Friday 22 June 2007

Lister's last night in UK

ok this one is also a bit late, but not as late as the last one.

The plan was for JM to meet Lister at 6pm in Liverpool. JM was 4 minutes late but that was ok cos Lister was a LOT later. I had planned to meet them both at the museum at 6.30, however since Lister had not turned up by then I decided to go meet them at the station instead/ WHAT A MISTAKE !!!!!!! Liverpool is a huge building site right now and the usual pick up point of Lime street station is out of bounds.

I decide to drive round to the other side of Lime Street and see if there is any parking over there.
I get to the junction to go up the other side and find loads of "No right turn" signs so I change lanes and go straight on. however in my mirror I see lots of cars turning right. "How Strange" I think to myself. Next I come to a new junction which says turn right for Lime street so I turn right, only to find myself faced with 3 LANES OF ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!! I panic and mount the kerb to avoid a disaster. I sit there shaking for a few minutes then as the traffic clears I do a U turn and go back. As I come off the kerb I feel the car bottoming on it and start to worry, the car is making strange noises from the rear.

I make my way back to the museum car park and phone JM. Lister is STILL not in so I phone home and ask col to give me Jans phone number off our computer. when I get through she says she put Lister on the train at 2pm. Where could he be? in the mean time I have to top my credit up and I am getting loads of random texts from different people.

I decide to be brave and try get to Lime street again as there are no parking spaces at the museum. This time I make it safe and park in the station car park.
When I finally meet up with JM I am shaking and have a banging headache. I told JM about the car and he says he hopes its ok too.

Lister FINALLY ARRIVES at 7.30 and ask did I get the text. At this point I look blank like a typical blonde. He had got some stranger to text me to tell us he would be late in. But in the chaos I hadnt picked up that text. Anyway panic over we go to wetherspoons for a lovely meal and chat. After we ordered our meals JM left the pub and went in search of some pain killers for me (He's such a sweet guy). Lister shows off his UK photos and tells us all about his adventures while we laugh at his discovery that you dont need three bathrooms to survive! before we take him on a whistle stop tour of Liverpool.

We take in St Georges Hall, both Cathedrals, the Liver buildings, the Radio city tower and of course Pier head where Lister gets a glimpse of Wirral and sees for himself the big river between my home and Scouseland.

then begins the epic journey to Manchester. I'm listening hard for the noise in the car again and am relileved that it is nowhere near as bad as it was earlier. We make it to Mancs where we dropped Lister off at 11pm. On the way home I express my relief about the car not making those awful noises any more and JM tells me he was praying form the minute we got in the car. After returning via Liverpool I finally rolled into my drive at about 12.30 KNACKERED but glad the evening ended better than it bagan.

Passion ! a bit late

ook so I said right from the start that I would be rubbish at keeping this up.



hhm whats happened since then ??
PASSION!!!
yes I know it was ages ago ! 10th June actually lol but wow it was awesome

Took my friend Paula with me which was fab as its absolutely AGES since we had a good chat.
the bands were fab

Replenish, LZ7, TBC Burn Band, Cathy Burton, 100 hours, were great but the highlights were













Y Friday (One of my all time fave bands)

I had never heard of Salvador so wasn't sure what to expect but WOW you gotta be impressed with a band that can get a crowd dancing to their very long sound check while they sort out microphone problems. they were AWESOME !!!!!! Very fast beat dance style Latino Music.











Then the one I had been waiting for JACI VELAZQUEZ -- WOW she has a voice like an angel! she is married to the lead singer of Salvador and they play sooo well for her, but then we get an added bonus. She invites them to join her and sing a piece together . They said its their first joint gig well THEY NEED TO DO MORE!!!! cos together they ROCKED !!!!!!!

the night drew to a close with the awesome vibes of DELIRIOUS?

wow have you ever had the feeling of being trransported directly into the presence of almighty God ????

well worshipping along with "Majesty" followed by their new version of "Our God Reigns" did just that for me.


While Jaci was singing I turned to my friend and said "is it just the clothes or is she pregnant?
Paula reckoned it was just the fashion she wore but as the night drew on I became more convinced she is pregnant but she said nothing. Next morning I hear her interviewed on UCB and sure enough she announced she is 4 months pregnant!

We had a great day over all and my friend Paula went home with an extra child she sponsored with compassion UK, shes a little worried about how her partner will react to the amount of money she has committed, but I'm sure he will understand.

Monday 4 June 2007

Meeting Lister yesterday

hi again,

Yesterday was quite an eventful day, it started at the unearthly hour of 6.30am when my alarm went off to signal my mad dash to get showered and ready to get out by 7.am in time to pick JM up from his home in Liverpool at 7.30. I thought I did well running only 10 minutes late at this point.

As we approached Manchester airport and were presented with a choice of Terminal 2 (turn left) ot Terminals 1&3(straight on) We realised that we had absolutely no idea what terminal Listers flight was coming into and we had approximately 10 minutes before landing time. ~We decided to go for 1&3 as we had twice the chance of being right. We parked the car by terminal 3 went in and found an information desk.

We were then informed that yes Listers flight was coming in at Terminal 2 at the other end of the airport, but thankfully it was running late and wasnt landing until 9.05 (it was 8.35 by now).
We began the long trek to terminal 2 and were grateful for the moving walkways.

We got to terminal 2 at about 8.55 and checked info screens to find Flight 734 from Philadelphia had landed already. so we got ready to meet our visitor.

Ok here's the explanation for what came next just so you won't think JM and I have gone completely off our rockers. Lister is a fan of the British TV comedy Red Dwarf in which Lister is the main character, in the show he calls his coworker Rimmer "Smeghead". Because of this I have nicknamed Lister himself as Smeghead in our chat room. And so I made a welcome banner which reads "Welcome to England Smeghead"

The character of Rimmer in the show is in fact dead but his character has been brought back in the form of a holographic projection this is indicated in the show by a silver H on his forehead.

SOOOOO. JM and I position ourselves at the arrivals gate awaiting the imminent arrival of Lister, we hold out our banner and each wear a silver letter H on our foreheads.

and we wait.....

and we wait......

and we get strange looks.......

and we cause a few giggles..........

One lady walks past and shouts "It's good to see the dwarf aint dead".

We look at each other and giggle too. We must look like complete weirdos we think.

still more strange looks

as we wait........

and wait......

we begin to question if we are sure this is the right terminal and reassure ourselves that it must be as the flight number had appeared on THIS screen.

and we wait..........

getting hopeful every time we see a tall person's shadow approach the etched glass doors.

an OBVIOUSLY American guy in the biggest Stetson we have ever seen walks past, checks us out and laughs. JM thinks he has a cheek to laugh at us, at least our strange appearance is temporary and for a purpose.

Then JM spots a tall guy with long hair... is it Him ???? but I point out that Lister does not have a beard, hhmmm but is that a false beard???

By this time I had been holding my camera poised for so long it died, so we were unable to catch Listers initial reaction.

and we wait

and wait.. until

YAYYYYYYY out of the arrivals gate walks LISTER

About SMEGGING TIME !!!!!!!!!!

we wave our banner and cheer.

After Lister receives the mandatory Kazz hug we begin the walk to find FOOD which we all feel is desperately needed at this point.

I remove my H and place it on Listers head and I am shocked to see that he actually leaves it on as we walk through the airport.


We decide to treat Lister to a traditional English breakfast, which was actually pretty mediocre so I do hope one of you other chatters treats him to a better one while we are here.

This is Lister in the restaurant, where I realise he is actually a lot calmer and quieter than I expected him to be.

The following discussion reveals Lister and Hobbits surprise about my dreadful lack of knowledge of 80s heavy Metal Christian Music, and my shock at discovering there was any such thing in the 80s. My only excuse is that I was a good little brethren girl in the 80s and was taught at the time that even Cliff Richard was a servant of Satan for being in the debauched Music industry. so there was NO WAY I would be in anyway into such terrible things as Heavy Metal!!!!!!!

This is also where I find that Hobbit just cant help himself from pulling scary faces whenever he sees a camera.




Is that really Hobs or is it a Madame Tussauds dummy of Stan Laurel??

After this came what has become traditional when Hobs meets tall people.

The height comparison photos!!




As you can see here, Hobbit and I are approximately the same height, but Lister is ummm errrr ummm a LITTLE taller!!!



















We then proceed to the railway station where Lister hopes to get a train to Birmingham to meet Matrix girl. and he has yet another very british experience QUEUING!!.
Here he is queuing up to buy his train ticket and also the point at which I find out that his wallet is not big enough for British money!! haha so not everything is bigger in the USA.

We discover that the quickest way to Birmingham New Street is via Crewe and the next train is in an hour and a half. so we sit in the cafe and chat some more over a drink until Hobbit and I have to leave. We leave at 1pm to begin the mad panic to get home in time for me to lead my disabled outreach group at 3. Hobbit is nearly falling asleep in the car which is quite worrying when you realise that he is supposed to be leading worship in church in a few hours. lol it was a strange kinda day, but well worth all the effort to meet and give our friend a proper welcome into our beautiful country.

Lister we hope you have a fab time while you are here, it was fantastic to finally meet you, after all these years chatting online.

Saturday 2 June 2007

blogging whats it all about?

hhmm blogging, such a strange word!

being someone who has never kept a diary, let alone a public journal, Im not sure where to begin.

I have enjoyed reading some of the posts on my friends blogs. (Man I hve some strange friends!!)

Maybe I will learn from all you lovely people.

Friday 1 June 2007

Kazz - the real me.

Hi there,

I'm Kazz, a perfectly sane and sensible wife and Mother. I know some will disagree with this description but thats's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I am married to Col who just loves to embarrass me in public with his stupid jokes. We have three grown up Kids who live to cause me as much grief as they possibly can.