How The Other Half Live ...

A most pleasant day today, if very tiring. Today we (me and Si) went on a recce to find the perfect place to hold our conference next year. We saw four venues - The Belfry, The Britannia Hotel, The Burlington Hotel and Aston Business Centre - four very different venues but what an eye opener! These places aint cheap! However, out of the four we almost walked straight back out of the Britannia - blimey, what a dump! Honestly, it was really really shabby and certainly not worth the £80 a room they charge!

My favourite venue of the day was the Burlington - built in 1871 and still with the original Victorian features (my favourite architecture). The rooms were fabulously elegant (though some have been refurbished in a very contemporary style), and I wanted to lick the gorgeous panelling ... very sadly (cos you know what a sad old tart I am) one of the rooms had this huge shower with a massive shower head; and all I could think of (both at the time and all flipping afternoon) was who I could get in there with ...

I feel like I've been rushing around all day - we didn't even get time to stop for some lunch, so by the time we did get home tonight I was starving and very dehydrated. I hate not being able to get plenty to drink during the day (I CAN actually go without food all day).

I changed all the songs on my Ipod yesterday cos my new Protocol CD came and it's fabberoo. Unfortunately I lost all the stuff that was already on it cos I'd uploaded it all from the computer in the dining room, and it's out of action at the moment ... so I took the opportunity to drag out a load of old CDs that I haven't listened to for ages. I've been sat here all night with the Ipod on full blast while I play stupid Spider Solitaire (I hate it with a passion but I can't stop playing). Some of these songs are darn sexy ...

Something I've not listened to for a long time is Crowded House (and later Split Enz stuff) - since Paul Hester committed suicide (must be about a year ago) I just couldn't face listening, no matter how much I love CH and SE ... just too sad and painful. Anyway, it's been lovely to listen to it all again and remind myself how sodding awesome a drummer he was and what a big personality he had ... RIP Hessie.

Ooh ... Elvis Costello playing now - She - I love his version of this, despite not being a sloppy song kinda girlie ... I've had a huge thing about the bespectacled one since I was about 16 (though these days he really is a bit of a prat, but he's still uber-talented). Wow, what a voice - pity it's a bit late for me to start singing along!

Oh yeah - my CherryArte papers that I ordered from Scrapkits came today - I think Rog (our postie) must've slipped it under the porch door cos it's in a 12 x 12 envelope and not at all creased (I love that man!) Ummm, I know everyone's raving about CherryArte, but I didn't think it was anything especially special - yep, the papers are very nice, but I wouldn't run naked down the street to get any, you know what I mean?