Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Having being partying for three nights in a row, I managed to pull myself out of bed in time for Christmas dinner which had been skillfully cooked by my housemates. It was a nice meal indeed and featured all the expected trimmings laid out with a set of plates and table dressings kindly proved by Norm’s mum.

Having spent three hours eating and a can of 24 later I headed upstairs to squeeze in the normal Sunday workload (which unfortunately is still going but I have some free time to catch up on Thursday lol) before heading out to my mum’s birthday shindig at 7:30.

It turns out my mum is rather popular. I thought I did well getting 19 people out to my birthday do on a Sunday but apparently, I was very much beaten by the 20-30 people that turned up to the pub to wish my mum a happy birthday.

Finally having spent a few hours catching up with friends and family there I dashed over to the Crusader to catch the end of the pub quiz and arrived just in time to find everyone leaving. But no worries as it just meant moving on to get food so all was not lost. In the end, I ended up getting to bed at a reasonable time too, not bad for such a packed day.

Having driven back up to Leeds on Saturday we set about preparing for a house party of our own to celebrate Liz and Sarann’s birthday (to which the latter is today, happy birthday Sarann!). As to be expected it was a night of drunk antics enjoyed by all who attended.

Importantly, the night included chicken. Kate mentioned that her Nando’s voucher, from when she found a brain in her chicken, expired in a few days so we headed over to Nando’s to get some take-out, which it turns out, they do indeed do.

It seems to be becoming somewhat of a tradition to go out and get chicken as our previous house party saw myself and Kieran disappear off to get KFC. I have to say, it’s a tradition I could certainly get used to.

Friday saw myself, Norm and Liz head down to sunny Tamworth just outside of Birmingham for Jenna’s AHS festive party. It turned out (as if we were expecting anything less!) to be a really good night talking to plenty of old faces and some new faces too.

The food was good though I think I got through more than my far share of pigs in blankets (you snooze you loose I guess) and there was much fun to be had with games of Extreme Jenga, which is like regular Jenga but the blocks have sloping slides (rhombi). It was also made more difficult by the fact myself and Norm insisted on taking two of the bottom three pieces out each time 😀 .

It also turns out that Jenna’s dad, Bob Catley is a massive rockstar. Not only does he have a Wikipedia page (as if that isn’t enough), his band Magnum have had 14 studio albums, a top 10 charting album, a Gold Certified album and have supported the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Whitesnake – what a legend!

Having had a good night we headed down to Weatherspoon’s for a recovery breakfast, after all, it’s never too early for a good steak! Big thanks to Jenna for hosting said party, it might have to find it’s way into the AHS annual calendar 😉 .

Well, it’s Monday morning. Having done a quick recount I actually had 6 parties in 6 days which has been rather intense but I only have another 3 days of work and then I can catch up on sleep (because I don’t need to be up till almost noon on Christmas Day this year 😀 ).

I will be catching up on everything tonight hopefully, I have loads of photos from the weekend that I have just started processing and plenty of tales to tell too. But for the moment I’m going to put my head down and try and get some kip before my boss notices I’ve got into work 😉 .

15 minute commute to work!

With schools out for the holidays and a lot of people having finished work last Friday too the roads are a dream to drive on. My commute to work normally takes almost twice as long, I could live with this all year.

Yesterday was the first of two Christmas parties at my office. The first of two because we’re really busy at the moment so didn’t want to have a full on night and so decided to go out for a meal last night and have a proper drinking session in January. Of course last night turned rather heavy as everyone knew it would but there you go.

We started off at the Cuthbert Broderick which was absolutely packed. I don’t understand why there were so many people out on a Thursday night, maybe because it’s so close to Christmas, maybe because Thursday is just a heavy night in Leeds. In any case, I wasn’t too impressed.

Dinner was at Ha Ha Bar also in Millenium Square which was a bit of a mixed bag. The starters were very small indeed while the main course wasn’t too bad but basically you just get some kind of meat on a dish and then a few potatoes and vegetables to share. To be fair to them though the steak was cooked very nicely but then it’s not like they gave you a choice how you wanted it.

Once we’d eaten we headed out round a few bars including the one in the German Christmas market which was an interesting experience (and where I happened to run into Rosie and Danny) and then worked our way down to the Headrow. By this time it was gone midnight and so with only half our number remaining I decided to head home. Nick was buzzing and so headed off with Tom and Dean for further beers (no suprises there lol).

The damage from last night showed when I rolled up to the office to find I was the first person there. Tom arriving soon after informed me that he had gotten in 5:30 that morning having goten through a great deal of antics including Mojos, breaking up several fights and a cup of tea in Little London. Good stuff.

Is it really too much to ask to not have to wake up in a mini-ice age every morning?

It’s ridiculous, it’s really not that far fetched to expect our heating to work as it’s scheduled to. Or maybe it just turns on but doesn’t bother to heat anything? Either way I’m pretty sure the situation could be made better by repeatedly smashing the little control box.

It’s not like it’s ever warm in our house at the moment, I’d forgotten how cold it really gets, I mean, surely it was this cold last year? Maybe I just don’t remember it but I can’t remember it being this cold for such a consistent period and it’s only December at the moment, we have another two months of winter to look forward to.

Sunday saw the electricity company turn off our power for a few hours for maintenance.

So rather than do it when everyone was out at work, they apparently decided to do it when everyone was home. So arriving home at 3am after work on Saturday night I then had the fun of sorting all of my computers out and powering them down ready.

Once the power came back on again I then had the fun of powering them up again but of course, they didn’t all come back on again because computers don’t work that way and that would just be too easy. But I didn’t want to be able to enjoy my time off anyway.

I’ve completed the first draft of my holiday schedule. It may still change a bit allowing for socialising as there are a few parties going on and Kieran will be up but that is the basic plan. Not everything got as much time as I would like and certain projects (such as Brett, Norm and a few others would be aware of but they’re all very hush hush at the moment) didn’t get any time at all. But I’m sure I’ll get some time for them at some point.

If you requested some of my time and didn’t get allocated any there is an appeals process, which, if successful you will be bumped straight to the top of the list for next year 😉 .

My blogging has been very sporadic recently.

Mainly because I’ve either been at work or in bed and so haven’t really had chance to blog or had anything to blog about. I’m gradually getting back on my feet now though so hopefully by tomorrow I should be feeling fine again.

I really hope so anyway as next week is going to be a busy one. I have the A-Soc holiday meal on Tuesday, then I have Wednesday off and then I have 4 back to back parties – work’s Christmas do, Jenna’s Christmas do, Sarann and Liz’s birthday party and then my mum’s birthday do.