Family Times :)

My family came to stay this weekend. My mom, dad and brother made the trip up North and spent the weekend eating, drinking and being merry in Leeds with me.

Pretty much the first full sentance my dad said to me was, "I've spent the last week in France with your Nanny and Grandad, so if I'm horrible to you it's only because I'm so bloody fed up of being nice!" which I thought summed up our family perfectly. That night we all went out to one of my favourite restuarants in Leeds, Viva Cuba. it's very popular and you can't book a table in advance so we ended up waiting nearly an hour to sit down. In that time my mom managed to sink a very potent cocktail and a glass of wine which ensured she very quickly became rip roaringly pissed (the term lightweight may as well have been invented just for her) and the conversation went downhill from there. It was a hillarious night and Ma's bad head the next day was a small price to pay.

Sunday came round and Pa and David headed off to the Leeds Festival. It comes to something when your 58 year old father is dancing in a field and pissing in a hat while you're shopping in Morrison's and watching The Last Samuri with a hungover mother.

I was sad to see them go this afternoon. It was nice the 4 of us spending some time together and not 1 row was had the entire weekend: result!

Plan, plans, plans!

Today I thought I'd steal Katie's blog idea and write about things I'm excited about. It's a positivity trick that will hopefully make me feel happy about all the fun stuff coming up :)

So, things I am excited about this week:
1. Sunday lunch with Katie and Josh (and Honor, if she can drag herself away from the latest man) at the Scarborough in Leeds today. Is it ok to have pie and mash for Sunday lunch? I love pies.
2. Watching my beloved Baggies first match of the season against Manchester United at the Sports Cafe in Leeds with Dawny, Jav and Andy. Jav's a Man U fan - should be fun!
3. 4 day week at work next week. I love my job, but I love long weekends more :)
4. I'm getting a new tattoo on Tuesday! Booked the appointment yesterday, it's on my ankle and is a play on Picasso's Bird of Peace.
5. Abi's leaving do on Wednesday. Beer and curry, can't go wrong :)
6. The V Festival!! Eminem, Rihanna and Example are my highlights. Them and the camping with friends, boozing and dancing. This is my 5th V and I'm excited!

Ahhh, what a nice list :) Roll on fun times!

Baggie Bird

Today I thought I'd write a post about football, and my ongoing affair with the beautiful game. This morning, my uncle drove down to West Bromwich to watch our mighty West Bromwich Albion take on Parma in their last pre-season friendly before the proper Prem action kicks off next weekend. He didn't ask me if I wanted to go too, which made me sad, so instead I'm sat at home (Leeds home) waiting for the action to unfold on the WBA website and quietly humming The Lord Is My Shepherd (Albion's unofficial hymn of choice) to myself.

Those of you who've grown up in a football family will understand how I feel when I say that I simply don't remember not supporting WBA, and that I truely am Albion 'Till I Die. The blue and white stripes and that little throstle bird stir in me something almost primitive, a feeling of belonging that can't be replicated anywhere else. When I'm squashed in The Vine for my pre-match pint with a room full of big, Black Country men and when I'm sat in the stand next to the old man who's been to pretty much every game for the last 60 or so years (that's my Grandad, FYI) I truely feel like I'm home. Those chants we sing, and the stripes we wear, bond us together like one big family that spans all ages, colours, gender, religions, job titles and backgrounds. We Are Albion, and all of our differences disapear when we swarm into The Hawthons en masse.

We go through the highs and lows, the tears and the cheers together. Supporting The Albion is not an easy ride, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

If I'm romantacising it a bit, I apologise; but I really do feel like this about my club and I always will. I was born a Baggie, my children (if/when I'm lucky enough to have them) will grow up the same way, and I hope to still be singing The Lord Is My Shepherd in the Halfords Lane End when I'm in my eighties just like my grandad still does now.

Albion 'Till I Die. Boing Boing!


Some of my Baggie family. Me, Uncle Steph, Dad Paul, Mom Chris and Grandad John :)

Wherever I lay my hat....

..that's my home. Or so I thought. Ever since I was tiny I've been good at feeling at home straight away. Whenever we'd go on holiday I'd always say, "mommy, are we going home soon?" when I was on the beach and the sun got too much for my ginger self. I meant back to wherever we were staying, not actual home, but it just seemed natural that where I was living at any point in time was "home."

Now though, I do actually have two homes. I've lived in Leeds for nearly 2 years , and it is my home. The (not so?) weird thing is, I think a part of me will always feel like I really belong in Stourbridge.

I went back last weekend for the birthdays of two of my best boys, and it was like I was properly myself again. Everyone talked the same way I did, they all knew me inside out and it was just comfortable. We went camping and on the Saturday our friends who have chidren came for the day. It scared me that Dal's son Josh is 3 months old and it was the first time I'd seen him in the flesh. It made me sad that I can't be there next weekend for Danielle's daughter Grace's 1st birthday party.

There's always a flip side with me, and coming back to my Northern home gave me one. It was Katie's birthday yesterday and some people went out for a curry to celebrate. The man who owns the restaurant (big up Javeed!) recognised us (Katie and Josh have been going there for years, but I do think he remembered me too) and laughing and drinking with nice people who I genuinely care about gave me my flip side - I love being in Leeds and I don't want to leave. I couldn't leave now, because despite how Stourbridge makes me feel, this is my home.

It seems like I'm destined to always feel torn, to want to be in Stourbridge when I'm in Leeds, and to want to be in Leeds when I'm back in The 'Bridge. I did this to myself though, because I left. I still stand by the fact that coming to Leeds was the best thing I could've done and I don't regret it for a second, but I didn't realise I'd signed up to this permanent tug of love game I play with myself!

Wherever I lay my hat that's my home? Maybe, but it seems more appropriate to say home is where the heart is, and my heart is now in two places. What a cheater...

Foo Frenzy

So it seems that my second ever blog is going to be about the Foo Fighters which is all good because they ROCK! I've been a huge Foos fan since 1997... I borrowed their second album The Colour And The Shape from Dudley Library and was immidiately hooked. The reason that I borrowed the album originally was actually because I fancied a boy who was a fan, but I owe him a debt of gratitude for introducing me - my affections for him are long gone, but my love for Mr. Grohl and friends lives on! SH, I thank you :)

Anyway, the reason why I'm blogging about the Foos today is because I saw them play in Milton Keynes this Saturday just gone. It was the 5th time I've seen them live and they blow me away every time. It was the first time I'd been to the Milton Keynes Bowl and I'll be honest and say I wasn't impressed. It's huge (which is always good when you have a massive band like the Foos who could've filled that venue ten times over) but there weren't enough toilets (pee in the bush time) or bars, and the giant rig in the middle of the stadium blocked the view for a lot of people. Plus, it's in the middle of bloody nowhere. We'd booked a campsite which included a bus to and from the Bowl, which we paid an extortionate amount of money for considering it was a campsite, and then the bus took over an hour to arrive after the gig! Nothing could have ruined that day for me, but that did leave a sour taste in my mouth after an amazing show.

I'm still buzzing from the gig, and before I'll even have time to come down I'll be seeing the Foos AGAIN, this time in London at the Camden Roundhouse, which is going to be out of this world... the smallest venue I've ever seen the Foos in is Brum NIA and that's hardly small! To see my all time favourite band (one of the biggest bands in the world) in such an intimate setting is just going to blow my mind... I still can't believe I actually won tickets either! It was a competition through the band's facebook page and I did a little dance around my bedroom when I got my winners email!

So, my train tickets are reserved, my hostel is booked and I'm good to go! 7 more sleeps...

That's my man Mr. Dave Grohl doing his thing <3

Ooooh, my first blog!

So, here I am. I used to blog quite a lot on MySpace (I'm retro like that) but stopped that when I moved over to facebook, and I've been thinking for a while that I should start again but never did. My friend Katie recently started her own blog which spurred me into action. It turns out I already had a (rubbish, with no blogs) profile on here already, so it feels like fate that I give this a try too!

So, the title Dancing Like No One's Watching comes from one of my favourite cheesy quotes. I LOVE a good cheesy quote and have many to choose from, but one of the first that I ever found was, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today, love like you've never been hurt... and dance like no one's watching." I do try to do all of these things, but the dancing one has turned out to be the easiest mantra to stick to and seemed appropriate for my ramblings.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to blog about to be honest. There's a strong possibility that no one will actually read this thing anyway so it might not even matter (blog like no one's reading?) but I feel I should have some sort of structure. No one wants to read "this morning I had a brew and some rice krispies" (even though I did) but I also don't feel I should pour out my heart and soul on a public website. I'll have a think and come back to you...


So that's me and my friend Andy, dancing like no one's watching.