Christmas Dinner - 25th December 2009

My first proper homemade Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings. There is enough here to feed a large family. Still the two of us managed it all. We were unable to move for the rest of the day.



The Christmas pud had to wait until the day after.

Drunken Snowman - 20th December 2009

I may have got a little tipsy a few nights ago, and in the excitement I made this after I got home.





This is what happens when you build a drunken snowman. A few days later he falls over.

Snow at the station - 18th December 2009

Another day, more snow.

Heavy Snow - 17th December 2009

I was nearly stranded on my way home this evening. Snow, snow and more snow pelting down at a rate of knots, meant our train lurched, stopped and screeched all the way. Quite scary, in the dark, with the train sending out sparks, lighting up the night air.

Early Family Christmas - 11th December 2009

A trip home to visit the parents happened to coincide with a village social Christmas event. Cue hats, wine and sausage rolls, lovely.

Complete with Irish music from some local celebrities. (Mal has something to do with Rope making on canal boats.)

Then later on it was time for another Christmas meal, this time with aunts, uncles, cousins and balloons in the Bhurtpore.

My flower creation.


Sword and goodness knows what, that we'll call sausages.

BUST Christmas Craftacular - 12th December 2009

I went to the BUST Christmas Craftacular 2009 with Caz at the weekend. A perfect day out for the indie, twee, studenty types. We had to queue around the block to get into York Hall, it was that busy.

Stall after stall, stacked high with crafty goods. I managed to escape the hall with only a few buttons and fat quarters, and a Christmas present for Caz and me (*Cough* clears throat.)

The only downside is all the good tables were so packed with people, that it was an elbow fight for space. Such was the lack of room at one table that I purchased some lovely large buttons before realising it was run by a company I vowed never to shop with. (The company in question are the only supplier of mine never to fulfil a single order after being put in the gltc catalogue. They really were rude, unhelpful and sadly not business-minded. I could continue ranting at this point for many hours, and have done so in the past. Anyway I nearly handed the buttons back, but decided it wasn’t worth it.) There were so many weird and wonderful things been sold, and so many things that you think 'I could make that' and might try to.

A Tom Selleck, a snip at £70. (I will be sticking to my gold-framed signed photo of the man himself.)


The hustle and bustle of York Hall.

This is my first attempt to blog with my new phone.

RIP Ewar Woowar - the best punchline to a joke ever

Why has Edward Woodward got four 'd's' in his name?

Because otherwise he'd be Ewar Woowar.

Best new bruise

As the best bruise reigning champion for several years, I had this crown taken from me recently with Tim's fantastic fall just over a week ago.

With a little persuasion I have managed to finally get images of the winning injury. And all done by a kid's bed, with no alcohol involved.

The swelling had gone down and the cut was healing by the time I took these, but an impressive 360 degree bruising had started to blacken and yellow. Nice.

Porto - 15th September 2009

I had a lovely day on Tuesday, taking a day trip to Viana, via Porto in Portugal. Yes, that's there and back in a day. With a taxi booked at 3.30am to get me to Stansted Airport for a flight at 6.05am, I was a little tired to say the least as we boarded the plane.

This is probably not the first image you'd like to see of Portugal, but this amused me. Taken in the Porto Airport toilets, the Portuguese seem to have a problem with people putting items of clothing down the toilet. Mmmm not sure I've ever felt the need to shove my T-shirt or gloves down the toilet. Assuming they are of course gloves, it could be hands, but that is an even scarier thought.

After a tour of a factory, we were taken to lunch beside the pretty docks, where there were some expensive looking yachts. Thanks to our non-English speaking driver travelling at speeds of 100mph+ it took us no time at all to get there. At one point he did slow down, but then we realised why when he took a detour off the route to give a police car behind the slip.

Sometime around just before midnight we landed back in Stansted and after a frustrating hour clearing customs and waiting for my taxi, I was finally on my way home, to be back in bed by 3am. Phew. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Lisa and Gordon's Austrian Wedding - 12th September 2009

We took a trip to Austria for the wedding of Gordon and Lisa over the weekend. As there was quite a crowd of us on the same Ryanair flight to Linz, (sponsored by J20) it was very much a case of "the English are coming." As there were so many of us, Gordon and Lisa turned up to greet us, dressed in the traditional Austrian garb; absolutely looking the part. It is now commonly believed that these are their every day clothes...

The happy couple in Lederhosen and Dirndl.

(© Donata)

Now I say for their first anniversary they should swap costumes.

(© Donata)

From the airport we were whisked by coach to a hotel/restaurant by the Lake Attersee.

Somewhere beyond the blue mist are the Alps, so we are told. We English bought the weather with us, as low misty cloud hung over upper Austria.

We spend the evening drinking good beer and eating good Austrian food. Whilst many opted for the strudel soup or dumpling soup; I went for the smoked trout starter, which came a unique potato salad, made with horseradish and rum, which had the surprising texture of grated potato in white cream fluff. Strange but good.

And whilst the majority went for the traditional Schnitzel for the main, I ate of the country's farmed Bambi's. A huge portion, even by my Sunday Roast standards, it was excellent.

But the pièce de résistance was the sweet, Kaiserschmarrn piled high, finished off with sparklers.

After copious beers and catching up, Lisa's father thanked us all for coming and rather generously paid for our meals. It was a really good first night.

We were taken to our respective b&b's by coach. Ours, Gasthof Doppelmühle, Fornach, was a nice simple Austrian chalet style guesthouse, with the bar/reception/dining room in the opposite building. We had views from our flowery balcony of the farmland of Fornach.

After a goodnight's sleep and continental breakfast with lots of ham, salami, cheese and eggs, we had a few hours to relax before a coach picked us all up to take us back to Seewalchen in preparation for the wedding of the year. Arriving an hour and half before the wedding, we took a walk around the small town. Whilst some ate in a pub at the back of the church, a few of us headed to the local Billa for snacks to tide us over until the reception.

Ali and Tom

Lucy and Rich

Caz and Adam

Reconvening back at the church, Pfarrkirche Seewalchen am Attersee, just as the other guests were arriving. Some of us caught the wedding before finishing, with a brass band following the couple to their car. We could only hope Lisa and Gordon would have something similar...

My camera phone with it's ability to capture blurry motion, has Gordon, mum and brother arriving to the sound of Yo La Tengo. Nice touch.





(© Donata)

Outside we could hear the sounds of brass instruments as Lisa arrived.

The wedding service was in a mixture of German and English, with plenty to keep us all feel involved.

A shot of the hat.

(© Donata)

After the ceremony we mingled in the churchyard.

(© Donata)

Gordon and Mark

(© Donata)

We got to see the band we'd heard from inside the church.

Pictures don't really capture the fun of seeing them, so I videoed them. Yay!

There is a bit of theme throughout this blog... I love these guys!

Stunned Guests. No I've no idea what moment I caught here.

With some organisation by the bridesmaids in green, the English contingent were all given lifts to the reception by all those Austrians with spare seats in their cars. It is part of the tradition that all the cars travel to the reception in a convoy, honking their horns through the streets. Helpful when you get to junctions and lose your way - just follow the honking! Our drivers took a wrong turn at one point, with the rest of the convoy following suit. Fortunately we caught up by following the noise.

After Oda and Sven "appropriated" some flowers, Jerry took a group shot of us before we went into the reception.

(© JD Birch)

We were served fizzy stuff, Pimms (for the English) or beer on getting to the reception at Lohninger Gasthof.

The wedding shots.

(© Donata)


(© Donata)

A blur of mini Lederhosen.

Tim, Jerry, Sven and Oda, having a Tremendous conversation. A new favourite word of Sven's after hearing it on a English documentary. (Termeradous.)

It's that band again.

Our table, one of many to hold the some 160 guests.

The Father of the Bride, Fritz, with a funny and engaging speech, again in English and Austrian. With great jokes regarding Gordon's motives when "courting" Lisa, as to whether he was really their for Lisa or the snowboarding. It drew both laughter and tears for the assembled guests.

The place names were made from an apple, colour co-ordinating with the green that was a theme throughout the wedding.

Now apparently one of the traditions of an Austrian wedding is at some point the Bride will be kidnapped or stolen, and the Groom has to win her back, but Gordon didn't know how to do this. All he was told was that he would have to pay for all the drinks that the kidnappers and bride drank during this time.

We found the revelling kidnappers, the brides family, partying in a downstairs bar to the sound of the oompah band. Gordon was at the bar buying somewhere in the region of 24 shots of Schnapps.

After some time there was a huge cheer as Gordon retrieved the brides bouquet.



The band went into overdrive.

Fly catching plant, hanging outside the bar.

At this point I was playing back the video clip of the band. The poor band heard what they thought was another band playing outside and thinking they had competition, came rushing outside to confront them. Only they found us, with my phone. Funny they didn't recognise their own music.

Back inside and it was time for the first dance. A waltz of course. Me and Tim joined in, badly. We were almost ok by the time the song ended, and the swollen feet are better now.

Then with a new band, playing rock 'n' roll and twisting songs, we all got on the dancefloor to have a boogie.

Mark throwing some shapes.

Pete taking a break with an older guest.

Video of the dancing.

Then the lights went out and the cakes arrived, in sparkly fashion.

(© Donata)

I should point out that this is not huge pile of puddings, but Caroline's. I reckon she could have squeezed another one on there. And where is the kaiserschmarrn.

The screen with images, some embarrassing, of the Lisa and Gordon. Nice to see the classic purple bra up again.

Some of us snuck back to the bar downstairs to have a quiet drink. There we found we could purchase various Schnapps. So whilst the beer and wine flowed free, we were happily handing over our Euros for lots of Schnapps.

This one we were told was the secret and best Schnapps, recommended by the Austrians.

Richard with a Darlekesk ceramic object in the corner of the bar.

Our Austrian friends, who we met in Flex, Wien a few years ago.

Back at the table for a rest.

A quick visit downstairs for more Schnapps.

Somewhere around 2.30am as the band is winding down, the Austrians pull a blinding move serving a hearty soup. It does the trick and revives those who are flagging.

And so we are back on the dancefloor, with the help of an Apple Mac for the tunes.

Ali showing us her fishing move. I think she's snared Pete in this one.

I make a request for Valentin to play a Rolling Stones for Mark. It's not a party with a bit of Mick.

Somewhere after 5.30am, the dancefloor had thinned, the party was now for the hardcore. We bid Lisa and Gordon farewell, as it was time to head to bed.

We were ushered to a free taxi by Katharina and Eva, 2 of the bridesmaids, and were back in no time.

3 hours later I got up for "breakfast" where I carefully wrapped some ham and cheese rolls into my bag to eat later when I felt human.

It was a fantastic weekend, and I was sorry to see it end. We all met up outside the gasthof to wait for the coach to take us to Linz Airport. We were entertained by little feral kittens, chasing their tails and pawing their own poo. Maybe we were a little worse for wear.

Lisa and Gordon, along with Lisa's family came to see us off, which was a lovely gesture. I don't think we could thank them enough for their hospitality.

A fab time had by all.