A few weeks ago I decided to take up bellydancing lessons. My best friend started doing them a while back and somehow managed to get me to come along with her. She also does pole dancing, but that's too much effort for me! LOL! And before anyone says anything pole dancing is actually a form of fitness now and not necessarily sexy or tarty and anyone can do it! All shapes and sizes. It's just not for me. I'm too accident prone and will probably end up landing on my head and knocking myself out!

Actually bellydancing is great, but it's much harder than it looks. You have to isolate parts of your body while you move others and you have to really concentrate on moving certain stomach muscles, you wouldn't normally use. Everyone has their own reasons for doing these things. Mine is to improve my self confidence and to help me feel a bit more feminine. I'm such a tom boy usually and was never a girly girl, so sometimes I like to make a concious effort to change that. It seems to be working. Already i've noticed an improvement in my posture and my bum & tum muscles are more toned. I'm even wearing skirts more without caring what everyone thinks, whereas you'd usually see me in a pair of jeans whatever the weather.

The great thing about bellydancing is that it is for women of all backgrounds, shapes and ages. My teacher said she taught an 80 year old woman once. I'm hoping to get good enough to take part in a show in October. There's two other ladies, one in her 40s and the other in her 30s plus another girl who's probably a couple of years younger than me and my friend in our class. So quite a mix of girls. I think everyone should try it!

Well after all that, the weather Saturday turn out absolutely georgeous. The picnic went down a treat backed by a lovely warm, sunny day. Actually I managed to get a bit burned as I wasn't expecting such a hot day and didn't put any cream on. I made a nice pasta salad for the first time. I must mention that i'm not excatly brilliant in the kitchen, in fact chaos is very likely to occur. But it turned out alright. I even made my own dressing, which i'm very proud of. I used balsmic vinegar with a little olive oil and fresh lemon juice. Quite simple really. Other ingredients for the actual salad included cherry tomatoes, spinach leaves, basil leaves, spring onion, red pepper and shredded carrot seasoned of course with a little pepper and sea salt. For a first attempt I was quite chuffed and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Then we just laid down under the sun with some music on and just chilled out. Perfect. If anyone's got any other good ideas for picnic food or any other salad recipes, please post them!

Referring to an old post about ghosts, there's still something weird going on in this house. The other night I experienced something very unusual and scary. I was asleep in bed, when all of a sudden I was fully awake, but couldn't move or breathe. I felt a weight on my chest pushing down on me and I was literally gasping for breath. I tried to sit up, but couldn't move at all. This lasted for about a minute before the feelings disappeared. My mum thinks it was just a panic attack, but i'm not under any stress and during the day I feel normal. At the time I was lying on my back. I had never been so scared. Now I make a very concious effort not to fall asleep on my back.

My friend, who senses the presence of ghosts, experiences excactly the same thing and believes it's ghosts/ spirits entering the body. To my cynical mind that just sounds silly, but to my spiritual side, maybe not.

Apparently when I was a little girl I really did see a ghost, but I do not remember it. It was in my nan and grandad's old Victorian house in Greenwich. I spent most of my childhood there with my cousins. I was sitting at the dining room table drawing. I learned to draw and write my name when I was two. I wasn't happy unless I had a pencil in my hand! My mum, nan and aunt were sitting in the adjacent living room when apparently I looked up and said 'hello' to someone. When nan asked me who was I talking to I said 'that man in the corner'. There was no one in the room. I've heard the same version of this story from my nan, mum and aunt and the thought freaks me out a little, but I really wish i could remember what or who it was I saw.

Finally, I was quite cold one night a couple of nights ago and had my thick blanket over my duvet. However, in the middle of the night I ended up throwing it off after getting a bit too hot. It ended up in a pile on the floor and I just thought 'sod it, i'll fold it in the morning'. I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep. When I opened them again to get more comfortable, I was surprised to see my blanket was folded neatly at the end of my bed. At first I was really freaked out by this and sat there with the lights on for about half an hour staring at the blanket. Maybe i'm going mad and i'm trying to think of a logical explanation. Maybe I did fold it but just don't remember, or maybe I was half asleep. I'm not making this up. Then I realised that maybe someone was looking after me and I find that thought really comforting. My nan died several years ago and i'm convinced it's her. I think everyone has a spiritual side and mine just seems to be very active lately!

This is a spoof I think for an out-take show!

I've just spent the past week organising a pic-nic with friends in Greenwich Park on Saturday, only to find out it's going to be overcast and miserable with the possibility of rain. This is just so annoying. It's been nice all week and just as I plan something for the weekend, the weather changes for the worst. Sometimes I wonder if i'm cursed! Let's face it, it's not been the best British summer this year, although at least a little bit better than last year. I just hope it's nice next weekend for the Maiden gig at Twickenham! Just sod's law I guess!

I am soooooooo excited about seeing my favourite metal band Iron Maiden play at Twickenham Stadium. This will be my fourth Maiden gig. Pretty good going eh! As long as they continue to tour, i'll be there! I don't quite remember how I first got into Maiden. I guess it's my dad's fault really! He let me loose on his old records and turntable when I was a kid. I was just facinated by this turntable and listened to all my dad's records. The Beatles, Beach Boys, Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, and one was Iron Maiden's Best of the Beast album. I loved the harmonic and melodic guitar sounds they had going on. It just moved me I guess. Then CD came along and I started buying all their albums on CD and rumaging through my Dad's collection of CD's as well. Everytime my parents played something I would ask "Oooo what's this Dad?" I also loved Queen. Still do.

Then, when I was about 11 or 12, I picked up my cousin's guitar who was having lessons and he taught me my first few chords and song (an easy strumming version of 'Streets of London')! After that I was a rock and metal Goddess! I skipped learning the basics and went straight for the harder stuff. I was too impatient! I discovered that I had a good ear for music. I was learning to play songs just by listening to them (not meaning to brag) but it's how I learn to play songs today! Most of the time i'm pretty accurate. Besides, I believe that if you are copying a song it's your interpretation of it and accuracy isn't that important. As long as it sounds good that's all the matters. I've decided i'm more of a rhythm player and not much of a soloist. I couldn't be bothered to learn scales, and still can't! I preferr chords.

My first experience of learning music was when I learned to play the piano when I was about 4 or 5. Got to Grade 2, then got bored and moved on to violin. Played in a couple of orchestras and played a few concerts before getting bored with that as well. Then I learned keyboard and stuck with that for a while. I also like electronic music and I still play my keyboard sometimes! I'm currently trying to learn some Yes songs. But I still play guitar even now and I will never give that up. I love it too much. It's my form of relaxation, although I preferr my jumbo accoustic to my electric nowadays!

Bloody technology! My DVD player gave it's last cough of life yesterday after deciding not to give me back my DVD! It's been playing up for about a month now. Working one minute and not working the next. Seems to have a mind of its own. "I don't think I like this DVD so I won't play it!" Then it chucks out the DVD it doesn't like before whirring a bit more a finally turning itself off! I tried using a lense cleaning disc to clean the lenses several times, but didn't seem to work. It's wierd. The other night it played a Smallville DVD that my friend lent me just fine. The next day I try to watch another eppisode. After several attempts of trying to play the disc (the player just wouldn't read the disc and kept chucking it out again) I gave up & tried turning it off and on again. Oh dear. When I turned it back on again none of the buttons would work. I couldn't turn it off again or even eject the disc. This made me panic a bit as it wasn't my DVD stuck in there. As a last resort I turned it off and on again at the mains, which worked. I got the DVD back. Phew! I decided not to try to play it again as that could result in the DVD getting stuck permanently. Luckily I found an old Sony DVD player that we used to have in the living room before getting our hard drive Pioneer. It's not a recordable one but at least I can play my DVD's on it!   (Imagine the PC's an LG DVD player!)

Went to see the Foo Fighters last night (Friday 6th June) at Wembley Stadium, which was just amazing. My friend and I got there for when the doors opened at 4pm and saw the support acts as well. Against Me were ok, nothing really to shout about. But then Supergrass came on and they really got the crowd going. They played a lot of new stuff but also the old classics like 'Pumping on the Stereo' 'Movin'' and 'Alright'. They were on stage for about an hour. Foo Fighters came on stage around 8.00pm. The stage was a round and a lot of the time when they spoke to the crowd, they weren't sure if the stage was still turning!

Well, it's been a while since my last post. It's been a busy month!

I believe in the paranormal or ghosts. The subject facinates me. I've had a couple of odd unexplained experiences. Had glipses of a shadowy figure pass by me on the landing. The thought of having a haunted house does freak me out a bit. Nobody else can see it though, the living don't usually see the dead. My best friend also lives in a haunted house and I feel a bit uneasy sometimes when I'm there late at night. Seems silly really, to be scared of something that may just be a figment of my imagination. But it's not just me. My best friend's boyfriend is sometimes woken up out of a deep sleep to see a figure in the room. It's so creepy i'm not sure I should even be writing about it. Anyway i've been doing some research about the paranormal and found some famous ghostly images.

P.S If someone could tell me how to embed a photo or video into my blog, I would appreciate it as I can't seem to get the image button to work in the blog editor. Not sure what i'm doing wrong! Thanks.