sunny carlton, pics are working

Well, I'm sitting out in Jodie and Simon and Kai's back garden in a T-shirt and it is actually so glary I can hardly see the screen. Yes, sun in England, who woulda thunk it?

Going back till last week and getting here, which is where i believe i last left you: the flight itself was kinda okay but it was long long long and by the time we got to Germany it was the next morning, i think, but only five in the afternoon and all a bit confusing. Huey and I decided to drink our last bottle of duty-free on our last night in Tokyo while we were packing, convincing ourselves that it would help us sleep on the flight, but o course the opposite happened and we were awake pretty much the whole time, drinking, mainly. Ah, gin. I love you girl. We paid for our 24-hour journey - well, i did, anyway - and didn't really sleep much for the next two days, which made me say strange things and feel very zombie-like. Better now and feeling normal again.

I'm in sleepy Carlton at the moment, which is a one-street village in the middle of England. Most of you know this but i lived here nine years ago when i was 19, and visited again in 2001 when i finished uni, so in some ways it feels like coming home again - everything's familiar and peaceful and GREEN. Our next door neighbours, Brian and Joyce, are a 60 year-old couple who love animals and have no children, and apart from Joey, Simon and Kai are my best friends here - surrogate parents and drinking buddies all in one. I went round to theirs last night and drank vodka and cranberry – their drink of choice, and also mine and Cliffy's – and sat there chatting and smoking and catching up, thinking to myself that i wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world. I'm feeling pretty happy.

Up the road is a pub I used to work at called The Gate Hangs Well, and I haven't been yet but I'm looking forward to catching up with all the farmers, especially old Joe Cuthbert, who is 88 and plays still plays darts on Monday nights. I asked after him and Joycie asked Bob Edmonds (who is a wealthy old bachelor who owns Field Farm down the road), who told her about Joe being at the Gate on Monday. Bob is also the town gossip so he would have told everyone by now that I'm back. I've been walking Bernie the bassethound up and down but have so far avoided seeing anyone, which is cool, 'cause after the ceaseless lights of Tokyo I am enjoying the downtime. There's a World Cup party for the whole village at Field Farm next week and I'm gonna try and wait and catch up with everyone on masse.

Joey is now 38 weeks pregnant and – I'm not biased because she is my sister – looks absolutely beautiful. She is doing really well, still mobile and non-stressed, although i am a bit nervous because she hasn't packed a hospital bag yet and baby's due any day now... from my time in baby magazines i learned that you're sposed to have one good to go from 31 weeks.

Huey's in London doing his own thing for a bit and NJ's on a yacht in Croatia with his friend big Wal. I miss our gang of three. I'm not really sure what i'm doing yet... probably going on a holiday in late June with my friend Shelldon from Macc, near Manchester, to her folk's place in Portugal. NJ (i miss you) turns 25 on June 17 and if he's in London i'm gonna go down, and try and catch up with Dan and Carls and James and Nath and Si while I'm there. I also have to go to Amsterdam at some stage before July 3rd before my visa offer expires, so i'm just playing it by ear at the moment because a lot of it depends on when Joey has her little one. Me and Bri have ten pounds on the fact it's a girl, almost everyone else thinks it's a boy... we shall see, we shall see...

It's Simon's b'day today and we've been to the Farmers Markets up in Market Bosworth, out to a garden centre to spend Si's vouchers on plants, which Si and Kai are unpotting now. Later on we're going down to Si's parents Chris and Neil's for Sunday dinner - roast beef for everyone else and salmon for me - as you can probably tell, it's all pretty laidback and relaxing here in general and just the tonic for now.

I've got a mobile number here for text/calls. the other number will be on for a bit but not forever - given the title of this blog you can probably guess im not that stoked on the idea of two phones for very long. If you're in Oz the number you need for your mobile is +447900307219.

Right - birthday cake's ready – gotta go, hope everything's sunny where you are.

xE

PICS: no order*** figured out finally how to get them up using a PC
* joey, kai and huey
* birthday boy counting his cards
* bernie the bassethound
* my neighbour and best drinking buddy, bri - shaking his butty at me
* my other mate over the back fence. moo