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Fireworks!

Fairly non-eventful week these parts of the world, excepting Bec having her class take the school assembly on friday, which was a source of much pre-event envisaging of every possible thing going wrong. However, it all passed off peacefully and everyone even remembered their lines. I spent the week also trying to think of everything that could go wrong with all the recruits and tutors arriving tomorrow, and trying to figure out what to do if it should!

I had my second game of rugby of this season on saturday. I lasted about 5 minutes before making (if I say so myself) a fine try saving tackle which also had the unintended consequence of my head making contact with his knee with both of us going full bore. I still have the echoes of a headache today.

However on the Saturday I did recover sufficiently enough to go off and see some fireworks for Guy Fawkes night (for any confused non-brits: see here). We were joined by the Cooke, who was back on these shores having temporarily foregone warm Italian autumn climes for chilly English Novemberness. She also persuaded Roberto the Italian Stallion (and indeed, the reason behind her ex-patriation to Rome) to come over.

It took about 5 attempts to get this photo. Trying to see un-illuminated little icons on a camera in pitch black is quite difficult I'll have you know.

Once the fireworks had whizzed and banged away the second traditional part to Guy Fawkes night commenced, which is the very untechnical but still somewhat satisfying damn great bonfire.

Despite there being enough heat to toast a small family pet, Bec still manages to look cold

Once we had had enough of our eyebrows being singed we went down our local boozer which also happens to do a fine line in top nosh that even Paulie wouldn't mind having a bit of. All in all, rather good night.

Next week will be its usual state of chaos.... all my newbies will finally arrive and I have to master the art of looking like I know what I'm doing! Heh I do really. Most of the time ;-)

Work!

Remember when at school half term always felt too short?

That doesn't change.

Especially if you have to work during it! I was supposed to have taken this week off so myself and Bec could have some time together, get some serious decorating done. But courtesy my job we just managed to get a couple of days in wales and a mad Saturday disassembling and reassembling furniture with some frantic paintwork inbetween.

And now Bec is back to school tomorrow! I have 5 more days to try and figure out exactly how I'm going to be running this next Street Duties course before 29 other PCs arrive at the station a week monday expecting me to tell them what to do. Not unlike Bec who has 30 5 year olds doing just that every school day!

I have already drawn the parallels......

Chris 30th- pictorial evidence

Bec is the only one to remember to keep her eyes open for photos

The birthday boy, At & Matt (who'd had a few.... can you tell?)

This photo just has to be displayed to a global audience

Matt wasn't the only one donning inflatable fat suits, although Dev is looking like he might well be trying to fill the fat suit by more natural means rather than the battery powered fan.... Hum I suppose Dev is quite used to exceedingly embarrasing photos, as anyone who was at a certain birthday party of his may well recall.....


The female contingent were not exempt.

Why no pictures of me? Well, we left at midnight, and these didn't come out until after then.... probably just as well, as I'm fairly certain I would've been pressed ganged into wearing one.

Chris B's 30th

Bit of an excuse to dress up posh like and have a good time!

When Blogger gets round to being half useful, I'll be able to post up some suitably embarrasing photos of people there. Several litres of cocktail, inflatable fat suits and a camera invariably mean trouble!

So watch this space, will put up a photo or two of Matt dressed as an overweight ballerina soon, or at least as soon as Blogger decides to let me.

Hum in the meantime photo slide show jobby has been updated with various pictures from past and present. Keep an eye out for yourself!

Funky new slideshow

Check out the new scrolling slideshow!! You can't miss it, its above. Unless you are on an ancient old dial up type internet connection, in which case it may well never load up. Apologies.

Credit where it's due, I nicked the idea off Paulie's MySpace page, and somehow managed to figure out how to embed it in this page.

Anyway, I can stick a load of photos on it with captions. Muchos coolos. I have stuck a load of the Wales ones on there at the moment, as we took a load. But I will update it with other photos as and when the time comes, so keep an eye out!

Unless of course people think it is too intrusive. I can mess it about a bit so it's at the bottom, but then it's a bit easy to be missed.

Waaaaaaales

A wonderful but depressingly brief time was had in Wales... we went up on Sunday, where it rained the whole way except for the last 15 minutes. And after that, not a drop.

We met up with the family Johnson (Peter, Mary, Gareth) and had a wander round a beach on Angelsey prior to an enormous pub dinner. The sun was going down and it was wonderfully miles away from London.

On Monday, the weather looked ominous when we stopped in Llanberis, to visit a cafe which does everything with chips in large portions, essential for pre-mountain walking. The view below is looking south towards Snowdon.

The mountain area we headed off to was Devil's Kitchen- those who have either been to Wales with myself or on school geography trips (a long, long time ago- but I bet Mr Paulie and Miss Cooke may remember those trips....) may recognise the area.

We marched up the mountain to panoramic views over the whole of Snowdonia. The one we went up was only 130m or so shorter than Snowdon, who was clearly visible across the Llanberis Pass, as was the Menai Strait to the North. The photo below is a pause for breath moment on the way, looking along the Nant Francon valley.

This is (obviously) on the way back down. The picture below can be compared to the one above of the lake- we are walking along the ridge at the top, round to the right hand side. We came back down towards the lake down the boulder scree, which was quite entertaining.

The sun was setting as we traipsed back to the car park, where we cleared out the small NT shop of all their remaining cornish pasties. Took this photo on the way down. Really was a very beautiful day

On Tuesday we went to Aber Falls, halfway between Conwy and Bangor. A pleasant gentle stroll (aching legs from the previous day!) led up to a fairly impressive waterfall. I'd like to come back in winter time, or at least after a lot of rain, as from the scouring on some of the rocks evidenced that when that waterfall gets going, it really gets going.

After that and a light lunch in Conwy, it was the joys (not) of the M6 all the way home.

Thanks to: Peter and Mary for the two days; Mother and Nan J-R for looking after the cat!