Tuesday 13 December 2011

Gory stuff

Tired, tired and sore.

Long weekend, long hours at the flat doing DIY, this weekend’s achievements:

Tiling and grouting of kitchen floor (15m2)
Putting up the bathroom mirror
Sealing the bath to the wall
Replacing the old light switches (without electrocution this time!)
Tidying up of paint work (including repainting window sills)
Sorting front garden with neighbour
Sanding down the front door of the building to prevent it sticking
Sanding down the bedroom and bathroom doors to prevent sticking
Slicing bits of my finger off…….

Yep, my first proper DIY injury. In short, I was scraping dry excess tile adhesive from my kitchen floor when I “over-scraped” and cut myself a nice little flap in my left hand middle finger. It’s nice, deep, big and gory and yes, I have been showing it off at work. It’s so nasty, that even the people who would have said, “Does this hurt?” whilst jabbing it with a sharp pencil, have been reduced to going, “oooooowww”. Apparently, rather than wrapping it up in kitchen towel with some masking tape and then tiling the kitchen floor, I should have gone to A&E – but there was no way I was going to waste my whole Saturday there.

Ho Hum.

Saw Gomez on Sunday night with Mav, Doug and Claire (who organised it)….. Both Mav and myself rocked up not quite knowing who Gomez were but I was of the opinion that it didn’t matter, it’s all noise to me nowadays….. old man! Gig was pretty good, Claire projectile vomiting whilst squatting over the toilet after two pints was comical if not a little grim.

Saw Troy last night…… not very impressed, Brad Pitt who is usually a very good actor, really sucked. The story was far too Americanised/simplified/changed from the legends for my liking. Also, Helen wasn’t pretty enough ;-)

Magic carpets

And now, a break from our usual service and onto some more exciting DIY news…..

I now have carpets, laid, stretched, present and correct.

See, told you it was exciting. Now all I have left to floor is the bathroom, which should be a piece of piss after doing the massive kitchen. I’m pretty chuffed tho, the carpet man said that I’d done a good job on the kitchen floor and he’d pay me to tile his kitchen. *impressed*

One minor problem with having big thick carpets with underlay (underlay, underlay, ariba, ariba) – the sodding doors need to be trimmed down and re-hung. No major drama but I have to go out and buy a plane (the boring kind) because there is no way I’m scraping off half an inch from 3 doors including the front door by hand (well, the bits of hand I have remaining).

I can move in soon…..

At the gay bar, gay bar, GAY BAR!

So, a completely non-DIY themed post……

Electric 6 were awesome. I have to be honest, I wasn’t expecting much despite the fact that D&C rated them the best live act they have ever seen. They were great, so much energy, so much passion, so much fun.

Usually gigs at Southampton are run-of-the-mill. The bands know they’re not playing to a full-house, this is a mid-week gig, a nothing, some spare change, something getting in the way of them getting high, a build up to the weekend’s gigs. Electric 6 did it because they enjoyed it and it showed.

The last time I went into a mosh pit, stage diving was still encouraged, I was a light 16 year old and used to get pushed all over the shop. Now I’m a heavy 24 year old who can quite happily stand rooted in the middle of the mosh pit until I finish my beer. It was electric 6, not metalica I hasten to add.

Once I finished the beer I joined in, it was great. Immediately after they played radio ga-ga in the encore and a particularly valiant performance in shielding a girl who really should not have been in the mosh pit, I got her phone number. I don’t think I’ll call it tho, I might interrupt her GCSE revision……Ever the gent me.

Weekender

This weekend’s activities……

Well, after 3 solid weeks of DIY, working nights, days, weekends, during my sleep, persuading my identical twin to go to work whilst I fix “stuff” and losing a girlfriend - I’m having part of a weekend off. I feel I deserve it.

Saturday morning is the DIY part, but Saturday afternoon is the Bergh annual summer braai. I must not get too drunk, I must not get too drunk, I must not get too drunk. The problem is that when South Africans get together, we drink, we really drink, but the idea isn’t to get shit-faced, the idea is to be able to handle your booze.

Sunday, oh Sunday. Sunday is one of the annual events that I most look forward to….. For the third year in a row, the IRB Sevens at Twickenham - an excuse to drink, watch rugby, enjoy the Fijian’s singing and stare at top posh totty and colonial ladies. I’m convinced that they get the whole population of New Zealand to fly out to England for this event, when they go back home they have a Planet of the Apes style situation where the sheep have taken over. Baaaaaaaaa. The South Africans will be there in force and as Mav well described, the reason we both like the South African ladies is because when ever you say anything, they always join in with, “yaaaaah”, we're bad bad boys.

So yeah, will be seeing Mav/TC et al and will pass on your best wishes. After the rugby we’re all going out in Putney, you have been warned.

It’s going to get messy. I’ve booked Monday off work.