Weekend away to party

This weekend I was away to Notts with Brian. It was to celebrate the birthday of our old chum Tim.
Tim lives in Hucknall with his partner Al. I have never been to Hucknall before and Bri had never had to travel there alone so Tim met us at Bri's place so we could travel back with him. We went to Maccy Dees for lunch as it was cheap. I had a BOGOF voucher for a Big Mac but was surprised that I got to keep the voucher to use again.

After lunch we went to the Market place to meet up with another friend of Tim's called Sue. (Sue is a Spiritual healer and was great fun!) Then we went to get on the tram.
Its ages since I went on a tram - The last (and only) time was when I joined the Northern Division to see Jesus Christ Superstar. I wish we could have them in Derby as they are a lot better to travel on than buses - more comfy and more room and also easier to get on and off (Hmm we'll come to that later)

We got to Tim's at about 2pm and were soon sipping white wine. Al was busy in the kitchen preparing the food when we first arrived but he soon joined us and put it on me to decide when the food should be opened. As the event was an open house it was hard to judge when was best. I knew that if the food was available straight away I might just start digging in like a pig.

The afternoon went by very quickly with people coming and going. I got to meet many different people. Al is a spiritual healer and there were a lot of guests that were also very spiritual. It was really interesting for me to listen to them talking about their views and beliefs. I chatted to a nice lady called Helen about past life regression. This is something I have always been interested in and the way she had her regression sounded very simple and powerful at the same time.

Tim and Al also got out their packs of Soul cards to have a look through. Now I am not averse to this kind of thing - In my youth I used to read the tarot. I would often do readings for friends and I became a bit obsessed for a while and wouldn't go out the house in the morning without reading my own cards first. I stopped it at about the age 21 because I decided it was about time I took responsibility for my own life.
I don't quite understand the Soul cards though. With Tarot each card has it's own meaning but the soul cards don't. They are all about interpretation. The idea is you look through the cards and choose the one that jumps out at you. This doesn't mean physically of course - unless you are a lady called June who was shuffling the cards and 1 card did actually jump out the pack.

I went through but there were so many cards that caught my eye. Brian said to do a shortlist so I picked out 6 cards that stood out for me and then after much consideration got them down to 3 and finally found the 1 card that attracted me the most.

This be my soul card (I must ask Brian to annalyse it for me)

Later on a couple arrived with their 2 children. A very confident 6 yr old girl and her younger brother.
The couple run a Sweat lodge out in Notts somewhere. Brian went last year sometime and talks about it here.

Al put the PS2 on for the children but they didn't really get the hang of it and tired quickly of having to wait for games to load. I found myself playing Crash Bandicoot which was always 1 of my fave PS games. In fact I was rather upset when Al turned it off after they left.

As it got later more people arrived. There were Tim's old mates from off of the trams They weren't very sociable as they all stood together at one end of the room. Some more friends of Al's also arrived including a lovely young girl called Ellie who clicked with all of us as soon as she sat down. We discussed such things as Vegetarianism, Vegan ism, Gorgeous men of the 80s, Dancing on Ice (Very jealous that Ellie went to the tour last year but she said it wasn't worth the money) Alistair Griffin (Oh yeah I got a bit of Griffin action into the conversation), The length of Tim's hair and his youthfulness.
There was also a lesbian couple who were both a lot younger than us and very cheeky.

Soon it came the time when Brian and I had to leave to get the tram back to Nottingham. Tim walked us up to the main road and we found our way to the stop. Annoyingly we were just about to open the doors to get on when the tram pulled off and left us behind...
So we had to wait another 20 mins until the next one.

We got back to Bri's place about 10.30pm and sat drinking coffee and chatting about spiritual matters. I swear the evening had really given me food for thought.


Sunday
We got up early of Sunday morning and went along to Cineworld to see Sweeney Todd. I have been looking forward to this movie for about the last year and it certainly didn't disappoint. A true concept of the Tim Burton mould. Johnny Depp was superb as Mr T himself but for me actually I thought Helena Bonham Carter stole the show as Mrs Lovett and look out for future appearances by the young Ed Sanders who was a brilliant supporting actor.

When we got back after the film Bri made one of his gorgeous pots of Soup. It was delicious and had I not had to rush off to get my bus, I surely would have asked for seconds.