When we were in Wales, Kristy and I found a few brochures for some rather large hedge mazes around the traps, so on Saturday, we decided to have a BBQ Chicken adventure day down to Longleat to check out their offering.

We were not disappointed! Their maze is so big I figured it had to be a candidate for the Biggest Hedge Maze in the World! I mean, it’s so massive, you can very clearly see it from the satellite image on Google Maps!

Turns out, at a “mere” 1.48 acres, the maze is tiny in compared to the world record holder – of which, a number of mazes claim to be, but the Guinness World Record goes to the Pineapple Maze in Hawaii, which is over 3 acres in size! Still, Longleat was certainly big enough, and took us well over 1/2 an hour to get through!

Good times!

On Thursday night, Julian, Todd and I joined some of the folks from my work at the 19th Annual Battersea Beer Festival. I don’t know why they call it a “beer” festival when the only type of beer they actually serve is ale. What’s more, I don’t even like ale; I’m much more of a lager drinker. Ales to me just taste like flat, warm beer – true, that’s pretty much exactly what they are – but when you’re looking for a nice cool bubbling beverage, ale is not your friend.

I guess I was mainly there for the social side of things (though most people from work pulled out, slackers!). The three of us didn’t bother with the formalities of purchasing a beer guide; instead we were going by gut instinct (read “the shortest queues”) to pick our beers.

As it turns out, I have an uncanny knack for choosing the worst beers available; each time the three of us made a choice, it was inevitably mine which came a very distant third. I felt my first ale – “Black Gold” – was rather inappropriately named; “Watery burnt toast” would have been far more suitable. By my reckoning, Todd’s best beer was the “Sheepshagger’s Gold” (yes, really), and Julian’s was “The Highwayman”, which had a distinct taste of honey and cigarettes.

Given that half-pints start around £1.05, and go up to about £1.20 for the more exotic beers, it’s certain a cheap night out; but given my penchant for lager, perhaps next time I’d be checking out that martial arts class instead.

We’ve been getting into the Christmas spirit with lots of social gatherings lately.

Last Saturday night, we took the train down to Stretham to have Christmas drinks with Al and Becks. We had an awesome indian beforehand at Chilli Chutney, a place recommended by Al, and so authentic they even had Bollywood movies playing in the background. Overall a fantastic night, but we ended up having to cab home after we missed the last train by less than two minutes!

On Thursday night, John organised a “pyramid party” at a pub in Baker street, with the idea being that he invites everyone he knows, then they invite people that they know, and so on and so forth, until finally we have enough people there to take over the entire pub. We didn’t get quite that many but a turnout of around 30 people was still pretty commendable for the first time. We left around 10 PM to go and get dinner whilst the others stayed on, apparently ended up at Tiger Tiger until they closed!

Friday night saw Shelley hosting her first quiz night at our place, which Julian won convincingly. That’s the second quiz in a row in which Julian has blitzed the field, so we have to come up with some kind of handicap for him next time (like, he starts on -20 points, and each of his questions are only worth a half).

Last night we found ourselves in Kensington for Ali and Eva’s Christmas drinks (Eva is Nick’s sister). We even got to partake in the highs and lows of seeing the X Factor grand finale, which perhaps would have been more significant to us had we have watched any of the shows for the season (but given our lack of TV antenna, that’s a bit tricky). Anyway, Eva and Ali were wonderful hosts; we had a fantastic time, and it was tough to drag ourselves away at 12:30 PM, but we were both quite tired and the lure of bed was too hard to resist!

After a lovely dinner at Ben and Michelle’s on Saturday night, Kirsty and Ben had the unusual idea of “hitting the clubs”. Ordinarily, this would not at all be something I’m up for – the mere thought of starting the evening at 11PM seems rather ludicrous to me. But, figuring that I’d never, ever be asked, “Hey, wanna go dancing?” again, I jumped onto the bandwagon, and out we headed.

Immediately, I regretted my decision. For a start, it was cold. And I mean, really cold – I’d say hovering around zero, with quite a decent wind. I was wearing four shirts, and yet I was still feeling it. Secondly, the friggin District and Piccadilly lines were down past Hammersmith, which meant we had to bus it half the way. I don’t like waiting for busses in the cold (did I mention it was cold?).

Anyway, finally we got to our destination – Tiger Tiger – a “meat-market” (as it was described to me) at Piccadilly Circus. We met Jaimee out the front, lined up for a bit (thankfully only a few minutes) and then finally we were in.

Having forked out half our life savings on cover charge (£10), we were determined to have a good night, and stay “’till the end”. (Also, Chellsie had pre-booked our ride home for 3AM so we didn’t have much choice.) Ben got things started off on the right foot with a few “red bull doubles”, and after that, I must admit, the night was great fun!

I didn’t see any mince, chicken, or even ham, so I’m not sure where the meat was sold – however, I did see a lot of young hipster-groovsters having a ball, dancing the night away. 3AM came around a lot faster than I would have anticipated, and we all piled tiredly into the cab, which sped us back to The Shiz.

I was very, very glad to be climbing into bed (around 3:30AM), but I was also very glad I had gone. It well exceeded my rather low expectations!

Yes, I’m very behind with this one, but computer time has been scarce for the last few days… either we haven’t been at home, we’ve been entertaining, or we’ve been sleeping in an effort to recover!

None-the-less, happy new year, everyone. Our celebrations this year were very local – at our house, in fact – so we didn’t have to much commuting to worry about. The evening consisted of a huge gathering of friends – about 18 in all – partying the night away. There were drinks and nibblies all around, not to mention some random music (each guest contributed to the playlist) and even a few hours of karaoke, courtesy of SingStar (many thanks for the loaner, Racey!)

The funny thing is, I could have sworn I was singing better than the next-day’s video playback revealed…

After work on Friday, we headed out to celebrate Michelle’s birthday. The evening had just about everything – a funky bar just off Oxford Street, our own reserved table, a happy hour with cheap beer and wine, and a pumping group of friends ready to party!

There was only one thing missing… Michelle!

Of all the days to come down with a sickness so bad that you can’t go out! In her absence, Ben had to take one for the team, and he became “Michelle by proxy” for the evening. Though I’m sure he was happy to recieve birthday hugs and kisses (especially from the ladies), I don’t know if his proxily duties extended to him having a vegetarian meal for dinner. I think I saw him downing some chicken, so I suspect not!

I suspect that M.B.P. had a good evening out, and hence by extension Michelle also had a good evening out… but I’d say that next time she’d probably prefer to actually be there in person. Get well soon, Chellesie!

I’m really starting to get the hang of table football! I’d always considered it mainly a game of chance – flick your wrists a few times and hopefully connect with the ball. However, after watching some masters play, I can tell you that it’s most definitely a game of skill. We try to play every afternon at about 4PM as a break from work (we have a table in our games room), and even though I still have a lot of learning (and practice!) to do, I can at least hold my own now in a four-person match.

To further tune my skills – and of course, to enjoy a night out in old London town – Nick (from work) and I met John at Cafe Kick on Friday night, in the edgey suburb of Hackney. There was a little bit of confusion as to where we were meeting since Cafe Kick had two different locations, but eventually we all found each other and headed in to play some Foosball.

It was fantastic fun! John and Nick are both way better than me, and truth be told, the night was organised so that they could meet and challenge each other. At the end of 4 games, I think Nick won 3 to 1, however each game was very, very close. At one stage, they teamed up to take on some random strangers in the bar (who, incidentally, would have profited from an extra spray of deodorant). I can’t remember how they fared, but I think they came out trumps.

We also then managed to find a few people who subbed in as our fourth player, and it was great fun playing them in various configurations. Kudos to the large-ish woman who made me laugh hysterically by screaming, “C’MON, LADY BOYS!” every few goals.

Playing foosball is surprisingly exhausting though, and after about 4 hours we called it a night. I was so tired that I was falling asleep on the tube (good thing John was there to make sure I got off at the right stop), and I slept in until 10AM on Saturday morning. You gotta love weekends!

What a lovely weekend it has been! Things started out on a funny foot when Kristy and I joined a bunch of other folks for a stand-up comedy night at The Comedy Store. It’s always a bit of a gamble going to a comedy night when you have no idea who the comedians are, but the night was absolutely a roaring success. With emphasis there on “roaring”, as that’s exactly what I was doing for the most part – roaring with laughter!

We were finished up “fairly early” (around 11 PM) so Nick (from my work) came back to our place with Kristy and I, and we stayed up until about 2 AM up performing quality assurance on the Playstation 3.

Saturday was a hot morning, and I just couldn’t stay asleep, so I got up reasonable early at around 8:30 AM. It was only after I had already downed my sustagen and started surfing the web that I realised it was actually 7:30 AM, and my bedside watch hadn’t been adjusted for our departure from daylight savings last weekend. D’oh! At least that explained why I felt terribly tired and run down all day!

Saturday night, Kristy had organised a progressive dinner for the Chiswick Gang locals, and it was fantastic! We started the night off at Ben and Michelle’s place, where Michelle had whipped up a delicious pastry covered with caramelised onions, olives, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I now can’t remember other than it tasted delicious. For our second course, we migrated to Stacey and Wes’s house, where we indulged in a delicious vegan lasagna and expertly prepared side salad. Though we were quite full by the end of this course, there was still one to go – so it was back to our place for a dessert of homemade apple pie and and ice-cream, plus chocolates and coffee. The whole evening was awesome fun and fantastic eating, so hopefully we’ll be doing it again sometime soon!

Thankfully, I slept a lot better last night, and have been feeling much more spritely today. I met up with Ben again, and we browsed some shops along the high road before heading to The Bollo House for Sunday Dinner (= roast lunch). It was absolutely divine! I had a shoulder of lamb, and Ben had the chicken – both served with gravy, potatos, veges, and of course yorkshire pudding. Yum!

Feeling guilty after weekend that has essentially consisted of eating, I spent the afternoon sussing out some gyms. At this stage I think I’ll join up at West4 mainly because it’s so close to where we live (3 minute walk). Its opening hours aren’t quite as flexible as I’d like, but being so close I’m hoping that won’t be a problem.

Now it’s only 4:30 PM, and I’ve done pretty much everything I wanted to this weekend. How satisfying!

On Sunday afternoon, I joined Bender, Michelle, Kirsty, Stacey, and Wes in farewelling Pat, who leaves for India on Saturday. He’s going over to run some training courses for Thoughtworks in Bangalore (or, “The other Bangers”). Should be a hoot – imagine how good the curries and naan bread must be over there!

Anyway, the place we met up was a gastropub called The Fat Badger. Their menu was a little light-on to be honest – it was lunch time, yet most of their food seemed to have more of a breakfast focus. But that’s as far as the criticisms go – the food we ate was excellent – I especially enjoyed their chips with mayo!

After the pub, I headed out to Greenwich to meet up with Julian and Shelley, who have very recently moved out that way. Armed only with my new 50mm lens, I took a few snapshots from the Greenwich markets, which I thought turned out very nice and colourfully!

You can see (well, I can anyway) how shallow the depth of field is – especially in the middle photo – when the lens is at maximum aperature (f1.8). Very impressive!

Market browsing was followed by a dinner and catch up at Julian and Shelley’s new pad. It was, as had been promised by Shelley, very warm – it completely made me forget about the cold wind outside. Best of all, they have a drying cupboard (or at least that’s what I called it) right near the entrance, so you can leave your jumper in there to get all toasty and warm before you leave! Having a nice warm jacket is like wearing a giant bear hug, and it certainly makes the walk back to the DLR a lot more pleasant!

Speaking of the DLR, quote of the day has to go to the lady in the photo, who when commenting on having an extra carriage on each train in the mornings, most intelligently said – “An extra carriage will give me more space for my journey to work!”. Nice one!

Friday night was my official farewell party from the work. It was tops!

First was an afternoon tea at work, where we all gathered around food and wine. My boss said a few nice words about me (and of course a few nasty ones too, since I was leaving), then presented me with a parting gift – a keyboard missing the “G” and “T” letters. Suffice to say I didn’t really get it – but then they also presented me with a PSP and a 4GB memory stick. Sah-weet!!

After the work party, we did what pretty much all Aussies do when they leave work – headed to the pub. Karl (especially!) and I have become quite friendly with Davi, the bartender, so he took extra good care of us, keeping us in high supply of Hoegaarden. I’ll definitely miss their two-for-one specials from 2pm-6pm!

It ended up being an early late night – you know, one which is actually early but feels like it was late – and a fitting end to my stint at the UN. Many thanks to all the folks that came, but most especially a huge thanks to Sibylle and Karl who organised the whole thing.

When I have a moment to relax, I’ll upload some photos from the night!