Birthday report and new photos

New photos are up at my un-hip and non-integrated yahoo photo site, filed as “Birthday”, “Cambridge 2” and “Oxford”.

The birthday party went really well, a lovely turn out on a cold, horribly windy and wet night. (So windy I wasn’t game to cycle over the bridge on my way home in case I fell off the bike into oncoming traffic.)

I thought it would be a disaster. I was pretty tired after rehearsals and limited myself to chips and dip catering. I billed the event as being for “after 8”, but at 8.20 I was alone in the house with the weirder mathematician (who was studying, as he continued to do so throughout the party). Worse, the corkscrew was trapped in a flatmates’ locked bedroom.

Still by 9 things were well underway. The photos more than my recollection seem to reveal a turnout of around 30 over the course of the evening. It was lovely to have Malcolm along, one of the guys from my high school I’ve known since I was twelve. Bless his heart, he brought me a bottle of Margaret River Chardonnay.

(I also got from college friends a couple of cards, a copy of a Stoppard tele-play, a novel (from the flatmates) and some Belgian chocolate – as well as a Sainsbury’s “Colin the Caterpillar” chocolate log cake-thing – despite my strict “no presents” injunction.)

Events wound down around 2 am with the last of us finally departing the lounge room.

Somewhere in the midst of it all I gave housemate Stefano my digital camera and told him to go crazy – which he did. I’ve selected a mere handful of the more than 30 shots he took, largely on the basis that in many I look rather too inebriated. There’s no need for the camera to be that honest, dammit.

Anyway, there were some decent shots of me blowing out Colin the Caterpillar, in whom someone rather resourcefully stuck a candle and brought through to me in the lounge room. (All lights turned out, chorus of "happy birthday", etc).

I include some shots of the kitchen more so people can get an idea of the house than anything else. It (and our comfy red couch) had college-dorm dwellers turning green with envy I tell you.

“Cambridge 2” photos are of Apple Day at the Botanic Gardens, autumn at the law school and me and Stefano.

The “Oxford” photos are from the recent Debating Intervarsity.

Enjoy! (But remember to come back and leave comments!)