Quiet night in Folkestone

Saturday we went on a bit of tour of Folkestone, just to remind us and our visitor Emma of some of the less salubrious joints in town. We were originally going to head into Hythe and get a curry, but Emma already had a dinner lined up, so decided to cook ourselves up a Mexican feast at home and then just stay local. Was this the best idea? I'm not sure... the feast was mighty, ate a bit too much though, and this made me abit sluggish for the evening.

We started off in Harvey's, a favourite hangout of Clare's when she was a youth. It's a bit rough in there, but I'm sure it's great if you know people. They have a few beers on and have all the facilities like pool, darts, table football etc, but it wouldn't be my first choice of pub. FAR too much repetition on the jukebox too (Hard-fi, Hard-fi, Libertines, Hard-fi, etc), so one drink and we're off...

Next stop The Leas Club. Almost. We had a look inside, it was lively enough, but it had the air of a youth club, so didn't fancy that much. This was the first place we saw people in fancy dress too. For Hallowe'en, don't you know.

We planned to check out The Skuba bar, but walked the wrong way on some kind of auto-pilot, in the general direction of the harbour, so missed this out. Had a few games of pool to the strains of a DJ in The Ship, then on to a fairly ropey hallowe'en band in The Mariner. Ended up at The Brewery Tap, which was lively and full of youths, with a great DJ and things, but I had a really bad pint of dirty arse water there, which ended the night on a bum note.

No stop in at Chambers you'll notice, it wasn't entirely that we chose the worst places in town on purpose, but they did have a fancy dress do there on Saturday night, and it was pay to get in, and we weren't going to dress up, and so on. Bah humbug.

We did hear from Clare's bro who was in Keppel's bar, on our recommendation, with Clare's dad. And it was rubbish. The place was dead, only two or three other people in the whole place, which is surprising, as it's great there. The whole of town feels a bit quiet on a Saturday, I think that's everyone's night for going to a real "event", rather than just out for a drink.

Not a good weekend of pubbing all told really.
I went round the inlaws today with a view to cutting their lawn. This job was already done so I got lumbered with trimming the hedge into some sort of box shape. This must have used muscles in my arms that have never been awoken before, as after I couldn't operate my hands at all, not even to lift a cup of tea up to my mouth... what a weed! How do you exercise these dormant muscles? Without doing regular gardening work I mean.

Busy week lined up, third round for a job opportunity tomorrow, that sounds fairly hopeful, then off for popbitch drinks afterwards somewhere in Soho. Tuesday I'm going for drinks in London again, with the people I'll be working for next week this time though, so somewhere around Spitalfields sort of area.

Reading: Bones and Silence.
Watching: House.
Eating: Chilli pie, with leftover accompaniments from yesterday, including fabulous home made guacamole. Folkestone market is rubbish, but you can't argue with five ripe avocados for a pound.

2006 :: Comment / reply

The gigging world has awoken - Bob Dylan, Sophie Ellis Bextor and the Highlands of Scotland...

Bob Dyland and Sophie Ellis Bextor tickets on sale now...

Bob Dylan Tour Dates announced:

No more videos for a while

Ace weekend, shame the weather was so poor, as it was again this morning. The family came, and it was very nice, though mostly I made them stay in the flat and work. We did go out for a mighty dinner at The Jackdaw, none of the adults managed to clear their plates, though that's down to portion size I think and nothing up with the meals themselves. I went for the vege jambalaya, something I've not had before and asked for the "extra hot" option, bit of a mistake as it turns out... This meant an extra helping of creole spices, and some fresh bird eye chillis liberally scattered throughout the dish. All was fine until I checked out just how hot these chillis would be and I NEARLY DIED. No really, it nearly took my head off. Luckily I had a pint of Black Cat on hand to attempt to extinguish the flames, but it took a while. Other meals enjoyed by us included a meat jambalaya (not extra hot though, puff), a couple of 20oz mixed grills, a wild mushroom pie, and another carribean fruit curry. I think apart from the mixed grills everyone would rather have had something else on the menu as it turns out, but I'm sure we'll return again. We should have nipped back the next day for lunch, as (being the kind of hosts we are) we completely failed to provide a roast sunday lunch for our guests - it just didn't occur to us until everyone had gone, as at home we have a light lunch and then a big fat tea on a Sunday. Next time we will try better.

Apart from eating and sitting around, we tried to have an enjoyable wander around the antique shops of Sandgate, but the bad weather put paid to that really. Some went home at this point, but Mum, Dad and I took the boys to the Lower Leas Coastal Park, which is great.

http://static.flickr.com/28/102689879_7242a170ef.jpg lower leas coastal park folkestone

We now have a super flushing toilet, cheers for the DIYing Dad and Dez, now we are INSPIRED, well slightly, to do the other things around the house that need doing. I will start by making a web page where I can list all the jobs that need doing, and then... no wait, come back!

Bad weather in Folkestone this morning, much better in London. Awoken on the commute in this morning by the train driver pressing the wrong button and playing "evacuate the train immediately, leave your belongings and run" across the PA. Apart from that, slept OK.

Seem to have a stack of work to do today, bah. The success of getting those videos below hosted elsewhere (and so saving us a load in bandwidth fees) is leading to more work, still it's good to be busy.

2006 :: Comment / reply