Weekend fun

So, it's been an awesome weekend. Firstly the SoD and Post-P (for those who don't know - 'secret' techie dining / drinking society dinner) - John and I hosted the Post-P at home. Given the numbers that were expected to the dinner (90) hosting the after party was a scary prospect! It turned out not to be at all; only two glasses (hired from Tescos anyway) broken, and no major stains / messes / breakages / fish killings. A lot of debauchery happened though - of an amusing and (from what I could tell) not too controversial nature, which is good - the amount of sharpie used on various people was scary, as was the speed with which we got through the beer (a Firkin of Milton brewery's Sparta in about 4 hours) / brownies (thanks to Tamsin!) / cheese / crisps / other booze. Ian and Tamsin stayed overnight & thanks to their help we got the cleaning done in record time (mutter housemate didn't stay and help, mutter mutter).

Yesterday was spent lying in (until midday - not too bad given we didn't get to bed until about 3am), cleaning the house (only really took a couple of hours), then watching (well, commenting on and criticising) RTTFP with Tamsin, Hazel, Will, John, fajitas and smoothies. Was a nice chilled out evening - just what the doctor ordered after a manic party. Had to leave stupidly early this morning as Hazel had to start work in St Albans at 9am - meh.

I spent the morning taking pics around the town. Not a wonderful day for it, so the photos aren't that special - but I think I got some nice ones anyway. I've included a couple here, and there rest are on Flickr. Haven't acheived much else, but that's not a bad thing to be honest - I ought to get some work done though - and that's what I intend to do soon - once I've put the rabbit stew in the oven (yey! for St Albans market).

I didn't mention that I have new fish - as of last week - 6 Discus (two from Hazel as an early birthday present - thanks very much my love!) They look amazing as a finishing touch to the stocking of my large tank upstairs in the lounge, and have decided me to keep tropical fish in that tank (rather than going for marine, which was a possible option). With luck the Discus will grow to a good age and darken up nicely! Pictures of them (not very good ones - I need to spend more time with my camera and them now they're less nervy) are on Facebook.

Also, the guppies in 'John's' micro (39 L) tank downstairs bred the other day - I put some live Daphnia in the tank and noticed things that weren't daphnia swimming around! As they have a tendancy to eat their young (and Hazel & Will both want Guppies...) I decided to move the parents upstairs to the big tank temporarily where they seem quite happy. The youngsters are growing quite fast; already you can just about differentiate their colours.

Anyway, I have rabbit to stew, so had better sign off. Thanks to all involved for a great weekend anyway!

Opera and brokenness

So Anna, Joy, Hazel, Michael and I went to see Carmen last night at the Coliseum. It was very nicely staged, with an interesting modern approach to the genre (I have to confess I didn't know the opera at all beforehand). However, we were all left a little disappointed by the lack of any real emotion throughout the production - musically the show was excellent, but theatrically it was lacking movement and energy. The modern touches were well used in places, but a little awkward in others - The highlight of these to my mind was the bar setting which used simple fluorescent lighting and blue neon effects to produce a great atmosphere.

The fact that I was in pain throughout the show didn't help - I was taken out by a short but virulent 'flu bug on Tuesday night / all day Wednesday, and as I'd been well and truly 'manipulated' (i.e. cracked) by the Osteopath last Thursday, muscle aching due to the 'flu became really painful backache yesterday and today - fortunately Hazel's ready supply of Syndol helped during the show, and today I'm a little less sore. May have to ask Moraig (the Osteopath) to go gentle on me next week...

I'm chickening out of going to see / do the getout for Fame! at the ADC today - as much as I'd like to help I don't really think I should - I'm bound to break myself if I turn up. Ah well, will sort out things in the house (slowly!) and attempt to finish my accounts - which I _must_ get done this weekend.

Not been too happy over the last couple of days; not really sure why but things are piling up; firstly Laura emailed to say she'd changed her name back to her maiden name - not a problem in itself, but it did come as a bit of a surprise. This prompted me to talk with her about divorce - again something we need to do - it should happen soonish, but not right now I think. Work has been getting me down for a while as well - I just don't feel I've got the enthusiasm for it any more for a number of reasons. I may well be thinking again about whether to move on once the v3 development work is complete. Meh - ah well it will pass I'm sure. I have been happy recently, this is just a blip mainly brought on by nasty painful backness :(.

Right, accounts - must get them done!

TFC?

I just got a call from an 0870 number to my mobile saying they were from a 'debt recovery agency'. I refused to give them the first line of my address that they asked for unless they gave me one piece of information about me - they refused saying they'd pass the refusal through to the client who would try to contact me at the property.

Looking on this site says that they're in fact a random marketing firm - nasty and dangerous technique - argh!

Of parties, noise and theatre

So I'm kinda being bullied into this, but I thought it ought to happen anyway.

We had our housewarming here in Girton the last Friday - a very debauched, but good fun evening (cheesecake is always dangerous...). Non-censored photos of the event are on Facebook as their artistic merit didn't really warrant Flickr. Anyway, nothing got broken - the only issue was an inadvertant turning off of the fishtank which – as I was away for the whole of Saturday – resulted in some very cold and chemically unhappy fish. Fortunately (and quite surprisingly as they're normally one of the most hardy fish) I only lost one of the danios when I discovered it on the Sunday. - I dosed the tank, did a water change, and tested the water - it took about 4 days to recover properly in which I didn't feed as much and kept a close eye on it. It's all back to normal now though!

The day after the party was taken up setting up for the CUUEG (Cambridge University Dive Club) 50 year anniversary ball. The gig was fairly simple and good fun to do – lots of toys to play with – JL's digital sound desk, and JK's Vista, along with lots of LED fixtures. (cheap Taiwanese ones, but they were fun nevertheless – It was quite nice to be able to plug them all into one 13A domestic socket with no need to worry about loading) Also it was great to catch up with a few diving types – Kirstin, James D as well as JK, who I hadn't spoken with for quite a while.

Saw James and the Giant Peach at the ADC on Saturday - very good for a kids show I was amused to see Rob Frimstone's costume; which is practically the same as the one he wore for The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Also – why did they use the lampost &ndash A little too much borrowing I feel. Anyway, despite this the show was very good fun. The use of music throughout livened it up a lot, and the characters were enthusiastic and fun. The peach set piece could have looked nicer; the join lines were obvious and the painting not very even, but for a low budget and small amount of get-in time, the show did very well.

Just got back from the ADC, where the Fame! get-in is underway; was helping T with her Sound get-in. It took quite some time to go through the patch, but the solution that we've ended up with I think is a good one. I'm slightly annoyed by sound designers not properly finishing their get-out from the show before, and feel a little sorry for T, whose MD and producer aren't being that helpful; a lot of what's going on has been happening without her say-so – she's been out of the loop on many things. Ah well, such is life I suppose.

Work is going really well. A few minor communication difficulties (things going to quickly mainly, which in itself is a good thing!) came up last week, but I think we have them resolved now, and the developers seem to be back on track. I've got a lot of catch up to do, but we've finally got to the point where we can actually say we have a product that will be delivered to a sensible timeline!

Hazel and I have been seeing a lot of each other – possibly too much given what's happened, but we should be able to work things out – I really do hope things get simpler for her as it's not been easy. Now she has a job (albeit one she doesn't really enjoy) I think that we'll both be able to get the space we need to get things straight in our heads.