More Pottery Painting

Jen came down on Wednesday for a few days - always a pleasure, never a chore.

On Friday we toyed with the idea of spending the day in Bath before going to Shepton Mallet to see our cousin Alicia in a show - her performing arts school was putting on 'Old School Musical', a showcase of musicals over the last 100 years. In the end the weather was awful for the daytime on Friday and we didn't really relish the idea of walking round Bath in the pouring rain, so we stayed home and just went over to Shepton for the evening. Alicia was fantastic in her show - she sang a solo of 'Wash that Man' from South Pacific and did various other dances routines, mini-solos and a monologue. She looked like she was really enjoying herself - which could not be said for all the performers ;).

On Saturday Jill came with us to paint pottery at a place I found in Winchester. Just like last time, mine took far longer than anyone else's - in fact we got moved to a smaller table because we'd overrun on our time allotment and I still wasn't finished. I was concentrating so hard on getting it done I let my coffee go cold - twice. We all had a great time though - I'm really looking forward to seeing how they've turned out. Here I am doing the aforementioned concentrating.


Jen left this afternoon for two reasons: firstly, because she lives so darn far away and it will take her the best part of 5 hours to get home, and secondly, because I need time to get ready and pack for going to Wales tomorrow morning. I'm stewarding at New Word Alive and I'm really looking forward to it. As Rob says, I don't do anything during the week, so why not?

Not as Tacky as Expected

That was my impression of Las Vegas - although we didn't go to old Vegas, so that might have had something to do with it.

I really enjoyed myself there; true, there's not all that much to do if you're not into seeing shows (and after one, Rob was all showed out), but I still thought it was worth a visit. We actually ended up spending an extra night there, because our flight was cancelled, but the airline put us up in Planet Hollywood for the night and gave us free meal tickets, so it was fine. I didn't have the best of days on Monday, the day we eventually left to come home - I managed to soak my book and my mobile phone in half a bottle of Cherry Coke, then the security lady noticed that I'd packed Rob's shaving lotion that he'd bought from the Art of Shaving in my hand luggage instead of the suitcase. I was able to go back to the check-in desks and they very kindly wrapped it in a box for me and checked it on as a separate piece of luggage - but then when we got back to Gatwick, it wasn't there. I filled in a Lost Luggage form and it was delivered to the house last night at about 21:30. I couldn't believe they'd sent a driver with it! They said they would just post it to us...

Anyway, I had a great time. Not desperate to go back - at least, not until I've started making money again and can afford to go to the theatre every night - but I'm really glad I went. Rob spent the weekend getting ideas for when he goes back in a couple of months with the boys on his stag do...

It's French for Water

I'll do another post about our trip to Vegas generally, but I wanted to dedicate a full post to the wonder that is "O", the Cirque du Soleil show that's in residence at the Bellagio. We saw it on Friday night and it was awesome.

The stage is split into about 6 parts, and can be lowered to about 8 feet below ground level. When it's lowered, it becomes a pool, and the artists do all sorts of amazing dives and synchronised swimming moves. There is a general story throughout the show, although if you don't know it beforehand (we didn't), it doesn't matter. Not only did the 60 performers do loads of water-based acrobatics, they also had fire sequences, Russian swings, trapezes, aerial hoops, and contortionists, amongst other things.

We were sitting in the cheap seats - which were nevertheless still quite expensive - but we had a great view and the show was well worth the money. If I get the opportunity to go to Vegas again I'll make a point of seeing at least one of the other Cirque du Soleil shows - probably Love, which is all set to Beatles music, or Mystère, which is a classic Cirque production with colourful costumes and amazing acrobatics.

Vegas Baby!

Off to Vegas tomorrow for the weekend - as you do. Rob's speaking at a conference on Friday morning so I'm going along for the ride. I used to go along with him quite frequently but I haven't done recently, mainly because looking round a city on your own gets old after a while and you wish there was someone there to share it with you. This time Rob will be done by Friday lunchtime and we aren't coming home until Sunday night, so we'll have a couple of days to look around the place. I've never been to 'The Meadows' (ha ha, not any more) before, and I can't imagine it's somewhere I'll want to go back to time and time again, but I understand you have to see it to believe it. Here goes...

Can't Beat Jelly & Ice Cream

Ben, Jill, Andy and Cathy came over last night for Rob's birthday. We had finger food, jelly and ice cream (Ben couldn't get on board with the idea of J&I together in one bowl so just had ice cream), and a Spider-Man birthday cake - which we actually didn't cut into in the end because we had loads of other desserts, so Rob's going to take it to the office tomorrow.

In between all the food we played some games, including a very competitive round of 'move the chick peas from one bowl to another using only a straw' - not sure if it has a shorter name than that ;). Here are Rob and Jill in their first-round heat:


And here's the eventual winner:


The ongoing girls/boys battle ended as a draw on the night - 2 games won by the girls, and 2 by the boys - but the boys are still ahead overall at 3-2. Not for long though - the girls will storm ahead next time ;).

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

After more than 2 months of slacking, I finally did an honest day's work today. I went into the church office to help them out and will probably go in for one day a week until the wedding, then we'll see after that. I had a great time today getting to know the church staff a bit better and learning exactly what everyone does and where everyone works - after almost a year of going to this church I still hadn't been upstairs, for example...

I'll be doing quite a lot of work around Just10, which is a series of talks starting on 22 April and taking place each Wednesday evening for 10 weeks. It's being held in Winchester Cathedral, with video links to about 4 other venues, and it requires a LOT of organising so I'll be helping with that.

Two-Twenny-Tree Toidy Toid Tweet

No, I haven't gone crazy - apparently that's how all self-respecting Chicago mobsters in the 1920s would have pronounced 223 33rd Street. Possibly also with a hint of South Yorkshire thrown in, or so our host at Catherine's 20s-themed murder mystery hen night would have us believe...

I drove up to Manchester yesterday for the hen night, which consisted of a murder mystery evening then a trip to the Birdcage. I was a bit apprehensive because the only other person I would know was Catherine, the bride, but as it turns out, there were quite a few other girls there who only knew Catherine too, so we all had a great time getting to know each other and they were all really friendly. A few of them I only remember by their murder mystery names, though...

I was playing the part of Millie, the roving reporter and personal friend of Al Capone, who's been 'moidad'. Turns out I didn't do the moidering, although when we all had to say who we thought did it at the end, we were all just guessing as it could have been any of us, judging by the clues we were given. Afterwards we went on to the Birdcage, which I really enjoyed, much more than I thought I would. Every 40 minutes or so they clear the dancefloor and a live act performs for 5 or 10 minutes, which breaks up the night very nicely. I even managed to make it to the end of the night!

I had a room booked at an apartment block right across the road from the Birdcage - which was a good job because my feet were killing me and I couldn't have walked far :). It was great to see Catherine again and I'm looking forward to seeing all the girls at Catherine and Ben's wedding in 6 weeks' time.

It's not just DVD cabinets either

Check out these plant pot holders that Rob's Dad made for me!

After nearly 20 months...

... our DVDs finally have a home. When we couldn't find a suitably sized storage unit for our 570-odd DVDs (to include 250 box sets), we asked Rob's Dad to make us some units for them, and he brought these cabinets with him last weekend. He gave them a final coat of varnish and fitted the handles this week.

I'm sooo pleased with them! I'm going to catalogue all the DVDs next week using Delicious Library, so it's not an hour-long job to find a specific DVD, like it has been for the past year and a half...