The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Anthony Kiedis and Flea.... ring any bells?

Tuesday night saw about 10 000 people heading out to Earls Court Areana to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Usually you're expecting someone like the peppers to have a fairly well known support act. For our night it was !!! Google's archnemisis...
Standing around having a beer and waiting for the show to start.... and then the lights went out and the cheering started. Heading back inside we saw the support act had taken to the stage... 9 of them... 2 lead singers, 4 people on the drums, 2 guitarists and one random rolling around on the floor... Honestly if you ever get the chance to see !!! otherwise known as pitchfork... RUN... it's probably the worst act i've seen in years... nothing but pure noise.... voted chav band of the year.

And then came the peppers. The stage didn't look like much and we were trying to find monitors but then they started and the stage lit up

















Unfortunately my little camera on my phone isn't brilliant, but you get the basic idea.
It was an amazing concert, the played just about everything that I was hoping for... except for Soul to Squeeze. I would definately recommend going to see them if you ever get the chance.

On leaving it was clear that there was going to be a shortage of train space for all of the people.... we walked out the front doors and the tube station is directly over the road... you just saw people running at full tilt trying to get to the tubes and the police standing by not really being able to do anything... luckily for us we could head to West Brom station and catch the overland from there... not quite as crowded

All that's left for this year are the Rolling Stones... i don't think we've done too badly... would have liked to see Dave Matthews band... but that'll have to wait till next time he's here.

Doggie biscuits

A fond farewell to a long time friend....

I figure this is as good a place as any... instead of breaking down at the office I think I'll just say my little bit here.

A faithful friend of many years has gone to doggie heaven this morning. Tequila, I hope you are chasing waves in the sky boy.

Almal wil 'n huisie by die see he

But most of us will just settle for a house.

After about 2 months of looking for a place to live... we struck gold. Finding a nice place to live around here is sort of like squeezing blood from a stone. First you have to decide where you would like to hang your hat... then comes the ex-council, or ex-local authority... which no matter how hard you try to avoid them... some of these delightful agents still insist on showing you... then comes the matter of council tax... i guess it's like rates and taxes and then some... So on top of the cost of the house you have that, which on average is about "£1200 - £1800 per year, depending on where you live.

So we're now going to be living near clapham south tube station. Which is a nice area, cool shops, little common (park) over the road, 4 bedroom house, 3 bathrooms, huge kitchen, study, 2 lounges and lo and behold... a little piece of grass outside that we can put a weber on...

Now that we're signed up we're moving all our bills (internet and sky tv) over to the new address... something that you think they would make fairly easy for you... not quite so easy.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the london bombings, so as you can imagine the city is on high alert, the company is making us wear security tags that are visible at all times etc etc... At least the tubes will be quiet tomorrow morning.. I wonder how many people are actually going to walk to work. We'll see.

So that's just a little bit of info from this side of the world. I have somewhere nice to live with Kev, Grant, Lauren and Brad... which we've all decided is going a horrible idea, but it'll work for now.

Pics coming shortly, promise :-)

Homeland

Within my soul, within my mind,
There lies a place I cannot find.
Home of my heart. Land of my birth.
Smoke-coloured stone and flame-coloured earth.
Electric skies. Shivering heat.
Blood-red clay beneath my feet.

At night when finally alone,
I close my eyes - and I am home.
I kneel and thought the blood-warm sand
And feel the pulse beneath my hand
Of ancient life too old to name,
In ancient land too wild to tame.

How can I show you what I feel?
How can I make this essence real?
I search for words in dumb frustration
to try and form some explanation,
but how can heart and soul be caught
in one-dimensional written thought?

If love and longing are a "fire"
and man "consumed" by his desire,
then this love is no simple flame
that mortal thought can hold or tame.
As deep within the earth's own core
the love of home burns evermore.

But what is home? I hear them say,
this never was yours anyway.
You have no birthright to this place,
descendant from another race.
An immigrant? A pioneer?
You are no longer welcome here.

Whoever said that love made sense?
"I love" is an "imperfect" tense.
To love in vain has been man's fate
From history to present date.
I have no grounds for dispensation,
I know I have no home or nation.

For just one moment in the night
I am complete, my soul takes flight.
For just one moment.... then it's gone
and I am once again undone.
Never completes. Never whole
White skin and an African soul

For the Birds

One of my favourite bits ever

Friday night and Foo Fighters

Once again KEV GOT HIS VISA... which makes all of us over here most happy.... what would london be like without his morning hangover grumble :-)

So conspiring ran riot between myself, Brad, Grant, Lauren, Eric..... and the list keeps going. Tonight we were going to get him sozzeled....

Jacques and Maresa joined us at the Village for a couple of celebratory drinks..... Eric and Grant concoted a special "straf dop" which after a while seemed to be doing it's job.... you always know it's working when the drinker decides that it actually tastes nice.... even though there are some 6 different shots in it.

So things went pear shaped, sideways and all to thistle....

Saturday morning rolls in along with one exceptionally hungover Mr Burden and followed closely by the rest of us. Who were mostly woken rudely by the sounds of a vacuum cleaner. We subsequently had a munch and meandered down to the bar where Grant and Lauren were having breakfast... okay, it was 12ish, make that brunch. We made our way in the sharp sun to the bus stop and attempted to wait out the heat... in the end Grant hailed a cab and we were all grateful for the aircon.... (seperate note... I must be acclimatising to this place... 24 degrees now seems pretty hot) We arrived at Victoria to visit the whole in the wall and found out that most of london was in the station. On coming out there were a couple of planes doing a fly by... some "THundercats"?????? guys help me out here.... or tomcats, or something sounding similar. We made our way to Hyde Park to enjoy a day in the sun with too much beer and good music.
The cordoned off area for the concert was huge. It must have easily taken up half the park. We stood in line and were luckily right at the front of the queue. We went in, got our cold beers and waters respectively and found a spot to sit. Right in front with a huge screen just off to our right. As Grant put it most aptly... everyone was sitting there getting merrily plastered. But since warm beer tastes terrible we were intermixing it with good old H2O.

The first band out was at about 4ish, (we'd been there since 1ish) and it was Juliette lewis and the licks.... I actually think I prefer seeing her on TV.. she's just annoying live and her newest songs are just a bit too strange. Next up was a new band called Angels and Airwaves... who's lead singer was the lead for Blink 182, who were followed by Queens of the Stone Age, who were AMAZING and then Motorhead.... after a bit of a break and waking around to stretch legs I managed to get myself caught at the edge of a mosh pit heading my way at speed... HELP!!!
I was also thinking... looking at all the different types of people you get at these concerts it must be really hot being a goth... and I mean temperature wise... You're standing in the sun for about 6 hours, wearing black jeans and about 3 layers of tops with your hair draped across your face... I wouldn't be able to do it... we were dying of the heat in bikini tops and shorts.

Tasteless joke for the day... The Institute for Science is trying to splice the genes of a goth with Grass. They want to find a culutivar of grass that will cut itself.... ba doom doom che.. I'll be here all day

OH.... THERE ARE HOW MANY PEOPLE HERE TODAY???????? 85 000!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lot of people, it somehow seemed like more. Maybe that's how many were in the cheap seats

Anyway, back to the concert... The Foo Fighters came on stage and the crowd went absolutely wild which meant that any space you had around you was now filled with drunken pimply brits (no I don't like most of them much) But apart from getting bounced and pushed around the music was great. For their encore they brought out Roger Taylor and Brian May to play with them as they did a Freddy Mercury tribute.... for the uninitiated... the above mentioned were in Queen ( the band).

So a great end to a fantastic day. Perhaps next time I go to see a concert I'll wait till they play in a venue ... a small venue.

Sunday comprised of doing nothing and watching old episodes of Star Trek... somehow I don't remember it being so bad... the acting is terrible and the special effects are non existent... I've heard there is a digitally remastered one... maybe that'll be better.
Monday morning it's off to a 6am gym session with Kev and Brad, so we'll see how that goes... i'm not a morning person.

At risk of stealing Kate's blog title

Kev got his visa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And that was all she wrote

Oh that was a bad idea

Yip, that pretty much sums up most of my weekend.... The skating with the work guys was fun... I did a full 5km and at quite a pace. Then it was the start of the World Cup and things at the office sort of came to a grinding halt. Our office has live streaming of all the games on the intranet... quite clever i thought... except you'll get people staring at their computer screens for 2 hours but not getting any work done. I suppose it beats them coming back from watching it in a pub and having a couple of pints.

After work it was a mad rush to get home to change for the Friday Night Skate... we thought we were late so resigned ourselves to skating idly around hyde park for a while....yes, well.... at that moment some 200 or so people on skates came tearing past us... so we joined it... NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. The pace was really quick and you've got hundreds of people on skates taking up one lane and trying not to kill each other... I was used as brakes a number of times. And returned the favour a few times down the line. May need to take some stopping lessons before I try that again... stopping in itself is easy enough, but when you are heading down hill at full kilter and have about 3meters to stop in, it's another story.... So we'll wait a while before doing that again.
After that it was off home on the tube and relaxing on the couch to watch "The Big Yin" (Billy Connelly for those who don't know the name)

Saturday rolls around and the guys are up early to watch the rugby, I take the extra cat nap and sleep in a bit. It's nearly time for qualifying and we're off to Zulu's in Fulham... they've decided to show both the rugby and the football... being muppets they've allocated a huge area for the soccer, and the smaller one for the rugby... needless to say (in an SA pub) the rugby area had people hanging from the rafters, and the soccer side had about 20 people in it. Perhaps they'll learn for next time. So the hunters and the Windhoek were flowing and we organised ourselves some boerie rolls (yum) Sitting outside in the warm sun, laughing and drinking beer was a great idea.

Needless to say.... beer in the sun things went sideways pretty quickly....

We were chased inside where we started dancing to some particularly strange music.








Brad and Kev at the top of their game decided to do some pole dancing...












So I guess sideways, pear shaped.. give it whatever name you will... I'm not saying anymore I'll never drink that much again.... more like I'm sure I can't drink as much as I used to.

I'm sorry that's already gone!!!

5 words that I've heard at least 10 times a day while trying to be pleasant to the estate agents in this place. The landlords here try to squeeze you for every last penny and every last pound... nevermind that I'm paying the equivalent of 2 months rent for a whole flat back home and getting a Harry Potter like cupboard cupboard over here. But I suppose that's the way it works over here. For those who aren't following i'm looking for a new 4/5 bedroom flat for Kev, me, Bradley, Grant and Lauren. If you're ever interested in having a look, go to www.ononemap.com specify london for location and then 4/5 bedroom for £2500 a month and see what you get... not much. Well, not much that's worth looking at anyway. There are some very nice places in Chelsea for about £1500 a week... but that's a bit out of budget.

Summer is here... finally and with it the unbearably hot tube trips to work and back. But also lazy weekends lying in the parks and catching up on some much needed exercise, which for me comes in the way of roller blading. Or trying to kick a ruby ball around in the park with the guys... which i'm not very good at although the guys are very nice.. and they don't give me too much stick. Tonight being a friday means that all the mad people who own blades or skates all get together to take over some london road. The Friday Night Skate is a weekly event where they pick a route, get a sound system and you just blade through london. Tonight looks like we're going to do it.. the route for tonight http://www.thefns.com/next_route.htm
We'll probably only do the first half of the skate, don't think i'm fit enough to do a full 13 miles yet.

Tomorrow is the SA vs Scotland game and since it's also world cup fever over here we're having to resort to going to Zulu's to watch the rugby... I suppose I could do with a hunters dry and a boerie roll just about now. Even though I've now been here over a year and a half there's still so much I miss from back home. Yeah, okay, I'll admit it openly.. I'm really homesick... so to solve that, everyone I know must move to London... pipe dreams granted, but what is life without dreams.

I'm off blading now with the guys I work with... they do 5km in 17 minutes... I think I might take a short cut.

Would love to hear from friends back home, you've all got my email address.

It's just a jump to the left.....

They were how do you say.... "executive transvestites"

Kev and Brad get close

It was all in all a fantastic show.... audience partici......... pation.. was on top form.

Do you really want to know?

What are the boys up to?????

Dress rehersal for the Rocky Horror picture show...

More pics to follow after the show

Stuck somewhere inbetween twentysomething

Have you ever realised that the the age between 21 and 25 is probably one of the most awkward and frustrating times of your life.
I've been finding that a lot lately. People regularly say don't wish your youth away... fine, point taken, but I wish 2 years away.
Take where I am at the moment. Old enough to be responsible and have a job and pay bills... but no matter how competent you are there are always people who will look at you like you are still too young to know what is going on.
1 example... i've had a drivers licence now for over 6 years, but they still want to charge me an excess to rent a car... and at between £7 and £11 a day... it sort of makes it out of budget.
At work a good idea will be passed over because you don't have enough experience in the industry and you obviously don't have enough insight into what is needed..... that's great but the proposed change has nothing to do with industry experience....IT'S JUST COMMON SENSE.

I've never before had a problem with people trying to walk over me... maybe i've just gone soft.

Sometimes age is just a number and you don't even notice it... but then sometimes some people just rub it in your face... no matter what you do you'll always be one step behind everyone else. I may not know all about the in's and out's of the world but i'm learning.... Linkin Park - Faint puts the way i feel perfectly....

I can't feel the way i did before
Don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored

Small fish in a big pond... but i'm not going to let my peers make me doubt my ability....

So even if I still want to put on my ruby slippers and click my heels together and make 2 years disappear so that perhaps someone will take me seriously. I will be the strongest in the race.

That is my dilemma for the month. Stuck in the abyss that is the twenty somethings

Just another manic monday

I think everyone has weeks like this, you finish all your work on friday but come monday 10am and the whole world seems to want a piece of you. Luckily it doesn't last all week. It's been great having Bradley over here. He arrived on Sunday and since then my liver has been threatening to resign. He's taken over Jak's blades and we were off to Battersea park to play around a bit. It's such a pleasure blading these days. I think we got in 3 skates this week. Friday is a 7 or 13 mile skate what we were planning on doing until the weather decided against it and turned dark and wet. So instead we went into central looking for some entertainment. Kev has been looking everywhere since he arrived for a club which plays good old rock/indie etc... sort of like the stuff kerrang plays (music video channel over here). So we ended up going to Metro bar bed rock in Tottenham Court Road... the club opens at 11 and closes at 4, so we were all in for quite a party.... unfortunately the second dj was playing some particularly strange music that most of us didn't know. So we hung around drinking vodka and coke at £1.50 a pop, which is quite cheap by london standards... however it comes in the tiniest cup, which is about 4 sips worth... So we called it a night there... raided the McDonalds for the last 6 quarter pounders and hailed a cab to take us home. Not quite realising that the ethanol they were feeding us instead of vodka had had more effect that we thought.... a trolley was found in the road on the way home, and that was the end of that.... Hey, trolley races at 2 am always seems like a good idea...
The notion of going to our place and finishing a bottle of scotch soon flew out the window and we sat around and chatted quietly till the sun came up.

Saturday we crawled out of bed and watched qualifying and then Lauren and Grant joined us to go and buy them some blades... while we had to wait for grants blades to be moulded Lauren and myself headed to KFC to pick up supper and then joined the guys in Hyde park for a picnic. Then we messed around a bit on blades and headed home... unfortunately having never been through Chelsea (read very expensive area) before we got a bit lost... kind of like 180 degrees lost.. and then it started to rain on us... so a bus was the way forward there.

Once back on terra firma without wheels we headed to the woodman for a drink and then back to our place to what "The Legend of Zorro" which really was terrible.
Sunday brought around the grand prix and after that we headed out to Waxy O'Connors to meet up with Dave Matthews who we haven't seen in a while.
Then home....

Summer is being a bit tempremental still, but hopefully it'll clear up and i'll be able to trade my pale white skin for something with a bit more colour.

For those of you who haven't noticed. I've started putting all our pub quiz questions up on one of my links, so if you are that way inclined, have a look and get that brain working.

It's now off to the fancy dress hire place to choose some drag outfits for the boys for Friday night for the Rocky Horror picture show... i'll put up pics for that in the next post.

Parks and Castles

Another long weekend... i could start getting used to these. Grant and Lauren are playing host to Grant's uncle, James, this weekend. So as per usual you take the newcomers to see the sights. Although walking from Waterloo to Buckingham Palace does seem a bit extreme to me. While they were doing the tourist thing Kev and I went in search of exercise equipment, namely Saloman Rollerblades. The last set of blade I bought was close on 11 years ago... I know it doesn't seem possible but I've just taken 10 minutes doing the maths on that one. So they were slow, with cheap plastic wheels and not much else. Blading with kev in stellies was always a lot of exercise, I had to blade 3 times harder than him to go the same distance.
So now we're looking at a range of blades which are priced somewhere between £30 and £245. A bit excessive for me, but I suppose some people want their blades to be able to do 80km/h and have shock absorbers.

I tried on a couple of pair but the one's I eventually bought were like iceskating they are so smooth, if I'd known you got blades like this I would have bought them years ago.
So my blades now have ABEC 5 bearings ( if you don't speak rollerblade don't worry, neither did I) it basically means that 1 being slowest and 8 being fastest, i'm just above the middle. Also bought a pair of wrist/hand guardes for those times when gravity wins.

Kev upgraded his blades and now has a really nice set, with porn star orange bearings which are ABEC 8... trust him to want the best.
So being responsible and stuff we went home and looked at the blades. I'd intended to go and blade up and down the corridor outside our flat like a kid with new toys, instead we ended up doing about a 6 mile circuit around Battersea park. Gravity did win once, but strangely enough it was when I was standing still waiting for traffic to pass.

After rollerblading it was off to meet up with Grant, Lauren and James for drinks at the Castle. Unfortunately for us the bars in this place still close too early for our liking and it was off to another place with a later licence. It didn't end up being a horribly late night. Sunday we were off to play golf in soho....pause and wait for confusion to set in..... well, not a full golf course, one which you hit a ball against a screen and using hawkeye technology this thing tells you where on the course your ball landed. Now I've never played golf before in my life, so this is going quite slow, after the second hole i'm getting the hang of it and on the 5th i manage a birdie.. of course everything goes pearshaped after that... it's definately something that I could get into. So after some deliberation over what is for supper we head to a chinese take away shop and walk out with enough food to feed 8 people. Another quiet night with a couple of drinks at the castle discussing sport, politics and at some point guys in drag. Turns out James played Frank in a production of the Rocky Horror Show.

Monday our last day to sleep in late.... or so we thought, Stephan called to wake us at 9am and was with us 30 minutes later. We headed out to visit Jacques and Maresa at their new place which is absolutely lovely. Then off to lunch in soho at our usual little mediterranean restaurant Bistro 1 on Great Pultney street, which is actually in the same street as the golf. After this we headed home for a bit of a nap before our weekly pub quiz... which we did pretty well in considering none of us knew who played Jack in Eastenders, 5 questions on british tv and we didn't get one.... we didn't even guess because there was no hope, a couple of stupid mistakes from everyone... not knowing who Leonardo de Caprio played in Titanic..... Jack Dawson if anyone was wondering... and Grant saying that the ming dynasty was in the 1500 BC.. no one picked up on the BC.
The 3 rounds in the pub quiz that cause the most chaos are the Beer rounds.... here you are given 3 questions and something in their answers links.... so lets give it a try

1. What colours are in the french tri colour?
2. What song was sung by both UB40 and Elvis Presley and included the lyrics " Like a river flows, surely to the sea.Darling so it goes, somethings are meant to be."
3. In the weapons in cluedo which are missing? Rope, Leadpipe, Wrench, Dagger....

Right, so now you get the answers

1. Red, White, Blue
2. Can't help falling in love
3. Candlestick and Revolver

So who of you can tell me what the link is between those? Post a comment if you are curious or think you have the answer and i'll let you know.

Another week ahead, a short one at least and looking forward to golf again on saturday.

but till then, knees bent, arms straight, lock hands and don't take your eye off the ball... i may get the hang of this golf thing some day.

Rabbits, Muppets and Phantoms

Here in the UK you don't really get many mid week public holidays... well, you don't get any infact. Bank holidays always fall on a monday. So Easter is a nice long weekend. The Thursday before is lazy and particularly unproductive with most people heading out to the local pub over lunch and just forgetting to go back to the office. That thursday night was an opportunity to start catching up on sleep lost over the last 4 months, and I enjoyed just lying on the couch growing moss.... sloth like you could say.

Saturday was much more eventful, Grant arrived on his blades to watch the GP qualifying, afterwards him and Kev decided to go blading, Kev still using Jak's old blades. We suggested that they head up to clapham junction and buy a rugby ball for us to kick around in the park. The guys arrived about an hour later having eventually found a ball. They were so tired that the rollerblades were soon forgotten. We were throwing and kicking the ball around for about an hour or so. And laughing watching our perfectly placed kicks take a 90 degree turn once they hit the ground right away from the person catching them. Lots of good exercise.

Heading home for a shower and then out to Strawberry Moons in Oxford Circus for birthday drinks for Jane. A nice place but a bit rich for our blood. The music was terrible when we arrived but slowly found its way back to the stones and aerosmith and suchlike.

Sunday was lazy and included watching the Grand Prix with bated breath and then heading home for a nap.

So a fairly lazy weekend ended in a braai with Dale and Claire ( debating people will remember them from worlds)on the Monday, a lovely day, until it started being typically england and started raining on us. Heading home we enjoyed the rest of the long weekend catching up on our movies.

Back at work on the Tuesday with deadlines for year end were looming which meant tensions were running high. So a usually quiet office turned into what could better be described as a morgue... drop a pencil and 3 people around you were giving you the evil eye. But i'm sure things will perk up once the pressure is off.

Thursday rolls around and it's off with Kev, Kath and Lauren to watch Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. I've always enjoyed the music, but hearing an orchestra playing it was amazing. It's a brilliant production, the set is fantastic the actors had the most sublime voices and everything just worked perfectly. I wouldn't say no to seeing it again... but a decision has been reached between myself and Mr Burden and the Penroses (give it time and it will be so) that since we are in london perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to go and see some more of the cultural night life than we have been seeing recently. Mama Mia, The Producers, We will rock you, Les Miserable and a few others are on our one show a month calender.. This month is The rocky horror picture show... not quite in the same league, but the guys have agreed to dress up as Frank which will be a sight to see ( stay tuned for pictures later). So inbetween the music concerts we are booked to see there are all these stage shows.... should be an interesting next couple of months.

But apart from the usual day to day it's been a pretty uneventlful couple of weeks.

Going Gatwick

Being sneaky and plotting are not really 2 of my strong points, but with help from many many friends I managed to get it right... Conspiring with Grant, O'Connor and Macleod particularly I planned to take Kev to Ireland for his birthday... But how.... so a link of misinformation and cloaks and daggers were set up... relaying the whole story would take the better part of 10 pages.. so this is a brief version... How do you get Kev to Gatwick without him suspecting anything? You get his boss in as a co conspiritor, he sends him to Gatwick on business purposes and there you have it.... one Mr Burden at Gatwick... a bit confused at seeing me there, but there all the same.
So after a beer and quiet a bit of explaining it was off to check in and then on to boarding... where there came the inevitable spanner in the works.... 5 boarding desks all feeding into 1 security desk (where they scan your luggage etc) starting to panic we asked people if they would mind if we cut in otherwise we would miss our flight. Running through security amidst some people mumbling and grumbling in the corners. We took off towards the boarding gates which due to our usual luck were located on the other side of the airport. When we got there we were told not to worry, there were still 8 people behind us that still had to board. Finding seats and turning the air fully on us we regained our breath and decided to have a nap. The other 8 people never made it onto the plane, i'm guessing they were some of the people that we rushed passed at security.

Landing in Cork we were met by everyones favourite Irishman, Mr O'Connor and his lovely lady Trace. We headed off to his place to drop bags and allow Kev to change out of his monkey suit.

Tim now lives a way out of Cork itself on a lovely old farm in the stables which have now been converted into little 2 bedroom apartments. After a bit of a rest we headed into the nearby town and had supper at a lovely Thai restaurant, where we caught up on the latest news and sank right back into the usual banter that happens when debaters/adjudicators are put into the same room together.
A fairly quiet night and off to bed. The next morning it was early to rise and just our luck, the sun was shining. I headed outside to take some pics of the surroundings

This is a through shot of Tim's block so to speak, his place is just around the corner on the right.

The sign is for the old stable yard

So off we went to Kinsale for a walk around and to have some lunch at a very popular restaurant called the Fishy Fishy. It's a magnificent place, all very quaint with the little narrow streets that would give most of SA drivers an attack of nerves to have to drive through. It's an interesting place with lots of different shops that you wouldn't normally find in big cities. This restaurant was so popular that even though we arrived before it opened we still had to settle for a table outside. Luckily most places do have those gas heaters outside.

Inside the Fishy Fishy cafe you will find the most divine selection of fresh fish. Lobster and Crayfish that are huge. You can go in and check out what kind of fish you want. The fish itself is very well presented and tasty, Tim went for the Bream, Trace took the avo ritz and Kev went for the Monk Fish, and I took the calamari.. all very tasty... we even got a warm salad for the table, which was the most fantastic colours.

After the lunch and the rain having stopped we took a little walk around trying to find the Wine Museum. Unfortunately we didn't have any luck there, mainly just found some more small streets with brightly coloured buildings, along with the Kinsale Brewery. Which was closed. (insert pic)

We drove along the coast road to get in some of the lovely scenery and wound up going past Gourtmacsherry where we got out to have a look at the mad people who were trying to surf.... anyone who has heard the Billy Connolly skit about the Irish Sea, no one in their right mind would think surfing in it was a good idea... and judging by the looks on their faces, as Kev put it so well they were "surfing under duress".

Pictured above are the poor souls who decided surfing was a good idea, the fast closing storm clouds that were heading our way, and the hotel/spa which is set looking out over this lovely view.

Perhaps wisely opting not to go into the cold water what else is there to do on a cold beach? Of course... there is the national sport of stone skipping. Kev here was caught for the action shot. Final score was tied, max 8 skips each. It was a close competition (grin)

Heading back to the car trying to beat the rain we then moved on to Clonakilty, which is the original home of the best made black and white pudding in Ireland... Those of you who don't know what it is... google for it. Another lovely little town with the most gorgeous bar I think I've seen ever, it's a mix between a De Akker and a jungle rain forest, unfortunately we were just passing through so I don't have any pics. And on and on went our travels, eventually ending up back in Carrigaline where we were staying for a nap before we headed out for the evening.

Saturday night started with a quiet dinner at a Italian restaurant, where pizza isn't quite what you expected. It's more the European gourmet style of eating. And then off we headed to Bodega, which is a restaurant by day and a huge club by night, A couple of drinks there and a good laugh at the hen party that was going on behind us and it was then off the the nightclub..... Club Classic, this club spared no expense on the decor and was really well set out... after a beer Kev and I joined Tim and Trace on the dancefloor for a couple but realised that it wasn't really our scene after all and retreated to the bar area.

Sunday was a late start where we found ourselves back at Bodega for breakfast, it was something like the usual Full English, but this was a full Irish, complete with Black and White pudding. Which i did eat. We sat there for a while reading the newspapers and just relaxing before we headed off for the main street just to have a look at Cork itself... the cold weather being what it was sent us running for the car and headed out to Cobh (pronounced Cove) for a look around, it's another one of those beautiful little places, it even has a view of the abandoned prison on Spike Island and the steel docks.

Tim and Kev were sharing a laugh at the ice cream eating dog that was running around between the kids hoping that they would drop something. Cobh is a very colourful place, each building is painted a different colour, from vibrant blue to another one right next door in apricot orange.

As Tim pointed out if you live in grey all year round you would want something in your life to be colourful even if it is the outside of your house.

Off home after getting some fresh air on the sea side, and time to start packing to head back to London. It's amazing how quickly time flies when you're having fun. At least it's a quiet weekend that'll recharge the batteries.

Once at Cork airport we said fairwell to Tim and Trace and have a promise from them that they'll be coming to visit the london crowd soon enough. Having learnt from our last experience of nearly missing the flight we were there very early... going through security was one of the more amusing things in the weekend for me.... Ever heard of having to take off your boots to go through the metal detector? Well, that was just Kev's luck... aparently the buckles were just a bit to big to happily pass through.

We got home fairly late and just crashed.... so that was that for the weekend, pity it was such a short one, but I think in the future a weekend break every now and then is just what you need. Leave the rat race for a bit.....

So till the next time something interesting happens... catch you later

In between

The week before

After the massive party of last weekend it was time for a quiet week, the usual monday night quiz left most of us feeling pretty stupid.... again..... For those of you who claim to be quiz buffs, here is one for you... What was the original capital of the Orange Free State? No googling now... although granted it did take us about 30 minutes of trawling google to find the answer.... see end of post for answer. Some of the british questions still get us, but on the whole we're not doing too badly and improving on a weekly basis.
Saturday morning rolls around and it's off to Wimbledon Village Stables for the first installment of my fantastic birthday present from Kev.... Outrides... yes, they are on horseback. A beautiful sunny morning with little wind and cantering alongside a golf course... few things are as pretty. Although i'm probably going to be as stiff as a plank on Monday it was worth it.
After a warm shower it's off to watch the GP qualifying at Grant's place and afterwards looking at funny internet sites and putting away a few beers.... a fairly early night considering and then another early morning accompanied by toasted sandwiched and much coke. GP started and it looked somewhat like amatuer hour on the track with most of the big names sticking themselves into walls or just blowing an engine.
Another pub quiz monday night where we will be missing one from the team as Kate heads home for grad and a bit of sun.... hopefully we'll do well

(answer: Windburg was the original capital of the OFS.... how many of you got that?)

Getting older

It's that time of year again, where you count the extra wrinkles and wonder how the last year went past without really realising it.
So this year I decided it was time for a big party, the invites went out and finally we all ended up in Tiger Tiger on haymarket street, Piccadilly Circus. Knowing London clubs it's always wise to book a area for yourselves otherwise you may end up scrunched up against all the other folk. So we had a nice big area with comfy leather couches to spread out on. Cocktails were flowing and the music was making many people shake their money makers.... But initially it started out very civilised.
Pictured are Kath and Deon having a quiet drink before the rush started.

The theme for the evening was black/white and something fluffy. The black/white was pretty easy so then came the tricky bit. Most of the guys opted for not shaving and hence became fluffy.





Kate Thompson arrived with a lovely mafia style hat that made it's rounds that evening.
Kev goes for the tough guy look.

As the evening progressed the beer and cocktails flowed freely and the party got into full swing.
On the dancefloor we all joined in the party, left to right...Carla, Katherine, Myself, Kev and Eric. Unfortunately for us we didn't realise that it was that time of year again... The time when all the clocks go haywire and you lose an hour... or gain an hour.. i'm not too sure how it works... I think that night we lost an hour... so instead for the club closing at 3am, it closed at 2am, but we still managed to get home at 5 and then make our way down to the 24/7 chicken house for the usual late night burgers and nuggets.

Housemates new and old

Eric and Raymond

So it's not a long post and I realise I have to work on my formatting skills, but all the same I've finally been able to insert pictures.

So have a good week and hope you enjoyed the pics

Catching up

This isn't quite going like i planned. As you may have noticed things are pretty hectic... hence no posts for quite a while. But i'm going to now catch up in one fell swoop.

The rest of the holiday was really amazing, and it was great seeing everyone again... it actually didn't seem like i'd been away that long. Funny that however much things change they always seem to stay the same.

Landing back in London was cold and rainy, and finally stepping out into the open air made me wonder for the hundredth time "what am i doing here?" With heavy bags I opted out of catching the bus and caught a cab back to the flat, where i could barely lift my bag.... finally inside we all fell asleep for a good couple of hours. Then tried to unpack our bags, i think it took me the better part of 2 days to get everything in its place again. The change from the hot sunny weather to the rainy cold played havoc with our immune systems. Kev was the first to come down with the flu, followed about a week later by me.... luckily i didn't catch it as badly as he did, and it was gone in about a week. Record time by UK standards.
Going a bit further into January we have Seth's birthday. After taking a good half hour to find the place we settled down with a couple of friends for drinks. That was the first time we saw Miss Thompson in London.

February proved to be a quiet month, with not a lot happening for the first bit... Valentines day had me getting hit in the face as hundreds of people were crowding onto the trains laden with flowers and chocolates..... Amusing for the first couple of stops until the hayfever set in. Apart from that the monday night pub quiz was progressing well, we were climbing in the ranks along with a little help every now and then from the quizmaster.

VIOLENT FEMMES

A sunday night is probably not the best time to go to a bounce around concert... but it was the femmes... nobody could resist. They were playing at Shepards Bush Empire which is a nice small venue.... so Kev, Grant, Lauren, Deon, Doc and myself headed off to get there early. The opening act was a brit group called Milk Kan. I'm not too sure exactly what they were playing as they had very strong accents... anyone who is curious can go to www.milkkan.com where they have their hit single "bling bling baby" - It was quite a laugh. Especially "Without you".

The following week ran the same as most others, chasing foreign people for excel documents and booking travel for my boss who travels nearly every day.

ST PATRICKS DAY WEEKEND

Friday... always good because I can go to work in jeans, but today being St Patricks Day, i was wearing Kev's green irish rugby shirt and a fluffy top hat.

After work it was off to Aardvark bar in Canada Water to meet up with Jacques and Maresa Kriel for drinks. We arrived at a bar full of saffas drinking guinness and falling over. It was a very festive vibe. The group grew and grew with Grant, Lauren, Nicole, Doc, Eric and Deon joining the party. After we'd all had enough it was off home, the only problem being that the tubes had stopped running ages ago, and none of us knew the bus routes. So 2 cabs it was. Being a PA has it's advantages... one being that I have the numbers of a couple of cab companies on my cell. The first cab arrived and we sent the first group off and waited for the second one..... which arrived about an hour later.... I have decided that in future.... i'm taking the first cab, particularly if it's in the middle of winter.
The Saturday we met up with Kate, Tanya, Seth and Stuart at Chez Gerrard's Zinc Bar in Covent Garden for a couple of drinks. But the place closed far to early for our taste. And we spent the next hour walking around trying to find somewhere that was open, and didn't have a 20 minute queue outside. We eventually gave up and went to the queen mary for a drink and then headed home.

Another quiet week followed, with our usual Monday pub quiz seeing us take second place. Which was cause for huge celebration. But on to next week and birthdays and stuff

Cape Town again - pictures to be added

So after a stint with Tom and Amber we headed back to Cape Town for New Years. On the 31st we were at Rhonwyn's place where we started out by making Yakka (evil stuff) and then lying beside the pool for the rest of the day. Of course because we weren't thinking we had forgotten to get drinks for the evening and it was a mad rush to find some... eventually we found a shebeen in Diep Rivier where we got the necessary supplies. Back at the house the rest of the hordes had started arriving.... lots of people who I hadn't seen since the previous December.

All was festive and we were all chatting and dancing and at some point swimming again. This carried on until about 4:30 where we all decided that it would be a good idea to catch some sleep.
But the early birds woke us at about 9 when the clean up started.. so being hung over, and dosed with red bull we cleaned the house and then retreated to the pool where we spent a lot of the day. Later in the afternoon the 30 seconds board was brought out and a competition started.... Sandy playing the floating player and answering any question she knew the answer to... this was the start of ducks and sweet and sour pork (for those of you not there.... DON'T ASK)
A couple of games later the hunger had set in and we were trying to find somewhere to eat. This got postponed after someone started a game of famous names that just went pear shaped. Eventually we decided on going to the Cape Town Fish Market at the Waterfront. We had a booking for 9 and since we arrived early we made our way down to Quay 4 for a drink... we hadn't counted on the music being so terrible.
After drinks it was back to the fish market to enjoy some sushi... and the experience was something that I will not soon forget.... the description of everything that went wrong would take quite a few pages, so let's just say that the waiter was putting very serious downward pressure on his tip. At the end of the evening Hawk, Rhon, Carl, Sam, Pete, Sandy, Kev and myself had had our fill of sushi and decided that retiring for the night would be a good idea.

2nd Jan - Andy's farewell. After a good nights sleep it was off to Camps Bay and Cafe del Mar to say goodbye to Andy, there we met up with the rest of the crowd and the party started all over again. Bacon, Feta and Avo pizza, not something you'll readily find in London... so I had one and it was divine.. as the crowd started to scatter we got ourselves a smaller table and started in on the cocktails... with a name something like sunset... which after a while James was describing as smoggy? Not too sure either. A beautiful sunset and we were off to Sushi Zone in obs for.... you guessed it... more sushi. I've now learnt to eat sashimi, which is the raw fish version of sushi and is actually quite nice. Kev asked the waiter for a bit more wasabi and was presented with enough to sink a small ship, but he made his way through most of it. A surprising thing was when a 2meter long tuna was carried through the front doors... well at least we knew that it was fresh.
Another tiring day was past and we headed back to Petes' place to catch a bit of shut eye and see what the next day would bring.