Caboose

Alex, a friend of mine from my Antarctic days, has set up her own website with much more information than my efforts.

Have a look at her site.

I spent Monday and Tuesday across in Ireland for my friend Andy’s wedding. Several of us flew across on Monday morning, hired a car and drove up to Virginia in County Cavan.

Here are Andy and Thérèse outside the church after the service:

The service was good and the reception at Cabra Castle was great fun. I was even seen on the dance floor, although the dancing involved much more enthusiasm than skill.

Read the rest of this entry for some more pictures.
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Just got back from my friend Andy’s stag night in Blackpool. I didn’t take my camera so there aren’t any pictures, which is probably just as well.

The town seemed to be dominated by stag and hen groups, which makes the atmosphere a bit feral. It’s like a British version of Las Vegas with all the tackiness but a bit grubbier.

We spent yesterday afternoon down at the Pleasure Beach, managing rides on the Big One
and Steeplechase. All good fun.

Going out on the town in the evening plunged us into a world of crowded bars, groups in matching outfits and sticky carpets.

Short cultural note: Stag and hen nights are a night out for the prospective groom and bride and their friends, usually held in the weeks before the wedding. I believe Americans call stag nights bachelor parties.

This is actually quite old news, but it was only yesterday that somebody told me it had appeared on the BAS website.

My friend Andy, currently working down at King Edward Point, South Georgia, has got engaged. Here’s the photo from BAS:

That’s taken from the King Edward Point diary.

Went through to Macclesfield yesterday, for the going-away party of a friend who’s off to Rothera in Antarctica for six months. I decided to go on my motorbike, yesterday was great, lovely day (although a little cold and windy).

Coming back today was very different, most of England’s rail network seems to be out of operation at the moment due to severe weather. The roads aren’t much better, lots of surface water and some quite large bits of tree. Even just the thick layer of wet leaves on the roads meant I had to be very careful on the bike.

My parents came through to visit me in Cambridge at the weekend, so I took a few photos. We also drove down to Colchester to go to the 60th birthday party of an old friend of my parents, joined by little sister.
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I got my photos from Peter’s wedding developed and I’ve scanned in some of them. On the same film were pictures from my holiday in France in April and a trip to Islay in June.
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I spent the last weekend in Germany at the wedding of my friend Peter. He and I were pen-pals at school and have kept in touch ever since, so I was really pleased to get an invitation to his wedding.

Once I’ve had the pictures developed and scanned them in some of them should appear on this site, probably not before the end of the week though.
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