Fun in the Sun

Hello there. I hope you are all well. I am. Since I last wrote properly all sorts of amazing things have happened. I shall now excitedly tell you about these things.

So my best mate Chris arrived on Tuesday afternoon for an week of hi-jinks. Our first plan was to head to the cinema, which was an awesome idea but easier said that done. The nearest cinema which is any good is a train ride away. This would be fine were it not for the fact that we are in Britain. For those not in the know, British trains are renowned for being unreliable. There was supposed to be a train every twenty minutes but we had to wait for nearly an hour for a train to arrive. This meant we had to rush from the train station to the cinema in the hope of still catching the start of the film. Of course the screen we were going to was around lots of corners- that cinema is like a labyrinth. Fortunately despite the fact that we were half an hour late we still managed to catch the start of the film and indeed a couple of trailers.

So the film? Marvel’s massive superhero team-up that is The Avengers. Technically it’s called “Marvel’s Avengers Assemble” in the UK so as to not be confused with a 70s police drama. I have been desperate to see the Avengers for a long time but this is the first time an opportunity has arisen. It was definitely as good as expected. There was a great combination of comedy and action and Joss Whedon managed to make all the Avengers come off as equal, which is quite impressive really. The fight scenes were epic including those between Iron Man and Thor. The highlight though had to be where the Hulk smashed Loki across the floor and called him a “puny god”. All in all it was immense. And it made me want to throw things around. Like a hammer, or a shield or a puny god.  

After that we had the obligatory McDonald’s, although Chris was denied the free cheeseburger he should have got for being a student. There we met with our friends Louise and Lewis and we all went bowling together. I was dreadful. For some reason I could not find my usual bowling skills. Normally I can get around the 120 mark but on this occasion I could get no more than 95! Even my usual charm and cool jokes weren’t present. Perhaps it was because I’d had next to no sleep for two nights.

This week it has been really sunny and hot, reaching 25 degrees Celsius most days. That’s pretty hot for the UK! After a long walk in the sun during which I nearly melted, Chris and I hosted a barbecue on Wednesday night. We bought loads and loads of food for next to nothing at the supermarket and I invited lots of people round. Despite the fact that no-one really has that much to do anymore because they’ve all finished uni, most people were ‘busy’ and so there was only five of us in all. Five was a pretty decent number though and the barbecue was a resounding success. Our courtyard has barely been used since we moved in here so it was awesome to put it to good use. We had a table out there and a load of chairs surrounding the two little barbecues and had my iPod speakers playing out of the kitchen window. It was perfection and the company was lovely. It was truly probably the best night of 2012 so far because it was so simple and relaxed and was a great group of people to be part of.

The following night was not as good and that was probably because it involved alcohol. It’s pretty much guaranteed that something will go wrong when alcohol is involved. The plan was to have a few drinks. Originally we were going to go to a club but because it was so hot we decided it might be better just to get drinks and sit outside. Two of our party went to the corner shop two minutes away to pick up some alcohol. They were gone an hour and a half leaving the remaining two of us sat their wondering where they were gone. I wasn’t too worried I was just quite annoyed that my alcohol hadn’t arrived. Eventually though they did turn up and once I’d managed to deal with the inevitable issues this entailed I drank some more alcohol and things picked up.

Once the others had gone myself and Chris decided to go the park. It must have been about midnight by this point. I’m not entirely sure how or why, but we ended up lying in the grass. As it was night-time the grass was pretty wet but we didn’t really mind. I can’t really remember what we talked about but we were there for some time. A bit later we headed to a bench near a river that we went to last summer. There we chatted some more and tried to be cool as lots of girls went past on their way home. Quite what we were really hoping to achieve there I do not know. It was pretty unlikely that we were going to pull sat on a bench near a river at 2 in the morning even if everyone that walked past was pretty drunk. Still, some talked to us so we were more successful than usual.

Predictably not a lot happened yesterday because I especially was quite hung-over, which was exactly what I had wanted to avoid happening. I wasn’t as bad as many other times though. As this was technically the last day of term I had to go and collect the results from all the assignments I did at the start of the week. Heading to uni to collect an assignment is always a slightly anxious walk but that was tripled this time as there were three assignments to collect. I could not have been happier with the results. I was a little concerned about a maths assignment and wasn’t even certain it would get the 40% mark required to pass. It turned out our presentation was good enough to get 54% which is a grade of a 2.2 rather than a Third. My solo history presentation got a huge 68%, two per cent of a First and therefore my highest written assignment so far. And the group history presentation got a huge 76%, a reasonably secure First and the my highest mark at uni so far for anything. I knew from the moment we’d decided to work together that we had the potential to do pretty well. Part of me did think that maybe I didn’t have a lot to do with that mark but actually several bits of the feedback were about my ideas so it probably did have something to do with me after all.

Eventually the time came when Chris had to leave and we headed down to the coach station. The coach station is right neat a huge statue of King Alfred the Great and as we were waiting a pair of Germans started talking to us. Here is the “conversation” that took place:

German Woman: His name is Alfred too!

(Both Germans laugh)

Me: Oh, right…

German Man: He is Alfred the Great but I am Alfred the Greatest!

And with that they walked off. It was very bizarre but very funny. Unfortunately there was little chance for me to mention the war and see if I could get away with it.

All in all it was a wonderful week and it was great having Chris here visiting. It felt a bit weird last night when I was sat alone at home. So thank you to Chris for being here and making it a great week and to everyone else too. Long may this lovely weather continue!

I’m now getting quite excited for the fact that the Eurovision Song Contest is on tonight! I shall be tweeting about it periodically (@zotwot) and there will be a full blog post mostly dedicated to awful songs, terrible dancing and cheesy outfits. Come back in 24 hours for all the fun!