oh, it's been aaaages!
Wow, yeah... April. Blimey!
Uh, saw Swarf at the Bridgehouse... They STILL absolutely kick butt, Liz has the most amazing voice, and the music manages to be sweet and gutsy at the same time. And the sound in this teeny-tiny venue is pretty good too, shame it's in a very isolated estate in Canning Town.
Sick and Twisted was effort, and although it was good in places, it was just too loud and there were too many "Uh, no. Why??" moments on that dancefloor... mooooving on!
Birthday weekend was VERY nice... made lots of Dennis the Menace and Tom & Jerry cakes for work, and spent a couple of days visiting this gallery and that exhibition, following the Independent's listings to find that: 2 of the places did not exist (and phone numbers didn't work) 2 were merely shop fronts (one of which was closed, 1 had the wrong timings (and was merely a few rubbish pictures in a cafe) and whatever was advertised for the V&A was completely inaccurate, and it was very dull.
fortunately, despite almost catastrophic train problems, Si met me in London and took me out for my surprise dinner which was at the Oxo Tower and absolutely great. Their cocktails were pretty amazing too, and no more expensive than your average Soho bar.
And on Friday morning, we left at Dawn to travel to Dortmund and on to Gladbeck for Forms of Hands. We stayed in a lovely, and very friendly little town called Gilsenkirchen, which was a drive and a half from anywhere, but worth it. Our hotel was really nice, and we had a couple of meals (and more than a few drinks) in a proper german pub (called the Witches house, and there were all little witches everywhere!)
the fest itself was mostly pretty exciting (despite their lack of rum, jaeger or diet coke... grrrr!) Si bought lots of music... I was typically more conservative for my own cynical reasons. But in all it was a great success, and whilst I've a lot to learn before Leipzig (back off to Germany via london on wednesday!) my German wasn't too bad and we survived ok.
so now we're pushing Friday night's Poetry Kapow (are you coming? are you? huh??) and I was up VERY late last night trying to get angry about stuff and form it into rhymy words. So we're a bit nervous, but it'll all be exciting and fabulous and it'll be Slime o'clock (you better believe it baby!) before we even realise it.
So this weekend is gonna be pretty awesome, SO glad it's a bank holiday! And then I'll have to pack to be away for nearly a week... erk!
Stupidly busy and twitchy and generally ready for another party or two before the money runs out!
And the month is over! Roll on Summer!!!