I forgot that I wanted to mention something that happened to me when I stayed in the hotel in Birmingham last Sunday.

You know when you take a 'distant' viewpoint on a situation and suddenly realise that it really is pretty surreal - well, I got that feeling on Sunday!

Me & Justine had arrived at the hotel, unpacked, slobbed out in MY room, drank all the tea & coffee and watched Eastenders. So, we decided to go and have a couple of bevvies in the hotel bar before we got changed for dinner.

The hotel itself waas pretty posh and the decor was all rather 'splendid' shall we say. So, we followed the signs to the bar (NOT the cocktail bar which we found later) and were rather surprised to find ourselves in this room which looked a bit like a dodgy canteen with white painted wicker chairs, OTT plastic plants in weird pots and a green & white striped canopy over the food-serving bit. oooo, I've just thought what it looked like - one of the 'food hall' places in somewhere like Butlins. Whatever - it DIDN'T look like part of the same hotel.

So, we were rather famished by this point and decided to get some nosh. I've been on a diet for 4 weeks now and have been SO pleased with my progress but had a real burning craving for chips, so thought I'd treat myself. No such luck - the Goddess of diets was obviously frowning at me cos chips were off the menu. Chips!? Off the menu??? What kind of establishment WAS this?? So, I ordered my cheese and onion toastie and settled down for a good girlie chat with J about why she's so gorgeous and yet hasn't even had a date in three years (unheard of for most 25 yr olds wouldn't you agree?).

Then four really burly guys came into the 'bar' speaking Russian (well, it could have been Polish, but Russian is probably more likely!). Two of them ordered Guiness (fair enough) and the other two got glasses of red wine. Now this may just be me, but does this really fit in with the image of burly builderesque types, STILL wearing workboots and dodgy jumpers (in a posh hotel remember!).

They kept looking over at us and then grinning and then (this was dead weird), two of them started going along and looking at all of the (around 40) dodgy pictures on the walls. These were all of the naff 'bought it cheap wholesale' type. They made a big show of studying each pic and THEN horror-of-horrors, they whipped out a camera and took pics of each other standing next to various pictures.

Now, do I just expect more from life or WAS this just a plain surreal situation?

Oh yeah, me & J got bladdered!!