rich_jacko

After the success of last year's trip, I joined the Nightingales again for an Easter visit to London. No Legoland this time, but still plenty of awesome! (Yes, the girls are still singing that song ;o) )

Here's a full write-up and photos( under this cut )

All-in-all, it was a very busy, fun-filled (and tiring!) six days away. I have felt well loved, with three Nightingirls constantly fighting over my attention and who gets to hold my hand :o)

Plenty of stuff in London still to do...!

8 adults, 4 kids, 1 holiday cottage, 2 minutes walk from the beach.

1 fantastic week, 3 castles, 2 island trips, 1 hydroelectric-powered stately home.

( 1 detailed write-up, 72 photos. )

All in all, it was a very successful holiday which everyone enjoyed. It was great to spend time together and the kids greatly enjoyed having one another to play with as well. A special thank you to the drivers and everyone who brought home-made cakes with them or cooked during the week. The days out were all good and it was also nice just spending time in the cottage and on the beach. I just wish it could have lasted longer. As Ed said, this only means we're going to have to do something similar again next year :o)

Happy New Year, everybody! :o)

I was going to post this yesterday, but LJ seemed to be a bit broken. Figuring those Russians are a few hours ahead of us, I realised no work was going to get done to fix it for a little while. And I was right...

These end-of-year posts always make me sad, as so many friends always seem to post about what a crappy year they've had. I hope you didn't, and for those who I know did, I hope 2013 turns out to be a lucky number after all and a much better year all round. It certainly seemed to get off to a good start last night!

For me, I'm happy to say that 2012 seemed to be a year peppered with frequent doses of awesome. Well, maybe I'd rather forget the bit where I got attacked by a falling shop sign, but the summer was great and I really got caught up in the celebrations, going to a Jubilee hog roast, seeing the Queen and Prince Philip, watching the Torch relay (three times), hosting an Olympic party, and (best of all) getting to spend a day at the Paralympic Games.

Earlier in the year, I visited Cardiff, and then later in the year, I went back to (a different bit of) Wales and then the slightly more exotic locations of Geneva for work and Maastricht (and Valkenburg) for pleasure. I also gained a new niece (and, just before Christmas, a new second cousin), visited the seaside, and met J.K.Rowling. And I seem to have had a quite ridiculous number of pub lunches, particularly towards the end of the year...

In semi-traditional style, following my round up of films and books I devoured in the first half of the year, ( here's the same treatment for the second (not-quite) half of 2012. )

I stuck to my 2012 New Year's resolutions of starting/finishing work earlier and reading more books, and I aim to carry those on in 2013.

The last couple of rounds of the Christmas season went well, with going out for Dim Sum on the 22nd, Christmas Day with my parents, Boxing Day at my sister's, the traditional NYEE party/barbecue chez Nightingale, and seeing New Year in last night at Flat of Geek. A few glasses of Jura Superstition seemed like a good way to see in 2013 ;o). Then it was a round of pizza, games and movies this evening before it's back to normality tomorrow.

Best wishes to all for the coming year!

Sorry it's taken me nearly a week to get around to writing this up. It's partly that I've been really busy since I came back, what with work, two trips to the cinema (more on the latter in my next post), helping the Chivers decorate their Christmas tree, Lard Club Christmas at Pepe's, Chinese food, and my work Christmas do at Pasta Bar, followed by a pub crawl up Ecclesall Road. It's also partly my reluctance to grapple with LJ's annoying new(ish) photo upload system. (Who'd have thought something on LJ would be less intuitive and easy to use than it's Facebook equivalent?)

Anywaaaay, ( here's what we got up to on holiday. )

All in all it was a great few days away. It was a shame so many people dropped out of the trip, but it was nice to spend time with the Chivers. The goblin and I got through a few more chapters of Harry Potter and a couple of games of Chrononauts. The bug merrily waved "See you later" to anyone he'd see, and then I taught him jazz hands... We fairly thoroughly explored two beautiful towns, I ticked another country that I've been too. Oh, and we had quite a bit of cake :o)


Click for photos

Wednesday 29th February to Saturday 3rd March
Real ale festival at Magna. I'm going with folks from work on the Thursday. Anyone else up for it?

Friday 2nd March
FFS at the University Arms.

Wednesday 7th March
March Lard Club at Fazenda in Leeds - Hmmm, that's coming up fast. Can anyone give me a lift please?

Saturday 10th March
Next movie evening at mine. The theme will be "Jim Cameron Special Editions", with a rough schedule of:
- 5:00pm - Avatar: Special Edition
- 8:00pm - Terminator 2: Special Edition
- 10:30pm - Aliens: Special Edition
Those are in reverse order of release date and it also means the films get better as the night goes on (Oooh, possibly controversial. Discuss!)

Wednesday 2nd May
May Lard Club. I have no inspiration yet what I want to do for my birthday this year, but I may hijack this and suggest we go find Roberto's new place in Barnsley.

Monday 4th June
The Diamond Jubilee concert. The previous one for the Golden Jubilee was epic from what I saw on TV (Brian May on the roof of Buck House!), so I figured why not enter the draw for free tickets for this one. The only way to get tickets is through this draw, and I don't expect to get any, but what the heck. Anyone else entering?

Some unspecified date in the future
If I were to organise a holiday for a few days in Windsor at some point, would anyone be interested? I'd like to go to t'castle, and I have a burning need to go to Legoland (and could do with borrowing small children so I have the excuse). It would be either at Easter or, more likely, over the summer (but avoiding the Olympics). If you're interested, let me know your preferred dates.

Back from spending half a week in Cologne with the Chivers and Anne WINOLJ. In a nutshell, the first half of the holiday went very well, the second half not quite so well (Bloody Belgians!)

( More details... )

I aim to go back, not just because we lost a day and missed out on some of the stuff we wanted to see, but also because in recent years I haven't had holidays abroad nearly as often as I used to and I'd like to get back into the habit. So where next year, and who's up for coming along? :o)


Photos

...has been a busy month, in a good way :o)

I kicked it off on holiday in Flamborough. Since getting back I've been to the First Friday Social, Evie's party, Lard Club at I-can't-believe-it's-not-Roberto's Bella Roma, my own 33 1/3 party, the twins' naming party, the Third Friday Social, and Toby's Thanksgiving party (where I officially became a godfather - Yay!).

Just neil_h's pirate party (this Sat) and the Steel City Beer Festival (next Thurs) to go...

Oh, and my parents and my sister have significant wedding anniversaries this month as well!

Came back from Edinburgh, unpacked, did the food shopping, did the washing, caught up with what all you LJ folks have been up to, caught up on other t'internets (Yes, thank you to those of you who destroyed my afternoon by posting links to Filler :op), wrangled a goblin, caught up with last week's telly, and then it's back to work tomorrow.

I had a fab holiday, and it all went by far too quickly. Will post more later, when I've had a chance to finish sorting through my (200+) photos.

A couple of photo panoramas from Scotland - l33t Photoshop ski11z not present ;o)

( Cut for extreme widescreen stretchiness )