Crawley

On Friday night I posted this slightly naff review of the last 12 months, and I posted it as a list of points that had or hadn't changed during the last year.

I think that I need to review some of the points made in that post:

My secundigravida friend is no longer secundigravida. As of 19.57 (Finn time) on the 21st June she is the proud mother of Daniel Andrew. 3200 g, healthy and happy – congratulations to Vicky and James.

One of the people who I no longer talk to got in touch unexpectedly. I wish she hadn't, but she was a good friend once. I'll see how it goes, if it doesn't work out then I can stop talking to her again.

She's got this stupid idea that I'm going to get back with my ex... I don't know where or why she thinks that I would do that, it really isn't going to happen.

And thirdly....

My straight friend who I went out with last weekend is an excellent fellow. I don't exactly push straight people to come to gay venues, but I do think it would be nice if just occasionally the friends who drag me out with them to straght venues would actually consider coming out to one of our places. They usually refuse - what exactly do they think is going to happen? The friend I went out in Brighton with last week is a better friend than that – having been out to straight places last week, this week we bar-hopped around Kemptown (Brighton's gay quarter), drank beers on the beach and sat around some big fire that someone had, wandered round the Laines before heading back to Kemptown and closing down a couple of places. A most excellent night's entertainment – we got squiffy and spoke to complete strangers, danced and fooled around in several places, and finally left town at about 5am. 

After a cup of tea at my friend's house I got the 6.19 train from Preston Park to Gatwick. I got to Gatwick at 7.00, and had a 47 minute wait for the Crawley train. I spent the time in Starbuck's drinking a White Mocha Coffee and eating cake. Gatwick was really crowded, and drifting round the airport slightly drunk and spacy from lack of sleep was pretty good fun. I finally got home at about 8.10. So I'm not totally disappointed with Brighton anymore – I just need to find good people to go with.

Dress code at the Fortuens of War.

I think I had about 2 hours sleep – I can't sleep when I've got things that I want to do. At 11 I headed into town to get things for breakfast, and then watched the Grand Prix De France on the telly. Boy Wonder Lewis Hamilton didn't do so well – 10 place penalty from the Canadian GP followed by a penalty in the early stages of the races saw him pretty much stuck at the back. I think that part of the problem is that he is is not getting the support that he needs from the McLaren team – Hamilton doesn't seem to have anyone talking him through the situations where he gets into trouble, and Ron Dennis doesn't seem to want to take responsibility either.

Never mind. I finished Sunday with a trip out to Tilgate Forest on the bike. I'm really starting to explore the forest now, and I even have a pretty good idea of where I am most of the time. I've found a couple cool trails – one of them is the trail I was on last week when my brakes went. It's less terrifying when you can slow down. I found another trail this week which is awesome. At a point in the trail the trees and bushes just part, and you have this fabulous view across the valley in the middle of the forest. I tried to take a picture of it:

View across the valley on the Valley View Trail

But I don't have the camera which can really get the image properly, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't take it mountain biking.

Now, I think I have earned my beauty sleep.