Naquada

Well we’ve been very very busy with the wedding and stuff and its amazing that we only now have about 9 days left.. so the titme of this article in today’s Reading Chronicle seems very fitting!!

We are featured in an article about Spice the society and activities group…

For the non keen of eye… that’s me and Michelle in the bottom left of the article.. It’s a fantastic group, and whatever it is you want to do.. from the simple to and just plain out of this world crazy.. They’ll probably do it…

The best events for us have been the weekends away.. The Halloween Ball at Clearwell Caves, or Invading Center Parcs.. If you do a search on the blog you’ll find my previous posts about these.. But their list of events cover everything from walks, special access to Stonehenge, Tank driving, sports, dinners, helicopter training, you name it.. they probably do it.. They also run the club UK wide.. so even if your not in the Thames Valley and Solent area, and you want to get a life… they can point you in the right direction..

You can click here for a full size image of the article..

Yesterday was Marvellous 2008 down at Wellington Country Park.

Despite the forecast of rain.. the day was scorchingly hot and sunny.

Playing the tribute list were Bob Marley, The Gee Bees, T-Rex, Abba and Earth, Wind, and Fire.

We always love marvellous, its a great day out, and we get to spend the day with friends, drink wine and eat.. and you can’t get much better than that really!!!

It seems like not that long ago that I was rushing back from London to get to Marvellous 2007 , how time flies!!!

I took a few photos.. and ‘edited’ some as well…

We had a slight hang over this morning..

It’s been an absolutely mad few weeks, hence having quite a few posts queued up to go..

In the last few weeks we’ve be up to Scotland for a break..

We managed to get a small cabin on the shore of Loch Awe near Dalmally about 2 hours north of Glasgow and about 45 minutes from the nearest bit of civilisation, a small village shop.

It was a fantastic week, even with the midges, and please if anyone says ‘mind the midges’ if you go to the western side of Scotland, don’t think they are joking.. The place is full of them.. Not rain, shine, wind or flame thrower will send them packing!

We did spend a lot of our time in the lodge as the weather wasn’t wonderful, but it was a good time to get on with some magic books, kick back, and relax.

We did wander out to Loch Ness about another 2 hours north. The scenery on the way up was just breath takingly dynamic. It was, between the rain, a great chance for photos, especially some good sky and cloud shots at Loch Ness.

Loch ness itself I guess needs no introduction, except we saw no monsters, no midges either strangley. Loch ness itself I knew was big, however I didn’t quite realise exactly how big.. If Loch Ness was emptied, it would cover the UK in 6 inches of water from end to end, there is also not enough water in the uk to refill it..

The last day we spent in Glasgow and I took the opportunity to visit Tam Shepards magic shop on Queen Street, owned by the legendary Roy Walton, we had a great chat, and he was kind enough to sign two copies of the complete Walton (volumes one an two)

We returned home to our ‘under construction’ bathroom and a comfy bed..

I’m a massive fan of Cirque Du Soleil, and have been to a number of the shows that have run at the Royal Albert Hall, and Battersea, in the big top.

We had the opportunity to get tickets for Delirium at The O2 for last night, so we jumped at the chance, especially as this was the retirement of the two year run of Cirques first Arena based show.

I’d read a few things about the show before heading up to London, and understood that it was ‘different’ to Cirques normal performances.

We had drinks and food at Raan at the O2, which was really fabulous, and then we managed to head into the O2 VIP lounge. The lounge was great, with only a few people in there, no queues, it’s own bar, comfy chairs and room to breathe, we left the queues behind and enjoyed some pre-show drinks before heading up in the private lift to the 4th floor.

The O2 is a 20,000 seater arena, and the setup for the show divided the space basically in half. giving around a 10,000 seat performance. A pretty huge number for anything except a concert.

Delirium is Cirques first foray into the Arena performance space, and to be honest, it’s got it’s draw backs. The show is, if you sat in the right place, a spectacular show of music, light, projection, multi-media and performance. However from the wrong seats, you’re watching something that could become confusing, long, disjointed and a disappointment.

The stage incorporates 540 feet of projection surfaces, the equivalent of four IMAX screens, allowing massive multimedia videos to be projected onto the screens. The main stage also incorporates a massive semi transparent fly-screen that can slide across the stage to allow projections to be show in front of the performers on stage. This allows some very impressive hologram type effects to be shown on the stage. The visual experience of seeing a 120 foot high woman interacting with the performers on stage is or could be quite breathtaking. I also enjoyed the section at the beginning with the 120 odd foot tall doors that opened and closed with similar sized faces peering out into the audience.

I say, could be quite breathtaking, because I feel that Cirque really failed to make the show what it could be. Yes the show is clever, and large scale, but to be honest I think The O2 was too big for the show. In other cities, the custom stage is viewed from both sides, with the audience sat behind, and in front of the flat stage, pulling them to a more central viewpoint, and creating more of a connection with the performance. With the O2 performance, the audience (all 10,000 of them) were seating in front of the stage only. With a stage that is also quite narrow (for the audience size) it means that a lot of the angles don’t work, particularly some of the fly-screen projections that interact with the performers.

Cirque shows are normally a perfectly balanced mixture of music, singing, acrobatics and on stage performance. Delirium concentrates more on the music, containing music, and remixed music from the last 20 years of Cirque shows, many with an additional vocal section laid over the top. This is the closest you’ll probably get to a Cirque Du Soleil rock concert. However the issue is that Cirque isn’t a rock band, it’s not a super group, and it doesn’t pull off the job of trying to be one.

We were very disappointed that a lot of the performance time, two hours with no interval, contained few acrobatic or circus performers compared to other shows, for a 10,000 one performer with a red balance ball doing contact juggling is really not great. The only exceptions were the hula hoop girl, who was both visually excellent, and dynamic enough to hold your attention, and the balance acts half way through.

The rest of the show was slightly confusing, the large screens showing a mixture of multimedia and realtime feeds from stage, and almost hypnotic visual effects, meaning that at times, the biggest thing in your eye line, the 560 foot screens, became the center of attention, and not the on stage performance. I regularly was distracted by audience members getting up and walking round, and drifted from watching to listening, not sure if I was there for the music, or the visuals.

Personally I think any of the existing cirque shows could have worked well in an arena, possibly with a smaller audience, but the new style arena show wasn’t my cup of tea. Don’t get me wrong, the show visually was stunning, if you were central to the stage, but it lacked the normal Cirque feel and ambiance.

Maybe it was good that the show retired last night, for me Quidam at the Albert hall next year will be much more of the true Cirque experience for us..

As well as the huge number of other things we’re currently juggling, this weekend was the big walk. The Hangers Way, a 21-mile long-distance walking route through Hampshire.

The route begins at Alton Railway Station, out into the lush Hampshire countryside, along a series of steep-sided wooded hills, known as “The Hangers”, through the pretty market town of Petersfield to finish at Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

The walk’s divided into eight sections, each around an hour to an hour and a half, providing a really good day out if you chose to do just one section in a day. The route also passes through the famous village of Selborne, once home to Gilbert White, the 18th century naturalist and author of “The Natural History of Selborne”.

The Hangers are probably the richest woodlands on English chalk. Here the chalk that covers the central and northern parts of Hampshire abruptly ends in a scarp slope giving way to farmland.

Our plan was to walk from Alton down to Hawkley on the Saturday, and then from Hawkley onto Queen Elizabeth Country Park on the Sunday, stopping off at The Hawkley Inn over night on the Saturday.

We started off at about 11am from Alton having played car shuffle to get transport back in the right locations, and made pretty good progress. Most of the walk was fairly easy, but started to become harder work as we headed into the woods and hangers.

The main problem was mud, lots of it. The uphill sections were made particularly difficult with thick, sticky mud along most of the path. As anyone who’s walked in thick mud will tell you, this makes an uphill walk twice as tough.

Even though I’d gone out and got brand new waterproofs to replace my old ones, there was very little rain on route, and we made good enough progress to take an extended stop in Selborne at The Oates Museum and Tea Parlour. We were actually pretty muddy, so they did ask us to remove our walking boots, much to the disgust of the local gentry enjoying afternoon tea.. We also left a bit of dried mud here and there (sorry!)

Onwards from there was probably most of the worst of the mud, and it was only when we could see Hawkley far in the distance (or at least the church tower) we felt anything like being near the end of the walk. The idea of ‘it’s not far now just a few miles’ just about kept us going.

We got to The Hawkley Inn at about 6pm, having walked almost 12 miles, picked up the cars and got changed for dinner at 7pm. If you are doing this walk and need an over night you have to stop at the Hawkley Inn, it’s listed as a three star AA, but to be honest the beds, rooms and buildings were some of the best I’ve stayed in. Five really luxurious rooms with en-suite bathrooms.

Another plus point was they served Guinness and really really excellent food!! I also did a bit of magic in the evening, but I was so knackered my brain wasn’t really with it enough to do much, and I kind of jazzed it as I went along.

The forecast for the weekend was actually rain and snow, and over the pints in the evening we were joking about waking up to deep snow.. I’m not sure we could have been any more surprised to wake up to a blizzard at 8am!!!

Although we were really aching the night before, we’d left the decision about the second days walking till the morning, and as we sat waiting for the staff at the inn to struggle into the village to make us our breakfast, we decided that it would have been unwise to walk the second half that weekend. Even if the snow had stopped and melted, the mud would have been so much worse.

It also gave us the ability to book back into the Hawkley Inn for the second attempt sometime in the future!!

The walk is wonderful, and as it wasn’t raining and howling a gale as per previous walks, I managed to get some decent photos on route.

We also found a great book, Room at The Inn laying on the table at the Hawkley Inn, an AA book that details a number of good local inns with short to medium circular walks in the area, as well as local places to see and things to do.

A few snowballs later, we headed back home to clean our books, warm up, relax and unwind.

I’ve now also got a fairly good GPS track for the route from Alton down to Hawkley which I’ll post up at some point for anyone who wants to follow the same route (complete with the odd mistake!)

I can highly recommend the walk, and the accommodation at the inn, they’ll even make you up sandwiches for the following days walk (and huge ones at that!)

There are many places and things in the world that leave you awe inspired and humbled in their presence, and I think Emperor Qin Shin Huangdi’s Terracotta Army is one of them.

The Terracotta Army was buried with the Emperor of Qin around 209-210 BC. They were constructed to help Qin rule his empire in the afterlife. Consequently, they are also sometimes referred to as “Qin’s Armies”. People also believe that the army was built to help protect the tomb of emperor Qin from looters and robbers.

The Terracotta Army itself was discovered in March 1974 by local farmers drilling a water well to the east of Mount Li. Mount Li was also where the material to make the terracotta warriors originated from, and in addition to the warriors, an entire man-made necropolis for the emperor has also found at the site and excavated.

According to the historian Sima Qian construction of this mausoleum began in 246 BC and involved 700,000 workers. Sima Qian, wrote an account almost a century after its completion, saying that the First Emperor was buried with palaces, scenic towers, officials, valuable utensils and ‘wonderful objects’, wtih 100 rivers fashioned in mercury and above this heavenly bodies. The site has actually been shown to contain high levels of mercury in the soil of Mount Lishan, appearing to add truth to the belief that this wondrous tomb is in fact as Sima Qian describes.

The tomb itself of Qin Shi Huangdi is near an earthen pyramid 76 meters tall and nearly 350 square meters. However until modern archeology can reach the point where no damage can come to possibly one of the most important historical sites in the world, the tomb remains unopened, with hopes that it remains intact.

Although only part of the site’s been currently is excavated, it points to how Qin Shi Huangdi’s necropolis complex was constructed to serve as an imperial compound or palace. It comprises several offices, halls and other structures and is surrounded by a wall with gateway entrances. The craftsmen that worked on the soldiers and items found inside are believed to have ben buried alive in the underground complex, as many human remains have so far been found, it is believed they were sealed inside alive to keep them from divulging any secrets about its riches or entrances.

I have always wanted to see the complete Terracotta Army in China, so when it was announced some of the artifacts would be coming to the UK to the British Museum, I was quite excited. Obtaining tickets however proved to be very hard work. We eventually decided to become members of the british museum (which cost £60 in all for the year for both of us), this meant that no only did we support the museum, we also gained free entry into any exhibition at the museum for one year, including the First Emperor. As an added advantage, members are allowed out of hours visits to the museum galleries and exhibitions, so our tour started at 9:15pm last night, ironically after a lovely Chinese meal in China Town.

It was quite eerie and in some ways romantic heading into the museum in the dark and rain, most visitors were heading out, the last few lingering tourists heading home. The museum was quiet compared to the day, and the Museums Reading room lay straight ahead. The Reading Room, where the exhibition is held, like the rest of the museum is a Grade 1 listed building. This meant that nothing in the Reading Room could be disturbed or moved, which does beg the question, Where do you put a bunch of Terracotta Solders?

They certainly couldn’t wander around the reading desks. The solution was to build a special raised exhibition space above the desks and floor of the normal room, whilst maintaining the required temperature for the exhibition space, and allowing air to flow to the desks below. Like Qin’s soldiers before, the desks lay silent and dark almost 1.8 metres below you as you explore the exhibition above.

As you enter the exhibition you walk up into the circular Reading Room through a dark tunnel which you follow round to steps up to the start of the exhibition. There are no atmospheric sounds, and no noise, and although the exhibition is clearly documented through display case notes, I’d wholly recommend paying the £3.50 for the audio guide. The exhibition is also very dark to preserve the exhibits, it fitted in well given the time of night for us, but I’d say that it wasn’t as well presented visually as the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2.

There is a large video screen near the start that explains about the First Emperor’s life, as well as projections later in the exhibition that show the pits in China and why the tomb at the heart of the complex that hasn’t been excavated, again there is no sound on these projections, only subtitles, which I found a little off putting. At the very start of the exhibition you’ll come face to face with the archer figure shown here. The attention to detail on the figure is amazing, each section of the armor painstakingly over lapped on the one beneath, his hair, and even hobnail boots almost perfect in detail.

Other artifacts from the site are also shown, large Bo bells, cast iron religious ceremonial bells that are again detailed perfectly, weaponry and even the original cross bow releases found with the terracotta archers. The exhibitions winds around the raised floor of the reading room until you come to the main space that houses the larger collection of terracotta soldiers. In this section bronze chariots show just how detailed and how much work was put into Qin’s frozen army. However he was not only accompanied by warriors, the 12 army members and 3 horses are accompanied by acrobats and musicians to entertain in the afterlife, civil officers needed in the afterlife as palace administrators, and even bronze birds who were found feeding on fish from the rivers that were diverted to flow through the underground complex. One nice thing about this space is that the carriages, standing solders, archers, clerical staff and acrobats are all standing open, and not behind glass. There does seem to be very high security around them, with motion wire and proximity alarms, as well as the four very large security staff that patrol no mans land between you and the soldiers.

It is also not widely known to most that the figures were originally all coated and painted (the process of plating invented by the Americans, was actually invented by Qin’s workers thousands of years before), some of the figure heads in the exhibition can be seen to see have some colour on them, as well as there being a reconstruction of what it is believed the archers would have looked like in full-color.

The Reading Room was actually quite hot, and a little crowded, even for this time of night, and we found ourselves double backing on ourselves to see parts we some how missed, again unlike the Tutankhamun one, the exhibition lacked a little in the directional aspects that flowed through it. However it was a privilege to be able to see some of the army in person, and they are unlike anything you could ever imagine seeing. Possibly only by going to China itself, this is probably the best experience of the Terracotta Army, Qin’s rise to power and the creation of modern China that you will find. I would very much advise you to try and get down to The British Museum and see it before it closes on the 6th April 2008. Tickets are available on each day, however you need to be in line and lucky as only 500 are released each morning, or, think about joining the Museum.

In answer to a question that I was wondering about, there is no photography allowed in the exhibition.

Photo credit: Dan Morelle (to whom I’m glad you ignored the no photography signs.. great photo!)

We always go to the Big Big Comedy Bash, an event that it seems most people don’t know about. Held annually in Reading at the Hexagon, it pulls in a sell out crowd every year, which is no surprise given the star studded range of talent that attends.

The charity event at the Hexagon has seen many top name entertainers such as Jo Brand, John Hegley, Paul Zerdin, Eddie Izzard and even prog king Rick Wakeman inspire belly-aching laughter year after year.

However the main difference with this event is that all the top names appear on the same night. Meaning you’re in for a good night of comedy regardless.

Comedian and cabaret juggler of all manner of stupid things, Steve Rawlings organises this event each year for charity, and surpassed himself this year by managing to pull together a line up that was both diverse in the nature of its talents and consistent in its quality, basically good big names that can make you laugh out loud, and cry.

Once we’d managed to get to our seat through the full and packed foyer (the show was completely sold out), we settled in for a good evening. The compare for the night was Jeff Stevenson and introduced the nights acts, featuring the talent of Jo Brand, Ed Byrne, Sean Lock, Steve Rawlings, Earl Okin, Jethro, and Phil Walker. Every single act was superb and on form.

Ed Byrne was his wonderful irish sharp witted self, Sean Lock delivered a great set of surreal imagery and observations mainly around whales and stress. Steve Rawlings, as always delivered his polished, sharp and outright crazy juggling and comedy, including a balancing section involving four gold clubs, Earlin Okin delivered his international sex appeal and musical genius to the crowd, and Jethro, well, talked about ‘fannies‘ a lot, which still made us laugh, in not just for shock value..

It was a wonderful evening, as it always is, and we laughed so hard at almost every act that it was soon all over.

Next years tickets will go on sale.. sometime before the event..

We’d seen the documentary on the discovery channel along time before christmas about the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition as it left New York, and headed for the UK. It was a great documentary on how huge the setup and administration of the exhibition was, and also gave a great insight what was actually on display.

I’ve always loved myths, legends, and in particular ancient Egypt. The name of my blog, Naquada is not only a reference to the hit science fiction series Stargate, but it’s also a reference to one of the most ancient cities of Egypt, Naqada. So theres a bit of deep routed interest in the Egyptian side of things.

When the British archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered the remarkably preserved tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, he created a worldwide sensation. The last time any of the Tutankhamun artifacts toured the world, it was 1977, and the term blockbuster exhibition was born.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, the new exhibition, offers visitors a chance to see new treasures and to enter the world that gives them meaning. It covers 250 years that encapsulated the very pinnacle of ancient Egyptian culture, wealth, and power. The 250 years is covered by more that 130 ancient artefacts, excavated from from the tombs of Tutankhamun, and his relatives Thutmose, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and others.

The exhibition is divided into eleven galleries, and is accompanied by an optional audio commentary by Omar Sharif, this I personally recommend getting if you go to the exhibition, as it adds an awful lot to the experience, without the audio guide you are going to miss a lot of information and background on the artifacts and history behind the objects.

The first of the galleries is an introduction on large screen, again given by Omar, and sets the scene for the galleries to come. Gallery 2 starts to cover the Daily life in Ancient Egypt, and follows into the traditional religious beliefs in gallery 3, and the radical readjustments of these by Akhenaten in gallery 4. Gallery 5 covers the Egyptian beliefs of death, burial and the afterlife and how important this was at the time. Gallery 6 starts to move into the actual tomb and life of Tutankhamun, since up to this point the exhibition has, as the title suggests, been around the golden age of the pharaohs, including Tutankhamun. Gallery 7 starts to explain about Tutankhamun himself, and his role at the young king of Egypt, moving through galleries 8,9 and 10 which focus in more depth on the boy kings life, death and burial. Gallery 11 concentrates on the CT and MRI scans that were done on the Tutankhamun from the 70’s through to today, throwing up, and dismissing many myths and believes on possible causes of his untimely death.

The exhibition galleries are just amazingly well presented, gone are the days of dull, lifeless glass cabinets showing artifact after artifact with uninspiring notes under them detailing the time and date of discovery. The Tutankhamun exhibition makes each and every artifact stand out. They are well lit, well spaced and completely in context with the other displays around them. It’s clear that a lot of time has been put into not only lighting, but the surroundings, the inside of the O2 bubble transformed with tasteful, and fitting chambers and pillars, encapsulating the feel of ancient Egypt. This gives the whole exhibition has a very eerie and haunting feel to it, and focuses you firmly on the artifacts and history behind them.

For things that are well over 3,000 years old, you could be mistaken for thinking they were almost new. The colours of the paint used on the items are bright, clean and sharp, the gold shines like true high value gold, and the wide range of objects is fascinating. Chairs that were used in life, and buried with the owner, show the indentation of the person that sat on them, which does leave you feeling quite humbled, these are not replicas of items recovered from the dust, these are real things, made, touched, lovingly crafted and buried with their king, accompanying him for over 3,000 years in the dark, cool almost eternal night of his tomb. This is brought home in the final few galleries where some of the objects can be see being carried from the tomb along side Carter.

The press list this exhibition as a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’d say that is somewhat true. after the 1977 tour of the world, many of the artifacts were damaged, or are now deemed to fragile to travel. This unfortunately means that the big stars like Tutankhamuns death mask, the iconic image everyone associates with the boy king, is not part of the exhibition. However, even without these well known items, the ones included are awe inspiring. It also means that this may be the final time the Tutankhamun artifacts leave Egypt, almost certainly in our lifetime. Also gone are the massive queues that met Tutankhamun on his 1977 visit, you purchase tickets on a timed basis (half hour slots during the day), you can enter during this time, and stay as long as you like, although you’re only likely to spend about 90 minutes in there, a good tip is once your past the first gallery, hang back slightly as only 60 people at a time enter the exhibition, so you can enjoy the showcases without others being in your way before the next 60 come in.

Should you visit this exhibition? Absolutely yes, you’d be a fool not to. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is currently at The O2 Bubble and will close on August 31st to return to the USA to Dallas Museum of Art in 2008, and remember, Tutankhamuns touring life if pretty much coming to an end, and the only way you’ll get to see it again is by going to Egypt.

Tickets are £15 for weekdays and £20 for weekends, ensure you also get the audio guide, and check out the Kelloggs discount giving £5 off a family ticket.

So 2007 was yet another year in a few year period of huge change, excitement, and positivity for me. The start of 2007 seems just yesterday, and looking back at my post from New Year 2007 life’s been just as exciting and fulfilling the last year as well.

We started 2007 in a hot tub at Wilderness Farm, surrounded by friends, drinking champagne in cuffs and a bow tie, and I started to enjoy going to concerts.. starting off with the Fratellis, at the Brixton Academy, and moving onto Faithless at Nottingham.

We saw Alegria at the Royal Albert Hall, enjoyed snow in February, even being able to take my nephew out on his sled, and making snowmen. We re-lived eating fish and Chips on the beach, and started walking again, taking some nice round tours of Virginia Water, Sonning, Henley, and Windsor.

We enjoyed a great break away touring Avebury, Glastonbury, and Cheddar and Wookey, stopping at The Thatched Cottage in Shepton Mallet. We saw Mama Mia and the Kylie Exhibition in London, enjoying one of our favorite off the wall places to eat as well. We also headed into London to see Spamalot for my birthday.

Work wise this year, I’ve passed my SOA solution designer certification and headed out to Disneyland Paris, to attend TLE , and we both enjoyed a romantic, exciting and wonderful weekend when we stayed on in Paris over our anniversary, seeing the show at the Moulin Rouge, the Notre Dame, and even meeting friends on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur.

But without question the happiest moment of 2007 was when I asked Michelle if she’d be my wife, and thankfully after a lot of crying and disbelief (on her part), she said yes..

I also did my first wedding shoot, for our friends Lynn and Graham at their wedding, and understood the responsibly and pure stress that taking someone’s once in a lifetime photos provides, I decided after that to maybe keep to things that didn’t move, by doing a sunset shoot at Stonehenge.

2007, like every other year has given us a huge number of exciting and different things we’ve enjoyed, and since me and Michelle will be spending the rest of our lives together, I gave her an insight into what I’d look like when I was old and past it when we went to the Spice 18th Birthday party, and pretended we were rich and extravagant by pigging out on Champagne and Puddings for charity. We’re lucky to have such great friends, and it’s wonderful to remember how we’ve partied with friends at Marvelous Festival and returned to Center Parcs in longleat, as well as Halloween. Whilst still enjoying new places like Bantry Bay and Ballylickey in Ireland with Jo and Dave.

It was good to get back to Magic as well, heading to the International Magic Convention, doing more magic wise, reading more, and still trying to get more practice in..

Throughout the year, I’ve been lucky enough to have Michelle by my side, my rock and support, and hopefully hers as well. I’m lucky to have enjoyed almost two years of having her in my life, and the pleasure, excitement and fulfillment she’s brought me. This year, 2008, is the year that I’ll be married man and without a doubt. I think that will be the most memorable, important and pleasurable moment in that, and any other year.

My resolutions last year was to try and make each day special for me and Michelle, to love her more than yesterday and less than tomorrow, to never take for granted what I have, and to always remember how lucky I am… I think I have managed that.. and for this year to come.. to build on what I have, remember what I have, and what I could lose, and to think about what I do, before I do it, and of course to love my wife to be more and more as we share, enjoy and live our life together.

Happy New Year..

Last year we headed off into the forest of dean to Clearwell Caves, and it’s that time of year again.. Over the weekend we set off again for Whitemead Forest Park and our little villa for the 2007 Clearwell Caves Halloween Party. You really have to (if you can) go there to really experience how good it is. Last year was my first time, a Clearwell virgin if you like, and there’s nothing like being bitten (no pun intended) by the bug of partying down in a cave with a bunch of vampires, werewolves and witches. The whole ‘dressing up’ thing for me had to go through a slight change, given that the latex skull cap for last years Nosferatu look took a few too many hours for my lovely fiancee to do again this year. I will admit that stretching a latex cap and gluing it down with spirit gum probably isn’t high on the list of things that you’d expect from your other half, but she’s dead good like that, however this year, I sourced another method of going bald!! Added to the all encasing latex was a woochie face piece, to complete the ‘all bones and no skin’ look. To say the vision was limited is a bit of an understatement, I also didn’t actually work out that no one could see my facial expressions, jaw movement was ok, they could see me talking, but as far as expressions were concerned, I had a boney grin all evening. I can recommend the 5 hour under the latex sauna for your skin complexion!! The party was as always fantastic, and just as surreal as you can imagine. It’s not everywhere you can bump into alice in wonderland outside the gents loo’s as shes looking for the mad hatter, nor witness 5 cybermen lap dancing with an all female pirate band on the ledge of the caves, nor, for the truly bizarre, satan throwing up at the side of the road, assisted by a clown as 40 witches, ghosts and ghouls looked on This however is what makes the Clearwell Caves Halloween party what it is, surreal as it may sound, is spending the weekend with our friends, above, and below ground, whilst becoming something completely outlandish for the evening.. We took quite a few photos, just so you can enjoy the weirdness of it all yourself..

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