ROSIE AND BOBBY :)  16/11/2008


Mine and Spangle's lovely new cats x x x

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July 2008  03/08/2008


Indie Tracks again and my annual birthday time. Spangle made the MOST delicious chocolate cake, and a fantastic birthday dinner of mushroom wellington.

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Italian Hoiday  06/07/2008



Me and Sarah went to Italy for a week and a half and had the most lovely amazing time :)

We stayed in a farm house in the Tuscany countryside for a week, where we hung out sunbathing, swimming in the pool, eating and drinking, and generally living it up. The house and gardens were amazing with lemon trees, olive and wines groves leading up to woods at the back, where one evening a wild boar wondered in!

We went to Pisa, wine tasting in the Chianti hills, a day out at the beach, exploring the ancient town of Lucca nearby, and then drove to Florence and spent 3 days seeing the sites: art, architecture and food glorious food...


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April 2008  24/04/2008

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside...

Me and Spangle had an amzing fun time staying at The Grand Hotel in Scarborough last weekend, with a bus load on pensioners. We didn't get food poisoning, we won a bottle of fizz in the quiz, played on the bingo and won a lovely little plastic Scottish Terrier in a jumper. We love 'Little Ben'...

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Maeve & Garnett's wedding  01/04/2008


Maeve & Garnett's wedding

Congratulations to the happy couple! Thanks so much for an amazing weekend and hope you have a wonderful time in Mexico...

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Afternoon Tea  12/03/2008



Cucumber sandwiches. Egg and cress. White bread. Lemon curd cake. Brownies. 3 types of tea. Leaf tea by the way. It could only be afternoon tea.

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Early 2008  26/02/2008

I've not been taking many photos so far this year. Must be the weather or something. But now it's Spring and I am back in the mood.

I've uploaded a few from what I've been up to so far this year. It's been so busy, but I've just not taken many photos.

Lots more to come, I have lots of amazing adventures planned over the next few months. Oh, yeah!!

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Good bye 2007  02/01/2008

Christmas and New Year's Eve 2007 were truly memorable and I thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season.



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Graduation day  11/12/2007


Congratulations Dr. Jeff Grube and Miss Alice Kain on your respective completions of your post-grad studies in Leeds. We are going to miss you sorely. Thanks for a great party. Will be coming to visit you in Dublin...

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Christmas is coming...  02/12/2007


Christmas Indie Tracks was amazing. Nerds having fun on steam trains, drinking booze and dancing to indie pop. It doesn't get any better than that!
Wendy was allowed to sleep in the train yard with some of the old engines and carraiges - Thanks Indie Tracks!

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Pies  19/11/2007

November has been a good month for dinners.


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HORROR STRIKES!!  28/10/2007



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Armley Tea Dance  21/10/2007


Wowzers, went to The Marvellous Tea Dance Company last night and had such a great evening of tea and chintz, cake and pimms, cucumber sandwiches and good old fashioned dancing. Probably one of the tweest nights imaginable. See the pictures here...


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October  20/10/2007

October has been super busy. I went to Singapore but didn't have time to take any photos(!) - but instead here are some from last night's amazing FUTURE STRIKES gig/ party!

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Happy birthday Joe Mask  16/09/2007

Happy Eggy birthday to Joe... Laaaads.



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OMG Dr R.O.F.L.M.A.O.  02/09/2007



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Sock monsters and blancmange  27/08/2007



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Rose Melberg gigs  15/08/2007

Wowzers, well I finally got to see & meet Rose Melberg on her first UK tour these last few days. I am *super happy* about this. She was amazing, lovely, wonderful...I feel a bit lost now...


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Unity day   05/08/2007

It was a great Unity Day in Hyde Park this year: my highlights were running the stall with Jen, Tea and Cake with The Trolley Dollies, Bilge Pump, Circuit and Cowtown, Bingo in the old ladies tent, and the stage invasion/ dancing.

Why is the Dog Show always such a disappointment...?

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IndieTracks festival  30/07/2007

Just got back from this great festival on a steam railway:


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Happy birthday to me...  22/07/2007



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Lower Woodstock 3  08/07/2007

Thanks again MagicIan for hosting another great Lower Woodstock event.

Nice stage!



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Cornwall adventure  10/06/2007

So very sadly Wendy overheated and blew her head gasket before we even properly got out of Leeds on the way down to Cornwall and had to be rescued by the AA and towed back home... But me, Keri and Rich decided to go on holiday anyway, just in the car. And it was a super amazing holiday from start to finish, oh Yeah!


Check it out here...

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Indie pop on a steam train  06/05/2007

My camera is broken at the moment hence no update for a while, it's getting fixed though. Anyway, I have uploded the photos from Shaun's camera from the amazing indie tracks event last weekend: a ride on the Butterly Stram Railway in Derbyshire, with bands playing on the station platform and a disco carraige at the front of the moving steam train!

Also I am now the proud owner of a gorgeous 1976 campervan:



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Photo update...  03/04/2007

Hi There,

So the cat thing didn't quite work out but never mind, as I have just bought myself a campervan so it's fun fun fun all the way from now on...

Poor Keri Morgan's bonce. Here is the funniest picture of him I've ever taken, at the Dat Politics gig, only a couple of hours before he fell/ went flying down the stairs...



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Harry!  17/02/2007

I have just been to the Cat Rescue home near Otley and chosen this lovely cat, Harry:



He was found impaled on a post in Harehills, he has a bit of a limp but is healing well. He's gat bags of character and is very friendly and curious and playful. He miaows really loudly and frequently. I should have him at home by next weekend.

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Kidney Strikes!!  12/02/2007

JenJen Organ-ised a great night of entertainment last Friday to help raise awareness of the shortage of organ donors on the National Register. See the pictures here...

3 cheers for Jen!!


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New Year's Eve photos!!  01/01/2007

Y-y-y-y-aaaaaayyy!!!! for an amazing New Year's Eve Party!!

Amazing fancy dresses - well done everyone!



Check out the skills...

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December party poppers   18/12/2006

Many thanks to The Party Warehouse for providing giant size party poppers

to help Christmas go with a bang!

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Dressing up party  26/11/2006

So I had a Dressing up party from which I will use photos to create a 2007 calendar.

As usual, Ricky was fabulous:



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November 2006  12/11/2006

Pretty much the biggest nerd of all time:




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Happy Halloween  29/10/2006



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Octember photos  19/10/2006

New photos up for October! These include my holidays in Gozo (Malta) and a trip around Robert Opie's amazing and delightful Museum of brands, packaging and advertising.


I also visited Spiral Scratch twee indie-pop disco in London which even played us some Plouf! !!

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RSS photo stream added  17/09/2006


Attention Nerds! I have now added an RSS feed to the site. If you already use RSS then you'll know what to do. If not, here's what it's about:

RSS feeds are a way to quickly view updates on lots of different websites in one place. This allows you to view new content each time a site is updated, without visiting it directly. The RSS feed from this site will display the latest set of photos I have uploaded in your RSS viewer.

You can add feeds to reader software (there are lots and easy to find with Google), a Firefox 'live bookmark', or an aggregator website like Bloglines or Netvibes. Tip: if you want to view the feed as thumbnails in Netvibes, add it as a Flickr feed.

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Brudenell Birthdays  10/09/2006

So, it was a very happy birthday for
Jonny
Joe Mask
Claire Circuit
Random Matt
Michael Ward
Emil
Ste Pifco
Carol
Mike...

The most fun / embarrassing moments I can remember off the top of my head are:
Jonny and Nathan doing karaoke "I'm Too Sexy" !! Hahaha!!! You guys must be mortally embarrassed!!
Bob with the inflatable pink sax
Doing the conga round and round the Brudenell to "Gang Bang", "Do the Conga" and "Agadoo"
Claire Adams amazing cake eating spectacular
Jonny's "Manic Minute" behind the bar
Phil Lords' performance on "The Final Countdown"
and more... many more... just take a look...



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Meriel and Peter get married  04/09/2006

Saturday 2nd September was Meriel and Peter's wedding day.



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cake and pie  30/08/2006

Amazing baking skills on display this last week:

Emma my sister-in-law made a fantastic cake for my niece Tatijana's 2nd birthday:



followed the following evening by what was pretty much the best pie I've ever made:



Dig in!

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Nerdmusic  15/08/2006

Hi I've been to a couple of great gigs in the last week. It's been pretty much like the music that would be made by a bunch of Nerds if a bunch of total Nerds were to form cool bands and make music:
The Parallelograms from Sheffield in the true spirit of C06 - twee pop is alive and kicking in Sheffield...	and Data Panik! Yessss!!! They put on a great show.	Congratualtions Adam and Joelle and thanks for letting me eat some of your delicious cake. I ♥ 12.08.06!

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Funicular  07/08/2006

August is here and I will finally be going back to work next week. What a great summer it's been so far...

I've just been camping in Runswick Bay, North Yorks which was very pleasant. And rode the Funicular up from Yorkshire's only remaining pleasure pier, at Saltburn. Oh I do like to be besdie the seaside, etc.



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My return-to-health party  23/07/2006

It's my birthday tomorrow. I have just got back from a wonderful weekend away, to celebrate getting over my operation, in the completely perfect fantasy land of La Rosa

Walking into the caravans was pretty much like walking into what I imagine the rooms heaven to be like, if it existed. I had such a great time and now feel back to good health after my operation (see me on the trampoline for example). I couldn't have possibly imagined a better birthady.

Thank you so much to everyone for coming and to Amanda and co at La Rosa for creating such an amazing dreamworld!

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Cor! What a scorcher!  18/07/2006

Happy birthdays to Elodie and Daniel. It was great to see you guys. And Cowtown were awesome last Friday, my first actual night out in over 2 months! There are pictures in July's photos

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Shummer days and Shummer nights  08/07/2006

My recovery is going very well, and I feel like I've got most of my strength back now, though I still get tired quite easily. However, I am doing lots of exercise and as my fitness increases so does my stamina. So far my mind has not been taken over by the memories or day-to-day habits of the donor pig.

Since I got home to Leeds I've mainly been hanging out at home and having friends over for BBQs and lawn games etc. This week I have acquired a croquet set and some bowls, so it's been fun and games aplenty. I've been pottering in the garden and have cleared a space at the back to hang out and have a fire, ideal for these summer evenings in the garden...

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photos!  30/06/2006

At last! New funclub photos! I am now back in Leeds after good news from my 6 week post-op follow-up appointment. I'm doing well, the doctors are pleased with my progress. I am very pleased with it too.

Mainly I'm resting at home now and pottering about, but we did go on a day out to Filey this week - See the New Photos

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Back on the road!  26/06/2006

Hello and here I am back with a new look and a new heart valve to go with it! The last 6 months have been somewhat of a terrible time, hence there have been no new photos on here since the last posting from New Year's Eve.

I am currently developing the site further to support tags (like Flickr) and photo captions. Please note, you can now add comments to this front page blog-style entries as well as to the photos (see below).

I am currently in the process of recovering from major heart surgery, though I am well on the road to recovery. Once again, I have a new camera now so will be restarting the fun within days...I am seeing my surgeon tomorrow and expect to come home to Leeds then.

For anyone who's interested, whilst I'm on the subject then, and to understand why I had the operation I just had, I was born with the congenital heart condition known as 'Tetralogy of Fallot' - It's called this because there are 4 things wrong with the heart, and I guess it was named by someone with the surname 'Fallot'. The main 2 problems being a hole in the wall between the left and right 'ventricles' of the heart. (In my case there were 2 holes), and a narrowing on one of the valves (the pulmonary value, which controls blood flow coming in from the lungs). The holes are repaired and the valve is opened up to allow the blood to flow correctly:

www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/tof/tof_all.html

Now, in rare cases, later in life the pulmonary valve can become dilated and it then starts to regurgitate blood backwards: The valve does not close completely and hence it leaks. This is what happened to me, and as I grew older, the valve became more dilated until it got to the point where it was decided that the valve must be replaced, as symptoms were starting to have a detrimental effect on my health, and if not corrected, would begin to do significant damage to my heart. And I wouldn't want that, would I?  

This link from where I had my recent operation in Manchester, outlines what happens during a pulmonary valve replacement:

www.manchesterheartcentre.org/new/procedures/pulmonaryvalve.php?PHPSESSID=7a7194ca18303076825490942572984a

I have a sweet hot sexy set of new wheels: check out the picture I will be uploading soon...!

Shummers xxx