The things we got up to at uni. My friend and I have been reminissing again about those uni days. There was that time when us housemates tried to play a drinking game with Monopoly. Everytime someone landed on someone else, they had to pay the money and down a shot of something. One guy ended up drinking a whole bottle of Baileys all to himself while the rest of us was downing Vodka! Eventually we got bored of that game and it got really silly when someone suggested hide n seek. I found one friend who'd passed out while hiding underneath the sofa and we all had to drag her to bed!

We did loads of stupid things like that when we were bored! We had a house party once and ended up making pan cakes for some strange reason even though it wasn't shrove Tuesday! We often sat on the stairs instead of the living room and chatted till four in the morning, then got up around 8 the next morning for uni! If I could go back in time, I would go back to uni and re-live those carefree days!

Well, i've finally beat those demons and joined a Virgin Active gym. Unfortunately i'm having to give up the belly dancing classes in order to pay for it. It's a real shame as I was really enjoying them, but I can only afford one or the other at the moment. I really hope that one day I might be able to re-join the class. I've been going to the gym on and off on my friend's free guest passes and i've found I really enjoy it. Membership includes access to the gym, pool, most aerobic/ exercise classes, jacuzzi and steam room. My friend and I do an hour in the gym, half an hour in the pool, ten minutes in the jacuzzi and another ten minutes in the steam room. It's great and I love it! It's going to be my little social outing every other day, whereas belly dancing was only once a week and there were only about three of us in the class. I did a body combact class there once as well and I might start doing that once a week instead and at no extra cost. Just a simple monthly fee of around £53, which isn't as bad as I thought. I'm hoping that having to pay the money will force me into going regularly and not give it up easily!

Well, we've managed to get my bro booked on a flight to Tenerife tomorrow, but it was expensive! At least he'll still have several days there and fun with his mates, so not all is lost! We were just saying how funny it is that this might top anything that i've got myself into, but I doubt it!

Yesterday, my friend and I decided to go to the pub for a catch up chat after Belly dancing. My friend has a silver car so I followed a silver car out of the road, turned right and drove over a large round-a-bout toward Sidcup. My mobile phone rang, but I wasn't in a good position to answer it. I turned left at some lights into a quieter road and stopped to phone my friend. The silver car I was following had disappeared. "Oh my God!" I shouted to her "I've been following the wrong f***ing car!!!" "I KNOW YOU MUPPET!" she shouted back "I've been waiting for you to realise that!" So I turned round and drove back over the round-a-bout and found her waiting for me back where I started. I then followed her to a pub in Chislehurst. We laughed so much when we got in the pub. We had large cokes and she went into a long story about this Karate teacher who keeps flirting with her in front of the kids (she's a teacher and teaches 8-9 year olds).

When we got back to our cars we had to turn around in a very narrow road, so it was more of a five point turn than a three point turn! My car was being a little sluggish. Usually it moves without having to use the accelerator, being an automatic. Still, I drove it all the way home, which was only a ten minute drive. When I parked outside my house I realised that i'd been driving with the hand brake on. Oh shit! I jumped out and saw my car was smoking and there was an aweful smell. There was nothing I could do until it had cooled down. So after half an hour of kicking myself, throwing stuff around in a tantrum and hitting walls, I went back to the car. The smoke and smell had gone. I tested the brakes several times by doing a few emergency stops and they seemed to work fine. I parked the car on a steep hill and tested the hand brake. Thankfully it didn't roll back. I'll probably take it in for a service soon anyway, but it seems fine for now. I was lucky and I think i've got away with it this time! I like to see someone top that on the stupidest things you've ever done!

My 18 year old brother was supposed to be going on a week-long holiday with friends today. He went out to the pub last night (his bag was already packed), came back and we all watched the last episode of House that we recorded. It was around ten when my mum was checking that he had everything when she asked "right have you got your passport?" Oh dear. We've all seen my brother's passport lying around in various locations of the house. I'd seen it a couple of weeks ago in the kitchen and we all remember seeing it in my brother's bedroom lying on a row of cabinets. However, it was no longer there. He's used it as ID to open a bank account once, but we've seen it since then.

We all frantically searched the house from top to bottom, turning all the draws and cupboards inside-out and upside down. By the time it was 2am, we just virtually collapsed with exhaustion and panic. My mum was beside herself. It was never found. How can something just disappear like that? Now, we're not used to this sort of thing happening to our family. We are usually very well organised and all the passports are usually put away in a safe spot (except for mine, which I look after myself)! But this time we screwed up big time, probably due to laziness.

My mum, however was determinded that my brother still went on holiday, so she's taken him to the passport office in London to try and get another one. We looked on the website last night, which said that an urgent application for a passport that has been lost or stolen was unavailable. But that didn't stop them from going to London. How on Earth they managed to get another one in just four hours, I have no idea. Since my brother has missed his flight, they're trying to book him on another for tonight or tomorrow, but that's prooving more difficult than we thought. Hopefully after all this he'll be on his way to Tenerife in the morning! We've heard all kinds of stories about this sort of thing happening to other people, but we never thought it would happen to us. How wrong we were!

I hate it when you're enjoying something so much that it's all over before you know it. It's like that with every single Maiden concert i've been to. Two and a half hours is a long time for most bands to be on stage for, especially a band like Iron Maiden. I mean, can you imagine doing what they do for over two solid hours? I wouldn't last one hour! It just doesn't feel that long for the fans!

They really gave it their all at Twickenham yesterday, probably because they're playing to a home crowd! Bruce Dickinson was on top form as always, that guy has an amazing voice. There was a little bit of trouble with the sound at first. Couldn't hear one of the guitarists very well, think it was Murray. But they sorted it out quite quickly and the rest of the show was just typical of Maiden. Lots of flashes, flames rising from the stage, fireworks and of course good old Eddie!

The supporting bands were surprisingly good as well. Lauren Harris did her best with a small gathering, but somehow managed to get the party started! Within Temptation were also much better than expected. I've been listening to some of their stuff before the gig, but couldn't make up my mind whether I liked them or not. Seeing them live made my mind up and I thought they were amazing! That's why I just love live music. I think some bands, like Maiden, simply sound much better live. Rush is another good example.

By the time Avenged Sevenfold came on stage most of the Maiden crowd was so hammered that people were getting really rough. Avenged Sevenfold actually stopped in the middle of their last song and requested security to come to the crowd at the front of the stage. I heard afterward that apparently someone had been hit on the head by a flying glass bottle. There were loads of plastic bottles being thrown as well containing some kind of liquid, I won't go into too much detail! Kinda made me glad I was in the seating area with my friends! There was such a great atmosphere. More crazy an atmosphere compared to Foo Fighters at Wembley, which seemed pretty tame, but was still good fun! Maiden fans do tend to go pretty f***ing mental!

The Maiden set-list was as follows:

Intro: Doctor Doctor by UFO (as always!)
Churchill's speech, Aces High, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Revelations, The Trooper, Wasted Years, The Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Powerslave, Heaven Can Wait, Can I play With Madness?, Fear of the Dark, Iron Maiden.
Encore: Moonchild, The Clairvoyant, Hallowed be Thy Name.

I loved every minute of it. The worst part was getting home after. Twickenham is crap for public transport. The station is smaller than Wembley and quite a distance from the stadium. We just shuffled along with the sea of Maiden T-shirts, the occasional chants of "Mai-den, Mai-den, Mai-den!" echoing in the streets. It took us two and a half hours to get back home to Kent. I'm so tired even now, but it was bloody well worth it!

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!