As my last ever school holidays got underway, that of Easter 2006, me and the family were off to Center Parks Adventure holiday resort for the weekend. This particular Center Parks was situated in the middle of Longleat Forest which I must say is a beautiful area, lots of trees, some trees a large lake, some more trees and a few hills and so forth. Anyway on Friday evening we made the 2 hour plus journey up reaching our destination at 6:30ish I think, but by the time we got ourselves unpacked and ready to explore the surroundings it was 8 o'clock and for some reason that is about the time that everything closes up around there, so apart from a quick trip to the sweet shop where they were so impatient to close, they nearly locked us in, we had a very quiet evening.

Day 2, Saturday to be exact was a little livelier, a nice 12:30 awakening followed by watching telly until 2ish then going out to the 'Jardin des Sports' (It took him a while to get some sporting activity under his belt on this adventure holiday im sure your thinking but..) where we watched the football scores come in on Sky whilst eating large Ice Creams.. MMM healthiliscious. After final score we went back to the chalet before actually going swimming. Luckily the swimming place was literally a 5 minute walk from our home for the weekend and so nice and easy. We had a 2 hour swim incorporating all the various activities including slides, flumes, wave machine, the 'lazy river' and of course the Rapids. Most people on the rapids merely let the water take them round the circuit but no not my family, we raced it. Me Vs. my dad Vs. my sister in a three way free for all, Saturday was really only a warm up event though, the real racing action came on the sunday. After swimming we ate some dodgy burger and chips from a place called Krispin's, I dont advise eating there whilst listening (and dancing) to the CHEESEY music coming from the Childrens disco.. Yes Wherever I go I manage to get some, the Macarena, Saturday Night, the Cha Cha Slide and even a bit of 5ive, chees heaven. After a quick walk round the area we then went back watched match of the day (5-0, Henry is a legend) then to bed.

Sunday was similarly slow starting although it was slightly earlier, 11ish start, then a walk back down to the Jardin des Sports, first we did the Pedalos, I can never remember why I like those, I'm always excited to go on them but then after pedaling for 2 minutes and getting knackered I am always confused. We then moved into the actual centre, asked about playing badminton (sister likes it) but the earliest we could book it for was 8 in the evening so we thought to Hell with that and we went to have a game of pool. The Longest game of pool ever. Me and my sister are both very bad at this game and so managed to drag out one game of pool for around half an hour to 45 minutes. We then went back to the Chalet to again prepare for swimming. After a few warm up lengths of the pool we again went sliding etc. THEN the Race. Unfortunately the rapids were a bit congested but that didnt stop us, it just provided more of a challenge, knocking small children out of the way whilst zooming down the stream. I won the first heat by a mile, the second heat went to Dad and the third to my sister. We decided that it would all conclude in the 4th heat. It was tense. But then it started, I got off to a good start pushing my way though, past a fat, ageing man and down the first slide. but Dad was hot on my trail, he several times tried pulling me back but I wasnt having it but then NO. A trafic jam. I literally had to push a man out of the way so that I could throw myself down, I now had the advantage which I managed to hold on to all the way to the end amd so I won the Rapid Race. CHAMPION. We then headed back to the chalet, ate some pasta, of course had to watch my new favourite Sunday night show Mayo (detective spoof type thing) and then various other shows before going to bed. Couldnt sleep, so came out watched the highlights of the Grand Prix, then tried again and this time I was away.

Then to today, had to wake up at the stupidly early time of 8:30 to get packed up and ready before the 10 o'clock departure time. Then another long journey home where we stopped along the way to see Stone Henge, which is no more impressive in the flesh than it is in pictures.. its just a pile of old rocks, whoop de doo. Then Home.

END

P.s. I got home to hear a message on the Answer Phone, I am going to Sunderland on the 1st of May to see the Sunderland Vs Arsenal Match which is nice!

As I said in the last blog, The Holloways are the subject of this blog. And what a band they are, but more about that later, first I must go through the events of the evening.

It started with me getting to the tube station too early due to my immense eagerness, then as per usual Dave being late. But by about ten to 7 we were off on our way up to central London, via Victoria station where we were to meet up with John A.K.A. PotNoodleBoy who im sure everyone remembers fondly. Anyway we met up with him half an hour after we should mainly due to Dave and not my poor scheduling..

We got to Oxford Circus station around 7:40ish then walked up to the 100 club and took our seats.

Now to the interesting part of the evening, we started drinking as soon as we got in the door despite it being a school night.. such rebels i hear you cry, but no it is true we were drinking. We nabbed a table and sat waiting for the warm ups to get on stage. Mike saw a woman flashing which i somehow managed to miss despite her sitting right in front of me and yes your probably thinking he's lying then (my gullableness comes into play later) but no because she then flashed again but in the opposite direction so i didnt get to see, how distressing.

The first band to enter the arena were Captain Black who I thought were pretty good as did the majority of the party as far as I know. They were very Indie, a 5 piece including a pianist and an acoustic guitar. Can't really say much more about them except that they were pretty good. The second round of drinks were bought during this band if I remember rightly..

Second band or should I say artist was Kid Harpoon, a soloist with an Acoustic guitar. I knew he was going to be good as I already owned one of his songs and his live performance didnt change my opinion of him. He gave off the impression of James Blunt but with talent, and when someone has a track called suicidal grandpa you know you cant be going too far wrong.

Band 3 was 'The Pigeon detectives' the band with the worst name of the night and in my opinion the worst band of the night. Not that they were awful just nothing to get excited about. The lead singer clearly thought too much of himself, even attempting a stage dive at the end of his set, he only just missed falling on the floor as people were more interested in drinking then carrying him along. It was towards the end of their set that we made the move up onto the floor so that we could get top notch views for the man event.

Me, Dave and John went up to the bar after the 3rd band had gone off where me and john both had a pint and for some reason a double gin.. John does buy weird and yet wonderful things. Then we went back towards the area where the others were standing, but when we got there we were told that Fearne Cotton was in the house, yes I did say Fearne Cotton the top of the pops and various other tv show presenter.. wow what a sighting. Dave and Mike went off trying to find her but didnt until she came and stood right next to us about 5 minutes later.. wow.

I of course had to ask her for her autograph as she is such a top list celebrity and luckily I had a pen and the caseof my holloways CD ready for the band to sign later. So in I swept and voila Fearne's autograph.

The Holloways were just about starting their set at this point and what a set it was, out of the measly 3 gigs that I have been too they are deffinately the best. They played all the classics, Happiness and Pennyless, Fuck Ups, Generator, Great Britain, Re-Invent Myself and more, plus some new numbers including Diamonds and Pearls. I must say it was pretty magic. Especially generator and fuck ups at the end, really got the crowd jumping.

Now to my amazing gullability, somewhere in the middle of the set i felt a pinch on my arse, now I thought it was a bit weird but then just assumed that someone had bumped into me or something, but then Mike says "Fearne pinched your bum" and for 2 minutes i was in heaven before realising that they were laughing behind me as it was actually Mike (who I now assume is a closet homosexual) who did it. I really hope that my gullability was at least helped along by the alcohol as now i realise that I was quite foolish to have believed him.

This was not the only action with Fearne though, amediately after the set I quickly asked to have my phot taken with her (by the way I do now deeply love her despite not really being bothered before the gig). So i tap her on the shoulder again to have my photo.. Dave was originally in this pic but I cut him out because he 'uglified' it. After I had the picture i asked her how she knew of the Holloways and I found that she actually knew the lead guitarist which was nice. apologies for creepy smile in the picture, it is made worse by the poor camera skills of Mike.

The band shouted at the end of their set that the afterparty was gonna be held just round the corner and despite knowing we shouldnt really, we decided to go. But first I bought my share of Holloways memorobilia, a horribly over priced T-shirt and a copy of their single 'Happyness and Pennyless'.

So we went round to the boardwalk where the after party was being held. It was still in its very early stages when we got there and despite my willingness to stay , my mates wanted to go. Luckily the band had just about arrived when we were leaving, so I got 3 out of 4 signatures as shown. Alfie, Bryn and Dave Danger, but unfortunately no Rob which was a pity. Buth then off we trotted, found a little take away place, had a Kebab and then made our way back to the tube station to catch the last train. I got back to Colliers Wood by about 1am where i swiftly went to bed so that I would be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the morning

END

Wooo another 18th Birthday and this time it was Michael 'Mikey Boy' Lewis.

The group celebrations started on the Thursday night with a nice steak dinner in the stage door restaurant in Wimbledon. The meal was being paid for Mike's mum so of course we all had starters as well as the steak, and very tastey it was too. The bill came to over £100 but as i said we wern't paying so that was no problem. We then quickly went into weatherspoons for a couple of pints before heading off home to regenerate before school the next day but more importantly for the next evenings celebrations.

On to Friday night, for me it started badly, I forgot to bring my bloody passport, so 5 minutes down the road I had to run back and get it.. This did not make me the latest person though. Typically Mike was late but it was his day so he can be forgiven but Matt was gonna be 25 mins late so we got the bus without him, I mean we didnt want to waste good drinking time now.

When we got to Kingston we looked for somewhere to get a few cheap drinks in before the main event. We found Lloyds which used to be a Weatherspoons and so it was brilliantly cheap.. the bad thing about this was it was bloody packed and so took half an hour to get served, Matt had even caught up with us by the time the 1st round was bought (well we actually bought two rounds simultaneously, didnt want to have to wait again) Those were drank with haste and before i knew it me and Mike were up at the bar again and contrary to popular belief we only bought a pint each and did not have double shots of sambuka...

after that we moved upstairs to get a bit more room, Shane meanwhile went to the DJ to get him to say happy birthday to Mikey Boy for the first time that evening. We had another pint and shot each and listened to a few tunes and then by about 10:30/11 we made our way to the Works

The Works is a massive club, unfortunately it dabbles mostly in R'n'B and Hip Hop but due to Oceana being over 19s we didnt really have much choice.

As soon as we got into the place we went up to the bar for another round of Sambucca beforw heading to the dance floor.. No not the main one, we were off to the Cheese room as that was where the good music was at.  We were all up there for a good while listening to the likes of the Proclaimers, Jackson 5 and of Course Bon Jovi (which we heard about 10 times over the night). There wasnt much action in the cheese room though so we did venture down to the main floor which was pretty packed and largely with lovely ladies. We spent a bit of time there before Dave got his arse pinched by some fat (not overweight or plump, just plain FAT) girl who then proceeded to 'shake her thang' in front of me, it was both disturbing and hilarious. We quickly walked away from that. We were then ambushed by bikini clad women selling shots.. who can say no to half naked women so we had 2 of those then scooted off back to the cheese room for some more of the real stuff. A few of the group had some more drinks but I, despite my usual crown of one of the best drinkers in the group, turned it down. For a while we danced there again until Dave and Mike sneaked off and I was left with Matt and Shane in the cheese room (im nit sure where little dave had dissapeared to at this point). Neither Matt or Shane are bg dancers and so they were standing round the sides leaving me to dance in on my lonesome which was a bit lame, so we went to find the others.

We caught up with them back on the main dance floor dancing with some ladies.. I moved in and stole the one that Dave was dancing with and just as she was starting to lean into me (who can blame her) Dave took my hand and put it on her arse, she quickly then walked away. This was a tad annoying.. that scotish bastard. Anyway we carried on dancing there for a while before I made another break for the cheese floor. Here we met some girls who Dave knew somehow, knows everyone that boy, and we danced with them for most of the rest of the evening. The Tunes were starting to fly now, YMCA, Cotton Eyed Joe and a bit of Girls Aloud just to mention a brief intersection of it. And finally Mike brought out his signature move, the 'dealing of the cards' which was again spectacular.

The evening (which at this point was now morning) was slowing down, although apparently not for Mike who dissapeared back down to the dance floor and apparently pulled twice.. but none of us saw it. I drank a coke.. i actually couldnt face any more alcohol.. getting sensible in my old age. Dave got a kiss goodnight (only on the cheek) from the really hot girl that he knew. And then we left the club at about 2am. Me and Dave were up for staying longer but no one else seemed to.

At first there was a bit of confusion about how we were getting home.  Little Dave took the sensible option, the Night Bus which I now wish I had taken. The rest of us took cabs, mike and matt in one and me, dave and shane in the other. Cost bloody £18 for the 3 of us to get home, disgraceful. Anyway I got home at about ten to 3 in the morning and fell straight to sleep

END!

next post is more than likely to be about Wednesdays trip to see the Holloways.. WOO