Naquada

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..

Technorati Tags: clearwell caves, halloween

So its exactly one year until our wedding. Which really should be quite frightening, but in a way to be honest, I’ve never felt more relaxed and certain about anything in my life.. This feels perfect, right and what we’re meant to be doing..

The 28th of May 2007 was when I asked Michelle to marry me, on, or rather under the Pont Alexander III bridge in Paris. It seems that the only one shocked about it all was her, everyone else was expecting it, and wondered why it took us so long!! But that day was very special, and probably one of the happiest days of my life.

It’s a wonderful thought to know that by this time next year, we’ll be married, and sat down with the people and friends that matter to us. Those people that have been on our long and interesting trip through life since the end of 2005.

I can definitely say that since meeting Michelle I’ve done more, seen more people, enjoyed life more, and been more me, than ever before in my life. It’s clear from the photos of us that I have found my soul mate. Michelle is my best friend, and never ceases to stop encouraging me in everything I do, and is always my rock, confidant and advisor, as well as the person I trust most in the world. Even through we only met at the end of 2005, and started seeing each other on January 2006. It feels like I have known her forever, but the last year and a half have flown by, but I have more memories and have had more fun that I can imagine.

It will be an honor for me to become her husband, and I hope that I can give her everything she deserves over the rest of my life… I’ll see you at the altar in 365 days Michelle… x

So this weekend is the Spice Center Parcs Longleat invasion again, I dont actually think I’ve blogged about this before, but we regularly go to the Spice weekends away at center parcs (Longleat, Oasis and Nottingham). They are just fantastic weekends, although I’m not sure that the other people at center parcs when we are there see it quite in the same way as we do!!!

Probably the best part of the weekend is the Saturday night fancy dress party. It’s always themed, Silver for Oasis 2006, Cartoons for Longleat 2006, and this time for longleat 2007, its ‘America’ .

We always try and have a great time when we’re down there (and if you do see a bunch of loons walking through the main venue… it’s probably us… all 400 odd of us!), and we are friendly as well… at the silver weekend at Oasis I had my photo taken many times with ‘normal’ people at their request.. in fact I think the same thing happened at Longleat last year.. maybe it was the padded muscle suit I was in (that was very warm inside!!).

Another part (at least for some of us) is making sure the villas look good. This is quite as crazy as it sounds.. wandering back at 3am to your villa in the dark often needs assistance.. So we normally light up the villa with outside lights, glow in the dark stars, and inside, I make limited edition DoorStars for anyone sharing with us. We normally have six to a villa, and the doorstars are one per couple/sharers.. odd I know but hey you’re only heading for middle aged once in your life!!!

It’s been a year since the last get together, so this weekend is really going to be a big thing for us.. followed in a week or two by the Halloween party that we’ll be attending again this year in clearwell caves..

Party on..

Technorati Tags: center parcs, longleat, doorstars, spice

Well we got back from the trip safe and sound, although its not as nice being back as it was out in Ireland!!

We stopped in a small cottage halfway up the hill in Ballylickey, southern Ireland, between Glengarriff and Bantry. The cottage was wonderful, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, lounge, dinning room, study, and utility room, as well as a patio, and an amazing garden with stunning views. The views from just outside the lounge at sunset were also breathtaking.

We stayed in Rowan Tree Cottage, just up the hill from the Ouvane Falls Pub & Restaurant, which is right on the estuary, and has some wonderful views when you sit out in the pub garden. It was within walking distance of the cottage, so it was quite handy for the odd pint or two..

We took a whole ton of photos of the week, as we travelled round Glengarriff, Bantry, right round to the Ring of Kerry. The weather was so hot as well, as we came back with a reasonable tan and feeling like we’d been sun blessed over the last few days.

We even decided to head out to the beach on the Thursday traveling round the first part of the ring of kerry to Ballinskelligs, where we found a huge, very quiet beach. It also had some interesting stuff to photograph.

The last day we headed over (or rather up) to Blarney, and did the tour of the castle, including the almost required ‘Kissing the Blarney Stone‘ - which is basically hanging yourself off the side of the castle by your ankles whilst an old irishman says ‘go on now, you’re fine so you are, little more.. there you are so.. off yer go now..’ and other famour Irish phrases..

According to legend by kissing the Blarney Stone, one can receive the “Gift of the Gab” or if you like, eloquence. The legend has its roots in the response of the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth I to Cormac Teige McCarthy’s attempt to blandish his way out of a difficult situation, during negotiations of the takeover of the Blarney Castle by the occupying. The stone itself is rumoured to have been created by a witch during the Middle Ages, who revealed it when she was saved from drowning at the castle.

Overall it was a fantastic week away with great friends, amazing views, excellent weather, good food and great Guinness.. just a shame to be back to reality!!

Technorati Tags: ballylickey, bantry bay, Ireland

I’ll be off-line this week as I have no internet access as I head out to Ireland to BallyLickey, Bantry Bay, Ireland. We’re staying in a small cottage on the bay, and it’s going to be a nice break away for us all.. Ballylickey is situated at the very heart of magnificent Bantry Bay, midway between Bantry Town and Glengarriff on scenic route N71. Apparently it’s a charming place to visit, and an ideal base for a holiday in West Cork, boasting stunning scenery, unspoilt environment, and a genuine warm welcome.
Skipping through the information there seems to be a lot of mentions of pubs.. which sounds good to me..

Expect photos on my return…

Technorati Tags: ballylickey, Ireland, bantry bay

We were feeling up for going out last night to the Spice Thames Valley 18th Birthday party.. The theme was 80’s, so I took that literally and decided to go through an aging process to fast track me the forward the odd 45 years or so..

Michelle decided to go the opposite direction and head back to the 80’s, big hair, lace gloves and all. Surprisingly both of us took the same amount of time to do our make-up!! It was a great party and we took a few photo’s and I also like this one

We’re feeling a little jaded this morning, me possibly down to the antibiotics, antihistamines and wine, on reflection possibly not a good combination.

We’re off to the cinema tonight, and an early night I think, although I’m feeling a lot younger this morning, I could have possibly got an OAP’s discount to see Harry Potter later on…

..next project is America for longleat center parcs..

So it’s been quiet this week, mainly as last weekend we decided to tackle the garden, which some help from some friends..

Now it seemed like a good idea and the 6 foot high grass, and weeds, and the brambles that seem to have almost taken over the 120 foot plus of garden were submitting to the trimmer, and mowers. However I’m allergic to insect bites, I blame my parents, as both of them are also reactional to the little buggers, at least four insects of some description decided I was breakfast, lunch and evening meal.

My arms swelled to twice their size (more in fact) my limbs ached like someone had just broken my arms in two, and I started to get a red tracer line up the inside of my arm along my veins..

Tuesday, when nothing seemed to be getting rid, I submitted and headed to the doctors, confirming a blood infection and allergic reaction to the bites.

The rest of the week I spent on strong antihistamines and antibiotics so combat the injections and swellings, plus pain killers. Thankfully I slept most of the week. We’re planning to go out tonight, to a fancy dress party in town, although I guess I’ll be on the non-alcoholic stuff as I’m still on the antibiotics..

I think I will be wrapping up and covering up tomorrow when we attack the garden again!!!

Last night we headed down to Henley on Thames for a full fat, blow out evening of Champagne and Puddings. Obviously we were going for the Charity side of it, supporting Guide Dogs for The Blind, and not the all your can eat home made puddings and as much champagne as you can drink side of it!!!!

We were meant to be having the event in the beautiful gardens of Courtyard House in henley, but due to the downpour that started at about half an hour before the started, the organisers admitted defeat and moved the event inside their house, which thankfully was a converted barn/farmhouse with a huge conservatory. The “joss stone” style singer sat on the landing, and played two sets as we tucked into possibly every type of home made pudding you could imagine.. With three tables of at least 20 different types on each, (and additional cheese and biscuits!) picking ones to fill your plate was a difficult choice.. thankfully there were always second.. and third visits!!

After careful balancing and arranging.. 5 puddings made it onto my first round (plus a side order!).. Trifle, New York Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Strawberry Cream Pavlova, some other chocolate thing (much goo!!) and on the side, Apricot Brandy Fool. The second helping was some of that raspberry swirl mouse cheesecake, the lemon meringue pie next to it, some banoffee pie, and some fool fool!!

It was a great evening and well organised by Spice and Oxfordshire Fundraising arm of the Guide Dogs for the Blind, There are hundreds of Guide Dogs Branches across the UK, staffed solely by dedicated volunteers,and this was a great event to help raise vital funds for them.

The Henley-on-Thames Branch is run by Jill Stewart (JillStewart@shaunandjill@onetel.net.uk)

Today and tomorrow I’m in Paris, Le Defense to be exact, at the IBM facility. I’m running through some SOA roadmap tools to help customers establish suitable projects, benefits and entry points into IBM’s SOA offerings.

It’s a little in at the deep end really, since I’m new into the IBM SOA team, but from what I’ve seen, there should be a good amount to offer going forwards, for IBM’ers there should be a bit more about the tool on my internal blog next week when I return from the training..

Of course on a social note, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner this evening, although we were aiming to go to Spoon, they couldn’t fit us in, I’m not sure if it was actually Mark’s wonderful french, or our bedraggled state from the downpour outside that didn’t endear us to the staff, so we ended up across the road in a small traditional restaurant..

I’d not actually planned to do any magic over dinner, but someone asked if I’d brought something with me (totally unprovoked I promise!!), so I did some bits between courses… a bit of mentalism which went down well, in-fact better than my normal magic stuff to be honest, and generally a bit of talking about human behavior and peoples predictability..

..I really enjoyed the performing and the discussions afterwards…

So I actually did make both the London Mentalism Meeting and Marvellous Festival at Wellington Country Park yesterday. It was a bit of a rush though…

The London Mentalism Meeting was fantastic, about 30ish people turned up in the end, and we had a long discussion around mentalism, performance and the like in a little room under Treadwell’s bookshop.

The afternoon started with an introduction of everyone that was attending, before we took a break for lunch (sandwiches supplied!!), during that time I met up with quite a few interesting people, and we discussed some of the aspects of the art I’ve been having trouble with (like how do I practice this stuff really!?!) and listened to their stories and advice on getting into it all. I also managed to hook up with a few new, and some old acquaintances during the day.

After lunch we started to perform. I didnt (obviously!) but I did chip in a few ideas of some peoples stuff, and suddenly got that buzz again from thinking about stuff and coming up with new ways to get to an effect. My mind did start to wander a bit into other effects once the seed was sown, and I did come away with lots of notes and ideas on things to peruse later on..

At five o’clock we had to leave treadwells, most of us headed off for drinks and food, but myself and Dale Shrimpton decided to jump into a cab and head back to Paddington. There was an outside chance that I could also make it to Wellington Country park to Marvellous.

I did actually just manage to get home, changed and call a Taxi with a bit of time to spare. Bizarrely my local taxi company I use for the airport and local trips seems to have ‘upgraded’ me, in that when I go to the airport I get a BMW or Mercedes, then I go into the station I used to get a normal run of the mill car, however lately I’m always seeming to get a BMW or Mercedes regardless. So it was interesting to get one to drop me down at the festival!! I was waved straight through the barriers to almost as close as you could get to the stage.. I’m sure they thought I was the last act arriving late!!!

I was met at the gate by Colin and we got down to our pitch of the field to enjoy the rest of the acts (in fact I think I only missed the first and part of the second art!). I then enjoyed the rest of the evening drinking, eating and dancing with my close friends and my fiancee..

..it was a wonderful day..

Technorati Tags: gigs, magic, mentalism