Stags, Weddings & Birthdays!!

Matts Stag Do - July 2011

Look at that, two blogs in a month.... this is getting back to how I used to be. lol. Well July has been one hectic month and I'm hoping August will be a little bit calmer. (Apart from my birthday weekend of course). So where do we begin....

Boiling, Brilliant Bournemouth!
Well the first weekend of July started out with my cousin Matts stag do down in Bournemouth (This Blogs feature photo). I headed down on the Friday night straight from work (taking 4 hours in the bloody traffic) to start the events. We headed straight out and found a pub to toast the young man losing his freedom in a few weeks time. Long story short, we headed to a few bars and clubs and had a great first night.. Up early the next day to head to the beach as we didn't have any activities planned out which in a way was well suited to where we were. The sun was shining and in the morning the beach was empty so we played some beach football and rugby between us. As the day went on it became busier and busier until we all twigged there seemed to be cheerleaders everywhere??  Turns out there was a big championship on down there on the Saturday and they were all chilling on the beach between their turns. Result! The rest of the day was spent tanning and playing Mini Golf in the park which was a great laugh. I came second (damn you uncle Les!). In the evening we headed out to the Walkabout to watch the David Haye fight, unfortunately we all know how that went but I can see why people try so hard to go to boxing matches now. Even in a pub the atmosphere was something I have only experienced at big football matches before. We all had loads to drink and a BBQ out on the terrace before and while it was going on which was a plus point. After the fight we were off to more bars and clubs ending up with Tyler (one of the other guys) and I getting in about 5am once everywhere shut! Great company, great weekend. On a side note, I had a collapsing bed propped up with a door in the hotel we stayed in, it was nuts! What a mess.

Baby Birthdays
The weekend after the stag do there was a BBQ for my cousin Dan and Helens little girl Ella for her 1st Birthday which was really good. Lots of people I hadn't seen in a while and some good food. Thinking about it, BBQ food really is right up there with the best of them. It was great to see Ella and my niece Mia playing together as well. They were making noises at each other and stuff which was really cute. Matt and I also played some twister with Dylan which was hilarious.

The weekend after that it was the turn of my niece Mia to turn 1 so we all gathered again for another great BBQ. Ella was there again and it seemed like they were having a good chat in 1 year old language about what they had been up to that week. We even played pin the tail on the donkey which was such a laugh as the only child playing was Dylan, the rest of us were far too old. Congratulations to Helen who is pin the tail on the donkey champion 2011.  Another great day for a 1st birthday!

Not Quite So Baby Birthdays
The day after Mias birthday Lara and I headed to Watford for her godfather Tony 60th birthday do. It was a good bash and all I can think about is the amazing little cakes that there were that you could eat in one bite. They are something that I need to look into further, haha. He also had a magician there who pulled out some great tricks. Another good day!

This weekend just gone had a wedding on the Saturday (Il get to that in a minute) but in keeping with the 60th section the Sunday was dedicated to my Uncle Des who turned 60. His children had arranged a surprise party at his favourite restaurant for him under the cover of a quiet family do - (The Forum in Shepperton, we have been going there for years and its amazing!). His face as he walked in to see lots of family and friends was brilliant. The food was great as always and they had a couple of guys playing Simon and Garfunkel songs all the way through which was really good. Des is one of those people that would do anything for anyone and is just an all-around top class guy so it was great to see people there for him to show what he means to them too. He has passed on a lot of advice to me over the years and it was great to be able to share a day like that with him, I know he loved it.

The Second Tilley Wedding of 2011
As I mentioned above, on Saturday my cousin Matt got married to his lady Emma which was the second wedding involving a Tilley in the last couple of months after Stuart and Katie tied the knot. It was such a nice day weather wise which was good considering the amount of rain we have had lately. The reception was at a golf club near Thorpe Park and the meal was lush, I think I consumed about 20 meatballs in all, haha. Then I hit the jackpot with dessert, banoffie pie!! Not only did I get my serving but as Lara doesn't like banana I got to have double helpings, superb. The night was a great laugh and some of us even did a stupid 'Tonto' dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air which was fun even if it was a bit geeky. I will get a video of it onto YouTube and put a link right here ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3URO0rXVfY  So yeah another wedding that was thoroughly enjoyable with some great (and emotional) speeches.

On the subject of Tilley weddings, the next one is already planned and it is when my cousin Dan gets married to Helen next June. I have been given the honour of being best man so I can't wait for that one to roll around. That also means I get to plan the stag do so expect some fun stories coming from that one!

Other Bits
I saw Transformers 3 at the cinema the other week (alone actually as Lara was so against going, haha). It was actually very good, even though it was slightly long. Of course its transforming robots that fight each other and stuff but as long as there is a beginning / middle / end to a simple story in a film like that, all you need to do is turn off your brain and watch something extremely creative from a visual point of view. Its incredible the things people can create these days and this film showcased that very well indeed. I thoroughly enjoyed switching off from reality for two and a half hours and letting my inner child run free. Also, the main female character in it, Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley is beautiful, like proper lovely! Overall I would give it an 8/10.

I have joined a new team football wise. I now play for Kempston which is over near Bedford. It's a step up in standard so I'm looking forward to the challenge this season brings. The set up at the club is incredible as well which is great as a player. I will miss some of the lads from Ampthill Town but a couple of them have moved clubs with me which was good. The pre-season training was immense there, I dont think I have felt this fit since I was at under 18 level (unfortunately a long time ago, haha) but I'm hoping for good things so I will keep you posted.

Other than that I think that's about a good place to leave it for now.  I managed to get this out a few weeks after the last one so hopefully it wont be too long until the next one.

Peace
G

Another Catch Up as I've Been Crap!

I have really been poor at writing these this year, I will have to make a bit more of an effort in the upcoming months. So where to start on this one, I’m sure that quite a bit has happened since the last blog and I will see if I can tie it all together.

Run, Run and Run Some More
We have been doing the odd bits of training here and there since the beginning of June but started pre-season training properly last Saturday (25^th June) and I’m not gonna lie, it was not nice at all. We did some long jogs and then a couple of long sprints before some ball work so I was aching a bit the next day. Then we had another one on Tuesday where we were doing some hill running which made my legs feel a bit like jelly, lol. So hopefully the fitness will come soon for us lot.

Just Monkeying Around
A couple of weeks ago my cousin Tom from Oz came up to stay at ours for the weekend which was awesome. He is over doing a course for his flying and is in England for a few months so we wanted to make sure we hung out while he was here. We went to one of those Go Ape things (it was called Aerial Extreme but you know what I mean) and it was such a laugh, I recommend having a go on one if you haven’t already.  It was hard work in places and some of the things you do are quite scary but we had a good giggle. The one bad thing that happened was that I battered my ribs on this last big jump you do before you leave. I thought it would still have some tension in the rope once I landed but it caught be out by going completely loose and I fell ribs first into the fence – Here is the video, be kind and don’t laugh at me, haha. – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHNPdRhalZk.

Nottingham = Massive Let Down
Back in May my cousin Stewart got married which inevitably means there is an excuse for a bunch of friends and family to get together to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and party for a weekend on a Stag Do. This one was with a great bunch of lads and the paintballing / comedy club were brilliant but we went to Nottingham which I had heard so many good things about – Most of which were false, lol. We must have just been there on a real dull weekend as most places we went to were pretty much empty and it was like a ghost town most of the time, It was bizarre. One thing to come out of the weekend was Matt Tilley, Grand Hendy and myself doing the chicken wing challenge in Hooters on the Friday night. We ordered 150 chicken wings between the three of us and by the photo I have used for this blog, you can see there was a stupid amount of chicken involved! Needless to say we couldn’t polish them all off and we all felt rubbish for the rest of the night, haha.  All in all a great weekend in a rubbish place

On a side note to that the wedding was a really good day and I have just had another stag do (this weekend just gone actually) for one of Stewarts older brothers Matt (fellow chicken wing loony) – I shall probably write about the stag do and wedding in my next blog. It was bloody awesome!

Facebook – More Like Whingebook!
OK, I don’t usually moan too much about things I have previously praised but Facebook is really starting to piss me off at the moment. I am getting increasingly bored of reading peoples statuses that are purely there for attention rather than information. I mean, all this ‘post this status if you know someone with such and such problem’ or other general chain status are rather annoying. Then there is one that is there for no other reason than to take up space like ‘I love my hubby / wife’ or ‘I miss so and so’ – I mean I love my girlfriend but I tell HER that and not every gubbins on my friends list cos quite frankly, do they really need to know? The ones that really get me are the cryptic ones, you know, the ones that people post purely to get you to comment like ‘grrr Im gonna get you for this, I’m so annoyed, you know who you are’ or something like ‘some people should really watch what they are saying about people behind backs, what goes around comes around’. Those are the ones that people comment on saying ‘ah what’s up’ or ‘do you want to talk about it’ and then the person that wrote the status says ‘no, I don’t want to talk about it’ or ‘private message me’…..Why the hell bother in the first place then?? That type of crap is just plain annoying and needy. Lol. I’m sure that Facebook wasn’t designed for that tosh and I know I’m not the only one that thinks this sort of thing. I have even thought about deleting close friends just because they put this type of stuff up there a little too often, lol. That’s my little rant over on that one cos I don’t want to go on too much but please go easy on the attention seeking stuff, it just makes you look kind of needy…

Tweeting
Twitter is now becoming my favourite of the two social sites, well, definitely the most interesting anyway. I know it doesn’t have the scope that facebook does and Im still going to be using that as I would  as you can put photo albums and videos on easily along with the better social side of things but Twitter is just simple. Even Lara has come around to twitter recently and she seems to really like it too - follow her by the way @laazarini7 - I don’t know why I felt the need to write about that on here but I thought I would. Lol.

Movie Catch Up
I have hardly been to the cinema at all lately and then I went twice in two days which was cool. I saw The Hangover Part 2 first which was an extremely funny film even if it was a complete replica of the first one with a few details switched around. I think this is well worth a watch as it’s a bit darker than the first film which makes up for the story kind of following the same path.
Then the next night Joe came up for us to head out and watch X:Men – First Class. This was a very good movie indeed, in most ways. The story was really good and engaging, the characters involved all added to the story in some way (well there were a couple that were not really needed but you didn’t really notice much) and Kevin Bacon as the villain was brilliant, a proper old school baddie wanting to take over the world. This will probably lose a large audience as it’s a comic book movie at heart but it is a good film that should really be seen. Check this one out if you can.

Missing Download
A little note that I missed Download Festival this year which was a bit annoying as I really love that long weekend when I camp out and listen to a few days worth of rock music. To be fair, its not a cheap weekend and I couldn’t justify to myself spending hundreds of pounds when I am trying to save money for something like a holiday later in the year. It was a shame as Linkin Park and Pendulum were playing who I have seen before and they were both incredible. Linkin Park were part of the best day of my life back in 2007 at my first download festival so they had a lot to live up to in all honesty, lol. Maybe next year…..

More TV Stuff
You may remember I have mentioned a show called Summer Heights High before, an Australian mockumentary series by a guy called Chris Lilley where he plays all of the main characters. It is possibly the funniest series I have ever seen and he has just come out with a new one called Angry Boys, once again playing all the main characters. When you consider that one is a American Rap Star, one is an old female prison warden and there are identical twins in there too (very clever) you realise that this guy has some serious talent. Angry Boys in on the BBC iPlayer at the moment so check it out if you can.  
I am really into The Unit at the moment, coming to the end of season 3 of that now which is getting good. Although I know that season 4 was the final series so I shall be a little disappointed when that ends. I wonder what I can use to replace it? Answers on a postcard please.

This blog was a bit more substantial than the last one and I will leave it there for now.

Take Care

- G