Sheffield! Freyja!

After a week staying in a dorm room with 10 other people it was a huge relief to make it to Sheffield where a couch, jaffa cakes, cider and a whole lot of movies were waiting. Also waiting for us – at the airport - was Freyja and Frances! We arrived at East Midlands airport and were mildly grilled by passport control. Timon was also questioned by another security dude, just because he looked dodgy I think. Frances drove us all the way through Sherwood Forrest (to Timon’s excitement) to Sheffield. Freyja had awesomely offered us accommodation for the next 5 days at her 3 level house in NetherEdge. She shares the house with Nate, Duncan, Twin and one mega huge projector and screen (!). The first thing we did after dumping our luggage was head on down to Sainsbury’s which was only around the corner. I had a few moments of nostalgia as I rediscovered food and snacks I used to enjoy back in the days when I lived in Sheff. Those who know me well know I have a penchant for exploring foreign supermarkets. As random luck would have it, we also ran into Dennis, one of Freyja’s friends and a serious blast from the past. We chilled out on the couch with all our loot until Twin and his gf served up an incredible 3 course Thai meal with Pavlova for dessert!

On Monday we made sure we were ready by 12noon on the dot as Jim was collecting us for lunch. Freyja, T & I piled into the car and we drove through Chesterfield (with the cool twisted spire church) to Tupton, where Frannie and Jim live. And Marlo! What was once a tiny, naughty black kitten is now a big handsome lump of a cat who sleeps in a box of Christmas paraphernalia. Frannie made spectacular meat pies with mash and veggies for lunch, followed by a steamed chocolate pudding. Yum yum yum. It was brilliant to be eating home cooked food again. We chilled out for a few hours then caught the train back to Sheffield. We met Twin at the station and went on a driving tour of the city so I could show Timon where I used to live, work and wait for the bus. We also went high up to a hilly park and looked over the city lights while Freyja valiantly attempted to answer our Sheffield trivia questions (famous people from Sheffield include Sean Bean and the Arctic Monkeys).

Being on holidays has some great benefits. While everyone got up early and went to work on Tuesday, Timon and I slept in and then casually made our way to Meadowhall, Sheffield’s epic shopping mall. The first thing we did was eat sandwiches from Gregg’s – a bakery chain for which I worked a week and Austin worked for months. The chicken tikka roll tasted EXACTLY as I remembered. Instead of tackling the shopping hordes we decided to see a film. Tron, in fact. And oh what a disappointment it was. Firstly the cinema had about 20 seats in it and the screen was marginally bigger than a TV. Secondly the audio started playing without the visuals and I had to go out and alert a member of staff to fix it. Instead of restarting the film they just flipped the switch, meaning we all missed the ‘integral’ setup. Thirdly, the film was just crap. Terrible script, crap plot, lame flashbacks and a very creepy CGI Jeff Bridges. Boooooooo. The day got infinitely better after a pint of cider at the pub and an Indian dinner with Freyja and her boyfriend Simon (a very lovely English fella who has a beard and shares my love for drafting scornful email responses to complaints).

On Wednesday we attempted to go to Tabitha’s house. A walk that should have taken 30 minutes took us almost an hour and a half. I blame Sheffield’s oddly placed street signs. There are also one billion steep hills around the city. We finally arrived and spent the afternoon drinking tea and chatting with a significantly pregnant Tabitha (and briefly Gareth – her husband). We watched a nutso show called Man vs Food where this dude travels around America taking on various food eating challenges. In this episode he tackled a giant 7pound burger. Inexplicably craving burgers, Timon and I had dinner at Swanky Frank’s and found the shorter way back to Freyja’s. We went almost immediately to watch Freyja train with her Sheffield Roller Girls roller derby team. We felt quite guilty watching these ladies doing intense exercise while we sat on the sidelines. For almost 3 hours! There are two great things about roller derby – the outfits (stockings, sparkly shorts) and knocking people over. We saw some mega stacks, speedy skaters and Freyja score some points in the final scrimmage.

On Thursday we lolled around the house until about 3pm. We only left the house to get me a new beanie (I lost mine somewhere) and for Freyja to get hairdye. Back at home Freyja asked me to prepare a meal of vegetarian chilli using fake mince while she went to a roller derby meeting. I found this very stressful because I’d never cooked with such weird ingredients and Tabitha and Gareth were coming for dinner. In the end it turned out ok and everyone seemed to enjoy the food. We did drink a fair bit of wine so that might have helped. The next day Freyja had an early job interview so we met up with her and Frannie afterwards for lunch in the city, then sat by the phone all afternoon waiting for the verdict. We met up with Nate, Duncan and Simon at a uni pub, drank plenty of booze and ended up at home with lots of pizza and junk food. For those of you who are interested, we spent valuable film viewing time watching American Hot Babes (aka Deep in the Valley), Idiocracy and Eraser. Eesh.

I had booked the megabus for Saturday morning to take us to London. We made it to the station super early and were able to jump on an earlier bus. 4 hours later we entered the outskirts of London, passing Lord’s crickety place, Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street and palace looking things. It was the first time I saw real excitement on Timon’s face!