A holiday report, and some quite big news

Toast

Holidays with a girl eh? Surely that can’t work? Especially a holiday focused around doing almost nothing for a week. That’s just asking for trouble right?

Not really. The sad an unexciting truth of the matter is that I went on a week long holiday with The Theatre Producer and it was lovely. We swam, I ran, we both ate a lot of seafood and  developed an impressive Sangria habit.

The Sangria made total sense, it was just over a euro a bottle and tasted like fruit juice. I miss it terribly. We need it in England.

Here are the facts from the holiday

• We were staying a resort near a golf course, so the rest of the guests were very old, I’d say somewhere between two and three times our age. I have never felt more studly and youthful.
• The other guests spent all their time lying by the pool working on their tans. Their tans were great, they were like leather walruses. Ones with northern accents. Because of their busy tanning schedule we had the pool to ourselves.
• We spent a lot of time messing around on boats, lots of boats. Some of them looked like pirate ships and they gave us rum based drinks. They were my best boats.
• The lifestyle of wake up, have a run, relaxed breakfast, swim, food, swim, afternoon nap, walk, supper, booze, sleep is very nice. I need to find a way to fund that lifestyle.
• The flight over was pretty bad. It was about 1/3 toddlers. They screamed and made horrible smells for four hours. Luckily they weren’t staying at our resort.
• We didn’t even have anything close to an argument or an disagreement about anything the whole time we were there.

It was excellent, and since we got on so well we’re going to move in together. So that’s some pretty big news right?

Marriage percentage: 80% - Also in real terms moving in together is a HUGE step, so I’ve basically won.

Holidays with girls, and dinosaurs

Toast

Previously the Theatre Producer and I went on holiday to Serbia for a wedding.

It was pretty well documented here (part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4) and we’re off on holiday again now, in well a few days. Exciting!

This time it’s a proper ‘do nothing’ holiday somewhere hot. We’re going away for an entire week with no plans apart from sleeping a lot and reading books, by a pool. I can’t wait.

Although I’m not sure that the Theatre Producer is prepared for what will happen.

I get restless if I don’t have something to do, I can do a lazy weekend, just, but after that I get a bit, bouncy. Colouring in books will only keep me amused for so long. I have a lot of energy, I was a bit of a naughty child and I think by about day three I’ll be running laps of the villa making dinosaur noises, at 3am.

I almost feel sorry for her, or at least I would if velociraptors knew what pity was. Roar!

Say it with Lego

Biscuit

Silly spontaneous presents are brilliant, whoever they come from. Unless the present is a secret scorpion in your pants drawer or a restraining order.

A great thing about relationships is that you have someone to get silly presents for all the time. They don’t have to be deep and meaningful or expensive to be a good present. They just have to make you grin or cry (in a good way, like when you get a new best gun in Borderlands).

The cool thing about them is that the better you get to know someone, the more the presents relate to a  personal joy, secret pleasure or just appease the 5 year old inside.

I recently bought Jen a Lego minifigure. It was sealed in a pack so I didn’t know what I was buying and was in pieces so you couldn’t even stand at the display squishing all the packets to guess what it was. I remembered that I had it in my pocket when we were on the tube so gave it to her.

Disproportionate glee isn’t the phrase to use here! It made me think that I should get her a Lego engagement ring, one with one of those little transparent square one-block micro bricks as a diamond. It would be a lot cheaper but I’m not sure if that’s the sort of area where girls appreciate a quirky gift.

It’s fair to say that she got her money’s worth out of it.

After taking about 3 minutes to open the packet, she then spent about 5 minutes assembling the 6  pieces. Some of this seemed to involve throwing bits of the man on the floor. The figure was one of those soldiers with the massive bearskin hat that guards the queen. The kind that tourists try to get to move.

Eventually, after some gentle coaching on how to fix the gun into both his hands simultaneously the piece was finished and later took pride of place on the bedside table.

Because Jen is awesome, I picked her up yesterday and she said “do you want your present now?”. As I didn’t know there was even a present to be had I said “YES!” through the gritted teeth of excitement, closed my eyes and held out my hands.

On opening I discovered in my hand a packet of mother-loving Star Wars lego!!! YES!

I wanted to play with it then but didn’t think that I had time to put the spaceship together. Jen did say that it wouldn’t take long but I pointed out that a single figure had kept her occupied for about 10 minutes.

In conclusion, Lego is amazing. Girls who buy me Lego are amazing. Girlfriends who buy me surprise Lego are the best girlfriends of all.

Do you reckon that anyone has ever had a Lego themed wedding before?

This sh*t just got real

Toast

Jen knows about the blog. The Theatre Producer knows about the blog.

Biscuit and I find ourselves in the unusual position of both being in relationships with girls who know about the rules of the wager, and what has gone on before.

They also know how to win.

We are dating women who know that we are in a race to get married first, so if we had any doubts or second thoughts the time for that has passed. We are now trapped by this blog.

It’s a situation worthy of P.G. Wodehouse, but to quote the classic film, BadBoys II.

This shit just got real.

Serbian Wedding: Part 2 Nikola Tesla’s amazing house of DO NOT TOUCH

Toast

The Theatre Producer and had eaten ourselves into a stupor the day before. An actual stupor. Previously I had never eaten so much that it had lowered my I.Q. I have to say I was a little bit proud.

In Serbia the meat eats you!

This day was going to be different, oh yes. No more podge for us! We had a day to hang about in Serbia and see the sights and by jove we were going to see them!

The first sight we saw was the breakfast bar.

I resolved to only eat a couple of bits of melon and perhaps half a prune.

This resolve lasted until I saw the selection of excellent pastries they had available. Damn you pastries and your seductive call.

The sour cherry ones were a bit of a disappointment (but I had three just to check) but the apple and cinnamon ones were amazing.

I remember them fondly and occasionally look at photos of them while listening to sad music. Goodbye my friends…

With breakfast out-of-the-way we decided to go and explore the sights of the White City. There are basically two things to see in Belgrade.

A Huge Castle

In the middle of the city is a massive castle, it’s like properly gigantic.

It’s well old and pretty smashed up but enough of it remains to make you wish you’d packed a wooden sword and shield. It’s free to get in and the only thing to stop you climbing all over it is a sign saying you might die, which everyone ignores.

In the middle of a castle is basically a park, so you can walk among the trees admiring the tiny lizards and looking over the two mighty rivers that meet in Belgrade. There is also an ice cream van, and that isn’t even the best bit.

The castle is full of tanks! Mostly World War 2 tanks, but ones in all shapes and sizes. If you like looking at tanks (me) this will keep you amused for a very long time trying to pick your best tank.

After you’ve looked at tanks a lot you can go to a little cafe (I’m v glad the castle’s builders realised visitors would need refreshments) and have an ice-cold drink.

Everyone in Serbia drinks Bitter Lemon as their soft drink of choice, so if you order it you feel all cosmopolitan and Eurasian. Yeah, I’m totes a local don’t you know.

There is also a mock-Tudor house in the park at the top of the castle too. I don’t know what that was about but since it wasn’t a tank I didn’t care.

To surmise: Tanks = awesome, weird mock-Tudor houses = mega lame.

Oh and there are some mines and torpedoes to look at too. We wandered around for quite a while admiring canons and things that go bang. The Theatre Producer even picked her favourite cannon, it was terribly romantic.

For some reasons some of the moats of the castle have been filled in with tennis courts, I assume filled in, I can’t imagine they would have served much of deterrent to invaders when the castle was functional, unless the invaders were terribly polite.

‘Take the castle!’

‘We can’t Sir, they are in the middle of a game of tennis.’

‘Tennis? This is war!’

‘But Sir, they are half way through a set!’

‘Oh, okay Crispin, wait till they change ends and then we will run past quietly, see if you can steal a ball too.’

After looking at the castle we had lunch in the ‘touristy area’ of Belgrade.

This is a special area with, well some restaurants and some shops that pretend to sell pirate costumes but don’t actually and make people like Toast very angry. If you don’t sell pirate gear, don’t put it in the window. I HATE THEM.

One of The Theatre Producer’s male friends and I sat down and had a beer while TP and her lady chum bought more earrings. I got a little bit drunk.

I am blaming this drunkenness on the fact I ended up buying an authentic pair of ‘Bay Ran’ sunglasses from a man with a bum bag.

I think he must have been some sort of shop-owner that had got lost and couldn’t find his shop, to explain why he had lots of sunglasses for sale that he was trying to get rid of cheap.

We ate lunch. I don’t know how I managed it, but I stuffed lots of food in my face once more and proudly waddled off to the second thing to see in Belgrade.

Nikola Tesla’s house

If you don’t know about Nikola Tesla, he is a dude. Like proper cool. Go and read about some clever stuff he said and the amazing inventions he came up with.

David Bowie played him in a film once and everything.

Nikola was from Serbia and his house has been converted into a museum. You can see his experiments. If you time it right (on the hour or at half past) there are tours where his fantastical devices are fired up for your amusement and wonder.

Time it wrongly, like just miss the tour and be with people who don’t want to hang around for another half an hour waiting, and you in a room of exciting looking brass and wood things that you MUST NOT TOUCH.

NO PLAYING WITH SCIENCE.

It wasn’t that good, but I’m sure it can be good, you know given the chance.

Eating massive trainers

We went back to the hotel, quite tired and took a nap. When we woke up we went to the restaurant in the hotel and had supper.

It was very strange. The Theatre Producer had a long bit of pork that sort of looked like the sole of a giant’s shoe. She said it was nice, I think she was lying or trying to impress the waitress (or the giant who had donated the shoe).

I had a kebab thingy with lots of cucumber. It was basically some meat on a plate. Most Serbian meals are like that.

The meal was nice, I like eating outside and the couple behind us were swearing in French in an amusing way. Oh those crazy French eh?

Since we are brave explorers who live life to the max, we ordered a bottle of the local wine.

It was, well after the second bottle it was pretty okay. It definitely tasted very winey. Yes, it was white and tasted of winey grapes. I told the waitress this and she was clearly impressed by my knowledge of fancy wines.

We retired for the evening, quite drunk.

The next day some people were going to get married so we needed to be ready for that.

Read Part 1 on the Serbian Holiday with The Theatre Producer

The Eight Sexing Rule

Toast

I’ve got a male chum who has just come out of a long relationship. He was going out with this girl for about five years, they were living together and now it’s over.

He seems fine about the whole thing. They were one of those couples that snipe at each other all the time. He finally broke it off after yet another huge fight. It was coming for a long time.

Anyway. He is back to being single and is determined to stay out of a relationship for a while, which is why he has instigated The Eight Sexings Rule*.

The Eight Sexing Rule

My chum, let’s call him Geoff, is only going to have sex with any girl a maximum of eight times. He has decided this is the point when things start to get a bit like a relationship and so any more could be dangerous.

An evening of nude fun counts as one sexing and if something in the morning happens, well that doesn’t count as a new one either. So it’s probably more eight sex-dates rather than sex eight times. I know this because all his friends have been quizzing him on the rules after he made such a bold statement.

It is working out for him so far. He is dating a few ladies but keeping them at a distance and building up what he calls ‘a rota’. Or as I like to call it ‘a tragedy waiting to happen’.

What do you think? Is this a sensible plan?

*Yes I know it’s grammatically wrong but that’s what he calls it.

Riding rollercoasters with a girl

Biscuit

Bank holiday Monday, Jen suggested that we go to Thorpe Park. We set of from hers early(ish) in the mornin after she had cooked me excellent eggy bread for breakfast. The journey provided an amusing insight into girl logic.

We were angling to get there just as it opened so left fairly early on Jen’s promise that it was only 20 minutes away. She needed to stop off at the start of the journey so she could grab some fags and cash so pulled into a garage before hitting the motorway. She was also low on fuel but decided not to get any. Obviously any man would think ‘need fuel… tank empty… buy now’, but this is a not man logic.

5 minutes down the motorway she decided that we needed fuel so took a 10 minute diversion to find a garage. I was incredulous! Proper open-mouthed amazement! Thankfully it’s charmingly mental so I’ve just filed it under ‘endearing idiosyncrasy’

An hour after setting off, we arrived at Thorpe Park and set about the serious business of riding roller-coasters! If it was a game we would have won a gold medal at it. We made the front of ALL the roller-coasters with impressive efficiency. There was a lot of pulling fierce animal faces for the cameras so I bought her a fridge magnet of our speed face-lifts as a memento.

All the spare moments between making ourselves dizzy in the rides we spent stuffing food into our face holes. Foolishly we left the Tidal Wave until dark clouds had covered the sun and a chilly breeze picked up. As you may guess from its name, the tidal wave makes you wet. Very wet. In retrospect I’m not sure why I thought otherwise.

The force of the water when we splashed down was so strong it took Jen’s sunglasses off her head, which meant I leapt head-first back into the car after everyone had got off and fished around in the footwell until I found them floating.

I may not be able to conquer citadels for her, or name a new species of flower after her, but I can fish around in murky water for her much loved floral sunglasses and that makes her happy.

Being wet on a cold day can put a bit of a dampener on things (literally) so we decided to call it a day and retire to the warmth of the overpriced coffee bar for steaming hot chocolate. Even when she’s half drowned I still fancy her. Even when she banged her head in her car door after calling me a retard, I still fancy her.

Marriage percentage: 70% – She loves riding the front of rollercoasters AND stuffing her face all day long. I can see this being a very fruitful partnership.

How to steal a man’s heart with penny chews

Toast

Since I’m sort of in dating limbo I thought I’d share some more stories of my chums who have found and caught the perfect person for them.

• See previously The Viking love story.

Jessica and the Boy

This one is about Jessica and her now husband. They first met when they were children up in the North of England.

She was a few years older than him, I think she was about ten but she thought he was quite cute little boy and once gave him some money for sweets. He still remembers this.

It started a crush that hasn’t stopped since. They parted ways when they were teenagers. Both moving out of their home town and down to London via university.

Years passed and then Friends Reunited appeared (remember that?). He sought her out on it and she invited him to a party at her house.

He of course went with not one but two girls and Jessica was seeing someone too. It was a faintly prickly reunion because both of them felt a little tingle of interest.

The boy had very clear views on what to do next and pretty much the next day started pursuing her. He was rentless, charming and an absolute gentlemen at all times.

The Dating begins

She was a bit shocked really because she had only previously dated bad-boys and so didn’t know how to act with a man who was being so nice. It probably helped that he was, and is almost sickeningly good looking but doesn’t really realise it.

Jessica had some wobbles but he resolutely and calmly told her that he was going to date her and that was just how things were going to be. He once told me that sometimes you just have to tell ladies how things are going to be.

I have followed this advice twice, it has failed both times.

Also it’s worth noting that she isn’t a feminist because she says she is from the North and ‘We don’t have feminism up there because women have always been in charge’. She is not a shrinking violet in the slightest.

They started properly dating, then moved in together and got on brilliantly because he refused to be daunted by absolutely anything.

In the evenings he would come into the office and bring her food. She often had to work really, really late and so he would bring in romantic meals for her so they could still get to spend quality time together in snatched moments.

There were candles involved on more than one occasion.

This continued for months during a project when Jessica would rarely leave the office before midnight. He would appear, make her some food and then quietly work on something else. Or help her with her work.

It was only after they left that everyone realised quite how much work he had done for her. He had his own job with pressure and things, a proper serious grown-up job too.

Eventually they got engaged, had a lovely wedding and are now living together in a different country. She had to move their for work and so he went with her. They are stupidly happy and the both realise what catches they both have.

So there you go. Sometimes it really pays off to give sweets to small, interesting looking boys who are a few years younger than you.

Snoop Dogg, Boobs and Balkan Brass

Biscuit

This is something of a ‘highlight reel’ to bring you up to date with the present situation. It’s been tricky to find time to post during may as I have had a lot of work stuff on (over weekends too) and have mostly been either knackered or seeing Jen. Since it’s probably a bad idea to write up posts whilst she’s visiting I’ve slipped rather far behind.

Fake sex injuries

The first time I saw Jen as boyfriend and girlfriend I looked like I was covered in serious sex scratches. No, this wasn’t a repeat of my ill-fated date with Indy. I had been to a very moshy ragga-metal gig the night before.

She is an excellent ’concerned girlfriend’, wincing over my wounds which meant I could nonchalantly parade my war scars and feel extra manly as she hung at my arm like a medieval maiden (minus the pointy hat, those things are dangerous with the height difference between us; she could have my eye out).

We got to spend most of the day lounging around in bed with absolutely nothing to do, it was amazing. It has struck me since that that’s the first time we’ve really had the time to do it because we’re usually bolting from one place to another.

Feeling fake boobs

The following Friday Toast and I were busy at the Dominatrix’s birthday. Jen wasn’t actually coming but there was a telling incident involving strangers’ boobs.

Somehow the conversation got round to fake boobs and out of the table of four of us, I was the only one who had never felt fake ones. The friendy dominatrix (is that an oxymoron?) at the table decided that it would be her mission to rectify this for me as there were plenty in attendance at the party.

Now, I did think about this as it’s the sort of thing that tends not to go down well with girlfriends. I reasoned I could easily do it and just never mention it but that 2 things stopped me:
1) I don’t want to start down that road of little deceits.
2) If there were any good stories then I wanted to share them with Jen so we could giggle together.

I politely thanked the dom but said it would be bad form as I had a girlfriend. Then I text Jen to tell the amusing tale of enhanced norks offerings. The reply I got from her says a lot about why she is an awesome girlfriend:

“I say go for it, for science. But you are not allowed to do sexy feeling, more perfunctory”

Sadly I didn’t get to follow through with the offer but it’s reassuring to know that, in an emergency, I would be able to grasp firmly onto pumped ladybumps. Maybe for floatation.

Meeting the chums (…again)

The following night I had made plans to join Jen in town with her friends on the Saturday. Although she’s hung around with my chums a few times this was the first big friend test for me. Although I’d already spent the night drinking with her chums in the town where she lives, it turns out most of them were only casual acquaintences. Tonight it was the real friends.

No pressure then.

I’m usually fine so I pretty much just had avoid developing sudden explosive tourettes or backing myself into a conversational cul-de-sac about the Hitler Youth. By the time I arrived in the first pub all the friends were assembled and clearly curious to see who it was that had snared their diminutive friend.

Everyone was very friendly and played the ‘new boy’ game with me for a bit of pretending that different people were in couples, which was made all the more confusing as there was one gay couple there too. In all there were 6 friends there so I refused to let anyone move seats until I had all the names down.

The chums then took it in turns to quiz me about various tidbits of information that they know, much to Jen’s cringing. It turned out that her most recent ex was universally disliked amongst her friends for being a cock.

So far so good!

The main event of the evening was Eurovision so we all grabbed a cab to another bar which had a whole floor dedicated to the fiesta of trash pop. As I wasn’t bothered about standing shoulder to shoulder craning at screens of bad music performances I chatted to the few of Jen’s friends who remained when the others ran upstairs to see how our entry was performing against the competitors.

Towards the end of the evening as everyone was leaving, one of the chums leant over, slightly drunkenly, and whispered in my ear “well done, you’ve passed stage 1″, then gave me a knowing wink.

Dancing to Snoop Dogg

Very early on we had been on a date to see a filthy electro rock band. This establised the very important precedent that Jen is an excellent gig partner. Immediately after this we booked tickets to see the king of gangsta rap: Snoop Dogg.

We arrived at the venue much later than intended as Jen had a journey worthy of Ulysses on our much delayed public transport network so I was expecting to walk straight in and have to weave through the crowd to a good spot. Instead, we were faced with a queue that ran the entire length of the building, around the corner and the same length AGAIN.

When faced with so much time to kill there is only one reasonable course of action. Jen volunteered herself to run to the shop to grab some beers. THAT is the mark of an awesome girlfriend!

The gig itself was great and once again confirmed what a compatible gig partner she is. Music is a really important part of my life and being able to share that with someone who might be a potential wife is really important.

Love and Balkan Brass

The following Sunday we had one more gig planned. Toast was supposed to come too but couldn’t.In stark contrast to Snoop Dogg, This was a Balkan Brass Battle. We were late getting there (again) so necked a couple of drinks from the off licence on the way there. The bands were amazing (I thoroughly advise you to check out  both of them) and we danced our way through most of the 2 hours.

The more we drank the more I was convinced I had authentic gypsy dancing down to a tee… in retrospect I probably just looked like a spaz waving his arms around and gyrating badly but we both had a euphoric time!

Towards the end Jen needed to pop upstairs the terrace for a quick fag so I joined her for a rest from the dancing. The next bit is, sadly, a little bit of a blur but it unfolded something along these lines.

We were sat roof lined by flower filled planters and I was just filled with the joy of being out with someone who has proven to be consistently awesome, funny, tolerant, exuberant and an absolute delight to spend time with. Because I’ve rushed into things in the past I’ve been trying really hard to be measured and slow about this but that evening I felt like a freshly shaken bottle of pop and was having to try hard to contain myself.

It’s strange opening up to someone again after being burned so badly by Cupcake but I really feel like I can trust Jen. I would lend her my lightsabers and everything.

I gave her a massive hug and, with a big grin on my face, I looked into her eyes and said “I do love you!”. She hugged me back and said, with palpable relief, “Oh I love you too. I’ve loved you for weeks.” I’ve even talked told my mum!”.

I told here that I knew (about how she felt, not about her mum… her mum asked her what was wrong with me since I hadn’t been married or had any kids by the age of 3… but she is from the north), I could tell and tell that she was holding it in. I said that I didn’t want to say anything when I had been drinking as I didn’t want her to think that it was just because of the booze.

We made our way back downstairs for the last of the band and eventually left the venue hand in hand, buoyed along by amorous bliss and alcoholic exuberance.

The ills

The following morning we both had the day off work to lounge around, have sexy times and generally be work-shy hedonists.

What actually happened is I was ill. Very ill. There were lots of visits to the toilet as my body punished me, somewhat unreasonably, for the relatively meagre amount of booze I had drunk.

Jen was just really concerned and kept asking if there was anything she could do to help. Grimly I professed that there was nothing she could do until I weathered the storm unless she wanted to sit and stroke my feet for hours as that’s the only thing that seems to ease the pain.

She was just really happy to be ably to do anything to help so sat at the far end of the sofa stroking the soles of my feet as I suffered behind a pair of sunglasses, occasionally softly weeping to myself that I didn’t want to be ill any more.

I love booze, but occasionally we fall out and I always come off worse.

Eventually I stopped planning my will and improved. Jen was amazing all day and still loved me when I looked like I was suffering with cholera. This is one of the many reasons why she is awesome and why I am keeping her.

Marriage percentage: 65%. She has no problem with me feeling boobs for science, grabs beers in an emergency and will play Florence Nigtingale if I’m ill. What more could I want?

Romance Vs Practicality

Toast

The Theatre Producer is away in America, which means I’m sort of in limbo.  Well I’m waiting. I’m not good at waiting. I get restless.

I also start looking at flights, and wouldn’t you know it, last-minute flights are cripplingly expensive.

I would only be able to go for a weekend (I can’t take any time off this month) so once I’d spent 9 hours getting there I’d only be there for about 10 hours before I had to hop on a 9 hour flight back. It’s a stupid plan, but one I’m still considering.

I am stupid.

In the meantime I’ve sent her some flowers. Ladies should get flowers when they least expect it and thanks to the magic of the internet I can arrange for a plethora of blooms to turn up at her work while I am sat in a boring meeting.

The only tricky part is to fight the urge to smile when I think of her face when they arrive.

Only 19 days to go until she is back. Come on team, we can do this.