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Well that went quickly. The whole month of June seemed to go by in a flash! A lot seemed to happen this weekend. Apart from the 21 weekend away – more on that in a minute – there was the Doctor Who finale, a new series of the IT Crowd, a new series of Futurama, AND a new series of Top Gear!

How’s that for a weekend of televisual feasting? OK, I’m not a TV addict, but all those things I watch pretty much religiously. Unfortunately, due to the weekend away, we were a little delayed in watching most of them – but first things first.

The weekend away went well. We went to Assington Hall, where we had full use of the annexe this time round (last year we had to have a marquee because another group were using the annexe on the Saturday). It was so much better having the annexe rather than having to do things in the marquee!

I won’t go into the details of the weekend, but it seemed to go pretty well. The teaching was on 1 Corinthians 1-3, which is actually a pretty hard part of the Bible to teach to a youth group! I did a session on chapter 3 which I think went down OK, although it’s very difficult to tell. We shall see.

We spent the weekend doing a variety of games and activities, archery was good fun although I always feel like I’d like to do more of it! – my performance was quite, shall we say, variable. We had a camp fire on Saturday night which was nice, although it was a slight worry that one of the kids was going to set themselves on fire. That didn’t happen though – in fact, during the weekend there were remarkably few injuries… and no deaths! Always a positive for a youth weekend away.

Anyway, I think in general the kids enjoyed it, the leaders enjoyed it, and it was a successful weekend (if that’s the right word). It was very tiring though – I had the day off on Monday to recuperate!

So. That leaves us with TV: the Doctor Who finale. It was great! I really enjoyed it. Although it was not without plot holes, it was done in such a charming, humorous way that I was quite prepared to overlook them. It was just a very heartwarming, amusing, entertaining hour of television which – to my mind at least – put to bed the ridiculous finales of the RTD era!

The IT Crowd started up again as well. Great opener to the new series, look forward to seeing the rest! I haven’t yet seen Futurama, although I have it *cough* downloaded *cough* (yes, will buy the DVDs when they come out…) so will watch that soon. Top Gear also was good, I know it was a setup but Jeremy rolling over the Robin Reliant every time he went round a corner really made me laugh.

Right, I think I’m done for now anyway. Apologies for this blog not being very interesting recently (or ever, to be honest) – but then, it’s me, what did you expect? ;)

This month has turned out to be a pretty busy one for various reasons! We were quite grateful to have a bit of a break on Friday night actually – there was 21, but instead of having our usual meeting some of us were watching the England football match. I didn’t see the previous England match, but I have to say this match was probably one of the worst performances I’ve seen by England – ever. Absolutely pathetic really! Still, that’s England for you I suppose! It wouldn’t be the world cup if we weren’t all disappointed.

Anyway, on Saturday we did a bit of shopping during the day. Then in the afternoon we headed round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s to watch some I, Claudius and Doctor Who. This week was the penultimate Doctor Who of the season, and I really enjoyed it! I think it was left in a pretty hopeless place (in terms of bleak, not that the episode wasn’t good) but I’m really looking forward to seeing the last episode to see how it’s all resolved. After Doctor Who, however, we had to head off pretty quickly to Fordham: the Savilles are unfortunately leaving us in a few weeks, so we were having a leaving party for them. It was a really nice evening as well, a fitting send off for them I think!

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then afterwards we were round at the Savilles for lunch. We felt quite privileged to be asked actually – as mentioned they are leaving soon, so we thought they might have more important people to see or things to do than have us round for lunch! Anyway, we had a really nice afternoon there.

Afterwards we popped round to see Anne-Marie and Sarah briefly, to discuss Doctor Who and Life on Mars and various other things. Then, we came back home and… watched some Life on Mars. So that’s pretty much our weekend!

As I said at the beginning – this June has turned out to be pretty busy. This weekend wasn’t bad, but next weekend we have the 21 weekend away. That will involve camping and I’m not entirely sure I’m looking forward to it! That said, I’ve taken the Monday off work so I’ll have a bit of chance to recover. I bought a new sleeping bag a couple of months ago which is apparently rated down to -9 degrees, which should keep me nice and warm at least! – despite the month it does get quite cold in a tent overnight.

Unfortunately that does mean we will miss both the IT Crowd AND Doctor Who, but I think we’re just going to have to suck it up and catch up when we get back on Sunday. Speaking of which, I don’t think we can actually record channel 4 so I guess we’ll have to put up with the crapness of 4 on demand. Aaaanyway, I’m a bit tired, I think it’s time for bed!

Cooling down – something I’ve felt like I needed to do a fair bit of the past few days! It’s got warm – and not just warm, but muggy. (Well, it was warm at least, before all the rain we’ve had the past couple of days…)

It was half-term last week, so no 21 for us on Friday night! So we had a night off, and watched some Life on Mars (the Blu-Ray versions of which arrived that day).

Then on Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning, and after lunch went down to Colchester Arts Centre for the beer festival. It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon – the perfect day to be sitting outside with a nice glass of ale! After a while Alex joined us, and then a bit later on Tom, Cliff, Dan and Alison came down as well. It was nice to see everyone again – apart from Alex we hadn’t really seen many people in a while so we spent some time catching up!

After that we caught the bus down to Wivenhoe to watch Doctor Who with Anne-Marie and Sarah. I must admit, I quite liked the episode: it was a bit different, kind of quirky, but actually quite moving. It bore all the hallmarks of Richard Curtis! – but not in a bad way. An entertaining 45 minutes worth of entertainment, even if it’s not an instant classic.

So. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and afterwards met up with Sarah and Anne-Marie to go to this year’s Oyster Fair in Castle Park. I have no idea why it’s called an Oyster Fair – it’s basically a medieval fair with lots of people selling, um, medieval things. Or at least, you know, bows and arrows, leather products, hog roasts, that sort of thing. It was a good afternoon anyway, we spent a few hours there just wandering around!

After that we went out to Sunday@6, and then came back home and watched some more Life on Mars. All in all, not a bad weekend really!

So, last weekend was the second of the two May bank holiday weekends. It was a pretty good weekend as they go, it felt like we got a fair bit done!

On Friday evening we had 21 as per usual, but then there was no Ashes to Ashes afterwards :-( We did spend an hour chatting to Anne-Marie and Sarah over Skype though, mainly about Doctor Who / Ashes, so it softened the blow a little!

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning, and various jobs that needed to be done. Then in the evening we headed round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s to watch Doctor Who. After the rather unpromising start last week, I have to say it didn’t really improve! A few things didn’t really make sense to me, and it just … well, I don’t know, didn’t grab me. Can’t quite put my finger on it but I tend to agree with A-M on this series of Doctor Who: it just hasn’t grabbed me in the same way that previous years have. I think part of the reason is that it’s actually quite difficult these days to do a Doctor Who story which hasn’t been done before. I really like Matt Smith as the Doctor, and I think there are some episodes which have been well written and executed, but in general I don’t really quite look forward to it in the same way I looked forward to Ashes to Ashes. (Quite possibly because the two have been running on parallel and, frankly, I looked forward to watching Ashes far more than DW).

Speaking of Ashes… I’ve ordered the Blu-Ray versions of both series of Life on Mars. Amazingly, it was cheaper to order the two series separately as Blu-Ray discs rather than order the DVD boxset of series 1 and 2! (The Blu-Ray series were also one £1 more expensive than the DVD versions, which I thought was a pretty good deal. Especially when the likes of Star Trek is still ridiculously expensive to buy on Blu-Ray).

On Sunday we had church in the morning, and then went round to my parents for lunch. My sister was there, and we had a good afternoon chatting and catching up. Afterwards we came back for Sunday@6, and then home to watch ‘High Fidelity’. (A good film, by the way, would definitely recommend it to anyone).

Then on Bank Holiday Monday we went round to Phil and Jenny’s briefly to see them and meet the three-week-old Makaila. She was beautiful, although I don’t think she particularly enjoyed being held by me! Then we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s, as it was A-M’s birthday. We had a nice picnic lunch (inside, because of the weather, but we did get our picnic hamper and mat out so it wasn’t a dead loss!)

In the afternoon we wandered down to Wivenhoe May Fair, which was pretty good although we didn’t spend a huge amount of time there. After that we all came back and watched ‘Einstein & Eddington’ (which I really enjoyed), and then just chatted for a while.

So, there you have it! In a nutshell, that’s what we’ve been up to. Tonight, if the weather is good, I think we’re going to meet Alex and a few other people for chips on Wivenhoe quayside. Which should be fun.

Well, it’s over. After watching this series pretty much obsessively for the past couple of months, Ashes to Ashes is finally finished. And what an ending. I’m not going to give anything away on this blog, but suffice it to say I was very happy. Some of “our” (read: Anne-Marie’s) theories were even correct! So that was quite satisfying :) Afterwards we just sat around for an hour or so just discussing it, and a lot of things make sense now.

I will say this, though: it’s good to see a programme on TV which actually portrays things spiritual in a positive light. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of the writers of Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes was a Christian. The battle between good and evil as portrayed in a very real way throughout the series, but it always felt like ‘bad’ was never going to win, even if it was present. It was never overwhelming, in contrast to other stories like ‘Lord of the Rings’. I just thought that was interesting anyway :)

Well, onto the actual weekend. Phil was away at her sister’s hen day from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, so I had Saturday on my own. I was able to do a bit of shopping and gardening, as well as sitting around in the garden drinking a beer and reading a book! All in all that was a good day. Then I went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s to watch Doctor Who. Anne-Marie wasn’t actually there (she was also away at a wedding), but Sarah and I had a good time watching DW, Clerks and then a couple of episodes of Flight of the Conchords.

I wasn’t too sure about Doctor Who this week – there were a few things about the episode that didn’t really make sense to me, and I don’t think the dialogue was quite as good as it has been in previous episodes. That said, it did grow on me a bit on second viewing, and I’m quite looking forward to watching the conclusion next week. This may well be the best thing Chris Chibnall has written for Nu-Who so far, although to be fair it didn’t have much competition…

Anyway, on Sunday I went to church in the morning. In the afternoon Phil got back, and then we went to church in the evening and played. Then we came back and watched Doctor Who again.

So there you have it, that’s my weekend! A fairly quiet one but very enjoyable.

This weekend was fairly relaxing, as weekends go, although I think we were both pretty tired: obviously needed a break!

On Friday night we had 21 as per usual. I was doing the talk, on Malachi 1. I think it went down well – I’m beginning to get to the stage where I find I don’t need my notes so much. I hardly used them at all on Friday night. I’m hoping that over time it will get to the point where I can do the same thing with a proper sermon, i.e. I’ll just be able to deliver it naturally without appearing to be reading from notes! Public speaking is harder than it looks, you know… but hopefully I’ll get there with practice!

Anyway, after 21 we came back home and watched “Ashes to Ashes” with Anne-Marie and Sarah. I’m on tenterhooks for the last episode now! Interesting how Anne-Marie’s theory about what happened to Sam seemed to be correct. I can’t wait for next week… I want it to be Friday already!

On Saturday we did some shopping in the morning, and in the afternoon we headed round to the church hall round the corner from us (St James the Less, the Catholic church) and met A-M and Sarah there. There was an event going on in aid of the A-Z Childrens Charity, with music and cake (two of my favourite things). After that we headed over to Wivenhoe to watch Doctor Who. This week’s episode did seem to divide people – I really liked it, in fact all four of us did, but apparently some people disagreed. The next two episodes will be interesting though – a two-parter written by Chris Chibnall. (Chibnall gave us the travesty that is the last episode of Torchwood series one. But he also wrote the first episode of series two, which I recall quite enjoying. So let’s hope it’s an upward trend…)

On Sunday we didn’t go to church in the morning! It was our week off so we enjoyed a lie-in. We did go round to Mike and Liz Neville’s for lunch though, with another couple from church, and had a very enjoyable afternoon there. Afterwards we went to Sunday@6, and then back home again and watched last week’s “Outnumbered”, which was very funny.

So there you have it! And Alex, now you know why we weren’t in for your call yesterday :p

… that pretty much describes our Friday night: at 21, we were studying Haggai. Laura dressed up as Haggai, in something which was meant to look a bit like sackcloth, and did the talk in character. I think the kids really enjoyed it! – and there were less of them this week, so it wasn’t quite as manic.

Afterwards we came back home and watched – that’s right – Ashes to Ashes! Sarah came round as she had just had dinner with her work colleagues in town. So, the three of us watched Ashes together. What an episode! [SPOILER WARNING] I still don’t really have a clue how it’s all going to end. I really don’t know. I still like the purgatory theory, with Keats being the Devil or something like that… but beyond that… ?! How the whole Ray and Shaz “Life on Mars” music thing fits in, and them seeing stars, I don’t know. Either way the next episode is shaping up to be good.

Late on Saturday Anne-Marie and Sarah came round as they had just been somewhat let down by a letting agency / tenant / landlord / some combination thereof. After judicious application of the internet, maltesers, and pink lemonade I think they were feeling better and went off to look at another house round the corner. We then headed off into town to do some shopping. In the evening we went round to A-M and Sarah’s house to watch Doctor Who, followed by a few episodes of “I, Claudius”.

I thought this week’s Doctor Who was excellent – probably the best of the current series so far (better even than the weeping angels). It was funny, a bit silly, but at the same time had a good story – even if it didn’t quite stand up to close scrutiny it was good. Just what Doctor Who should be like, in my opinion.

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went our separate ways for lunch: Phil had a ladies lunch at Fordham with Laura, Jen and Tash, and I went over to AJ’s with James and we had pizza and watched “Platoon”. I’d never seen Platoon before – it was good! Quite harrowing, but worth watching. And John C. McGinley a/k/a Dr. Cox from Scrubs was in it! He was really different but quite recognisable. Strange seeing him in something else.

Anyway, after all that we went to Sunday@6, and then came back home and watched “Mallrats”. So that was pretty much our day :)

I had to get the bus into work today. The car developed a bit of a shake since it was serviced a couple of weeks ago, so I had it looked at. Apparently the driver side drive shaft needs replacing – it had seized up completely! So bizarre. To coin a phrase, “Cars do the darndest things”. I have been wondering about maybe replacing the car – although Saabs are generally good quality and last for a long time, they’re not immune to things wearing out – it’s a ten year old car and I drive it a lot (250 miles per week, give or take a bit). I did look into the cost of leasing, but that would be £3000 per year, and you’d still have to pay insurance on top of that!

So I still think the car’s worth keeping around for a while longer. I’ve had it 18 months now and only had two things go wrong, which is not bad for a ten year old car!

This reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon. The usual gang discover that the boss has died sometime on Thursday afternoon. Wally’s reaction? “Three day weekend!”

Well, this time the three day weekend was due to a bank holiday. No-one has died (no-one who I know, anyway). It was a nice one, too!

On Friday evening we helped out at 21. It was busy this week – quite a few of the year sixes have joined us, so there were about 15-20 youngsters – and they were pretty lively! Still, I hope they will settle down over time. Afterwards, Anne-Marie came round to watch Ashes to Ashes with us. It really is compelling viewing – I wasn’t into Ashes to start off with, but it’s really got me hooked! I’m really looking forward to the end of the series… I hope it’s a satisfying conclusion though. We’ve come up with some interesting theories (well, to be honest, I think Anne-Marie has done most of the work in that respect…) so we’ll have to see how right or wrong we are.

On Saturday it was Evie’s first birthday party. Evie is Phil’s god-daughter, her Mum Jo lives just round the corner from us. Anyway, it was a really nice time, I’ve never seen so many babies in one place! But I think all had a nice time, and the sun shone so that was also good!

After that we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s house to watch Doctor Who. I thought this week’s conclusion was really good – probably one of the best of the “Nu Who” episodes. Definitely the best of this series so far. I’ll have to see how it stands to repeat viewing though, as a few people I know didn’t like it so much. After that we watched the final episode of ‘Blackpool’, which was really good. The whole series was very clever – really well put together: the drama, the music and the lighter moments all seemed to blend seamlessly. Probably one of the best things the BBC have done in recent years. (I think it was BBC…) The twist at the end isn’t really a ‘twist’ in the Hitchcock sense, but the way the characters change leaves the series with a much different conclusion to the one you might have expected. Good stuff.

Anyway, on Sunday we went to church in the morning, then didn’t do much in the afternoon, and then went to Sunday@6. After that we came back home and watched the original ‘Pink Panther’ film which I hadn’t seen in ages. I’d forgotten just how funny it was, some classic moments in there!

On Bank Holiday Monday we went round to Anne-Marie and Sarah’s once more. We had lunch at the Horse and Groom (which was very nice, and reasonably priced), and then came back to ours to watch various things including: two episodes of “I, Claudius” (can’t believe Brian Blessed is in it!), and “So I Married an Axe Murderer” (which Sarah hadn’t seen before).

All in all, it was a very nice, relaxing weekend! And a four day week to boot, what more could you want? :)

Well, it’s now official 2010 (and has been for a few days now), so I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my loyal blog readers a happy new year! (All my unloyal blog readers can take a running jump :p)

It’s been a good new year for us. We came back home on the Tuesday after Christmas, after which I proceeded to get a nasty cold :( Well, it left me in bed for a day or so. But apart from that, New Year’s Eve went well – we had over a whole bunch of people for a mini party. Kirsty, Sarah, Anne-Marie, Alex and Heather all came round and we played some silly games, at lots of food, and generally chatted.

We didn’t get to bed until late that night (or early that morning, I should say) so we didn’t do much on New Year’s Day in the morning! In the evening we headed round to Anne-Marie’s for dinner and Doctor Who. We did enjoy the last episode of DW, although – to be honest – I’m not sad to see the back of Russell T. Davies. The episode was good although I did feel it went on a bit too long at the end, how much can you drag that kind of thing out? Still, seemed a fitting end for what is really the end of an era. All hail Stephen Moffat, though, I see the weeping angels are back for the next series so that’s something to look forward to!

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping for various random things, and then in the evening went to the pub with Alex, Tom and Heather. Then we went on for a curry at the Ashiana, before heading back to ours to watch some random DVDs.

I think that’s pretty much all that happened in terms of new year festivities… in general, it’s nice to get back to work for a bit of a rest ;) But here’s to 2010, hopefully it will bring many good things!

Speaking of which – I’ve just sent off an email to the Diocesan Warden of Ordinands. Basically that’s the first step on the rung of becoming an ordained Church of England minister. Scary stuff! But exciting, too – hopefully I will hear something back about that soon. I will keep you posted.

This weekend was pretty busy, but it felt longer because we had Friday afternoon off. The reason? We were going to see Muse at the O2 :-) We left mid afternoon and got there in good time. We got free entry into the British Music Exhibition with our tickets, so we had a quick look round beforehand. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go round the whole thing but what we did see was interesting, and we’ll have to go back and check it out more next time! They have a roomful of guitars / drums / pianos you can play around on which was pretty cool.

Anyway. The support act were called The Big Pink, who we’d never heard of before. They were OK – quite dramatic music and I liked the arrangements, but unfortunately it seemed a bit too loud and the tunes weren’t very strong. Still, I did check them out on Spotify afterwards so they must have done something right!

After that, Muse came on. They were amazing. Really, really good live. We were saying afterwards, it’s the knid of music that lends itself very well to being played live: Keane pretty much played their songs as they were on the album, Coldplay were a bit different, but Muse really rocked out. Brilliant stuff. They started out with ‘Uprising’, then ‘Resistance’, and then played a selection of new songs mixed with a few from ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ and their previous albums. I was quite pleased with how many older songs they did play actually, it was so great to hear them live. There were a few surprises in there. I didn’t think they’d play ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, ‘Cave’ (from the first album) or ‘Hysteria’ but all three went down really well.

It was a shame they didn’t play ‘Space Dementia’ or ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ but you can’t have everything! They finished with ‘Knights of Cydonia’ which was amaaaaaazing live and had everyone going. All in all, it was worth every penny and I’d definitely love to see them again.

Anyway, so. That was a good evening :) On Saturday afternoon we headed down to stay with Philippa’s parents overnight. It was a horrible day (the Dartford Bridge was closed, they diverted the traffic through one of the tunnels instead) but we got there safely. Then on Sunday morning we drove down to Reading to see Phil’s sister Roz.

Roz is engaged to be married, and although we had met her fiance (obviously) we hadn’t met the rest of his family. So we went to Roz’s church in the morning, and then afterwards went round to their house for lunch.

It was a really nice lunch and a very enjoyable time. Matt’s family all seem nice, and they seem to get on well with each other which strikes me as being a good sign! So that was a lovely time.

Then we came back home and watched Top Gear and “The Waters of Mars”, the new Doctor Who special. It was indeed a good episode – probably one of the best that Russell T. Davies has written. I like it when they show a slightly darker side to the Doctor, show that he isn’t invulnerable. The ending of the episode was actually quite unsettling. I’m looking forward to the last two episodes of Tennant’s Doctor now, I think it’s going to be interesting what they do with the character! If anything, though, that episode proved (as if you need any more proof) that Doctor Who is not just a kids’ show.