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No news....

... is good news? Nothing much been going on since Wednesday. Work is ok, weather is rubbish! Canucks played yesterday and lost 2-1 in overtime when they never should have. About time their luck ran out I guess. Liverpool won 4-0 against Sheffield United. I was going to go downtown and watch it at 7am with the Liverpool FC supporters club Vancouver Branch - however it's quite a journey to get from Richmond to downtown and I would have had to have left at 6am. I'll probably try and catch up with them for the Manchester United game.

Went out with a couple of the guys from the Dew on Friday after work - we went to the Thirsty Turtle, and had food, and played a few pulltabs. Lady Luck struck me again and I managed to win us all $250 which takes my total pulltabbing tally to $1150 in winnings :) (Not counting the occasional $1 and $5 wins we often get while trying to get the big one)

Saturday was a quiet day - watched DVDs, played a few games, and just chilled out after the normal couple hours at work checking what was going on. Saturday night I stayed in but got bored so went for a late drink at around 11pm - the Dew was not as busy as normal but there were still a few folks around.

Sunday - much the same as Saturday - got up, watched the hockey game, tried to find the Liverpool highlights on a couple of Canadian sports channels, then just chilled out and watched DVDs...

So, got somewhat of a busy week planned - work to do tomorrow night - and also got to move into a new hotel come Friday. Don't know whether to try and book in somewhere or just ask Ben or one of the others if I can stay with them... I'll see what the Executive hotel says - there is always the chance they will get cancellations and I can stay where I am for now :)

Get in!

Liverpool have beaten Barcelona 2-1 in the Nou Camp. I managed to get a few hours away from work and Neil at the Foggy Dew did a great job of finding the game so I was able to shoot back to the hotel, watch the game, then shoot back to work. What a result! We were battered a bit in the first half but somehow came back to level terms, and then snatched a goal in the second half. Ironic that the two players who scored (Bellamy and Riise) the goals for us are the two that were in the press for fighting with each other last week! My problem now is the fact that I have a ticket for the return leg in 2 weeks time - but I am not scheduled to fly home until 2 days afterwards! Oh no! I guess I'll have to give the ticket away to someone else. At least I know now I can go and watch the game in the Dew.

Speaking of the Dew - tonight they have an Irish band on. Not really my thing but it brings back memories of the O'Neils days we used to have back in Liverpool so I'm going to go down and check it out and see what's happening.

Last night I went to Jax's place and we all played a brilliant board game based around horse racing - it was handmade and you had to use dice and cards to work out which horses would win the race and the price of each horse. Lots of fun and the guys made some great meatballs and nibbles. We also tried a few other games - Catchphrase, and another one I forgot about. It was great fun and really good to get out and do something different, and meet some new people.

Should be moving hotels in a few days - the Executive Inn is fully booked, so I am moving down to the Marriott for a while. It will be good to see somewhere different after so long in one place. I hear the Marriott has got a decent sized swimming pool (awesome!) rather than the bath sized one here at the Executive, so I'll try and make good use of that. I don't get free use of Fitness World which is a shame but I'll try and keep the pass I've got at the moment and sneak a few uses :p

No updates for 5 days! Back in Canada!

Sorry. Things have been a bit crazy. So, on Thursday, I got a flight from LHR back to Canada. It was unexpected but here I am. It's been a busy time work-wise, since I arrived. It's good to be back though. I surprised a few of the guys in the Foggy Dew on Thursday night - they didn't know I was coming back, and that was good fun. Since then, it's been nose to the grindstone working. Had Saturday off, and did a few hours work Sunday. I was up this morning at 0530 for a 0700 teleconference at the airport! Not fun!

Last night I went to the Canucks game. We managed to get tickets for $100 each from "Frank". Elise had to go meet him downtown and do a deal. We got 3 tickets and myself, Elise, and her friend hit GM place :) Canucks managed to win 5-4 in a really good close game of hockey. I got to wear my Canucks jersey which was cool. Also, I tried a pulled-pork and bbq sauce sandwich - nice recommendation Karen! :) Elise got the beef dip sandwich which was also very good...!

Liverpool are playing Barcalona tomorrow, I am hoping to get some time off in the afternoon and find a place to go watch it. I am not sure if it's on Canadian TV - I hope so. It may even be on in the Medallist here at the airport. I was there for breakfast this morning - scrambled eggs, sausages, hash browns, and toast! - and I should have checked!

It's valentine's day...

... and that means one thing - our house is the postman's nightmare. We must have had at least 3 sacks each of valentines cards from all our secret admirers... er, yeah, right! :)

Not much been happening of late - no excitement these days, now that I'm back in the office. And no exotic foods to report - just the stuff I am cooking up at home, and the dreaded canteen sandwiches for lunch. They are a real rip off. One sandwich for £2.50 and half the time they're not even that nice. Saying that, I haven't tried the canteen hot food for a while. Maybe I should give that a shot.

Went to play football last night - was quite good but I am definitely feeling out of shape. Need to get back in the gym and start the cardio up again. Maybe I'll give Deano a call - I'm sure I'm still a member of my local gym despite not going for the best part of 5 months. (And yeah, they *have* still been charging me for it!)

I think that's everything for now, nothing else much to report. I'll be making sweet chilli chicken and noodles tonight, with red and green peppers. The highlight of my day!

Sunday Morning Call...

Kind of a strange weekend this weekend! Had two nights out planned, and both got waylaid for work reasons. Yesterday, we headed into town to watch the England vs Italy rugby game - it was ok, England won, but I'm not a great rugby fan. I was more interested in finding a place that showed the Newcastle vs Liverpool game. Luckily I found a place although it turned out to be a wasted afternoon as Liverpool got goosed 2-1 after dominating the game...

So, a night out was planned - and just as I was on the verge of heading out, duty called. Ended up staying in and watching the first disk of series 1 of "24". Very good TV show! Makes me wonder how I managed to miss it all this time...! Didn't sleep til 4:30am but with the jetlag anyway, it was easy to stay awake.

So, onto Sunday morning - some friends came round for a roast beef dinner (picture above), and my sister and her boyf came to join us too. Had to take a trip to Tesco to get all the stuff (roast beef joint, veggies, giant yorkshires etc) and it seemed rude not to have a cooked breakfast while we were there :)

Cooked up the dinner (pic above!), and then spent an hour messing around with my housemate's new Nintendo Wii! Great fun, especially Wii Sports Baseball!

Tonight I visited my best buddy and made plans for his wedding (I am best man!) - and managed to find a few DVDs from my collection that had mysteriously gone missing! Bubble and squeak for supper, and now I'm contemplating watching some more "24" but I got to do my laundry and find my door-keys (which have been lost for most of the weekend!)

What a day!

Snow Ops!

Well, for once, the weather-man was right. Woke up this morning to see snow everywhere. Worcester had a snowfall of 4-6ins overnight - the most in the UK. My housemate and I had the age-old dilemma of whether to go into work or not. It wasn't obvious whether public transport was running but we decided to brave it. After waiting 10 minutes at our normal bus-stop, we decided to make the 25 min walk into the city centre, braving the blizzard. We made it into town just to see the 44 bus pull out of the station, so after a bit of quick thinking, I hit the button on the pedestrian crossing, and when the bus stopped, I banged on the door for the driver to let us on (which he did!). So, after a slow journey to work, we arrived, 2 hours late. Lots of other guys didn't even bother to make the journey.

Not much to report on yesterday. I am struggling with jetlag and not really sleeping that well when I do sleep. I made dinner last night (chilli con-carne, very nice!), and fell asleep watching the England game. Woke from that, and fell asleep again at 10pm. Woke up at 3am, wide awake, so went downstairs to make a hot drink, and tried to fall back to sleep again. Slept in fits and starts but didn't get any rest - so eventually got out of bed for real at 6:30am, and looked out to find all the snow.

Pretty tired today. Going to make a nice green Thai curry when I get in - very strange to be cooking for myself again after so long of eating out every night :) If the weather is ok, i'll head into the city centre for a few drinks I think, try and relax a bit. If I stay at home, I'll crash out early again, and then wake in the middle of the night.

There is a big night out tomorrow with some of my friends so it will be good to catch up with them all. Don't know how well I'll fare drinking tequila and vodka cranberry in Worcester though :p

Back at work!

Oh, the joys of being back in the office. So, I got in this morning to find my office was not where it used to be. We have moved to the top floor of our building to be closer to the managers. It makes more sense than the way we were before but it means this is the third time I've arrived at work in 3 months to find all my stuff in crates, and PCs all packed away. True to form, this time, I'd lost my monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so had to scrounge some from elsewhere. All my textbooks are missing too - I think they are in my old office so I will have to go down there at some point and investigate.

Got the bus at 8:40 this morning and it was weird to be commuting again. I went straight to the back and stuck Dream Theater on the iPod. Very surreal. When I got near work I went straight to the bakery for my first proper bacon sandwich for AGES. Gotta say, it tasted really really good! Will have to go shopping later on and restock everything. Got nothing much in my cupboards other than Shake and Bake chicken and some tins of soup. A visit to Tesco's may well be in order.

You'll notice I've embedded some Johnny Cash into the web-page. If you scroll right to the bottom of the page you'll find the controls to start and stop it. This is here for all my buddies at the Foggy Dew - this has become our song in recent weeks and every time I hear it, it makes me think of all the good friends I've left the other side of the pond!

Well - that's it for now - Got to go write out my expenses claim. Should be great fun.......

Honey, I'm home...

... made it back to England. Very weird! Good to be back but I miss everyone from Canada a lot. I had a really great last night - went to the Thirsty Turtle to watch the UFC with Jen, then back to the Dew for drinks, and finally an "after Dew" party at mine! Jen and Jax gave me a bag of gifts, and I nearly cried - I got a Canucks Jersey, cap, keychain, and some little Canucks slippers for my little brother :) I can now go round Worcester in my jersey and cap shouting "We are ALL Canucks!"

Karen got me some cool stuff from the Dew as well - Foggy Dew cap and a really nice waterproof black jacket with the Foggy Dew logo :) will post a pic at some point. The guys from the Turtle weighed in with a polo-shirt as well. I was spoiled and it's a really nice thing that everybody got me presents.

The flight home was ok - got on it, had the food, watched Trading Places (classic movie!) and then put the iPod and blindfold on, and woke up with 45mins until landing. Got out of Heathrow (after the usual 40min baggage delay) and sped home. Got back and went straight to my Dad's where they made me a small dinner (at my request!) and i spent some time with my little brother - who's not so little since the last time i saw him :)

Yesterday I spent sleeping. Couldn't sleep ALL night and eventually dozed off at 11am yesterday. Woke at 6pm - so I must have needed the sleep. Crawled out of bed and went down to PC World and picked up NHL '07 for the xbox360 - great game and it gives me a bit of a hockey fix. I am just chatting to Karen on MSN as I write this and she tells me the Canucks beat Edmonton 5-2, yeah! Also got PES6 for the box, but it's not as good as Pro Evo 5, so I think I'm gonna swap it for Rainbow Six so I can play my mates on xbox live!

No groceries in the house yet. Was gonna have bacon sandwiches for breakfast but no bread and no bacon! Will have to go today. Not going to be fun to start cooking for myself again after going to the Dew every night!

Almost time...

...to pack up and go :( Not much to report, apart from I am not looking forward to Sunday. Last night I went to the Foggy Dew and played my last Name that Tune. Despite my best efforts (and lots of help from Karen!) I came second, by 5 points. They still gave me $20 in prize money though so we got a round of drinks for our trouble. Also, had a storming roast-beef dinner that was so big I couldn't finish it and had the rest for breakfast this morning! Going down-town now for a look around the shops and to the park before I leave...

More later!