Tag / Friends

by Gareth

It’s not all work, work, work…

…although it certainly feels like it! I’m basically spending most of my time at present editing the Cannonball 8000 documentary which is on ITV1 at the end of the month. Very long days, but it’s looking really good, and hopefully people will really like it.

Anyway, I have managed to do a couple of sociable things this week as well. On Sunday afternoon I went up to Middleton to do a bit of babysitting with Sarah… she was looking after Grace (who’s one next week) whilst Colin & Caroline took Olivia to see a kids musical, so I went along probably more to keep Sa company than be much use otherwise! Grace was asleep when I arrived so we watched a bit of TV (the Top 20 Boy-Bands(!)… worryingly I did know most of them, but at least I wasn’t the one who knew all the words to the songs… hehe) and then when Grace woke up I helped keep her entertained with a toy shark and a beaker of water! It was good fun actually – I managed to steer well clear of the nappy changing… I don’t know how I’d ever manage to do that, but maybe if I have my own kids it would be a lot easier!

Then when I got back home, I got a call from Jamie asking if I wanted to go to the cinema – but they were already in the queue, and the film was starting in 15 minutes, so I had to move quickly to get there in time! Anyway, I managed to get there with a couple of minutes to spare, and found Jamie who was with Dean and Sean, and we went in to see ‘The Prestige‘ – a film about two rival magicians… I hadn’t heard anything about it beforehand, but I thought it was pretty good, although you had to suspend your disbelief to get over a pretty major part of the plot!

Sean, Jamie, Sarah and Celia.

Then on Tuesday night, I went round for a meal at Jamie’s house. I had expected that we were going to go out and grab something to eat in town, but it was a really nice surprise to find he’d cooked, and that we were also being joined by Sean, Celia and Sarah. My fussy eating kind of made an appearance – Jamie had done rice with the chicken, but he suddenly remembered that I’m a nightmare to cook for, and I told him I didn’t mind just having it without, but he rustled up some mustard mash for me instead! And the main part was something I wouldn’t normally have had – he’d done the chicken in a slightly curried crème fraîche sauce, and although I did pull a bit of a face when I took the first mouthful, I did actually quite like it! Maybe this is another small step on the road to eating the same food as everyone else!!

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.

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by Gareth

Too much work!

Lots of apologies are in order! It’s been over a month since I last blogged (and I had wanted to post more on here) and also I’ve got quite a few emails from people that I need to reply to that I haven’t had a chance to yet… sorry to all those people! Will reply soon!

I’m so busy at the moment it’s unbelievable. In fact, I’ve probably taken on a bit too much to be honest, but there’s nothing I can really do about that now… I’m currently working on 6 different jobs that all seem to have delivery dates within a few weeks of each other! This week is a pretty mad one… Monday I was editing a documentary on this year’s Cannonball Run for ITV1, and then yesterday I was filming for a safety video at Leeds Bradford airport – although it took us 5 hours to do the 60 mile journey!! We left Manchester at about quarter to eight, and came to a standstill on the M62 at 8.40am, and stayed parked there for over 3 hours!! There’d been an accident about a mile ahead of us, and we were stuck there until just before midday when they finally managed to clear the carriageway.

Then today I’ve been filming stuff for Preview with James – the bizarreness of this job is one day you can be filming aeroplanes in the fog, then the next day we’re animating vinyl stickers on a wall, and then filming the baking of a cake in James’ kitchen as a stop-frame animation to make it go from the finished cake back to it’s raw ingredients!

Inez and James.

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by Gareth

Wedding chaos!

I’m typing this at my mum’s house because I’m down in Tamworth today ahead of my sister’s wedding tomorrow, and it’s absolute madness! I’m kind of glad I’ve only been here for one day of it, because everyone’s stressed trying to get everything sorted in time! We had the rehearsal last night, and I hope I can remember what it is I’m supposed to do! I’m giving Vikky away so I’m walking down the aisle with her, and I have a moment where I have to say “I do”! I’m sure it will all be great tomorrow, but I realised some things are still last minute when we were helping Damien write his groom’s speech just a couple of hours ago!

Anyway, I guess I should post a quick update on all that’s happened in the last few weeks since I headed down for Soul Survivor. On the Tuesday, I went and visited Ali down in Bristol and it was really nice catching up with her again. We grabbed a pizza, chatted until late about loads of stuff, and I even tried to convert her into a Myspace junkie (but I seem to have failed with that!)

Wednesday lunchtime, and it was time to continue onto Shepton Mallet, where I met up with the 29 guys, and also with Kate who did the video stuff with me there last year.

The Underground crew!

They’d moved us into a smaller venue this year, which was good because it helped make it look much fuller each night, although we were out of the way of the main venues a bit which I think meant some of the kids didn’t realise we were there until later in the week. Then for the second week, Kate had to leave because she was doing a course in London, so Andy Passey took over which worked really well. It was a great 2 weeks, and on the whole, the weather wasn’t too bad.

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by Gareth

Change can be good…

I’m feeling totally knackered! But it’s kind of in a good way because I’ve just joined a gym up the road, and this afternoon I went there for about an hour and half with James, for what was probably the most intense exercise I’ve done for over a year! I’ve made a decision that I want to get myself really fit, and get my weight right down, so I’m going to have to put myself through some serious pain to achieve my goal!

But one thing I found by going today was that it’s so much better when you go with someone else because it kind of motivates you more, and when you think of quitting a particular exercise, you generally don’t because the other person is doing it with you! We’re both going to go again first thing tomorrow morning and do some swimming, so hopefully this is the start of me being able to make some major changes in my life.

I’m off down to Bristol tomorrow afternoon to visit Ali, then on Wednesday, I’ll travel a little bit further south to Shepton Mallet for Soul Survivor where I’m working on the Underground venue with the 29th Chapter again. I’ve not sorted out anything for it yet – and time’s running out! And I bought a new tent on Friday, so my old orange canvas tent is no more! I really could do with attempting to put it up before I leave just in case there’s anything missing!

The other thing that’s happened this week is that I’ve managed to catch up with Sarah who I haven’t really seen for the last 18 months, though we have chatted occasionally on messenger recently. We met up first last Sunday afternoon for coffee where we just filled in what we’d both been up to since we’d last spoken properly. Then we went round to Caroline’s in the evening and I also got to see Olivia who I hadn’t seen since she was just over 6 months old – and now she’s almost 2, and it’s amazing to see how quickly kids grow up! Then last night, we both went over to Bradford to Abundant Life because I’d been tipped off that Martin Smith from Delirious was leading there!! Not an ideal reason for going but hey! It’s been good though to start to rebuild our friendship, because I have really missed it over the last year or so… so all in all it’s been a pretty good week!

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

Old faces

Me, Ali, Helen, Jeb, Tim, Nicky, Lisa and Mary.

Went down to Redditch on Saturday to meet up with some of the old CU guys from when I was at UCE. We met up at Phil and Mary’s house, and I hadn’t seen a few of them since I moved up to Manchester six years ago.

I got there at noon (using the sat-nav on my new phone which worked brilliantly!) and I’d only been there a short while when I was left holding the baby – literally – Ali dumped me with Phil & Mary’s 6 month old baby, which was a whole new experience for me! I really wasn’t sure how to hold her – I was so worried I’d drop her! But I managed okay I think!

It was a very noisy afternoon because Jeb & Nicky brought their new baby Lois with them, Tim & Lisa had their 2½ year-old daughter Lisa, and with Phil & Mary’s three children – baby Jessica, 2 year-old Ben, and 4½ year-old Alice – it was quite manic!! Good fun though!

It was nice to catch up with people again. It’s interesting to find out how lives have changed! Especially the ones with kids now!!

You can check out the photos here.

by Gareth

Mission Completed!

Well, it’s Monday morning, and I’m aching a bit!

Me after running 10K!

I completed the run yesterday with a time of 1hr15m39s – just 1m15s slower than last year… which is kind of good because I felt pretty rubbish in the run up to this one, but then I wonder whether I could have caught up that time and have beaten last year’s? What I do know though is that if it hadn’t been for Jamie pushing me this last week, I’d never have managed to do it in this time… so major thanks are definitely due to him! Cheers mate!

Anyway, I got into town for about 8.45am and went to the office to get changed and meet with Mike and his dad who were running as well. The lift still hadn’t been fixed, so walking up all the stairs was a nice treat to start with…

We headed down to the start to meet up with the 20,000 strong crowd that was waiting to run. Our particular section kicked off at 10.23am, and I managed to do the first 3km of it without slowing down, which took me from the city centre, around back of Granada and the Science Museum, and up to the main stretch of dual carriageway that leads to Old Trafford. I then decided to walk the next 1km – by now my calf muscles had gone rock hard and were hurting ever so slightly(!) – and then carried on running for the majority of it… I reckon I ran about 7½km in all, walking the other 2½km at a pretty reasonable pace.

Jamie, Oli and Rosie came down to see me at the finish line, but they totally managed to miss me actually crossing it! I bumped into them as I was heading back to get changed, so they came into the office until I got sorted (which brought the unwelcome return of the stair climb!)

We then headed into town to grab lunch (not sure a KFC was the best meal to have straight after running 10K!), and then me, Jamie and Oli went to see the new Star Wars film – Revenge Of The Sith and I really liked it. Definitely think it’s the best out of the three new ones.

I’m pretty glad the whole run thing is over now – just have to go and collect the sponsor money (you can still sponsor me if you want!)

I don’t really know if I’d do it again next year. I guess if I’m honest, when I signed up for last year’s, I was kind of doing it with the intention of trying to impress a certain person, which probably wasn’t the best reason for taking part (‘cos it obviously really worked! ) – and this year I ended up applying for it without really thinking. So with next year’s, I’d have to really think about it before signing up again, because I really would need to put a lot more effort in.

Oh, and apparently I came in 14,377th position. I don’t think I’m going to brag too much about that one!

by Gareth

‘Blind’ panic

Finally got round to putting my venetian blind up in the kitchen this weekend! I bought it last summer and it’s taken me this long to sort it out! It’s a silver one, which goes well with the rest of the kitchen, but it needed cutting down quite a bit to fit in the window. It wasn’t too difficult to do the width, but to get the height right I had to remove about half of it, which meant dismantling it and cutting off loads of cord – and it was pretty tricky with only one pair of hands! And then I had the added complication of not being totally sure how to put it back together again! So after a few attempts that just didn’t work, I took a trip to B&Q to try and get a look at a similar type there and see how it was made!

Nothing else exciting has happened really… got a phone call from Jamie on Friday afternoon and he was asking if I was busy because he was at the hospital for a MR Scan on his shoulder (‘cos he keeps dislocating it!), but he didn’t realise he was supposed to take anyone with him. They were saying they wouldn’t do it if he was on his own – which would mean he’d probably have to wait ages to get another appointment. Luckily I wasn’t too busy at work, so I was able to pop out for a couple of hours to just sit in the corridor whilst they did it, and then to follow him home in my car (because he wasn’t really supposed to be driving, but it’d have been really difficult to collect later – and he felt okay to drive anyway!) Didn’t mind though ‘cos it was good to get out of the office for a couple of hours!

by Gareth

Stripping all weekend

I’ve been stripping wallpaper all weekend – but this time not at my house, but at Jamie’s! He became a houseowner on Friday and he’s redecorating the whole place, but needs to do it pretty quickly because he’s got Dean moving in at the end of the month, and he’s got to rent out the third bedroom as soon as possible.

We started ripping down some paper on Friday night, but had to stop when his neighbour came round to say our noise was keeping their kids up! But I went back yesterday and today and have managed to strip two bedrooms, whilst Jamie and his parents got on with other jobs that need doing (like knocking holes through walls!). I took some ‘before’ pictures on my phone for him, and for the time-being, they’re here.

Doing the work on Jamie’s house has kind of made me think I need to do some on my house as well to try and get stuff finished! It’s kind of harder because my rooms are full of furniture and things, whereas Jamie has the advantage that his house is pretty empty at the moment! Might try and do something next weekend – though I’m not guaranteeing it!

by Gareth

Removal men

I was over in Sheffield yesterday and last night giving Jamie a hand collecting some furniture for his new house that he’s in the process of buying. He was given it by James’ grandparents who are moving to a smaller house (apparently the person who’s bought their current one is the manager of Sheffield Wednesday, Paul Sturrock!), and they’ve given him a couple of beds, plus a table and chairs. So we strapped each of the beds onto the roof of each car, and filled up the backs with other bits and pieces!

Then later on the afternoon, I helped him by giving him a hand with repairing a chair of Darren’s, which was hand-made by his sister, that which had split in half across the seat. When I say I was ‘helping’, it was more a case of holding bits of wood, and supporting clamps! I think he did a really good job, and when we took all the clamps off this morning, the glue and dowels appeared to have done their job because Jamie was able to sit on it without it falling apart again!

Then last night we stayed over at his mum and dad’s house, so decided to rent and watch ‘I, Robot‘ – and I thought it was a really good film… when it came out I didn’t bother going to see it because I thought it might be a bit rubbish, but it actually had quite a good story to it.

Other stuff… my car failed its MOT on Wednesday. I’ve left it with my brother to do some work on it, so have borrowed mum’s Peugeot 205 which is quite different to my trusty Fiesta! It’s taking a bit of getting used to driving a car that doesn’t have a fifth gear, has a manual choke, and rattles when it does above 60mph!

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

Dave’s stag day walk

Yesterday was Dave Ciezynski’s stag day, and a load of us went over to Snowdonia to do a bit of a walk up a mountain called Tryfan. I guess I should have guessed it wouldn’t be the easiest task, because Jamie was leading everyone, so I found it pretty challenging.

As we were climbing up, it started to snow, and the further we got, then we found that there was a bit of ice around on the rocks as well. Unfortunately, we had to climb up quite a few of these, and there were a few times where I had to climb over or up rocks where I felt really scared because we were quite exposed on the side of the mountain, and I was seriously concerned that I might actually fall off!

We finally got to the top, and it was pretty cold up there, but at least it had stopped snowing, though there was a bit of an intermittent mist which kept coming down. So, then we started making our way across a ridge, and then started making our way back down the mountain.

Just before we got to the bottom, I was walking over some quite boggy ground, when I took a step, and suddenly found myself up to my knees in mud! I managed to get myself out, and luckily I was wearing some waterproof trousers so it wasn’t too bad. Fortunately, no-one actually saw me fall in, which I was glad of, especially as I’d found it highly amusing when an identical thing happened to someone else exactly a year ago!

After the walk, we went to a nearby pub and had a nice meal, and were back in Manchester for about ten o’clock. Not the latest stag party I’ve been to, but still a really good one!

Check out the photos of the day here.