Festivities from the Festive Season

Finally I've managed to find the energy to get off the couch and report on Christmas 2006. Christmas over here this year was like a mini festival with the drinking and eating starting sooner and finishing much later than the 25th December. Greg Webb arrived from China on the morning of the 24th and Shuz and myself had slept over at Dave's house to be there for his arrival. He wasn't all that considerate and annouced his arrival with a loud doorbell ring just after 7 in the morning. Being the 24th though it was good that we were up early as there was still quite a bit to do.

For the evening of Christmas Eve it was myself, Shuz, Robyn, Dave and Greg. I'm now living at Dave's house until I leave for Thailand and this is where we had our Christmas this year. In the afternoon we went into Regent Street and Oxford Street to go have a look at the lights and more inportantly, go sink a few pints. After the first pub we went running around town trying to find a camera shop so that Greg could buy a new battery for his vedeo camera, but we eventually gave up and went back indoors for another beer. It was only after our first few sips that we realised we had just experienced a new Christmas first. Unknowingly the 5 of us had just entered an apparent over 40's gay pub in the heart of London. The grand white piano and the fact that Robyn had just doubled the number of female patrons in the pub is what gave it away I think. Robyn thought it would be a good idea if the boys chinged (rock, paper, scossors) to see who should go and make a move on one of the men in the pub, but extreme homophobia quickly set in and we made a bee-line for the tube station.

Anyway so back to Dave's house it was where we saw Christmas in by popping champagne and getting enough Christmas carol exposure to impress both Boney M and Cliff Richard put together. Christmas Day, John Standley (Johnno) and his missus, Nikki, arrived with a huge turkey, chicken roast and Mandarin Cheese Cake in tow. The label on Johnno's turkey said it would feed between 8 and 11 people, but to be safe (seeing as there were 7 of us) we cooked a roast chicken, a roast beef and a roast gammon as well just in case. Now the rush is on to eat all the left over meat before it starts going off. Once we had finished eating, the arrival of Paul Zeidler took Christmas to a new level. He had obviously been enjoying his Christmas Day and arrived in good spirits. About 2 hours later the rest of his Christmas party arrived, mostly made up of girls (much to the delight of us single guys) and before we knew it a Christmas house party was in full swing.

Things died down at a reasonable hour and the final minutes of Christmas were spent trying to hang on for Shane Warne's 700th test wicket. All efforts in this regard failed and we were all in bed before midnight.

All in all it was a superb couple of days and now myself and Greg are enjoying a few days of relaxation. Shuz, Robyn and Dave are in Stockholm for 4 days and they get back on the 30th. Then obviously the next day is New Year's Eve and we will all be heading to Camden for another big party.



Cheers guys for a top Christmas and thanks to everyone for your presents. The next post will probably be a few pics from New Year's Eve. Cheers for now, Steve

Zulu's - Fulham 16.12.06

Morning everyone, isn't it amazing how the day after the day after you've been drinking feels so much better than the day after you've been drinking. Only problem is that it's my work Christmas party tonight which means this feeling will probably be short-lived.

Anyway I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who made it to my farewell drinks on Saturday night. I hope you all had a good time because I had a great time. Nights like that when everyone comes out at once always makes for a superb evening. There were definitely 2 sides to the coin though, it was a bit sad to think that I actually am leaving the UK now and that I won't be spending my weekends with you guys anymore. You all need to start wrapping it up and think about making your way back to SA.

Rachel, Colin, Cazz and boyfriends shot for making an appearance it was great to see you guys again and I promise this is the final farewell I'm having...I really am going this time!! Hopefully I'll see you guys again in Ireland one day or a better plan might be for you to plan a trip to South Africa.

Another surprise appearance was Mike Hammerson. Mikey good to see you again pal, even though you had absolutely zero idea we were all going to be there, cheers for coming hahahaa.

Right have a good week everyone and hopefully it won't be too long before I see you again.

Badger

Anyone for a Swim?

Here's a few pics taken while crossing the Thames yesterday near Waterloo. Don't be fooled it was pretty damn cold !!

Charlton Athletic 1 - Blackburn Rovers 0

Last night myself, Shuz and Robyn finally made the effort to go to a Premiership football game. The effort on our part was actually quite minimal due to the fact that a mate of ours (Marco) actually bought the reduced priced tickets for us using his Platinum status at Charlton, we didn't have to organise anything. Thanks Marco !!

After Marco kindly arranged all of this for us and even went so far as to post the tickets right to our doorstep in Wimbledon, Shuz and Robyn almost managed to miss the game completely. After turning their room upside down and unpacking all the stuff they had already packed in anticipation of moving out of our house on Sunday, they both announced that they would not be joining me because they had lost their tickets. Blind one!! Anyway during the course of yesterday Shuz managed to arrange duplicate tickets to be collected at the ground so we were back on track.

The Charlton Ground (The Valley) wasn't as big as some of the other top football clubs but with an almost 100% capacity crowd they managed to pull around 23,000 supporters.



Inherent in the fraternity of football fans lies the possibility that all hell could break loose if things don't go one team's way and I wondered if we would be treated to a display of such hooliganism, but alas, everyone was very well behaved. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that you aren't allowed to drink beer in the stands while watching the game. Not quite Kings Park with having a braai before the game followed by 30 beers in the stands is it?

Watching a live game was as good as I was expecting and even though we were only treated to 1 goal it was pretty awesome compared to seeing it on the tv. I didn't manage to get the winning goal on camera but the stadium erupted quite impressively which was to be expected seeing as Charlton were bottom of the table before last night's game.