Lofty's Loft

On Saturday I drove to Sheet, near Petersfield, for my cousin Elizabeth's wedding.  The journey wasn't too bad, although the M25 and A3 were fairly busy and there was a lot of stop/starting going on.  I had Callie, Kate and Frankie with me, with Alan driving Sharon, Emily and Robert, and we met up at a pub near the church.  Due to dad's illness he didn't go, and mum didn't want to leave him for too long, so she stayed at home as well.

 

The ceremony itself was very good (despite being a religious service) and was held in St Mary Magdalen Church.  The rain held off until everyone was inside, but during the service there were several loud crashes of thunder!  Fortunately, by the time the service was over the rain had abated, and a few photos were able to be taken outside (although not as many as the photographer would have liked, and the rest had to be done in the hotel, later).

 

After the ceremony we drove to the Portsmouth Hilton Hotel for the reception. This was a great opportunity for me to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a long time.  My Uncle Allan and his wife Margaret I see fairly frequently, as they come to visit dad every few weeks, but I hadn't seen Elizabeth for a while (and she looked absolutely beautiful).  I also hadn't seen her brother Michael for years, as he has emigrated to Australia, so it was great to see him, and his lovely girlfriend Rebecca.  It was also good to see Sir Eddie Kulukundis again and his wife Susan Hampshire.  Both my dad and his brother Allan used to work for him at Rethymnis and Kulukundis (a ship chartering company) as did my mum and Aunt Margaret (which is how they met!), and Elizabeth worked there for a time, before working for Sir Eddie and Susan personally later on, and I got my first full time job after leaving school through Sir Eddie.  I was also pleased to see Dick Cater (a colleague of my dad's when he worked at R&K) and his wife Jan.

 

Everyone asked after dad, said how sorry they were to hear about his condition, and asked me to pass on their best wishes, which was good of them, although it did bring home the gravity of dad's illness.  Elizabeth and her new husband Brett also gave us the centrepiece from the main table, a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a large glass bowl, to take home to mum, which she was immensely pleased with.

 

At just after 10:00 we climbed back into the car and began the drive home (which was a much smoother journey than the earlier one).  All in all a VERY pleasant day!

On Monday I flew out to Zürich with Clive.  The flight was delayed (and the landing rather Kangaroo-like), but Zürich itself is very beautiful.

 

The people in the Timaq offices were very friendly, but the room in which Clive and I were working was VERY hot, as was Zürich in general; indeed we both had the air conditioning in our hotel room set to 16C, the lowest setting available!  We got TimaqView installed on the test servers ready for Michael and Roger to put it through its paces!

 

We ate at a different restaurant each night (Monday saw us eating at Movie, Tuesday night had us visiting Hooters,  Wednesday prompted a visit to Papa Joe's, and on Thursday we were taken to the Lipp Brasserie by Bernie and Roger) 

 

On Friday we flew back to Heathrow, and I drove home.  The downside of the week was finding out, when I got home, that dad had seen his specialist.  The cancer has now spread to his lungs, and dad has decided not to have any more chemotherapy.  Not the best news I could have had, but dad is being very stoic about it all.

I've had a busy week - I meant to update earlier, but haven't found the time.

 

On Sunday 3^rd June Nathan (from the Wargames Society) took at trip to London for Games Workshop's Conflict South event.  We met up at Swanley railway station at about 6:30 (Ugh... I don't do mornings!) and caught the 7:15 to Victoria.  The event was a doubles tournament Nathan plays Tyranids and I play Necrons - two armies that don't ally.  As my army is slightly quicker to pack and unpack we decided to make two armies from my Necrons.

The first game was against a father-and-son team of Black Templar players, who had managed to fit a Land Raider and a Land Raider Crusader into their 1000 point army!  We lost that game, although it was a LOT of fun (and the father entered an AWESOME titan into the painting competition). 

We then took a break - a number of authors attended the event, and I got a copy of Fulgrim (a month before release date) signed by Graham McNeill.

The second game was against two lads (one playing Chaos Marines, the other playing Orks).  That was a fun game, too (and we actually managed to win!)

The third game was against two guys playing Tau.  This was our least-enjoyable game - whether this was due to the fact that we were both quite weary by this time, or the fact that they managed to have about 2 million shots with a 99" range every turn, I'm not sure!  This was quite a close game, although we eventually lost due to phase out.

 

So, despite coming 93^rd (out of 118 teams) and being COMPLETELY knackered by the time I got home, I had a great time and would definitely enter another tournament.

 

This week has been quite busy - on Monday I'm off to Zurich with Clive to visit the Timaq offices, so I've been trying to finish up some bits ready for the trip.  It should be fun - Clive's great company, and I've not been to Switzerland before, so I'm looking forward to it.

That was another good weekend.  Saturday saw my 34^th birthday:  I met Mike and Antony for a couple of drinks in Cassidy's - they left and I was later joined by John and Emily.

 

In the evening I was joined by Mike, Stacey, Murray, Anita, John and Emily at Frankie and Benny's in Tunbridge Wells.  Al and Sam were going to join us but were both ill, as was Abigail; and Antony didn't think it was fair to leave her alone with their children.  Nevertheless we had a good evening (despite the whole restaurant singing "Happy Birthday" to me, which was rather embarrassing!)  Once we'd finished our food we ventured to the Hop House pub, which is next door.  The last time I went out to celebrate my birthday was in 2005 at the Old West Station in Tunbridge Wells.  As with much of 2005, it was probably best forgotten, and I think we were all agreed that Saturday night was 100 times better than then.

 

In all I don't think I could have wished for a better birthday - I'm a much happier person than I was in 2005, I have a fantastic job (for which I am indebted to Clive), and things are generally pretty good.