Stir-Fried Sprouts

It’s been a crazy week at work. Last Friday saw some important deadlines come and go and working up to them had been a bit of a nightmare. Still, that’s all in the past and although weekend left little time for rest, it was great fun.

Saturday saw the second annual games championship. Essentially, a whole bunch of us get together and play video games competitively. Last year I won quite comfortably but this year’s running promised to be a hard-fought occasion. There were 10 ‘events’, the most amusing being ‘Knockout’ on the PS2 using Eye Toy. It really is very funny and not a bad workout! It amounts to little more than shadow-boxing and seems perfectly sensible when you are boxing. Watching others do it on the other hand is an entirely different experience! I brought the cup home again for the second year running, although Paul was just 5 points behind. Maybe next year eh fellas?

With the AGC out of the way, attentions turned to Thanksgiving. And before you all point out that the ignorant limey has the wrong date, I know it was last Thursday. Unfortunately us Brits don’t get the time off work so Sunday was the logical date. As with last year Marla cooked the turkey, made the stuffing and gravy and tidied the house good and proper. The rest of the attendees bought various dishes to accompany the centre-piece. Fi and I provided carrots and sprouts and BBC Good Food Magazine provided an interesting twist on these festive favourites. ‘Stir-Fried Sprouts?!’ I hear you cry…. Don’t scoff until you’ve tried it!

So, three cheers for the Loughborough’s for hosting the occasion. Same again next year?

Good, just not 'Incredible!'

This week has been busy. Patsy and my mum have been in Bath since last weekend and we have been busy entertaining. Coupled with a crazy week at work for me and I'm glad the weekend is here.

Yesterday, we took Patsy to Bournemouth airport for her flight back to Girona. Her flight was a little late in departing but she is now safely back in Calonge. The weather in Southern England was shocking yesterday and it is nice to be reminded that it is 17C with clear blue skies in Northern Spain...

We all went to see The Incredibles last night. To say that this was an anticipated movie would be a marginal understatement, unfortunately, I came out of the movie a little underwhelmed. No doubts, Pixar have done it again with the production quality; the visuals and audio were both out of the top drawer. I do however, have a few major gripes.

• It was too long and I suprised myself by actually checking my watch on a couple of occasions. Pixar clearly want us to care about the characters and therefore the first hour seems to concentrate on the plight of the unwanted Superhero. Now this is all very well (and I suspect that this effort will not be wasted - surely it will be all too easy for Pixar to churn out a couple of quick and dirty sequals), but in parts it was just too slooooooow.
• I'm not sure who the intended audience is. When the action builds at the end it sometimes felt a little too much like a throw-away cartoon on a kids TV show, but there were a couple of powerful mature moments. I can't help feeling that neither Kids or Adults came away fully satisified.
• It's actually not that funny. Pixar's previous efforts have had the firm foundation of a razor-sharp script. Unfortunately, The Incredibles relied rather too much on slapstick comedy for it's kicks and lacked the panache of it's previous efforts

So to sum up, Spykids meets the James Bond family in a cartoon. Good, just not 'Incredible!'

Horse Racing Deluxe

It’s been a busy time since I last gave an update here. Both Fi and I have been sick, we finally got to see Shark’s Tale and now both Fi and my Mum’s are here. Patsy is staying with us and my Mum is staying with Jay and Marie.

Patsy has come over from Spain for the first time since they moved there at the end of March. Being close to Christmas, she wanted to come and do some shopping here in Blighty but also she’s decorating our spare bedroom! Don’t worry folks, she’s not sleeping in there as well, we have 2 spare bedrooms! We’ve had a bit of a decorating frenzy (for us at least) and this will be the third room this year…. None of them are finished, mind you.

Saturday night was good fun. Mum, Dad, Patsy, Jay, Marie, Fi and I had a marathon session at Horse Racing Deluxe. It really is fantastically stupid and well worth a couple of hours of anybody’s time. Patsy won with an outrageous bet on the final race of the evening. Thankfully we weren’t using real money!

I am not the murderer. You should not have accussed me...

It's still quite early in the morning here (partially helped by the clocks going back one hour last night) and I am in suprisingly fine fettle. Normally murder mystery parties are rather drunken affairs but last night turned out to be a respectable engagement.

The evil Louise turned out to be the culprit, fooling everyone save Marla, who guessed corrrectly - well done to her. My character was a bit dull - even the fine Robin Hood costume couldn't save his depression. Talking of the costumes, Rach got a fine Geisha outfit from the same place from which Robin Hood was sourced. If you're ever in the Bath area and need fancy dress, go to Farthingale's. They're very good!

Prior to the fun and games last night, and in preparation for skiing in January, Fi, Griff, Jess, Marla, Rach, Paul and I went to Snow and Rock in Bristol to get some gear. Fi and I had already agreed for me to have Skis for Christmas whilst Rach was after a snowboard. It turned out to be a successful but expensive trip. I picked up some Volkl Supersport 4-stars, Rach and Paul both go themselves nice boards and we all came home happy (after just managing to squeeze into the cars). Just a short 10 weeks until we go to Italy.......

oooOOOOoohhh Halloween

This year's Halloween flava is a Murder Mystery at Rach and Louise's new(ish) flat. I'm pretty sure that there are 10 of us going tonight, and it's a 1950's movie theme. My character has 'apparently' just come off the set of shooting his latest movie - a Robin Hood caper. I think you can guess what my outfit is going to be. I'm sure many amusing pictures will follow soon enough!

1st Year Anniversary

It's Fi and my 1st wedding anniversary today and its amazing just how fast it has gone. A big thanks to all the cards and congratulations we've received over the past couple of days.

We spent the weekend in Betws-y-Coed in North Wales, in a fab hotel called the Ty-Gwyn. It seems that it always rains there, but it didn't dampen our spirits as we explored as much of the area as time allowed. Hopefully, I took some great pictures especially as I've turned my hand to black and white photography. Unfortunately, however there are no digital pics to share with you all - our Fuji is dead, having spent 4 weeks jammed in the MR2 roof mechanism. RIP Fuji 2600!

I'm Back!

I've just logged on to see that I haven't updated my blog since July 16th. Actually I've been acutely aware of this and it is also partly to blame for my continued absence. In the back of my mind I have been wondering what I could possibly write that could fill in for 6 weeks? Well, nothing actually - it would be too long (for me) and too boring (for you). Therefore consider this a line under which I'll start again.

Oh, here's a hello to my gorgeous wife Fi, she's driven me back to this!

Midship Runabout

Our new car is a week and a day old. The good people at Orange have finally given me a company car and here it is. Take a good look folks because it will never be this clean again. Ever. 

30 Years Old

Almost a month has passed since I last added to my blog, but it has been a good one. The obvious highlight was my 30th Birthday. For those who don't know, this momentous day was a week and a half ago, on June 30th.

As had been planned for some time, Fi, Mum and Dad, Jay and Marie and myself spent a week and a half at Jim and Patsy's home in Spain to celebrate. Jess and Marla, Rach and Paul and Griff joined us a couple of days after we had arrived to complete the grandeur of the occasion.

Much time was spent lounging by the pool, lounging in the pool and lounging on the pool, courtesy of a few 4 Euro inflatable things. This was mostly accompanied by a drink of some description. Typically San Miguel, but we all discovered the amazing Ron Tobacco, the cheapest rum in all the land! Apparently 'Ron' means 'Rum' in Spanish. I like to think of him as just plain Ron and his honest 'Tobacco' Rum.

Other than lounging, we spent a bit of time doing the tourist thing in the Costa Brava, driving around, lying on the beach and, as you'll see from the following link, taking lots of photos. We also got an opportunity to go sailing for a day. Jim's friend Mike invited us all out on his boat. Mum and Patsy declined with boats not a particular love of theirs, but the rest of us snapped up the offer. I was of course particularly keen to follow on from my recent success in the Orange Regatta :o) Needless to say it was an absolute blast.

Follow this link to see my photos

As a final word for the time being, I was entirely overwhelmed by the cards and gifts I received for my Birthday and I'll use this as another opportunity to thank everyone for all their generosity. You know who you all are.

Regatta Victory

The Orange Regatta was simply amazing. Our crew of seven Gybed, Tacked and Ran Sunsail 53 to resounding victory. I spent much of the time at the helm, as the picture shows but sailing is a true test of teamwork and most of the credit goes to the skipper and assistant. The picture also shows Capt. Mike on the left and foredeck man Mark on the right. We were victorious in four out of five races and were second in the fifth. Dropping our worst result gave us a perfect grand score of 3.0.  

On Monday, the wind was a little light making the races very technical, but by Tuesday afternoon the wind was 4-5 and it all got quite dramatic (a bit too dramatic sometimes)!

You can see all the photo's I took in my online album. All you need to do is follow this link

Orange Regatta Photographs

A sailing we go

Ahoy,

I'm off sailing this afternoon. Monday and Tuesday will see me, and about 60 others from Orange, racing between Portsmouth and Cowes. Sounds like fun doesn't it? I'll post all the pictures when I return.

Shiver me timbers.

This just a test of some new functionality. Hope it works because it will allow me to post images straight into the Blog. Incidentally, this picture was taken in Prato Nevoso in January this year. 

The Emperor's New Clothes

After much delay, here is the new look to my blog. I'll not pretend that it is anything to do with me though. Thankfully, a whole bunch of new templates are available on Blogger. This one is my favourite.

The 'external links' bit has disappeared, but I'll use my considerable expertise in CSS(!) to rectify that in time.

The weekend cometh.....

....and we're going to Spain again. The coming week is going to be great - Mark and Susanne are visitng from Australia and are staying with us for a few days. It's also Marie's 21st Birthday, oh and the sun is shining.

Jays 32nd

Marie organised a suprise party for Jay's 32nd Birthday last night. It was a miracle that Jay was kept unaware of the scheming given how many people attended. Big ups to Mum and Dad for making the trip from Cornwall to be there!

The backdrop to the party was Eurovision. How the hell did the Ukraine win? The song was tripe. Funny though.

Three cheers for Marie for all her hard work.

We apologise for the delay...

Where does all the time go these days? It only seems like yesterday rather than two weeks ago when we were in Spain with Fi’s parents – crazy. With that in mind, here’s my first digital update for sometime.

I’ll roll back the calendar to our first Spanish fling. We flew on Saturday afternoon from Bournemouth airport. If like me, you are have just learned that Bournemouth has an airport, don’t be put off. It really is a wonderfully small affair and from the outside at least, looks like a roadside café. It was fabulous day when we left England and so it continued until we touched back down 2 days later to a rather English drizzle.

Highlight of the trip was Jim and Patsy’s home. It is amazing. Bigger and grander than Fi and I imagined but it is already unmistakably theirs. Jim chauffeured us around the surrounding area and we got a general feel for the place, ready for our next visit which is hopefully is a couple of weeks time. I am ensured that the swimming pool will be finished by then…..

Barely a week later, we were sunning it up in a tent in Farleigh Hungerford. Actually it was raining most of the time. Jess, Marla, Griff, Paul, Rachael, Mark, Jane, Joe, Jenny, Fi and I endured the first camping trip of the year as stage 1 of Jess’ 30th Birthday celebrations. Given that is was a Bank Holiday weekend, we all stayed Saturday and Sunday nights. The rain hid from the sun on Sunday so we all took a stroll to some castle place. Shame on me for not knowing what it’s called, but no matter, I won’t be going back there in a hurry. The remains of a clearly ancient castle were mighty impressive and the chapel had some incredibly old and incredibly impressive ‘paintings’ on the wall, however this was unfortunately diluted by ‘Medieval Fun Day’ (or something). It sounds pretty good doesn’t it? People in period dress, playing period instruments and presenting period games etc… I counted 3 people in period dress, observed seemingly random games on the grass (where were the instructions?) and didn’t hear any period music. Granted, I think we had just missed a ‘performance’ in the chapel, but I for one wasn’t waiting around for it to begin again. We left after being there around 90 minutes. My only regret was that we missed ‘Fun with Medicines’ at 2:30pm..

More fun was to be had back at camp. We had a barbecue with loads of food and drink. Then Joe fell through his chair. Red wine in one hand and hot dog in the other. Sadly for Joe, the wine lost out. It was mighty funny I can tell you.

Sun, Sea and Sangria

Okay, okay, it was sunny but we didn't go into the sea and I don't really like sangria. More like Sun, promenade and San Miguel but that could be anywhere couldn't it? Needless to say we're back from our weekend jaunt to Spain. Not a whole bunch of time to write anything of subtance here, but here is a link to the photos that we rattled off over the weekend.

Calonge Photos

In sickness and poor health

It’s been a while since the last update but it’s not for the lack of event. I left you with words of sickness. Fi had just started the throwing up phase of what I was sure to be the same bug that Rach and I had suffered over the Easter weekend, and so it proved. It hit Fi harder than the rest of us and she struggled to shake it of as we entered last weekend. You’ll notice that that I said ‘the rest of us’ and I really mean that. Griff, Jess, Paul, Marla, and my Dad all contracted the ‘bug’ over the past week – very nasty.

Enough of the sickness

Fi and I are off to Spain this weekend. It will be our first trip to Fi’s parents’ new house in Calonge. Naturally we are both looking forward to it and it means another long weekend. We’re flying from Bournemouth to Girona with Ryanair. Odd, I didn’t even realise that Bournemouth had an airport. If it turns out okay, I suspect it will become our airport of choice. We can only fly to Barcelona from Bristol airport and that’s with EasyJet and on the whole its more expensive. Girona airport is apparently only around 40 minutes from Jim and Patsy which is far more convenient than the 90 mins from Barcelona.and at £55 each, they’ll be no complaints from us!

Silver with cloudy lining

Well, we're all back from Cornwall - finally. It turned out to be an eventful weekend and the fun and games started on Thursday morning...

Fi and I had packed the Vitesse on Wednesday evening, ready for me to drive to work on Thursday. En-route, I would pick Griff up, the rational of all this being that we could leave for Cornwall straight after work, or at least, once Fi had driven from Mangotsfield to meet up with us at Aztec West.

Fi left for work about 5 minutes before me and had crucially taken the house keys with her. Once I had manhandled the Rover out of the drive I was imediately drawn to a 'groaning' from the power-steering. Alarm bells started ringing..... I remembered Jim conveying a story about how one of the power-steering pipes had burst in a multi-storey car park just a few months before. Once I had driven the 1/2 mile to pick up Griff, I parked up, jumped out and my fears were confirmed. Fluid was draining itself out of one of the Hydraulic lines on the power-steering. There ended the Vitesse's trip to Cornwall. Griff had to get to work, so drove off in his car, but my problems were more compicated...

I had no keys for the house and no keys for the Fiat, which was parked in a security-minded fashion in front of the garage. Besides that, the Fiat was not big enough to get all our and Griff's stuff in and the Mondeo was in Mangotsfield with Fi... Thankfully Jay and Marie had the day off. They were planning to go to Cornwall around 10am. More importantly they have a spare key to our house! So, about 2 hours later, the Fiat out of the way and the Vitesse in the garage, Jay and Marie dropped me off at Fi's work (en-route to Cornwall) to pick up the Mondeo. Once back home I unpacked the Rover and packed the Mondeo, ready to Pick Fi up at 4pm. After an uneventful journey, we arrived in Cornwall around 8:30pm - Phew!

We managed to cram loads into the trip - Eden Project on Friday, The National Maritime Museum at Falmouth on Saturday and Minnack Theatre on Sunday, which was also Fi's Birthday. A few weeks back, Fi had briefly mentioned that she would like a 'jelly and ice-cream' party. I had informed my parents of this and they really came up trumps. After rushing back from Minnack, we suprised Fi with a party fit for a 6 year old! Jay and Marie had to work on Easter Monday so left around 4pm, whilst the remaining group finally decided upon curry as a celebratory dinner for Fi. The Balti King in Hayle is an Indian restaurant I would recommend to anyone, and my 'Chicken Tikka Balti Fairly Hot' was top stuff indeed. Unfortuantely the rest of the night was not.

After watching Phil Mickelson birdie the 72nd to win the Masters, I put myself to bed. An hour later I was throwing up.., this continued every hour or so until arounf 5am - one of the most unpleasant nights I can remember having. It turned out that the same thing happened to Rach. Being that we were both staying in the chalet, I'm amazed we weren't in competition for the bathroom at any point! We were left with a problem on Monday. I felt terrible and couldn't be too far from a bathroom at any one point and Rach was the same. We were both faced with a 3 1/2 hour car trip!! I for one couldn't make it but Rach was up for it and at around 3pm, Paul, Rach, Marla and Griff left for home. Jess, not needing to be at work the next day stayed with us and we all travelled back earlier today.

As I write this, Fi is in bed. She's been throwing up since 5pm...... Here we go again!

Preps for Cornwall

Fi and I dropped the cats (Daisy and Pumpkin) off at the Catery this evening ahead of our trip to Cornwall over the easter weekend. They've not been in a catery (I keep wanting to write 'Carvery'!!) before so we're naturally a little concerned. I'm sure they'll be fine though.

I do hope we get to Hayle without incident. Fi, Griff and I are riding in the Vitesse. It's a beast but at almost 20 years old and 125000 miles on the clock it might prove to be fragile. No doubt Jim has put it back together as good as anyone could, but were they ever reliable cars? Who knows? Incidentally, I'm sure you'll all be glad to know that Sainsburys sells LRP which has until now, been hard to find.

Oh stop, its ghastly

I'm the first to admit that this site looks crap at the moment. Hopefully, in time, I'll modify the template to make it my own

So, what about the Bahrain Grand Prix then? Yeah, what about it? So the facilities are Stunning, but I'm not alone in thinking that it lacked character. Quote of the week goes to my Mother 'It looks like a computer game'.... and a ropey one at that. Unfortunately, once again the racing didn't match the quality of the circuit.

I've already given up hope of anything other than a Ferrari stroll this year but is it too much to ask for a bit more excitement? Klien was amusing at the start whilst battling with Raikkonen, Ralf was amusingly bad and Alonso provided some entertainment but that was it. Of course I may have missed some good bits... I was downloading a large file from the internet during the race and waiting for the percentage bar to increase by 1 was a constant draw on my attention.

Next race is in San Marino. Fortunately, Fi and I will be in Spain as I suspect waiting for the next Seat to rattle by will provide more entertainment.

Curiosity more than anything else has led to me creating my own 'Blog'. For the unitiated, thats a 'Web Log'. That's right folks, this is a web log (Blog) of Andy Clist. Bet you can't wait can you??