Nabila!

Well, ever since touching down on these shores it seems it's been non-stop action and I've had very little sleep. In the last 7 days, I've had two nights with no sleep at all and no other night with more than 5 hours of sleep.

I got back on Friday afternoon and the rest of the day was spent unpacking, playing darts and generally enjoying the fact that all 6 family members were presnt and proper at home.

Saturday was Danish's wedding night. We know their family because my dad and his dad used to be colleagues. I don't know Danish that well but he's always been friendly enough and plays the drums and the guitar. Anyway, the ceremony on Saturday was really, really odd. The whole ceremony happened without the bride being there to give her consent. Someone else did it for here and then she arrived later accompanied by a dhol player. She was obviously very happy about the marriage though. It's just strange that she wasn't there to say she wanted to marry the guy. I went to Danish's sister Noshi's wedding too and she was there to give her consent so it's not an idiosyncracy of their family. I blame the other family but they recovered soem points by virtue of the mother of the bride speaking Bangladeshi.

Sunday was the reception in Birmingham at 1 o'clock. The wedding was in South London the night before! Not very good planning in my view. Most people didn't arrive till 2.30 ish. Well the greatest thing about this day was meeting my best friend from when I was about 4 till I was about 8 when their family left for America. I had an address for where they were going and sent a letter but the trail ran cold after that and all hope seemed to have gone of us meeting ever again. There were too many missed years to catch up on in one night so a second more proper meeting will probably happen soon.

Monday was taken up by choosing laminate flooring for the living room and dining room and then by some major driving starting at 8 o'clock. Rozana was over for the weekend but had work on Tuesday so a trip to Rotherham and back was required. Skipping through a lot, I eventually got home at 5.30 the next day but ont he return jounrey I had quite a scare. I was travelling along on the M25 and came up to a lorry on the middle lane going at about 60 mph so I pulled out to overtake and checked my mirror to come back in there was a traffic cone right in front of me with no reflecty part. I couldn't swerve right as there was a sports car bombing along. Left equalled a lorry hit and an emergency stop equalled a lorry shunt. I slowed down a bit but drove right into the cone and it got stuck somewhere in between the bumper and underside of the car and was dragged along for about a mile as there wasn't a hard shoulder for a while. When I eventually stopped otn he hard shoulder I had to reverse back a bit while my brother held the ocne to get it out. The damage was minimal but nevertheless existent. Why was that cone there? Why? Why? Why? I sometimes think it's lucky no one got hurt but then I think it's unlucky that there was a cone there at all and that the car has noticeable damage. Not my car by the way. My brother's. :(

Some of Tuesday was spent choosing new carpeting for the stairs and a kind of urine colour was chosen once again against my wishes. Oh, also there was water leaking from the ceiling and the plumber who came along said we had to replace the "whole system." Sounded dodgy but my dad seemed to think the guy made sense so the system wholly replaced was.

I played tennis for about 5 hours on Tuesday with Pawan, Shiraj and Vinto. Beat Pawan 6-1 6-4 but he was leading 4-2 in the second set in our best set ever. The tension made it unlike any set I've played before and having a spectator helped. Wednesday night was spent buying a new car. Most of the time was actually spent at home looking at adverts but the first car we looked at for real was the car we bought. A Mercedes C Class in Aquamarine Blue. The colour didn't sound great but I actually like it a lot. It's nice and distinctive but not garish or too boring.

Thursday was the day of the trip to Adventure Island off the coast of Panama. Um. No, not really. Actually it was Southend but anyway it was fun, especially the go-karting. Oh, I was winning the race until the last lap despite starting from 4th and it was so so unfair!!!! This guy who worked there suddenly joined the race and bumped into me about 3 times and the dam thing auto stopped!!! He was the one hitting me on purpose so my car auto stops as punishment. Yeah that's fair. My head was throbbing so much when we got back home around midnight becasue of the sleep lackage but still work had to be done. The laminate flooring was going to be fitted the next day so we had to empty the showcase and move it, move sofas and everything else in the dining room and living room then strip the carpet. We eventually gave up around 3 o'clock in the morning. My dad and I kept telling my brother to stop! He had to be up at 6 for work but he wouldn't. When he eventually left he apologised for not doing the rest! I found that so annoying. he's had even less sleep than me over the last week and he was doing all that without complaining. I couldn't stand up for more than a few seconds without making some sort of primal grunt.