And I'm back :)

So, the weekend was great. And also slightly surreal, and more than a little bit exhausting, but mainly great. I caught the coach on Thursday morning, spent five cramped hours wondering why I'd downloaded such naf music to my phone, re-reading the same three chapters of a scandalous JFK book and the entire reviews section of Empire magazine, before pulling into Manchester in the late afternoon. My crazy, inspirational and very funny friend SA drove me to her mum's new flat, where I ate waaaaay too much food (SA has recently started learning how to cook) and stayed up until almost 5am watching movies - Benjamin Button ( beautiful, and even better than the reviews claimed), Slumdog Millionaire (a really great film, but perhaps did not quite live up to the hype), and Single White Female (scary, but in a creepy, psycological way. A bit of a classic).
Friday I hung round town and bought second-hand books whilst my friend went to her cleaning job. Then we went off to Chester and saw SH, another of my best friends, who I write to almost every week but havn't seen for a couple of years. We got very, very lost though - silly Satnav. SA's new flat (which we went to see - it's a room in an almost mansion belonging to an old couple, very atmospheric) is very near SH, so it was great they got to know each other a bit better. And SH cooked lasagne. Mmmmm. We sang along to Oasis on the way home.
I was dropped off at SM's, and we met her boyfriend (who is also a film geek, so movie conversation was had into the wee hours). SM had a skating exam on the Saturday, so I met up with BY (a sixth-form friend who was disappearing back to uni before the Sunday meet-up), and we talked in a coffee shop for three hours about career options, and friendship and technology of the future :) One of those all-encompassing conversations. And this probably got her car clamped because she had only bought a short-stay ticket . . . . I explored the shops, quite a few had changed. A very happy hour was spent in Toys 'R US (kids toys are so great these days! A lot more Star Trek, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Indiana Jones, and far fewer Barbies :D) Then had tea (or frappucinos as the case might be) with JE and CE from my old church - again probably hadn't seen them for a couple of years. Same old college and job thoughts catch-up, but they're also helping to run the youth group at church, and it was great to hear how lots of new stuff is happening. Dinner was at the chinese buffet place with JN, hadn't seen her since sixth-form, so I was a little nervous as to how we'd cover so much ground . . . but it was good, and she seems very happy.
Then more films with SA - The Perfect Getaway (so, so much better than the trailer suggested, even if we guessed what was going to happen twenty minute in, it was still brilliantly done), and The Ugly Truth(which really shouldnt have been as funny as it was, considering it probably put the feminist movement back several years).
Sunday was breakfast with SM, a meet-up with five of the college gang - coffee and Pizza Hut, much talk and general noise :) And WB was there! I hadn't seen him since my 18th. I went for tea at Wetherspoons with MD and JS (two of my favourite people in the world) and then saw District 9 with MD. Wow, I love that film. Different to what the hype suggests, a lot more bleak, but brilliant. Thought-provoking. And the lead actor as INCREDIBLE, especially seeing as this was his first ever acting role - think he's usually a props guy!
And Monday was coffee with DE, and then home. Five hours listening to the Eagles and then reading The Beach - went pretty quickly :)

And that was my weekend. That was probably of little interest to anyone but me, but I wanted to remember it, because don't get to see these guys very often, and this will probably only get worse as we get older :( Though we're hoping to go to Canada next year. But still, sometimes I don't like growing up.