Deja vu, Stalkers and Deja vu

Hallooooooooo fellow blogsters and blog-stars, this may seem like a long time since I last posted, but in my defence, I did start the last post on the 2nd July and ..... kind of ..... took a week to finish it, so technically I've not posted for 2 weeks, so here goes then.

By the way, I started this post on 30th July, and have been adding bits and bobs when I get a chance, mainly at work, neat eh!)

We'll start, as every good week starts, on the Tuesday. Villa were launching their new kit at Harvey Nicholls in the Mailbox, which is a stones throw from my office (well, you'd probably need a good run-up, but you get the general idea), so as a die-hard fan I decided to pop down there in my lunch break, braving the elements, to see if I could hover outisde and see some players and of course the new kit. There were about 60 people inside, and another 50 outside, but I'd managed to secure a good spot right next the entrance, so I had a good view of the staging area.

Right, photo-montage time. This first photo was taken when I first got there, notice the giant claret curtains hung up next to the entrance, they play their part a little later on. Notice also the chap in the dark blue coat, walking towards me. I think he thought I was taking his photo, because he came over and stood next to me, then took a chine to me and followed me everywhere I went. Ah well, its always nice to have a friend, albeit a freaky one.......I wonder if it was the same guy I took a photo of when I went to Christies?....

....tell you what, it could well be...eep!

Right well anyway, the kit launch was delayed slightly because Olof Mellberg was late, but as he's about 7ft tall and built like a oil tanker, no one argued, but when it did happen, the assembled press went into fits of flashbulbs, the players came out sporting their new kits, the curtains on either side of the entrance dropped and the kit was officially launched

Yes I know I stood next to a chav, but these sacrifices need to be made for the sake of your beloved football team, so there.....and I did boil myself afterwards just incase I caught something that medical science hasn't discovered a cure for yet! The kits are really nice, thinking about getting the away shirt, very nice!

On with the rest of the week and Thursday was a good one. It was my aunts last week before she retires and the school threw one final huge bash to celebrate the event. It was held at the Marston Farm Hotel in Sutton Coldfield, just next door the the Villa training ground, which is good! The event went superbly, and my aunt received a gorgeous Hugo Boss watch and hundreds of send-offs from people she has worked with over the past 39 years, which was really nice.

Highlight for me was the 2 surprises bestowed on the assembled masses. Firstly, the teachers had been secretly preparing a country dancing routine, which I was dragged up for the encore, and loved every second of, as I'd done country dancing at my primary school, so I slipped back into my heady, haystack days (although my country dancing career was brought shuddering to a halt through the evil hayfever. Damn you Lord!!!) and loved every second of it. Finally, the 2nd dance routine was a bangra-type dance performed by some other members of the teaching staff, which was fantastic.

The rest of the evening was spent in the following order:

Drinking

Flirting with the girl behind the bar

Dancing my ass off

Drinking

Flirting with the girl behind the bar

Dancing my ass off

Dancing my ass off

Dancing my ass off (oh come on, they had 80's music on, its a crime not to!)

and erm....... Dancing my ass off!

Slightly worrying part of the night, being confronted by 'my stalker', a woman at my aunts school, who is more than old enough to know better, but every time I've met her at these 'do's', decides to get heavily drunk, forget herself, and follow me everywhere, with alarming accuracy, for example, following me to the toilets, then just happenning to be around when I came out (so to speak!). She did leave the scariest moment till last though, and at about midnight when we were all leaving, started talking to me and mom about what a really nice lad I am and what a nice strong man I am growing up to be, and how proud she would be to have a man like that in her life, all whilst not blinking and staring straight at me. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhh!

Oh well, its always nice to have a fan base, even one as deranged and scary as that!

Friday was a funny old day, it was my follow-up appointment at the hospital following my operation back in February, and since my operation things were going really well, until about 6 weeks ago when the symptoms started to come back again..oh dear. I got to the hospital in my car, which resembled more of a boat as we cirumnavigated the floods on the way there, managed to find the out patients ward and sat down. It was at that point that we noticed the prison-warden, attached to the 7ft tattooed bloke with chained ankles and wrists and a long beard, (I would have thought that was dangerous in prison, but who would mess with him!), and next to us was a man with more weaponry in his bag than most of moss side have on a saturday night!

Thankfully, he went in before us, and as I needed the loo I went down the corridor and went in. About 30 seconds later I hear 'chink...chink...chink...chink', now obviously as he's not the most intelligent man in the world, they obviously didn't teach him to read, or notice colours, and so, blatantly ignoring the 'Occupied' sign on the door, tried to open it using fairly extreme force. The banging echoed round the toilet and I actually thought I was gonna die, but thankfully he got the general idea (possibly through hearing the yelps coming from the toilet!) and was led to another one down the corridor.

I went into the consultation room shortly afterwards, and after telling the jolly-hockeysticks woman what had been happening over the last few weeks, she told me that they would not only want to probe me again (oh sh*t), and need another operation (oh sh*t, but at least I get 2 weeks off work!), but I would then need something afterwards to stop it happening again, which is so unbearable that I can't even describe it in a blog!!

Suffice to say I was less than happy on the slow watery drive back home.

But still, onto saturday and Nicola and Julias Birthday BBQ. Luckily the rain stayed off till about half 10, but under the tent-thingy that they had put up in their garden, we didn't care anyway, because Julia and Lee were making balloon animals and things, brilliant! Later on, I must admit to being the saviour of the music scene for my lending of the 80's cd's I have in my car, I was a god for all of 2 hours! Good times, my friends, good times!

Last week had two big highlights for me, firstly on thursday, work had a 'new starters' lunch at Cielo in brindleyplace, which was superb. Really good quality food and a lovely place to eat, and I worked out that the firm spent over £300 on the meal, god love company credit cards!

The second big highlight was of legendary status. If you remember one of the best decades for TV, you will remember this guy. In fact, TV wasn't TV without him, I present to you, looking very shabby like a very old man trying not to be noticed in The Mailbox.....

Yes its Russ Abbot! Legend of 80's and 90's TV. I saw him in a documentary a while ago and he had gone away from the public eye and not gone out very often, dressing very much like I saw him on that day (no, not like in the picture! Although that would be cool!)

So, now we have to make a decision on where to put Mr Abbott in the top celeb list. Now I think its time for a change around. I've had enough of Holly Willoughby, she doesn't return my calls, and she didn't pay for dinner the other night, so we're not speaking anymore, therefore she gets bumped down to number 4, lets see if that wipes the gigantic smile of her huge face!

So in ascending order, here is my top 4: (Top of the Pops-styley music please!)

1: Russ Abbot (Straight in at number one, those big rubber jump suits got me won over!)

2: Adjoa Andoh (She came good in the end of Dr Who, like we all knew she would)

3: Dudley Scott (Possibly the only time he'll ever be on top of....)

4: Holly Willoughby!

Thats just about it from me, I'll blog about this week over the weekend as thats a post in itself, so until then, tararrabit!