phillsacre.me.uk

… “I don’t know who she is, but she really packs ‘em in!”

So goes the old (cartoon) joke, where the above line is spoken looking at a poster outside a church for ‘Carol Singers’. I expect you can now guess what we were doing this weekend! On Friday evening we had a practice for the carol service on Sunday. Philippa was playing her clarinet in the music group, and we were both singing for one of the songs (properly, with like parts and everything!) I had one or two misgivings about singing the bass part (my voice doesn’t really go down that low) but with a bit of practice I just about managed to get there.

On Saturday we went into town to do a bit of shopping, and in the evening we drove over to Wivenhoe to meet up with Alex & Elisa and Dan & Alison. We went to Papas Fish & Chip shop for dinner (felt like we hadn’t been there for ages!) and then went to the Greyhound for a few drinks, a chat – and some darts! It was a really nice evening, now that Alex in particular is down in Kent it was good to be able to meet up and have a catch up.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning for the Christingle service — I always worry a little that something or someone will catch fire from one of the candles, but mercifully there were no accidents! In the afternoon we went round to Jo’s flat for tea and mulled wine (Jo works at the university with Phil). Afterwards the three of us headed to Eight Ash Green for the carol service there. It seemed to go really well – everyone was quite cheerful at the end, and the music sounded good from where I was sitting at least (behind the musicians, unfortunately, in the choir stalls).

Afterwards we came back home and watched ‘Jersey Girl’ – the only Kevin Smith film at the moment which doesn’t have Jay and Silent Bob in it. I was actually very impressed with it – it wasn’t half as bad as all the reviews made out! I would recommend watching it even if you’re not a fan of Kevin Smith films. It was quite sentimental in places, but generally very good. Probably not ‘buy on DVD’ good (we recorded it on the Freeview box!) but well worth a watch.

Well, it’s been quite a busy weekend, this one! Friday evening, Philippa and I went to see the Nayland Village Players perform “An Inspector Calls”. I really enjoyed it – the play was very clever, and there was a lot of food for thought there about human nature and how what we do can affect someone’s life. The performance was very well done despite being amateur, and all the cast performed well! I would definitely recommend going to see them if you get the chance.

We also managed to discover a really good pub, completely by accident! We’d booked to go for dinner at the Rose & Crown in Great Horkesley, but because their chef had broken down and wouldn’t be there until later we couldn’t eat there. We decided to head into Nayland to see if there were any good places to eat there instead, and we came across The Anchor. It’s a really good pub — very friendly, good food, and a nice setting! I would definitely recommend that to anyone in the area – Philippa and I will be heading back there sometime soon! Also, Nayland is a very pretty village, it’s worth having a look around (not that we managed to see much of it, but still).

Anyway. On Saturday, we went down to Deal in Kent for Phil and Jenny’s wedding. It was a really good day! They had some lovely weather for the wedding, and I think the service & reception went well. The sermon was actually very helpful, despite all the points beginning with the same letter… and it was fantastic to see so many friends again! Particularly Joe and Chris & Louise, who I haven’t seen since their wedding (Chris & Louise, that is, not Joe. I haven’t seen him since Chris & Louise’s wedding, but he wasn’t the one getting married … you know what I mean).

On Saturday night we stayed with Philippa’s parents, and stayed on for Church & lunch on Sunday. In the afternoon we headed back to Colchester. In the evening, we moved Philippa’s stuff over to Phil B’s old flat! It took a bit of doing, but we managed to fit all of it in one car and she is now comfortably ensconced in Phil B’s old room. That’s the last place she’s going to have to live before we get married and she moves into Charles House… I have to say, I think we’re both quite looking forward to it, not least because it will mean none of this keep moving around!

Right, I think that’s just about everything. All that remains is to wish Phil & Jenny the very best for the future, even if they don’t read this! :-)

So… what’s been happenin’ this weekend? Well, I’ll tell you! (Don’t ask me why I have these conversations on my blog. It’s not important. All you need to know is that you ain’t seen me, roight?)

On Friday evening, Philippa and I were babysitting for some friends of ours from home group. It was quite a nice evening actually, we watched “School of Rock” and then some of the Coldplay Live 2003 DVD.

On Saturday, I didn’t do much during the day, apart from go to Asda! In the evening, Philippa and I went to the Rover’s Tye where we met up with a lot of people including some I hadn’t seen in a long time – Andy B, Naomi, Steve Lucas, Foz, Liz (and her friend, Liz) and some of the usual crowd (Sarah & John, Matthew) and some of the in-between crowd (Kevvy B). I’ve taken some pictures which I will put up here soon.

Anyway. Yesterday morning, I went to Fordham. In the afternoon, I did some preparation for the home group on Thursday (where I will be doing miracles^*). And in the evening, Philippa and I went to Wivenhoe with Alex, Elysa and Anne-Marie, where we met up at Papa’s fish and chip shop for dinner. It was the first time I’d actually eaten in the restaurant bit there! Most times previously we either ate at Claremont Road, or on the quayside. Anyway, it was nice! Everyone else had battered sausage & chips, I had haddock & chips… always one to be different, eh? Anyway. Afterwards, we went down to the Rose & Crown for a couple of drinks before heading back home. ‘Twas a very enjoyable evening! And Alex took some great photos of the sunset which you will probably be able to find on his photos page before long.

Joe has posted up on his blog about being obsessed with badgers: he seems to find that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that the more people thing he’s obsessed with badgers, the more he convinces himself he is obsessed with badgers, the more he talks about them… and so on.

I suggest that to combat this obsession he grows a beard, dons tweed hat and coat, gains a west country accent and an incurable cough.

That’s right, folks, joe should become Bob Fleming of “Badger Watch” fame (c.f.: the Fast Show). The shame of being like Bob Fleming should cure anyone’s badger obsession for ever… apart from maybe Bob Fleming, that is.

Kind of a random combination, but still. First Apache: some good news: version 2.2 has been released! You can read the Article on The Register and the Official What’s New List. One thing that looks really cool is the DBD Framework – it maintains connection pooling for a number of database servers, and seems to be an abstraction of the database layer. I haven’t read up on it in great detail, but it looks good from what I have read!

Anyway. Recently, both Joe and Simon have got into “X & Y” by Coldplay. I have to say, you’re a bit late off the mark guys, I was going on about it back in June ;-)

I’ve just read Joe’s latest blog entry, entitled “For the Dictionary People”. He’s made up a list of words that should go in the dictionary, including treasures like “Dooblesplong” and my personal favourite, “Meeblewump” (just rolls off the tongue, don’t you think?).

What I love about the English Language is that is that you can almost guarantee there are going to be some stupid words in there already, though. The current Word of the Day on Dictionary.com is “sesquipedalian”. I thought the definition was quite appropriate:

sesquipedalian \ses-kwuh-puh-DAYL-yuhn\, adjective:
1. Given to or characterized by the use of long words.
2. Long and ponderous; having many syllables.

So there you have it, Joe, you sesquipedalian person, you…

I’m afraid I don’t have anything particularly exciting to say about this weekend (no change there then…) On Friday I went into work as normal, but I started feeling progressively worse throughout the day. For a while I actually thought I’d got flu! I went home at normal time, but quite how I managed to get back without hitting anything on the journey I don’t know… I think God must have been looking out for me! Anyway.

I did feel much better by the time Saturday came around, but I didn’t really do much for the whole day! In the evening I watched “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which I’d bought on DVD over Christmas. It’s a very enjoyable film – I think they managed to capture Douglas Adams’ original sense of fun in the radio series / book quite well!

Yesterday I went to church in the morning with Philippa, and then afterewards went to lunch at the Harvester in Stanway as Pete & Suzi were up for the weekend! It was good to see them again, as well as Matthew, Sarah & Jon, Simon, and Kerry and her fiance.

Anyway, I think that’s just about it for the weekend. I don’t know whether I mentioned that I ordered a digital piano, but I did – a couple of weeks ago. I ordered it along with the stand… the annoying thing is, the keyboard itself is in the warehouse ready to be delivered, but the stand is taking a while to come in! It’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully it will arrive soon.

All for now!

Last night I went out for dinner with a whole bunch of people. Philippa’s sister Roz is staying for a couple of days, and Phil wanted her to meet some of our friends so invited a few people out for dinner. We all went down to the Playhouse (steak night!). Anne-Marie, Phil, Roz and I arrived at the Playhouse around 6:30 or a bit later, and Alex, Richard and Matthew arrived a bit later on.

I really enjoyed it … it was quite strange thinking, though, that only two people at the table were students (Richard and Roz). I’m really glad that I’m still around to be in touch with people – even though we’re not students anymore!

And, um, that’s about it. I haven’t been up to anything else that’s particularly interesting. Or, for that matter, anything much at all really…

I went to Alex’s commissioning for his position as chaplaincy assistant this evening. It was a good evening, although my voice is now a little hoarse as we sang about eight songs!

A good time was had by all. I took some pictures afterwards, and have provided them here for your viewing pleasure (or not, as the case may be…)

[Photos removed - now on Flickr]

Just a quick update to say I’ve added a “Random Quotes” feature to this blog. All the quotes are taken from the Campus Crew MSN Group. I realise that they’re probably quite cliquey and not many people will understand them, but hey – you don’t have to read them! It won’t have any negative impact on people who don’t know the people involved, but will be quite amusing for people who do…

I don’t have much to update with right now. I’m off to Epping tomorrow on a ‘business trip’ (I have to do an installation for a piece of software we developed for a client). I don’t know why I have to go down there given that it will probably take about ten minutes to do (maybe a bit longer) but apparently they paid for a day, so down there I must go… I’m going to get the train as I don’t like navigating on my own in the car, Epping is actually on the tube – last stop on the central line! I’m quite looking forward to seeing what it’s like – I’ve never been to the end of a tube line before, it will be an interesting experience.

Anyway, I’m off now, farewell…