It was Simons 38th Birthday yesterday so its been a busy weekend. 

On Saturday Mark, Simons ex was up with Mandy from Manchesterford.  Before doing the now obligatory bars and club till 6 in the morning, we went to the new show at Funny Girls. It was by far the best show I have ever seen there with feathers, fireworks and fancy footwork.  Their version of riverdance had me in stitches.

Sunday we should have been recovering, but instead we drove down to Winsford to introduce ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Tyler to Simons parents and the nephews.  At one point everyone was sat on the floor apart from Simons mom and Tyler who wasted no time in making herself comfortable on the sofa.

Sunday night, just past midnight was prezzie time.  I think Simon liked everything with the possible exception of the daniel o'donnel singing birthday card.

On Monday we got the train down to Manchester where we shopped before seeing the pet shop boys at the Apollo.  Great venue and the gig was ok, although It didn't blow me away as much as the funny girls show.  Simon enjoyed it although he spent so much time filming it on his mobile, he missed some of what was going on and is only catching up on it now as he rewatches the clips.  Of course the evening was finished off with canal street bars and a club before returning to our hotel.

And today we have done little more than recover.

One more thing, Saturdays Doctor Who was one of the best have ever seen.  Not because of over the top effects or CGI aliens, but great story telling well written, acted and directed.

Last Saturday we went to the radio one free festival at Preston.  There was an entire day of live acts culminating with the scissor sisters and groove armada.   We left early. The venue and acoustics weren't great, there were long gaps with us just wandering around waiting and the sun got to me.  We both got bored and decided to leave.

We then caught up with the end of blackpool pride and partied well into the night…..and morning.  This partying involved visiting blackpools new "Trades" bar.  I won't go into details about the place but I was shocked……..and I've been to Berlin.

Since starting blogging I have made an effort not to discuss work, but there has been some big news recently.  The manager is leaving and we are moving to Lancaster Uni.  Big changes, it'll be interesting to see how the dust settles. 

I am meant to be on the way to a work meeting but apparently someone wants to jump off a bridge so i have been parked up on the fast lane of the m55 for the last 80 mins. It is a surprisingly social experience with most people getting out their cars and chatting with each other and enjoying the sunshine and I've just seen one guy walking his dog down the empty lanes going in the opposite direction.

Excuse my bad mood this morning but I couldn't sleep last night and I had to be up at the crack of dawn to give Simon a lift into work, and give Tyler a walk.  Plus my  PC is playing up and this is my 2^nd attempt at starting the blog.  Tyler is sat next to me after running around with her 2 current favourite toys, one is a radioactive yellow, squeaky cube and the other looks like something from the sleazy section of Clone Zone.

So this week We had my grandmothers funeral.  For me this involved seeing lots of cousins, uncles and aunts who I haven't seen in the best part of a decade.  There were lots of tears and alcohol and comments like "It's such a shock" (she was 91, how much of a shock can it be), "She was firm but fair" (she was stubborn and nasty), "We really must keep in touch" (No chance).  If the amount of booze my dad was knocking back and his permanently 'rosy' cheeks, is anything to go by, he'll be next.

The best thing about going back was seeing my old schoolmate Teresa.  I called her on the drive down and she said "that's great, you can go climbing with me."  So after bringing the body into the church, I met up with Teresa in what looked like a disused warehouse.  Inside it was full of skateboarding ramps and climbing walls of various hights and angles.  After seeing Teresa speed up to the top of one of these walls, panic started setting in and I considered just watching her.  But I had got this far so I decided to get harnessed up and have a go myself.  My 1^st attempt was fairly pitiful getting about 8 foot up. But I persevered and found an easier wall and managed to get to the top.   As I climbed I was petrified but determined.  At several points I was ready to call to Teresa to let her know I was coming down, but I somehow drew on my own stubbornness to make it to the top.  We then went around to different walls where we could both have a go.  The hardest part was trying to concentrate on the climbing while all around me were fantastically good looking young men, showing off their perfectly toned tattooed bodies, speeding around impossibly difficult slopes, bends and curves.

It's been busy week so I'll try to be as brief as possible.

We finally lost a pub quiz this week, to a visiting team, at least we beat all the locals.  But I did win the spot prize buy knowing guessing that Sir Alec Guinness was born in 1914, which won us a few quid which went towards getting a dvd player with surround sound. Later in the week we tested this out with james bond.

Yesterday we went down to Simons parents and today we took his nephews down to Manchester to see a Doctor who exhibition, and yes, I wanted to go as much as the kids Before we could get in to the exhibit, there was lots of running around old trains and various engines in the science museum and a few races around the old roman fort, which mainly involved them being pushed into the trenches, and pushing me.  The attention span of a kid meant that once inside the exhibit, they were only exited about seeing K9, A cyberman, a Darlek or the arachnid queen, when they spotted them from a distance. As they rushed towards any model they saw another in the corner of their eye and got excited about that one instead.  They looked as though they were having a great time until it was time to take photos. For some reason when the camera came out they all looked miserable as hell.  After Dr Who we took them into town for a Pizza Hut treat.   Connor wasn't happy about all this walking and repeatedly said hit feet were burning and why couldn't any one carry him.  All that was forgotten when the prospect of unlimited pizza arrived.  By the end of the day everyone was over tired, especially Me and Simon, and a joke fight got out of hand and ended in tears.  Our cue to leave them with their parents.

We had a few visitors over the weekend. Keith and Jason form Newcastle and Dawn from Manchester. A good night out was had by all, especially Dawn who received an interesting tip from Jason involving Antiseptic throat lozenges.

The main news of the week is Tyler.  After a few trips to the RSPCA we found a beautiful Sandy coloured, 11 month old, female, Staffordshire bull terrier. She is currently called Sandy but we are planning to rename her Tyler, this shouldn't be a problem as she doesn't respond to Sandy anyway.  We have taken her for a couple o walks where she ran around like a whirlwind and spent  a bit of time with her.  She is very affectionate and excitable and had a slight look of a Labrador about her.  We had a house visit to make sure we would be suitable parents, which we passed. And I am going to pick her up this afternoon.  Can't wait.