Monday, July 03, 2006

Out there tonight is the night of my life

I've had an absolutely great weekend. I made my choice to go to Chichester because I'm really crap with keeping in touch with people once they move away so thought my time would be best invested by bidding Karen farewell instead of hanging around Ramsgate. Of course it would've been easier to stay here, but on midday Saturday I made my 135 mile trip to Chichester, and my first port of call was the Uni bar where I'd be watching the England match. I met up with Karen and Matt G, and as it was a very warm day we drank jugs of cider and lamented for England. I must admit I was close to tears when England were knocked out as I'd been though such a series of emotions during the match. Anyway enough about England... we shall not talk about that for a while.

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I stayed at the Bar till around 9pm drinking with Sam, Jo, and Stellie, and then made my way down to the Vestry, where Karen was meeting up with everybody. Now to me, I was a little surprised that she had chosen the Vestry for her leaving do, as in my time [2/3 years ago] it was merely a restaurant and not really a place to hang out, but it seems that real pubs are on the decline in Chichester and that a vast majority of them are being turned into wine bars!! All the the tradtitional student haunts have disappeared, and so the Vestry is now the place to go, and boy was it busy!

On my walk down from the Uni bar to the town centre I spent my time reminiscing about the old place [for those of you who don't know, I lived in Chichester for 5 years before moving back to Kent in 2004] and it's weird how it still feels like home too, as well as here in Ramsgate. I guess I'm looking at it through rose-tinted glasses though, because it has changed a lot, and that was one of the reasons that I left. Shopping Centres are being built, my favourite pubs are being knocked down, the University is expanding at an amazing rate leaving some of it unrecognisable to me, and being a university town, the population is constantly changing. I still love the place though, but I would get bored of it if I was there, and it's nice to stil get all these feeling when I visit, instead of loathing the place which was starting to happen just before I left. I still have friends there, and it's nice to be able to pick things up from where they were left and have a chat over a few beers, transcending time and any notion of not seeing each other for quite a while.

I got drunk, then went back to Sam and Jo's, had a few more drinks, and then went to sleep on their sofa.

Quite a lot of the time when I visit Chichester I'll go down there for an occasion in the evening, and then go home the next day because no one is up for doing anything after a heavy night, but this time we actually did something as so Sam, Jo, Phil, Stellie, and myself went down to Climping beach for the day and I had a good time. I spent a long time in the sea diving off of the groynes, and then once us boys had had enough of the sea we joined the ladies back on the beach and had a BBQ. We stayed until 6pm and then headed back to Chichester, and then I made my way back to Ramsgate. Before I left something happened to my car driverside window and it wouldn't close! It is an electric window, and somehow it's malfunctioned, which meant I had to drive all the way home with the window open which is great fun when driving between 70 and 80 miles per hour! My drive back was delayed by a traffic jam on the A23 which mean it took 90 minutes to travel 40 miles, but after the jam took 75 minutes to travel 95 miles!

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Now I am home, and have had to take the day off work so that I can try and sort out my car, which involved taking the whole door apart. I haven't figured out how to fix it but have sorted it so that the window stays shut. Anyway how was your weekend???

2 comments:

Aravis said...

This beach is so rocky, but beautiful! Your weekend sounds like a lot of fun. I really like that photo of you with Karen (?); very nice! :0)

adem said...

I did have to wear my flipflops whilst walking on it, but st least you don't get sand in your food.

Yes, that is Karen. Some people will say that it is very aethetically pleasing with it's post-modern take on identity and image, with reference to societies ongoing conflict with an individual's right to free speach..... Others may say that I didn't get us in the frame as I was using the self-timer and a wonky table!