A Night At The Beach

Friday night we went to the beach. I wasn't really dressed for it as I was still in my work clothes i.e. a suit.

You see, there's a fake beach in The O2 (which is what we're now supposed to call The Millenium Dome) made from 1,000 tons of sand and some fake palm trees. We'd gone over with a party of The Boyf's work colleagues, ostensibly to have a drink and a look around. However, as is usually the case with the girls from his work, they esconced themselves in the first bar they came to, rapidly got paraletic and refused to move. Hence after a couple of hours I was bored and managed to coax The Boyf away for a wander.

The O2 now houses a number of bars and restaurants, along with an 11 screen digital cinema and two concert venues. Quite how they've fitted it all in is beyond me, but I had a good look and it does indeed seem to all be in there.

Here's a picture of the inside of the entrance, complete with illuminated balls. Not sure why, but they're pretty so who cares.



And here's a (blurry, sorry (bloody camera phone)) picture of the beach, which we discovered on our travels and phoned The Drag Queen to come and have a look at. We then spent the next few hours drinking cocktails, building sandcastles, doing silly dances, and generally behaving like children whilst a DJ span the latest hip tunes from the hit-parade. Well, ok, he played "Umbrella".





After that we spent a short while laying on the floor in the chill-out lounge - a sort of blow-up igloo with mood lighting where you can plug headphones into sockets located in the floor and listen to relaxing music whilst you look at the changing colours on the walls. Or, as in my case, you get blasted with Gloria Estefan and leave in a hurry. Well, she'd urged me to get on my feet...



After this we found the karaoke machine and The Drag Queen managed to cajole a friend of hers in for a rendition of the suitably camp "I Will Survive", before we all dragged our carcasses out into the night and home, worn out from all the fun and laughter.

Just in case you're interested there are various activities available at the beach including volleyball and exercise classes. And twice a week they're going to show a classic movie on a big screen so you can lay on the sand with a drink and watch it. All good fun. It's only open til the end of August however, after which it'll make way for an ice rink which opens throughout the winter.