We only made it a block

It was a fairly quiet weekend, which befits a mid-January weekend, I think. Friday night we watched this. Which wasn't either as good or as bad as I thought it would be. Peter Bradshaw had it as his film of the year, but maybe it's one of those movies you need to see on the big screen. Anyway, it wasn't anywhere near as mawkish and gung-ho as I'd feared, but I suppose I took issue with a film depicting events that we know nothing of.

Saturday was a day for doing important jobs like choosing a new colour to paint our bedroom. After trying five, we think we've settled on one, now we just have to buy it and get stuck in. Then there’ll just be the kitchen and lounge to go, and then it will be time to look for somewhere else to move to!

Our (young!) friend Giles turned 30 last week, so Saturday night was his party. We almost didn’t make it, as the Kylie comeback concert was being broadcast on Channel 4 and let’s face it, it’s every gay man’s dream to be Kylie’s wardrobe assistant (either that or dresser for her dancers). But we couldn’t let Giles down, so out to deepest darkest Watford we went. We had fun, mainly because Chris and Ronald were there, and we hadn't seen them for six months or so. It was a funny sort of party - Giles has a straight twin brother, so there were a few people there eager to impress on you the fact they were 'cool' about the whole gay thing. Like we cared.

Sunday I was awoken by the dulcet tones of my father's voice at 9:30am. God, don't old people think anyone else ever sleeps? Dad was kind enough to let me go back to bed, and I rang them back around 11. I decided to have a mini-detox, using products we’d hadn’t actually bought ourselves. There was this facial wash, then this scrub (both from Julie), then this body wash from Damien and then a rosemary sea-salt scrub from Bernadette. People say it’s better to give than receive, but all that receiving felt pretty good to me. Luckily, I didn't include stolen products, or I would have been in the bathroom all day.

It was such a nice day, we thought we’d go into town to the British Museum. It’s one of those places in London we never go to, just because you know it’s always going to be there. It generally has some pretty interesting exhibitions on too, things like ‘Empire and Theft – 50 treasures stolen because the natives couldn’t be trusted to look after them properly’.

But first we popped into the pub around the corner to see if we could hire a room for my birthday this year. Because it was local and we know the food there is good, we thought we’d give it a try. The manager there was really nice – which was justification enough for our decision – he couldn't do enough for us, got us tasting wines we could have at the party etc. etc. We ended up staying for roast lunch (£12.00 for half a corn-fed chicken - what's not to like about that!) and didn't actually make it into town. Oh well, the British Museum will still be there next weekend.

The whole local pub thing we think is a good idea, mainly because we really like the shops near where we live, and we’d rather give our money to some local businesses, instead of some bar in central London who doesn’t look after you because it will be full of punters next week and the week after, regardless. I like the fact if I walk past the shops near our place and five people say hello to you.