Chester

i was very excited about my next stop. not just because Chester is meant to be very pretty, but i was meeting up with my friend Celeste. For those who don't know Celeste, or Lesty as i call her, we have been friends since we were in Uni and we started our professional lives working together as a creative team at an advertising agency. her and her boyfriend, Dusty (no, he's not a cowboy), moved over her at the start of the year so it was always my plan to come here and see them at some stage.

let me tell you, Lesty is living the dream. not only did she pick me up in Dustys work car, a brand new Jag, her place is awesome! its a fully furnished 3 level apartment with a brilliant location, just a stone throw from the main strip. i wasn't stuck on the couch either, i was lucky enough to get my own room with a double bed, and there was even a TV in the bathroom, when i saw that i thought i was living at Graceland! OK, i'm starting to sound like a real estate agent so i'd better stop, all i'm saying is maybe i should visit Chester more often.

Celeste is a bit of a movie buff, and always fills me in with whats good to watch, so the majority of the time i was here i spent it with Celeste watching pirated DVD's, i can't figure out where the pirates would come from, Chester is landlocked, celeste said not to ask questions. anyway, we saw pretty much all of the 1st season of '30 Rock' which could be my new favourite TV show, its really well written. 'Slumdog Millionaire' which is a really good film, its kind of strange no one has thought of it before. 'Australia', which was better than i expected. also the new Kate Winslet movie 'the Reader', which i also thought was really good, but i kind of find it hard to take Kate Winslet serious after seeing her in 'Extras'. if you don't know what i mean, there is an episode of 'Extras' where one of the characters has just got a boyfriend who likes to talk dirty on the phone, the character is quite awkward about it all so Kate Winslet gives her some advice, i'll leave you with a clip of how it all pans out. very funny.



when i finally got my arse into gear and ventured outside it turned out that Chester is a really cute little place. which kind of surprised me a little bit because i expected it to be a little bit more working class, because its so close to Liverpool. the town itself is full of tudor buildings which are really beautiful. the thing that astounds me is how they are built, they are really top heavy. the top floor almost always leans out over the floor below it, it kind of defies logic. wouldn't you build, the levels below, wider to give it more strength? strange. something else i noticed on the building was the brick work, some of them had some great patterns.
Chester is a walled city, well at least it used to be, its sprawled out a little bit over the year. you can do a walk around the walls, so Celeste and I did that which was nice except the wind was absolutly freezing, but it gave us a good chance to catch up and chat about old times. i like to think Celeste are pretty tight knit, we've known each other for quite a while now, and i guess when you work with someone one on one for many years you get to know them quite well, and i guess in a lot of ways, celeste knows me better than most people. i'm really lucky to have a friend as caring as Celeste, and in a lot of ways i guess i look at her more as a sister. i'm quite close to her family also and i was a bit shattered when i found out i was going to just miss out on seeing her mum and dad, Tina and Richard, but we got to skype them which was great. Richard is a photographer and was telling about a new piece of equipment that he brought for his camera that is kind of like a GPS, because it remembers where the photo was taken, and then you can upload it Google maps to the exact position from where you took the shot. how cool is that!

also during my time here i decided to get clean and made the first step in breaking my coke addiction, admitting that have a problem. i couldn't afford the Betty Ford clinic so Celeste's place had to do. i always thought i didn't have a problem, i always said 'i could give up at anytime', but didn't realise how much coca-cola had taken over my life, i was getting serious headaches from not having it, it was kind of frightening but in the same breath its funny becuase i thought i was being so well behaved, cutting down my cokes to just a couple a day, there was a time when i was having more. anyway, i'm feeling clean and have a new lease on life, i'm sure it will all eventually feature in the made-for-TV movie on my life, so you will be able to see how i kicked the habit cold turkey with someone devilishly handsome and charasmatic, like a Brad Pitt, playing my character. then again it will probably be someone a little more washed up, someone like Nudge from 'Hey Dad'.

i had a great time in Chester, it was really great to see Celeste and have some home cooked meals, i lived with Celeste for a little while and let me tell you, her mashed potato can't be beaten, this is starting to sound like a quote from the movie 'the Castle' but, i dunno what she does with it, but its brilliant! all i'm saying is, if her and Dusty go for a trip to Ireland, Dusty had better watch his back.
anyway, next time i'm writing another post i will be doing so while eating tapas and fending off pick pockets, thats right, i'm off to Spain. but first i have to go to Liverpool for a night, then fly out of there for Barcelona, truth be told i just wanted to fly out of an airport thats called 'John Lennon International Airport'. i'm actually really looking forward to a bit of a change in culture, and i think Spain is just what the doctor ordered. more when i get there!