The holiday season is now over and the New Year is upon us. A very busy time it has been for me, which is why it's taken until now to add the galleries of the events that the last month or so has involved...

First up we have a small gallery of an evening in Leeds for Elizabeth - Mr Fry's younger sister - on her 21st Birthday. Short, sweet and a damn good evening.

We then have a couple of 3-page galleries of the Milton Xmas gathering, where we all wandered to sunny Castleford for a meal at Xscape followed by a few beers back at Neil's pad. It was a grand do with many inventive secret-santa gifts handed out. I now have a classic space-hopper to navigate around the house, and we were all very impressed by Colin's night-vision goggles (despite their failure to work - who cares - they're night-vision goggles!). As always, these things are too short and too infrequent but that all adds up to make them all the more crazy when they do come about.

The next two galleries are also of the shorter 3-page variety and show the highlights from a fantastic Xmas party at our place. To up the anti on previous house parties we asked everyone to bring some grub as well as drink so we all got our fill of food over the course of the evening. We'd expected a few tubes of Pringles, the odd frozen pizza and if we were lucky a dip selection; what we got was enough food to feed us for a month. A vast stockpile of the finest fried chicken (didn't last long…), a chilli cook-off (close call, but victory went to Ben - everyone wants a rematch for more chilli!) pizzas, open-top sandwiches (go-on!), crisps, bhajis, nachos… a ducks foot… The list goes on and on and on and no-ones appetite failed them; come morning almost all of it was gone!

Pressies were passed out amongst the group and for our part both Fi & I were spoiled. To this day I feel my foolish drunken self did not properly relay my thanks for the fantastic gifts I received - I feel guilty as hell - so thank you so much for my gifts! That goes out beyond the party as well - all in all I now smell quite wonderful, am very well-read, have enough games to keep me busy until 2009, and will surely not be sober until then either thanks to many wonderful bottles of wine and liqueur.

The volume of food was surpassed by the volume of drink, and the troops performed as well as you'd expect with very little left the next day - even the tequila was bravely (?) consumed by Owka the following morning; we drank tea, he drank neat Jose Cuervo from the bottle - cue the 3 day hangover.

Of course, the whole gang are superheroes, and as the evening progressed many were called into action as the galleries demonstrate. As wasted as I was I remember wandering into the kitchen in the early hours of the morning to see a pan lid being placed into the oven, with a perfectly sized pizza set within… and after switching that for a baking tray I parked myself on the kitchen floor with the culprits as we passed a bottle of cava back and forth waiting for our next bite to eat.

I'll be surprised if we ever top that evening, but that's a welcome challenge. Everyone put so much into it that I feel like throwing another party just to thank them. For now I'll stick with plastering their faces across the website.

With such a cracking start to the festive season it was going to take something special to bring in the New Year - and so it was. The final 3 galleries of this update are 4-page displays of the madness that was our New Year trip to the Mawsons in Epsom.

Geord once again arranged the transport and accommodation for the event, managing to increase the price of the first travel inn he pursued before uncovering an incredible offer that saved us all a fortune - his efforts made it possible for Fi & I to attend. Rushton kindly offered to load his car up with booze for us so we wouldn't be travelling down the M1 under cases of Grolsch. The final piece in the puzzle was for all of us to acquire Tuxedos for the event, as Lee & Donna rightly refuse entry to any old riff-raff, so we'd need to smarten up our act to attend! Clever work from the lads highlighted a cheap and cheerful option, so with a bit of legwork we all pulled together the necessary attire.

The trip down was a long one, but at least we weren't all suffering like Steveroy was after his pre-emptive session the night before.

It wasn't long before we were on our way, dressed up to the nines, to a pub round the corner from the Mawsons for a warm-up beer or two. As the slaves to fashion we are we wandered a touch later than intended round to the party and the rest is captured in glorious digital imagery over in the galleries. The whole event was a highlight - the Leeroy-led bum-dancing antics, an exceptional spread, and the whole party's evident inability to stand up without another persons support by 11pm - all these things and more contributed to a fantastic night.

Can't wait for the next one…

So with this entry complete, all that remains for me to do is to thank everyone reading this for popping along to the site, encourage you to comment away freely in the galleries, and to wish you all the best for 2008!

Take care all,

Olds.

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