Embra Part One...

I'm having a rather topsy-turvey blogging experience right now. I am listening to the Garvey, and I am blogging, but it is not a Sunday evening. It is in fact Saturday morning. I do feel a bit like I'm having an out of body experience. Anyway, I'm catching up on Guy's show from last week when I was in Embra, and instead of being out having fun at the weekend after a rather hard week at works I am stuck at home nursing a sick mother. And trying not to feel too disgruntled about it.

So here is, as promised, my Embra diary Part One, because halfway through writing I realised how long it was going to be and decided to split it. Warning - contains large consumption of alcohol and some adult content.

Thursday
5am - I literally drag myself out of bed attempting to erase the debacle that was the War on Drugs show in Farnham the night before. Being the orginisational bunny that I am, today's outfit is already laid out for me to squeeze into, and there's a handy list of everything that needs packing.
6:15am - One big mug of coffee later I am trying to not fall asleep in Southampton departures. Would've indulged in another big mug of coffee but a latte cost £2.90 and it was not a trusted mulit-national chain.
6:45am - Am herded into a tiny 'gate' (bascially just an area of the departure lounge with 3 sides partioned) amongst lots and lots of business men who all know each other.
7:10am -There was a plane ride, but to be honest I took a nap. We did fly over my old Southampton house which was nice.
9am- Be impressed, I am on the (right) bus on the way into Embra city centre.
10:30am - After streching BHS's Coffee Lounge hospitiality to the limit (which really isn't that far, it is BHS) the partner in crime arrives and we embark on the hike to our lovely halls.
11:30am - We finally get there, I am sweating like a beast and my neck and shoulders have seized up due to heavy bag carrying. And of course the room isn't ready, so we dump the luggage (literally) and trek back into town.
12pm - I think we ate a rather delicious muffin from Chocolate Soup (if there is one within a 100 mile radius of you, go there, it's worth it).

I think of the rest of the afternoon we hung out in town, and then went to investigate our room, which was lovely.

8pm - Bill Bailey. I'm going to say 2.5 out of 5. He's gone a bit surreal, and his set mainly centres around songs now rather than traditional stand up. And some of it seemed familiar, I think because it was just a similiar concept to his show that I saw a few years ago.
11pm - Some olympic watching and then bed!

Friday

9:30am - Tried the porridge at breakfast but it was way too runny for me. I am Goldilocks. Had some museli instead which was probably the best museli I've ever had.

14:15pm( I think) We saw a rather enjoyable play called 'Lucky You'. I'm going to go for a 3.5 out of 5 for that one. The American accents were slightly dubious, but the music was done by Loudon Wainwright III and the cast were playing about 3 characters each.

18:50pm - In a ridiculously hot shoe box (which was hot becuaes the rest of the venue was nice and cool) we witnessed the bizarre ramblings of Andrew Clover, who does the Dad Rules column at the back of Sunday Times Style magazine. He was a little more 'theatrical' (read camp) that I was expecting, and pretty much just read out his coloumns as 'stories' with a bit of filler inbetween. Quite funny though. And made the Americans in the front row feel really uncomfortable when he kept picking on them.

21:30pm - Yeah so we though we'd catch a show in a swimming pool. Seriously. We weren't the in pool, Liz Bentley was. We were roasting sitting round the side watching her. She was a bit wierd, funnily enough, but apparently she was only in the pool cos it was the cheapest venue she could get! Brilliant. She did poems and sang songs with a ukelele and a thirty quid Casio. I want a ukelele. A lot. I think we pretty much hit the entire spirit on the fringe nail on the head with that show. After it finished we attmpted the climb home, but we were so cold after being sat fully clothed in a pool that we had to stop off at Pleasance for a drink haha. When we got back I had the munchies and we ran into a security guard who took us on a super confusing route through a million corridors to a vending machine! We were then stuck though, cos we couldn't remember the way back and our swipe cards wouldn't work. We did make it to bed eventually though.

Saturday and Sunday to come...

A bunch of stuff...

Gosh well it's been a while hasn't it. I have started to hate working at the holiday club even more (if it's possible). Phone message at 6:30pm 'Please can you come in at 8am tomorrow kthnxbye'. I attempt to phone back, but apparently boss lady had gone up. So I show up at 8am, none too happy as I have to be up at 5am the next day and have a gig to go to that night. So I get there at 8am, cos I'm good like that and no-one else bloody does til 8:20, when the grump site manager shows up at takes another 10 minutes to actually let me in. What a bloody piss take. And then there was the small matter of having to put the tables out, which was clearly not a task suited to someone my height and weight, and as a result I nearly broke my back. And now they're asking me to wear some hideous polo shirt that is going to be far too big as everyone else that works there is a size fucking triple X L. And then they had the cheek to ask what size I am. I mean, granted I don't look like I haven' t eaten in 6 months anymore, but to be fair that's probably a good thing. 2 weeks left though, I'm going to laugh in their faces if they ask me to stay on.

What else? Field Day Festival was an absolute wash out. Got there at 12 to see Noah and the Whale, who were having some serious problems until about half way through their six song set, so it was pretty much a waste of time. It rained. A lot. My hands went blue. I shivered through Laura Marling who was absolutely amazing, despite whinging that she didn't have a keyboard player, which no one would've noticed had she not mentioned it. That took us to 4:30pm, where there were some genuine concerns for my health, and so we shipped off home, without seeing... well everyone really - King Creosote, Lightspeed Chamption, and, worst of all, Fionn Regan.

Also a horrific gig in Farnham, busiest pub ever, no where for the band to play, and some ambiguity about if it was the right band as they were so bloody awful

Oh yeah and then there's Edinburgh, which quite frankly deserves a whole entry of it's own. At least one.

Stay tuned haha....

Festival Chic baby, Festival Chic

So.. the news in brief. Got job. Like job. Driving to job not that great. Thanks a lot TomTom. New iPod transmitter also not that great resulting in much distraction when driving. Not good. Home alone for 2 weeks. 1 week to go. Grandmother didn't die. Hurray! Parents crap at answering mobiles. Seven hour shift at holiday club almost bearable. Nick is nice. Two jobs and still no money. Oh and unfortunate self dousing incident involving petrol and resulting in loss of favourite shoes.

So, today, Innocent Village Fete in Regents Park. I am planning to do a proper review at some point, I've made notes and everything. In short though, very wet, but being the festival veteran that I am, I was prepared - I wore quick drying clothes, a waterproof jacket (breaking it in for Embra) and boots. Still got rather soggy though. Angus Stone appeared to have not cut his hair since last time I saw them (May) and is looking more rugged model than well groomed model these days. I got a free litre of smoothie at the end, mango and carrot flavour. Luckily it tastes neither of carrots or oranges, and I was rather pleased about not having to fork out for another extortionately priced drink to have on the train home. The festival was all about organic, being green, ethical, blah blah, but ultimately was sponsored by McDonalds. The irony is almost too much.

2 weeks today I shall be returning from my summer holiday. Round about now actually. in 10 days I will be embarking on my summer holiday. Do the math. More of a mini-break than a holiday. It will be incredible though, there is no question. I went hunting for a killer dress on Saturday... I found bugger all. Unbelievable. Hopefully the old faithful eBay will provide, as long as I can get home in time from work tomorrow to actually bid.

So, aim for the week is to get to work (Aldershot) on time the two days I'm there this week, and also to come up with better names for my two jobs other than work and other work. Because they're interchangeable depending on which one I'm currently referring to. Suggestions gratefully received. Maybe kid and non-kid work? Not particularly catchy.

Ida Maria's album is amazing, and much better than I thought it would be. Nice.

Finally... just noticed my legs are really really smooth. Sod Gillette, Sainsbury's cheaper version all the way.

Pip.