Archive for the ‘Friends’ Category

Continuing our tour of a different restaurant each week which is still going strong now well into it’s second week 😉 , we headed over to Frankie & Benny’s for this week’s exciting Sunday night meal.

Unable to find anything new and interesting on the menu to try I decided to settle in for a nice mixed grill featuring a mere 23oz of meat. Rich also joined me with the choice though it turns out that 23oz isn’t actually that much meat and we both managed to work our way through it.

It was quite a nice restaurant, the staff were very friendly and the waitress even volunteered to take a group photo of us which I thought was more than tip worthy but apparently, I wasn’t allowed to leave one :o. Still, as was pointed out, we don’t get tipped at work so it’s personal preference I guess.

All in all, it was a good night even if I did eat a little too much lol. Roll on Mexican next week…

Many of us having gone back to work this week, it got to Friday and there was nothing else to do but hit the pub. Plus with it being Kieran’s birthday it was a good reason to celebrate, even if Kieran was a few hundred miles away in Swindon.

It was a rather good turn out in the end with myself, Si, Sarann, Michelle, Greg, Nicola and Kate turning up. Not that I got chance to speak to anyone other than Si or Sarann but I’m sure I will get chance to at some point in the next week.

With the all-new Crusader pub quiz being a massive disappointment we headed over to Nando’s at Kirkstall for a dinner. This week’s event featured a guest appearance by Liz who I (and indeed everyone else) haven’t seen for ages and so a catch-up was long overdue.

I tried the pitta which wasn’t too bad, though unfortunately didn’t come with any chicken brain. Afterwards we headed to the pub next door which insisted on pumping out dance music but was at least bearable for a drink.

Having been desperate to avoid work over the holidays and I took an hour out over Christmas to draw up this post leaving me with only the events that took place in the last few days to add. Given this you would think I could manage to get it out on the 1st, but apparently not. In any case, 2008 is now well and truely over and we move another step closer to there being another decade between when I was born and where we are now. So here it is…

Is it really this time again? Actually I don’t remember the end of 2007 so I don’t really know how long it feels like. I think I spent it working after having severe problems on New Year’s Eve. Still, hopefully this year’s festivities will prove to be a bit better, wherever I end up being. In any case, the year’s end seems a good time to ponder over what’s happened this year.

Interestingly enough, nothing happened in January. Jack left which was quite sad and something that is hard to believe it’s been a year since. Still, I’ll make it to Australia one day!

Meanwhile February saw our Darwin Day celebration, amusingly enough just a week or so after Mission Week. Indeed such competition between philosophies (or possibly natural processes) caused an earthquake.

It snowed in March, which Michelle was at hope ironically enough. The School of Computing agreed to rename to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence and Fonze drank himself into A&E. Good times.

Of course, things really got interesting in April. The main reason, obviously, was the massive festival of free thought that was Rationalist Week 2008. What a week, what an amazing week. Though there was also the small matter of finishing my FYP.

In constrast, May was a month of fun. I did the Summer Ball, Atheist Society Ball and saw Avril Lavigne live at the M.E.N. It wasn’t all fun though, I found out I failed my FYP and started interviewing again though that would be the job I would eventually go on to take.

There were ups and downs in June, I found out I failed my degree and started work though I also bought my car and travelled up to Edinburgh to co-found the AHS.

Summer truely having arrived, July was a month of changes. We properly moved into our new house and followed it up with a suitable house warming and now that we live in the suburbs dinner party. Many of us went through graduation.

Thanks to summer being rained off, August was a very empty month. Atheist Society continued to do very well and the It’s Only Water campaign was launched but nothing overly exciting.

In constrast September saw quite a bit of cool stuff going on. Freshers’ Week arrived along with my rather successful dinner party for eighteen, Norm came out of the closet, my podcast officially launched and started to grow from strength to strength.

Following on from this, October was a busy month too, I turned 22 during the infamous chicken brain incident, the Atheist Bus Campaign hit the scene, I delivered my first proper talk of the academic year to Atheist Society with out new, suitably enlarged audience, went speed dating, led a church service and held the first meeting of Pro Life Through Pro Choice.

If October was a month of many events, November was a month of big events. Apart from Obama being elected, Atheist Society held it’s very successful interfaith panel and started it’s live webcasts. I travelled to Bradford to meet Peter Cave, Leeds hosted the second national AHS conference and we took 22 people down to London for our annual Weekend Away.

Finally you should really be able to remember December but it included many firsts for Atheist Society including our first sports night and our first Thursday Night Dogging. I also took my first ever sick day from work. Atheist Society continued to do well with 17 people attending our Winter Solstice meal and we even good a good attendance to our Christmas Day meal as well as fun down in Tamworth at the AHS festive party. Things finally came to a close with our New Year’s Eve party.

Well, that’s it, 2008 in a nutshell. Extensively cherry-picked to miss out all the events that really mattered to you and inclusive of events few people really cared out. But there you go, hopefully, 2009 will be even more interesting.

The New Year’s Eve party having got a little bigger than the Facebook guest list would suggest, I suggested to Si and Kieran that we go for a bit more of a relaxed drink on Friday at our favourite local watering hole, the Deer Park.

It almost snowballed out of control again, having invited my housemates and then Kate having text me to see what was going on, though in the end it was just five of us which is a perfectly managable number. I also had somewhat of a challenge with the organisation given I was still at a wedding when it started and so was organisating from the other side of town.

Still it turned into quite a pleasant night with us staying till well after time had been called.

I was rather suprised when I got an email on Monday from Gijsbert inviting me to his wedding – on Friday! Apparently he and his girlfriend Weili, who have been living together for a while now anyway had decided to marry and wanted to do it soon so decided to keep it fairly small.

The ceremony took place at the Town Hall which is quite a nice venue even if they do struggle to find an ambient temperature between rooms but all the staff were helpful and professional so it made for a nice ceremony.

Afterwards we headed back to Gijsbert’s appartment for a quick stop before heading out to dinner at Oriental City, an excellent though hidden away Chinese restaurant in town. I managed to eat my way through quite a large array of dishes, they just seemed to have a line of people bringing more food to the table, not that any of us were complaining, the duck and the still intact sea bass being particular highlights.

Because of the general fray of Wednesday night, a lot of people were unable to make our now infamous new year’s eve party and so we decided to stage another, much more relaxed gathering on the Thursday night instead.

After a quick explanation of the walk in fridge (our conservatory doesn’t have any heating) and a short tour of the house we settled in for a few drinks and a bit of music as Charlotte and Felix battled each other to see who could make the worst DJ 😉 .

Oh. My. God.

Last night was a strange night. Luckily I wasn’t the only one not drinking and so I had Si, as well as Fonze and Sophie, to keep me company in the sober corner. I had some quite good few chats, particuarly while outside where Kieran was kindly sharing out some fine Cuban cigars.

Michelle probably had the wildest night, reaching new heights in appropriate text messages which I shall not discuss here. I will discuss however the events that followed, namely Michelle hooking up with Greg and the two spending the night together (despite Michelle’s attempt to hide him when Sarann and Liz arrived at the door). I have no idea what happened while they were in the bedroom together though given Michelle’s antics at last year’s new year’s celebrations, I think we can all imagine the general trend of activities!

Sarann was determind to prove that I am massively unhappy and that this emotional state could be altered in some way, explaining that she would “do anything” and adding that “I won’t tell Moz” so who knows what the offer entailed.

The night some what culminated in a semi-naked communal shower involving Norm, Michelle, Sarann, Greg, Nicola, Miriam and Anne which resulted in Michelle smashing up the bathroom and causing water to come pouring through the lounge ceiling. Suprisingly enough such trouble can be traced back to Miss Jackson who as well as smashing her way through the usual glasses also managed to smash up some plates too.

The morning after was the usual plan – down to the Deer Park for some Recovery Steak because it is always a good idea. Everyone was feeling a little worse for wear though luckily I have all day to recover before my next party!

I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Pet Shop Boys recently, if only so I know how to keep Rich happy on Wednesday. Anyways…

After a moderate days work and having done my technical wizardry to help my uncle sort his network problems out, I headed off to meet everyone for the usual Sunday jaunt. Tension aside it was the usual night of good fun though because it’s holiday periods Xscape was rather busy – it took us 30 minutes to get a lane, we could only get one between the nine of us and only get one game in. But I don’t care too much as I don’t really go for the bowling.

Afterwards things got a little crazy though. Becky went for KFC! Not McDonalds, but KFC! I mean, that’s just insane. That’s now how Sunday nights work. These are crazy times we’re living in, crazy times…

Having arrived at the pub quiz on Sunday after much nagging to get there asap, I was pleasantly suprised to find Zoe was dishing out Christmas presents (no wonder they get coined my real friends 😉 ). I can’t help feeling her mind is a little too devilish though… 😀