…and no blog posts.

Oops.

It’s fair to say that 2023 was… a busy year. Despite this, I felt like I was treading water through much of it… and it’s how I ended the year.

Now we’ve started 2024, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on 2023 and see whether it was as “meh” as I’ve come to tell myself it was, or whether, actually, it was a little better than that.

And you know what? It was a mixed bag.

To simplify the previously-written load of rambling, here’s a list of “things I’m happy with” and “things I’m not happy with” :D

Things I’m Happy With

• Work – going well, clients happy, no worries there. Plus, websites for Studio Scully and my personal site have been updated at last!
• Savings – growing a bit – cheers clients!
• Home life – good, chilled (in general) :)
• Learning piano – I know enough to be able to read basic sheet music, play both-handed, understand a bit more theory, and play (after some trial and error) and am making my own melodies up
• Squage Party – restarted it and moved to 1 hour each Friday – it’s fun, and we’ve got a great little community
• Keeping in touch with Friends – keeping in touch with various friends back in the UK/Ireland via Slack and Discord has been great. plus had friends come visit Maastricht and it was lovely to hang out!
• MegaGame Help – I helped my friend Chris from Very Large Huge Games with graphics (posters for Aftermath and the upcoming First Contact: Rain of Terror, in-game turn timer styling and on-screen ‘news bulletin’ intros), and tech-opping of a couple of Mega Games in London.
• Christmas Quiz – we did an online quiz this year on video, 15 teams of friends and family played and it went really well, with a custom web app for answers/marking. Very happy with that
• Computer games – decided on a cool idea for a game, and started doing game documentation / research / doodles
• Sunday Internet Radio – It’s been fun, and although I was a bit burned out during the latter part of the year, listening back to a “best of” this evening made me realise we’ve been having a LOT of fun doing our silly little hobby in 2023
• Album mastering – helped my friend Andy Drysdale by mastering his album The Old Morris Dancer.
• Rest – We’ve started going to a local spa once a week and it’s… ah, so lovely mentally and physically
• Mental health – Started working on that, so hopefully that’ll keep getting better in 2024!

Things I’m Not Happy With

• Weight – ho boy. Too much food. Not enough exercise.
• Tiredness – need to get more sleep so I can be more motivated!
• Procrastination – see: not having blogged since Jan 2023
• Computer Games – need to actually make something – see: Procrastination
• Piano – I stopped lessons after the summer break, as I had a bad concert performance (which hit my confidence) and I felt the pieces in the last few lessons were getting too far beyond me, plus work started getting very busy so I didn’t find the time to practice things like sight reading.
• Keeping in touch with friends – there are some dear friends I’ve been terrible at keeping in touch with. Need to sort that out!
• Keeping in touch with family – ditto!
• Feeling Settled – several years here and we’re still not settled, really. Don’t feel part of the community, and don’t feel motivated to learn the language. Plus fireworks. JFC. Just… don’t. I’m very tired right now through us being in a car with our dog from 9:30pm to 2:30am last night to get away from the war zone.

Looking to the future…

Here’s what I’m hoping for in 2024:

• More fun here – Doing more together here outside of work
• Pastures new – Moving to Ireland or the UK or… who knows!
• Computer games – Make a load of progress and start SHARING the progress too, via methods such as…
• Blogging – Doing more blogging to share with you what I’m doing! Also improve this terrible old blog theme :D
• Piano – Restart lessons but slow it down to focus on filling gaps in my knowledge and improving my confidence
• Weight – Lose weight through exercise and better eating – and more sleep
• Staying in touch – Keep in more regular contact with family and those friends who aren’t in Slack/Discord

Speaking of sleep, I’ve been writing this for over an hour now and it’s late. Work tomorrow!

See you soon – I hope – and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Pat

Well, it’s been quite a while since I last blogged.

It’s been a busy few weeks, filled largely with Uni work but also with some pretty epic social moments thrown in: primarily a weekend at Alton Towers and a visit back to Essex involving staying up til 11am and going to an engagement party on 30 minutes sleep. Some more local fun stuff’s been going on too and some Uni-mates-based piss ups are approaching nice-n-fast!

As I write this, I’m in the 5th week of Uni, with one more week of the first module (Visual Communications) to go – and hence deadlines a go-go next Friday. Once it’s complete I’ll probably dump some of the work online so you can see what we’ve been getting up to.

The following Monday starts the next module (Visual Language), which is a “competition brief”. I’m still not entirely sure what that means. I guess there’s a competition and, as it’ll last 6 weeks, it’s “a brief” rather than “brief”.

Oh and all the while the “cultural and critical studies” module churns along, involving lots of the stuff that I’ve no experience and, to be honest, interest in: reading up about artists and art movements in various books and on various web sites. That’s right: I love drawing and doodling, but I’m not particularly into history of art. That’ll change, I guess (/hope). But hey, come on: the last time I wrote an essay was when I was doing my GCSEs. (And you’ve never claimed to be anything other than pig-ignorant! – Squage). Oh, thanks for popping in! (Pleasure! – Squage)

In case you’re wondering, I’m generally doing a 40 hour week (including coursework outside the classes) – plus, when I’m not shattered, some (but not many, yet) other creative bits in my spare time. So it’s not a total doss. Hopefully that’ll make you feel better about your taxes, although given I’m paying for everything myself bar council tax I guess that’ll only make you feel better if you live in Brighton & Hove…

Anyway, other than the course I still like it down here, not least because I bought a £5 sandwich toaster from Sainsbury’s. It’s made my breakfasts amazing.

I am nothing if not rock and roll.

BYE!

Pat

P.S. I finally get broadband on Thursday. It’ll mean blogging without walking a mile first or without praying I don’t go over my quota on Orange’s incredibly generous 500MB monthly mobile broadband limit. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with all this freedom! Probably just watch the 10 hour version of Trollolol on Youtube…

Well, this has been quite a couple of weeks. Hello from St Peters House in Brighton!

I sit here in one of Brighton Uni’s many libraries, listening to tunes on my headphones and using my laptop and the Uni net connection to research children in soap product advertising.

This is all part of the first module, where as a group of three we’re having to come up with a whole load of marketing materials for a rather excellent, Sussex-based custom soap company.

It’s been quite a fortnight. I won’t lie: moving back into a full time education mindset has been bloody hard work.

Weekends and evenings are no longer time off, necessary, but then Wednesdays and Thursdays no longer have to be work either. You don’t get spoon fed stuff, you’ve gotta go out and research stuff yourself and work on your own steam. And there’s no easily definable right and wrong thing when it comes to creating a sketchbook full of book, poster, shop and gawd knows what else research sitting next to several design drafts. All annotated to the max, of course.

It’s a world of difference from an IT job, trust me. And it’s been bloody tough to get used to this.

But I think I’m largely there, now (thanks in no small part to support from awesome friends). Two weeks in isn’t bad after 9 years in employment! One thing working full time for years – coupled with actually really wanting this course to be useful – has done is given me a MUCH better working mindset than Uni the first time round. I’m spending a LOT of time on the work and social stuff comes second to it.

So THIS was what I was supposed to do last time? Damn :)

Anyway, aside from all that I’ve been socialising a fair bit – World Zombie Day in London a week ago was incredible fun, plus I’ve been to see comedians Alex Horne, David O’Doherty (just… brilliant!) and Andrew Lawrence, plus Noah and the Whale last night. Oh and a couple (but only a couple, so far) of pub trips of course.

Oh and walking. A lot. Our course is based at City College, which is exactly a mile walk from my flat. I’m walking at least 2 miles a day, and I’m losing weight slowly but surely – which is nice!

Anyway, enough rambling, I’m off back to the flat. Internet next Friday, baby! Ooooh yeeeah!

Pat

Yeah, you heard me, October. I’m dissing your ability to be autumnunal. Whatcha gonna do?

[Checks the weather]

Damn. Well, thanks for three days of loveliness at least, oh 10th month of the year!

Today I started University, officially.

A relaxed pace 20 minute walk (without getting lost – boom!) got me from my flat to the classroom, tshirt and backpack on my back and shorts on my legs. The morning was spent getting to know people on the course, and doing some creative “Here are some basics about working to instructions vs working to your own brief” tasks.

The first was a “make yourself out of plasticine” task. Mine was not the best thing I’ve ever made. We’ll just leave it at that, but let’s just put it this way: I felt it appropriate to add a sign for him to hold with “Help!” written on it.

The second was a “make a paper airplane” task. Pretty simple, but we had to choose a set of instructions from whichever website we chose and ensure we didn’t just do a basic, standard paper plane. So there were some odd designs in that room. Some flew better than others.

Mine… well, to give you a clue, mine was called “Death Trap” after a few trial runs.

We were told it wasn’t about the results, but that it was a way of showing a few things to us. Which was lucky, really, :)

Anyway, this afternoon saw us wandering around some little art galleries in Brighton, which was really nice (there are some pretty awesome and varied pieces of work in this town!), helped largely by the sunny weather.

Yesterday I had a nice walk along the seafront to the pier, along it, along the beach a bit and through The Lanes in Brighton, all in shorts and t-shirt. It was pretty damn nice. But not quite as impressive as the day before…

Saturday I got up early, headed over to Casa RaiNMatt to watch the rugby, then got on our bikes, got on a train, headed to Chichester and cycled to places called The Witterings.

What are “The Witterings”? Basically, a selection of beachside areas called things like West Wittering and – wait for it – East Wittering.

We went to the west, which looked and felt like a beach area in the Med. Just beautiful. And hot. Very hot. We spent the afternoon there, doing things such as swimming in the sea (on. the. first. of. oct. ob. er.), sunbathing and making sand turtles, starfish, sharks, clams and fish.

There are photos, but I’m not in the pub and I’m not waiting for Oliver RangeTelecoms to let me upload them from home (did I mention I wasn’t online properly yet? ;) ).

An 8 mile cycle back to Chichester and a tasty meal at Smith and Western later, we headed back to Brighton a bit shattered.

All in all, a very good few days.

It was nice to squeeze the last possible bits out of summer.

And now, to knuckle down and start filling up my sketch pad with work for my first module: Visual Communications *.

Toodles for now!

Pat

(* No, Carter, this Visual Communications is a different one to our Friday night “Stand at the side of a park in dirty macs and waggle ourselves at tourists” type)

Hello! Ok, I’d forgotten about blogging this week, I’ll admit it.

I’ve now remembered.

Here be a summary of Tuesday to Today!

Tuesday: Dossing

After the “fairly busy” past couple of weeks, I decided to doss about and not do a great deal today. It… was good. :)

Wednesday: Cycling

I decided to get off my lazy ass today, and headed out on my bike for a cycle along the seafront. A couple of hours and countless windswept miles later, I was knackered but happy – man, the coast around here is gorgeous. Cliffs (with cliff-top paths and under-cliff walkways), rocky pools, occasional golden sand patches and the big ol’ waves of the English Channel… awesome.

Oddly, on the way East I was finding things very easy in terms of riding – hell, despite the big waves it seemed the wind wasn’t actually hitting the shore. I was flying along with no wind resistence.

Yep, that’s right. I was cycling with the wind behind me.

Average speed on the way out: 21mph.
Average speed on the way back: 8.5mph.

Hence the “knackered” part :) Still, I now know that the Brighton Marina’s only about a 15 minute cycle ride from home, so cinema visits’ll be nice and easy.

In the evening I popped round to Rai and Matt’s place to say hello and, ahem, sponge off their Internet connection. We also decided to enjoy (well, I say enjoy…) Skyline.

I… wow.

Let’s put it this way, Matt managed found out that LoveFilm supports a 0.5 star rating on a film.

Ker-ist. I wouldn’t watch it again with yours. Whatever that means.

Thursday: Wandering and Funfair

Today my ex-workmate and ex-landlord Henry came down to see me in Brighton (and deliver the ironing board and office chair that didn’t quite make it into my car this weekend), which was great.

We spent the day walking around Brighton city centre, over to the Marina, along the pier and back. We did a fair bit of nattering.

Oh, and eating. Yesterday was an amazing day for great food:

• On-the-pier donuts
• Montezuma chocolate buttons
• Vanilla Smoothie Shake Thing™
• On-the-pier big fat chips

Hey, I was doing lots of walking.

After that amount of bad food, you’d probably think that going on rides that flung you around would be a bad idea. You’d… be right.

After Henry trundled back to Essex I met up with Rai and Matt at a travelling fun fair, which’d placed itself in that-park-in-Brighton-that-is-between-the-a23-and-a270, yeah-you-know-the-one.

We went on various fun rides (many of which seemed to consist of waiting for them to load the ride for 90% of the total ride time, but hey ho), did some pretty special on-ride dancing, and (if you’re me) started to feel a bit queezy.

Q) What do you do when queezy?
A) Stop going on rides.

Q) What do I do when queezy?
A) Go on a Vortex-from-Thorpe-Park-esque ride that spins you around on the end of a big swinging pendulum. Twice.

Oops.

The second time in a row on that ride, suddenly my silly dancing was replaced by holding on tight and breathing in and out slowly.

Luckily the ride finished before a donuts/chocolate/vanilla/chip smoothie was spewed out over my co-riders. I even managed to keep it down once off the ride. All those years of travelling hungover pay off, you know.

Also, we went to the Duke of York cinema, which is one of those cinemas Mark Kermode loves (hell, he’s doing a talk on his book there in a couple of weeks).

It’s an independant outfit that takes care in its film projections, shows plenty of lesser-known films alongside the big hits, and occasionally shows some utter classics. Also, you get to sit in sofas and have tea/wine/cake/beer. Yep. It’s an awesome-sounding cinema.

Anyway, we went there to buy tickets to see Terminator tonight. Terminator. TERMINATOR. WITH BEER AND CAKE. Cineworld can kiss my ass. At least until I got there next week with my unlimited pass to watch a few films in a row, of course.

Friday: Drawing, Squee and Terminator

Today I’m gonna be drawing stuff. Tonight, there will be a visit to a pub playing Squee (some kind of electronic bleepy music, I’ve no idea what this is yet) and then heading to the Duke of York to Terminate my face up.

Bring it on!

Pat

Saturday: Essex

Despite the ludicrous quantity of drinks the night before (thanks for a top afternoon/night everyone who came along :) ), I managed to get up at 8:30 and not feel like dying. I didn’t remember much of Friday post 5pm, but I felt fine. So fine, in fact, that I was back in the pub drinking ciders by 2pm.

Several beers and an awesome curry later, my final night in Essex was done.

Sunday: Essex to Brighton

Sunday. Was. Hard.

Packing the car to the brim with my remaining stuff, carting it down to Brighton, unpacking it and then proceeding to transform my Furniture And Belongings Pile into the actual contents of a flat.

I think I finally stopped the unpacking at 10pm, having started the packing at 10am. Ok, it’s not the craziest, hardest day in the world. But with a mild hangover it’s a total bloody nightmare.

Still, by the end of the day I had a lounge livable in, beds constructed, furniture all laid out and a BluRay playing on the telly. Plenty of unpacked boxes and bags left, but not bad for a day’s work. (A day’s work… hmmm… what is that again?)

Monday (Today): Brighton

My work alarm woke me up at 6:40am, and I fell out of bed thinking “Nnngh, Monday”. My second thought, on opening my eyes, was “Where the hell am I?”. My third, on realising and having a look out of the window, was “Wow. WOW. WOOOH!”

Finally, my forth thought was “Oh man, there’s still lots of unpacking to do.”

To cut a long story short: I’m now fully unpacked and watching Scott Pilgrim whilst typing this. Just need to go out and get some supplies and that’s it! I get to… er…

Actually, woah, what am I gonna do?

[looks out to the sea and remembers where I am]

THIS WEEK IS GONNA RULE.

Pat

C’etait bon.

At least that’s what I think I should say, from what memory I have of French spelling. I don’t really remember how to spell things in French. Nor, to be honest, how to say them either.

That said, despite my lack of language knowledge, the 2 week holiday in France that I just had with Lev, Jess and Katie was indeed tres bon.

Or trés bonne. Or trésse bonn. Delete as appropriate, or replace with something that makes sense.

It was excellent to get away from things for a bit, and to have a chance to wind down and catch up on some sleep.

Our home was in Cénevières: a beautiful French town situated in the green arable pastures within the valley of the Lot river. It’s overlooked by impressive hills and cliffs and features friendly, relaxed locals and occasional lost tourists.

Cénevières is close to various other lovely French towns and such sights as St Cirq Lapopie and the Pech Merle Caves (featuring 25,000(!) year old paintings). Well worth a visit.

I’m tired after the long ol’ drive back, so here’s a Lazy Bullet Point Based List™ of the things wot I dun did, in no particular order:

• Ate lots of bread and cheese.
• Watched a huge electrical storm that surrounded the whole valley. We sat on the grass in the villa’s back garden, only coming inside once it started raining (which purely by chance coincided with when the storm was at its closest to us, as I am not a wimp (He is a wimp – Squage)).
• Posed for photos on the edge of a 50-100m drop in St Cirq Lapopie (told you I wasn’t a wimp (We’ve not seen your expression in the photos yet… – Squage))
• Ate cheese.
• Wandered along a disused rail track, including over a river bridge and through a spooky tunnel. In France, they don’t pull up the sleepers and track – they just let nature take over the track. It’s an eerie, slightly scary experience, particularly when wandering through a disused train tunnel, which could easily pass for an in-use tunnel were it not for the lack of the sound of any oncoming Metal Death on Wheels…
• Ate bread.
• Stared at the breathtakingly clear night skies, admiring the milky way, a couple of satellites (not planes, disbelievers! (Yep. Probably high-up planes – Squage)) and a shooting star or two (A… very fast… plane? – Squage). Shut up. (Ahem – Squage)
• Ran around little back roads, either by myself or with Lev (aka “The Running Machine”). Good fun, if flippin’ knackering (particularly when the “ideal cloudy weather” fast becomes “not entirely ideal baking hot sunny weather”)
• Ate some cheese and bread
• Cycled through beautiful farmland and villages, rekindling my love of biking.
• Ate bread.
• Ate cheese.
• Stared in awe at 25,000 year old paintings in the Pech Merle caves (whilst secretly wondering if someone could’ve just put them on the wall in the 1950s)
• Played the new exciting game “Water Still Alive Keepy Uppy”. Yes, it sounds strange, but it’s a soon-to-be-mega-popular sport. It’s definitely isn’t just a variant of passing a ball to and from people in a pool for as long as possible. Noooo…
• Ate bread and cheese.
• Jumped into and swam around in the Lot river. Twas quite an experience – beautiful trees lining the banks, gorgeous houses with turrets in the distance, and deep black depths below. Occasionally 20ft boats would trundle past, but fortunately the current was negligable so one could get out of the way without any trouble. All in all, twas damn refreshing and relaxing. Apart from when accosted by underwater reeds. Then it was more like swimming through jam.
• Played various board / card games, and generally lost them (aside from one at-the-last-minute smashing in Settlers of Catan – FEAR MY SPECIAL 4 VICTORY POINT EXPLOSION ON MY LAST TURN!)… and don’t talk to Lev or I about Table Football against Jess and Katie…
• And lots more… including the consumption of both wheat-based food and the matured products of cows and goats. Quelle surprise. Ooh, looks like a bit of French came back to me, after all. Bon actual jour.

Au reviour,

Pat :)

Wow.

That really was quite a break, wasn’t it?

Alas my previous blog post just about sums up my past year, but let’s recap:

1. I’ve moved out of the olds’, and rent my own house (with a conservatory and garden, no less)
2. I went to Florida and did almost all of the theme parks
3. I lost lots of weight at the gym last year, then put it all back on this year
4. I learned Flash from scratch (loads to learn still but it’s a good start!)
5. I’m still at my place of work, as despite requesting VR I was denied it
6. I do Squage Party almost every Sunday – and I’m enjoying it!
7. I started reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”. And you should too!
8. I’ve got a new phone (Nokia 5800) – and managed to keep my old 6300 for two years (and counting) without breaking it
9. I broke two cameras. One in my pocket (somehow), the other in a pint of Czech Beer in Prague. Oops!
10. I went to Glastonbury and left wanting to marry Regina Spektor
11. I want to break free into something fun – doing my own graphic novels, making music, doing graphic design… but am doing nothing about it yet
12. Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of me getting back from Australia

There you go. These blog posts will be, well, who knows? Whatever I fancy writing about I guess. Gonna task myself with a “daily blog” aim, even if it’s just “Hello. Today I ate a sandwich”. Might get that one written now just for when it needs to be brought out of the bag.

That’ll do for today!

Toodles,

Pat

Feeling: Frustrated
Song in my head: LadySmith Black Mambo – Swing Low Sweet Chariot

It’s been a long one, but I think Pat’s come out of it feeling pretty good (Aside from this cold I’ve got, just in time to go away! – Pat) – stop being a pansy! (Oh, ok, no problem, you can enjoy your flight in the hold…- Pat) Er, I mean, oooh dear sorry to hear that!

(We’ve started this post with a side-comment extravaganza – Pat) Yeah probably not the best way to begin is it? (Nah, makes you look a little scatty and odd – Pat) Makes me, eh? This blue alien blob who somehow lives with you and is currently typing onto your keyboard, yeah? I’m the one who’s scatty and odd? (Um, shall we move on? – Pat) Yes, let’s. Take two:

Hello!

This past week has been a long one for Pat, but despite being a bit ill towards the tail end of it he’s not had too bad a week. Let’s have a look at the past few days’ worth of photos:

Monday

Yep, this has really been the theme of the past two weeks. Amazingly, Pat’s surpassed his usual lame level of gym attendance and, even I have to admit, has done pretty damned well this past two weeks. 5 times to the gym last week and 4 times this week (he was sniffling and snuffling last night so made some lame excuse about needing a lie in this morning (Boy did I… – Pat). He’s already down from 30 stone to 28 stone! (Oi! – Pat) ok ok I’ll be nice this once… he’s actually managed to lose a few kilos since the start of the year. Hopefully the snowboarding will help it keep coming off!

Tuesday

Pat’s been busy using my beautiful looks to create some custom “Squgs”, which have been dished out to some of his friends and have been making people happy (at least Pat’s hoping they have been – the reception’s been good so far, which is not at all surprising – I mean, who wouldn’t want a mug with my face on it? Eh? EH? Exactly). Pat has said cryptically that this is just the beginning of something big this year – maybe he means he’s going to be drinking lots of beer from Squgs and get back up to 30 stone again… (Yep, I think if I take a couple of T-Shirts from the suitcase I can put Squage in the hold… – Pat) I mean, er, yes! Pat’s going to do exciting things art wise this year!

Phew.

Wednesday

Ok so there’ s not actually a daily photo here. If there was one it’d probably be of the odd painting in Prezzo that he and Ruth from work were pondering over for a while. Here’s an “artist”‘s impression:

Doesn’t quite do it justice somehow. (I dunno, looks about right… – Pat). Man, I think I’ll try to do some artwork this year too if that sort of thing can get bought by restaurants…

Thursday

Packing for BOARDING! Yep, as Pat ended up feeling crappy yesterday he ended up not going out to London (which was sucky as he was looking forward to a decent catchup with Andrea and Sinead (We’ll def. meet up on my return, ladies! – Pat)) he decided to make the most of his evening by packing.

As a shocking result, he actually managed to get 95% ready for a holiday with a full 36 hours to go! First time for everything… (Oi… actually, no, fair enough – Pat)

And yep, that is me indeed. And yes, I need a bath. Gonna have a snow wash next week :-)

Friday

Pat’s definitely not gonna be missing the journey to work.

So, right now… Pat’s all packed (aside from a few technical items – he’s still charging one of his camera’s batteries and is about to sort out the music on his MP3 player) and really, really looking forward to tomorrow’s day of traveling, starting at about 8:20am and ending about 12 hours later via a bus trip, an airport, a plane ride, another airport and another (long) bus ride to the picturesque resort, 2,500ft above sea level, ready for some serious boarding, chilling out and fun having. And maybe sitting in a hospital bed. (Oi! Don’t jinx it! – Pat) Hey that’s not jinxing, jinxing is saying something like “Pat will definitely, definitely not get inj”(-Ok ok ok ok ok – Pat). :-)

Have a great week and we’ll see you on the other side – plenty (and I mean plenty) of photos to come!

Toodles,

Squage (And me! – Pat)

Yo,

Pat’s been really busy (or at least that’s what he tells me… quite how “watching lots of 24 and Firefly” constitutes “being busy” is a mystery to me) so hasn’t had time (see previous comment in brackets) to blog anything.

(Look, if you must know I’ve been doing more than that – and not feeling at all creative enough to write anything of interest – Pat) This blog might not be very exciting then. (Oh, er, yeah, good point. Erm… best keep it short – Pat) Yeah…

Pat went for snowboarding lessons at the Milton Keynes XScape centre with James and Leanne from work, plus two of James’ mates (Becks and James “Riggs” Brown) last week. To cut a long story short:

• James, Leanne, Becks and James are great
• We had a great laff
• PAT CAN ACTUALLY SNOWBOARD QUITE WELL (ok, so it was only a beginner lesson but oddly he learned rather quickly… unlike his lame Surfboarding attempts (Hey, I got on the board in the end! – Pat) Yeah but you spent more time on your back end… (Oh, amazing work. With great wit like that you can hardly tell I’m stressed and tire-er… I mean that you’re stressed and tired – Pat)
• James, Becks and Riggs went on a huuuge climbing wall whilst Pat and Leanne watched on – both having injured themselves doing the boarding (at least that’s Pat’s excuse)
• Pat ended up on a mental bungy ball ride thing, that only that day he’d stated he’d never do because “they’re the sort of things just set up by some dodgy outfit in the middle of a carpark”. A believe the phrase “Best £10 EVER!” was uttered by him, whilst upside down about 200ft in the air (Other “select” phrases were uttered too… – Pat)
• Pat and the gang are keen to go and do the more advanced snowboarding lessons ASAP (well, aside from the two James’, as they’re already pros :-) )

Snow boarding dude and dudettes (Pat, Becks and Leanne at the end of their 3 hour lesson):

Leanne and Pat back on safe ground after being catapulted 200ft in the air:

Awesome.

Since then Pat’s been at work, a bit ill, in Colchester catching up with Gary, Sarah and Sally via the medium of curries, a mental back-garden firework display (including the obligatory “massive rocket that doesn’t quite make it out of the launcher quickly enough and explodes at the height of the house covering the entire garden with pretty colours as everyone ducks for cover” moment) and some on-air cohosting of the Sunday Hitcall on SGR Colchester… and is now back at work.

He’s pretty tired and stressed and generally cheesed off today, but he IS pleased that he’s doing a certain something tonight:

Going to see Kevin Bloody Wilson at the Cliffs Pavilion in Saaaffend.

Bring.
It.
On.

Toodles,

Squage