The rest of 2010

Hello there. Catch-up time. This blog starts and ends with parties at Martin & Lucy's. Important to note at this juncture that we do actually have other mates.

Just getting ready for Martin & Lucy's New Year party, which is a fancy dress affair. I don't own a fancy dress, or a dress of any kind, so I'm going in 80's pantaloons, a red flowery shirt, a mustard waistcoat, purple dickie-bow and grey suede winkle-pickers. Wifey's going in fur coat and no nickers. That should cause a stir.

I see from the previous blog that I've been sulking since just before Halloween. Here are some pics of that:










There, a fair representation of the proceedings. 'twas a good bash. I usually can't remember parties due to alcohol-induced amnesia, but this time I can't remember because it was months ago.

During the blog-free period I did eventually recover from the bad back, and start playing squash and doing other exercise. Now it all just seems like a bad dream, so much so that my good intentions of doing pilates went away after a few weeks. Having said that, the few sessions I did attend were very helpful to my recovery and I'd recommend it to anyone with concerns over the old spine. Just be prepared to have to make small talk with your exclusively female classmates.

Other high-points in the autumn/winter social calendar included the following:

Settling in at work

I noticed a building in the vicinity of my workplace which isn't as it seems. look twice at this:

..strange eh? Must have cost a fortune. I wonder if they are actually working on it inside, and one day it will shed this skin like a chrysalis, and dazzle us all like some gigantic concrete butterfly. The one next to it is identical in every respect, except that it's real. They must have photographed the real one and used it to make this cover. Must have a huge printer - paper size: A-minus-one-million.

Feeding Colin

Actually that happened loads of times, and presumably always will. He et this the other day, much to my amazement considering his recent reduction in bulk:Scary eh? Would take me a week to get through.

Opening the Art Lounge

This was a big one. Local choice of bars is very limited in New Mills so when our mate Dave (Seen earlier in this blog, dressed as dracula) decided to convert the top floor of the Beehive Pub into a contemporary art space-cum-wine bar, we were delighted. Wifey curated the 25 pieces on display, and since October five of them have actually sold. Here is what it looked like just before the grand opening:





The whole venture has been well-received on the whole and soon another set of paintings will replace the ones seen here. Many a happy evening has been spent there enjoying the non-intrusive atmosphere created by the lack of big tellies, dart-boards, pool-tables and rubbish music. In fact it was yours truly that provided the music, after the original plan to stream from the internet went awry. Support the facebook page - ArtLounge

Finding Gloves

Wifey hatched a hare-brained scheme to collect lost gloves and make some kind of art wrok from it. Friends and family went about their lives as normal, but upon spotting a discarded glove, would photograph it in-situ and collect the item for later use. Our good work was curtailed when the capricious artist changed it to children's gloves only. Who knows if anything will ever come of it, but here are my two offerings:


Visiting Grant & Sarah

Went for a few pints and a catch-up with Grant and Sarah. Had a great time and stayed over at Grant's place in Buxton. He introduced us to the delights of the Wii console - I had no idea. Here they are strutting their stuff to a dancing game:
I threw a few shapes myself, not to mention shearing a few sheep and bowling the odd strike. Lots of fun.

Bloody Awful Weather

Damn, I promised not to go on about it. Here's our car disappearing as I look on helplessly from the living room window:This picture will make me smile next summer, but now it just makes me want to get on the first plane to the equator.

Kings of Leon

Took wifey to see the boys in Sheffield. After 15 minutes she stopped fretting about the crowd and noticed there was a band on stage. After 30 minutes she started facebooking on her phone. Thereafter she occasionally looked up and asked how long till we could leave. A rock chick she isn't. On the other hand, I had a great time and thought they were a very good live band. Some mumblings about the light show were overheard, but this isn't really a showband, they just do their thing very well without the bangs and flashes. Here's a picture:
Not the greatest light show on earth. Overall wifey was underwhelmed with the whole evening. However, she did mention it might be good so see Elbow, so I got us tickets for their MEN Arena show in March. Here's hoping the phone stays in the bag on that night.

Impending GrandParenthood

Emma announced she's expecting in July, and sincere and heartfelt congratulations to her and Jody. I'm easily old enough to be a grandad, I just don't look it. Here is the little tyke:

Awwww.

Christmas

Well it comes but once a year. I have no photos of the detested event. Dinner at Suzy's house was excellent, we had nice visits from Alex and Peter/Merilyn/Family, then it was time for the aforementioned New Year celebration.

New Years Eve

It's now January 5th - yes it's taken me six days to write this.

The party at Martin & Lucy's went well. Lots of wine was drunk, lots of food was et. Here are pics:My outfit was pulled from several corners of my wardrobe.


There was dancing...
...and bare bums.
Rock-star looks. And Martin's nice too.


And that's about it for 2010. More blogging to come this year, especially if my proposed move to Kazakhstan comes off. Exciting things bound to happen over there. Currently I'm negotiating terms, more news soon.

As always, later taters.