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Tags: photos
Today I am 26. Also the clocks went back so I got an extra hour of birthday than I would usually. Cool. This what I/we have been up to:
Chloe’s family came up from Aylesbury on Thursday afternoon so I had Friday off so we could do things together, things being showing them round the new bits of Norwich and doing some shopping and then taking our weary selves home for rest afterwards. Yesterday we went to (not so sunny) Cromer and walked on the beach and ate chips and ice cream. No pictures unfortunately as I forgot my camera foolishly. Then in the evening we headed out to the Marsh Harrier for a quiet meal with just Chloe’s family and ourselves. Or so I thought. As we pulled up I saw Eamonn, Paula, Chris and Lucy all heading inside, hmm…..
On actually going inside we were asked if we were part of the big group and I realised there were even more people there than I first suspected. along with the aforementioned friends Lucy, Nige and Alice were there, as was Al, my sister and Darren and also my parents. Chloe had surreptitiously arranged the whole thing via e-mail and I had very little idea of any of it. She’s devious and brilliant and amazing. I had a fantastic time and it was great to see all the people I care about together in one place.
So that brings us to today, my actual birthday. Chloe’s family left today but before they did so I opened Chloe’s presents along with her family’s too. Then we played Simpsons Cluedo and Monopoly! Then Chloe’s family left and we sat and rested for a bit in front of the TV before heading out this evening to see Jimmy Carr at the Theatre Royal. He was excellent and superbly hilarious. There was lots of audience interaction and he even played the piano (except he can’t play the piano). It was a fantastic end to a fantastic weekend made all the more fantastic by my wonderful Pickle!
The best part about owning your own house (other than the fact you own a house and are on the property ladder and everything) is being able to paint walls and put up pictures and stuff. Like these which we made:
I’m especially proud of the photos since I took most of them. I like to consider myself a halfway-decenmt amateur photographer but don’t really have the time to wander about taking pictures of everything what with being stuck at work during most of the daylight hours and all. I’d love to get a digital SLR so I could take much better photos and do cool things with exposures and macro shots and stuff but part of me knows I’d never use to it’s fullest potential.
In other news, a few months ago I wrote to the editor of the MillarWorld magazine asking if they were interested in games reviews as I missed writing them for ugvm. At the time they said not but if I fancied writing an article on say, the state of gaming, they would consider publishing that. I sort of started an (obvious) article referencing comics in games and how they’re getting closer etc. but I never got further than some basic research and notes. And then we moved house so it got forgotten about. Then just the other day I get another mail telling me they’re doing games reviews from next issue and would I like to write something. The main issue now though is the fact that all the games I’m playing currently or have played redecntly have been out for months already. For something like the Millarworld reviews I need to be reviewing new stuff which leaves me with three big issues:
1) Living in little old Blighty we don’t usually get games till after their US release (fig. 1 Advance Wars).
2) I don’t tend to buy many new games as they’re usually too expensive so wait for sales/discounts.
3) I don’t get massive amounts of time to play games these days and will have even less so in the future when Clumpy arrives.
I might still try and write something though, I shall see how the mood takes me…..
Some more San Andreas last night as I had some of the evening to myself. I finally managed to complete the “Robbing Uncle Sam” mission on my fourth attempt so at last that’s over and done with. I also went and robbed Mad Dogg to get his rhyme book which took a couple of attempts as I stupidly forgot how to kill with a sneak attack the first time. Following that I burned down a house at the behest of the police and then had to save a girl from inside it who is now my girlfriend. Obviously. All in a night’s work for me!
A day of bits and bobs on Saturday as Mick came to replace the roof on our lean-to. Plus-sides are that it’s now more insulated and also secure. Down-side is that it’s darker so we’re now contemplating re-painting part of the dining room in a lighter colour but if we do do that we need to get it done before Chloe’s family come up to stay (which is from Thursday onwards). Also my parents finished their gardening work and got a load of new turf too which was very good of them. The garden now doesn’t need much work on it once Spring/Summer rolls around. Mid-week I went to go and see Stewart Lee at the Playhouse with Al which was fantastic and very, very funny. Coming up is Chloe’s family visit and Jimmy Carr on Sunday which we’re both looking forward to. Oh, and the rest of the Pirate pictures are up here.Also, it’s almost November which is very scary. This year has gone so fast it’s hard to believe. Still, we’re now settled in the new house and have nearly all of our little jobs complete albeit with the bathroom still to do. I feel like we’ve achieved so much this year and it’s not over yet…
It was Lucy’s pirate birthday party on Saturday which was excellent fun, as evidenced here. There were two little girls up from London aged 4 and 6 so I got to experience the young girl/parenty thing which was an interesting experience. Chloe and I are currently both so aware of people’s parenting skills that we’re often talking about the right and wrong things to do and how we\’re going to approach it. As we normally end up saying at the end of such conversations: “We’ll just have to take it as it comes” and if worst comes to worse we’ll just get someone in from Little Angels or Supernanny or something!