Naughty naughty!

Oops. I've been naughty. I've forgotten to update my blog for a couple of weeks. And it's nearly Christmas. There's my excuse of course- it's nearly Christmas! The past few weeks have been extremely busy and also extremely quiet, so here's a brief round up. With pictures of course.

  

This collage of bizarreness gives no clue to what was actually going on here, but this was kids playing with neon lightsabres in a park in Farnborough. We were in Farnborough the last weekend of November for the switching on of the Christmas lights. The lights, it transpired, were remarkably unspectacular. But then the real reason we went to the place was because Justin and his mate Chris were playing at the switching on ceremony.

 

Here they are in action. Fortunately they were good, so we didn't have to be polite when we praised them afterwards. And even more fortunately they drew a bigger crowd than the children's magician who'd preceded them.

  

katie discovered the joy of mulled wine and proceeded to drink as much of it as she could (all proceeds to some old ladies with an urn) and Megan watched in envy as she was driving. Matt and I instead enjoyed the 'snow' (soap foams- cleansing and fun).

 

As I tend to do these days, I wandered around through the backstreets of London while on my way home. And found some more sculpture. I would have gotten a good picture of the cast iron farmer and his herd, but a security guard was heading towards me (as they seem want to do recently), so I packed up my camera and wandered off nonchalantly.

The following week was a bit frenzied, with nights out including a booze fest with Dorothy Brody, and an unintended all-nighter with Terese. We met in London on the Friday for drinks, headed to Trash Palace, danced for hours until the place closed (3am?) and then I took the nightbus home. The nightbus offered it's usual menu of unexpected changes and, ahem, 'interesting' people (including one nice man who seemed slightly unfamiliar with reality as he sat on the wrong bus, told me in jest that he was going to bully me and then asked me for cash and cigs and told me his romantic problems- him: "I wan't a girlfriend, but I can't find a girl", me: "Where are you looking?"

Then on Saturday it was down to business as Tiger and Youko arrived form Japan. Saturday night I met them and Tim and Keiko in Soho and we ate Indian in Covent Garden bfore drinking in Holborn. On Sunday I met them in Kings Cross to make sure they got the correct train to Edinburgh. On Tuesday we met in Holborn to eat Italian in Oxford Street and on Wednesday we took in Camden Market, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street, Soho, Covent Garden and Neal St., Leicester Square, drank in Brewer Street and ate Turkish off St Christopher's Place. It was a major shopping and sightseeing trip, and I think they'll be needing a good rest. Evidence? here's Tiger and Youko in Carnaby Street:

  

And here they are in Covent Garden:

 

Since they've gone I've become Mr Scrooge and have grudgingly been plodding about this business that is Christmas. The last week was almost event free, bar a lovely dinner at Tim and Keiko's last weekend, numerous abortive Christmas shopping trips and a trip to Lyn's this weekend. The coming week promises to be busier as Dhanusha, Megan and Eugene return from overseas and shopping must finally be done. And there's still the Christmas cards to write (insert expletive here).

So that's it for now. Except that I finish work this week and will thus be looking for something other than running, painting and waffling to fill my time. If any of the three people who read this have any work going, I'm available at cheap rates...