Stu’s Housewarming weekend
Ages and ages ago (Last summer even :/) Stu invited a group of us down to hang out at his then recently moved into student house all the way in Canterbury. After a few hiccups here and there, and minor changes being made to plans, it ended up with Me and Kazzie going down on a Thursday, followed by Bob, Blee and Sarah joining us on Friday.
Canterbury is where?
Due to a last minute problems I ended up as the one driving me and Kazzie down, I was going to drive down to hers, pick her up then carry on to Stu’s. Though on google mapping Canterbury I discovered it was fecking miles away! Somewhere far, distant and south - crazy.
None the less I was still game for the hugee drive, I like driving and adventure and all that so off I went early Thursday burning down to Hemel.
Kazzie’s lost DS - “Can we take peanut?”
I made it Kazzie’s without a problem, and found her amidst packing and zipping about the place. Meanwhile I chilled out and had my lunch, a nice bap from the bakery I picked up on the way to hers. It was chicken mayo and delicious and I fed peanut and jokingly asking him if he wanted to go on a little trip. I was going to go banter with Kazzie but she completely banned me from her room on the basis that it was a mess (apparently), so I just stayed in the kitchen and occasionally chatted with her mum.
Kazzie began to cart all her stuff down the stairs and I suddenly realised that she was taking shit loads of stuff! Not really a problem until you considered that fact that I had Bob with us on the way home. We finally loaded the car quite badly I must say ha, and then I waited some more while Kazzie hunted down her DS, but just couldn’t find it so we left without.
“Stu…Do you have rose bushes outside your front window?”
I have a third arm that takes photos while I drive:
The rest of the drive to Stu’s went nice and smoothly, we had fun while going over the big bridge aka the dartford tunnel or whatever it was called. We chilled out and listened to music and Kazzie behaved remarkably well, we let Stu know out current status and all as we almost arrived. Alas there was a slight problem finding Stu’s house but using my maps, wit and common sense and a few calls to Stu I pulled into his drive and whooped with celebration.
I rang Stu to find him and Christy stillll weren’t back grr, so I thought sod it we’ll just set up camp outside his house on the front lawn. I did so by getting out the beach umbrella and putting that up, getting some kettle chips, then just lounging about on the grass. But then I started to get paranoid that we weren’t at Stu’s house..and I had this horrible sensation that we had just invaded some stranger’s garden…
My hair looks funky there
I rang Stu in a panic and asked him some specific questions like the number of bins outside and whether he had roses and so forth, and fortunately for us - we were at his place!
Phew…
Torture, CAKEEE, Dominos and DVDs
So much crap…
The first we do when Stu and Christy get back was unload everything into Stu’s house. I then present Stu with my gifts of a tescos value sponge cake (since I couldn’t find the 43p cupcakes I had intended to get him :() and also a foam sword which he liked much.
We then get a grand tour of the place and I’m dead impressed, I mean this was soooo nice for a student house, nice furnishing and floors, a small dishwasher in the kitchen, even a cosy garden shed out back - it was ace. We hung out in Stu’s room a bit, doing some random msning and webcam action to people…
Hot xxx cam action girls girls girls:
And then I started fiddling with my laptop and ds to get it going on the wifi. Meanwhile everyone else hung out in the living room where Kazzie’s wii got set up and she discovered that there was a copy of High School Musical there.
She insists on putting it on, and at that moment I wanted to curl up and go away as it indeed got put on and was viewed by the others while I arsed about on the net etc trying to ignore it’s existence ha.
Hi Spazzie:
We debated what to have for food, and went to hit the shop though we settled on getting a dominos and the chill out to a dvd while eating. Haha I managed to also convince Stu to bake a cake, and using the handy likes of ‘Jamie’s cooking at home’ cookbook found in the living room Stu whipped up a chocolate cake. Mmm cake, which resulted in being alright though I lightly massacred it with a dusting of icing sugar and melted chocolate. (It unfortunately didn’t get eaten much since people were stuffed from dominos).
(Oh I do like a man that can bake.)
But yes dominos was damn tasty, I went for a medium half half, of bbq chicken and some normal mushroom chicken combo that turned out a wise and delicious choice. We all tried to sit down and watch Team America but once people were full they got distracted and ran off somewhere…
Dinner and breakfast:
The girly slumber party - “Someone save me!”
I don’t know how it happened, and as I try and recall it all now I remember that people started getting ready to crash, they got into some slumber gear and got ready to watch High School Musical. I in the other hand preferred not to torture myself with such viewing and hid in the other small room beside the living room. There it had a small sofa which I claimed as my place to crash for the weekend, the only concerning thing was that it had a glass door, so everyone could walk past and see me and I could see them which was a bit weird for a room you’re going to sleep in…
Anyhow I found myself on skype with Bob, Kev and Wince and then tackling some intense and constant wifi tetris battling…
Before I knew it the girls and Stu (well he’s kinda like a girl anyway ;)) had finished their high school musical, which left them in a somewhat girly and crazy mood, they danced and pranced past my doorway and began searching for youtube videos of classic pop tunes to play and dance to…
Tragedy…in more ways than one
And all of a sudden I found myself pulling this face 0_o at the lot of them. As they danced about and raved about in their pjs…
None the less I still kept playing tetris ha, and I moved to the doorway to watch the others antics, amusingly the guys on skype could hear the music too…I began begging Bob - Pleasseee hurry and get here fast! We need some manliness pronto!
The only thing that made this night better was Stu making me a cup of tea on demand ^_^ now that’s! service…
Friday - Bad hide and seek
I woke up randomly at 11ish, and found myself the last one up practically I think. I managed to grab a shower at some point while we debate what to do with ourselves for the day.
But not before having some hiding under the bed antics with Kazzie, Stu had one of those beds with storage underneath so while he went to shower Kazzie crawled in. After much giggling and laughter later she managed to wiggle in - momentarily proclaiming her boobs were in the way haha.
Stu emerges from the shower and at once knows that Kazzie had crawled into the bed without a single word from us heh.
Eventually after many antics and breakie (mmm microwaved leftover pizza) we head off in my car to check out the wonderful land of Whistable.
A day trip to Whistable
Stu directed me to Whistable with ease and we had fun listening to random stuff off my touch zen such including musecast that happened to be on there and some dodgy tracks (Boyzone - Baby can I hold you tonight, oh yes). We parked up nicely for free and took a nice stroll, we wandered down to the beach that was covered in pebbles and surrounded by boats. In the distance you could just make out the line of wind turbines in the horizon, followed by sailing boats dotted about in the ocean. Including one that looked very much like a pirate ship haha.
It was a horrifically basking hot day and Christy decided to buy a hat to try and save herself from the sun and we got some drinks to try and cool us down. I got bored and started perving at fit surfer guys who were also at the store. It was pretty uneventful with just wandering about the streets and hunting for somewhere to eat, spotting random amusing things, you know the usual thing.
Kazzie began to whinge (constantly) at her dissatisfaction of the place, proclaiming loudly that it was like we were stuck in the 1850s or something though I thought it was rather nice. A quaint seaside town with lots of classic character to it.
Kazzie decides to get food at this typical greasy chippy place that you would find at a seaside resort, Stu joins her and I decided to dine at a nice little tearoom named happily as the Victorian Tearoom. Christy joined me what with her being a fan of the tearooms herself. And we dined happily and slurped tea. Yep definitely a good choice for food.
Stu and Kazzie joins us later and Stu’s quite jealous of the fine dinning and he gets some tea himself. The place was lovely though, it also had the most amazing looking cakes ever in the glass cabinet - heavenly looking! Kazzie finally finds something she likes about the place in the form of a strawberry milkshake - which she sucked up through a straw and then proceeded to slurp very loudly once she got to the bottom.
As dessert (is that the right spelling?) we hit this cool traditional stylee ice cream parlour place, and got some ice creamy goodness. I went for a scoop of clotted fudge cream that was gorgeous and yum.
“Quick must get back for Neighbours!”
I’m sorry if it’s a sin to have a desperate need to watch neighbours and hollyoaks, but alas I was burning it back in the car so I wouldn’t miss any of my soaps haha. I made it in back in time kinda, and managed to get my soaps in happily while the others dossed about in Stu’s room and all.
Stu gets around to mowing the lawn 0_o not sure why he decided to do it then, but yeah I watched and took photos with the intention of making a gif hehe.
We now awaited the arrival of Bob, Blee and her friend Sarah before we could then hit the shops for a bit of stocking up of grub.
The Arrival of Bob - “Fuck you underground!”
Bob had been texting and ringing during the day, and during the afternoon he sends a slightly worrying text that he may possibly miss his coach 0_0 I’m not sure what was up exactly apart from the underground had been messed up or such. He was debating taking a train though a short while later it turns out the panic was over as he did indeed make his coach.
He was due quite late in the evening, and I drag Stu with me so he can direct and and all. We park up somewhere near to the bus station and go wait by the right stop for Bob, I get my camera out all poised for his arrival and all letting Stu have a play and get arty with it. Soon we sight his coach turning into the station and like a famous rock star Bob skips off the coach looking cool in dark shades.
Back at Stu’s we have a little chat for a bit and lark about, Bob decides to make me play Res Evil 4 on the wii. I played it a bit and didn’t like it because I was paranoid of jumpy bits haha. I don’t like playing creepy games (the reason I can’t play silent hill games :(). Bob takes over and shows me the scary bit with lots of zombie villagers and a dude with a chain saw…
The Arrival of Blee and Sarah
I think this photo says it all.
Supplies Shopping - Four 71p chickens
After helping Blee and Sarah take their stuff inside we dotter about a bit before heading down to Tescos again to stock on supplies for dinner and barbecue. We tried debating what we could have for tea, Christy and Stu went bikini shopping, and we started hoarding stuff into the trolley.
I think the aim was to make it cheap (as possible!) and cheerful and Bob comes up to me at some point bearing a reduced cooked chicken. It was about a quid something and I thought it was an ace find, but as we debated we wondered whether one chicken would be enough to feed five people (Blee is veggie). Bob proclaimed that he could probably eat an entire chicken to himself, so I said okay we’ll go get another one.
We head over to the cooked meat stand and we found to our joy that the chickens had been reduced again to about 71p! I couldn’t believe it, so we picked up another chicken, then more thought led to getting three and finally we just thought fuck it we’ll get four.
71p chickens…amazing:
We proudly presented the chicken dinner to everyone who was fine with it, and we decided we could have chips with it or something. We then set about getting some barbecue stuff including going all out and doing what we did at Kazzie’s that one time - barbecue breakfast!
Soon the trolley was getting quite full, and there was an actual moment where we were worried we’d brought wayyy too much food to consume. And of course the fear of spending too much kicked in again. But we reassured one another it’ll be fine.
After some persuasion and debate we all chipped in to buy a cheap kettle barbecue that Stu could keep afterwards and could use himself. It seemed a better idea than getting a disposable as we didn’t know how many/much we needed.
Eventually we finally paid up and headed off… but not without Bob and Kazzie dancing in front of headlights in the car park…
A Formal Dinner - “So…how was your day?”
Once back Stu put some chips on and someone prepared some beans. We cleared and tidied up the living room, setting up the glass table properly. It had been said before the weekend that we would all have to dress up and have a proper formal dinner you know suits and evening gowns haha with ties…well…we all made sure we had ties anyhow.
Soon the chips were almost ready, and so Bob set about shredding the chicken off the bone making it easier to eat and all. We settled on shredding up two of the chickens for the time being and soon there were plates of chicken and bone all over the table.
At last with everyone sat at the table it was time to EATTT. I was starving by this point, well I think everyone else was too, so we all happily tucked in. Bob sets up my camera on my tripod to get some full shot action yip.
It was pretty formal ha, we had a nice toast and Bob goes round the table asking people one by one about their day haha. This was something he’d picked up from spending time with the (Alice) Day household. As well as having to excuse yourself every time you left the table etc. It was an alright meal I mean for 71p for meattt you can’t complain, though I got quite full somehow.
Blee and Kazzie were hilarious though, they just couldn’t stop laughing and giggling, with Kazzie ending up not eating much from her small High school musical paper plate haha.
After we’d eaten we bantered for a bit, and played some ‘I’ve never…’ game (this seems to feature a lot in muser gatherings I’d noticed), where we had a laugh and me and Bob took the opportunity to take the mickey out of Kazzie hehe. (Pot pooing anyone?)
Gaming - Lots of
Once we’d cleaned up we got some good gaming on the go, Sarah had even brought her PS2 down as well as buzz and singstar. Singstar was a good laugh, we got Stu and Christy to do a love duet ha and got the guys to sing something together too - I think it might have been a Queen song, I had hoped for them to sing a nice gay song but ah well (then again Queen is gay…kinda heh).
I think we play a round of buzz, I opted out for this and probably a good thing too my musical knowledge (like factually and in general) is somewhat shady heh. As well as Bob showing off the wonderfulness that is Katamari to everyone. It was pretty ace, I loved how easy it is to play and how everyone got hooked on it straight away hehe.
Hmm it’s a bit annoying for me at the moment because I remember what we played when, but I know at some point there was intense speed battles on big brain academy. Basically you split into two teams, and you had to try and complete the mini games as fast as possible during your go. Seriously it was proper intense! That kinda race where anything could happen if you slip up. It was weird because as we played I slowly noticed how if one person was rubbish at one type of game someone else was amazingly good at it. I guess it just shows how all our brains work differently.
Bedtime - Late night Tetris
Eventually Blee calls it a night, and soon after the rest of us turn in too. A quick tidy up and rearrangement of the living room sorted sleeping for Bob Kazzie and Sarah. Blee had a spare room to herself, I took the mini room with the glass door again and Stu and Christy were in Stu’s room.
Meanwhile I still had other ideas than sleeping, in my terms it was still early and so I hung about on my laptop a bit before I think I found Bob wasn’t sleeping, no wait I was giving him the network key for his DS. Anyhow, he joined me in the mini room and we stayed up just playing tetris (not ‘gainst each other mind haha I have this rule about that). I was just larking about against good olde level 4 while Bob was determined to get a certain score zone on wifi. We stayed up for ages just chatting until eventually Bob achieved his goal ha, and he went to crash back in the living room.
Saturday - A trip to the beach!
I don’t remember much of that morning, just feeling strange waking up and being able to see straight through my door ha. I’m not sure if something disturbed me or what, but I get up and we all get ready for the beach trip ahead.
Stu made a load of cucumber and chicken sandwiches to take with us, while I packed up some beach stuff and soon we were all on our way in the cars. I had Stu and Bob with me with Blee, Kazzie with Sarah following behind. Haha comes to think of it, it was like the there was guys car and a girls car (not that I’m a guy but according to Stu I am a honorary bloke ha).
Stu directed me though after a certain point it was pretty much a case of following the signs heh, it was a fun ride and all with Bob at one point taking my FM transmitter and plugging it into his DS. He then concluded to play the tetris marathon so we got all the funky music in the car hahaha, god it was pretty damn surreal, to be driving along with Tetris music thumping out the windows…It wasn’t good when Bob got near danger point, as the music change accordingly and made me edgy haha.
Margate - Musers do the beach
On arrival I had a right pain in the arse of trying to sort somewhere to park, I was starting to get pretty pissed off and all with the parking mission but eventually I do get it sorted and we can head down to the beach to set up and chill.
Margate reminded me a little of Skegness, but I guess to a certain extent most seaside resorts were similar to each other. There were rides and amusements and a stretch of sand that was already pretty damn busy going.
We stroll down to the sands and find ourselves a nice clear patch to make camp so to speak. The beach umbrella got pitched and towels were laid out underneath, and we slumped out on them all relaxed like. It was an absolutely scorching hot day and for some reason people decided to not put on suncream 0_o Though me and Bob were the going to be fine the others baffled me somewhat when they didn’t cream themselves up. Leading to Sarah quickly becoming raw from the sun and so her and Blee hit the shops quickly to cool off, hide from the midday sun and try and find something to help protect themselves with.
Meanwhile Kazzie begun her mega hole challenge…
And some of us took Muser tributes…sand stylee
It was basically a real chilled out time and a time of overheating haha, I swear me taking the beach umbrella was the beat idea ever. People would had been proper messed up by the sun if it hadn’t been there, and some of us just stayed under there the entire time ha. I spent some time lying about and munching kettle chips as well as Stu’s rather tasty sandwiches mm.
Me and Bob make the word Flickr out of sand heh, and Stu and Bob also have some one shot challenge on the go too.
The Boat fiasco
Kazzie who was like a kid was happily progressing with her hole until like a magpie she got distracted by something new and shiny, this new and shiny thing that she suddenly wanted too…it was a boat…
Not just a silly boat you’d have in a swimming pool, but one of those one you can blow up in a beefy way and row about in the sea. Of course it was because she’d seen loads of other people have one and she really really was determined to go rowing too. At some point we all go get some ice creams and she runs off to go find one.
She returns to us a little while later presenting a union jack decorated boat 0_o then proceeded to try and blow up the thing using her mouth. Ohh hohoho six hour jokes would be dead appropriate round about now ;)
That boat is going to be still floppy even after six hours of blowing:
Of course Bob kept telling her that it was never going to happen, you can’t blow up a boat well enough with your mouth for it to go rowing in - no chance! He kept saying how he’s seen one guy try it one time and it just didn’t happen! It was amusing to watch her try though haha - but I really did doubt she had that amount of puff in her ;) By the time she would have been done she’d been too knackered to row anywhere either!
After she’d ignored out sensible words for ages I decided to go sort something out because it was just plain silly watching her struggle on. I did a little look around and figured that people who had boats would probably have a pump too because I doubt they would have carted the boat fully blown up to the beach. So I stroll over to one family who had a boat and politely asked them if they had a pump and if I could borrow it, they did have one and lent it to me. I came jogging back pump in hand and everyone back at camp began wooing me at my success.
Thank god I’d gone and fetched it though, I mean seriously within a few minutes of attaching it the boat inflated like a shot and was soon getting to boating requirement. Bob kept groping it and telling Kazzie that it needed to be HARDER heh, because to be honest you needed it meaty and firm if it was going to be safe to float.
Now fully inflated Kazzie tried to encourage us to go boating with her, I declined based on the fact I can’t swim…and well no one was really eager to go rowing with her ha. In the end we followed her to the shore with the boat and she tried to set sail. Though she needed to be kinda dragged out to sea by Christy and Stu before she really got anywhere.
Of course the thing was once she did get going, she wasn’t really erm..rowing anywhere it was moreso her drifting out then slowly drifting along but back into shore but towards the harbour area. We watched bemused especially when she tried various paddling techniques, first with both ores then with just one. Haha, I shouldn’t laugh but it was rather amusing to see.
Eventually me and Christy, the last two to watch her, decided to return to camp because though she was quite far away from us we’d figured she wasn’t in any danger. She was drifting back into shore with the current thankfully.
Back at the umbrella (ella ella eh eh eh) we settle down for a bit though Stu and Christy head off to try and fly their 99p kite ha. Moments later Kazzie appears with her boat announcing she’d just been rescued by the lifeguards haha. Turned out she had drifted into the harbour area so they just picked her up and the boat and brought her back to shore. She was then told that she was no longer allowed out in the sea unsupervised haha.
Back to the hole - And other sand play
So now the mini boat adventure had ended Kazzie returned to her hole digging. It was getting quite deep now despite the break made ha. I was actually worried some kid was going to come running along and fall into it :/ so I was very concious about not leaving it unattended.
Eventually it reached a point where Kazzie could stand in it and it would come up to her quite high. So we convinced her to be buried. Of course the moment she agreed everyone jumped up to the chance to fill it in. I mean how can you say no to burying someone? And so we all stepped up and chucked sand in, using all means necessary…(spades, hands Frisbees, you get the idea…)
Thing was though, as soon as we filled her in, she started to panic a bit ha. Saying she couldn’t breathe and such :/ Ha I think her face in this photo says it all…
Thing was heh we are hesitant to dig her out again ha, I mean we don’t go about it in a hurry, though what we do, do is dig out the area front the front/her chest so she didn’t have so much pressure on it. This kinda resulted in a bust lifting mould of sand that hugged sand her cleavage ha. But yeah after that we take an opportunity to snap some shots, you know, one for the family photo album ;)
The best bit was when they did try did her out and even tried pulling her out by the arms haha. It was like one, two, three, heaveee, but she wouldn’t budge hehe. Eventually we d0 dig her out and she can escape again. Darnit we should have left her there.
But once out Kazzie was then submitted to Stu spitting on her, ha, he was rinsing his mouth with water cause he got some sand in it. Anyhow, he was aiming to spit the water into the hole though he kinda missed and spat all over Kazzie’s leg haha.
Ah sand is a wonderful thing, as Bob started to be rude and tried to draw out penises in it, but then we just went one up and started to craft a sand penis and balls. Which was then slowly followed by crafting a sand lady too ha.
Eventually time was getting on and we needed to return and have a barbecue still! So we packed up and reloaded the car. But Kazzie wanted to go on a fair ride, so a group of us went to check them out and Stu, Christy and Kazzie went on one while me and Bob watched/took photos and I ate ice cream.
Haha this is the best picture from the weekend ever:
Barbecue action - MEATTTT
Back at Stu’s the guys assembled the newly brought barbecue and Stu got the coals on the burn I think things got a bit loose and antisocial here, I mean with people just randomly doing their own thing. Some food got put on to cook as well as Blee’s veggie stuffs. Not much to talk about here apart from Stu was showing off with some burger flipping action, and Bob caught the money shot of the weekend…
It was an alright barbecue, quite tasty, we had burgers and sausages and some random chickeny goodness too. I think the best thing was the bit of bacon we whacked on. It was proper slow cooked, dried out and tasty heh.
Once the food was ready we managed to all gather up and sit in the garden, just chilling out, chatting and eating away. Eventually as it grows dark we retire inside for some various and random gaming action…
This time Bob introduced us to the world of Mario Striker, what with four wii-rotes and nunchucks we could have a proper four player, 2 vs 2 sesh ha. It was actually pretty good, and pretty funny and somewhat violent ha. Especially when Stu decided to have a team full of Moles, ie. very powerful but also slow. We developed a thing where we’d yell out “get the mole!” hehe.
So yeah a night of gaming, chilling and people nursing their poor sunburn the silly sods…
Sunday - Time to head home
The morning starts off with me being of the last to get up, just in time for most of a fried breakfast to be cooked and prepared - score! Turns out Bob and Blee had awoken pretty early and started the cooking action then. Pretty cool of Blee to do some meattt cooking even though she wasn’t having any of it.
I got round to doing me and Bob some fried eggs to go with everything else, man it was quite a feast come to think of it, along with lots of chicken wings uncooked from the barbecue which Bob enjoyed demolishing. We sat down at the dinner table again with the usual Bob asking how our day was, and tucking into the good grub.
It was a pretty laid back affair. Nicee..
This followed with us all chilling in the back garden with my umbrella (ella ella ey ey) up and playing lots of DSing, mainly the picture drawing stuff ha. Eventually Sarah and Blee had to head off, so we bid them farewell while we came back inside and played a load of Mario striker again haha. Man it was so addictive and fun…
Eventually me, Bob and Kazzie decided we should probably head off too, and set about loading the car. God it got a bit worrying/scary as again I noted we had a massive pile of stuff to take back plus Bob!
But with some careful loading we actually noticed that we had plenty of room for everything and it was cool. So once crammed inside my car we bid Stu a good farewell and I set off back to Kazzie’s…
And the rest?…
Well the drive was alright…until we got onto he M25 and got caught in traffic urgh, Kazzie who was sat in the back started to feel iffy, but managed to survive the rest of the journey despite me offering to pull over at services so she and Bob can swap/get some fresh air. We dug into my “emergency” starmix, which was a bad idea as it just made me more hungry for real food and sickly ha. Though between the three of us we demolished the packet.
I soon roll into Kazzies and dump the both of them off, I stuck around and had a brew, got called by David about going to the pub, and then I continued on me way back to mines. Ha that was an insane day of driving and stuff…but I made it back in one piece.
A awesome cool break/holiday away, and I felt like I could take on the world after…
Ah so long ago, yet still pretty memberable in some ways…Maybe another summer holiday on the cards, yes? How about a booze cruise to France? Ha…
Tags: barbecues, canterbury, housewarming, musers, stuff