Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

The Wii and Wii Fit arrived...
I can do over 300m on the ski jump. However my wife's got the quickest time on the slalom skiing. Which is quite ironic I suppose given that she's never skiied in her life whilst I once did 15 black runs in a day in Breckenridge...
Ok, admittedly, I probably couldn't do that again... ever...

For-Ethiopia

Celebrated the first Christmas of 2009 (Ethiopian Christmas is on the 7th January) as For-Ethiopia held a Christmas Party for al its supporters to update them on what the charity had done this year.

Didn't get home until 12:30am, since we had to clear up to leave the church hall fit for use the next day! But a lot of people came and were interested in what the charity had done, a lot of money was raised and the effort was well worth it.

The world's best dessert ever

It's made by my wife. It involves marshmallows!

It also looks pretty disgusting when it's scooped into bowls and handed out to people. Need to develop the individual ramekin option...

This one was made in Malaysia. We found marshmallows but they were pretty expensive!

Renamed and rebooted

Part of the reason I failed with keeping up with at least one blog a month was that it was increasingly difficult to find the time to think of 3 things to say in an vaguely intelligible form.

So, now that I'm 30, I guess I'll try a more mature, sensible, less sensationalist approach to blogging.

Without the pressure of having to split my thoughts into 3 discrete chunks, I might actually feel like blogging more.

So, here's to the blogs of 2009!

My lovely wife organised a cracking surprise birthday party for me this saturday just gone and it was great to see lots of people. A number of top comedy presents were given, but the Extreme Ironing calendar for 2009 was one of the standout presents!

Missing months

Ooops. I've now managed to miss two months worth of blog posts.
I missed July, but that was a fairly hectic month with wedding and honeymoon. But also managed to miss September too.

Looks like I'm getting too busy to blog.

Well, 3 places I've been or am going to this month:

1. Sunningdale Park
2. Ascot (near Suningdale Park)
3. Um, Bristol...

Sounds quite boring really... Except for the vaguely interesting fact that I ended up in the interview room of Ascot police station!

random wedding pictures

A flavour of the wedding. But only a teaser. We're saving the best shots for the wedding album...

Post-Marriage

For the first time since starting this blog, I didn't manage to make a least one post a month. Admittedly, I did get married in July and so blogging (thankfully) wasn't my main priority.

So, that's one of my 3 recent regrets.

The second: not barring my best man access to this blog and thus denying him any embarassing material he could use in his speech against me (though in retrospect, I think he was pretty kind and if I'd denied him access to this blog for 'embarassing-lite' material, he might have had to bring out the big guns).

And finally, failing to cater for one half of mattandjules dessert requests. Thank goodness for understanding staff at the Templeton! They did say 'there's always one'! Well, thanks for being that 'one'.

Notice that in absolutely no way am I regretting anything else I did in July. Married and loving it. Even Geraldine hasn't received much attention since getting back from honeymoon...

Sigh, in-jokes about in this post...

Stag do!

Picture taken by Gazman. Being the stag, I was in no position to take any pictures. Though I suppose in retrospect I did have a very fetching Indy manbag to carry a camera in...

I can think of 3 awards I'd like to award from my view of the stag-do:

1. Most competent - dandcmi for his amazingly frantic paddling style which despite being about 20m behind an opposing player in the canoe water polo, still got to the ball ahead of that player. Was definitely the red team's most valuable player and contributor to the 5-2 (was 4-0 at one stage) thrashing of the blue team.

2. Most violent - the testorone pumped male half of the entity known as mattandjules. Best demonstrated when dandcmi had the ball and he leaped kamikaze from his canoe onto dandcmi's canoe and capsized him in order to retrieve the ball. Strangely enough no foul was given, which leads me to suspect that canoe water polo was just invented on the spot by the Bray canoeing instructors.

3. Most Disorganised - Desborg for managing to turn up at the wrong Go-Ape 30 miles to the North. Could also win the award for Most Speedy due to the fact that he managed to catch up with the main stag party group before we started on Go-Ape proper and showed us how to do backwards head-plants on the zip wires.

Cabin & Cabinette's wedding - Part 1

Why have a first dance when you can have a first 'dodge'. This definitely goes into the top 3 weddings I've been to. Top marks to Cabin and Cabinette for the dodgems.
Beautiful weather, lovely location (Penrith / Long Marton, Lake District) and insane people as per the videos and pictures...

1. Here we have the groom getting 'ready to rumble'

Until his mother-in-law jumps into the passenger seat...

2. Some 'dodgem rage' from Pie here. Admittedly he was being provoked by the Beast..

3. And finally my favourite video, showcasing the driving talents of mattandjules...

Yeah, I know, you probably had to be there, but watching no. 3 cheers me up no end!

Pictures from Belfast

3 pictures from my last visit to Belfast at the start of May:

1. Me canoeing - I'm meant to be steering here, but I'm doing a pretty bad job of it... Note the attractive riverbank foliage and, um shopping trolley...

2. And a shot of the other occupants of the canoe...
3. This wasn't taken in the canoe, but in Hazlebank Park. Do you think we're warned to keep out because of the dangerous wildlife?