“I’ll Be Home For Christmas”

I’ve had a very busy week – but it’s been a good one which of course!

On Tuesday I spent the day in the company of the lovely Miss Stephenie Jennings and equally lovely son Jordan. We drank coffee, visited toy shops, ate pizza and generally had a good time. Jordan is a little character and takes after his mother in many ways – put together you get double trouble, and for a moment I did think I was about to be barred from a toyshop for the first time in my life when Jordan nearly demolished a wall of playmobile boxes with a football he found, but it all turned out alright in the end! Steph also took me to a new(ish) Starbucks in Wolverhampton, where we got our regular fix of Vanilla Lattes. Mmmmm.

Wednesday night we had a Scrat rehearsal and randomly started working on another new cover. It’s one of those songs everyone loves, but it too ‘cool’ to admit it…the kind you singalong to in private and find yourself tapping your foot to it and then stop when you realise someone is watching! Our take on it (which we did from memory – so it won’t be a carbon copy of the original) is going to rock once we’ve knocked it completely into shape – so that’s 3 new covers and the lyrics for 3 new originals in the works. We’re looking at venues and talking about stage production/costumes for the next gig already. 2005 has been the year of Scrat, 2006 is going to be the revenge of Scrat – watch out world!

Last night (Thursday) we had some Christmas drinks at the Duke Of York by Mike & Nicky’s – the cousins and their wives/fiancés are all off to snowy Austria for Christmas, so it was a bit of a send off. A few other people came down as well and it was rather pleasant. The only problem with The Duke is the poor choice of lager – Carling or Stella basically! I hate Carling with a passion, and I also don’t like Stella as the origins of it’s nicknames, (things such as ‘Wife Beater’ and ‘Loopy Juice’) are somewhat true – it packs a punch like no other beer. However when confronted with this choice I would choose to drink Stella over Carling every time – so I just had to get my head down and hold on for the ride!

After leaving the pub 5 or 6 pints later we swung by Mike & Nicky’s for a final drink (San Miguel this time, mmmm!) and of course pizza was needed, so the people at ‘No 1’s’ obliged and delivered us some BBQ Chicken-goodness. I went home, and woke up at 9am with all the light still on? Having remembered making a drink and getting undressed…but not how I got from my computer to my bed without turning any of the light off!? I seldom have drink-induced memory loss, so I can only put it down to the Stella.

I’ve had quite an exciting week work wise – we’ve just confirmed loads of tour dates for Imogen, both in the USA and the UK, she’s also set up a crazy new competition on the site, so I’ve been busy working on the details of all this and creating the email newsletter of all email newsletters! It’s currently being sent to 20,000 people – only 4064 to go!

All of my Christmas shopping is now done, so all I have to do it wrap it all (which I hate doing, hence it being left until Christmas Eve!) and stick it under the tree. Today my Danzy Jones Whiskey arrived (see moblog), which I’m most pleased about – it was a present from my friend Jo for getting her Take That tickets for her as she was at work when they went on sale…we shall no doubt have a glass or two over Christmas, as well as the Jim Beam and Cockburn’s Port I bought. Mmmm.

I’ve downloaded The Beach Boys’ 1964 ‘Christmas With The Beach Boys’ album which included classics such as ‘Little Saint Nick’, ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’ and about three different versions of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – so this will be the soundtrack to my Christmas this year – can’t think of anything better!

Watch out for my ‘bored on Christmas day/what I got’ entry, and my ‘albums of 2005′ list – coming before New Year’s Eve!

Happy Christmas!