Mahinda’s Little World

It’s been unusually quiet for me, this last week or so.

Spooky Stuff

Last Monday, Howell and I went to Spooooooooky World. Basically, it’s a farm on the outskirts of Warrington that, buoyed by the success of the "Amazing Maize Maze" (can you see what they did there?) over the Summer, has diversified into a bit of October moneyspinning.

It was all rather provincial, and probably much better for small kids. We did get chased by a yokel with a chainsaw, and a demonic tractor, and there was a pretty cool haunted house sort of thing - a long winding tunnel with various ghouls and ghosties, including a couple of staff leaping out at you from the dark. Oddly, the scariest one wasn’t one of the big lads who jumped out from the dark in front of you, but actually the rather diminutive witch who crept up on me from behind and ran her fingers down my back. I jumped about a yard!

Ceilidh

Another Wednesday, another Manchester Ceilidh. Fun fun fun. Still missing a lot of the old regulars, but lots of fun new people. It’s just such a friendly atmosphere.

I managed to lose my front bike light, which doubles as a rather handy torch. It must have fallen out of my bag, I reckoned, so I went back (having only realised when about to get on my bike) to have a look for it. In the dimly-lit hall, I didn’t have a chance. Just as I was about to give up, I spotted it - someone had picked it up and stood it on a ledge, in full view. How honest is that?

Badminton

We had our first weekly badminton session on Thursday, over at Belle Vue (it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get courts at Didsbury or the Armitage, it seems). Two courts, and we had me, Pete, Kate, Adam, Adrian, Jo1 and Jo2.

A quick pint at Hardy’s afterwards rounded off a fun session. The next one’s tonight, at Moss Side.

Essex and Fireworks

For the weekend, I moseyed on down to see Maria in deepest darkest Essex. Got to Maria’s place at something like 11.30pm on Friday night - we had some of that Icelandic vodka and chatted for while.

Saturday saw brunch at a posh café sort of place - tasty but a bit overpriced, really - and then a bit of a pub crawl along the Leigh-on-Sea waterfront. Had some fresh cockles (and, in my case, seafood medley) and smoked eel between the last two pubs, and then it was back to Maria’s place to grab warmer coats before the fireworks.

Think it was almost a two mile walk from Maria’s to Leigh…and then back again…and then back again to get the train towards the beautifully-named Shoeburyness for fireworks.

Good fireworks display, but it cost FIVE WHOLE POUNDS. And there wasn’t a bonfire, which is rubbish.

Back home, via train, cab and (mediocre) curry, and we scared Maria’s mum (she’s pretty old, and lives with Maria) by not being able to get in - the door wasn’t unlocking properly, so we were rattling it a bit.

Sunday…stayed in, watched some of the rugby, then I headed off to Harlow.

Thanks to the evils of the M25, I got to Harlow just after 6pm, having caught the end of Spurs-Chel$ki* on 909. Got to Zenobia’s house, where she gave me a cup of tea. She’s in her first year working as a labmonkey for Glaxo, as are her housemates - Tom, Penny (whose family run a beef farm in Somerset - they’ve recently named a pedigree calf "Zenobia") and Anneka (who actually does look about twelve).

* WE WON! 2-1! YAY! First time Spurs had beaten Chelsea in the league since 1990! To make it EVEN better, Arsenal had lost (to West Ham), with Wenger losing his rag in high comedy fashion

Zenobia’s someone I really only know thanks to Manchester Ceilidh (he says, cunningly bringing the post almost full-circle), but also through Alsion and the fact that she gatecrashed my birthday party (and MUGSS pre-show) a couple of years ago. I never seem to know anyone through normal links, these days!

Anyway, we headed off to the local park for more fireworks, and another 20-minute walk. Got there early, so wandered around the funfair - one of the rides had a picture of Terry Henry in a Spurs shirt…very odd. The bonfire was lit, which was nice - finally, a proper fire! Eventually, the fireworks were let off - not quite as impressive as Shoeburyness, but pretty decent.

See? It’s not really Bonfire Night unless there’s a bonfire!

Walked back to Zen’s place, then started the monster drive home (M11/M25/M1/M6/A556/M56/A5103) at almost 9pm. Ouch.

Got home the wrong side of 1am, to find that I’d missed all semblence of Spurs highlights

Ended up satisfying my football desire with a match report on t’interweb instead, and went to bed knackered. Knackered, but happy.