2 years on...

today we celebrated our two year anniversary. I think it's still poignant that our anniversary is on April fool's day - but believe me, it's no joke!

John very kindly organised a surprise trip to see Les Mis for us. It was epic, powerful and very involving. The vocals were spot on and the stage-craft really transported me to another world. We started the evening with a two-courses-for-£10.95-meal at Prixe Fixe in Soho after giving Hummus Bros a miss (we'll try there for a snack sometime, not a dinner) which was dead tasty.

Do you have any plans for the Easter weekend? Juan is taking Bottle up to the 'pool tomorrow, which means I'll be without my two greatest loves for two days. During his away time, I plan to continue working on my web design course (book) and catch up on some much needed sleep. On Easter Sunday we're planning on catching up with 13b as it's been waaaay too long.

Right, time for bed in the ice box that is this room.

x

SLIDESHOW

Take a look at our trip, and see what all the fuss is about...

Photo's of Down Under 2010

Jet Lagged

Man oh man (incidentally, that used to be one of my favourite tv programmes - I wonder why...), these last few days have been tough. I've been waking up at 4am every morning and not properly sleeping again. I'm wondering why I ever took for granted sleeping solidly for eight hours (or even seven or six). I used to be of the opinion that you should try to be awake for as long as possible to be able to 'live' for as much as possible. However, given how little I've been able to do this weekend due to lack of sleep, I now disagree and think everyone should get an appropriate amount of 40 winks each night.

This weekend we went back to our pre-Oz/NZ life in Clapham and spent time with our adopted little sister. Friday night consisted of a much needed catch up with my previous travelling buddy over a few bottles of wine (so much for not binge drinking ever again. We went to The Goat by the Junction and I was quickly reminded that I do not like that bar (particularly as a candle holder burnt and blistered my thumb). Juanita and 'lil sis' joined us but we didn't last too long and ended up picking up much needed battered sausage, chips and curry sauce on the way home. Indeed, the 6pm drinking session and jet lag led to me falling on to the futon in the living room of 13b by 10.30pm, after ranting to my poor sister on the phone for nearly an hour. I hadn't realised that I'd drunk over two bottles of wine during the evening to myself until I woke up with my first hangover for months. Thanks for the pain killer Paulie!

During the day on Saturday, we popped in to see John's old boss, tried to search out our favourite wines from NZ in Majestic Wine Warehouse (but were unsuccessful), I had a nap, our fave gay mate came round and we again tried another night out down the Northcote Road with the girls from Earlsfield. Sadly, by 10pm, we were flaking again and had to pass on our apologies.

Sunday came into my life with another unwelcome 4am start (no hangover this time as I'd only had soft drinks the night before). We eventually left 13b at 11.30am and suffered a two hour journey back to my dad's, including taking three Picadilly trains *sad times* Thankfully we had a BREADSTALL brunch to keep us motivated. After returning, we were exceptionally suburban and nipped to Argos and Sainsburys in Bottle to pick up home bits and food for the week.

The weekend ended with a lovely mother's day tea at my sister's flat. John whizzed through the hundreds of photos and talked through the highlights. I'm still not bored of recounting the stories! Speaking of which, I'm hoping we will be writing it up properly once we get a minute and loading up all the photos to flickr so you can take a nose yourself. Keep coming back!

Right, time for sleep again. Hopefully it will be for a loooong time i.e. until 7am!

DM xx

p.s. I'm super pleased to be driving Bottle again - I've missed her so much!!

Jet lag... what jet lag???!!!!

So that was Sydney part 1!

We climbed the tower, got squirted with Ketchup, saw fireworks on Darling harbour for Chinese New Year, met up with Mike Brookes at the Mardi Gras Festival, saw HOT semi naked men EVERYWHERE, went to the beach at Manly, saw Andy McGregor, drank some beer... mate!, went on the ferry, saw the harbour bridge and opera house, walked through Botanical Gardens, dodged the spiders and bats, and had a full English Breakfast (DAN!).

Phew that's just 3 days! We're now heading to NZ! BRING IT ON!

Juan
xx

CHANGi T3!!

So....

We're en-route, I'm 26 and Dan looks hot!
The flight to SP went well, we ate lots and didn't feel at all guilty for watching all that TV and drinking all those Slingers!

We had booked into a Transit hotel at the airport, which was a great plan of the Danman.
We slept for about 5 hours and had a chance to freshen up, before a pizza and coke breakfast (how well travelled we are!).

This airport is simply... stunning, put Heathrow to shame. There's even a butterfly garden for crying out loud!
We fly in about an hour :) and when we land it'll 26 degrees and lunch time :)
For the shortest Birthday ever, it's been pretty fun.

I'm EXTREMELY excited about listening to Glee 2 from Paulo.
Liz also got me tickets to see Pricilla, faboosh and with the electric tooth brush, travel kit (From Nick) and $, I didn't do to bad hey!
Thanks guys.

So Andrews keep calling and Charles Cameron keeping asking about completion dates! AH well, lets hope things move over the next 3 weeks. COME ON IAN, SORT THEM OUT.

That's it for now! Ciao!

International Jet Setters DJ!

xx

One week to go...

Unbelievably, it is now only one week until our holiday. This time next week we will be flying down under. We didn't realise time could fly so fast.

Speaking of time flying fast, we've still not heard any news from the solicitors. It's been three weeks since we went to visit the solicitor and were told we were likely to exchange before taking off.

Using his usual pro-active style, Juan phoned the solicitor today. He was told that the vendor's solicitor is delaying responding to his requests for information, again. Frustratingly, we are unlikely to be a different position when we come back from holiday. This means that in exactly one month, nothing is likely to change.

Today, I went on a Grammar Workout course at work; it was really helpful. *fingers crossed* I will be able to correctly construct and punctuate sentences from now on! Lucky you!

It's time to take a trip to Wisteria Lane.

In a bit x

only ten days to go...

So we have 10 days until OZ and there is A LOT TO DO!

I should have had a more productive weekend but hey that's what the week is for. We went to Seb and Lucy's flat warming. There place is AMAZING and it's like they've aleays lived there. Congrats guys.

Still no news on the lease extension for us. Fingers crossed that no news is good news. It would be great to know somthing before we go away, but I think this is unlikely!

Glee tonight, good times :)

Juan
xx

No progress

Well, it's been over two weeks since we last heard from our solicitor about the flat move. To date, we've heard no news about how the lease extension is panning out, or how likely we are to exchange before we go to Oz. I think we are going to have to accept that we are unlikely to exchange before we go, which means completion could be pushed back to end of March/early April.

I've also personally had no progress on my health this week. I'm plagued with flu-like symptoms and have been all week. I feel better today as I've been able to sleep, but still not great. Hopefully my health will progress to 'top form' over the weekend so we can get ourselves ready for Oz in just 11 days now.

Enjoy the weekend. We don't really have any plans (still saving monies for the flat and the holiday).

DanMan

Packing, Lifting, Moving, Lifting, Unpacking

The theme for this weekend just gone was definitely packing.

On Saturday, John and I helped our good friends move into their new home. It's the first flat they've bought together and we're so happy for them. The flat is beautiful already and has plenty of potential to be even more amazing. We're so honoured that we were able to help them on an important weekend in their lives. Assisting with the move gave John and I plenty to think about for when we settle into our first home (if it ever happens). For example, we must remember to pack each box with a label stating which room it belongs in and do warm ups and cool downs before and after the move.

On Sunday we also moved more of John's possessions from 13b to Eastcote. Somehow I managed to hide all of the boxes and bags in various wardrobes in my brother's room, very clever of me.

Sadly, I think I overstretched myself (quite literally) whilst lifting etc. as I woke up on Monday morning feeling like I had man flu (I say, 'woke up', but it's debatable as to whether I actually slept on Sunday night). I'm feeling better today, but John suffered last night from my fog horn snoring.

We generally had a quiet weekend. One of the highlights was the premiere of Cheryl's new video for Parachute. Unsurprisingly she looks really hot and dances like the pro that she is. This small dose of Cheryl was enough of a fix to satisfy our habit. Roll on the next series of The X Factor (only seven months-ish).

Last night we took John's housemate to see Legally Blonde The Musical as a surprise for her birthday. The show was exceptionally pink and featured two well trained cute dogs (I'm sure John wanted to take at least one of them...). Sheridan Smith lead the cast through a whirlwind of upbeat songs and flashy dance routines (including the 'bend, and snap') which culminated in a dramatic court room scene (and two over the top camp male lovers). I definitely enjoyed the show, but didn't warm to the songs.

It's practically two weeks until our holiday now. Today we made lists of:

• what we need to pack in our suitcases;
• what we need to pack in our hand luggage;
• what we need to buy before we go; and
• what we need to do before we go.

There's a lot to think about. Fortunately being away for three weeks will make all this stress worth it.

Right, time for some Glee.

DanMan x

God my Danman is a geek!

Ten days have passed..

..since we last wrote a blog entry, and quite a lot has happened in that time:

Hope for Haiti

As we all know, an earthquake hit Haiti on 12 January 2010. The most famous names on the planet gathered from 1.00am on Saturday morning to operate a telethon to raise aid money. A variety of singers, including Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Jay Z and Chris Martin performed emotional songs whilst celebrities including Reese Whetherspoon answered telephone calls from members of the public making pledges.

The songs performed on the night were recorded and are included in the album Hope for Haiti Now which is available to download from iTunes.

The Flat

Juan and I made another commitment to one another. We've signed up to 25 years of life and critical illness insurance. It's a policy with AXA insurance company. Being entirely honest, we're not sure if it's something we really need, is value for money or is going to end up costing more money in the long-term when we move up the property ladder. John was slightly (read: very) offended that the Financial Adviser noted his imminent 26th birthday and recommended that we sign up before he becomes ancient to make avoid the cost of his policy increasing.

We also finally had our face to face meeting with our solicitor. As we expected, he's a great guy with our best interests at heart. We talked through our concerns about the survey and he explained that none of the issues raised are worth negotiating on the price. The current leaseholder has also agreed to serve notice on the freeholder so that the lease will be extended by 90 years under that piece of legislation (that we don't really know about). Our solicitor is confident that we can exchange before we go to Oz, so once again, we are waiting.

The house has been taken down from the Andrews Online website, which we're taking as a good sign that things will work out.

John has packed up his first round of possessions from 13b which have now been transported via Bottle to the ghetto land that is Ruislip/Eastcote. We are also likely to finally get the bedframe our friend has kindly offered us for free on Friday!

Australia and New Zealand 2010

To coincide with Australia Day, Juan and I planned more of our big holiday. We now have a hostel for our first stay in Sydney. We've also done a first plan of our tour around the South Island of New Zealand. It turns out that we really won't have much time to visit everything we want to see, so we're going to focus on seeing Queenstown, Wanaka, Franz Josef, my family, Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs. It's starting to feel more real for us now.

My good friend Spanner from work has gone to Oz today. Calming her down before her journey and running through mental checklists with her has helped me think about the planning we need to do before our holiday.

It's now 20 days until we go!

Music news:

• The wonderful and fabulous Leona Lewis performed in the Live Lounge. She sang an amazing rendition of her next single I Got You and her emotional cover of Stop Crying Your Heart Out.
• Alexandra Burke is going to release The Silence as her next single (after March). It's one of my favourites from the album, but John thinks it's a bit 'Eurovision' (which shouldn't be a criticism as he loves Eurovision?).
• Little Joe McElderry sang another flawless performance of the Journey and Glee classic Don't Stop Believing at the National Television Awards. We were so proud to see him and thinks he is looking more and more handsome as he grows up.
• Speaking of Glee's version of Don't Stop Believing, it's stayed within the top three in the singles chart.
• A song from Christina Aguilera's new album called Spotlight leaked online. It's an upbeat stomper that's going to go down a treat in the clubs. We can't wait for the rest of the album.

Desperate Housewives

The ladies of Wisteria Lane have returned to our screens. As with most first episodes of this classic show, a suspicious family has moved into the street. It looks like it's going to be another classic series which we can't wait to watch unfold.

We'll try not to leave it too long until the next post! Time to snuggle down for another night.

Keep reading!

DanMan

Having a Glee-ful life, even if that makes us Gleeks

Now, Juan is much better than me at this blogging malarkey (it was my idea to start it, I thought I could use my maths skills to understand HTML, which I've not yet started, but John is very clever and picks things up quickly, he also perseveres more than I do). I wanted to add a post to explain how much we love Glee with videos but I'm not to sure how to achieve this. Anyways, the songs, the colours, the easy-to-identify-with characters (I too was a loser at school) all add up to a hit TV series and something to look forward to each week. When I first met John, I stubbornly refused to understand the point of musicals, why sing when you can speak much faster? After a crash course in the TV series 'I'd Do Anything', and a deeper appreciation of High School Musical, I must admit that I melted and can be frequently found 'accidentally' putting on another song from Wicked, Hairspray or now, Glee.

If you too like Glee, that makes you a Gleek (a play on Glee and Geek - geddit?!). Make sure you check out the songs online.

Speaking of Glee and feeling Glee-ful, as I recently posted, I've recently found the range of online tools my family in New Zealand are using to blog about their lives (blogs, Twitter, YouTube channel, Flickr etc.). I had a Skype chat with them last night (their Sunday morning) and saw my only cousins in the world for the first time in two years: they've grown up so much. I can't wait to see them in 6 weeks and to be able to stay in touch with them into the future. Reading their blog has given me lots of ideas for our holiday to Oz/NZ.

Getting back to the main focus of this blog, as I previously posted, Juan organised for a builder to provide us with a quote for the concerns we have following the survey on the flat. The builder went yesterday with John and it sounds like the flat is in livable condition, but does need a few bits sorted. We'll see where this takes us in terms of negotiation of the price, more advice will be needed from the solicitor. As an aside, John took his other flatmate to view the flat and he too liked it which I'm really pleased about.

Now, to fill my day with Ruislip based activities...

Dx

And then a Hero comes along..

After months of dithering over whether the iPhone was over hyped and unnecessary, I finally walked away from the option of owning one and ordered an HTC Hero. At first, I struggled to get to grips with the different functionality - I was used to the iPhone interface from playing with Juan's and using my iTouch. But after a few days, I'm starting to get there. I particularly like how integrated all the contact information is and how connected I can be to everyone.

Speaking of being connected, I only found out today that my Aunt who emigrated to New Zealand with my Uncle and two cousins (including my God daughter) now has a Flickr account, Twitter, YouTube channel, personal blog, work blog and is on Skype. I think she's taking over the internet, but I'm so pleased I can keep in touch with their life. It seems like they're always outdoors enjoying their surroundings, whereas in the UK, we're constantly desperate to be inside to avoid the frozen elements.

Some news on the home front: we've found a builder to come give us quotes on the work that might be needed to the flat. He's due to take a viewing on Saturday. The agent was typically 'difficult' with John on the phone again, but I appreciate he's trying to protect his interests. ALWAYS stand up for yourself and don't let them push you!

So it's almost the weekend, I hope you all have great plans!

DanMan

x

Photo's of 71B - Take a look at the pics.

So we went to take a look at 71B today to go through the results of the survey.

Some work defiantly needs doing to the exterior walls so we're going to need to get quotes!

We forgot all about it when watching AVATAR! Brilliant.

39 days until OZ!

Juan

xx

Deep in concentration

SO MANY WORDS!

It's a good thing he works for Ofcom as he likes reading boring things!

We're calming down now we've read the survey with the lease. Fingers crossed it'll all be OK!

Juan

xx

Survey

SCARY STUFF!

So we've just downloaded the survey. All I can see is lots of number 3's which means 'urgent action needed'. Could be bad times :(

Going to digest with Danman tonight along with the MASSIVE solicitor pack that was also sent today.

Juan

xx

More solicitor's emails

So today we found out that our solicitor has received the contract from the vendor - *fingers crossed* we'll complete by mid-March! More reading to do on definitions of ambiguous legal terms...

Oh, and we also have to write our own wills. Now who wants my TopDan clothes and collection of London Underground memorabilia...?

It's currently snowing outside, and hopefully will continue to do so all night.

DanMan

p.s. 6 weeks tomorrow we'll be flying to Australia...

Second day of Jan

So we're trying to sort out the solicitor's questions! COMPLICATED and another £500. Woop!

45 days still Oz and 14lb to loose.

Juan
x

Happy New Ear!

Happy New Year to all our followers!

2010 has gotten off to a productive start! Jigsaw puzzles and TV!

46 days until Oz!

xx