Two weeks ago, on Wednesday 25th September, while I stayed at home listening to the Liverpool vs MK Dons Carabao cup match, which ended in a 2-0 Liverpool victory, and babysitting Tamsin, who was already in bed, Mum headed out at 9:15pm to collect Kieran from Southampton airport. At 10:20, they arrived home and shortly after the teams were drawn against their opponents for the next round of the cup; Liverpool got Arsenal. After I’d made Kieran a drink and watching a bit more of Sky sports talking about other Carabao cup matches that had been played that night, we headed up to bed.
The following morning, we stuck to our usual routine when Kieran comes to stay, having a long lie-in well passed 10am before getting up, showering and having breakfast of cups of tea and Weetabix, his with cold milk and mine with warm, which obviously ensued the usual grumbly comments from Kieran that I’m weird. It seems universally agreed by everyone who isn’t a member of my direct family that having warm Weetabix after the age of 3 is just wrong! As Kieran attempted to make the tea, because I’m still useless with a proper kettle and haven’t invested in a one-cup machine like they have at theirs, we realised I still didn’t have a working liquid level indicator — the little yellow gadget that sits on the rim of your mug and beeps/vibrates when the pouring liquid reaches its prongs — so I quickly logged into my account on the RNIB website and ordered a new one. This realisation was despite the fact that the liquid level indicator stuck by its magnets on my fridge had run out of battery and I hadn’t been able to find a replacement the last time Kieran had stayed… After we’d finished our breakfast, while I did the guinea pigs’ veg and poo picking, Kieran worked on my old Toshiba laptop which I’d been using at volunteering and had been causing me a lot of problems. Later, I had some buttered Ryvita crackers and a yoghurt and Kieran had ham rolls and roast chicken crisps for lunch. At about 3:30, Tamsin arrived home from school. Kieran and I spent the afternoon watching episodes of The Chase and Judge Judy. When she came home from work, Mum cooked us corn beef hash with spaghetti hoops for tea. We watched Master Chef, East Enders and Strictly Come Dancing.
On Friday morning, we got up a little earlier around 9:25 and followed our usual routine of showering and having our tea and Weetabix breakfast. While doing all this, we listened to Capital Xtra Reloaded and then Kieran streamed South Park on his iPad. While I did the guinea pigs’ veg and poo picking, Kieran sorted out my newer Toshiba laptop, which I’d been hoping to get working properly with the USB adapter he’d bought to use with the splitter box I need at volunteering. Again, Kieran had ham sandwiches and I had Ryvita for lunch, his with lamb and mint crisps and a whisper gold bar and mine with cheesy mix up crisps, a Milky Way and a yoghurt. We watched more Judge Judy and The Chase until Tamsin and Grandad came at around 4:30 to take us up to Nan and Grandad’s for tea. We had a chicken korma curry for our main meal with lime jelly, mini millionaires shortbreads and arctic roll for pudding. Once Dad was in and had had his dinner, we went home where Kieran and I watched an old episode of 8 out of 10 Cats Does Count Down, Gogglebox, Live At The Apollo and Family Guy.
Saturday morning I woke up worrying I’d run out of time to do everything; Mum had taken Tamsin to karate and was going to get her nails done afterwards. But when she was finished, she wanted us to be ready so we could all go out somewhere for lunch. As well as having showers and eating breakfast as usual, I also needed to do the full clean out of the guinea pigs cage, which I find no fast task. However, I did manage to get it done in time. While I cleaned and the pigs enjoyed free floor time in their indoor pen, Kieran watched The Simpsons on the big TV in the lounge. Then, we listened to the first half commentary of the Sheffield United vs Liverpool commentary on Talksport. When Mum came home, we eventually decided to go to our local Hungry Horse pub The Fleming Arms as the food is usually nice there and they always have cheap deals on. While we were out, the football finished, Liverpool winning 1-0. At the pub, Kieran had the big chicken New Yorker, I had the smaller chicken New Yorker, Mum had curry with all the sides and Tamsin had pizza. Mum also ordered a portion of onion rings for us all to share because you get a few with the chicken New Yorker but they’re really nice and never seem to be enough. When we came home, I did the guinea pigs’ veg and had a quick bath before getting into pjs — which both Tamsin and Kieran continuously called me a weirdo for because it was so early — while Kieran watched Sky Sports and then the Manchester City vs Everton commentary on Talksport, which ended 3-1. Later, after Mum had gone to work and Dad and Tamsin had been picked up by Nan and Grandad to go and watch a Queen tribute band down the club, Kieran ordered us a takeaway of chicken nuggets, potato wedges and mozzarella sticks to share. We watched the 3rd series of Jack Whitehall Travels With My Father. Afterwards, we watched Gavin and Stacey which was being shown on Gold and waited for Tamsin to be dropped home.
Everyone had a lie-in on Sunday, getting up around 9:35. Kieran had a slice of toast for breakfast and I had rice crispies. Later on, Mum cooked a late lunch/early dinner of roast pork with roast potatoes, parsnip, peas, carrot and swede, Yorkshire puddings, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, which we had around 2:30. At 4:25, just before the Leicester vs Newcastle commentary started, Josh arrived. Just before the football finished, we caught the bus into town, to the train station, then walked to the pub beside the Mayflower Theatre where we each had a coke. Then, we headed back into the theatre and were shown to our seats, where we sat for the next few hours thoroughly enjoying seeing Romesh Rangernathan perform his comedy live. Luckily, the show finished just in time for us to catch the 10:20 bus home so we weren’t sitting in the cold at the bus-stop waiting for the next one.
The following day, once we’d got up, showered, had breakfast and I’d done the guinea pigs’ veg and poo picking, we made sure we had everything we needed before catching the bus into town and heading to Pizza Hut for lunch. Josh had the buffet while Kieran and I, not fancying our usual big sharer deal, had individual pizzas each, mine a stuffed crust with BBQ sauce, pepperoni, sweet corn and pineapple and Kieran the Texas meat meltdown, and a portion of fries wchih we shared. Afterwards, I had a white chocolate and caramel cookie dough pudding, which is usually my favourite but that I didn’t actually enjoy as much because they’d over cooked it. While I ate my pudding, the boys booked the train tickets we’d need for our trip to Bournemouth that afternoon. We caught the 1:51 train and were very lucky with public transport generally because whenever we turned up at bus-stops, our bus seemed to be just arriving. Even in Bournemouth, we left the train station and the bus-stop wasn’t far away. It was easy to get to the Premier Inn once we’d got off the bus, too, thanks to the fact that Josh had looked into all the routes we’d need and done a practice run the previous week to check everything out. Our luck continued inside the hotel, with lovely staff who were more than happy to assist us and rooms opposite each other in our own little separate bit of the corridor. We spent the afternoon lounging in the bigger of the two rooms listening to music. We left the hotel just after 7pm and with Josh using maps on his phone to guide us, we headed for the BIC. Unfortunately, the maps didn’t actually lead us to the BIC but we found some very helpful passers-by to show us the way. As we were nearing the BIC, however, some very idiotic person thought it’d be a good idea to speed up their car as they drove through a seemingly quite deep puddle passed 3 blind people. To add to our fury, the group of girls walking ahead of us, who obviously weren’t affected by the soaking, thought this was the most hilarious sight they’d seen. While Josh was more worried about us getting there in time, Kieran and I fumed about what had happened, as we were now soaking wet without any dry replacement trousers to change in to even in this county! Thankfully, a member of staff at the BIC hurried us straight to the front of the queue and straight to our seats. Even though it took us a while to stop seething, the performance by Russell Howard was well worth it. There were points during the show where I was sobbing with laughter. There were many good quotes from the show that I was going to use as blog titles, but the following morning I couldn’t remember any of them. After the show, we stood outside and Kieran tried to book an Uber taxi to take us back to the hotel. Butt there only seemed to be 1 driver for the area and he wasn’t available. We stood there a little while, until someone helpfully showed us to a waiting taxi. The driver thought we were a bit lazy — either that or stupid, I think — because it turned out our hotel was literally a two-minute ride away. Not long after we were settled back in the hotel, Josh headed off to his own room for bed. Kieran put the TV on and we watched an old episode of 8 out of 10 Cats Does Count Down.
After we were up, showered and dressed the next day, we headed down to the in-hotel restaurant for the breakfast josh had preordered for us. It was a buffet-style breakfast, with hot and cold food. A lovely member of staff made several trips back and forth getting us whatever we needed. If she hadn’t been so helpful, it would have been near on impossible to fend for ourselves, although of course Josh would have done his best. When we’d eaten and drunk our fill, we headed back up to our rooms, where we spent the next couple of hours before we had to check out. Again, we were lucky with public transport that day, too’; not long after we’d arrived at the bus-stop our bus came and although we missed the train Josh had been planning to catch, another one arrived in a matter of minutes. We spent the rest of the afternoon at mine. Tamsin arrived home around 3:30 and Josh left not long before Mum came in. That evening, Kieran bought Chinese takeaway for everyone; we had curry, chicken balls, Hong Kong style sweet and sour chicken, mini spring rolls, chips,, mini samosas, special fried rice, mushroom chow mein and prawn crackers. It was lovely. We watched Great British Bake Off and Snack Masters before going to bed.
Wednesday meant Kieran had already been staying a week and the date for his return flight had come, far too quickly as usual. We got up around 9, showered and had our Weetabix breakfast. Then, Kieran packed up all his stuff. Next,we dozed on my bed for a little while as I had a bit of a headache. Dad arrived around midday and we decided to go to Mac Donald’s, which was what Kieran wanted, around 1. Kieran had a Big Mac meal with coke and I had a 6 nuggets meal with a banana milkshake. Dad just had a latte as he’d already eaten earlier. Once we were finished, the time had come to head for the airport. Kieran needed to be there for 2:20 for his 3:20 flight. Check-in was quick and we only sat in the assistance seating area for 5 minutes before a member of staff came to take Kieran through security and it was time to say goodbye.
I’m so glad Kieran was able to take the time off work to come and stay. Having two comedy shows to see while he visited was an extra bonus. I really enjoyed Romesh but absolutely loved Russell and feel very grateful to both Josh and Kieran for organising it for us but giving it to me as a birthday gift. Russell has to be probably my second favourite comedian I’ve seen live; John Bishop still holds the top spot for how he reacted at the end of the show, coming to audio describe his end-of-performance video to me in person. But Russell is now a very close second. Thank you both for arranging it all and for such a fun few days. Thank you most though, Kieran, for taking time off work to come and spend with me down south. I always love it when we get to spend time together, whether it be at yours or mine, so the more we get the better. Love you very much and hopefully we get more of that time together again soon.
PS: the title of this blog comes from two separate times during Kieran’s visit. The STFG stands for SHUT THE F***ING GATE, when Mum had unknowingly left the side gate unlatched and the wind was making it hit the wall of the house and keeping us awake. The bus is vibrating my brain comes from our ride into town on Monday morning, when we’d been on a particularly noisy bus that was making our heads hurt. There were plenty of other contenders for the title, some of which were, as usual, too rude and others I’ve forgotten.
A5Ramblings 