Disk golf, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Half way through a disk golf match.

My birthday, marking 1/4 of a year till Christmas day yesterday, was lovely. A fairly chilled day really. Woke up to breakfast in bead thanks to Felix. I did REALLY well on the prezzy front. From Eirene and the kids I got something I’ve wanted for years – a Leatherman (a multi tool / modern day swiss army knife). I also got a chocolate fish and Jamie Olivers new cook book.

Birthday tea consisted off a take away from (what I currently believe to be Harrogate’s best Indian Restaurant) Rajput. Their Goa Chicken is supreme. Whilst filling out faces, we watched lost (on DVD). We’ve borrowed the 1st and 2nd series box set and we’re very addicted. Up to half way through season two now. I’ve heard season three just gets silly, yet someone else said it’s fantastic. Either way, no doubt we’ll watch it soon as we’re flying through season 2.

We’ve still got no telly feed into the house. Since Eirene said she wanted a month without telly for her birthday last February, we’ve still not had it reconnected. I’ve been stocking up (good ol’ ebay) on some cool dvd’s. Planet Earth box set, Blue Planet box set and microcosmos. Looks like this winter, we’ll mostly be watching nature programmes.

The (first) DragonDrop Bottled Lager review.

conducted 23rd Sept 2007

Judges : Matt W, Steve T. NB: We acknowledge that this is by no means exhaustive research

See our research here

Conclusion / Result summary :

Conclusion / Result summary :

1 – Leffe blonde
2 – Herold
3 – Cusquena

Whilst Leffe blonde was the overall winner, we decided that the Herold was the one we’d be buying again – 6.6 is a bit o.t.t. especially for a mid weeker – a good suppin’ lager though – good for Friday / Saturday nights. The Herold – a strong all rounder and the Cusquena would be a perfect day time / BBQ beer.

Fun packed weekend. On Friday, we went out for a friends birthday meal. La Tasca. Really nice Tapas. Last time I went in there I came away thinking it was a bit too oily, but this time, really enjoyed the fodder. After that we headed down to the Retro bar for a bit before having an impromptu after party at ours.

Saturday we indulged ourselves to a recovery morning, I popped into town then cooked a Spanish pork casserole with saffron rice, one of them dishes that gets eaten all up by everyone. Saturday evening – we’d been invited to another friends birthday, a Murder Mystery night “The Campaign Murder”. A very well orchestrated game indeed, only slightly thwarted by some genuine illnesses. My character (that I had to dress up for) was Terence Shrimp “An East End boy whose success as a photographer has taken him into the most fashionable social circles” Much fun indeed. Eirene ended up guessing the murderer. Well done her!

Sunday, we went round to a friends for Sunday dinner. Steve T and I conducted some extensive, but by no means exhausted research into “what’s the best bottled lager you can buy” We put 5 beers up against each other, and scored them on factors such as price (a complicated equation to do with price per litre minus-ed from £5), character, presentation, taste and percentage. I will be writing up the notes of said research, later today / tomorrow (now I must crack on with some actual work)

Avast me hearties, it be talk like a pirate day today

here be some info….
http://www.yarr.org.uk/
http://www.talklikeapirateday.com/wordpress/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

So, an unexpected festival occurred this weekend. We’d been planning to go camping anyway for Tinanana’s birthday but Eirene phoned me on Friday morning to bring me up to speed with the plan reset arrangements – we were off to The Northern Didgeridoo camp / festival thingy. This was at the Lime Tree Farm site where the Thornborough festivals are held.

Friday night there were just us and our good camping buddies and their same shape as our family clan. (we’ve both got x 3 kids about the same ages) Had a nice fire, met some nice people and bimbled about, jammed a bit with some folk, went to see a couple of bands who were interesting and creative.

Saturday, set up the cricket set and played a bit with the kids and the big kids. Birthday girl Tinanana turned up with a couple of other friends. On the evening we did the usual tag team exploratory missions (some stay at camp, keep an ear out for the kids, some go to see bands and that). We’d got the camp set up really well. Awnings, vehicles, everything set out in the right place with (thankfully) loads of windbreakers in place as it was really windy.

Sunday – this was a surprise highlight for me – we went for a guided walk with the Lime Tree farmer – a really nice and very knowledgeable chap called Peter. Lime Tree Farm has some fantastic conservation programmes going on. A huge badger colony and a very hi tech hide were top things to see. Some gorgeous ponds and fenland areas alive with (thanks to the wind dropping for a bit) all sorts of nature. We got to see a barn owl fly past us at very close range. After that, we came back to camp and cooked, packed and came home. On arrival, the box set of The Blue Planet was waiting on our doorstep for us, so, fish and chips and nature programmes were the order of the end of the day. Nice end to a nice weekend.

Knievil at the Blues bar, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

This is what the blues bar was made for.

Went out for a couple of britneys and a ruby last night. Apres curry, we popped in to see a band from Leeds called Redwood Thinkers at Milans. The were very easy on the ear. Great harmonies. A bit Cranberries meets Iron and Wine. We topped our night of with a quality chunk of modern day led zep courtesy of Knievel at the Blues Bar (pictured above). Harrogate rocks.

the last few seconds of vapourtrails un married life, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Significantly, since my last blog, I had the honour of being a best man for Simon and Caroline Last Friday at Ripley Castle. A stunning venue, shown to it’s full beauty by the crystal clear weather we had. The day started out with a very symbolic sight – Eirene spotted a butterfly just emerging from it’s cocoon.

Getting to the castle, the nerves went from factor 5 to factor 7. (I was fairly nervous about doing the best mans speech) I needn’t have been. After a heartfelt, beautiful ceremony we ate (and ate and ate) with each course punctuated by a speaker. I had some tough acts to follow. I realised that once I actually stood up there behind the lectern, slide clicker in hand (I’d made a powerpoint presentation called “the seven ages of Simon” with loads of blagged photos and school reports etc) that I actually knew it all pretty much off by heart as I’d gone through it so many times – I was on auto pilot. I could sit back (or stand back) and enjoy! Which is what I did. It went down really well. After that I tried to catch up to everyone’s level of drunk (I’d stayed sober till after my speech) and enjoyed the band and the company – the whole day was perfect – down to the wedding cake which was made of blocks of cheese and featured Pricess Leia and Han Solo as the figurines!

Saturday – grade 10 hangover. Luckily, it was super sports Saturday. Went to watch England slaughter India in the final of the ODI cricket series. We won by 7 wickets – a match that was watched by an estimated 60+ million viewers. After that we watched the footy (England 4 – 0 Israel) whilst we ate a lovely bit of bbq nosh round a friends house.

Sunday it was the birthday bash of an old friends daughter. It was at the Knaresborough Riviera – the beach bit of the Nidd near Conyngham Hall. A good mix of people turned up. All our lot (the kids anyway) had wet suits on which was quite good for quick glance identification purposes. Everyone seemed to have a lovely time. Since then we’ve been chilling, had some friends over for dinner last night and to watch a film that I hired – perhaps the worst film I’ve seen in ages (Oh Marbella) which was a bit of a shame. Terrible script – it felt that by the time the story had got going it was the closing credits.

Anyway – lunch hour nearly gone, I’m off to do some stuff.

Finally stuck up my pics from our recent trip to Ireland. Took some lovely shots, including this one of Sophie, underwater at Hodson Bay Hotel swimming pool. Just before I got told “No camera’s in here Sir!”

Click here to visit the ‘Athlone to Lough Kee and back again’ set of photos.

Lovely place. We spent a couple of hours wandering up the beach, proding and poking about in rock pools. Handing Sophie things (whilst she was in the baby back pack on my back) was fun. Until she found that tapping the back of my head with stones was a good game