School re-union!

This weekend sees the annual old school re-union, well a dinner in the main hall with drinks and a talk from the Headmaster, typically a pat on the back to tell us old pupils that our legacy is being maintained (I have to say that my mates legacy seems to have been climbing the trees in the grounds, tormenting the Prefects and dinner ladies, running riot through the common room, smoking in the cemetery on Spring Bank, or sneaking across the road to the Old Zoological for a few pints at lunchtime! - I hope that this legacy is truly being upheld!) [although I accept that it is unlikely to be the subject of the Headmaster's speech]

I must admit that I haven't been for about 6 years.....it seemed to be a good way of catching up with friends whilst at University and after we had gone our own ways, but it was usually held on a Friday night and when you are away it can be difficult to get back in time.

Living up to the legacy we would typically meet up in the Old Zoological, our local, and have a few pints to reminisce before crossing the road to the bar that was typically set up in the Memorial Hall (where many hours were fruitless spent playing the demonstration tunes on electric keyboards) a few more drinks, before being lead through to the main hall, with lots of long tables, and a wine supplier. There was always a pot going round on the duration of the speeches, with the winnings typically being spent on more wine.

After the speeches it was typical for us to wander into Hull City Centre to attend a nightclub or two. I should point out at this stage that the event is Black-tie, and on occasions it has been known for me to attend wearing a kilt......(this always seemed such a good idea at the start of the night, although by the time you are walking into a club in a kilt on a Friday night in the centre of Hull, you are guaranteed an lively night!) For those who do not know Hull, or who have only arrived recently will never have known the joy of Lexington Avenues, or "LAs" as it was known.

This was a fantastically dodgy nightclub, where you would see things that you did not even believe to be possible, but which was cheap and cheesy (and didn't mind a group of about 40 people in evening dress turning up at about 12:30 on a Saturday morning to dance the remainder of the night away!)

Unfortunately this has since been demolished, taking a great slice of my history with it.......and this has left me somewhat more anxious about Saturday night.....this and the somewhat distressing fact that when I bought my ticket they asked me when I left. Telling them I left for University in 1995 made me realise that in a few years, the freshers that tend to race past me in fancy dress to various pubs, will not even have been born when I left to go (where is my life going so quickly, and why do I still think I am 12?)

I can almost hear the sleigh bells.....

Not only are the lights up around town (both Hull and Manchester) and the Christmas Market is in full swing in Manchester.......but now it is also snowing!

I realise that reading back through some of the past blogs it does seem that I am a little bit like a kiddie on Christmas Eve (Boy wanty pressie! Where Santy Clause? Want pressies now!) but it's not so much Christmas itself (although I do love Christmas) but rather the whole season of winter.

Walking to the station in the morning there is nothing quite like seeing your breath in the air and that almost painful first few breaths, almost burning the lungs.....and I love snow. I think it is a further regression to childhood.

When we were a lot younger.....I think I was about 6.....my parents bought us a set of cross country skis. They did not want us throwing ourselves down a hill on skis at a young age...that was the plan! Instead we would go to Beverley Westwood when there was snow to slog round with planks of wood on our feet, to drag ourselves up any slight incline to experience the thrill of a little gravity driven acceleration. This was the birth of a lifelong love of skiing......so I am even more excited about the snow.

So with the cold, lights, decorations and snow......bring on Christmas.

Waking, baking and Sunday dinner making......

This has been the first weekend for about 4 weeks that I have not been racing around, sleeping in trenches or jet setting off to Dublin that I had a weekend to myself, so this weekend I decided that I had to make the most of it, especially Sunday.

Getting up at stupid o'clock to commute to Manchester every day there is somethine really magically in sleeping in.....and quite sad when you get excited about lying in till 8.00am, as it was I managed to sleep in till at least 8:45 :) but then what do you do with the unexpected day to yourself?

Well my Mother has a charidee cake sale tomorrow, so I offered to back something for her to sell. Whilst I love to cook I know that my food would never get onto Masterchief. So a simple bake for a Sunday afternoon.......scones!!!!! Pretty straight forward recipe, that will sit in a processor for a few minutes and then into the oven!

8oz         - self-raising flour
1tsp        - baking powder
1 1/2 oz  - soft butter
1oz         - caster sugar
1             - egg
1/4 pint   - milk

Mix flour, baking powder and butter, then add sugar and then egg, before mixing in the milk, roll out, cut out, wash with milk....bake.....simples tsk!

Having offered to bake for the charidee it was only fitting that being in the kitchen I stayed there to prepare Sunday lunch.

After a day in the kitchen I remember how much I love cooking, and how much (bank manager willing) I would love to open my own restaurant. Maybe I should get out of law now while I have the chance!

Christmas is definitely just around the corner.

I'm not one of those people who can give you an exact count of the number of days to Christmas from any given day in the year, nor am I one of those people who organise presents throughout the year for that one day.....(I must admit I kind of cheat and when I am with someone, I tend to make notes of the things that they point out that they like so I can avoid the difficulty of making decisions on what jewellery, or pyjamas, or books etc to buy - being single can kinda suck at Christmas time)

I love the house fully decorated, the chance to spend the time with the family is fantastic, and the joy of watching my niece's face when she opens her presents makes all the time an effort worth while.

My family has a tradition at Christmas. Christmas eve is usually spent doing the last wrapping, and preparing the veggies for Christmas dinner, followed by a few drinks with friends and Midnight Mass. Christmas morning usually starts early, with my younger Sister who tends to be up at about 6.30am, even after Jess was born, and be dying to open the stockings. Stockings are opened upstairs, then breakfast of cold ham and boiled eggs and then onto the important job of opening the rest of the presents. After presents for the last ten years I will go and prepare Christmas dinner, typically with my Father's help (I tend to ensure that Dad has got at least one DVD which he can watch whilst having a drink whilst I cook! I find it so much easier that way round!)

After dinner the traditional Christmas activity takes over of sleeping through the Queen's speech, and pretty much everything else that is on TV.

I really enjoy this time of year, and Christmas seems to be just round the corner. This feeling was heightened today with the opening of Manchester's Christmas Market, a huge continental market spread throughout the centre, with all manner of stalls all festive and full of cheer (oh and mulled wine!)

P.S. - I apologise my posts are somewhat like buses.....you wait all week for one and then two come along at once!

Things to do in Dublin.......

I'm sorry to all of you for the paucity of posts so far this month.....a combination of a crazy few weeks and then a touch of bloggers block.

There have been up and down the Country at least twice a week, but then this weekend saw the entire department's annual (well semi annual.....in that it occurs when they remember and have something/somewhere to discuss with us!) grand team bonding session. This time it was a trip to Dublin, to see our new office and to meet all those people we know about but who we have never met (some of them with good reason I have to say!)

This extravegansa saw about 140 people converging from 6 airports into Dublin International Airport, which is a really nice airport and delivered by a very friendly coach driver to our hotel......(not one that I will be heading back to anytime soon, but a stereotypical conference hotel) I think that it would have been taken slightly better had our flight not left Manchester at 7.55am for a first organised event at 12:30pm. After the conference and a evening of moderate entertainment (well I say moderate...it certainly started out that way with a walk round the office, a few drinks and a dinner, but ended up somewhat messily!)

A couple of us decided that as we had travelled over to Dublin, it would be good to stay over on Saturday night and enjoy Saturday in Dublin, so wondered what you can do. Having checked online we realised that we would be pushed to fit everything in.

Things that we thought that we would do:

1. Visit the Guiness museum,
2. Have our photo taken with Molly Malone,
3. Walk round Trinity College,
4. Visit Grafton Street,
5. See Landesdowne Road Stadium (and if possible see a game there!)

Well I would love to say that we did everything in the list and lets face it it isn't exactly an onerous list. Saturday morning saw us decide to go for a walk into town, having seen the stadium from a distance (.....about a mile from the hotel) Does this count?

A walk into the centre.....past Trinity College, and along Grafton Street, we found a pub.....well after a somewhat late night on Friday a coffee for me.....whilst the guys hit the Guiness straight away at 10:30am. Some 17 hours later we made it back to the hotel! There was fantastic live folk music, some hugely friendly people (except for one very well informed young lady who decided that she had to inform us four poor guys from the mainland the effects of 16 Guinesses in a short space of time - thankfully not experienced her dire warnings!) great beers and I can hugely recommend the Porterhouse - Temple Bar.

Whilst the flight home on Sunday was not too fun Dublin was everything that it was billed as, and can't wait to go back......

P.S. - Having looked at the list of things to do we:

1. Drank pretty much the whole Guiness museum's worth,
2. Definitely saw Molly Malone.....if not been able to focus a camera on her
3. Walked along Grafton Street and around Trinity College.....trying to find the pub where we were to meet up, and
4. Saw Landsdowne Road Stadium - from afar......and even caught a rugby match, even if it was whilst sitting in a pub with a beer in my hand!

Result I would say!

Two guys in a trench!

Well after turning 34 (and trying to grow up......well not really ;) )  the best way I could think of celebrating was to sit in a foxhole overnight, in the cold, just for re-enacting (I don't even get paid to sit in a foxhole and have people shoot at me, this is just for giggles......well there is a far more important purpose.....to remind people what those incredibly brave, heroic men and women lived through in defending our liberties and life!)

 Whilst we battled through Saturday and there were all manner of stories and amusing moments, although they are probably those kind of stories that will only be amusing to fellow re-enactors, but after 8 hours in the woods we decided to retreat back to the foxhole. For those who have never seen a re-enactment it is a bit like boyscout camps, interspersed with periods of historical activity, and usually a rehearsed pitched battle. In the winter season there are private battles, where training and tactics are practiced (it's a lot like cops 'n' robbers but in period kit, and with period tactics). 

The battling was fun, but what really struck me was that whilst we do this hobby and try to ensure that we do things as correctly as possible, waking up on a foxhole was incredible. That poor young men from all over the world woke up in the bottom of trenches, or in bunkers, or foxholes, and are still doing so. We woke with mist and smoke slipping along the trench bottom and through the door, swirling in the slanting sunlight. 

We are incredibly lucky that we do not live through those times anymore, that whilst conflict still rages around us, we are still in a very long period of World peace. That countless young men woke up, and still do, to these conditions......to never see another. That those young men lived, and died that we may be free, and at this time of year, with Remembrance Day around the corner it is a time that I always take a few hours to remember and thank those that have come before, and those that are still to come.

Another year older, another year.........wiser?

Well I am now standing on the brink of another Birthday and this has got me thinking!

What have learnt this year? Am I more mature? Growing up towards adulthood? (okay so technically at 33 I should be an adult already - and physically I'm there, or thereabouts)

This year has been a huge roller coaster for me and those of you who have read some of my earlier posts will have some idea what has happened, but so far I cannot find any evidence that I've learnt anything new (apart from the joy of "Blogging" - does that count?)  I'm pretty sure that I already knew that black sambucca was not a drink that you should inhale, that spending time with friends and family was one of the most important things to me, that handstands or break dancing in a kilt was not an attractive sight for anyone involved, and that work is there to give you a chance to recover from the weekend whilst getting you the money to do what you enjoy doing! I know that if I was put in the same position again with a girl I would continue to wear my heart on my sleeve, throw myself in, and undoubtedly get hurt......would I do it again - almost inevitably.

I'm pretty sure that there have been no blinding moments of stunning enlightenment, as for Paul on the road to Damascus, no sudden flash of a 200 watt light bulb going off above my head (I hold my hand up here, and readily admit that at the moment it seems to be a 5watt energy efficiency bulb....you know the one that you turn on and after 45 minutes still waiting for a light source that a glow worm would laugh at!)

Nor can I see that I have matured massively. I still enjoy going out and drinking with friends (usually resulting in drinking games that I first enjoyed when I was 18) and although I am quite happy to go and enjoy a meal in refined surroundings, or enjoy the theatre or even the ballet (obviously again only the really macho ones......is there one based on Rambo?) but I enjoyed doing that when I was 18 as well, I just couldn't afford to do it very often. I suppose that the "occasional food for the soul" that I enjoy now may be a sign of a slowly dawning appreciation of my age, and a creeping maturity, but at the same time I will still be spending my weekend sleeping in a foxhole in the middle of a wood, no doubt in the rain and cold (.....for fun, not even because I have to be there!)

I don't really celebrate my birthday, not even the big ones 18, 21 or 30 (I do seem to remember a lot of alcohol and a Pizza Hut chicken supremey thing being brought back up over a friends wall on my 21st - this is certainly not a comment on Pizza Hut, and other pizza restaurants are available, but rather more the punch where whatever was brought was added into the bucket ). I can't remember the last time I had a proper party/night out to celebrate one (although that may be an indication of my nights out) but I think that life is often too short to only enjoy yourself once a year. Nor am I hung up on getting older. I look forward to it! Life is equally too short to worry about it passing, but rather it should be enjoyed.

I am looking forward to getting those distinguished grey hairs at the temple (I have checked when I go to the barbers but honestly they are only slightly lighter......not grey at all!), and crows' feet and the worry lines to give the impression of a hard working 'real' man - like an Arctic explorer, deep sea fisherman, or bin-man! (rather than someone who spends most of his life staring at paperwork or a computer screen! - maybe I should try and get one of those jobs instead). I love the idea of growing old disgracefully, but then I ask myself what sort of midlife crisis can I have? How can I out-crazy my hobby of re-enacting? Buying a fast sports car and surrounding myself with beautiful young women would seem like a calming down! Maybe "free-running" or "extreme ironing"?

Here's to ageing. You only get to live once, so you might as well enjoy everyday, whether it is your birthday or not.

and here's to growing up - to being finally able to look over the bar top!