Jan 2009 a

We'll start this entry with a couple of photos Terry kindly provided us, from our trip to visit Kiriel in Geneva.... Thanks Terry!



Wednesday night, 31st December 2008...
Here we are spending a fun evening at Edith and William's place for their NY party.
My goodness, look at the time!

After this, the champagne flowed freely. Happy New Year!

Thu 01 Jan 2009
We dragged ourselves outta bed at about 9am to start chopping fruit, making pancakes and cooking sausages and bacon. Here's a sample of the FOOD:



Above: The annual "all day breakfast" party we run, well this year we hit maximum numbers at about 2pm - with 20 people in our little townhouse all at once! Lots of chatting and boardgames fun. :-)

Fri 02 Jan 2009
Thankfully today we both had off work. In the afternoon we made our way to Heathrow, and found ourselves picked up at Hamburg airport (Thanks Marcus and Bridget!) and driven to Drachenwald Coronation. (SCA event) When we got on-site, we found that a local fighter, Vitus, had been placed on vigil to become a knight the next day. Hurrah! The downside was he had our SCA clothing, and we had to interrupt him so we could get appropriately dressed.

Sat 03 Jan 2009
Coronation events are always packed with activities! Here's a photo taken of us while awaiting Court:

Below: The outgoing King and Queen knighted Vitus, to much acclaim!


Above: Here is Marcus and Cecilia being Crowned.
Below: and the Ladies of the Rose escorted the outgoing Queen, Fiona, to her Rose Party.

Further photos from Coronation: by Edricus

We later found out that this night, back in merry old London town, our good friends Edith and William got engaged. Well done and congratulations all round!

Sun 04 Jan 2009
After packing up, and loading our luggage back in the the Vitus-vagon (thanks Sir Vitus!) we had a leisurely time chatting with Bridget and Marcus in their home. (Not the new King Marcus, a different chap). They were nice enough to see us off at the airport too!

Mon 6 Jan 2009
Steve makes a good start on his study plan, with his first course (a full week long course) starting the last week of February.

Wed 7 Jan 2009
We received news that the company who'd agreed to carry out works on our loft, have cancelled on us due to the "current financial climate". Drat it!!! We were very lucky to quickly find a new company willing to match the excellent price quote we had, and agree to do the work for us. The new dates are Feb 11 and 12. So here's hoping it goes smoothly.

Thu 08 Jan 2009
After work, Jen started to not feel well, and after awhile felt worse. It was either food poisoning or an exceptionally nasty stomach bug. Jen was bedridden for 30 hours, and still weak for a few more days... Steve and Soph were both very helpful and did loads of fetch and carry to help her back to a semblance of health.

Tue 13 Jan 2009
Jen finally made an appearance at work - feeling not 100% but soooo much better all the same.

Thu 15 Jan 2009
Winter is definately here! Its been soooo chilly, with overnight frosts being the norm, and we've had "dustings" of snow every once in a while, like this morning:


Fri 16 Jan 2009
Edith and William came and stayed overnight...

Sat 17 Jan 2009
..so that this morning we piled into the car at 8:30am and headed West, to Bath.
We arrived in Bath about 1pm and met up with Kevin and Mary. After a good hour in the Fashion history Museum, we visited the Roman ruins and the Baths themselves.


For those of you who've not been to Bath, the old pillar bases and steps into the water are the only orignal Roman bits you see in these photos. The stuff above is Victorian, but lovely all the same. Oh, and the church in the background is of course Medieval.
In the museum they have lovely murals, and the plumbing that is leading the thermal waters into the bath is original and still working. Amazing stuff! They don't let people bathe in these baths as they are entirely lead-lined.

Afterward, we headed back to Kevin and Mary's place, and were really pleased with the outstanding hospitality we've come to expect. ;-) Kevin cooked up a tasty dinner for us all.

The next day, we had a leisurely breakfast, showers, chats, coffee, book-borrowing (!) and eventually moseyed out of Kevin and Mary's place at about midday; and headed back to London.