A brace of birthdays

So this is about 2 weeks too late, but I suppose late blogging is bettter than no blogging. We had the lovely Matthew's birthday dinner at Tamesa the other night, then we went roller skating. Tres retro. I am not sure, but I think Matthew might be gay. Paul certainly hopes so.



Then the Saturday before last (yep, get your Kylie/Aussie Rules footballers calendars out to figure out which Saturday), we had Don's birthday - complete with Brazilian waiting staff. I thought they melded into the crowd quite well in their roman slave outfits. Not that I noticed them.






We've also seen some films! And they were both French (see - I can do highbrow, too!). The first was 'Tell No One (Ne le dis à person)', which I really enjoyed. It was different to see a non-hollywood action/thriller. It must have been good because Paul attempted to exceed his 3-question quota ('Why is he doing that?' etc etc). I wasn't having any of it though. If you let them exceed it once, they'll only try to raise to four and before you know it, you'll find yourself with a 7-question limit at movies. I gave it 8.5/10.

The very next night (two films in two nights, imgaine how much we spent on popcorn, enough to buy a small flat in Melbourne!), we saw 'La Vie en Rose' (apparently so good, it doesn't need to an English translation for it's title). I didn't really rate it, (6.5/10,purely for the acting of Marion Cottilard), but it was worth it for 'Non, je ne regrette rien'. It's a song that unfortunately will forever be associated with a Nescafe ad in Australia for me, but it's still fantastic. I remember studying the lyrics in my short-lived french classes. Here they are (thanks to this) and apologies for the apalling layout. Heres a clip of Edith Piaf singing it live:

Non, je ne regrette rien

Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal Tout ca m'est bien egal Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien C'est paye, balaye, oublie Je me fous du passe Avec mes souvenirs J'ai allume le feu Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux Balayes les amours Et tous leurs tremolos Balayes pour toujours Je repars a zero Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien Ni le bien, qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal Tout ca m'est bien egal Non, rien de rien Non, je ne regrette rien Car ma vie, car mes joies Aujourd'hui, ca commence avec toi

No, nothing. No, I regret nothing. Neither the good done to me, nor the bad; to me, they're all the same. No, nothing at all. No, I regret nothing. It's all paid for, swept away, forgotten; I don't care about the past. With my memories, I've lit a fire. My sorrows, my pleasures, I need them no more. Swept away are my loves and all their tremors. Swept away forever. I start from scratch. No, nothing really. No, I have no regrets. Neither the good done to me, nor the bad; to me, they're all the same. No, nothing. No, I regret nothing. Because my life, because my joys, today, begin with you.

And then this Saturday we saw Shrek 3 - it managed to keep my attention for the length of the film, and the kids seemed to like it. I'd give it a 7/10. We saw it in Ipswich, which provided possibly the best argument I've seen so far against first cousins marrying.

Oh Dear.....

I had such a lovely day.

Brunch here.

Massage and facial here.

Party last night.

Then dancing here.

I had a really great day and am so lucky to have such a lovely boyfriend, friends and family.

And then today at lunch Ewan McGregor was at the next table - does it get any better than that?

More pics here.

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.

See, everything is connected

So tomorrow we're off with the rest of Gay London to Brighton, for Brighton Pride. Still free and still a lot of fun - it's like London Pride used to be. All afternoon drinking in a park - something tells me it could get messy. I spoke to my Mum ('Hi Mum - hope you're feeling better!'), last weekend and she asked 'How long does Pride last?' - I suppose it's all very confusing what with London Pride(or Europride as it was this year), Soho Pride and now Brighton Pride. Anyway, they're all different and all separate. And we're going to them all. Tomorrow with Stuie, Damien, Mark, Mark, Oscar, Lee, Clayton, Jari et al.

Also going along tomorrow is Derecks. Whose combined birthday party with his partner, Don (he of the death trip to Wales), we attended on Saturday night. Rupert, whose exhibition opening we went to last night, was at the party too. He's a sweet guy and it was very interesting chatting to him about his paintings. Rupert channels his colours. Now Paul wants to start channeling. Imagine the first channeling accountant, channeling speadsheets. I can see there would be a demand for it.

Don is originally from Cork - and his son is friends with someone who was in the Cannes-winning film 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. And we saw that on Wednesday night (8.15/10, since you asked). It was very good - I liked it a lot and thought it was pretty fair to all sides. And it showed what pr*cks human beings can be to each other. And how lucky Australia was to be granted independence and not have had to fight, brother against brother, family against family for it. And that imperialism is wrong, which bring me on to Lebanon, and Iraq, and.....

So you see, everything is connected.

So, The Summer of Love Has Begun.

After what seems likes weeks of grey damp weather, summer is finally here. It has officially been dubbed the ‘Summer of Love’, because ‘the lord’ is back from Brussels, and it’s Chris and Bernie’s first whole summer here. The weather has been hot and sunny for over a week now, and we're loving it (although the Bakerloo line is already unbearably hot).

Friday night we had Damien over for dinner. Paul was cooking as a thankyou to D and myself for helping him out on a work project earlier in the week. D is looking very brown, (I tell you, the Moors did conquer southern Italy!) and Paul cooked a lovely meal, asparagus with manchego and a vinaigrette, followed by tagliata.

Saturday afternoon we headed down to Balham (in deepest, darkest South London), for the very broad-shouldered Chris and his lovely wife Bernadette’s ‘Farewell Balham, Hello Summer of Love’ party. We started of by chilling out in the garden, then went inside later on for a bit of a dance. Needless to say we missed the last tube, and got a taxi home considerably later than we should have. We had a lovely time because almost all of our favourite people were there. Bernie sortof liturgically danced, but it lacked Sharna’s choreographic input.

Sunday we met the Smith family for a picnic. My day consisted mainly of lifting kids onto monkey bars. I only had one glass of wine! Josh wanted to go on the big Kids slide, but I said ‘No!’. He’s only three, but after seeing another kid about the same age hurtle down, I thought the slide wasn’t that bad. Paul invited him to go on it and he said ‘No, I’m not allowed’. I relented, thinking that if he flew off the thing, taking most of his skin off, at least he would have been happy. He was fine.