A BBQ with old friends.

Yello! 

As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, I'm now going to talk about a nice BBQ get-together I went to. My sister (Lets call her 'Aie') and one of my older brothers (let's call him 'Chim') came with me, and my eldest bro (Yeah, it's a big family. We'll call him Kay) drove us there. Kay wanted to come along as well but he just had his wisdom tooth removed and eating was currently out of the question. 

At first I wasn't really up for it, I was still kinda tired from my trip to Oxford and for a Saturday, the day looked slightly gloomy. Kay even had to call up the hosts to see if it was still on as the weather didn't look too promising, he said that it was still on. What really made me eventually decide to go was the thought of myself meeting an old friend. A man called Cassius. 

When I was a kid, Cassius and his wife Vanessa were youth workers in my Church. Despite my memories being vivid, we was a laugh. One of my fondest memories as a kid was the holiday club, a kids social club during the holidays that Aie and myself went to. No doubt Cass and Vanessa were running things, it was a cool place to hang out with school mates. I could go on but my last proper memory of Cassius and Vanessa was in the youth room in Church when all the guys had KFC. NIIICE. 

The hosts that I mentioned earlier was a couple from Church (If you haven't guessed earlier yeah it was a Church get-together), Jay and Rach. They had a son and daughter too that go to my old primary school. As I walked in their humble abode, I was pretty shocked by how great their place was. Their living and dining room was very modern and their kitchen was fairly big and they had a... D I S H W A S H E R! ! ! ! ! 

The other guest were already present in the place, it was like a 90's-00s Church reunion. It was pretty...surreal. I think that's the right word. If my old Primary school mates Jaz and Lil were there then it would've been complete. First I was greeted by a woman I didn't recognise at first, so I was pretty shocked when she revealed that she was Vanessa. She looked a lot different but she still had the same enthusiasm like before. When Aie and I asked where Cassius was she said that he was out in the backyard helping out with the food, ah nothing changes eh? 

Unlike Vanessa (sorry, V) I recognised Cass as soon as I saw him. He hadn't changed a bit, we greeted each other with a big Hug. We were happy to see each other. 

After the prayer, we all tucked into the food. The food was very tasty indeed, funnily enough Jay and Rach did what my Mum said about BBQs: People should properly cook the food in the oven and then chuck in the BBQ Grill. The music that was playing was pretty cool too, some funky Christian Rap music. Sounds no different to the stuff I listen to, if not better! I chatted with a few peeps, you know, see how they got on. Some were in uni like myself, some were on to bigger and bigger things. I saw one girl that realy shocked me. Last time I saw her she was this little girl, now she 16 years old going on 20! She's grown up a lot, make-up everything. 

Overall it was a good night, Myself and the rest of the family left when it got late and I thanked the hosts for their hospitality. It was a happy home and it felt weird leaving it, then again I did have to leave home sometime. 

Gotta wake up early tomorrow, I'm gonna help Aie move some stuff in her new place. 4am in the morning? God help me! 

l8rz.

A trip to Oxford

Quite a few things have happened since I last posted. I'm on the third book of the Wardstone Chronicles, the Spook's Secret. It's going good I guess, it's feels nice to get back into reading again. I almost forgot how enjoyable good stories can be, but enough about my books... 

As I mentioned before, a few have happened recently. My sis just got into Oxford Brookes University and she was desperately looking for a place to live, unfortunately for her all the available halls in the Oxford area were full-up and she didn't have enough time to wait around in the waiting list. So with the help of Facebook, yougofurther and the Internet in General, she took matters into her own hands. 

Despite feeling bad at times for doing this I would sometimes make fun of her by singing my own rendition of Sam Sparro's song, '21st Century life'. My lyrics would be as follows. 

21st Century life..., 

I've got no place to live! 

*do-do...do-do* 

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about: 

One other frightening option that she had to consider was lodging in someone else's property. I would also make fun by speaking in an awful farmers voice, and say "So m' lassie, you fancy lodgin' eh?". HAHAHA ooh I was hardly supportive at all, so to make things a little better I followed her to Oxford to look at a few houses with a girl called Abi, a chirpy lass (hehe, sorry) she met on Facebook. When we got to Oxford, we also met up with her mother who happily turned into our Chaffeur. That was extremely nice of her and my sister and myself were really grateful.  

Before things got underway we had a little tour round Oxford. The place seem very pleasant, for me there was mix of the tradtional with the modern. I was pretty sure that my sis would love it here, after all, I would myself. We then rolled up to the Uni office which was nice because I got to see one of the campuses, and for the record it was a very nice campus. When we went up to accommodation office I instantly assumed that one of the workers had a big love for...meerkats??. I saw a meerkat cuddly toy, and on the side of the room were tons of pictures of the creature. There was even a bloody certficate confirming that someone ADOPTED a meerkat! 

The woman in the office said that the halls were still full and gave us a...ahem...LODGING LIST! A list of houses that were willing to give up a room or two for students. Was my light mockery of my sis' situation turning into a premonition?  

Abi and my sis were following the list and were calling houses that were offering lodgings. I hazy on the details but I'm pretty sure that one of the calls were successful and Abi's mum drove up to the house. 

When we turned up the mother went out of the car and knocked on the door. No one home. 

Annoyed we all decided to go back there later on, besides we were all pretty hungry so we got a bite to eat at McDonalds. When we finished eating our food my sister got a call from the guy who was a no-show before-hand, so we rolled up there. He was a nice guy, John I think his name was. He used to live in London but got tired of the rush-rush life so he moved up to Oxford instead. "...I never looked back." he said. 

He told us to take our shoes off at the front because he just cleaned the place. I always get a bit nervous when someone tells me that. Have I got a whole at the toe? Are my socks clean? Luckily my socks were bearable. Phew! When I saw his place properly I immediately knew why he was somewhat picky about the state of his place ("I'm not a clean-freak" I remember him saying) when I stepped in, It was a very nice place. The sofas looked expensive and plushy, a home-cinema projector was fixed on the living room and everywhere was nice and clean. 

After looking at the kitchen (pretty big but...meh.) we all went up to the room where my sis and Abi could've been staying, note how I said (or typed...whatever) the word 'room' singular. There was only one room available for the girls to share, sure it was a fairly large room: TV with cable hooked up, two big spongey-looking beds. However, the ONE wardrobe looked pretty pathetic. In his defence John said he was going to make it bigger but by the looks of things that would've helped much. He did have another room free, but he wanted it kept that way FOR REASONS UNKNOWN! [/killers] 

Surprisingly he advised against lodging. The girls were going to be first years, they should be partying and meeting tons of students and the like, and that would be pretty hard in a place like his. Despite the greatness of his pad we all knew that he a point. 

We went downstairs, put on our shoes and left. Abi and her mum were already at the car when myself and sis put putting on our shoes. Before we left, John advised my sis to go along (like I did) as there would be more options available. As we both hoped in the car we both kept that in mind. 

At first we decided not to it, but we decided to check anyways. You see, there was this house that both girls (and a few other guys who already paid the deposit) were interested in. It didn't look like anything special from the intenet pics but still, worth a look. We called up the letting agent and we all met up in the drive of the place. The agent was a pretty-looking red-haired(A kind I like ;-)  ) fairly short woman who seem very happy to see us. Why wouldn't she? Business is business. 

As we entered the house I was in-a-way pleasantly surprised. The living room had a cosy, homey feel to it, and it had a back garden. Two clean bathrooms (which was nice to see, unlike when I was house-hunting...) and a nice-looking kitchen. Sure, the kitchen and bathrooms were a lttle titch (definitely for the likes of me) but still, not bad.  As for the bedrooms, my sis has her eye on the big one! 

TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT... 

We tried to head back to John's pad and negoiate about the no-acess spare room. He decided not to budge on that, much to our disappointment. It was getting late so myself and sis decided to call it a day. We repeatedly thanked Abi's mother for playing Chauffeur. I didn't know what we would've done without her help. When we got back home my sis decided to join the boys and chose the cosy, homey house and persuaded Abi, who initially wanted to wait for halls, to do the same. Happy Days! 

I was going to write about my nice BBQ with old friends but that'll be for another day I'm afraid. My right wrist is aching now. 

Cheerio.