All week I have been indecisive about my plans for the long weekend. I had two main options: a BBQ with 21yo Bek and the no-longer-randoms or Parklife with grownup friends. Which to choose? I decided on Parklife. Of course, I made the decision on Friday afternoon after the tickets had sold out. I went and bought some clothes anyway – I haven’t had a real summer for 18 months and I needed summer clothes.
I was looking at ticket prices on eBay and they were pretty steep, but luckily Chris called me with some great news: Lauren had a spare ticket for me. Yay!
Chris, John, Lauren and I arrived at Moore Park about 2pm and did a lap. Lauren works for a sponsor and gave us access to the VIP area with a no-queue bar and lounges. We had a drink then went off to another VIP area for special toilets. Lauren got us in again. She is triple awesome.
We went and met Mark and Tracy by the “lake” and had a few drinks. Then it was off to the Lozza Stage for a bit of a dance. We were joined there by Darko(sp?), Hugo and Emma. The music was a bit breaky/dnb and I disgusted myself by repeatedly losing the beat.
We went for a dance at the main stage and on the way Chris and I ran into walkingrek sitting by a tree. I have only seen her once during the past five years but she was surprisingly amiable and joined us for a dance. I had my dancing legs back by this time and was having fun.
We went back to the Lozza Stage in time for Peter Hook, who kept us dancing happily. Although he probably hated it, it was special for me when he dropped Blue Monday. After all this time, walkingrek and I still have some of the d-floor connection that we always shared and it was good that she was with us for that moment.
There was a group of guys in front of us with orange shirts saying “droog” on the front. This is the Dutch word for dry so I went up and asked one of the guys if they were Dutch, he said that they weren’t, the droog was referring to A Clockwork Orange. Then I noticed his lanyard – it was something .nl – I pointed this out and it turns out that he lived in Amsterdam at the same time as me, not far away and we went to the same NYE parties. His name was Dave.
It got dark at this time and we went to the tent. To be honest I don’t remember a lot of specifics after this point. At some point we went back to the main stage for a while where we lost walkingrek. They were playing a lot of crowd pleasers including System of a Down – not exactly normal dance party fare.
The plan was to see Who Made Who for the finale, but we ended up going to the tent and watching Ajax vs Jon Wall until the end. The last sentence describes about ninety minutes.
At some point Chris and I went to go on the giant jumping castle but Chris’ feet didn’t want to stand in the queue and they took him back to the tent. I still have the ticket.
We finished at exactly 10pm and went back to Mark and Tracy’s apartment, via the bottleshop. They turned on the MCE and got the tunes going and the beers flowing. We all got up and danced in their loungeroom. Chris, who is soft, went home early. I am not sure how long afterwards I left, but Lauren, John and I cabbed it back to her place. John is a great guy, but the prospect of sharing the lounge with him didn’t seem as comfortable as my super pillowtop bed so I cabbed it home.
I am not sure exactly what time I got home or went to sleep, but by my messenger logs I can tell that I was talking to Breigh at around 3:30AM, so I guess I was home then. I took off my shoes, the right shoe was full of blood and my sock was soaked in it. I showered and dressed my wounds. I now have four large bandages (not band-aids) on my feet, and both my little toenails are black and will fall off. Fun comes at a price, but it was a small price to pay for so much fun.
Monday morning I was woken with a production issue on some servers that I had helped migrate on Friday night. I spent a few hours working on this super-critical issue with a lot of very worried people and was very pleased when I found and resolved the problem by about 3PM. I still didn’t have my car, which was at Chris’, so I had a nice nap. Still no car so I had to cancel going to Alastair’s buck’s night. Instead I cooked a lasagne for Adam and Bits, trying to help out the new parents. They thought it was great but I am very critical of my lasagnes and was not happy. I need to make them more so they can know what a good one tastes like.
I had a great weekend. Sunday was the opposite of Saturday, the young versus the old, but I enjoyed them both. I want to do it all again.