Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Posse House

The Posse House

in airport out of time... greece real close!!!

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Homeless... again

So I've moved out again. This time I'm staying with some friends for the lengthy period of a nite before heading off to Soul Survivor 2moro morning. I spent a week and a half at the potters house (following through on my principle of naming everything from lap tops to houses. Also- chose the name coz Colin does some really cool pottery and has nothing to do with the church affiliated with that name) where Colin played host to me for one of my brief but frequent periods of homelessness. Now I really need to name the place I'm staying at now but I'll come back to that, the house boasts a very cool family who have taken me in on a few of my homeless stints, an inside pool, a sauna (unfortunately not in operation at the minute), a spa bath, a newly remodelled kitchen with a redfire oven which, along with the aga oven is the coolest type I have ever seen, as well as a proper big trampoline in the back yard (one of the massive circle ones)
Due to Englands "summer" (am yet to find an approriate term for their version of this season) and its inconsistency; our water fight, which had been in the works for the last 3 weeks was decided against in favour of Lucy's inside pool and beating the stuffing out of each other with these foam tubes which make a wikid loud noise but don't actually hurt unless you get someone in the face, eyes or balls. I inflicted all three on Jamie who could only cower as I beat him into submission... I did feel bad about the crotch shot tho, it was accidental but thats just not nice.
Then stayed up talking to Lucy and now watching Narnia... Ahhhh, got it!! Was trying to remember something important to blog. Went to bed at 4am last nite after spending most of it in Heathers games room with Andy and Lucy and Heather talking and playing snooker, was awesome. Then I got up this morning to teach Sunday school, which was a little less awesome after not enough sleep, still fun but that kind of "oh my word I need sleep so bad right now, ok!! who wants to play Sleeping Lions?" kind of way. I did actually play sleeping Lions with them but Jonathon decided to be a not sleeping Lion for the rest of the morning, that was "fun".
And just before I go to sleep 2 people have both asked for and earned a mention on the blog. First of all my little brother Jordy (whose blog is linked in the side bar but has been untouched for some time now) has made me laugh several times this week with his antics and lawyer jokes. Best lawyer joke: You are stuck in a room with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a lawyer, you have a gun with 2 bullets. What do you shoot? The lawyer. Twice.
He also has a very entertaining story about him managing to put a post it note on a teachers bum at school and not get in trouble which he should post on his own blog coz I can't remember it and can't be bothered making it up to fill in the gaps. It was very funny tho. You're missing out not hearing it...
The other mention goes to Jo, the Darling, who has just moved into Launie for a while and is planning plenty of fun to keep me amused on my next visit to Oz. I think she just wanted a mention for an ego boost really...
O, one last thing before I go to sleep. Wanted to mention how awesome my friends are and how much I love them. Have had an awesome last couple of days and just felt really supported with the whole going to Greece thing and am really looking forward to some good chill time with them on Soul Survivor.
Ciao babino!!

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Greece

OK. So I am going to Greece next Saturday. The people I work for (top secret stuff, can't say much but let's call them ConFusion) are running a Mission Trip over there. We'll be doing some festivals in Thesoloniki, Athens, Corinth, Albania and then checking out some of the places Paul (bloke from the bible, played some kind of role in planting the early church) went on his missionary trips. Should be an amazing experience. In actual fact I didn't think I was going to go until Tuesday, crazy change of plans and then BAM!! Next thing I know I booked a flight to Greece. Am still scraping together a lot (read: ALL) of the money for the trip from various sources, I'm doing a fairly brisk busking trade in Oxford at the minute and am even going to cut the Dreads to raise some money!! (I think I have a chance of getting some money off my Grandfather for that one)
Much as I want to leave my hair for another year or so the aim of the game is Greece and the dreads are a brilliant fund raiser. I will be cutting them at Soul Survivor (kinda like Planet Shakers if you're in Oz) and have a mate who is absolutely nuts helping me out. (He seriously reckons we can raise a couple of grand for this... I'm not so sure but we'll see)
So thats whats happening in the Posse House for the next 3 weeks. I'm afraid to say that from Sunday posts will be rare at best, you may get one on Friday but after that there will most likely be a good 2 week break in there.
Will keep you posted til then.
Ciao!!

Monday, August 07, 2006

Back to Work

Back to work again today, woke up very tired still from the weekend, a few more early nites may be needed to recover fully. Spent yesterday at the Cotswolds water park, was great, swimming, beach volleyball, tree climbing, frisbee and wrestling... great day.
Went into Aylesbury to try and get a bank account today, Danbo's pessimism it would appear is well founded when it comes to English banks. They want a letter from the doctors because they need something official confirming my address (don't worry about my NHS card which I got from the doctors, you need more proof). It's not that annoying except that it's a pain to go into Aylesbury repetitively and there's not much that's actually fun to do there, and by not much, I mean nothing. Or so I thought until Mim and I were on our way back to the car. A really tank bloke came jogging round the corner, which I didn't think much of until just after he'd passed us and a female police officer came jogging around the corner after him. Mim and I cracked up as we realised what was happening, it may not sound like a funny moment but if you'd been there you'd understand, and we turned to watch as a male officer came tearing around the corner from the other direction and the big bloke jumped a wall just getting away (although the male cop got his shirt) and cut back the other direction with both cops in pursuit. The bloke then ran down an alley which seemed like a dead end until he made an impressive jump and hauled himself up onto a roof and made a dash for the other side. The male cop hurled his batton after him but missed fortunately. I say fortunately because the throw could well have done some serious damage if it had of connected. Our fun done, Mim and I continued to the car with a discussion topic that lasted most of the way home.
I watched 2 movies on the weekend that I'm happy to recomend: A Knights Tale and The Inside Man. One is a great medieval comedy/drama/action which most should enjoy. The other is about a bank job that is also very well done but has the odd bit of strong language so if that kind of thing outs you off steer clear.
O, and the Photo site is up and running at last!! I started work on it on Friday nite and have only just got it going with all the basics. Try the link in the sidebar.
Ciao!!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Thursday, I'm telling you- it's the best day of the week...

Without fail Thursday seems to produce the best day of activities of the week. And this week it had some competition but nothing it wasn't ready for.
Monday nite Mim and I decided to go and see Pirates of the Carribean. I LOVED the first Pirates movie that came out a couple of years back and so Dead Mans Chest was on my must see list this year. Despite several conversations about seeing it and several groups of people I knew going I had not managed to get to see it. Mim, just back from Albania and Greece, is pumped (in a jet-lagged sort of way) about getting stuck back into work and planning some stuff over the summer but was loving the down time at the minute and so we headed out to Aylesbury to see the film. My plan had always been to go dressed as a pirate (possibly the reason I did not recieve an invite to go with some of the others) and Mim is just crazy enough to take me up on the idea. So we borrowed some eye liner (if it's good enough for Jack Sparrow...) and grabbed our eye patches and a bandana, donned our most pirate like shirts and headed off. Grabbing tea in town before the film was interesting, we had borrowed the eye liner from the family I normally stay with and they were putting bets on whether or not we'd be beaten up or not, but we got through dinner and to the cinema but almost didn't get tickets. This was because we ordered the tickets in "pirate speak" and the girl behind the counter couldn't move for laughing. She told us not to speak coz everytime we did she lost it again, we of course leapt into a long conversation (in pirate) about which seats we wanted, the high-light of this was where Mim slipped back into normal speak causing the ticket girl to lose it once more. Her parting question to me was "So are you his (Mim's) carer or something?" I responded "Something like that"

Tuesday nite saw the boys gather for some Xbox, digeridoo (Trueman has one for some reason so I held a bit of a coroboree), food, farting and banter at Truemans place. Always good fun.

Wednesday I moved house twice.

And we come to Thursday... Simeon had a party for his second birthday and so Mim, me, Sozz, Matty and some others tagged along to help out (eat food and play with balloons!!). After we finished there I got a text asking if I wanted to go Punting in Oxford so Mim and I headed in to have a look. We stopped in Headington to grab some cash which turned into a race back to the river, pelting through Headington we scrambled for every chance to take the lead and ended up on opposite sides of the road crossing the bridge. Needing to be on Mim's side of the bridge to have any chance of getting to the Punting ahead of him I saw my chance and picked up pace before darting out in a traffic gap, pulling ahead to his surprise and beating him to the Punt dock by a good 27.6 seconds. We were late and the others had already left so we wandered up the river looking for people we knew and then called them when we were unsuccessful. Turns ou tthey'd gone the other direction up the river so we wandered back that way only to discover that there is no access to paths on that side of the river unless you happen to go to one of the colleges or are extremely rich and own a house up there. Giving up and about to head home I noticed some people in a park as we crossed the bridge. Now, there's no access to the parkland from this end of town but that does not mean you can't go there (you just have to walk several kilometres out of your way). Not inclined to do this Mim and I resolved that we would just have to climb down off the bridge into the park. The group of uni students picnicing in the park ceased their discussion to watch with wide mouthed disbelief at our daring and blatant disregard for "proper English conduct" I gave them a wink as we walked past into the so-thought "unaccessable" park.
We went exploring and eventually came to another river with a big barbed wire fence on the other side and no way of crossing that just screamed "Challenge!!" to my Aussie mindset. We found a decent spot and jumped the river (Quite a feat if I do say so myself) before finding a gap in the fence to slip through. Our explorations continued into what later turned out to be Private College Grounds (more the better) and we jumped a fence and stopped our exploration short mainly because Mim was being doubled up with waves of pain he compared to labour due to his need to use a toilet. I told him that the entire female world would probably debate that claim using baseball bats but he insisted that that was what it was like to... In the process of jumping the final fence on our way out another wave of pain hit Mim and he paused rather awkwardly atop a spiked fence for a few moments before we were able to sneak out of a college which was rather further away from the car than we had expected. Fortunately it was just across the road from the Oxford Vineyard Church offices where we have some friends and so we made a pit stop for Mim to release the demon (which he named "Angry Bear").
We trekked it back into Oxford to retrieve the car and then went home to sleep after a great evening adventure. I'm considering taking a group of people exploring again next week...

And now back to work!! Ciao!!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Moving House

I just moved house twice in one nite. I’m torn between a weary state of slumber and over-tired hyperactivity. The hyperactive choice will probably end with me burning out and twitching on the floor in a neurotic mess so sleep may have it. I had just moved back to the manor when I got a call from a guy called Collin who I had tried to call earlier when I was searching for another place to stay for a couple of weeks. So I got back on my bike and headed across the village to meet Collin and check out the house etc. An hour later I was loading my gear into the car again. So now I’ve unpacked, had a cup of tea and a chat with Collin (really good bloke) and am about to collapse into the afore mentioned weary slumber.

*I will likely as not post this in the morning as I have lost my wireless connection with the move.

**And yes, I know I would have been better off going to bed than writing this if I couldn’t post it to the morning, you have the benefit of a brain functioning without the hindrance of exhaustion to help you work that out- it only just occurred to me.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Me in Switzerland holding a big stick

Yeah, I know, I'm awesome. I'm actually trying to load this photo into a newsletter but windows is being "helpful" (so is blogger for that matter) we'll see if it works this time... Posted by Picasa