Stoke

I had THE most amazing weekend in Stoke. It went a bit like this...

Friday afternoon I got THE slowest Thameslink train from East Croydon to Kings Cross Thameslink. I then walked to Euston only to find all the virgin trains were delayed due to signal failure and a broken down train at Watford Junction. Eventually my delayed 18:35 train left Euston at 19:00, but oh my life, it was packed... there had been problems with electrics on the east coast, so GNER trains weren't really running which meant that people had to travel to places like York via Manchester or such like, so they were shunting people onto virign trains like no tomorrow. So I had to stand for the whole journey, which fortunately was only 1.5 hours :-) But I had to share a space of about 6m cubed with 4 other people. It got hot, it got smelly and wasn't very comfortable!!

Anywho I eventually got to Stoke and Zoe was there to meet me at the station and we took a brisk walk to her house. She cooked me pizza and we chatted and laughed. Then decided to go on the dance mat. Approx 4 hours and 400 calories later we stopped!! It was well fun though. We chatted lots more and went to sleep about 4am!

5 hours later my good old body clock woke up, so I crept out to have a shower. Being the lovely person that I am, I decided to leave Zoe to sleep and I washed up from the previous night, which also included her housemate's washing up from the previous 2 days breakfasts!! Went and woke Zoe up and within an hour or so we were walking into Stoke. It kinda reminded me of Croydon in it's scabiness (sp?), but it was cooler in terms of its indoor market and random fruit and veg stall and other assorted cool shops like ethel austin - oh yes £1:50 flip flops!!

Then jumped on a bus and headed into Hanley. Hanley is AMAZING! But quite dangerous... there are SO many shops! And it was cool coz there's your big high street chains, your random gifty shops, random market stalls, an indoor market, assorted local shops, alternative grunger type shops and probs loads more. It was grand and we spent a fortune!! I bought some cool new jumpers though, some star shoe laces for my converse :-), some funky shoes (they're red!) and lots of other bits and pieces. Our final stop was Tesco to pick up some chocolate for the chocolate fountain!! Then back on the bus to outside Staffordshire Uni and a quick walk back to Zoe's.

We were exhausted when we got back, so chilled out, chatted, cooked dinner (mmmm pasta with courgettes and leeks), Zoe combed Charlie (don't ask!) and she tried on everything she bought!! Decided to prepare for the chocolate fountain. So, we read the instructions and bashed up the chocolate as we couldn't get chips or nuggets in Tesco. So Zoe broke it into squares and chucked it in some sandwich bags and I took a hammer to it!! It was quite a laugh! We mooched around before deciding to go for a quick drink before doing the chocolate fountain. So we headed for the union only to find it was comedy club and you had to pay to get in - nooooo. So she took me to Terrace (I think) a cute little quiet pub. We had a quick drink and then went to buy some potatoes for Sunday's lunch.

Went back home and went for the chocolate fountain. The chocolate took quite a while to melt, so I left Zoe to that and I cut up and arranged the fruit and marshmallows so that it was asthetically pleasing!! Then to the chocolate fountain... it was a laugh, it was fun, it was yummy, but VERY filling. We spent ages eating various fruit and dipping it in the chocolate and we watched two pints of lager and a packet of crisps -classic!

Then the fun really began.... it took us 1.5 hours to clean the wretched thing!! We started by scooping out the leftover chocolate with wooden spoons, but it was hitting them, sticking and solidifying!! So I resorted to using my hands to scoop it out. It was quite amusing and it actually felt really nice. Needless to say my fingers and hands ended up completely brown!! Eventually it was clean, but that was quite a mission!! And we hit the sack at 2am.

The good old body clock struck again and I woke up shortly after 9am on Sunday. I went and washed and then kicked Zoe out of bed. We went to church. It was a New Frontiers church called Grace and met in one of the uni rooms. It was small, but friendly, welcoming and cool. It amazed me how we managed to spend 45mins singing only 2 worship songs!! During that time the congregation can contribute to the service by reading scripture or giving a word in between songs... this I found cool, but what was even greater was that 2 girls, probs no older than 12 or 13 out of their own accord and totally independently came up and shared some scripture. It was cool and that really encouraged me. I enjoyed church.

Back to the pad to cook lunch and continue the dance mat extravaganza!! So I made potato wedges and my classic veg in tomato sauce. It was good :-) Then to pack and get the train home. Fotunately the train was empty in comparison with Friday night! So I could sit and chill and enjoy the journey back to Euston.

I did have the greatest weekend. It was so amazing to be away from Croydon without the worries of study, church or any other commitments; I could be care free and have fun :-) I miss not having many people my age around at home who I can hang out with and be dead serious or behave like a 5 year old with. It was great to feel loved and have a laugh. It was great to have some d & m's and be honest. It was just great and I had a ball. Thanks chicken, you rocked my world :-)