May 09 - Pumpkin (or champagne) anyone? We're doing the Monster Mash!

[ScarySpangleMaker]

In honour of sausage's forthcoming nuptials, with a nod to imminent weaning.

My SIL has more painting for sale this week. Just put link on my FB but here it is if anyone wants a look. here

Hi looby good reply to your DH.I was just about to post something along the same lines as dandy (great minds, eh?) as I was worried about you saying your DH demanded sex. That seems a worrying turn of phrase but I think your text back to him is fab and I really hope he takes note of it.

euroghoul I feel your pain of your shopping trip. Remember when shopping used to be fun? The first trip I made to get something after DS1 was born was for something for my best mates weddings. I too came home in tears. Nothing can prepare you for your post birth body.

I have just had my oven professionally cleaned. It looks like new. I hadn't cleaned it in 2 years.

looby- i hope you and DH can sort things out. I think that BF doesnt help but isn't the main issue for you both. If it helps to know, sex was a rare occurence after all my DCs but things improved once LOs were out of our room and sleeping through. If M is up every 2-3 hours in the night, you are probably knackered too.

I did briefly go out with someone who had a famous parent and who themsevles became, not exactly famours, but well regarded for what they do and has been in the press quite a bit . I can't go into detail on an open forum, but I had several famous clients when I was a lawyer. That was back in the days when I was a player rather than a pram pusher. Sigh.

Anyway, I did have one celeb encounter when I was a student that I can tell you about - this one goes out to LadyH

One of my friends, D, when I was a student was best friends with Mark Owen. Oh yes. Not having been to uni, he felt he'd missed out on the student lifestyle and used to enjoy visiting his mate. I met him for the first time when we went out for dinner for D's birthday. D introduced us, telling Mark that "Dandy used to live in Singapore, Mark loves Singapore". Mark was very interested in this and swapped seats so he could sit beside me and ask me about it. He was lovely. Really down-to-earth. He said at one point, sorry, I'm probably boring you, but can I ask you another question? He was into travel, said that whenever they toured a foreign country he always made a point of having a wander round it (harder than it sounds when touring as you normally stick to a tight and rigid itinerary.)

A month or two later he came to our end of year ball, because he'd never had the chance to do that. Bless.

So anyway, that's my tale of how I had dinner with Mark Owen (twice) and he kissed me on the cheek

My best claim to fame is that a friend of mine is the son of a former home secretary- not naming names but it will be obvious if you look at the names of my FB friends. We used to live opposite them and he would often turn up at their house with his secret service minders and we've met him at their wedding and house parties.

ooo dandy always thought he seemed a genuine kinda guy & pula how exciting!

my only claim to fame is that I won a major knitwear competition whilst doing my degree.. I was in the papers and everything . I won money and the college got a stack load of yarn. For those that knit it was a Rowan competition. oh and thought of another 2.. i once sat next to baldric

Ooh I've just thought of some more, for cricket fans out there- I have a photo of me with Phil Tufnell taken in the W Indies. He was in the crowd at one of the tests. We also bumped into Freddie Flintoff and his wife in a restaurant there too, but we were all too embarassed to go and say hello/ask for an autograph as it seemed a bit much when he was having a nice quiet meal.

Living in London you do get a lot of celeb sightings. Although I've also had 'abroad' sightings. Sat behind Kate Winslet and her daughter on a carousel in Central Park once.

And saw Simon Amstell at a New Year beach part in Thailand.

But one of my favourite sightings was when DH and I went to see a play at a small but v well regarded fringe theatre in London. DH has bad eyesight - an eye disease, in fact, which glasses can't fully correct. But he still tends to argue the toss over what he can 'see' as opposed to what I can see . Anyway, sat in the audience, I whispered to DH that I could see Alan Rickman 'over there'. DH refused to believe it was Alan Rickman. Why would he be at the play? There were no famous people in it, it wasn't a famous play, etc.

At interval we - and most of the theatre - trouped to the pub across the street for interval drinks. DH and I were standing at the bar with DH on my left. Suddenly, this v. deep and distincitve voice to my right boomed out "I would like one pint of bitter and a glass of red wine."

DH turned to me and said "OK, that's Alan Rickman."

ooo a friend of mine would have drooled over alan rickman if it'd been her next to him in the pub!

when we lived in edinburgh you'd see lots of celebs floating around at festival time even a few on my knitwear stall that i did during the fringe.. like steve martin, vic reeves

wow, did they buy anything Fi?

having a stall at the fringe - that's very rock'n'roll in an Earth Mother stylee

do you still sell your wares?

btw, I've read over some of the previous posts and am PMSL at Spangle piping up with "I've shagged him!" while on a first date with someone else.

dandy unfortunately for me they didn't buy my stuff.. vic bought some kids clothes from the stall a few down from me instead.. oh well. i gave up making my own knitwear designs when i came down to look after my mum. then the dc's came along and it's too labour intensive to do while they're at home. i'll always do it as a hobby though and one of these days i'll get round to finishing writing that must have exciting kids cute crochet pattern book i started years ago

YAY! dh passed his exam.. he got 85% is dead chuffed and now goes on the7day residential course on sunday

well i'm not sure how but both dc's are asleep already.. G doesn't normally zonk until 8ish. she'll prob wake up in a bit for more food so atm i'm putting my feet up!

dandy OMG Mark Owen. I need say no more!

Well done to your DH fi too.

hiya headless dh is having a rather large glass of wine atm to celebrate!

fi Hurray for your DH passing his exam. 85% is a great result, that would be an A* in A-levels I think

Looby Sorry to hear you and your DH are still having trouble. Your text sounded like a great reply, hopefully he'll react positively to it.

dandy How do you manage to do all that celebspotting? I've travelled in my life, but have never seen anyone famous. Well, exept for a Belgian writer in an american airport, but that wouldn't really mean anything to you.
Talking about celebs. We had the wives of some premiership footballers give birth in our unit. The one refused to go in to visit his wife in case he got mobbed by fans and the other kept his sunglasses on for the same reason. When I asked colleagues what the footballers' names were I'd never heard of them. Not like they were Wayne Rooney or anyone as famous. We all found those DH's p*ks.

I had a day (well you can't really call it a day as I had to squeeze it in school hours) in London doing a slingy sort of meeting and our very own Flippineck was there too. It was lovely to meet you and A.

Well deserved. And both kids in bed too?! Good work,missus.

I have a couple of claim to fames. Arriving back at Heathrow from San Francisco, went to the loo. On way, passed this guy and thought I know you. Realised it was Lee Ryan from Blue so on way back from said toilet break, looked out for rest of band. They were all there.

In North London with some mates having breakfast at their rather cool local caff. One friend notices the table behind us and whispers the inevitable "don't look now, but..." It took me all my willpower not to do an exorcist head swivel to see who it was (friend had just said it was an A list star). Eventually, after a surepticious glance realised it was Clive Owen. With 4 children.

Last one, got backstage at the V festival about 10 years ago. In the bar, Noel Gallagher brushed past me and then my friend spilt beer down Edith Bowman.

OK this is the last one. I was on the Crystal Maze.

crystal maze

G is awake again.. looks like it was just 40winks before the normal evening feeding session

DH saw Derren Brown in a hotel while he was working 3 hours ago!!

I haven't seen many celebs but DH sees people all the time with his work. He once put up a christmas tree at the Beckhams. He operated the scissor lift that Dermot was on when filming the x factor at the o2. Set up Ron Woods daughters wedding. Lots of things. He mostly has no idea who people are though but comes home and I get excited.

I have a rolling DS. He was rolling all over the lounge today .

Brilliant news Fi well done to your DH. Ekkk at being away for 7 days. You will be grand.

Looby Hope you are ok.

Errr, What's the Crystal Maze?

Hi all.

Congrats Fi's dh. You must be really proud.

Am lovely everyone's fame stories.

LadyH Crystal Maze . Love the fact you slipped that in the end so we wouldn't notice - do tell more! What challenge did you have to do? Not sure I ever saw anyone win anything on that.

Dandy . Just how tall is Mark Owen? I shook Howard's hand and patted Gary on the back on their last but one tour but it doesn't compare. I do kinda like Alan Rickman too .

Fi I sold Vic Reeves a pushchair in my student retail working days. Served Paul Daniels and Debbie Magee who were a bit rude.

Erm, I snogged a Scottish premiership footballer who then wanted to date me. Sadly I blew him out as I fancied my to-be-dh (this was yonks ago and I can't remember his name but he was out with Craig Brown (Scottish Manager) at the time. Also once got told off for using the Prime Minister's toilet. Oops.

Isn't there that famous seven degrees of separation theory which claims you're only 7 people away from knowing everyone (or something - haven't really explained that well).

Looby thinking of you this evening. How are things? My advice would echo that of Llares.

Euro how did this afternoon go? Hope you found something to wear without too much stress.

Name check amnesty to everyone else.

The Crystal Maze was an adventure game show. A team goes round a make believe world doing challenges to win crystals. The more crystals they win, the longer the time in the Crsytal Dome. This is where you have to collect gold tokens as they are blown about in a perpex sphere that the team are standing/jumping about in. If you get more than 100, the team wins a prize. Actually sounds a bit sad now, doesn't it?

I did a mental game which I lost and another that I won. We collected 10 crystals out of 12 and still managed to blow it in the Dome. .

It was repeated on Challenge tv recently. Thank god I missed it. LOL.

OOh yes euro how did your work thing go?

febes what does your DH do exactly???

Looby I hope you can get things back on track with your DH. I thought that was a very good response to his text. Good luck this evening.

Fi yay for your clever DH! And for you being so clever and creative.

Headless wow, Crystal Maze! I luuurve Richard O'Brien. I also have an apology for you as I am not a Take That fan. One of the only times I got cross during my labour was when the student mw pointed out there was a 'lovely' Take That song on the radio, and I shouted 'I'm not bloody giving birth to Take That!!'

My aforementioned jazz musician housemates went on tour with Mark Owen, but they were playing with the support band Northern Uproar (who were naff, but my friends did do some TV with them, including TOTP and Richard and Judy!)

Other sleb spotting

When I lived in Greenwich I used to see Lawrence Llwelyn Bowen around and he once enviously (I like to think) eyed up a brocade coat I was wearing.

I spotted Lloyd Grossman in the Forbidden City in Beijing (DH and I amused ourselves saying 'who lives in a house like this?' all day )

I was once going to Rome and at the departure gate caught someone's eye. When I turned to look it was Colin Firth, looking all moody and Mr Darcy-esque. After exchanging a couple of glances I turned to DH and whispered 'shh, don't look now, but Colin Firth is over there'. So of course DH looks to and fro in a totally obvious way, making no attempt to be subtle, going 'who's Colin Firth? Do I know him? Where is he?' We then got on the plane and I made a fuss of persuading DH to let me sit by the window. Guess who sat in the aisle seat?? Talk about gutted! DH kept giving me smug looks all through the flight

S'ok spangly I forgive your TT comment as you are impressed with the Crystal Maze. And LOL at your Colin Firth story.

I'll just bask in that glory for a moment.

And then drop another:

I was in a docusoap in Channel 4 in 2000 that followed some 20somethings in Nottingham. It got really high ratings. Not.LOL. But it did get mentions in Heat and a big pread in Cosmopolitan too. I got recognised once as a result. Just the once mind.

Anyone want my autograph?