Monday, 10th August 2009
Balloon Fiesta
I’ve had a pretty good weekend.
After a long day at work on Friday (my only full day shift for the next 14 days I might add) Fi and I met up with some friends. We walked from our rented flat up to the new house and picked up a bottle of wine and some plastic cups on the way (we really have very little in the way of crockery at the house!). At the house we met up with Jo, Sam, Katie, Pauli, Claire, Richard and their little boy – Leo (very cute). I think they all liked the house (or at least it’s potential!) and we enjoy putting it on display. It was great to see that the builders had replaced the garage/kitchen roof with a new carbon fibre based one – all in the space of a day.
From the house, we walked to our dinner reservations at Aqua. Claire and Richard had to head home so it was just the six of us. As usual, we had a great time but drunk a little bit too much wine…
Saturday morning was an early start. We had to be in Westbury by 09:00 to collect Fi’s lovely new car. Since we don’t own a proper road map (note to self: buy one) we had to rely on SatNav which meant that Fi had to follow me home. The stupid device is very stubborn. I haven’t quite figured out how to tell it to avoid motorways (we didn’t want to come back into Bristol via the M32 as it is always rammed on a Saturday morning) so I deliberately headed in another direction on the way home – figuring that the SatNav would recalculate a more appropriate route. To cut a long story short – we ended up coming back along the M32 and I realised that I cannot even outwit my Garmin!
We arrived back in Bristol at around 11:00 and my parents had only just arrived to stay with us for the weekend. The weather was gorgeous and so I took them up to the house and for a tour around Clifton whilst Fiona did some revision (she’s got her MRCPCH Part 2 exam next week). Fi came and joined us at Ashton Court to watch the Red Arrows. I love those guys. I just wish I was able to take better pictures! Here’s a couple of attempts:
We caught the bus home (not as painful an experience as it could have been given the shear volume of people about) and got changed to go out for dinner. Just before we left for the pub we spotted loads of balloon in the sunny sky. I just had to take a picture from our balcony:
Sunday was a more relaxed affair. I spent the morning with my folks having a wander around the harbourside and then Cabot’s Circus before they headed back home in the early afternoon. I did a little bit of revision in the afternoon (unlike Fiona who is working like a woman possessed) and then we settled down to watch Blade Runner on DVD. It was voted the “greatest science fiction film ever” by Empire in 2007. All lies. I thought it was shit (see my review for why).
I start nights tonight (gulp). Needless to say, I’m not looking forwards to it. I’ve got a ton of chores to do so I had better get on with them…