In Hoose Entertainment

Monday

stayed in and played some poker!

Tuesday

moseyed into the office to teach my new batch of freshers. Seemed ok… Evening poker & finished off series 1 of “24″.

Wednesday

Eschewed hockey, the liverpool game (3-2 v’s galatasaray by virtue of a Crouchy overhead kick) and a poker game to go to a nice tapas bar in Didsbury with Sarah, Pete, Sarah, Jess & Vinny (there really were 2 pete’s and 2 sarah’s there).

Turned out to be the right choice.

Thursday

Quiet night in with Sarah. very relaxing, and an early night to boot!

Friday

Today!
Very fresh after three early nights in a row (where early is defined to be “Before Midnight”) and have just met with Jeff. No idea as to plans for this evening, but tomorrow I’m off to Edinburgh! Hurrah!

Where was I?

Monday

Can’t remember where I got to with monday, but needless to say I played footie and then went home. It was a good game!

Tuesday

Work, and then off to the cinema to watch “The Sentinel” with Sarah. Was a decent enough thriller, nowt special, but good fun (3/5) enjoyed it.

Wednesday

More hockey, and the nights are drawing in… we were only able to play as late as we did due to the helpful floodlights from the girls school. It was also the lowest scoring game of the summer, 1-2 or something. Hardy’s followed - with me seeking constant updates from the liverpool game, which we won 2-0 (v’s Newcastle, with a 60 yard goal by Alonso).

Thursday

Secret date time!

went into work to sort some details out (though, unfortunately, not actually registration, which is taking an age to sort out!) and then tried to catch the bus home.

Unfortunately, this being fresher week this proved to be very difficult - with most buses full and not stopping, I eventually had to buy a new ticket and get on a bus I didn’t have a pass for - a good 45 minutes after starting to wait.

Rushing once I got home I realised we didn’t have time for the original fish n chips plan, so hot footed it around to sarahs for a quick bit of pizza, before we caught the bus back into town.

The bus back proved to be much quicker! so we arrived with enough time for drinks in the Revolution bar near to oxford road station - I had a cocktail that tasted like tiramisu, whilst Sarah was less impressed with her raspberry tasting effort. A quick beer later and we were in the Palace ready for “The Rat Pack : Live & From Las Vegas”.

The show was ace!

It was three blokes pretending to be Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra - and they performed a routine include songs, comedy and drunkeness… to great effect.

Sarah really enjoyed it, and so did I (and so did the girl who got caught out singing along when the guys suddenly stopped in the middle of a song!) (5/5)

Afterwards, and not wanting to go home just yet, we embarked on a mini pub crawl - The Thirsty Scholar (which was not very impressive), Kro 2 (bizarrely!) and Zumeba, the first and last of which I’d never been to before.

We eventually returned home about 2am, a wee bit late for a worknight, but it was a great night out!

Friday

Fairly hungover, I stumbled into the dentist for my early appointment, before getting my haircut and a subway for lunch.

Into work for a 2pm meeting with Dr. Walker, before collecting some careers stuff and heading back home.

I watched the beginnings of the rugby league play off game between Leeds and Warrington (Warrington sprung a surprise) before heading over to Sarahs as we were supposed to be going out for Jess’s birthday.

Unfortunately Jess’s sister had been delayed (she was flying in) so by the time they were out (1030) we were naq’d and decided to stay in (Sarah also had a dodgy stomach).

Saturday

A wonderfully sunny day, perhaps the last of the year, so we decided to head down to Fog Lane Park for a nice little picnic, only delayed by the Liverpool 3-0 Spurs game on tv.

After the Park we were sitting around making plans when Jess called up to suggest we meet up for a curry (after missing out on the Friday) we agreed and via a very quick shopping trip made it there just after 730.

Service was sllllllooooooooooooooooowwwww in King cobra, slower than I’ve known it to be, and we were waiting for around an hour between poppodom and main course. Still the food was nice.

afterwards, and with Sarah’s secret plans thwarted, we headed down to Solomon’s for a couple before trapsing off home.

Sunday

I cooked a nice bit of trout for Sarah’s mum and dad, who came over for lunch.

Then I cooked (with Sarah’s help (she did all the “Packets”)) Roasted Veg with chicken burgers, beefburgers (made from scratch) & Potato Wedges. The Chicken was cooked in little packets in the oven, which made them very tasty - and the whole thing went off quite nicely.

LOTS of food.

Then we came second in the music quiz (I know, 2nd! in a music quiz!! - we even got 14/15 on the picture round!) at the red lion.

Monday

In a permanent break from tradition, I’ve not met with my supervisor nor am I going to play football. Tomorrow I have to go into work to try and finally sort out this registration nightmare, whilst also teaching my new class of freshers.

That is all. You may leave a comment now.

So this week saw the true start of me working from home… It has certain advantages (I get more work done) and disadvantages (the absence of people is disturbing) …

Monday

Went into work (to have my weekly meeting with Jeff) not a lot to report, then played football - a really good game which we won - and then popped round to Sarah’s where we went out and ate at Café Rouge, which was nice.

Tuesday

Worked from home, then played footie with Rosys lot - wasn’t such a good game. Liverpool drew 0-0 with Eindhoven in the Champions League.

Wednesday

Worked from home, then went out to play hockey in the park. It’s getting darker and darker and after the two football’s in a row, I was feeling the strain a bit. The result was that I didn’t have a very good game, but I also thought the game in general suffered from being too crowded - which lead to a lot of action with 10 people around the ball at all times.

Afterwards. Hardy’s (though I’d have liked to have gone and seen Manure v Celtic, which turned out to be a cracker).

Thursday

worked from home… and then my computer broke!! RUBBISH!

it’s completely down, though I can get into safe mode. Not really any idea how to fix it, and it’s my only link to the outside world, so it’s causing some difficulty with regards to the whole working from home plan.

Went to the Ra!n bar quiz, where we put in a respectable performance and finished 4th. I feel it may well become a tradition again (except we may start going to the old house at home instead).

Friday

Tried to fix my computer, to no avail, and then stayed in with the lads to watch Hull City beat Sheffield Wed 2-1.

Saturday

Went ’round to Sarah’s for a very enjoyable afternoon that included Mussels for Lunch, then home to spend the evening watching films and drinking with adrian and rosy (we initially planned on the cinema, but there’s nothing on, currently!).

We watched Jeepers Creepers, which aint great.

Sunday

We lost to Chelsea, which is rubbish as we’re now 15th in the league. the only bright spots are

* We’ve played 3 away games (out of 4) and won our one home game
* 2 of our 3 most difficult games have been played (Man Utd away is the other)
* We’re ahead of spurs, and only 1 pt behind Arsenal.
* There’s a long way to go yet.

But it’s still rubbish.

Man Utd lost to Arsenal 1-0.

Rosy cooked a lovely (but large) lamb roast for dinner and we watched Jeepers Creepers 2 (which wasn’t very good) before calling it a (fairly early) night.

Monday

Is today, I’m in work and all the kiddies are back. Just wondering if I can register yet, and I’ve found out my weekly meeting will be moving to Fridays, which in one way is good (it leads to a more natural working week) and one way is bad (it may mean I have to stop playing football on mondays)… I roll through it and see how it goes.

Added!

On Friday (I think), Rosy decided to cook us all a curry for our tea… so far so good.

Only He decided to cook it in a saucepan, with the lid on, in the oven.

Taking it out to give it a final stir before it was ready he quickly realised he couldn’t get the lid off!

Forty minutes later, efforts including * Soaking in cold water, * Using a wrench to try and lever it off and the age old * Hitting it with a hammer - we finally removed the lid!

The pan, needless to say, was destroyed… but a quick reheat of the now-cold-curry and we ate what turned out to be a nice meal!

phew!

My travels continued with a 3 day jaunt down to the university city of Oxford for a conference.

Wednesday

Hockey was ok ish, the grass was too long to have a decent game but we seemed to manage ok. first match 8-1, second 8-8 after we were 8-5 up and then seemed to get really tired all at once!
Afterwards watched England struggle to beat Macedonia 1-0 in the Red Lion.

Thursday

Up early and straight to the train station, 3 hours later I’m in Oxford.

After a quick registration process I find myself in New College - the rooms decent enough - and en suite with a (weak) power shower.

The first lectures are fairly dull, and I skip the last one to chill out back in my room - only to fall asleep and wake up past 7 o clock!

A quick visit to Burger King for me dinner was followed by a trip to watch Miami Vice (decent 3/5) after I rejected the chance to watch some band live on the grounds that I was too tired and they didn’t sound very good.

Friday

Up early for the first lecture, I skipped the next two (I only skipped three over the whole conference, which is more than reasonable) and went to visit the Ashmolean museum, and then the History of Science museum (rushed, as I was running late by then!).

The afternoon was spent in the lecture theatre.

The evening entailed the conference dinner, which was very bizarre. The conversation was entirely about mathematics (no matter how hard I tried to change the subject - at one point I asked the fella next to me what else he was interested in and he proceeded to list off 4 areas of mathematics.) This lead to a very dull table but I tried my best to keep the conversation going.

Afterwards a kind of back slapping, hand shaking series of speeches took place that made me realise that I don’t really belong at these things - I think it’ll be the last one I go to.

the food was nice though.

Saturday

The last set of lectures took place, including one by my supervisor, before I headed back to the train station to find that I’d missed my train by 2 minutes (literally).

I decided, with 58 minutes to wait for the next one) that I’d try to find a pub showing the Liverpool v Everton debacle (0-3 final score… ) and get me some lunch whilst there.

I wandered around for half an hour, coming across around 8 pubs, none of which had the match and (since I was following a circular route) found myself back at the train station, hungry and naq’d from lugging my bag around - I checked my phone and discovered we were one down so thought “sod it, I’m getting a sarnie and the next train” and did exactly that.

Sarah kindly picked me up from the station and I went to get some stuff from mine before eating me dinner around her place (Lobbies!).

We met up with a load of people at the scubar and proceeded to drink rather quickly. About midnight we made a move for a club called “North”… the queue, however, was rather large and we found out that it played poor music and cost a tenner, so Sarah and I ducked out and spent the remainder of the evening in Kro Picadilly.

We met everyone else on the bus home, randomly, and they confirmed that the club was less than sparkling - so we made the right choice. Got back fairly late and straight to bed!

Sunday

Slept in as long as we could allow, and then went down the Kro Picadilly (again!) to meet up with Alsion, who was down for the weekend.

We were actually the first ones there, but it wasn’t long til a steady stream of people arrived… afterwards we had a brief trip to primark.

The rest of Sunday was mostly just relaxing. I sorted out a few things at home, and then ended up around the missus’ place, and that’s that!

Monday

Today!

Hockey wasn’t great last wednesday, the game was too hit and rush and all about lots of people crowding round the ball. afterwards : Hardy’s.

Thursday

Worked from home and then went around to sarah’s in the evening.

Friday

Sarah moved house!

I helped her shift a load of stuff downstairs before her brother came to stick it all in a van. Before you knew it all the stuff had been shifted and we were eating lunch in the bistro place in West Didsbury - Mixed Meze and cake.

Afterwards we were swiftly down to St. Helens to stay at Sarah’s parents house. A quick pasta dinner followed by Frazier and Air Force One.

Saturday

The reason we were in St. Helens was because we had to catch the 7am flight to Northern Ireland in the morning.

We arrived at the airport with a bit of time to spare (as we’d already checked in online) and made our way to security where we were greeted by the longest queue in humanity.

Due to the new security procedures everyone had to remove their shoes and leave behind all liquids etc… of course some people had been oblivious to these being p ut into place and the amount of stuff that had been consficated (even by that early time) was quite frightening.

We reached the front of the queue by 7am (which is when the flight was supposed to take off) but then we discovered that our on-line check in had expired !!!!

We had to go back to the main hall to get replacement boarding passes, by which time it was way after take off time - so we had to be phoned through as late passengers - at which point we found out that 42 people were yet to board because of the delays!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we finally got on board around 745, and took off at about 8.

Landing in Belfast we got our hire car and I drove it to Cookstown via a stop off at a tesco’s to get a few this + that items. We were early so we drove around the backroads for a bit to check out a bit of the province.

We went in at around 130pm or so, and met a load of people I don’t know.

The bride to be was Sarah’s ex-next door neighbour, so neither of us knew many of the people there, but we found several people to talk to (including me meeting the groom in the toilets) and the wedding then took place in a medieval hall setting.

It was a civil ceremony so it was very quick, but very nice. We got a few pictures.

The afternoon was spent talking to various people as the major players had their photo’s taken for two hours.

We then were in a race against time… we had to leave the do at 7pm (latest) to make our flight back in Dublin - with the 5 course meal starting at 530pm we made it through 4 lovely courses (sat on a table with lots of other couples who knew not many people there) before having to skip dessert and moseying on out of there.

The whole do was very nice indeed, and the meal was such that you could have as much food\wine as you wanted - all in all a very classy ceremony and day.

Anyway, Sarah drove us back to belfast and went to get changed in the toilets (back into her travelling clothes) meanwhile I waited outside with our stuff and noticed that the flights board had changed…

our flights were cancelled!

we went to find out what was going on and were informed that we’d have to be put on the seven o’clock flight on Sunday.

AM? we asked…

PM… was the response!

they offered a hotel room, but both of us had stuff to do on the Sunday, so Sarah had a brainwave and went to talk to the car hire people, who we managed to get a decent quote off, and then to the easy jet people who said that if we keep the reciepts they’d pay for the car hire, and then the check in people who put us on the flight to Luton (which had been delayed itself).

So we flew to Luton!

on the flight this other fella, based in Liverpool, asked if he could accompany us on the way back, we said that’d be fine…

there followed a very late night trip from Luton to Liverpool. Sarah did the most driving as the most lucid of all of us, whilst I chipped in with an hours worth before I got too tired… We arrived at Liverpool airport some time after three and then had to sort out the car park fees, since we were now trying to leave a day later than that that we had booked!

Finally all sorted, we left and arrived back in St. Helens at 4am - a 22.5 hour day!

Very tiring, but my over-riding memory is of a very nice day spent with Sarah…

Sunday

Got up late and headed over to Sarah’s house to sort out a leaver, then back to Manchester where rosy cooked up a feast.

Monday

Football then poker than a trip down to the pub with sarah and her (newly) ex-housemates.

Tuesday

Went round and cooked for the girl - made a lovely lamb stew. Very Nice.

Wednesday

Today.