Party time, Christmas style...

Rocksteady decided to have it's Christmas Party on the Thames this year!  Not that this is a new idea as the river is full of other party boats but it's a great river to travel on even at night with plenty of things lit up.
After the BBQ dinner on the top deck the crew put together gambling tables on the boat and gave each of us 150 worth of chips to play with.  I'm not a big fan of gambling even when its with fake money, however ironically it was my lack of motivation that managed to place me in 3rd at the end of the night.  (Suz and I now have a free vineyard tour in East Essax!)  Of course my strategy was to collect my chips just before the last hand was dealt at the black jack table.  This just happened to double up my chips before the counting for who made it into the final 9 which I was a part of.  Then in an extremely boring fashion I played super conservative right to the final hand and ended up placing 3rd!   I suppose the moral of the story is the odds of  winning money at gambling tables is a losing battle... but then I think we already knew that.     It did make for an enjoyable way for everyone to pass the time on the boat I've heard people say it was one of the best Christmas parties Rocksteady has had!

Wales Rally Racing!!

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Off to the races with our tickets in hand.  Wales is beautiful, even when it's not sunny.  We drove around quite a bit through the mid/south sections.  In between trying to figure out where the rally races were happening we went to see some of Wales finest castles.     We had some setbacks like me getting a brutal cold the day we left until the day we returned.  Plus in our confusion of how the rally tickets worked we ended up having to buy an extra days worth of tickets.   All in all we still had a great time and now with new confidence driving in England!

Paris!

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     We finally got it together and set off for a weekend in Paris!   I took the Friday off which was Suz's birthday and we set off for a 3 day trek.  It really is quite easy to get yourself into the core of Paris from London, only a couple hours and suddenly you find yourself in a city where you can't understand what anyone is saying.  Overall Paris is a great city with clean wide lush streets that are generally not over crowded.  In fact compared to London it's a nice escape, that is until you enter Paris's metro system where it's simply a lost cause that appears to be abandoned by the city...   

    Even though the days were cold it never rained and we managed to see all the places that we had planned.  Strangely Paris doesn't seem to have as many things to do as London and aside from actually going into the Louvre we're pretty satisfied with experiencing Paris.   There's still plenty of France to explore however so I'm sure we'll be passing through Paris again someday soon. 

Yaay PS3!!

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So we finally went out and bought a PS3 that came with the new move controller and Fifa 11.   I’ve disappeared for past couple weeks now catching up on all the games I’ve missed since we had to abandon our 360 moving to England.  The new Move controller for the most part is excellent.  It really opens up the doors for new interactive game ideas that bring more to the table than even what the wii-mote can do.  It should be interesting to see what comes out for it and what the public thinks of it.  However I did have a bad experience with Heavy Rain, in fact it tops the list for the most frustrating gaming experiences I’ve ever had.   To be honest I can’t really tell yet if it’s the new move controls or the game in general that’s frustrating.    I believe the problem is the unpredictable results that come from using wand movements to be interpreted for button actions.    I did manage to finish the game terribly and like any “choose your own adventure” you get dragged through the mud to the end in the worst possible scenario.  It’s hard to describe how frustrated and humiliated you get for being an incompetent player trying to do basic tasks like swinging your arm.    As much as I resent the game right now I’m planning on returning to it to see if I fair better with maybe the old school controller.  Heavy Rain is an interesting concept and has its moments that were quite fun but it still needs some rework when communicating with the player so it can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience every time you play.

Chewy Time!!

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Our two week trip to Canada was worth every penny.   It may seem strange to spend half of my year’s vacation to return back home but after 9 months it’s a fantastic break to see friends and family.  We lucked out some nice warm weather which helped make up for our very short British summer.   Our two weeks were packed with plans bouncing around visiting as many people as possible, however we also made sure to spend some quality time with Chewy including a nice canoe trip down the Thames.  It’ll probably be a while before we have plans to go back but September really is one of Ontario’s best months.  

My first proper Team Jolly!

Where we went...

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   It really couldn't have gone any better, everything went just as planned and we somehow managed to get fantastic weather.   We came via coach bus on Friday morning, had a lunch buffet and played 7 events throughout the afternoon.  Our company got split up into 6 different teams each at one of 6 different events where we cycled after 30-45 min and they kept track of each teams score.   In the end, much to our teams surprise we managed to get first and got to enjoy a classic champagne celebration!  Afterwards we went back to our rooms to shower and change before dinner and a looong evening at the open bar.  The next morning with everyone properly hung over we crawled back into the coach and headed back home.  You'll notice it was a double decker coach which I've never been in before and eventually was very thankful to be getting out of as it ended up being known as the vomit bus. haha 

It was great fun, memories I'll never forget. :)

Our new home!

Where we live now... 

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Well we're finally settling into our new flat, just got the Internet hooked up again last Friday and were pretty much finished moving everything over now from our old flat via bus.  (we have until the 19th)   With our newly acquired bikes from our returned Canadian friends from King's Lynn I can ride to Blackhorse station in about 9 min.   The perks with the new place is the back yard, quiet streets and peaceful marsh trails just behind us.  Because it's a bit of a trip to the nearest station we managed to get it for roughly the same cost as our old place.  You'll notice in the first couple pictures all the wild blackberries,  there's so many growing everywhere on the trails that there's more than enough to eat even with people out picking them regularly.   Hopefully we can get a few more weeks of summer weather and get some more BBQ'ing in!