy bunny would wear. Low slung cropped sweats, a cute baggy t-shirt tied tightly against her teeny size 8 frame, hanging off her shoulders exposing the strap of her sports bra, her hair in a perfect cute ponytail, and full makeup. I felt like a man in drag next to her. An ugly man in drag. :(

No matter, because one thing about my sister is that she makes me laugh more than anyone else in the world, we're on the same wavelength so we walked to the gym, laughing and joking all the way, and quickly get changed before heading in to the gym, trying to act like we belonged there, she made it look easy.

Now whilst my sister may be tiny and beautiful, it turns out, I can take her in a workout, whilst she's strolling on the running machine watching MTV. I'm running my tubby little legs off panting like a bull mastiff. She possibly has the right idea about attracting men at a gym, because after ten minutes she was still immaculate and I was sweating, panting, possibly a nice shade of red, gasping for breath and trying to hold my body weight up on admittedly shaky legs. Just as I'm trying desperately catch my breath a gorgeous muscle-bound Kellan Lutz (I love him) look-a-like comes over to me, smiles winningly whilst reaching for his locker key which was left on the shelf of my treadmill, I wish I could say I smiled beguiling back at him and entranced him with my feminine mystique, but the reality is I think I grimaced an attempt at a smile and went on wheezing.

After that fresh hell we move on to the rowing machine. I hate rowing machines, with a passion.

My sister once again sets up a nice casual pace whilst I go for the burn, after four minutes of frantic rowing, the lactic acid has kicked in and my muscles are screaming at me, I can't breathe, I'm pretty sure my stitch is down to internal bleeding and I'm just waiting to start sweating blood. I'm ready to quit but then I think of all those epic fatties on The Biggest Loser (If you've never seen it I suggest you do, it's AMAZING) and how they can carry on with intense workouts, so I grit my teeth and carry on. Three minutes later and I'm feeling pretty good again, so I'm proud that I hit the wall and plowed on through it.

After ten gruelling minutes, I slow to a stop and pull my feet out of the foot stirrups and as my sister jumps up as spritely as ever I sit completely still and ponder. Because the lactic acid has destroyed my legs and I literally could not stand up. I didn't want to even attempt to get up knowing that if I fell over in the gym I would have a year long membership to pay for knowing that I could never show my face there again.

Eventually I get up and am pleased when I don't immediately stack it.

On to the cross trainer, which is fine, nothing bad happens in the next ten minutes and my legs continue to work which is always a plus.

We then head to the changing rooms, a quick change into our swimwear and then in to the pool we go. Now I'm feeling slightly overdressed because I have one swimsuit and that is a beautiful royal blue bikini with gold ornate buckles, it's my holiday bikini and seems to flashy for a gym pool, but ho-hum that's just how I roll. Yes I realise I can't get away with that.

If I felt self-conscious before next to my tiny sister I felt doubly so in a bikini, I have never sucked in my stomach so much in my life, and walking with your buttocks clenched makes you look like you desperately need the loo, I don't suggest you do it.

In the pool I did more laughing than swimming because my sister has the ability to crack me up in any situation, and when she stubbed her toes on the bottom of the pool then spun around in a circle holding her knee to her chest, I almost drowned laughing so hard.

However when we got into the hot tub to relax I managed to stub my toe - karma some might say - and she then repaid my earlier laughter with raucous chuckles of her own.

Then we decided to go into the steam room before hitting the showers, I love steam rooms, the heat, the eucalyptus, it's all so good. We walk in and there's a couple of ladies and a very muscly man, I'm a sucker for muscles and so I suck in my stomach once again and saunter in, try to sit down lady-like and the loudest fart sound emits when I sit on the stone.

I am beyond mortified, hoping that everyone in the vicinity didn't think that it was my body emitting the sound, luckily the woman next to me pipes up. "There's no lady-like way to sit in here without that embarrassing sound."
As much as that reassures me the damage has been done and I am now too on edge to move into a comfortable position, the man is now looking at me, so I can't relax and let my stomach stick out in any way whatsoever and taking shallow breaths in a steam room is not pleasant, I think I lasted five minutes before hitting the showers.

You may think this is the end of my little story of the day but you would be wrong my friends, we go and get changed, my sister and I taking turns to use the change room, and in walks an older lady, when I say old, I mean old enough to be my grandmother and she walks next to me, and strips stark bollock naked. Well she didn't have bollocks that would be a whole new level of wrong in an already plenty wrong situation.

I am a liberal person, but after a tiring workout I really did not need to be seeing old lady nakedness. So I look everywhere but in her direction, willing my sister to hurry up so I can leave. And I peek in the old ladies direction to see she has trousers and shoes on, so I think the coast is clear, but no, I turn around to see old lady boobage, I think I may be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

But with that much adventure in one visit, I think I'm going to like this gym malarkey.

Catch up.

Hello everyone, I'm back, I'm not sure you'll find that a good thing or not...

So the world has been a busy place for me, I've changed jobs a couple of time, and have been working on my writing and travelling.

I finally got myself to New Orleans! That was an exciting time for me, New Orleans is the most beautiful place full of character and filled with characters. It wasn't how I imagined it, but it was so truly awesome that it didn't matter.

I imagined it to be have an old fashioned feel with the wail of a bluesy sax filling the spicy air. Anyone who has been to New Orleans will know that the reality is much different. The Beautiful architecture has a run down disrepair look to it, but the beauty is only emphasised, because you know that this place has seen some incredibly tough times and yet it is still standing. The air is permeated with the smell of po-boys, spice, alcohol, cigar smoke and the bitter acrid smell of garbage that's been heated in the insane humidity. It sounds revolting but it really isn't.

We stayed in a hotel on Bourbon Street, when I say we, I don't mean it in the Royal sense, I was staying in New Orleans with my best American chum Molly. I love that girl, we hadn't seen each other in a year and it was a fantastic catchup time for us.

Bourbon Street, is in a word - Phenomenal.

It's filled with tourists milling around, shops filled with mardi gras masks and novelty t-shirts, and sparkling with green, gold and purple beads, bars with women offering "free shots!" and alcoholic slushies. Strip clubs with the women hanging out of the doors trying to entice men in. It's a place that embraces the weird and the wonderful, probably why I felt so at home there.

A typical evening would be Molly and I getting ready, heading out for a quick bite to eat, then we would start at one end of Bourbon Street, there was a gorgeous little gay bar filled with the finest men that New Orleans had to offer, I did a fair bit of window shopping and complaining that the good ones were gay, then after some insanely cheap drinks, we'd take our huge plastic glasses and walk up and down Bourbon Street, because in New Orleans you can drink in the streets.

Groups of men would hang over the balconies of bars above, hands filled with beads that they would throw at women in the hopes for flashes of their 'lovely lady lumps' I flashed my bra a number of times and as Molly and I walked down the street with our necks laden with dozens and dozens of beads a group of ladies stopped us so that they could get a picture with 'the party girls'.

We also would get ushered into bars by big burly men, one such bar was one of my favourites, there was a bar where there were these old guys playing old school rock songs, we were loving it, even more so when they handed out the washboard vests, which you put on your shoulders and then used spoons to play it, it was so white trash and I loved every single second of it!

Our last night was definitely the best, we decided to go to a bar called The Cat's Meow where they had karaoke and Molly and I decided to give it a go. Mol chose the song Sweet Caroline, I'm not a big fan of the song but I was going to be singing by myself later so I let Mol choose the song she wanted to do. She went up to the guy to say what we wanted to sing and he came over to the table, he was absolutely gorgeous, shaved head, warm brown eyes, beautiful smile. He begged us not to sing that song, as he hated it and so Mol and I chose another song. The night was spent flirting openly with him, as I am a natural flirt and so was he. Molly and I had the best time, we met some lovely people and just spent hours laughing, singing, dancing and drinking. At the end of the night I said goodbye to our gorgeous emcee Steve and gave him a cheeky kiss on either cheek, he asked for my facebook which I gave him, and was absolutely shocked when I discovered a friend request from him when I got home (so another friend was made).

Mol and I were so sad that we hadn't been to that club sooner as it was amazing there, but it was a lovely and special way to end our trip in the city of Jazz, debauchery and fun.

The next day I said goodbye to Mol in the airport, she was going home to her state and I was going off to New Jersey for another week. It was really sad saying goodbye to her but really exciting to go to New Jersey because I knew that I was going to see someone very special to me.

I'm scared of flying but the flights went quickly enough and I went by myself to New York City which was an experience, then off to Jersey for the first time. I didn't think much of it, but I was staying in an airport hotel, as I was staying by myself and didn't want to be murdered so went for the safest option.

I didn't have very much money - read none. So I lived in my hotel room, but I had books and the tv so it wasn't all bad, only the living off of vending machine crap sucked. :D

However it was all worth it when on my last day I got to see my American fancy man, he is absolutely gorgeous, the quintessential American man. He was a wrestler in high school, has AMAZING arms, light brown/blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes. He is just the most handsome man I have ever seen. He's also an intelligent and amazing person who is kind and funny, I bonded with him and think the world of him, and am very grateful to have him in my life, I just wish that the ocean wasn't in our way.

The trip was amazing and I had the time of my life, I can't wait to go back and spend more time over there.

So that's the last couple of months in a nutshell. Tomorrow the format will return to normal. ;-)

Bon Voyage Mes Amies!