Blood, Birthday & Bristol

Once again I've gone over two weeks without updating this blog. God, no wonder I never get anything done - I can't even stick to a weekly post! Quite a few things have happened since my last post.

I'll start at March 31st. I went to donate blood again, for the first time in quite a while. I didn't realise until I received an updated donor card in the mail that that was my fifth donation! I've successfully given about half a human body's worth of blood. I'm also reassured that my iron levels are healthy, or they wouldn't have let me donate.

I found out the next day that I had lost four pounds in two weeks. I am still slightly suspicious of the scales, seeing as I weighed myself on April Fool's, so it was probably lying. But I'm pretty pleased with myself considering I wasn't trying especially hard to lose anything. I think getting back to drinking plenty of water, eating three meals, sleeping better, and moving around more is paying off all by itself. Imagine what a little effort on my part could do.

On April 6th, I had a mini birthday with my Dad. We went to Costa for lunch (where I tried the mango & passionfruit cooler - delicious!) and while we were in town, I got some more hair dye too. My roots are ridiculous, and I'm hoping Kim can come cut my hair soon so I can not look like Stig of the Dump. I saw my Nan for a while, which was nice as I've not seen her for ages. Then Dad, Kath and I had pizza and chips from the kebab shop and it was glorious. They gave me my presents and some birthday money (as well as the Easter eggs Dad forgot to give me the week before). I got a fancy handmade wine glass, a bottle of wine, Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, and a few other cute bits and pieces. The birthday high began at this point.

My birthday was brilliant too. I was woken up by Ryan before he went to work and he gave me my present from him - an apron with a zombie in a chef's hat on it and the words 'The Baking Dead'. It's so funny and it will accompany me on my baking adventures. I got some nice presents from Mum and Martin, as well as a bunch more birthday money from various relatives. Mum and I went to get Caz (where I got a few more presents from Kate, Caz, and Susie!) and we went to Frankie & Benny's for lunch. I was disappointed in how downhill our branch of it has gone. The cutlery was filthy, service was sluggish, and it just wasn't as good as it used to be. I was gutted, because I hadn't been for ages and was really looking forward to it. Later, I was so full that I just slobbed around on my bed for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening, Mum and I had a few drinks.

Also, Mum got me a Star Wars cake:

Saturday was brilliant. Susie and I went to Bristol; on the train there, we decided to have a flutter on the Grand National and bet on a few horses in the race later that day. It was raining when we got there, which sucked, so we holed up in Patisserie Valerie. I had a hot chocolate and a slice of Black Forest gateau. Heaven! It took us some time to get going again because we were in sugar comas.

We took a turn around a few clothes shops, but of course I found nothing that I liked enough to buy. That's always the way when I have birthday money or similar; I want everything until I have the money to spend, and then everything is awful. We then walked down to our favourite chip shop in Bristol, Catch-22, and had the best chips and curry sauce. Out of the window, we could see the Marriott where a wedding party was having photos taken; the bride looked so pretty and the happiness was contagious. I love weddings.

The weather was still crap, so we went to the Watershed, an indie cinema near the waterfront. We watched High Rise, and it was brilliant! So funny and incredibly surreal. Tom Hiddleston was brilliant, and absolutely gorgeous, and the movie also contains one of my ultimate old-man crushes, Jeremy Irons. Susie and I were laughing about the movie for the rest of the day. I would recommend you go see it if you enjoy sex, violence, and surreal movies that serve as a metaphor for one man's nervous breakdown, and how easily society could collapse if we let it. So good!

We had a cocktail in the McKenzie's at Bristol, which we were not impressed with. Susie's Cosmo was warm, the service took ages, and the 2-for-1 offer suddenly didn't apply to anything except for one drink. It was frustrating, and I can't believe I've found a business that's better in Swindon than Bristol, but our McKenzie's is so much better. Another reason our visit there was crap was because I live streamed updates on the Guardian website to keep up with the Grand National and one of the horses we bet on came second. How annoying is that?? We were pretty gutted because we could have gotten a decent bit of money - our horse's odds were 12/1.

The Bootlegger was our next stop. We had a couple of drinks there, and Susie's friend Andy joined us. He's a misanthropic PhD student and he's lovely. He was a good addition to our little group. We went to another pub down the road, that I don't remember the name of. It had taxidermy everywhere, and was lively and crowded. I enjoyed it. We had some drinks there, before we had to get going for the train home. We stopped at Sainsbury's to grab a bit of food and mini bottles of Prosecco for the journey. Yes, we drank it on the train like chavs.

Back in Swindon, we decided the night wasn't quite over, and went to McKenzie's. Several frozen daiquiris later, we were exhausted and ready to get to bed. So I got a cab home and promptly passed out in bed. I had such a good time in Bristol, and I'm glad the weather cleared up a bit towards the evening (when we came out from the cinema the sun was shining and most of the clouds had gone). However, this past week I've eaten mostly crap, and I'm totally feeling it. I feel physically rough and incredibly tired - I need to get back to eating normally and drinking plenty of water. It's quite amazing how you notice how much junk food affects your body if you cut down on it for a while.

I've been coughing and spluttering since last Tuesday, which is just fab because I've only just gotten over the crap virus I had after getting back from Berlin. I keep needing to clear my throat and it's annoying me so much. I almost had no voice at work on Tuesday and Friday. Speaking of work, tomorrow my probation period ends! Wahoo!

I am totally in love with Tofu Cute, a UK-based store that imports and sells all sorts of Japanese products. I got a package that I ordered (I got a box of strawberry Pocky, a pen with a lucky cat, and a pen that looks like a milk bottle and has erasable gel) the other day and it's so cute! I have an extensive wishlist on there, and I'm having to be really disciplined because I'll buy everything if I don't watch myself. It's all so cute!

Prohibition Themes in Bristol

    Yesterday, Susie and I went on a fab day out to Bristol. At Temple Meads station, right at the beginning of the day, my left knee decided it would be a fantastic idea to give out again. It was so painful and I was just thankful that I had a nurse-in-training with me to make sure I would be able to stand up again. It was so distressing and embarrassing because the station was packed. A hot guy came over and asked me if I needed a hand getting up, or if I wanted him to call anyone. It was so sweet of him, but I was far too upset to take advantage of his kindness. I'm ok, but I can tell you my knee has now seized up fantastically and I can barely walk. Fab.

After finding painkillers, we walked to the centre via the cathedral, and found a chip shop called Catch-22, which I found absolutely hilarious. They do the nicest chips ever! We got a portion each and then chilled on the college green to eat them. It was a nice day - warm and sunny, but also with a nice cool breeze.

We visited the Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery, where I was immediately drawn to the Ancient Egypt section. They had canopic jars, which thrilled me. Elsewhere in the museum, they had cool things like: a Romani caravan; an angler fish that had washed ashore (I don't even know how an angler fish got to the surface without imploding, but he apparently did); and DINOSAURS. I love museums, they're so brilliant!

We walked all the way up to Clifton Village, which is a really posh part of Bristol. It was here that I spent a lot of time crying over beautiful townhouses that probably cost more than I'll ever earn in my life. The architecture is lovely around there. We stopped in a little dessert shop and had milkshake and a wonderful chocolate pie.

Feeling energised by our sweet snacks, we made our way over to the Clifton suspension bridge. I've lived a half-hour train ride away from Bristol for most of my life and I've never seen it in person. Standing on the bridge, looking out at the city on such a beautiful day, was really pleasant. I was getting the 'call of the void', though, and congratulate myself for not jumping off. It was nice to stand up there and have a chit-chat while watching the city go about its business. We spent a long while there, feeling the cool breeze and taking in the sunshine, and I'm glad I forced my aching knees to carry me up the steep hill to get there.

To get down to that main road in the bottom photo, Susie and I had to walk down a treacherous path known as 'The Zig Zag'; it's shaped, strangely, like a zig-zag and it's so steep. Honestly, we spent the whole trek down giggling nervously and convinced we'd end up falling off the path and breaking our necks. Great butt and thigh workout though!

Having walked all that way, we decided we deserved a drink so we strolled to a place on the waterfront called The Apple. It's a bar that sells cider, and some of the seating is on a boat! It was such a nice atmosphere there, watching people go by on their boats in the sunshine. After that, we moved on to The Old Duke, an old jazz pub where Susie's Dad used to play. The pub has such character, and a great band was playing (they were called J.C. Calloway & The Prohibition Jazz Band and they were fantastic). Susie was putting some make-up on in the loos and I'd mentioned how ridiculous my pale skin is; Susie said in a really blasé manner, "Do you want some lipgloss... Corpse?" and I couldn't even be mad because it was so funny.

We decided we were ready for some grub, and we were going to eat at a great pizzeria that Susie had been to before, but they didn't have tables until 8pm which was clearly ridiculous. So we walked over to Gloucester Road, an area full of artsy types and lots of brilliant graffiti, where there are loads of food places. However, we got waylaid by a bar called The Bootlegger - it's a Prohibition-themed bar with signature cocktails, good music, really friendly barmen, and they served some of my drinks in mason jars! It's such a cool place (and I've noticed there's a bit of a Prohibition theme going on here, which suits me fine).

We had dinner a few doors down from The Bootlegger, at an Italian restaurant called Amici (we were dead set on pizza at this point). The pizzas there were so fantastic! They were really rustic and tasted properly homemade, with the most delicious tomato sauce. And they were quite big too, so we soaked up the drinks we'd already had at this point, in order to make room for more cocktails of course!

When we got back to The Bootlegger, it was a lot more lively. There were so many well-dressed people there (including what looked like a birthday party of women dressed as flapper girls!) - lots of men in shirts and braces, which Susie and I loved. Amongst other drinks, I had the one in the photo above. It's a Dark & Stormy; I'm thrilled someone named a cocktail after my personality, plus it has ginger beer in it. It tastes pirate-y. My other favourite was Black/Dark Passion (I can't remember the adjective, lmao). It had fresh blackberries in it, so I pretended that that totally made it healthy. Live music was playing in the bar at this point, and they played bloody Miserlou from Pulp Fiction, it was so funny.

We managed to just about make the last train, and of course it was full of drunk people. It also became delayed because of another train stuck on the tracks; we had to take a big detour and then go backwards to stop at Chippenham before going home. It was such a pain in the ass and was really annoying me because I was so tired from all the walking and hilarity. However, there were some crazy drunk men in the next carriage who provided some entertainment. With no context, we heard the following (all said in broad Wiltshire accents):

• "Oy listen, I just saved you from a WORLD of SHIT."
• *slightly singing* "Cheeeeese on toast... Maaaarmalade on toast."
• *after a long period of silence* "AARRRRRRRRRR!"
• "I saved your life."

Susie and I were in fits of laughter over how ridiculous they were all being; it didn't help that all the yelling was slightly muffled as the carriage doors were shut. I finally got home at about 00:30, and slept gloriously.