A Merry Christmas

The last week of work was busy: Christmas party at work on Monday evening, followed by trying to catch people in the Cambridge Blue to say happy christmas and exchange gifts. Wednesday had the computing staff do at lunchtime, and Mike's work's Christmas party in the evening. And Friday night we went to see Ezio at the Barfly. This is now my second gig there (the first was with Glenys to see the Indelicates supporting Jimbob (of Carter USM fame). It's bad of me not to have written that one up as it was most excellent. Anyway after 2 gigs there I think I can safely say I hope the venue is a success. It's a nice size, but is slightly let down by the pillar in the middle of the stage, and the pretty poor selection of drinks. Ezio and Booga were good as usual, though it was a shame not to see the whole band, and the audience were just a little too casual - a side effect of knowing the band personally. We had a good time anyway.

( Christmas in Mirfield )

And today Mike took me out to buy my Christmas present. He'd actually given me a choice of two, with pictures in envelopes in my Christmas card to choose between a picture of a *very* large Le Creuset casserole dish or... well here it is (click through for more):

It's very shiny, and I've already got sore fingers from practicing. For now I'll be sharing Mike's amp, but I'll have to buy my own eventually - I did get a strap and a couple of plectrums and a beginners bass book to go with it. So far I have determined that my hands are just about big enough to play it OK, but that reading bass clef instead of treble clef is going to take a bit of getting used to - for now I'm using the real musical notation as a guide to what it's supposed to sound like and the tab to actually play it, which means I keep catching myself mentally thinking of entirely the wrong notes :-) But wow, I feel very very spoiled indeed!

Gigs retrospective, 2007

I'm really really hoping I just didn't blog some and then completely forgot about them, but in the absence of any other evidence I really only went to 4 gigs this year, and missed a 5th due to the weather. Still despite my embarrassment I'm still posting my list of gigs in 2007. Here's the lists for 2005 and 2006 too.

Here they are as a table of gigs in date order: ( big table )

Alternatively here they are as an alphabetical list of bands: ( long list )

Travel in 2007 meme

Meme: list all the places you've stayed overnight in 2007.

• Arden Road, Cambridge (my old house)
• Elizabeth Way, Cambridge (Mike's old house)
• Oxford (crashed at Chris and Kathryn's after Jan and Owen's housewarming)
• Cardiff (crashed at Rae's)
• Newcastle (hotel, 2 nights, Steph's Hen Night)
• Bray, Cambridge (our house, still yay!)
• Mirfield (my mum and dad's house - more than once)
• Headingley (hotel, after Steph's wedding)
• Lydney (Mike's mum and dad's house - for Mike's birthday)
• London (crashed at Si and Nesta's before London-Cambridge ride)
• Great Yarmouth (B&B, cycle holiday night 1)
• Northrepps (B&B, near Cromer, cycle holiday nights 2&3)
• Wells-next-the-Sea (B&B, cycle holiday night 4)
• Hull (Emily's house - for my birthday)
• London (Hotel, 2 nights for a show and a gig)
• Leeds (Hotel, 1 night after Cathie's party)

So that's 3 homes, 3 sets of relatives, 3 sets of friends, and 10 nights in assorted hotels, travelling by bike, bus and train.