In Hoose Entertainment

Do you remember that early 90s advert where they had some employee of some bank going “It’s not all work, work, work” ?

Well I was just thinking of that for no apparent reason.

Anyway. Onwards and upwards.

Monday

Went into the office and had a staff student commitee meeting that was fairly dull.

Afterwards I went to the PricewaterhouseCoopers presentation, they seem like a pretty good company and I reckon that I’m likely to apply… means I have to do a bit of research work though!

Afterwards took Sarah for her first ever game of poker. It was a free entry (+ one £5 rebuy) tournament especially geared towards beginners, but we were dissapointed when they failed to actually teach the beginners how to play. Apparently the only “Beginning” element to it was the free entry! virtually everyone I met was a regular at the casino.

still the game was fun, though I was absent of any luck and finished 25th out of the 90 runners.

Sarah, however, did brilliantly! Having only been taught a few strategical elements before the game by me, she made the final table and came 8th for £20. Very impressive.

Very late too, we got home around 2am, naq’d!

Tuesday

Taught my weekly class and then went to the £5 rebuy with rosy. I did better at this one and came 30th out of 120. Still didn’t win anything, but came close… First prize was around £1400. Another late finish!

Wednesday

Considered going to the university poker event, but stayed at home to watch the Liverpool match. Sarah came over after her aborted dental work.

Thursday

Went into work and listened to a talk on starting up your own business… was very interesting.

Friday

Sarah cooked a fab. meal of fajitas.

Earlier I’d been to see Jeff, as usual.

Saturday

Went to the Lowry shopping thing, and bought lots of fancy new clothes (well not lots, but got some very nice items, including some pretty nifty shoes).

Then I tried on all the new stuff and wore most of it out to dinner at Gaucho’s

The event was Sarah’s sisters 40th birthday, they put us up in a back room on a huge table… 10 of us were there.

The food and company were ace. I had a sirloin steak that was very tasty. The price was less impressive.

Afterwards we had a drink in the Hogshead followed by a few more in the walkabout - a fun night out all in all.

Sunday

Back home to watch some match or other, then sorted some things out around the house.

I cooked a roast gammon joint for dinner, and that was followed by a very impressive rice pud. Watched a bond film to wind down the weekend, which brings us to…

Monday

which is today.

Monday

Went round Sarah’s for dinner.

Tuesday

Went to a meeting in the museum where I was thoroughly unimpressed with Rolls Royce’s graduate programme. I don’t think I’ll be applying.

Fortunately it finished after only half an hour, so I hotfooted it down to the students union to play in the Students poker game… Good fun!

I came 15th\44 which was reasonable. Played ok, but I still have a fair bit to learn! - poker blog

Wednesday

End of season hockey brewery tour!

After work I headed into Sinclair’s where I met up with 20 or so hockey & mugss types. Quickly we moseyed on down to the Marble Brewery (who I would’ve linked to but their website is under construction).

We split into two groups and whilst the first lot recieved their tour, the rest of us had some scran. I’d ordered fish n’ chips, which was lovely (but still not up to East Coast standards ).

Then we had our tour which was interesting enough, Marble’s quite a small brewery though I wouldn’t really know the difference having never been on a tour before!

Afterwards we hung around, talked to people and drunk a few pints. We moved on to some bar which is definitely not on Tib street, and then tried to get into some other pub that I can’t remember the name of too.

A bunch of us decided to head on down to Fab Café and Gillian, Mahinda, Rosy, Andy and I made the move, with Si, the only one of the other group to do so, turning up later.

We ended up playing card games and drinking until the wee early hours. The Fab was quite quite empty, just about the only other people there being the two drunken girls on the table next to us, who attempted to accost us on our way out (actually I think Mahinda might have invited the accosting by swearing that he knew one of them).

We also managed to destroy rosys set of cards…

The bus trip home was… interesting… a group of lads of the back seat decided to take pictures and ask questions of three of us (Andy, then Mahinda (who had his right nipple photographed) and Myself (I decided, tactically, to keep asking questions of them, it worked). They left the bus somewhere in Fallowfield, but it certainly made the trip more exciting!

Anyway; got home very late and went straight to bed.

Thursday

Another talk, this time BAe and more interesting, though only marginally.

Sarah and a takeaway came over in the evening… very expensive but tasty (though sarah didn’t like the garlic nan much - it was very very strong!).

Friday

Sarah was at Tom Jones and I did recieve one very loud phone call shortly after he went on stage, something about a girl called Delilah?!

Adrian and Emma came round after I stayed late at work. Hells kitchen happened at some point!

Saturday

Met up with Sarah’s friends in La Tasca, in town (A tapas bar) It was supposed to be a double date, but the other fella hadn’t turned up and a load of girls had, so I was the only boy there… but it turned out to be pretty good anyway.

I wasn’t, however, impressed with La Tasca. The service wasn’t great, and the prices were extortionate. The food was ok.

We went on to some bar between st. Anns square and Deansgate (no idea what it was called) and chatted away in there to the backdrop of several beers and wines. Good Fun.

We all went seperate ways, but Sarah and I both agreed that we were up for staying out a bit longer and headed to the printworks to find a bar, a beer, a table and to decide what to do next.

We decided to check out Walkabout for use next saturday, and we got progressively drunker whilst having a very good time.

A rubbish covers band then came on, and I accidently found out the score of the grand final (we lost) and we decided to leave…

Sarah procured a balloon which she later lost curtesy of some railings.

Chip nan and gravy!

then home - we decided not to mosey to the mugss party as we were now naq’d!

Really good night out!

Sunday

Informed at 12noon that Alsion was in town til 230, so headed down to the kro2 for a quick coffee.

Much cleaning of the house happened before rosy cooked a stirling roast chicken. tasty.

Stayed up chilling out, for a relaxing end to a hectic, but good, weekend.

Monday

I’ve just been to a fairly dull staff student meeting at univesity, and now I’m here typing this!

tarra for now.

Brownies are ace.

That is all.

Friday

Watched most of Hull v Bradford which Hull won to qualify for the grand final next saturday!

Then went to have a glass of bubbly at Jenny’s new place (she lives just round the corner from us and Sarah had gone round for food earlier) and then onto the Red Lion after Mahinda discovered the disturbing addition of a karaoke to the old house at home.

Saturday

Busy day!

First we travelled down to Stafford, since Sarah’s MG is in the garage at the moment we made the journey in her parents Corsa. We arrived shortly after 12.

My sister and her fella, Carlos were both there, and grandma set about cooking a large cauliflower cheese n chips lunch whilst Sarah and I got a bed out of a garage and we all looked at our old photo’s.

Lunch was great, but it was only a flying visit so I filled up the coal and we were on the road again around 2… we were on quite a tight deadline because we had to catch a train into Leeds…

Unfortunately the M6 had completely seised up, there was no visible reason for this, though the england v macdeonia match might have had a large something to do with it (0-0, btw, glad I didn’t watch it - RUBBISH). We, in fact, came off a couple of junctions early and went through Alderley Edge to get back - we meant we had around half an hour for both of us to get ready (via two houses) and get on our way.

We managed it and left Picadilly shortly before 6pm, arriving in leeds at 7pm. Called Wayne to find out where he was and made our way to millenium square.

Wayne and the party were in some posh bar, which fortunately had bottles of black sheep. it was pretty nice and we got talking to Pete n Lou. My only complaint about the place was Duvel at £11 (!) it’s around £3 in the Big Hands, or Kro Picadilly, for instance, so I reckon they’re just trying to rip people off.

On to the resturant (spice something-or-other) which was brilliant!

You had an all you can eat buffet, but it was a choice between Italian, Chinese, Indian etc… I went for a stir-fry after my starters, which the fella then cooked in front of you. very very filling. Dessert was a chocolate fountain. The company continued to be excellent. I have rarely felt so full.

Downstairs for a few beers and a free “Seisha” (apple then cherry flavoured) and then it was on to the new indie club “Wire”, based in the same venue as the legendary indie club we’d been to for the first leeds boozer. the ambiance hasn’t changed much, and it was pretty decent. I felt old because I only recognised about half the tunes playing…!

a few more drinks and before we knew it it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes to Pete n Lou (but couldn’t find the others) and made our way to the train station to catch the 0110.

We slept most of the way back and got home at 3am via a taxi. very tired after a very long, fun, day!

Sunday

Slept late, and then shopped at tesco’s.

Did some gardening, including planting some bulbs and Sarah made a fantastic lasagne for us and rosy. The brownies for dessert were even better.

a bit of tv to relax and then bed at midnight.

Monday

today!

Saturday

Up early and packed we headed down to the train station for our four hour journey up to the frozen wiles of the North.

The journey passed by relatively quickly, and before I knew it I had my first sight of Scotland since I can rememer (apparently I was last there when 1, and there’s a photo of me eating ice cream to prove it, I remain sceptical.)

We booked into our b&b (though we were initially shown to the wrong room, which only became evident when we noticed someone elses backpack and trainers in there!) after a short walk from waverly and went to meet alsion on Princes street, which simultaneously offered me my first sight of the castle - impressive!

We met and went for a quick pint in one of the pubs around there - everywhere sells Duechar’s IPA - which is ace! - and then we headed out for food.

From food we went to watch a band, containing one of Alsions orchestral mates who was also having his birthday. They were decent, and very very loud so we decided to leave after their set to try and find somewhere where we could talk and drink.

After a fair amount of heckling from a fella who seemed to have the impression that I was dating both of the girls I was out with, we decided on some food in a basket. I had a fine fish n chips, and then we headed out of the centre and towards alsion’s place… stopping at another pub on the way.

Alsion’s house cats didn’t make me feel too bad, but we were only there briefly. We met the sleepy people on the sofa and had a tour around the flat… seems like a nice place! … It wasn’t long til we were back out in a bar though - this time a slightly more expensive effort on the way back in to town. We found a precotious talent for word up between us - before we lost all our money on the other quiz games in the machine!

back to the centre to check out another band we were informed by the bouncer (as we were descending) that they weren’t actually playing. We decided to head home after a fine night out (it was about 1am) and having seen the taxi queue, Sarah and I decided to start by walking it.

By the time we had arrived at Waverley we pretty much decided that we were going to walk the whole way, but not without sustenance - so we joined the local take-aways queue… Quickly becoming our turn and not yet decided we carried on discussing, only to be barked at by our Scottish host - so we ordered on the spur - me a cheeseburger, Sarah curry and chips…

both were interesting.

The cheeseburger arrived deep fried and battered in a bun with ketchup… and tasted fantastic!

The curry on the chips was one of hottest I’ve ever had of it’s type, also very nice.

Arriving back late to the b&b we went straight to bed.

Sunday

Was a bit hungover, but the scottish breakfast (read : English breakfast with potato pancake, but no beans) hit the spot nicely. Sarah had beans on toast, so I nicked some.

Checked out and headed into town. Went to a food court for a bit of wake up juice (tea!) and a doughnut which I thoroughly failed to eat without licking my lips.

Comedy club followed. The guys were merely ok, but I also had a beer, Irn-bru (EVERYONE drinks irn-bru in edinburgh) and a big chilli which served to act as a brilliant way to spend early afternoon on a Sunday… the comedy was free too!

By then it had started to rain a little bit but we decided it’d be an idea to check out some more of the city and went up the royal mile, including seeing the “Heart of Midlothian” which we declined to spit on.

Several rug shops and touristy shops followed before we decided to sample another local hostelry and play a bit more on a quizzer, before running our own quiz which I failed to win on the question (alsion asking;) “What colour socks am I wearing?”.

Answering Black and Pick, the answer turned out to be simply “Black”. D’oh!

Still Alsion then failed to avoid coming last by getting her last question “Where are the toilets in here?” wrong. ah well.

Another wandering occurred and I found a place that sells sherbet strawberries, and then it was time for home.

4 more hours on the train and then a taxi back for around an 11pm arrival.

Great weekend!

Monday

Back home for some work and finally getting loads of things re-installed on to my computer.

Tuesday

More work, and into the office for my demonstrating - then out to watch “Children of Men” at the AMC with the missus, very good film (5/5) recommended.

Wednesday

Work then mini-roast around Sarah’s

Thursday

Work Work Work, then stayed in to watch Sneakers… which is a film I’ve had for ages. Staying in lots at the moment - but then this weekend should be fun.

Friday

today!