Bizaare in the least

I got my night out (at last) - it was either that or go stir crazy; we had a nice meal and nice company in Velvet with Di who had recently escaped her temporary offline status, and from there we went on to Manchester Concorde. It was here that the 'bizaare' happened; the place was full of girls - not that there was anything really special on (no insult to Lisa and Zara from Transfixed!), but it was like many of the girls in and around Manchester all decided at the last minute to come out for the evening.

And many of the especial girls too, such as Kay, Jane, Becky and even June and Penny who on the spur of the moment, travelled all the way from Ireland. Ok so we were missing some of the other regulars, but it was indeed a really nice surprise to see so many familiar and friendly faces; it made me feel all warm inside.

Then we went to Naps.... don't ask! - except to say music was better but I can't say the same for the 'visiting' clientele who (still) persist in taking over the dance floor.... keep off the funny tasting smarties boys; sad-o's.

Please Miss, can I have some more?

I guess I'm more fortunate than some girls in that I have an understanding wife, partner and friend, and an opportunity to be out at least once every week - at least that would be the case if neither of us had been taking turns to suffer colds and other dreaded Winter nasties and of course, we can't have a downer without mentioning the financial doom and gloom. And I really miss my outings ... having the opportunity to do a bit of girlie dancing at Naps - assuming it isn't crap when we get a visit (mental note: ask Naps to get their act together for us girls).

So in the intervening time :-

• I've made the effort to get in some workout time on our 'spotty-dog' machine;
• Had a medical which told me my bad cholesterol is up a little and I'm the wrong shape for my height;
• I quickly managed to feign surprise and shock at my medical results;
• I keep hoping for an outing - amongst other things!

What's a 'spotty-dog' machine?

It's the pet name I give our cross-trainer since exercising with it makes you swing your legs like the way spotty dog walked in that ancient kids TV program 'The Wooden Tops' - spotty dog was the biggest spottiest dog you might ever see!

This evening I set a record for the spotty-dog machine, burning off the calories at a rate of 250 per hour; that's what the readout reckons, I've no idea if that's good or bad but what I do know is I worked hard to get that result.

So that should be worth an outing this week shouldn't it? - so Mrs Kate, please can I have some more (outings) ?

Note on the financial doom and gloom: the 'Sales' are not as good this year; the shops peaked too early in the run up to Christmas. Having said that tho', got a couple of bargains from my favourite, nearly famous fashion designer, Rachel Roman

Expensive barbie

Not so much a small doll with an impossibly thin figure, but a meal with food brought to you on a large skewer.

Saturday following Karens visit was Bev's 'Ladies who dine' evening; for the experience, we ate at the Brazilian restaurant. There were about 16 of us which most notably included 3 (real) girls from the salon Lisa usually frequents - it was their first time out to the Village, and especially a first time out with a group of T-girls.

But what makes a Brazilian restaurant so special? ... well, they bring you different portions of meat - chicken, beef, lamb, ribs, sausage .... each on a large skewer the size of a sword. The routine is you select your own salad etc. and then in succession, they bring each of the offerings to you. But that's all you get.... no starters or desert... don't get me wrong, it was 'OK'... but I did feel it was rather expensive for nothing more than a barbecue... £18.95 + a service charge... and any drinks you might have had on top.... since we were on non-alcoholic drinks, our modest contribution to the bill came to about £60.

The restaurant was also quite busy and the staff made mistakes with the bill - (accounted for more people than were in our group, added drinks we didn't have).... looking on the bright side, now we know what a Brazilian restaurant is like.... but would we go back .... hmmmm! ... never say 'never', but a likely 'NOT'.

From here we went on to Naps ... mostly in the hope it could improve (music and some of the clientele of recent hasn't been that great)... but alas not the case. Gonks prating about on the dance floor with beer cans in their hand; bouncers going after them for entering the staff-only areas (but completely being unable to identify them or deal with the 'drinks on the dance floor')... there was just an atmosphere in the air; one guy even thought he 'knew me', trying it on before I even got my coat off. We left quite early, probably about 12:30 - it was rubbish.!

Addendum to Karens visit
Oh... while I think about it!... I forgot to mention that during Karens visit, as we were walking back to the Village we passed one of my work colleagues in the street; as I expected, he didn't recognise me... but it was strangest feeling to (a) not to be noticed (b) be in the presence of someone I occasionally talk to back at the office as 'Bob'!

A lot to mention

It's been the best part of 2 weeks since Karen came to visit, combination of work and a nasty cold has prevented me from getting around to posting a bit about it all. As usual, the details fade a little into vague but happy memories....

Karen stayed for a few days this time, giving myself and Mrs Kate the opportunity to spend a couple of days with her.

Day 1
Karen had said she wanted to try out the train; living where we do gave her the perfect opportunity for a journey that was not too long and at a time that would avoid the commuter rush..... not something I would contemplate but give her due, she did it!

I collected her from the station and we went to the Trafford Centre to spend the day with Mrs Kate doing a bit of shopping. From my perspective, this was my second time to the centre dressed, but this time I was a lot more confident; it was also fairly quiet in the centre since the kids were in school and possibly others had been put off by the threat of snow that was affecting most of the country except Manchester.

BTW - Mrs Kate traveled separately in her car; we had agreed meet her in the coffee shop in the main entrance.

Needless to say we had a brilliant time, lunch in a cafe, several hours of browsing the shops - but not as many bargains as we had hoped since most of the sales had ended early owing to the pre-Christmas credit wobblies. Late afternoon I took Karen back to the Village and after dropping her off I realised that I would need to get some fuel for the car since it was likely I would need some for the return journey later on. Since I would hardly have the opportunity to do it as 'Bob' I thought I better find a filling station that wasn't so near to home.... but how would I cope?.... all the confidence obtained from being in the Trafford Centre was still giving me a high so I thought 'what the h...' and pulled in the first one I saw before I reaching the motorway out of Manchester.

So I did what I normally did, filled the car with super unleaded and then went to pay along with everyone else; business folk in their 'power suits', builders in their reflective jackets, factory workers... about 6 or 7 different folk in the queue; OK so I got a couple of second glances but no one gave me any hassle - even when I paid with Bobs credit card!

That evening we returned to the Village and the three of us had a lovely meal in Velvet; followed by a drink in the upstairs bar which was just right for a change - not crowded, good music and not too loud. I was feeling quite tired and we left quite early... for us that is... home by just after midnight.

Day 2
On the Wednesday, we did the Manchester Gallery - which wasn't too bad and we even managed to avoid the kids on a school trip!. There were a number of artsy pieces including the new Antony Gormley 'Filter' only installed the week before; the most coincidental/bizarre was an animated exhibit that a little old lady was taking quite an interest in. When we came across her, she asking one of the gallery staff why it wasn't working; the member of staff said they had been having some problems with it but all the same he turned it on, and the exhibit duly came to life. It transpired that the little old lady was the mother of the artist that created the exhibit.

Well, there's only so much culture one can take, and after viewing the various modern sculptures, buttons and pictures, we went for a sandwich and some shopping in the Arndale Centre. It's been quite a while since Mrs Kate and I had been in the centre of Manchester shopping, it's probably been as much as 15 years since our last visit!. So Karen was our guide for a change, and she directed us to an interesting shop that had a few bargains in; particularly some shiny purple leggings in my size!.

A top in Evans .... yes!... Evans!... and I thought that shop was home of the boring styles for the larger ladies... how wrong was I. The top and the purple shiny leggings were just ideal for our evening activities - we met up with a number of girls in Eden (Lisa, Emma, to name just a few). From there it was onto Concorde and Naps (where else!). But again, I was feeling a little tired and we made it as far as 2am this time... turned out that all this feeling tired from the days activities was the precursor for a nasty hold!

But as always, throughout, Karen was brilliant, always the lady that she is - and the thing she enjoyed the most? - it was that short journey by train!.

Normal service is resumed

The internet pixie couldn't fix Mrs Kates blog so she has started a new one at http://mrskatesmusings2.blogspot.com/

The old one still exists, Mrs Kate just can't access it anymore since she asked Blogger to reset her password, sending the change notice to her email account.

Unfortunately Mrs Kate has forgotten her password to that too and in pressing the 'forgotten password?' link too many times got herself permanently locked out.

Dancing

This week was the 'Strictly come dancing' for us girls, organised by Lisa and June. Now normally with these sort of things I accept them with some caution 'cos it usually involves some following instructions that my rebellious side is likely to object to. But I thought 'hey, whatever' and shrugged off any thoughts of resistance and gave it a go.

Lisa got a place sorted with some reasonable floor space; the Shanghi restaurant. And June brought some music along with her Irish wit... which was needed to whip us into shape. Being a bit cautious at these sort of activities, the sort of organised 'make-a-fool-of-yourself' sort of deals; I was one of the last to get a partner.... if life isn't complicated enough June had to ask 'man or women' since we each had to adopt the relative parts. June asked that question as I was paired up with Debbie, who turned out to have the most fantastic figure... well, I couldn't exactly carry out the women's part with that sort of competition could I?

But as we got into it, learning the first few steps of the barn dance, nerves gave way to having fun and all manner of fits of giggles as we each fumbled along, stepping on toes and so on. We even got the staff to join in, they were really great. Debbie managed to win a certificate for best social foxtrot, which I have to say I had a hand in..... well .... almost.

It was only a few days later that I discovered my dance partner was actually a star - well, she had to have been to be patient enough for me catch up with some of the dance steps when I lost the sequence; no, I mean shes a star of some home-grown Sci-Fi web-movies that Lisa had mentioned that Debs and others had done... well worth a look http://www.dirtsideatomic.co.uk . Despite the limited resources, they've done a brilliant job between them. So now I can say, I've danced with Agent Poodle.

Saturday alone

Unfortunately Mrs Kate was still fighting off one of those Winter colds when we did the dancing event so she gave it a miss; she was still suffering when Saturday came around when we had agreed to meet up with Di and Paula. So I went along, alone ... well, you have to keep up appearances don't you?. Besides, I felt I really needed a good dance at Naps, having failed to 'get into the groove' on Wednesday after Junes dance lessons, and not having the opportunity at all since NYE.

The evening started out Ok; we met up in Tribeco and from there onto Taurus. Afterwards we had a drink in the newly redecorated Velvet which was surprisingly quiet... but it still had the smell of paint which made it uncomfortable - the discomfort increased when they turned the sound system up, so from there we went into Crush 2 (ex-AXM). Crush 2 was fairly crowded, a different clientele from the that of the old AXM, but most likely due to what might be their party-piece... all drinks costing £2. In there we met up with Jane and her group of girlies, had a laugh with a couple of GG's who insisted on taking everyones picture.

From here we went to Naps.... which was the point at which the evening went downhill; Naps was initially quiet, but the music wasn't upto much and the clientele was a little more of the 'admirer' social group.... I don't know?... there was something in the air... in a nut shell, a punch up (not involving any of us!), the deceitful man, well-dodgy admirers, strange sights (verging on the 'dark-side'), couldn't find my dance-groove.... or as I put it to Mrs Kate, there were far more negatives than positives for this part of the evening; perhaps we ought to try new places?

On a last point for today's entry... it's almost spooky; Di has just posted a photo of some graffiti she's seen, it says 'Enjoy Life, this is not a dress rehearsal'. Never a truer statement made. It's 'spooky' because of some of the things we were talking about only a few hours before.... If only Di, if only....

NYE and beyond

New Years Eve; well..... actually that was about 10 days ago. But I'm not going to bore myself with writing about the festivities - except to say that in over the whole 2 week break from work, we only got out on New Years Eve; had loadsa fun with our favourite girlie's at our usual spot in the Village. This in itself is a little unusual for us, such is the turn of events in our social life over the last 12 months; previous NYE's would have found us at home, even being tucked up in bed by midnight one year!

But hey!.... check out that cleavage as we party-on!

But my daily reality is a little more removed from that of our social engagements; in the run-up to the xmas break, it was like as if I had to hold my breath trying to hold out until the xmas break arrived; for an opportunity of a little light relief from work. It was around the weekend between xmas and new year when I stopped feeling weepy - why does that happen?; by the time NYE was over with I was starting to think about work (silly cow). Then I suppose it was hardly surprising that by the second day back at work that I 'had it out' with my line manager..... who admitted that I've been under quite a lot of pressure for quite some time now.

It was good to talk the problems over, but it doesn't fix anything..... but I can't carry on like this until I retire.

On a lighter note, the day before I had one of those moments that we often prepare for - just in case.... a colleague noticed my perfectly manicured nails; after all that planning to deliver the manufactured response of 'it's a life style choice' I completely failed and delivered a fudged grunt of appreciation instead.

On the bright side
Resolution No.1: I must lose some weight
Resolution No.2: I must stop being fashionably late
Resolution No.3: Get my eyes tested.
Particularly with regard to the last resolution; that size 18 dress we found in the sales turned out to be a size 10; no amount of weight loss will allow that to fit me. Even Mrs Kate can't understand how the dress magically shrunk between discovering it and getting it home.... it said 18 on the hanger, I swear it said 18 on the label and Mrs Kate said it felt heavy, like it was a size 18!

Perhaps there's no hope for us eh?

A belated 'Happy New Year' to all my girlfriends and welcome readers alike; take care and may all your wishes for come true.