Bye-bye Bishops

This has been a week of sorts. My 20,000 word dissertation on the lesser spotted mink in Swansea is due at the end of this month. With this in mind I have been spending every day, from 9 until 5, in the Uni library with my study partner's Annie-may and Jo. The temperature in the library is always up to the cranked up to the max (I'm sure it contributes to global warming) and this has a will-sapping effect on your brain. The only thing which manages to keep us going throughout the day is the fact that we have the evening episode of neighbours to look forward to when we get home. This week on neighbours was of particular interest because it marked the end of a widely disliked family - the Bishops. Such was the excitement, captured by the whole student community, a special Bye-bye bishops party was organised and a beautiful cake was made by Annie-may and myself (see picture). At this point I should explain that the family were to leave Neighbours after a plane crash that also included almost half the cast. "Tragically" the Bishop family, which consists of David, Liliana and Serena are the only casualties, or so we believe at this point. The party was a great success and the cake was eaten and enjoyed by all.

The rest of the week was spent looking forward to the weekend, mainly due to a football double on Sunday of playing in the morning and then the big game, Liverpool versus Man Utd in the afternoon. Unfortunately Dave had to go to London this weekend and so he will be missing both of these. Personally, I think he's just running scared because he knows that Liverpool are going to deliver a lesson in football to the mancunians, similar to the Man City lesson last week!

Finally for this blog, I would like to thank the rest of the BoardFree team for a such a warm welcome, it is going to be a pleasure spending 4 months on the road with you guys. Special thanks also goes to Becki for a lovely meal that she cooked up for Dave and I at the beginning of the week, and also for giving our kitchen a much needed clean.
Becki currently holds the award for the most tastiest hot chocolate of 2006 and her standards will be continually tested for the remainder of the year.

That's all for now folks, the next blog I write should be in celebration of finally finishing my masters! I can't wait!

The day after the morning before the night it happened

Ok so today is Monday and I'm sitting in the Uni library staring out the window as usual. I figured I should write a blog because the next few weeks are going to be very busy finishing off my dissertation.

I've just had the best weekend so far this year!! It all started in a pub on Saturday when I went for a lovely luncheon with my Swansea ex-housies. It was great to see them all and its always amusing when we are in the same room, mainly thanks to Victoria and her gems of wisdom! Whilst in the pub, we were also witness to Man U loosing 3-1 to Man City, with the legend that is Robbie Fowler finishing off the mighty reds!

I thought this day is only going to get better as I headed home to laugh at Dave and meet Si who had come up for the weekend. We had an afternoon of filming planned to start a BoardFree Documentary. Becki, Phil, Si, Dave and I had great fun talking to people along the seafront of Swansea about BoardFree and even bumped into an Aussie couple who were very interested in the ins and outs of the journey. Si had a minor mishap when the thumb he uses to press the record button on his camcorder stopped working but I managed to catch some of the footage on a back-up camcorder. (I hope it gets better soon mate!)
In the evening, the whole BoardFree team came together for the first time and I had the job to film a team blog. I should explain that at this point I was not an official team member as my application was still under review.....or so I thought! I was sitting there happily filming away when Dave, out of the blue suddenly announced that there was in fact going to be a 4th roadie going to Oz with him - Me!! It was the shock of my life and Dave was kind enough to catch it all on a hidden camera to save me any embarrassment of explaining it to people. Instead they can just see it on the official website!

After not sleeping very well (due to all the excitement) all apart from Rae converged at the astro turf to have a jolly game of footy. We soon discovered that our very own Becki McKinlay, who was filming the match is a relation of Murry Walker! The commentary of the game was first class and it's only a matter of time before her catchphrases become used world-wide. Even Stevens!
I was very grateful to Becki in taking the time out of her busy schedule to come down and film the BoardFree boys playing football and capturing one of the finest goals I have ever scored. All I can say is Morten-Gamst Pedersen eat your heart out!
The footage of the game along with Becki's commentary is on the BoardFree website for all to see.

So that pretty much wraps it up for the weekend, it was rounded off beautifully by a delicious chocolate fudge cake, courtesy of Sainsburys.

Hopefully by the time I write my next blog I will be out from the shadow of my dissertation which hangs over me like a dark raincloud. From then on it will be sunshine all the way to Oz!!!