Dark Masquerade

Last Friday was the Dark Masquerade Ball at the Randolph Hotel. It was a lovely evening and great to have something to dress up for - even if I did feel a tad drab compared to some of the outfits there.
We spent the day at Rob's parent's house and Mon had the time of her life seeing us get ready! I couldn't make my mind up what to wear, so took along 3 tops, spare hair extentions, spare headdress, 2 necklaces, gloves, all just in case. I was still changing my mind about the necklace when we were about to get into the car to leave!

It was lovely to see Manuela and Julian again, after far too long an interval; plus they saved me the embarrassment of trying to put my corset on in the street, by kindly letting me use their room.

The hotel was incredible, an immense Victorian gothic pile, a bigger, grander version of what we have tried our bedroom to look like in fact! The only downside of such a grand venue was inevitably the bar tariff. I tried my hardest not to look shocked when presented with a bill for £8.60 for a Vodka,lime and soda but the staff were so lovely, I didn't want to risk looking a philastine by objecting to the price.

All in all it was a really enjoyable event - even the music, they played a good few old tracks that brought back some nostalgia, which even resulted in Rob and I being on the dancefloor to non-bleepy music - still drew the line at dancing to Sisters of Mercy though ;-)

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Had a wonderful surprise at breakfast this morning - a fox in the garden during broad daylight! Very happy to see him/her back again after an absence over the past few years. Hopefully now we will have less of a presence of rodents and the neighbours' cats in the garden for a while.

Other than Friday evening, we've had a quiet weekend catching up on housework - blah! After 3 hours scrubbing the kitchen, it still looks nasty. I hate the kitchen and really want a new one but the amount of work that needs doing, I think the best solution would be an "accidental" gas explosion, at least then we'd have a blank canvas to start afresh.
You never know, our lease extention might actually get finalised sometime this year and we might have finances left over for the kitchen - pigs might fly too.

On Saturday, we had a night out in Watford, of all places. Elaine, from the Beltane Bash + stall in Watford market, has started to organise a monthly pub meet at the One Crown for the local goths, so we thought we'd give it a go. Have to admit that a wave of depression encroached as we arrived in Watford - did I really move to London 10 years ago to become a suburbanite?

Fortunately the pub was in a quiet and of the high street, away from the Saturday night drunken masses. The pub clientele was a strange mix of older locals, and us group of goths in the corner. The locals seemed to have no objection to hearing the likes of Siouxie and Marilyn Manson being played though. At about 9.30, the barstaff laid on a massive buffet for us on the house. Rob and I had already had dinner but how could one resist, when surrounded by lots of lovely food! I hope the evening takes off, as it was nice to have a local pub to go to plus there's the prospect of us having barbeques there in the summer.