Tag / Friends

by Gareth

Delirious gig in Bradford

Well it’s my birthday today, and I’m at work! Woohoo!

But last night was a little better anyway… went to see Delirious on their World Service tour in Bradford with Sa – and the gig rocked!!

We got there quite early so grabbed some food, then met up in the theatre’s bar with Caroline and a couple of her friends who were also there – but they had tickets for up on the balcony, so we all grabbed a quick drink before we headed down to the main floor for the gig. They were really good – it was quite a different atmosphere from when we saw them back in January… it was certainly a spectacular show! The support act – RRWC – were also pretty good, and impressed me enough for me to buy their CD (which I even got signed by the band, even though I didn’t know who any of them were!!)

There was quite a funny moment when a couple that I know from working at Spring Harvest – Emma and Iain – were called up onto the stage to do a slow dance whilst the band played ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’!

So all things considered, it was a totally brilliant night!

Anyway, back to my birthday… I’m so happy to be officially a year older! Prezzie wise, got a bit of cash from family, and a really cool T-shirt from Miss Wallace, so not too shabby really!

by Gareth

Land of Hope & Glory…

Went to BBC Proms In The Park in Cathedral Square last night, which was the Manchester part of last night of the Proms. I was with Sarah, Emma, their friend from work Katheline, and Becky – and I’d been really looking forward to it, although the weather forecast for the evening wasn’t too good…

Got there about quarter to six and were confronted by a big ‘Wimbledonesqe’ queue! So we joined the back, and eventually managed to get into the Square.

We found a bit of ground to sit on, and the concert got under way – but after a few minutes, it started raining a little bit… then that light shower turned torrential and we got absolutely soaked! I was wearing a waterproof so I wasn’t too bad, but my trousers were drenched. We eventually had to stand up because where we were sitting was quickly becoming quite a river!

A trip to a nearby pub halfway through was called for so that we could try and dry out a bit, then we ventured back for the last section which saw a link up with the Albert Hall for all the ‘classics’… Rule Britannia, God Save The Queen and Auld Lang Syne. I must admit though that I didn’t really like singing them because I don’t think I agree with a lot of the sentiment behind them! It’s kind of very “We are British and we are the best” which is a bit rubbish really, and I’m not overly fussed about the Queen ‘ruling over us’! So it was more of a micky-take sing-a-long rather than a meaningful moment!

Took some photos on my phone and you can see them here.

by Gareth

Soul Survivor 2004

Got back yesterday from spending 10 days down at Soul Survivor, and am still feeling pretty tired! It pretty much rained nearly every single day, and it ended up getting quite muddy!

For the first half of it, I caught up with a couple of Reach guys…Dave Bateman was DJing in Lift (the skate park), and also saw Rob Kay who was DJing on one of the nights with thebandwithnoname.

On the changeover day, I went up to Bristol to visit Ali and Pete (and to stick my jeans and towels in their washing machine!), and that was the only day when it didn’t actually rain!

Then for the second part, some guys from Tamworth were there – Andy, Tom, Dave, John, Fiona and Sophie, and I spent a bit of time hanging around with them.

I originally planned to stay until yesterday morning and return, but after waking up on Wednesday morning, decided I couldn’t stick staying another night in my tent, so left late that night and got back to Manchester at about 2.30am yesterday morning!

There are some photos of this year’s Soul Survivor here.

by Gareth

Camping in the lake district

Just got back from a camping up in the Lake District, and it was a really brilliant weekend.

Me and Jamie drove up on Friday night to Borrowdale, which isn’t too far from Keswick, and eventually found a camping field to set up on, so we put up the tent in the dark, and then had a quick drink before settling down for the night.

Woke up pretty early yesterday morning – and it was gorgeous outside… the sun was out and the sky totally clear. Now we could actually see our surroundings, you could see how stunning the place was. We’d camped pretty close to a river, which we’d kind of guessed because we’d heard running water, but we discovered that what we’d heard was actually a set of waterfalls coming down from the mountain that we were planning to go walking up.

So we set off, with our aim to make it to the top of Great Gable, which is pretty close to Scafell Pike which we climbed back in April. I found it a bit of a struggle doing the first bit of the ascent… it was boiling hot and the sun was pretty relentless on us! We were so hot that by the time we came to the first waterfall, I didn’t take too much persuading to stick my head into the flow of falling water!! We then walked up a bit further, and arrived at above another waterfall, and this time I decided to lie across a rock and tip my upper body backwards into the water, totally immersing my head into the cold water – much to the amusement of Jamie! Managed to pull myself out of there, but somehow had managed to also totally soak my shorts, as well as my t-shirt, so ended up walking a bit funny until I dried out a bit!

We eventually got to the top of Great Gable around lunchtime, and the views were amazing. We sat up there to eat our lunch and then started to head down a different way, and eventually came back to the river which we managed to cross by walking over some rocks, although I slipped and ended up soaking my boots and socks! We sat down there for quite a while, catching some rays, and hoping that my boots would dry out a bit!

That evening, after eating out at a nearby pub, we started driving back over Honister Pass, and pulled up at the edge of Buttermere lake, and ended up being convinced by Jamie to go for a swim! It was really smart, though I was a bit apprehensive because I hadn’t been swimming for about 10 years! And it wasn’t until I was in the water that I realised that there were millions of dead flies on the surface of the water so I had to keep my mouth shut when swimming or I’d end up with a mouthful of insects!

We waited until the sun set behind the mountains, and they dried off and drove back to the site. When we got back to the tent, Jamie ‘acquired’ some wood from the nearby fields, so we got a campfire going – which helped to keep the midges away which had already spent most of the day attacking us! It was really good spending a couple of hours chilling out around the fire, and just having a drink and chatting.

Woke up this morning, and it wasn’t as nice weather-wise as yesterday – it was still dry and bright, but quite windy. We packed up and then drove over to a place called Watendlath Tarn, and then went for quite a fair walk over to Dock Tarn above Rosthwaite, where we sat on a rock overlooking the lake, with the wind blowing a pretty intense gale!

We then walked back to the car (it seemed even further this time – especially ‘cos I was starting to feel a bit tired after all this walking!) and then drove down to a place that overlooked a massive lake and grabbed lunch before heading back to Manchester.

I forgot to take my camera with me, but I did take quite a few photos of the weekend on my phone, and they haven’t come out too bad, and you can view them all here.

by Gareth

Dining room finally painted!

The decorating’s definitely coming on!

I’ve finished painting my dining room (apart from the woodwork) and have moved the furniture back in so I can actually use my downstairs rooms again! The other things that need to be sorted in there is some shelves need putting up, and I need to get a new carpet for the room and stairs, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve had the fireplace in the living room finished, ‘cos I don’t want it to get ruined when I get the builders in to do that! I’ve got a day’s holiday off work today to do some work on my kitchen… I’ve undercoated two walls, but there’s still a bit of wallpaper that needs to come off the other two, and I need to paint the ceiling as well. Don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done today, but at least I’m getting something done!

Other stuff – supposed to be going camping this weekend with Jamie. Not sure where we’re going yet… were talking about heading off to somewhere in the Lake District so we can do some walking and stuff. Hope the weather improves though… after a really hot couple of days last weekend, it’s been miserable this week. We’ve had thunder and lots of rain – I know some parts of the country have had floods as well, so I’m really hoping it gets loads better by the end of the week!

by Gareth

Shell Island camping weekend plus a baking frenzy!

Right… it’s been a whole month since I did a news update, so here’s one now!

Earlier this month I went on a camping weekend with Dean and Michael (and some other guys who I didn’t really know!) to a place called Shell Island in mid Wales. It’s quite a nice place – where we camped we could see the mountains of Snowdonia on one side, and the sea on the other!

It was really sunny on the Friday when we arrived, but unfortunately on Saturday and Sunday it went a bit manky. Me, Dean and Michael ended up doing quite a bit of castle-visiting… not sure why(!)… but we stopped off at a little castle on the way there, and then on the Saturday afternoon, took a look around Harlech castle. Then on the Sunday afternoon, just before we drove back, we took a walk up by some small waterfalls which was cool, although we had a little panic when Dean realised he’d dropped his mobile phone somewhere along out route, so we had to go and trace our steps, checking in all the undergrowth. Found it in the end though!

My main achievement this month is my newly-discovered skill of cake baking!! Sarah & Emma are running in the New York Marathon in November, and they have to raise quite a lot of cash for Christie’s Hospital, so Sa held a cake sale at work on Wednesday, and I foolishly said I’d do some cakes for them to sell!! I had one attempt at baking some blueberry muffins and chocolate brownies last Sunday – which turned out pretty bad to be honest! I’ve now discovered that my oven is quite rubbish, and that it’s hotter than it says it is, and the heat’s uneven! So something else to add to my list of home improvements! Anyway, tried again on Tuesday, and the results were a lot more successful! This time I went for chocolate chip cookies, and produced another batch of brownies – which this time were brown rather than black!

And my pièce de résistance… a sponge cake with fresh raspberries, and a crème fraîche and mascarpone! Don’t know what it tasted like, but it looked good… and apparently it sold within minutes for £10!!

Oh, and the final amount of cash that I raised for my run was £317!! Well chuffed!

by Gareth

Matt’s wedding, plus watching Euro 2004!

It’s been a very long weekend! I was at Matt Passey’s wedding to Amy down in East Sussex on Saturday, and I had to get there quite a few hours beforehand because I was looking after the sound for the service. I had to leave the house at 5am (after getting to bed gone midnight!) and then met up with Dave Plumb down in London, and grabbed a lift with him down to Crowborough.

The wedding was really cool – and it was good seeing a load of people from Tamworth who I hadn’t seen for ages. And on the Saturday night, I stayed over at Dave’s in Willesdon Green. There are a load of photos from the day here.

Since I was in London, I headed over to Hammersmith on Sunday morning to catch up with Bin. It was a really hot day, so we grabbed some sandwiches and had lunch in a park right next to the Thames. Then, I met up with Dave because I was giving Hope a lift back to Birmingham on my way up north, and then got back to Manchester at about half six.

Then I got all patriotic because England were playing their first match in Euro 2004, and went with Sa to Exchange Square in town to watch the game on the big screen. There were quite a few thousand people there so it was a really good atmosphere, and it looked like we’d beat the French, but the score totally turned around in the last few minutes. Hopefully England will do a bit better when they play again on Thursday.

by Gareth

1hr14m24s

Well I did the Manchester 10K run yesterday! It was a boiling hot day which wasn’t ideal for running, but I completed the course in 1hr14m24s which I’m well chuffed with, because I was really expecting my time to be between an hour and a half and two hours!

I met up with Mike from work first thing on the morning, along with his fiancé Claire and her mum, and we all walked over to our meeting point on Portland Street to get ready for the start. Everyone was doing some kind of workout on the street, but we couldn’t really see the people leading it so we just kind of did our own stretches and stuff to warm up. Because there were about 16,000 people taking part, they’d split everyone into 3 ‘waves’ so they could start people at different times, so as we were in the ‘slower’ group, we were last to set off. I crossed the start line in St Peter’s Square at about 10.30, and started off with a steady jog down Quay Street, around the Granada building and then back up towards Deansgate. It was as we joined onto Deansgate that we were able to see some of the really good runners crossing the finish line – which was a little disheartening, knowing that there was still about 8km to go for us!

Anyway, I kept going at a reasonable speed until 3km, then decided to switch to a fast walk to get a bit of energy back, and then from the 4km mark switched between jogging and fast walking so that I could pace myself through the whole thing. I reckon I probably only walked about 3km of it really, so I’m quite pleased that I did run for a lot of it. If I do it again next year, I reckon I could improve on my time quite a bit if I can build my stamina up and try and keep at a constant speed all the way round.

After the run, I met up in town for a drink with Sa and Emma who’d also been running – they were slightly better than me(!)… they both did it in 56 minutes, and I was well impressed with that! We grabbed some lunch and chilled out in Exchange Square for a bit, which was packed with people enjoying the sunshine, and then somehow I ended up trawling round loads of shops with them around Manchester city centre – luckily I didn’t spend too much though!

When I’ve managed to get all the sponsor money in, I reckon I’ll have raised over £300, which is pretty smart, and makes it all quite worthwhile – especially since I can hardly walk now!!

by Gareth

Live music, plus first long distance run…

It’s been quite a busy – there’s been quite a bit of running going on, and I’ve seen six different bands playing since last Wednesday!

Music first then… last Wednesday night I went to the Roadhouse in town with Sarah, Emma and Caroline to see Stoney Lacuna do a gig, and they were really good, and we had to listen to two other bands playing before they came on. So that’s three down, three more to go…

Then on Saturday, a few of us went to Alton Towers for the day, followed by a gig in the evening with a gospel group called Sinai, singer Rebecca St James, and headlined by Delirious. The theme park was cool – but massive queues though. Didn’t get onto the biggest rides because the wait was over 2 hours, but still got onto some good ones. The concert was great, although it was quite an experience being in a 12,000-strong mosh pit!!

I’ve been doing quite a lot of running at the gym, but I went running outside for the first time yesterday afternoon. Jamie drove us out to a village in Derbyshire called Mellor to do about an 8km circuit that he normally does on his mountain bike… so as you can imagine, it was quite hilly! We managed to do it in about an hour and 10 minutes with a mixture of running and fast walking. It’s so much harder running outside than in the gym, you really feel it on your feet running on the road. One thing that is quite a worry to me is that after a while my toes went really numb, then just became very sore on every step. Don’t know why they’re hurting like this, and could really do with that not happening this Sunday! Have decided to take a break from running for today, but will be going to the gym tomorrow. I’m getting my dining room replastered on Wednesday and Thursday, so my plan is to try and get out and do a run somewhere near to home at some point during those days.

by Gareth

Walking up Scafell Pike, plus Olivia’s dedication service

It’s been a pretty busy weekend. Yesterday, because it was Dave Cieszynski’s birthday last Sunday, a load of us drove up to the Lake District to go for a walk up Scafell Pike – England’s highest mountain. There were 19 of us that went on the walk, and the drive there was a bit of an adventure in itself! I left Manchester at about 7.15am, and once we got off the M6, ended up on some very steep and narrow roads – my poor little Fiesta didn’t know what had hit it! After getting a bit lost, we eventually arrived at Wasdale Head at about quarter to eleven, which is where we set off from to start the climb.

The weather didn’t seem too bad – quite sunny, but not particularly warm, although the walking certainly warmed you up! But as we got further up, it got loads colder, and incredibly windy. I had one nightmare section which we had to do – there was a rocky section that we had to scramble up that did scare me quite a bit. It was quite steep and narrow, and I was struggling to find places to put my feet on, and rocks to grab onto that didn’t move! My other major concern at this time was that even if I did manage to get up this bit, there was no way on earth I was going to be able to get down the same way!! So when I got to the top, I was pretty relieved to hear we were taking a different route down!

As we made the final ascent to the summit, we entered into the cloud, and had to walk over loads of stones and rocks – and by now the wind was really strong, and I got knocked off the rocks a few times, which wasn’t great for my dodgy foot! At the very top, you couldn’t really see very far at all because of all the cloud, and it was absolutely freezing! And it was almost impossible to stand up for long without being blown off balance.

So after about quarter of an hour or so at the top, we started back down, and it was harder than I expected, because we had to negotiate ourselves over some pretty rocky ground, and my foot by this time was starting to hurt quite a bit! And then, as we were walking down the last section, both me and Dave got cramp at exactly the same time as we were on this steep section of grass, and the two of us collapsed on the side of the hill in agony! I managed to drag myself back up to the main path, and the cramp kind of passed, but by now my knee which I injured skiing felt like it had turned to jelly – I seemed like my body was totally falling apart! It was at this point that the heavens opened and torrential rain and hail came down on us, so by the time we got back to the cars, I was totally drenched through, so we headed to the nearby pub to dry off and get refreshment!

If you want to see some photos from the walk, there’s a load of them here.

Then this morning I had to be up pretty early this morning to get up to Middleton for Colin & Caroline’s daughter Olivia’s dedication service. Both Emma and Sarah are Godparents, and Ben and Kristy were also at the church for it, so I sat next to them, which was cool. Went back to the house afterwards for a bit of get-together, and the place was overrun by babies, which was interesting! I think I handled it quite well considering my lack of experience! All in all, it was a really nice day, and wrapped up a great weekend – although I can feel the aching in my legs starting to kick in now… I need to do a lot more walking this year I think to get myself a bit more conditioned to it!

Last year I climbed Snowdon – the highest mountain in Wales, Scafell Pike – the highest in England… so all that’s left now is Ben Nevis. Bring it on!

by Gareth

Easter weekend

I’ve had the whole Easter weekend off work, and it seem like absolutely ages! Probably because I’ve managed to get a lot done with the house. Jamie came round on Friday and Saturday to help with doing some DIY stuff, and I’d have got nowhere near as much done if he hadn’t been here! We basically did some work on my dining room, and bricked in the old fireplace, boxed in all the pipes, moved the ceiling light so it’s now over the table, installed some spotlights, and added some extra plug sockets in there! The only hiccup was when we added the extra mains sockets – it looked like there was an old spur cable of the socket we wanted to link from – and we checked all over to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, so we just cut that and used it for the new one. Brilliant… until the next morning when I went to run some hot water for a wash… and no hot water! The realisation soon kicked in that that cable that seemed to make no difference whether connected or not was actually powering the boiler for my central heating!! I left it until the this morning to fix because I went for lunch yesterday with Jamie and Ryan, and didn’t get home until pretty late. So I got the boiler working again this afternoon, and have now also built a new bottom step for my stairs, after taking out the old one because it was far too big, and the wood on it had split anyway. So I got loads done on the room, and it’s not too far off getting someone in to plaster it all… then it’s just the finishing touches!

The only other thing I’ve done this weekend is that I went to see The Passion Of The Christ yesterday morning. I know it’s been out for a while, but it been the first chance I’ve had to see it. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect because of all the hype around it – but I wanted to make up my own mind about the film. I guess I was surprised at how much the fact it was subtitled throughout didn’t bother me at all, and visually it was stunning. There were one or two bits that I thought weren’t quite right, but have made me think about stuff. And the portrayal of the violence wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I guess that’s more of a reflection of how we become desensitised to things nowadays, but I think it was more that the violent stuff was pretty much never-ending, so I guess the shock is the amount of it rather than the level of it as far as I was concerned. But all in all, I thought it was a really good film.

by Gareth

Delirious gig, and Reach weekend away

Right, well it’s been a few weeks so I thought I’d better do a quick update!

At the end of January went to see Delirious play a gig at Liverpool Cathedral, and it was awesome! There was quite a group of us – me, Oliver, Rosie, Sarah, Emma, Colin and Caroline – and we also saw Fiona, Jules, Neil and Sarah who had made their own way there.

The cathedral itself was amazing – it’s 100 years old, and looks really cool. And it was fantastic seeing a band like Delirious playing there. I saw them play Coventry cathedral when I was at uni, and that was one of the best gigs I’d been to. The atmosphere at this one was brilliant, and they played a good mix of their new and old stuff.

The place was totally packed, and the view wasn’t the greatest because the stage wasn’t that high, but even with the weird acoustics of such a large building, the sound was really good.

Then last weekend I went down to Kidderminster for the Reach weekend away. I had to take the Friday off work because the coach was leaving Manchester at 5.30, and it would’ve been pretty difficult to get there for that time. Anyway, there were two coaches taking us all down there, and I think I chose well, because the other coach got lost and went north instead of south, and arrived a couple of hours after we got there!

It was quite weird, because the place we were staying at used to be called Fort Rocky, and I went there on a summer camp back in 1987! I had hazy memories of a lot of the things there, but the place was a lot smaller than I remember it – maybe that’s because I was just a kid then!

Jamie managed to dislocate his shoulder again playing basketball on the Saturday afternoon, and since he’d travelled there in his car, I ended up driving him back home, along with Sarah, and a new guy called Simon, who I discovered is good mates with Andy Chadwick who I knew as a kid, and was on the same summer camp at Fort Rocky back in ’87!

Check out the photos here.

by Gareth

Skiing holiday

Got back home on Saturday afternoon after spending just over a week in the Jungfrau region of Switzerland.

We left Manchester on New Year’s Day and drove down to Folkestone where we got on a coach which took us through the channel tunnel, then across France, and into Switzerland to our final destination of Lauterbrunnen which is a village just above Interlaken… it was a horrific journey – we were on the coach for over 18 hours, and I hardly got any sleep because there wasn’t really that much room to do anything!

Anyway, our first day skiing saw me get left behind by my lesson group on the side of a mountain, which wasn’t really the best of starts to be honest! I had to clamber back up through some pretty deep snow, and by the time I got back up to the top, I wasn’t really in the mood to do much more skiing that day!

Day two wasn’t too bad… until the end of it. After my lesson in the morning, I went and did a blue run with Fiona (who’s a pretty good skier, so was able to advise me a lot of the time!), and even though it was really hard work, and quite stressful at times, I had a real sense of achievement when I’d done it. However, whilst I was doing this, I fell awkwardly at one point and I felt my knee go as my ski (which hadn’t come off when I went over) twisted round the opposite way to my body. Anyway, it didn’t feel too bad at the time, apart from a little bit of pain across the back of my right leg), but by the next morning, I couldn’t even walk properly without my knee giving way whenever I put pressure on the leg.

So basically I wasn’t able to ski for the rest of the week, and had to buy a sports bandage for my knee – which would normally cost less than a tenner in the UK, but when you’re up in the mountains in one of Europe’s most expensive countries, that price rises to about £25!! Athough compared to Jamie, my injury wasn’t too bad – on the Thursday, he was off doing some snowboarding and fell back after doing a jump – dislocating his shoulder!! So rather than come back on the coach, he had to fly back to the UK, so it wasn’t all bad!!

You can see photos from the holiday here.

by Gareth

Lord Of The Rings

Went over to Jamie’s in Sheffield yesterday to watch the final Lord of The Rings film – and it’s excellent! At three and a half hours, it’s quite a long time to sit in the cinema – the advantage of the DVD versions are that you can take a bit of a break when you change the discs over! But it was really good, and I was surprised that the cinema was packed, considering it was Boxing Day!

It’s been great having a few days off work, and I’ve still got tomorrow before I go back… it’s been ages since I’ve had a few days off together! Hopefully I’ll be able to get all my work finished on Monday and Tuesday, so I can take New Year’s Eve off to pack for our skiing trip which starts the next day! I can’t believe that this time next week I’ll be in Switzerland!!

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!