Barn & James' Dukeness

Jonny, blurred Paul and Barn in The Duke of York

The legendary Barn French and James Elliot put on another fantastic evening's entertainment. James played guitar and sang, whilst Barn sang, shook his tamberine and humiliated himself on a cross between a keyboard and a kazoo.

Jonny B of the Bluesmakers variety joined them on occasion with his ever expanding trumpeting skills. Their rendition of The Jungle Book's "You-hoo-hoo, take an ape like mee-ee-ee, can learn to be you-hoo-hoo man too-oo-oo" is still going round in my head. Damnit.

Lovely evening. The highlight had to be getting chatted up by Barn's grandad though :D "If you were my girlfriend I wouldn't let you out on your own that's for sure. And if you get any trouble from that boyfriend of yours you just let him know that I'll sort him out." He must be at least 70 something, and smaller than me! Brilliant chap though, a real 'lad'.

James and Barn, full flow 

Blank White Cards, again..

Jennie's 'You get tied up' card; Luke's 'No More Alien' card.

This time played in the Tem, which made for a slightly different dynamic. Cards included missions to the bar (e.g. Crawl to the bar and buy me a pint for +10,000 pts). Players included: Me, Jess, Luke, Jennie, Ella, Roo and guest player Ben (of the Big Gay variety :D ).

The game became very lively, with 'accent' cards being played upon the entire table. We all found ourselves speaking in German accents, except Roo who was forced to speak like a posh woman. Jess played her evil 'haiku' card upon Roo, and someone retaliated by forcing Jess to write her cards in German haiku!!!

This is an incredibly fun game, but it is not for the weak of heart, or few of braincell.

Jess's 'Where's Norman?' card 

Merry Christmas

Nana relaxing at ours on Christmas day

All in all a lovely Christmas, although slightly strange not having Mum around for it for the first time this year. Lots of lovely presents, a nice dinner and generally hearing from (almost) everyone I love or care about.

A long walk with my Dad about Audley End was also really welcome, but this year I didn't jump on any random men in the middle of the fields. It's strange how much can happen in a year.

Ooh *grin* I now have a College scarf, which whilst being fantastically snobby did also get me really excited about Cambridge for the first time since my results.

Life has been very sparkly recently.

Phil juggles mobiles whilst Will cradles his drink

Last night I went to see my boys. I should point out that neither of them are mine, and being that they're both well over 18 they probably don't pass as boys anymore either, but it's an affectionate term.

We drank and listened to random music, on unmarked CDs so we didn't know what it actually was, and generally caught up. Will told me more about rowing too. I must know more than most women about it. But at least I get to see him occasionally now :)

Dad hanging up nuts for the birds 

Deck the Halls

Ceroc was a little.. different.

The beginners class was comprised of the moves:
Deck the Halls
Turkey
Stuffing
Pudding

I then spent the whole of the first freestyle in the back room with the rest of the Wednesday crew trying to put together the Christmas intermediate class. Paul had done all the brain work - we just had to put it into action! Fortunately we persuaded him to forget about the tinsel and the shiny tinsel, and thus the routine consisted of:
Deck the Halls
Turkey
Stuffing
Sprouts
Rudolf
Ride the Reindeer

And then we did a nine person demo - all in a loop, where certain moves meant you were spun onto the next man. Confusing but brilliant fun!

Considering how sad I was Monday night and Tuesday with the departure of Phil, last night made a real difference. It was good to see Jess too, and lovely to have (other) Phil calling in at 1am or whenever it was!

Pippa's 40th

I went over Claire's for dinner (delicious!) so we could get ready together. It was really good to hear her so happy and bubbly and enjoying life. I'd bumped into Jane and Nathan (I say 'bumped', what actually happened was that I did a running pounce on Nathan) and asked them what sort of a do it was. Therefore Claire and I decided to look pretty in nice skirts / dresses and funky boots / shoes etc etc.

At the party there were loads of Cerocers and loads of little people. The routine was specially put together using moves that wouldn't be a problem if you're dancing with someone half your height. One of the nicest sights of the evening was Nathan dancing with Pip and, just behind him, Colin on his knees armjiving with a tiny lady.

It was great getting to dance with Nathan again, I've missed him.

Sadly I felt too ill to stay to the end and Claire and I beat a hasty exit.

The Captain

Rob with one of his catches

This is the lovely Rob, who I go on about because he makes the second half of my week enjoyable. We pass the majority of our day sharing bad jokes and then passing them off as "rubbish". He's easily one of my favourite people at Terlings Park, despite the slightly bizarre carp obsession.

Me: thanks for the Drifter, it made my morning.
Rob: Do you think a Viennese whirl would make your afternoon?

Note to self: go carp fishing sometime

Burns night come early

Haggis is served..

As we'll all be sacked by the time Burns night really comes around, and because we are fortunate enough to have a large number of Scots in our student population, we decided that we ought to celebrate early. As you can see from the photo above, plenty of people showed up. Just sit back for a second and think about the logistics of serving all those people at the same time..
you've got haggis, vegetarian haggis, those who can't eat either had salmon. Then there was mashed potato, and mash with spring onions, and roast potatoes, and carrots, and a carrot and turnip puree and gravy. Now think how you're going to manage this with only student kitchen facilities! We ended up utilising ovens in different flats and all sorts.

So - a massive thanks to all those who put so much time and effort into cooking and decorating!

The night itself was fantastic. There were tartan bows on the glasses, and everyone had a token sip of whisky (except Kim who downed hers...) and many other drinks. Some of the brave even tried Scottish dancing!

Keith - "the kilt is down, an' the beast is asleep" 

I like this photo, wonder what Keith's looking at.. 

Phil, Keith, James and Nerea and Scottish flags 

Phil, Jonny and Keith in their all their splendour. 

Faithless

yay

It was such an awesome gig, I had an amazing time! Every track played I found myself thinking "ahhh I love this track!!" and the atmosphere (we were in Brixton, Carling Academy) was just incredible!

Not much more to say really, other than I was surrounded by a brilliant set of people - thanks to you all for helping to make it so much fun!

Iceskating at Somerset House

Scott, Jonathan, me, Sam, Dirk, Irina, Lisa, Jonny, Alex, Anna & Lisa's sister

One moment we were posing for a photo & the next moment... whoops!

It was brilliant!!!

I haven't iceskated for absolutely years (in fact the last time I did I think was when I first met Will!) but after a cautious start I picked it up no problem! The members of my lab family were surprisingly good at it. I think the evening really summed up the attitude of my colleagues - great fun and will have a go!

The best moment was when Jonathan and I were pausing against the edge chatting and heard 3 loud thumps as Sam, Dirk and Earl used the edge as a means of stopping. Jonathan heard the thuds and said to me "that'll be the lab then".