I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what I’ve been up to recently, so here goes!

Last month, I got to see Rob Bell speak at !Audacious in Manchester. I’d caught him at Greenbelt back in 2009 (but was hard to hear because it was outdoors and I was quite a way from the stage). He was on a book tour of the UK, and the night was billed as ‘An evening with Rob Bell’, which meant he could talk about stuff in his new book, as well as talk about other things, and also take questions from the audience.

I know he’s often regarded as controversial, but I did find a lot of what he had to say really interesting and thought provoking, although I think there are things he says that I’m not sure I agree with, but I’m glad I went to hear it.

Then, the following week, we had a bit of a Sharp Tenants social night! After a successful trip to the Frog & Bucket back in March to see some comedy, our next thing was a curry night at Akbar’s on Liverpool Street.

There were nine of us who turned up – with representation from me, James and Alex from Doodledo, Christian and Michael from Project Simply, Lee from Gag Reflex, Michael from Zemap, and Anthony and Scott from Creative Moose – and it was a really fun night!

I’m not a fan of curry at all, and normally can find something on the menu without anything spicy, but I quickly discovered that Akbar’s didn’t have any of my normal choices! So I ended up having some lamb chops marinated in spices, and I scraped a bit of the sauce off but they were still certainly hotter than what I’d have liked (my mouth was on fire!), but paired with naan bread I managed to eat it all!

Also, earlier this month over the Bank Holiday weekend, I got involved with a project Michael from Zemap runs called the Zho Film Challenge, where you basically have to make a short film over 48 hours, with up meeting up on the Friday night to come up with an idea, and then showing the result to everyone else on the Sunday evening!

Our little production team consisted of me, Michael, George, Adam, plus our actors, Ranj and Gemma. We were probably a bit over-ambitious with our concept – it involved us filming a few scenes at the Sharp Project, with additional location filming outside a house near Rawtenstall, and on Holcombe Moor, just above Ramsbottom.

We also had quite a bit of greenscreen for some car interior scenes, and I wasn’t able to get all the moving backgrounds fully rendered in time for the Sunday evening showing, but I have since sorted out all the visual effects on the final version of the film!

It was really interesting seeing what the other filmmakers had produced – including stop motion animation, and a short documentary, and it was fun doing a more narrative piece for a change!

And then last weekend, I was down in the south west, because old uni friend Tim and his wife Lisa were over from the States with their kids, and I met up with them along with Ali and Matt in Bristol and we all went to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge, before then taking the train over to Bath where we met up with Helen and Dave, plus his kids!

We were going to eat lunch lunch in Parade Gardens in Bath, but discovered that you have to pay to go in there, so ended up having a bit of a picnic on a roundabout next to Bath Abbey, before taking a walk to Victoria Park to carry on the picnic, and let the kids go on the playground rides there.

Then, on the Sunday, I went with Ali and Matt to a street party in Bristol’s Cotham Hill, and it was a really bustling collection of random stalls and food traders, and had a really good atmosphere. I had an amazing hog roast roll for lunch, and then we watched a bizarre fashion show taking place in the middle of the road!

And for the final part of my weekend in Bristol, we headed over to Castle Park for a big party-in-the-park event being put on by the local churches, and then afterwards caught my train back to Manchester!