Christmas isn't chrismas without a drunk grandparent.

Hello readers. It's been 9 days since I updated but I purposely left it so that I can blog a fair bit, rather than 2 posts about not very much at all...

So we will start last saturday, when a whole host of the regular crowd went up Solihull. lank gave me and Dan a lift and we were in Rosie's (yes, I know it's chav central but thats where everyone decided we go) for 7:30. We met up with Jason and Gemma and started drinking without the others (well, it's what they would have wanted!) As the doors opened, we moved up to the Club... Loft, no Loaf, no wasn't it Bread? then it was Reflex at Loft, or was it Bread at Reflex?.... Actually it's now "Pop World"... Joy! (<-- sarcasm) Soon after we got there, Mark and Kate, Mattew and Naomi, and Benji and Katie turned up and we gathered at a table in the chavvy bit. It didn't take long for me, Jason, Gemma, lank, and Daniel to go off in to the '80's part and were bopping along to all sorts of classics. At one point we got hold of a set of comical glasses...

... Yes, dear readers... I have photo's...

Mr B. has always been an Elton fan... Now he's started copying his style!

Lank in full bop'!

At one point, they started playing 50's style Rock n Roll and so I grabbed Kate for a quick spin on the dance floor (bet you didn't know I can rock n rol did you readers? Well I can, sort of, thanks to expert tuition by Donna, ages ago!) At the end of the evening we all went our seperate ways, and I was home for about 1:30am...

... Ready to wake up at about 10:00am Sunday morning, where I spent ages wrapping everyone's Christmas pressies. I made a promise to myself that I would try and be organised this year, and I think I have been. I had a lazy day Sunday because I had to travel to Droitwich in the evening for a works Christmas party at a member of staff's house. Getting there is a story in it's self...

I set off at 6:30pm with my route written down and got in to Droitwich centre no problem, but then things started to go wrong... Now I don't know if you have ever been in to Droitwich, dear reader, but if you ever do then there are three oddities about the place you should know...

1. Street names are no not visible from the road, until you have past the junction
2. All road signs indicate every place in the universe, exept the place that you are going
3. No houses, at all, ever, in Droitwich, display their house number

Now because of those 3 little things I got hopelessly lost and was driving around in circles. Finaly I admitted defeat and parked up to call Richard (who's house it was) for directions. I called up his number on my phone and pressed "dial"...

.... *Beep beep* "the number you have dialled has not been recognised..."

"doh!"

I tried again...

... *Beep beep* "the number you have..."

Oh bugger! I had to phone Sally (head of Art, who lives in Droitwich) and ask her for directions. Fortunately she knew where to go and i got to the correct road in no time...

... But then point number 3 came in to play... which blasted house!? I started counting the houses and got to the one I thought was correct. there were a few cars outside it, so I knocked on the door. Success! It was the right house so I went in, and joined some of the other staff from school who were already enjoying the home made curry that was laid out for us. We all had a good time, and at one point the karaoke machine was bought out for a go. I didn't sing as I would have probably bought the evening to a premature conclusion. After the food, music and chit-chat it was time to leave, at a rather modest 10:30. I got home with no problems and watched a bit of Top gear before going to bed.

Monday and Tuesday at work were just 2 days of DVD's in lessons and not doing any work... I wil skip to yesterday, which was a bit more fun. there were no lessons, just an assembly for each of the 3 houses, (Brindley, Lanchester, and Cadbury) and then just dossing about in forms watching films. We played the year 10's Shrek and then put Peter Kay on. At lunch time we kicked everyone out and had a staff lunch with just the arty people and a few select members of staff. Elanor had bought me a christmas present and I was instructed to open it... She had bought me some racing grannies! I set up a race way (using tape and sugar-paper!) and we had a few races over lunch. At 2:00pm all the kiddies got to go home and it was time for the usual party in the staff room. we had speeches for staff who were leaving, and decided that after the speeches we would go up to the Packhorse. We were there for about 3:30pm, and left at 5:00pm... Unfortunately we were all driving so we couldn't get mashed anyway, but it was still fun.

I went home to get ready for the evening because Me, Donna, Donnas parents, Lank, Daniel, Lanks friend Jo, Jason and Gemma were all off to the NEC for Jasper carrots Rock with laughter Christmas tour...

We arrived at the NEC for just after 6:30pm with the intent on meeting people in the main entrance. This went to pot when we realised that the arena was too big to meet anyone, with all the people walking round. We met up with Jason and Gemma by the staris to the seats so we went in and sat down. a few minutes later, Lank, Jo, and dan joined us, while Neil and Maggie were seated over the other side of the arena!

The warm-up act was a geordie with a guitar... He was singing a song called "everybody wants to be a bear" while people were still being seated. Quite funny.

When the lights dimmed, Jasper walked on and did a turn, and introduced the first act, an Abba tribute band called Bjorn Again who were quite good, then we had a turn from Lenny Henry, Journey south (those two from the X factor) the Royal Ballet, and Jimmy Carr. After the interval we had more Jasper, plus a suprise guest Ben-thingy-whatsit who was voted off X factor, Jethro, Roy Wood (who was playing with his Rock and Roll band, and finished off with "I wish it could be christmas every day") and the show was topped with Suzi Quattro, dressed in a leather cat suit and not looking a day over 50.......

... yes, you can imagine it, can't you...

After the final encore the lights went up and we started the long walk back to the carpark. Neil and Maggie were already there and me and Donna dived in because by that point we were freezing! They dropped me home where I made myself a hot drink before going to bed...

All in all a fantastic night was had by everyone. (I am definately going next year!)

And so that is where I will leave you dear readers. If I don't blog before, Have a very Merry Christmas, and a fantastic new year...

TTFN