Huddersfield, Cholesterol and Phantoms

Hello All!

Well here we are, another week closer to take-off, and I'm finding that I've prepared myself for this trip in every possible - tangible - way, but as it gets closer I don't think I'm really prepared mentally, it's not really sunk in yet that I'm gonna be on the other side of the world for 3 months with only Claire to watch my back. Scary stuff.

Anyway, the Globetrotter has been in Huddersfield this weekend, and although I found the motorway part of the journey quite enjoyable, everything after that was a complete one-way-system-nightmare! Anybody who's been in my car will know I really cannot fathom one-way systems, especially when I miss a turning and need to get back to that junction again so I can take it. Anyway, I'm sure Patrick's instructions were flawless, and it was merely my ability to follow them that was lacking, but I think I ended up taking the wrong turning at the third roundabout because I thought it was the second (I didn't count the motorway one) and I wound up in the middle of Huddersfield Town Centre, when I was pretty sure I shouldn't have done. So I rang Louisa and fretted, and she tried to direct me from where I was as best she could not being a driver herself. Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short I ended up parking outside American Golf Discount having to have them come and find me! Turned out I wasn't that far away from their house, but it was a powerful blow to my driving ego all the same.

That night was spent eating homemade bacon cheeseburgers, drinking rose wine (on my part, at least!), eating Fruit and Nut (probably also solely on my part), watching the X Factor Final and meeting Louisa, Rachel and Paul's neighbours (two were lovely, the other was one the vilest human beings I've ever met - a munter, you might say. Or I might even stretch to an uber-munter. I won't go into detail cos I'm still not quite over the experience).

Then we woke up Sunday morning and ate a fried brunch whilst watching Friends. I ate 2 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages, scrambled egg, mushrooms and 5 whole hash browns. I felt like such a heffer, or a bogwhopper, you might say. Anyway we worked it off by going Christmas shoppin in Huddersfield, and although I've nearly done all mine and vowed not to do anymore til I next get paid, I made a start on Lauren, Claire and Sam's presents. I got all of Lauren's and part of Claire's. I still haven't found anything random enough for Sam yet! But at least I didn't use my credit card, though it took all the willpower I could muster!

That night we went to see "Phantom of the Opera" at the cinema (where I argued with an attendant about how crap "Van Helsing" was and nearly sat on a seat that was laced with greb - I love Huddersfield! Then I stopped another guy from sitting on it and he looked at me like I was the one who'd grebbed! Charming!) However, the film was amazing, and after not quite knowing what to expect cos I've never seen the show, don't really know the story and only know two songs from it, I was really impressed. And musical anoraks Louisa and Paul assured me it was very faithful to the stage show. I recommend you all go and see it striaght after you've seen "The Incredibles"!

Anyway, as I have less than a tenner in the bank and another week til I get paid, I doubt I'll be doing anything interesting this week! On the bright side, Smel and family are coming up this weekend, after we were originally supposed to be going down to North Wales to see them. Looking forward to that as we always have a great laugh when we get together (Square-Dancing and Fleetwood Mac readily spring to mind!).

3 weeks on Friday! Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

On that note...