Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - party

Tea Minus

2010-08-31T22:12:00+01:00

Today has involved physical introduction of remaining in-laws to actual parents. This was by way of a wandering cycle through town via the odd pub or two. Tomorrow is a fairly light day where I have to achieve a) a hair cut b) get some keys cut. The rest of the day can be put aside to ale quaffing with both fathers (and assorted Cambridge types). The heavy logistics kick in on Thursday, suits and ales all needing to be in their pre-allocated places. Friday I hand the metaphorical keys over to my best men and ride the wave in.

I have secured a 30-45 minute slot for back to back rocking out. I have the beginnings of an over populated play list which needs honing but any suggestions for classic rock material will get a passing notice from me. Hopefully.

Partaaaay Aftermarth

2009-11-16T12:14:00+00:00

Well this weekend was filled with the preparation, execution and aftermath of our House Warming party. Fliss finished a number of final touches to curtains, clothes racks, and other such details while I pottered around moving cardboard to the outbuildings and ordering two polypins of local ale to keep people suitably lubricated.

We had a mixture of friends from near and far, family and neighbours attend the party. The early part was taken up with bonfire and fireworks (which I observed from the warmness of inside the house). The lack of launch tubes seemed to account for the large number of ground bursts I saw. However given we had such a large area of land to use for the fireworks the safety margins were a lot higher than your typical Dangerous Fireworks Party ^tm. However one downside of the outdoor pursuits was a grey trail of clay from the fireworks field to the back door. Luckily people were pretty good about removing shoes and our kitchen is easily mopped clean.

The new table got it's first use as a ad-hoc gaming establishment while last.fm's recommendation engine supplied the players with a large amount of hi-energy disco music. I finally switched it to my namesakes radio which was better received. I think it may have won over a new fan to the social networking music idea.

The front room had the universal entertainment system switched on to keep the kids (and some of the adults) happy with a combination of Soul Calibur IV and Super Rub'a'Dub. I was only able to pop in briefly to pwn a few of the younger upstarts before returning to hosting duties.

The kitchen proved to be the central hub of the party and benefited from it's size as well as selection of food courtesy of in house catering with relatives supplying additional dishes. The only downside was having to leave the warmth of the kitchen to pick up another pint of ale from the chilled confines of the garage.

By early morning I was starting to flag and we started allocating sleeping facilities before crashing. It proved to be a useful exercise as we realised the Library was missing a door, something that will need addressing for Christmas where potential guests may be less comatose than S&S who used it. I seem to recall I slept much like a log would.

The next day involved me cooking an excessive amount of bacon, sausages and baking bread as successive kitchen faeries whittled the large stack of washing into a manageable amount. The rest of Sunday was filled with casually directed lounging with a brief intermission watching the new Doctor Who as he turned ever slightly more megalomaniacal. Than I slept.

It was great seeing everyone at the party, especially those that travelled so far to join us. Future visitors can expect better accommodation when bed pressure isn't quite so high! I'm glad everyone has so much fun, the only real lesson I can take from the event is to keep a closer eye on the port decanter ;-)

Getting very warm

2009-07-01T11:46:00+01:00

Thanks to all who came to the party on Saturday. It all seemed to go well and for the most part the weather held off enough for a large amount of char grilled meat to be consumed.

I most pleased with the relatively small pile of washing up left on Sunday afternoon (after the final guests had gone home). This was mainly due to the diligent efforts of guests to do a stint (unprompted!) of washing up at various points of the day.

The weather has been slowly getting warmer and warmer and has now reached the point that it's too hot for me. Fliss being used to warmer climes thinks the evenings are getting cold enough for us to close the bedroom window at night. Needless to say I couldn't face working in my office yesterday and spent most of the day in the comparative coolness of downstairs with the netbook. Unfortunately Fedora has broken the spell checking functionally of my emacs with a switch to hunspell which took a little time to track down so I wasn't as productive as I hoped.

Today I shall be heading into the big smoke around lunchtime to join Fliss for a few more birthday drinks. I think her birthday will be well celebrated by the end of the week :-)