creamed-coconut.org

As mentioned in previous posts, my sisters and I arranged a spa day to celebrate Mum’s 60th birthday. This took place on Wednesday, and we all really enjoyed ourselves. The spa we went to was Clarice House in Bury St Edmunds, which is about an hour’s drive away. It is open from 9am to 5pm, so we woke up at about 7am and started the journey about an hour later, so that we would have the whole day there. It was a new experience for me, as I’d never been to a spa before. In the morning, we spent most of the time in the swimming pool and jacuzzi. There was also a steam room but I didn’t like it much as I find it difficult to breathe properly in a very hot atmosphere, so I only stayed in there for about a minute.

In the afternoon we had a nice 3 course lunch and our treatments – the first one was a back massage, then a facial and finally a manicure. I think my favourite treatment was the facial, although I’d never had one before. The manicure took place at 4pm and we all chose a nail varnish and had our nails painted. However, I was disappointed because even though we let the nail varnish dry for half an hour before doing anything else, mine got chipped and scuffed when I was changing back into my normal clothes. (We wore our swimsuits during the day, and we were each given a bathrobe and pair of slippers to wear which we were allowed to take home with us). Overall, we really enjoyed the day and we plan to go again next year.

My Mum had yesterday off work, so I met her in the evening and we went to the cinema to see The Stepbrothers. I liked it and I thought it was quite funny, although it was sillier than I expected it to be. Mum wasn’t quite so keen on it though as she thought it was quite silly and the characters were too childish. Afterwards, we had a meal in Malaysian Delights, which I was pleased about as we hadn’t been there since the beginning of July.

This week I had my blog turned into a printed book and all my entries from January 2005 up until the entry just before this one were included. I ordered it from BlogPrinting.com. It arrived yesterday, so I had fun flicking through it and seeing all my blog in print. I also showed it to Mum and Terry, although neither of them have got round to reading it properly yet. I just thought it would be nice to have a printed record of all my blog entries, so that I will always be able to keep them. It also means that members of my family who aren’t familiar with computers can still read my blog. I could have printed it out myself, but it wouldn’t have looked so smart that way as the one I ordered from BlogPrinting was a professionally-bound book. Knowing that I can have my blog turned into a book has inspired me to update my site more often, as it means I will be able to get it printed out once a year or so. In this way, I will be able to look back on what I’ve written for years to come.

Something funny happened on the bus on the way home from work this evening. We were passing through the city in the slow traffic, when all of a sudden over the hustle and bustle I thought I could hear someone outside in the street singing. I turned to my left, and there was this strange man sitting on a ledge outside a shop holding a radio up right near his mouth, and it sounded like he was singing along to “River Deep Mountain High” in a really weird voice. Everyone on the bus suddenly stared towards this man in bewilderment, wondering what he was doing. I have actually seen this man in the city a couple of times before, over the course of the last 3 years or so. It seems that he always carries his radio with him wherever he goes, and he sings along to whatever song is being played at the time.

The first time I ever saw this strange man was just over 3 years ago. I was still working as a temp in those days, and it was 5pm on a Friday evening so I was walking to the agency to hand in my timecard showing the hours I’d worked that week. I can still clearly remember it was a sunny day, and I was walking down the street daydreaming, when all of a sudden I could hear this strange noise. I looked to my left, and there was this strange man walking in the opposite direction to me, holding a medium-sized radio up near his chin, and he was singing along to the Prince song “Party Like It’s 1999″ in a really weird Mr Bean-style voice. Even this lady who was walking just in front of me looked round at the man with an astonished look on her face. Even after he had gone, I couldn’t stop laughing all the way up the street. Whenever I felt the urge to laugh, I had to put my hand over my mouth as I was worried that other people who hadn’t seen the man would be wondering why I was walking down the street in fits of giggles. The thing is, trying not to laugh only made me want to laugh even more.