And the winner is… Ursie!

This year’s Ruston Whist Drive took place on 30th December at Jennifer’s house in Shoreham. Everyone’s chances of winning were improved this year by the absence of Paul, Emma, Athol and Darwin, who were off skiing. So we all felt we were in with a chance…

My cards were poor after a decent start but Ursie and Clive were on fire and after a gruelling battle Ursie came up trumps (ho ho) and bagged the George Ruston trophy. There was much laughter as usual, amidst the tears and triumphs, good hands and bad.

On the way there we had diverted via Teddington to pick up Sean and also had time for brunch with Alien and Charlotte in Shoreham which was great. Also popped in to see Ellie and Paul when we dropped Sean off on the way back home.

It’s Panto time… Oh no it isn’t. Oh yes it is!

On Saturday we met Mina, Bharesh and Nikhel in Oxford to go and see Dick Whittington – it is Panto time after all…! It was a really good production – very funny, great singing and some very clever gags. Clearly a lot of work had gone into it – not just the typical cheesy panto cliches. Very good indeed!

Afterwards we were invited back to Faringdon for some great food too – many thanks to Mina and Bharesh for a lovely time!

Christmas 2012

We spent this Christmas at Campbell Cottage since we were both working up to Christmas Eve. On Sunday we did some last minute food-shopping at Waitrose in Chesham, and on Christmas Eve after work we cracked open a bottle of Gavi and had some lovely smoked salmon with brown bread.

For Christmas day itself we cooked a joint of lamb, with the usual roast veg before settling down to open presents. On Boxing Day evening we were invited over to the Randles, for some lovely food, and we took our new board game (thanks Lucy & Bo) with us to play with Andy, Carole, Natasha and Stephanie. It was a lot of fun and we didn’t get away until gone midnight!

Invested in a proper coffee machine

Homemade chocolates!

HUGE wine-glasses, wedding present from Phil & Fleur

Boxing Day with the Randles

Happy Mak Christmas!

On Sunday the younger members of the Makwana clan gathered for a Christmas meal at an eatery on Romford High Street. There were 20-odd or so in total, and we all had a great time, exchanging ‘secret Santa’ gifts and just generally catching up. I stuffed myself silly too… BBQ Ribs and a big piece of chicken…! Merry Christmas everyone 🙂

Rude Night Out

Manish and Jay’s Rude Movements night this month was held at Notting Hill Arts Club, so we all met at a local Pub for a couple of drinks before moving on to the venue.

Was a good night – excellent venue, good to see Manish and Jay ‘at work’ so to speak. More pictures here on Sailesh’s Facebook page.

Manish, hard at work…

It’s the End of the World!

We managed to get tickets for the End-of-the-World-Show, hosted by Brian Cox and Robin Ince, a riotous combination of Science and comedy celebrating the Mayan prediction that the world was to come to a sticky end on 21/12/2012.

It was really a celebration of all that is great about all of us: curiosity, the search for knowledge and understanding, as well as art, music, and above all our ability to gather together and have a good laugh at ourselves. There were contributions from all corners, including Jon Culshaw, Dara O’Briain, Steve Coogan and even Hugh Grant, as well as notable big-brains Simon Singh, Steve Jones, and the always thought-provoking Ben Goldacre.

The show at the Hammersmith Apollo started at 7pm and ended three full hours later with an almost surreal performance of “Things can only get better” by D-Ream, with Cox on keyboards. Very funny!

Winter Work

The Tornado has been occasionally running on two out of three cylinders for the past couple of months. Hoping it was dodgy petrol I drained the tank but that made no difference so I had to assume it was a corroded ignition coil, which is not uncommon. Replacing them needs a complete strip-down so I figured I’d do it over the winter. Also had some heavy-duty battery circuit cables to install, as well as fix the rear brake light, so I set about it dismantling the bike over a couple of nights and then whipped out the centre coil stick. Sure enough it was very corroded. The other two were not so bad, but I replaced all three anyway, and siliconed them in place to try and keep the moisture out in future. Fitting the battery cables was extremely fiddly, just because they are bulkier than the originals, but was glad to have got the job done.

Took the bike for a spin a couple of days later, only to find it still running on two cylinders 😦 Then I realised that the spark plug would have been ‘fouled’ (oily and dirty) when the old coil stick was not igniting the fuel, so I’d have to strip the bike down AGAIN and clean the spark plug up. DAMMIT. Finally managed to do that last week and also cleaned up the rear brake light contacts, so that’s working too. Learnt my lesson though: when the bike is stripped down, try to think if there is anything else that needs to be checked while you’re at it…!

New coil stick and power cables

Badly corroded ignition coil stick

dirty spark plug

Back in one piece…

Family Gathering

This Sunday Tara hosted a gathering at Heath Drive, Chelmsford in honour of dearly departed family members. A good opportunity for us all to gather and catch up before Christmas. Food was provided by the caterers we used for our Wedding, and there were three cakes made too, including Smeeta’s oatcake recipe, which went down well.

Smeeta and Priten did a ‘Review of the Year’, highlighting various people’s achievements over the past twelve months (including our Big Day). We played Bingo with Smeeta calling out the numbers and also celebrated Manish’s birthday. The funniest sight was Bhavisha wearing Priten’s cricket gear… Very amusing!

Bristol visit

On Saturday Adrian another Poker night in Bristol, which was a great success (if not financially for me personally!). It was a lot of fun as usual, although I just had barely any decent hands, but the standard of play was excellent and we all enjoyed it. Good food, and some fresh cocktails at half time were much appreciated.

On Sunday we met Lucy, Bo and Rory and Ursie & Dani at a food festival down on the waterfront, which was lovely. Then headed back home up the M4.

Victory!! At last.

This Saturday I went to Twickenham with Patrick and Adrian to watch England v the All Blacks. New Zealand have been easily the best team in the world for the past two years, so it was a great surprise to find England 12-nil up at half time. There was an air of nervous excitement around the ground: surely we can’t keep this up??

Sure enough the Kiwis started the second half with two tries to England’s one penalty and at 15-14 we were all expecting the World Champions to impose themselves on England in the latter stages and run away with it. As they usually do!

Far from it however: England scored three quick tries with Manu Tuillagi and Brad Barritt overwhelming the Kiwis in midfield and the crowd was delirious! We were hi-fiveing and hugging each other, singing our hearts out and nobody could quite believe it. A late try from the All-Blacks didn’t disguise the thumping they’d been given and we all went away happy, barely able to believe it. Englands Women also won their match, which followed the big event.

We headed in to London for a big feast at the Gaucho Grill: a very tasty selection of steaks accompanied by fine wines and the odd cocktail, courtesy of Adrian and Patrick. It was great to catch up and have some time together. Very much enjoyed it – thanks fellas!