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Another busy couple of days. Went to the Ashmolean Museum with the parents yesterday which was really nice. The collection there is so varied - they've got some wonderful art (there's a beautiful portrait of Henrietta Maria by Van Dyke (I think)) as well as a wonderful collection of Egyptian artefacts, mediaeval (the Arthur Jewel for example) and a gallery of modern Chinese painting which I've never seen before and which was beautiful. Then in the evening, we went back to the Petit Blanc. Once again, it was wonderful - a quality meal and a lovely evening was had by all.

Today was shopping day. We went into the city and I bought some of the things that I'll need for my potential cats and then we met up with some friends of Mum and Dads who were in the area (ish). We all headed off to the Ashmolean cafe for tea, sandwiches, scones and chat - very British I know :) I went into Blackwell’s with Alex and discovered that they'd finally received my copy of This Sceptred Isle the 20th Century box set so I used his discount card to snap that up (I'm listening to it in bed now - I love the delivery and attention to detail of the series. Soon, I'll be as good on 20C priministers as I am on 19C ones :) )

After that, and a brief sojourn in Borders we adjourned to the cinema to watch the Lord of the Rings. I was the only one of us (me, Alex, Mum and Dad) who hadn't seen it but the others all wanted to see it again. Although there were a couple of niggles (I wasn't sure about the way they'd done Saruman or Boromir) I thought it was great and very impressive. They'd had to chop some of the storytelling around to make the pacing suit the film better but that generally worked pretty well and the tricks they used to make the hobbits look small are not really visible at all which is pretty impressive. I also found it really scary in some places, even though I know the plot. The black riders were terrifying and the mines of Moria had me gripping Alex's hand for dear life too. I think though, that when the loud bits are making the speakers in the cinema rattle then it's too loud :)
tinyjo: (Default)
Well, after a shaky start, a really nice weekend.

Friday night it was our team Xmas meal at a Thai restaurant. Now this would have been all very well if it had not been for the fact that we left work for the pub at 5:30 and then left the pub for the restaurant at 8:15 - it was booked for 8:30. Yes, someone had actually planned for us to have nearly 2 hours of drinking on an empty stomach before going to the restaurant. The upshot of this was that all the guys in our team were really drunken before we even got to sit down and hence unable to resist the temptation to throw food at each other and otherwise piss about. Ah well, so it goes I guess. The food was fantastic (as it should have been for the price we paid for it!) but unfortunately I don't really have the same interests as the rest of my team when we're drunk.

After that I went home and forced Alex to come over and hug me which he did with commendable swiftness - he's lovely really. On Saturday we had a lovely lie in together (very relaxing :) ) before heaving ourselves up to go shopping. Treated myself to Chez Geek from Gameskeeper - this is a fantastic game if you have a peer group of lazy techie (& RPG) types (i.e. OUSFG) because it's just like your life :) I thoroughly recommend it. We also decided to do a bit of booster draft Magic just for a laugh as we hadn't played for a while so we stocked up for that. Then on to Tescos for a mammouth shop for lo. I have eaten everything in my house and my mates are due over tonight. Stagger back to house weighted down with stuff and put all away.

Suz and Rach arrive. This is very cool as they are my bestest mates and we don't get to see eachother so much these days. In particular neither Suz or I have seen Rach for a year as she's just come back from Papua New Guinea where she's been working on some kind of linguistic project with a Christian organisation. She shows us all her photos and we sit around and laugh and catch up. I make dinner (brocolli and chicken cheese - a speciality of mine) and then we get down to the party food and play Chez Geek and giggle and play some more and make Alex make us tea - it's kind of a trade off for him (or so he says). He gets to hang around with beautiful women (and see them in pyjamas) but we bully him into making endless rivers of tea. Poor love :) Go to bed late for more hugs.

Up late Sunday morning - lovely lie in mmmmmm. Sit around and chat with the girls in desultory way (they have stayed over in the spare room) and finish up any party style sugery foods which were missed last night. Manage finally to all get dressed and have showers (not in that order) and pack them off home about 2pm or so. Was going to go Xmas shopping (still haven't sorted out Mums pressie) but haven't the energy so Alex and I sit down and do the booster draft. Neither of us have done drafting before so it was kinda fun. I got some good cards but was seduced into going 4 colour which ended up being a bit overstretched so Alex beat me in the end. Got some really nice cards though (spirit monger springs to mind) and we had a good laugh which is the main thing. Must get out my collection again and have a play. I think I had just started to get daunted by the sheer number of cards I had so I lost interest. Too many options. Still, gotta be some fun to be had...
tinyjo: (Default)
Well, here I am again. A much less traumatic reason for the hiatus this time you'll be reassured to know - I've been ill. This sucks, but I'll survive. As you can see, I'm back at work today, albeit rather light headed. I thought most of it had gone but I do actually feel quite woozy today. Lots of admin things I think - that won't take too much brain power. Am debating whether to still go along to the work Xmas meal tomorrow if am still feeling a bit fragile. I'd quite like to but I don't know. It will mean being back very late but it would be quite fun. Plus I'm not going to the departmental Xmas party so its my only opportunity to celebrate with my team who are quite nice really. I guess I'll see how I feel tomorrow.

This weekend looks like being pretty cool as my best mate who has just been in Papua New Guinea for a year is coming over with our other best mate for a sleepover :) Yay! Should be really fab and apparently there'll be pressies as well - got to be a good. I'm sure you'll hear all about it on Monday.
tinyjo: (Default)
Went to see if I could get my Visor replaced on warranty. Unlikely apparently. Then I went to try and meet up with Kath and Rick in Camden only to discover that I'd left my phone behind! Got through to them via phone box and agreed that since I was also feeling a bit crap I would just head home and leave them to shop. Pottered around at home doing bits of packing and stuff but pretty quiet other than that. Sent Rick and Kath off home after their shopping.
tinyjo: (Default)
Went to Tate Modern with Rick and Kath and dropped my Visor! Bugger! The screen has cracked and is now no longer touch sensitive so its completely gone. I'll have to try and get the insurance people to replace it. Bum, bum, bum. Went to see Planet of the Apes in the evening which was quite fun in an un-challenging kinda way. I was in one of those big cinemas where they play the music slightly too loud though so I came out with a headache.
tinyjo: (Default)
Kath and Rick arrived and we actually had quite a good evening - I taught them Flux and Give me the Brain and we drank quite a lot of wine. Rick seems quite nice. He gets on well with Alex - they're into the same music and stuff like that so they were chatting away.
tinyjo: (Default)
Moving house is so complicated. The flat which I want to take is still mine for the taking, assuming they've finished it on time! I rang up the guy at the estate agents today and he said that they've been taking the ceilings up to put insulation in which is all well and good but means that he can't be sure when the flat is going to be finished. If I'm lucky then I'll get the best of both worlds - it'll be finished just when I want to move in which is about a week after it was going to be finsihed before. On the other hand, they could decide that its not going to be finished in time for me after all, which would be a bit of a bummer. I won't really know til Tuesday when I'm going to give him a bell again and find out whats going on.

Still having fun with my laptop. Got the Windows setup how I like it now - just have to do a bit of research on setting linux up on a laptop, getting the drivers and so on. I need a DVD to test the DVD drive on really (well, I suppose need is a bit of an exageration) but it seems to be working fine with my games and stuff. I have decided to sell my desktop to Becks (my flatmate) now that I've got this which will be quite handy for a bit of extra cash.

My best friend from Norwich is coming down to stay with me next weekend which should be fun. Shes bringing her boyfriend, who I have never met before but that should be fine too I should think - he sounds fairly easy going. I have to think of things to cook though. I reckon we should go out for pizza and maybe a movie on Saturday night which means only 1 proper cooking night though.

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Emptied of expectation. Relax.

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