in the prince of wales, by cardiff central station.

got a lift from jonny to the station, the next train's not for about 45 mins so thought i'd nip into town for some food while i wait.

brilliant day yesterday, not been in cardiff for many, if any, 6 nations match days. or at least, not as an adult. always love the buzz of the place, cardiff has never offered me a bad night out over time.

big match days generally tend to be fun, chatting to randoms and friends of friends, friends of family etc.

also nice that the weather's been so good, beautiful sunny days both today and yesterday. proper spring time, the intensity of the sun but with the nip of northerly winds in the shade.

got the train into cardiff yesterday lunchtime from swansea, met up with seths mate harry n his dad n mates. tagged along with those lot shortly after rocking into the capital, once i'd found out from james where the plan was starting i headed off to the queens vaults.

nice start to the day, standing in the south wales sun chatting to a random irish chap outside the vaults whist i waited for the others.

was quite ignorant of the history of croke park until the friendly irish chap explained the story of tanks killing people there in 1916 or thenabouts. bloody hell! he was saying how when they played england there, last year i think, it was proper emotional for the whole of ireland. after winning, singing the national anthem in pubs across the country brought tears to every eyes.

lu met up with us for a bit yesterday afternoon, nice to see her for a few hours before she got the train to swansea.

which is where i am by now. had some food in the prince of wales, now heading to swansea (s-town).

after having a few in the sunshine outside the vaults, we walked over the river to a bar/hostel called nos da, just across from the stadium. watched the match there, bloody hell that was close! shame it didn't end with us that little bit in front, though don't think we really deserved to win the game. been some scrappy performances by wales this year, not the pretty rugby that we like to watch.

jonny n others had tickets, so they went in to watch the match whilst we kept drinking in nos da. met up with them after the match, and headed to the happy gathering for some tasty chinese in canton. just under 20 a head, not bad for dinner and a few rounds of tsing tao. the food was really good, though my drunken tastebuds couldn't be trusted for a truly objective perspective.

wrote this just after the match, texted it to a few people at the time:

ah fuck.

losing to ireland, never bad

4th behind england n french makes us sad

now, next pint

dissolution of pressure and points

so be it, not our year

maybs next time, no fear

then found myself in pretensious mode for a while, talking in poetry. basically talking like a weirdo trying to sound profound.

went to some late drinking place that looked like a primary school hall, then back to a mate of jams lot's place, some playing smash bros on wii whilst waiting for the taxi man.

then out to by cardiff gate, cup of tea and bed.

Second cycle day today, first cycle day was, hmmm...fun. Last thursday finally decided to get on with it, and ride my new commute from chiswick to park royal.
Been looking to sell my golf for a while, got very little joy in the second hand ads using gumtree and the autotrader website. Just on polish (I assume he was polish) chap, who tried to be cheeky and get me to sell it for £2800. Was originally looking for 4 grand!
Him and his mate had a thorough look at the car, then asked how much I wanted for it. I said I was hoping for 4000, but realistically 3500. He said 'for this car, i can pay no more than 3000'. I said fine, was willing to accept a little less just to get the bloody cash, so that I can pay back parents for short term loans. Also the ever-present looming credit card expediture. He went off home to get the moneys, apparently not far away over the other side of chiswick. Then texted me about half an hour later saying he only has 2800, the cheeky get! I'd borrowed housemate matt for a little moral support, we were sat about watching csi whilst waiting. I took his advice and replied to the polish chap good luck car hunting, 3 grand is the lowest I could go.
I've since put the car into a local garage, such that they'll sell it for me and take their cut. Bit odd, I signed to say I'd take 3000 and they'll get what they can for it, with the waiting and hassle I now think it may have been ok to take the private sale instead. Odd handing over my car with only a slightly crappy contract, waiting to see how long it'll take. Hmm.

The point of saying about the car stuff is that I didn't want to get a parking permit for the new place, was hoping to sell the car well before now. So whilst I had it, I had to drive in to avoid paying for the permit. So now the car's sort of off the road, I can finally think about riding in with my reassuringly less shiny bike. As expected, had a bit of saddle soreness on friday in particular. Not as bad as others seem to get it, but sore nonetheless. One of those sorenesses that doesn't really effect getting on with one's day, just every so often when I tensed particular muscles in my, er, seat (not really arse or crotch, think it's called the perineum), it was rather tender!

Been a bit up n down over the last few weeks, last week in particular, wednesday even more in particular. Think that what's now almost 2 months since splitting up with kay and a long time of longing after another started to catch up with me. Was doing the micro at work (microbiological monitoring, setting settle plates and using contact plates n swabs to check the clean rooms for various bugs), listening to some tunes using my phone. The solitary nature of the work, being the only ones in the clean rooms, gave me a while to ponder stuff and release a little. Particularly in the second gowning rooms, where I had the privacy of no-one being able to see. Had stuff like laura marling, hot chip, ida maria and maximo park playing. Think it was more the ida maria, stella in particular, that set me off. Standing in the change room, waiting for the micro air sampler to finish its 5 minute or so cycle, gowned up with mob cap, non shedding coat, gloves overshoes and face mask as well, blubbing away like I was 10 again. Felt gradually better since then. Thurs was also difficult, this time whilst cleaning the clean rooms. Not as much though, once the pent up emotion's released, I find it much easier to get on with things without getting too soft.

Been blogging quite a lot on my phone recently, though a lot of it's probs too personal to post. Written a few poems about my affections for the other, though not really fair to post them to all and sundry without her seeing them first. Or something. It's helped me, though. As usual, stuff of the heart calmed itself down a lot once I'd written it all down and created something from it. Expect I'll share it sometime in the future, both with the lady it concerns and here on the site.

wrote this late sat/sunday:

stood waiting for a piss

whilst chris takes plenty time with his

shit shower shave

cold breeze cuts like a knife

slight shivers me awaken

spent last night dancing

with all who'd allow it

had great times, brilliant

was hoping for more

with some dirty whore

didn't happen, so be it

when the time comes i'll take it

by now it's been a while

should have got her bastard number, fail makes me smile

swirling and twisting

across the dancefloor we filled it

like tigers on patrol

round the perimeter, patrolling

eyes out for fresh meat or threat

What the fuck does that relate to?

Went to a reunion of the bristol (uni) lot at the weekend, in leighton buzzard. Friday was chilled out, went for fish n chips and had a few drinks at chris's (he was kind enough to host us for the weekend). Watched wayne's world for the first time in bloody years, on VHS as well. One of those films in which pretty much every single scene and line is ingrained into your mind, but still it never fails to amuse :o)

Saturday night we kind of all chipped in for a few drinks and a sort of buffet. Brought some chicken thigh fillets and a fajita kit, which went down well (how can it not? fajitas always win!). So by the time we set off for our pub crawl, we'd already loosened up a little. Headed into the middle of leighton buzzard, played some darts and pool in one of the pubs along the way. Ended up in the Wheatsheaf (classic country/market town pub name :o)), where there was a live folkesy band playing. Can't remember their name, not that it's all that important. The sort of band you might hear at a ceildhi, drums guitars and a chap on the fiddle.

So by the time we were settled in there, we'd had many several to drink. Inspired by faded memories of teenage celdhis organised by friends of mum n cliff, I had quite the best time doing impromptu jigs and spinning around (though i'm hesitant to call it this, i think it's a do si do or something of that noise). Got chris involved with relative ease, he's normally up for whatever. Great times. With my now-single eyes I spotted soon after getting into the main room a girl dancing up on a bench with her mates with longish dark hair and slightly tomboy-ish clothes on (jeans and a stripey top thing) that looked pretty good. So then did the classic of glancing every so often, seeing if it would be returned. Trying to avoid creeping her out at the same time, the obsessive stalker look doesn't seem to return many smiles :p
Was dancing more toward her direction from the core of our group, hoping to somehow get over daft timidness and get her to join me for a dance. Sort of bottled it, she did seem to be surrounded by her mates. Far too timid, never mind. After a bit I saw she was at the bar, thought fuck it might as well try something. Gently tapped her side (again, not being creepy, or at least i didn't think so!) and asked her if she wanted me to get them (as in drinks). She said no, I laughed at my fail, and shared a smile with her before heading back to the group. Since the night, or at least the jig part of the night, was drawing to a close, soon after was when I had crazy energy whilst dancing. Blatantly some sort of weird way of getting her attention. Never mind! Then at the end once the band had finished and we moved through to the other part of the pub, I went over and shook her hand, gave her a smile which was pleasantly returned, nodded then fucked off with a laugh. Oh my word I am odd sometimes.

As if all that looniness wasn't enough, after closing time we headed to The Office, some sort of late bar local dive place, though it was reasonably well kept. After getting settled in there and it started getting a little busy, we headed to the dancefloor. A couple of us were dancing in the usual daft way, particularly me n gabriel. Saw there was a pair of good looking women on the upper dance floor, with molly's encouragement, pointing out these were people who'd probs never seen anywhere more exciting than milton keynes, I went over and a had a little close dance with one of them. Very briefly, probs less than a minute! Again, never mind :p Sensing impending fail, I moved away though I expect they moved first, me sensing the impending fail and regrouping ready for next time. Think something clicked in me then, once we were loonying around on that part of the dancefloor I was dancing all over any half-decent woman who would allow it. Not that I allowed them a lot of choice, dancing on and all over someone isn't quite the same as dancing with them.

After we'd left that place we were kind of milling around outside, and we noticed  some attractive looking women I'd spotted earlier in the night whilst we were at the cashpoint. Went up to one of them and said hello, that i'd seen her and her lot earlier at the cashpoint and thought she looked pretty. Then that she did indeed look pretty at that point. Bit rubs n pathetic, haven't really chatted a woman up since I was 18! Proper fidelity, man. She smiled and said 'aww' or something, which was better than a slapped face so I pushed a little further and asked if she minded if I kissed her on the neck. Funnily enough, she gave a slightly puzzled look. Said she didn't know, spose it's odd to formally ask for a kiss in the first place, let alone somewhere specific like a neck. I said 'bit rude?' and she responded with 'yeh, kinda' with a puzzled smile on her face. I changed tack and asked to kiss her on the cheek, she agreed since that's a lot less, well, odd than the neck. At least to a strange drunken welshman. Being cheeky, after giving her a nice peck on the cheek I carefully went to move her hair to one side and kiss her neck, pushing my luck a little, well a lot. She backed off a little then randomly ran off and turned down one of a few alleys from the main road. This left our lot and her also attractive friends standing around looking a little bemused. I gingerly walked off to see where she'd got to, couldn't see her down either of the obvious side roads and didn't get any answer from calling her name. After standing around for a few moments, she returned. When I asked if I'd scared her off she said no, which was pretty cool. Their lift had arrived whilst she'd gone off, so they got into their car and we got into our taxi back to chris's. Odd but happy way to end an equally odd but happy night.

Was annoyed at myself afterwards, not very, just a lesson to be learnt. Number one, should have at least asked for her number. Secondly, if she's hesitant to allow my odd request for kissing on the neck, and allowed a kiss on the cheek, try for a cheeky one on the chops. Daft/naive/odd git that I am.

Wrote this about it:

hello you katy

glad you met me

i told you i found you pretty

glad you smiled happily

met in leighton buzzard

should have got your number

i kissed you on the cheek

denied of the neck

too rude, too much

desperate for sex and such

why didn't i go for lips?

better to have held your hips

gone for a smooch, a snog

along with a simple hug

heppy night of dance

if only you'd have joined me prance

around like a looney

your number was greeney

and nice

i kissed your face

that is all

with friends of bristol

emptied head of the one

the one whom

i could be with

possibly, i ponder it

Yeh bit rubs, but I have the excuse of being drunk/hungover at the time of writing it.

That's all for now, time for a cheese toasty with some salad.

Cheers

doph
:o)