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Ticking down…

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Not long to go now…. I wanted to take this opportunity to make a couple of requests:

Firstly, we have not hired an official photographer as so many of you have expensive cameras. We’d really appreciate it if you could let us have the high quality original pictures from you camera (except Steve ‘RAW’ Perrott) and we’ll make an online album available. If you like anything in the album then we can arrange for you to get a print of it. Hopefully this will save you the cost of getting prints from an official photographer and also save us the cost of hiring one.

Secondly, it would really help if you could get to the reception by 5pm as we will be having Champagne and speeches then. The food will be available shortly after this so you don’t want to miss out 🙂

One month to go….

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*Sections of this post edited by fidget*

A distinct absence of blog posts recently as we are getting closer and closer to the big day. Me and Jessica have been rushing round trying to sort out flowers, balloons, shoes and tablecloths to name just a few.

We are also taking a one month break from Taekwondo whilst we get the wedding sorted out. This may become a longer break for me as I am considering stopping TKD and trying to move up to the next grade in badminton. I am finding it hard to motivate myself to remember:

10 3-step sparring routines
8 2-step sparring routines
4 1-step sparring routines
7 patterns
+ a shed load of Korean words

I’ll see how I feel after a month – perhaps I’ll want to rush back.

Still here

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Its been a while since my last post – me and Jessica are busy planning wedding type things. I have some photos to put up soon but in the meantime I thought I would share this awful bit of footage that I found when tidying up. It is the result of a few hours playing with (the then newly discovered) Windows movie maker.

Weddings and motor sport

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Things have been really hectic recently… attending weddings and Grand Prixs.

Firstly, I wanted to thank Liz’s parents for the fantastic wedding reception they organised for Zig and Liz (pictured left). Jessica and I hired a car and drove up to Essex for their wedding which was held on the 30th June. The wedding service was held in a local church and the reception took place in a marquee erected in Liz’s parent’s garden.

We had some lovely food at tables in the marquee and then some of the tables were cleared to make space for a band and dance floor. The band were really good but I have forgotten their name so can’t give their website a plug – perhaps someone can add the name to the comments? Strangely, just about everyone I spoke to at the wedding was in the process of planning their own – Jessica and me felt the need to defend our registry office in the face of castles and other fancy locations. I expect the castle would win in a stand up fight though – I doubt Russettings has the necessary armoury. Anyway, a great event (even the farm canine got dressed up) – I wish Zig and Liz all the best with their new marriage.

This weekend saw me resuming my spectator marshalling job at the British Grand Prix. This is the sixth time I have been, but it was the first time where I felt there was a realistic chance of a Brit actually winning the race.

Only my dad and me made the trip to Silverstone this year, (Zig was honeymooning) but dad didn’t disappoint… bringing the amount of food and equipment for which he is famous (in parts of Newcastle anyway!) Lewis Hamilton treated us to a thrilling qualifying session on the Saturday but the Ferrari’s pace was too great on the Sunday and Hamilton had to settle for a third position in the race.

I don’t have many pictures of the event as marshals are not allowed to use their cameras whilst on duty. So, I’ll leave you with a couple of shots – me in my marshalling get up, and my view of the crowd at 7am on a Sunday morning (note: there was nothing on track until 9am).

A day in London

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On Saturday me and Jessica finally found a free day to go out and do some things from the (things to do when we get a chance) list. We made our first trip to Borough market and were really impressed with what we found. As it was our first time we took a cool-bag and tried to find something interesting to take home for our dinner. After browsing around, we decided to try some Ostrich burgers (£5 for 4) and some pies from Pie Minister. The market was very busy so we found refuge in a some tea rooms in one of the neighbouring streets – after a cup or two of Assam and a piece of cake we felt refreshed enough to visit the Star Wars exhibit at County Hall.

I knew the exhibit would be expensive but the £16.50 per person was even more than I had predicted. We were told that entry was not timed but the next “Jedi School” would be in 45 minutes. There are plenty of costumes and props from the early films with the larger items being taken from Episode one (pod racers and Naboo fighters). We started to look for the Jedi training school but couldn’t find any evidence of it, or find out what it was. I asked a steward and he thrust some tickets into our hands and told us to “find out for ourselves”.

The Jedi class was held in a council chamber where a selection of kids were allowed to wield light sabres (of the type sold in Argos for a tenner). The actors had much more authentic looking sabres and used them to teach the young Padawan how to fight. I won’t spoil the story for you but I will recommend the exhibit – a bit expensive but we found almost 3 hours of amusement there.

After the exhibition we went to Oxford St. to get a new watch each – Jessica has needed one for a while and I recently dropped my old watch, breaking some of the internals 🙁

Back home again we settled down in front of Dr. Who with our ostrich burgers. Dr. Who was far from brilliant but I was very pleased with the burgers – the taste is hard to describe but I guess beefy is the closest I can manage. Apparently it tastes quite “gamey” but as this is the first “gamey” meat I have tasted it has now become a point of reference.

There are more pictures from the exhibit here.

Taekwondo grading and Self defence

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Last night I went to Jessica’s Taekwondo grading. I am very confident that she has passed so she should be getting her new blue belt next week 🙂

Before the grading there was a one hour self defence seminar given by Mr Oliver the Chairman of the TAGB. This was similar to the seminar I attended a year or so back and I found it easier to learn the moves second time around. For each scenario we went through one of our set sparring exercises but changed the final move to something more damaging and non-regulation. Most of the routines involves groin and head shots with the occasional throw.

Thankfully I was only used as a demonstration once (last time I got called up a lot) and he managed to hold back on the groin kick so I only felt a dull pain. I am hoping to use and adapt some of the moves for my one-step sparring which is a requirement for my next grading.