Apr 2011 a

Wed 06 Apr 2011
Jen notes how she's been relaxing now that her 2 year long "to do list" is finished off.

Fri 08 Apr 2011
Straight after work we met up in a cafe in Stratford for an hour before Jen saw Steve off at the train station on his way to Lancaster for the weekend.

Sat 09 Apr 2011
Steve spent the weekend in the company of Clancy, Deb, Richard and Lena, as they helped train and 'authorise' new SCA fighters in re-creating medieval foot combat.
Jen however finished off the bathroom hole in the wall which has been there since we moved in 3 and a half years ago. (just wood filla and painting to do)

Sun 10 Apr 2011
Steve came home in the afternoon, and we went out to the O2 millenium dome to see the film SuckerPunch. They play a particular Bjork song 3 times throughout the film, and since it's stuck in our heads we bought one of her albums.

Wed 13 Apr 2011
Tonight while Steve's out at Fighter Practice, Jen investigates the process and cost for achieving UK citizenship. It would cost us about £3,300 (passport not included) on top of the approx £2,200 we already paid last year for the visa extensions (which last to 2015). Maybe we'll just skip it altogether.

Fri 15 Apr 2011
Tonight after work, we went to the Design Museum to see one of Jen's favourite authors - Alain de Botton. Jen geeked out and got his autograph.

It was a lovely night for a walk as we crossed over Tower Bridge admiring the views of the Tower of London contrasting with the modern spiral architecture of The Gherkin.

Sat 16 Apr 2011
We headed off early, arriving at the local ExCel exhibition Centre to chat with a motherload of gamer geeks for the day. It was 'Salute 2011' and we were there to recruit new people to the SCA. Jen quietly said to others in the stand: "Our group's got something yours doesn't - girls". The proportion of hairy hacker types was through the roof. We few cotehardie-clad ladies stuck out and were readily admired by the shy geek-boys.
A couple of amusing encounters with the guys inside their Star Wars imperial storm trooper getup - Steve was given grief for wearing a dress, and he retorted with "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" and Amphelise (about five foot nothing) stood her ground saying "Hey, I'm a school teacher, I'm MUCH scarier than you!" with a "yeah you're right" kind of mutter back at her.
A fairly successful day, we got lots of interest and about a dozen email addresses down on our 'contact me' list.

Sun 17 Apr 2011
After a late sleep-in, Steve headed up to the Cambridge area to collect his armour from Deb & Clancy's.