Cake day at work

For my department at work a cake making competition was organised. Lot's of eager engineers went off and baked cakes to do with the theme of Kingswood (the place where we work), Research & Development past, present and future. There were some fantastic entries, a large pink bunny shaped cake, an ipod shaped cake, a cake done up to look like a croquet lawn, and many others. However, the best cake of all was produced by Rich and his house mate Matt. They did a 'pool' cake (our department now has a 'pool' of engineers - it's a new management technique) with various people drowning (you could see arms and legs) in it.

More photos can be found here

Phantom of the opera!

Dum, dah dah dah dum, DAH DUM!

Today myself, Ruth and Rich (but sadly no Sharon & Korn) went to Her Majesty's Theatre to see a performance of "The Phantom of the Opera". Rich, Ruth and myself hadn't been to see this before (however the replacement Karen & Sean had) and so were very excited by the time we got in and seated. The theatre is lovely - feels very grand, but not too overwhelming, and our grand circle seats were great - right at the front of the grand circle and smack bang in the centre.

My favorite parts include the chandelier being raised at the beginning, the candles coming out of the stage floor for the descent into the phantoms lair and the phantom standing precariously on the suspended angel. The phantom was my favorite character - and I especially loved all his notes to the opera crew. I think I shall be humming the music for a while yet - hopefully the people in my library don't mind!

Rich, Ruth and myself standing outside Her Majesty's Theatre

Sunday dinner

Rich and I wandered over to Rich's sister's boyfriend's (that was a bit of a mouthful!) new flat for Sunday dinner. Rich's sister (Cara) and her boyfriend (Nick) cooked us a lovely dinner of roasted vegetables with some special cooked cheese, which we ate in pitta bread with homous - very tasty. It's always good to get food laid on for you :-).

Cara also showed us some very disturbing pooh bear Kinder type toys... These were pooh bear wearing different animal costumes - however they looked as though pooh bear's head had been swallowed by the animal - check out Rich's blog for a photo!

House of trouser - card evening

Today was when the previous occupants of Malpit lane all got together to play poker. Food was provided by Matt (tasty Chicken Malaysian curry and rice) plus Rich and myself (steamed dumplings and crispy beef - yum!). A very tasty start to the evening indeed. Duncan and Steve arrived with beer and Jenga, and then we all ate lots.

Next - to the cards... not quite though, as we all ended up playing a new game that Matt had bought called "The Settlers of Catan".

Matt won by a mile - with lot's of settlements, a huge road system (with which he managed to stunt my potential empire) and pretty much all the resources. Go here to take a look at few more of the pictures taken that evening.

Chartered - finally!

I have just had my letter from CILIP to say that my submission for Chartered status has finally (this has all been going on for 3 years now) been accepted! You may all now use the following letters after my name: MCLIP. I'm sure you're all very impressed :-)

World Book day!

Today is world book day - not too sure what it's all about as I managed to miss it - but if you are interested why not take a look by going here.

Delayed pancake day!

Due to Rich having his Taekwondo session and my having my yoga lesson neither of us could give pancake day the time it deserved. So today will be pancake day and with the aid of Delia Smith, Rich and I will be celebrating it properly :)

For more photos click here