rich_jacko

Mum and Dad came up to visit this weekend. I gave them a bit of a tour of Sheffield centre in the sun yesterday, which included watching IVFDF morris dancers outside City Hall and visiting the "Designed to Shine" exhibition in the Millennium Galleries. We had dinner out at the always wonderful Zing Vaa. Today we re-watched bits of the Olympic Opening Ceremony on the big screen before taking a leisurely stroll out to the Admiral Rodney and back for lunch. :o)

I'm not doing the '100 days of good things' meme, but if I were, today's good thing would definitely be the Christmas lunch on offer at my office canteen - turkey, stuffing, a pig in blanket, roast spuds, sprouts and parsnips, gravy and cranberry sauce, followed by Christmas pud and custard, all for £3.60 (Ordinarily a main course plus pud would set me back nearly 6 quid). They even throw in a cracker :o)

Of course, this does mean I just want to go to sleep this afternoon rather than get back to work...

Anyone going to the Kelham Island Christmas Market this weekend? Fancy lunch at the Fat Cat either day? They'll have their Christmas lunch menu on.

(I could get used to weekends featuring pub lunches!)

Lunch yesterday at The Admiral Rodney with the Chivers.

Lunch today at The Riverside with ju_bear and Jamie.

It's been a good weekend. A very good turnout at The Blake on Friday evening as well. :o)

I've been away visiting family the last four days. I had meals out (plural!) with my parents at The Crown Inn and the new Golden Dragon. We went to watch the Torch (again) as it came through Evesham, which was rather less busy than when it was in Sheffield (updated photo gallery here). But of course the main reason I went to visit was to meet my newest niece, and here she is:

This weekend I have mostly been visiting the Nightingirls, spending a pleasant evening in The Blake, visiting Stainsby Mill, having a fantastic pub lunch at the Hardwick Inn, visiting Hardwick Halls (new and old), baking another batch of raspberry flapjacks, going to edy_'s birthday party, going swimming, doing food shopping, doing washing, watching the Sealed Knot re-enactment in the park, finishing the last few chapters of my book, and going to roleplaying.

I'm sure at some point I must've slept, but I don't remember it!

...Drank beer, socialised, played games and watched movies, as it turns out :o)

Friday - FFS at the University Arms again for Ruby's birthday. There was much cake and many, many photos of cake.

Saturday - A real ale pub tour of Chesterfield for a colleague's "significant" birthday. We visited The Market, The Royal Oak, Spa Lane Vaults, The Rutland and The Chesterfield Arms, before heading back for a last drink in The Sheffield Tap.

Sunday - An early start for nerdery at my place. We played our shortest ever game of Arkham Horror - One of our party got devoured by the end of the first round; Nyarlathotep woke up by the end of the second; and we killed him by the end of the third. So we ended up playing the game twice more. We also indulged in simultaneous strawberries, chocolate cake, cream and mead. Mmmm...

Monday - One of these days I will remember that the cinema is always heaving with people on rainy bank holidays. Still, although it didn't go quite to plan I managed to see two very different, but both preposterous and fun films - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Avengers Assemble (again). In preparation for the latter I watched Thor again this morning, and then had to go and read bonedancer's brilliant version of it another time ;o)

I was quite impressed with the IMAX. They've made Screen 7 quite a bit bigger and moved it closer to the seats. The sound is impressively feel-it-through-your-seat rumbley without making your ears bleed. The 3D does fall apart a bit if you're too close to the screen. Four rows back probably wasn't far enough, but it was very full. Still, I got suitably blasted at that range.

The view from my window this morning:

I seem to be extremely busy of late. Partly this is because the run up to April is always busy at work (I put in an extra five hours last week, which is normal at the moment). Partly it's because I keep filling my evenings with fun stuff, like yummy Thai buffet with Lard Club at ChaoBaby, an experimental (and well-attended) FFS at The Ball, and seeing The Company's version of Maskerade. But it was also quite nice yesterday to just sit in my living room watching the snow fall.

So, who's up for going out to play in it today? :o)

EDIT: Met up with the Chiverses in the park. The Goblin and I christened the circular sledges. The Bug was unimpressed.

Overall I think I will look back on 2011 as a year in which I spent an awful lot of money, but spent it well. After a long, long wait I bought and furnished a house. I went on two enjoyable holidays (to Flamborough and to Cologne), had a fab party weekend away in Hartington, and made several visits to London.

In less-expensive news several friends had babies, I became a godfather, and my sister is expecting her third (and - she swears - final!) child. A close friend coped amazingly well with cancer. We discovered a great new Friday social venue in The Blake, and had several hiccups with the Walkley Cottage. Work was busy but mostly more of the same - no more promotions on the horizon for a while. I succumbed to the evils of Facebook but made up for it by also reading more books than usual. Movies were mostly good but Doctor Who was disappointing. Cake was not disappointing on many, many occasions. The weather was hot and sunny surprisingly often. There wasn't nearly enough snow.

My New Year's resolution is kind of dull - I'm aiming to get up earlier and get into work earlier on a regular basis. This will give me more time to play in the evenings, in theory at least!

Best wishes for 2012 everyone! :o)

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!)

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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