Tag / Birthdays

by Gareth

36

36 years old – rubbish!

Yep, it’s my birthday, and it’s not something I really want to celebrate! There’s nothing great about getting older – you’re basically running out of time to accomplish the things you always hoped you’d do, and the likelihood of them happening just gets less and less.

Anyway, in true tradition I’m spending my birthday working late in the office… we’ve got a job that needs to be finished for the morning, so I’ve got to stay until it’s done, and might be a few more hours yet.

To be fair, as a kind of birthday treat to myself, I’m off to see Delirious play in Liverpool on Wednesday night – it’s their last UK tour, so I’m hoping it’s a really good gig. I first saw them live back in 1995, and have seen them many times since then, so will be weird knowing it’ll probably be the last time.

by Gareth

Catch up

Quite a bit’s happened in the last few weeks, so I thought I’d better do a quick catch up and write about some of them… I’m manically busy with Preview stuff at the moment – got to try and get it all done for Monday because they need it for a presentation in New York, so that should be fun!

In my last post I mentioned that I had a ‘possibly interesting weekend ahead’… well I ended up in Wales at Cefn Lea for the Reach weekend away, which I suppose was interesting in a way! The last time I went on it was back in 2004, and there were quite a few people there who I hadn’t seen for ages, which was quite strange, but I guess in a way, I am glad I went on it, though it was pretty tough at times. I’m not sure what I was really expecting from it all, but maybe that’s something I need to reflect on over the coming weeks.

One cool thing about the weekend was that I managed to catch up with Russ (from uni and who I used to share a house with in Birmingham) on the Saturday night – he lives a few miles from Cefn Lea so popped over to say ‘hello’. We had a really good chat, and I can’t believe it’s about 3 years since we last met!

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Happy Birthday to me

Friday saw another year added to my age – woo! But more about that in a minute.

It’s been a full-on week with work, and there’s no sign of it slowing for the next couple of weeks at least… I’ll really appreciate some time off when it happens!

On the Thursday night after my last blog, I got back from a day’s filming in Bradford, and drove down to London with Rob so we could get to Docklands for our shoot at 9.30 on the Friday morning. Because Rob had been working late, we didn’t get to leave Manchester until about nine, and eventually got to our Travelodge at 1.30am! And then when we went to check in, we were told that they’d given away one of our rooms, so we’d have to share – so Rob had the double bed and I had the sofa! The trouble was, by now we were past our tiredness and couldn’t get to sleep so ended up talking until about four, which gave us less than four hours sleep before we had to get up!

The shoot went okay I think – it was a presenter in front of a greenscreen for a web tutorial I’m working on (although looking back at the rushes there are a few things I would probably have done a bit differently, but it’s a bit late now!) We got wrapped up by about three, but it took us about 2 hours just to get out of London and onto the motorway (although we did get to see most of the sights at the same time!) and then we didn’t get back home until about nine… so a very long couple of days! I managed to get a bit of a lie-in on the Saturday morning before heading over to James’ to finish off the cake animation we needed for Preview.

Sunday night I took a bit of a break and went out to see Rachael Kichenside perform at Oxjam which was being held at Joshua Brookes in town. I went on my own, but it was really good to hear her performing live with a full band. Was a pretty short set, but like I said, well worth hearing, and I stuck around to hear a couple of other artists as well.

Then this week, I had a final day at Leeds Bradford Airport on Monday (with a 6.30am start!), and the next couple of days saw us working again on Preview, firstly looking at the animation, and on Wednesday, after an early morning swim with James (aren’t we good!) we filmed a webcam interview which took a few attempts to get working smoothly, and then both headed over to Nottingham with Louise to interview one of the guys who’s created ‘Second Life’ – an online virtual world.

‘Preview’ shoot in Nottingham.

We were filming in an internet / LAN-gaming cafe, and there were some real geeks in there! I’m sure most of them were fine, but there were a couple who looked like they could do with getting out a bit more! There was one guy who managed to sit right in the back of the shot for half the interview, and we had to ask him to turn around because he was just staring at the camera, and then whenever he got up or sat down, it became obvious that he really could do with a belt, because you got to see more than you really wanted to!

Then Friday was my 34th birthday. To be honest, I usually wake up with the expectation of it being another crap one, so I wasn’t really planning on celebrating it… but unknown to me at this point, that wasn’t to be the case.

Continue reading →

by Gareth

Catching up…

Bit of a gap since my last blog, so I’d better write one now!

It’s been really busy with work. Me and James got the first Preview DVD completed in time (just!) and the response to it’s been really positive which is good. Now we’ve got to start thinking about how we’re going to do the next one!!

On Thursday I saw Jamie for the first time in about a year which was a bit weird. Good weird though I think. He was at a mountain bike shop in Cheadle whilst on his lunch break, so popped in briefly before heading off on a site visit. Like I said, the last time I saw him was a year ago at James and Helen’s wedding, though we chatted online back in November, and I was kind of worried it’d be really awkward, but it wasn’t too bad considering. I think we’re going to arrange to go out on a bike ride together when he’s got a free weekend sometime.

Then on Friday, I helped James move a tonne of stuff into his and Helen’s new house in Levenshulme. Helen was off on her sponsored bike-ride to Paris, and everyone else from Manchester was up in the North East at Helen Mason’s wedding. Their house is really nice – it’s the kind of house I wouldn’t mind having some day. It was so hot though – not ideal for moving furniture and boxes around, but we got it done, and grabbed takeaway and a DVD in the evening.

And last night I was over in Ramsbottom (middle-of-nowhere, north of Manchester!) for Rob Hallam’s birthday barbeque. Didn’t know too many people there other than Rob (although Ajay and Martin were also there)… though I did recognise one of the guests even though he was out of his normal costume – Kenny Baker, aka R2D2 from Star Wars!

by Gareth

Ali’s 30th

I went down to Bristol this weekend for Ali’s 30th (I find it quite amusing that she’s now back in the same decade as me!) and in true Ali-style, it was a barbecue… in February!
It wasn’t the hottest of nights(!) but they had a bonfire and fireworks, so you didn’t mind spending time outside.

Me and George.

I didn’t know most of the people there, but two others from uni were there – George (minus Hazel because she wasn’t well) and Helen were both there, so it wasn’t too bad.

I drove back up yesterday afternoon – but because of roadworks managed to miss the turn off from the M4 onto the M5 and I nearly ended up in Wales! I managed to get off just before the Severn Bridge and turned round to head back the correct way!

I’m off down to London this week with James to go to an exhibition and conference called VideoForum. It’s not costing too much either – we’ve managed to get train tickets for £25, and the uni are paying for a room in a Travelodge for James, so I’ll be able to crash in there with him… so it’s worked out loads cheaper than I expected. I reckon we’ll find it really useful – we’ll be working together this year producing DVDs for a trend forecasting project, so I think it will be good to see what kind of kit is out there, and also to get to some of the seminars too so we can get the DVDs up to a higher standard (hopefully!!)

by Gareth

Dave Bateman’s (month-late) birthday!

Went to Old Orleans last night with a load of people to celebrate Dave Bateman’s 21st… although his birthday was actually on the 4th January, so it was really his 21st and 1 month birthday!

I caught up with a few people I hadn’t seen for ages, and there were quite a few who I didn’t know as well! And the best bit was at the end of the meal, just as we were all sorting out our money to pay, Dave’s dad decided that he was going to pay for everyone’s food! That was really cool, although we did all feel a little bit embarrassed because none of us were expecting anything like that! Though we soon got over it and thanked him for his generosity!!

Just about to head down to Tamworth for the day to get my car door repaired and resprayed after the break-in last week. And it means I get in some visits to relatives as well!

by Gareth

Fiona’s 30th birthday weekend

Spent the weekend in a village called Tideswell in the Peak District for Fiona’s 30th birthday. She rented a cottage out there, and a group of us went out for a walk on the Saturday afternoon, and then stayed over until Sunday.

It had snowed in the Peaks earlier in the week, so we were trekking through snowy fields and the like, and it was really smart. Pretty cold and slippy though! It actually took us a bit longer than we thought it would (possibly because two of the party were pregnant!), and it got dark well before we’d finished! Luckily there was enough light to still read the map!

In the evening, we all went to the pub next door for a meal, and then headed back to the house to chill out.

Then on the Sunday, after most people had gone, we went out for a shorter walk around Cheedale, which was where I’d gone to a couple of years ago when Jamie and some of the other guys went bridge-swinging in the middle of the night!

We walked alongside the river, and it was really beautiful around there, although I found it a little tricky in places, because some of the rocks were a bit slippy, and the snow was beginning to melt. This also meant that the river was rising, and when we came back along the same route, parts of the path we had taken were now becoming part of the river! And it wasn’t helped by it starting to chuck it down as well!

There are a load of photos (and a couple of pictures taken with my phone!) here.

by Gareth

Edale walk

I can hardly move this morning because I went on a walk in Edale in the Peak District yesterday with Jamie, Ben, Cathy, Sarah, Celia and Ali… and I reckon it was the longest walk that I’ve ever done!!! We worked out that we did between 10 and 11 miles, and there was quite a bit of up and down with that as well! My legs are really aching, but it was a very good day.

We started off from the village at 10.30am, and we got back to the cars at about 4 o’clock, so we basically walked for nearly five hours not including breaks!

Anyway, the highlight of the day was a very funny moment that was pretty unfortunate for one person, but had everyone in hysterics! We were walking over a really large section of pretty boggy land, and we were having to be quite careful where we stepped because it was very muddy. So walking along, we’re all getting quite a bit of mud over our boots as we sink a few inches, when suddenly Sarah makes a step which ends up in her dropping through the mud… and she ended up stuck in the stinking bog with the mud now up above her knees!! And as she was there trying to get out, but being pulled back by the suction of the mud, the first thing that people shouted was “Get a camera out!!”. Hence the photo of Sarah being pulled out by Ben and Jamie! To see what those white trousers looked like after she was pulled out, check out the rest of the photos here!

When we got back to Manchester, we went out to Nawaab in Levenshulme, which is a kind of fixed-price-all-you-can-eat-curry-house… which is ideal for me considering I don’t actually like curry! But I made an exception ‘cos we were there for three people’s birthdays – Dean’s, Kat’s and Susannah’s, and there were about 45 of us in total! I ate poppadoms, chicken and naan, and had 2 puddings to make up for the lack of main course!! Then a group went into the city centre to go clubbing, but all of us who had been for the walk were so done in, we just went home straight after the meal! Such party animals!

by Gareth

Stoney Lacuna

Not much new to report really – except that I’ve decided to bite the bullet and said I’ll go on the ski holiday to Switzerland in the New Year! I’m hoping to get some lessons in before I go, so that I’m not totally rubbish when I get there!

Had quite a good night out on Saturday. Went into town with Sarah, Emma and some other guys to see a band called Stoney Lacuna at a bar in the Northern Quarter. There was a pretty good crowd there, and the place was pretty packed. I hadn’t been to anything like that for absolutely ages, but I really enjoyed it.

Oh and it’s my birthday today… which is a bit of a non-event considering I’ll be working late tonight!

by Gareth

Bits & pieces…

Thought it was about time I did another update! Not much has really happened in the last few weeks, apart from doing a few odd jobs on the house! Did my first bit of tiling in my kitchen on Saturday which was a learning experience! I’ll be discovering the joys of grouting later this week! I’ve also replaced some of the end panels in there, and painted all the cupboard doors white, which makes it look cleaner and bigger! Now in the process of ripping the wallpaper down so I can give the whole room a lick of paint! I suppose I should also do something about getting my other downstairs rooms finished, considering I started them about a year ago, and they’re in a very unfinished state!!

Sarah and Emma came round for some food on Thursday night, which tested my culinary skills ever so slightly!! I thought I’d try and cook something that I hadn’t done before, so I found a couple of recipes that required me making my own herby breadcrumbs and marinating vegetables in olive oil, garlic and herbs!! I actually surprised myself because it tasted pretty good!! Makes a change from the usual meals I end up having!

Also, some of the guys from Reach are talking about going skiing in the New Year, and I’m kind of tempted to go too. I’ve never skied in my life before, so that could be quite difficult, but I reckon it could be quite a laugh. The only things I need to look at is getting the time off work, and also whether I can afford it ‘cos it’s slightly more expensive than the holidays I usually go on! I think I’ll try and make a decision sometime this week.

I’m off down to Tamworth for the day tomorrow – mainly for a dental appointment (arrggghhh!!) – but it’s quite good timing ‘cos it’s Vikky’s birthday on Wednesday, so I’ll be able to see her when I’m down there. The only downside is that my appointment is at ten past nine, so I’m going to have to leave Manchester at about 6am! I think I need to try and get an early night tonight!

by Gareth

Walking up Snowdon, plus a new nationality!

I am aching all over! But that’s probably got something to do with the fact that I walked all the way up to the top of Mount Snowdon yesterday!

A load of us went over to Wales yesterday morning to go for a walk in Snowdonia for Dave Cieszynski’s birthday, and I don’t really think it had registered with me that Snowdon is in fact the tallest mountain in Wales! So we ended up walking about 10 miles in all, and 1085 metres up! It was quite a killer, ‘cos there are parts of it which are really quite steep, and it’s very rocky, so your feet can end up sliding all over the place!

For the first hour going up, I didn’t find it too hard really, but as time went on, it got more difficult. It took us about 3 hours to get to the summit, and the view from up there was stunning, but it was also pretty cold on the top! It was a bit quicker coming down – that only took about an hour and a half – but my feet were beginning to feel the strain by that time. And when I finally got up this morning, it took a little bit longer than usual to walk down the stairs – very painful!… and I’m at work at the moment, and it’s quite a struggle walking from one end of the office to the other! Check out the photos here.

On the way back, we stopped off in Llandudno and had some tea at Emma’s mum’s house. When I was lodging at Emma’s last summer, her mum and her dogs and cats were staying at the house whilst she was waiting to buy this one, so I got to meet all the animals again! Everyone was pretty worn out, and just crashed out in the living room, and I was so glad that I hadn’t driven there – it’s much better being a passenger after a day like that!

Other news… I officially became Irish last week! I received a letter from the Irish embassy in London saying that I’d been entered into the Irish register of foreign births, and that I can now apply for an Irish passport! This doesn’t mean I’m not a Brit anymore though… because my mum’s parent’s moved over here from Ireland, she’s automatically dual nationality, and because I’m next generation I can apply for dual nationality as well and I have! Steve and Vikky are going to apply as well, but we have to do it separately because we need to supply so much documentation! Now all I’ve got to work on is my Irish accent… to be sure(!)