Don't Tell Me You Don't Know, I'll Come Back If You Go...

I’ll start this blog where I left off - last Saturday. Not long after typing up my last blog I decided to look up my old house in Wythall online because it’s up for sale again (Ok, I confess - I did this on the Thursday, but I forgot to include it in my last blog so it’s in this one now).

Now ever since we moved out 10 years ago I’ve wondered if it looked any different at all, and to be honest I was very tempted to book a viewing just to be nosey. When I viewed the website I was shocked to see a photo of the lounge, at first I thought it was a photo of somebody else’s lounge because it looked so different but on closer inspection it was the same room.

Further down they had photos of the kitchen and garden, both looking completely different too, it feels strange to think I spent the first 15 years of my life there, in some ways it still feels like home.

The next day (Sunday, not Friday) I got a call off Gemma asking if I fancied going to the Frank Turner gig at bar academy that night, without hesitation I phoned the academy to see if I could get tickets on the door although they were no good, so after phoning about 4 different places and then deciding to buy them online and collect them when we get there I got them sorted.

Gemma and Woody picked me up in the evening and we set off into Birmingham, after collecting my ticket and joining Gemma and Woody back upstairs I only find them talking to Frank bleeding Turner!

Gemma bought his album which he signed, I'd already downloaded it so I decided I’d say hello instead, but what I didn’t think about was that this is Frank Turner, the lead singer of Million Dead - one of my favourite bands EVER. Normally when you get to speak to the singer from one of your favourite bands you think about what you’d say beforehand…not me…

“Hey!”
“Hey!…um…so what CDs have you got to sell?”
“I’ve just got my album and some CDs of the support bands…”
“I’ve already download…er…bought the album”
“Cool, what do you think of it?”
“Yeah, it’s great! Do you have any copies of your EP?”
“Nah, I only managed to get my copy yesterday, it’s in the shops tomorrow though. Here have a free CD!”
“Thanks…er…could you sign my ticket?”
“Yeah, sure!”

And here is my signed ticket. The free CD was an album’s worth of tracks from a band called Blah Blah Blah and they’re not bad.



Anyway, on with the gig…




First up was this guy who went by the name of Jay Jay Pistolet, he came on with his guitar and looked nervous from the word go, not only did he make eye contact with everyone while he sang but he stopped mid song at one point to pick up his plectrum which he dropped.

The next band were called Captain Black and were quite good, they were a bit Irish sounding and very lively, I was tempted to do a jig at one point but then I realized that it would just look stupid.



After what seemed like an eternal wait - Frank Turner finally made his way on stage. He played most of the songs off the album including some new and untitled ones, he also commented on how this was probably one of the warmest gigs he’s ever done, so warm in fact that it caused 2 of his strings to snap mid-song.



After the gig I went home to find there had been a gas leak in my road which meant having the road dug up until 4am. Also when I got home my throat started to feel a bit tender, knowing my luck I’d wake up the next morning with a cold starting.

I woke up the next morning with a cold starting, I really wanted to go out and do something seeing as it was bank holiday Monday but I felt too bad.

Wednesday was interesting, we got to meet my sister’s new boyfriend for the first time, my sister is always very shy about this kind of thing so we didn’t know much about him apart from the fact that he’s 29 and his name is Dean.

As we were waiting for them to turn up we were trying to guess what he’d be like, not that it mattered, as long as he wasn’t a 6ft6 cigar smoking cage fighter…then the doorbell rang, it was my sister, she introduced us to Dean…a 6ft6 cigar smoking cage fighter.

Now I have a slight problem with all of this, when my sister first brought him over she asked if he could stay the night, that was fine by us really seeing as it would only be one night, but…

…IT’S 6 DAYS LATER AND HE’S STILL FUCKING HERE!!!!

As you can probably tell I’m not his biggest fan, and neither is my mum anymore. He seemed ok at first, he was very outgoing and chatty, but that was on Wednesday night, he hasn’t spoken to us since, he just sits in my sister’s room all the sodding time. He’s even lost his job since he’s been here but he still won’t go home. I’m so stressed out now, I can’t stand another minute of this!

Anyway…

Saturday I met up with Gaz, Adam, Marcus and Jo in the woodmans (or the woodhouse as Jo likes to call it), we were all going to have a meal before deciding that the black boy would probably be better for food. When we got to the black boy and we had our food we all decided that we should go for a walk along the canal, after taking 2 steps though it started raining so we all got back in the car.

We needed another plan so after a moment to think the rain stopped and we headed over to Earlswood. We walked along the lake and eventually found the playground, we all suddenly turned 15 years younger and went on the swings and climbed the tree there.

All that tree climbing was thirsty work so we walked to the reservoir for a quick drink. Afterwards Gaz went home and Marcus was meeting Steve for a drink so I went to Blockbuster with Adam and Jo and we rented out Talladega Nights.

I really enjoyed Talladega Nights, it had it’s stupid moments but it was still really funny, I’ll leave you a clip of the film in case you want to see it for yourself…



I’m going to have something to eat now.

…Dad, you made that grace your bitch!